Life in a Cubicle Was Just Not Interesting To Me

Last night on 20/20, John Stossel was interviewing some NY socialite named Fabian Basabe whose life seems to consist solely of parties and more parties. He's the son of some wealthy guy and married to some wealthy daughter of a wealthy family. He apparently tried working once and didn't like it. He said(as closely as I remember) , " I saw a cubicle once, and it just didn't seem all that interesting to me". The thought of " sitting in there all day, and eating lunch at the desk" was just not interesting to him. Well, DUH!!!!

As much as anyone may like their job, spending 8 hrs a day in the cube farms of corporate America is generally not going to be all that stimulating. But we do it . Lots and lots of us do it. And wish we had windows. Or doors.

So, I thought I'd share my own little corner of of the farm. I'm lucky at my current job, the color scheme suits me. I've worked in much worse daily conditions. I have a very nice, soothing blue and light gray environment. The walls and desktops are in nice condition and nothing appears to be falling apart. The walls are actually high enough to give everyone some privacy, but we really need to work on the whole door thing. Speaking of which, have you guys seen the CubeDoors site?

So here's my daily view. See the lovely ergo keyboard my employers got me on my first day? And my very nice large monitor? I am well cared for. The little corridor leads to the break room. My cohorts in marketing and web design are all clustered nearby. We spend more time with each other than with our families. I think it's fair to say each of us would prefer it the other way around, but the electric company has NO sense of family values. So it's hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go!

World Most Expensive Free Green Bean Recipe

I got this great recipe card in a teaser mailing this week. Gorgeous recipe cards for all the courses of a wonderful meal. Doesn't this look awesome... it really tastes great too. I happened to have farmer's market fresh green beans the day this came in the mail, so I tried out the recipe. It was almost enough to entice me to sign up for the convenient every 3 week mailing of wonderful recipes. Almost.

There are "more than 1000 recipes" and each mailing will include 12 of them. Yum- o you may be thinking. Each mailing is just under $9 when you include to postage. You do the math....you could buy one hell of a lot of cookbooks of your choosing for around $750! Of course, you won't get the nice little plastic storage box to keep them in that you do get with the cards. You're on your own when it comes to storing that many cook books. I use to collect cookbooks. Now my recipes are in my computer and I've kept only a handful of my very favorite actual cookbooks. I kind of miss them, but space becomes an issue sooner or later. But I have wandered, so back to the recipe cards.

When I was a new bride, I joined one of these clubs and I really learned a lot about cooking, I made almost every recipe. But it seems to me that they were around $3 a pack and there was a finite number that you agreed to at the beginning of the club. Times have changed.

Anyway, here is this really great recipe. Make it before the cold winds blow.

Herbed Green Beans

• 1 lb green beans
• 2 teaspoons butter or olive oil
• 3 large thinly sliced shallots
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
• lemon wedges for garnish

1. Bring 1/2 inch of water to a boil in a large 10 inch nonstick skillet. Add the beans, simmer, covered over medium heat for about 8 minutes. You really should cut off the tips of the beans, they can be unpleasant to eat. Drain in a colander.

2. Heat butter in the skilet unitl melted. Add the shallots and sugar. Cook about 2 minutes or until softened and a pretty golden color. Add salt, pepper and the green beans. Stir gently and cook another 3 minutes to heat through.

3. Remove skillet from heat, add lemon zest and basil. Spoon onto serving plate, Garnish with lemon wedges and serve immediately.