Monday satisfaction.

I've been having some trouble adjusting to my new position - part-time on Mondays and Thursdays, done from a cubicle with a fair amount of sterile light and some difficulties parsing out what my supervisor wants me to do with the materials. While I appreciate the skills it's teaching me and the learning opportunities, I started last Monday, and it'll probably take me until mid-October to really get used to it. Figuring out my gym/cooking/writing/job hunt schedule with highly segmented days is taking some doing.

That said, there's an actual teakettle in one of the kitchenettes, which proved useful today: there was a brunch in one of the conference rooms this morning, and even though I got there too late for cookies, I grabbed all the mint from the fruit trays and made some decent herbal tea out of it, just pouring boiling hot water over the leaves.

Speaking of figuring out my schedule, I don't know how much productive stuff I can get done tonight, since dinner took so long to make and was so good I don't want to move. Braised chicken thighs, bone-in skin-on, cooked in rendered duck fat with tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil, shallots, scallions, tomato paste, and a nice splash of red wine, an Australian shiraz. Served with diced, salted, pan-fried eggplant that was cooked down to buttery softness in olive oil, with scallions thrown in to cook with the residual heat once removed from the pot, and couscous cooked in the same, unwashed pot with quartered cherry tomatoes thrown in and then the reserved eggplant added afterward.

Plus a few squares of dark chocolate for dessert.

I'll see about getting a few cover letters done, but if I don't, I know why, and won't feel too bad about it.