True You Identity Intensive

Hi A,

I feel ... pretty crummy.  Not physically, I mean, but crazy-grumpy.  One of those "I hate everything and everyone" times.

Janet is nice enough about it.  She says that it's all the soul things getting ready to get dealt with at a 3-day identity retreat/intensive I'm heading to in Portland tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to it  ... about as much as people look forward to having the handyman come to demo out a sink that's had a hidden drip going for about 8 years and the wood is all gross and basically decayed to blackened pulp, and then the guys fix the leak and dry it all out and rebuild with new white pine and put in fluffy insulation and patch it all up again.  You feel better afterwards, but the mucking out the gross part is the thing that's got me triggered.  Bah.

So.  Not feeling great right now. 

~Tim

Chili Oil Popcorn

Dear A,

We think often about going to Vietnam these days.  I wonder what sort of house or apartment we'll be renting, I wonder who our time will be invested in, I wonder how we'll use our house in Bend during the seven months we'll be abroad.  

On the weekend Janet and I watched a show and I cooked popcorn using an unusual-for-us chili oil.  For several years we've been using Lao Gan Ma chili oil to season our popcorn, and we prefer popcorn to be deliciously spicy.

But this time when I reached for the chili oil I brought out a Vietnamese chili sauce instead.

The bottle was nearly used up from making noodle dishes, so I swished 1/4 cup of avocado oil in the jar and sizzled our popcorn in it, just to see how it would taste.  And ... wow.  I don't know how much of the flavor is special because it's JUST THAT GOOD, or maybe it tastes like Vietnam to me and I'm responding to the nostalgia.  But wow. We have enough jars (3) to get us through to September, and I expect we'll be bringing more of this local (it's specific to our region of Vietnam) chili paste home with us.  Let us know if you want a jar of it--so good!  

~Tim

Seth's Blog pre-empts chili oil

Dear A,

So, I was ready to write to you about our chili oil, and I'd already taken the pictures and been mentally composing the letter ... and then today Seth Godin sent out an email that I thought particularly apropos.

In his post, he recommends against speaking to a crowd.  In my case, that's EXACTLY what I'm doing when I chose you to write to.  I'm still going to write about chili oil, but tomorrow.

Love,
Tim

PS. It's been an exciting couple of weeks since I posted on Facebook about returning to live in Vietnam.  Former students have been reaching out to me and getting reconnected.  It's what we hoped would happen, and it's happening sooner than it might have.  Super gratified that one of the girls that we made a good connection with 10 years ago (but whom we haven't seen or heard from in the interim) has reached out and is looking forward to reconnecting.

 

View Online

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The 1:1 method The reason that most memos, speeches and edicts fall flat is simple: we get stuck on the idea that we’re talking to a crowd. When we’re speaking or writing, the crowd is just an illusion. What’s actually happening is that there is one person over there, another over there, repeated again and again until it’s easier to imagine it’s a mass audience. The alternative method is simple: find one person, exactly one, and write to them, allowing the others to listen in. Embrace the tone of voice, body posture, breathing style and punctuation you’d use on just one person. You and me, here and now. If it’s not going to work for one person, why do think it will work on a crowd?          • Email to a friend •

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