Pour in the blue of a June night

Dad asked last night if I wanted to make him French toast this morning. I told him I've never made French toast before, but that didn't phase him. "Better you experiment with me than your first husband," he said. That's true. My father will eat anything. Many times my brother and I have pulled things out of the refrigerator, asking Mom, "Is this still good?" Dad replies, "I'd eat it," which gives us no indication of its edibility, and we proceed to throw it away. However, I wasn't lying when I told him I'd never made French toast before. I awoke at 5:54 this morning after dreaming I'd made a delectable dish of French toast with spices and seasonings that left Dad in awe of my culinary talents. He'd told me last night that he was leaving for work at 6:45 this morning, so I left myself plenty of time to add dashes of nutmeg and cinnamon and vanilla. He didn't get up until 6:45, and when I put the bread on the skillet it formed a thick, barrier-like coat of egg around the bread. I gave it to my dad with a warning (he probably wasn't expecting to have to march around the toast 7 times and blow a trumpet before eating it), cooking up the next piece of toast. He drowned it in syrup. I could hear its warbled cries. Then, what made it worse was his thinking it would be fun to pretend he was critiquing my dish on a Food Network show.
"This side is a little burnt," he said judgmentally. "It has a bit of a burnt flavor."
I didn't laugh. He tried to figure out what I'd done wrong. "Well, let's see. You added milk..."
"Oh," I said. "Was I supposed to add milk?"
He looked at me as if trying to read any joke lines in my smile, but all that was there was an ironic, slightly embarrassed grin that promised next time I would remember the milk.
"Did you butter the pan?" He asked. No, I hadn't buttered the pan. "Well, it's better you make me eat this than your first husband," he said again.
"First?" Will my French toast be so bad that no husband will remain married to me long? Next time I'm going to add honey and not tell him. Dubious.

Yesterday I mowed the lawn - or the pathetic attempt grass has made at growing amidst straw and stones - in the syrupy warmth of the late afternoon sun. The palms of my hands are internally bruised from pushing the mower through the stubborn stalks of wiry weeds with leaves like elephant ears. Wisconsin is a foreign country, I'm telling you. when I went to bed last night, the air was completely still. My curtains hung limp in front of my open window, and I turned on my ceiling fan to circulate the stale air. This morning the thin, cold wind won't stop blowing, and my curtains remained at a 90-degree angle from the wall until I closed my window with chills. Now it howls through the cracks of the house.

I fell asleep last night to the occasional "moo" of cows at the farm across the street, a pleasant, summery sound that added bass to a tenor and baritone choir of crickets and frogs, respectively. This morning, however, the moos are overlapping themselves in their frequency, and I'm curious to know whether something is happening over at that farm that perhaps I don't want to know about.

This song has me dreaming....

The view from the end of my street on a June evening:


Be this sunset one for keeping
This June bug street sings low and lovely ~ Iron and Wine

paying with trees

The goods:

The 1940s are eating me alive, and I like it. I've been listening to the early years of Frank Sinatra (A Voice in Time [1939-1952]), and I am in love with him. You can listen to him here. I thought Jo Stafford sang the most romantic version of "Embraceable You," but I cannot resist young Sinatra. He reminds me of the mocha cheesecake I baked Wednesday night: rich, creamy, delicious, and mm-mm good. No one can sing "it's not that you're attractive" and make homeliness sound appealing like Frankie.

I am 280 pages into The Count of Monte Cristo. I could be so much farther, and I am ashamed of my lack of motivation to read.

My room is finished! Except that Paul Newman keeps falling off my wall, the painting (and re-painting a lovely Summer Afternoon - smother, Chickery Chick!) is finished, my Gone with the Wind wall is in order (more like my GWTW room is in order - how did I acquire so much Windy paraphernalia? I blame Sarah), and I have only a few odds and ends that still need to be nailed and taped. Paul, stop falling off the wall in the middle of the night. You are loud and getting bent.

The bads:

I have officially applied for six jobs, and I think it's rotten. Starbucks was probably my favorite application. They asked me, "What do you like about coffee?" I like that it smells like roasted winter mornings, that it reminds me of my father, that it complements 8 o'clock lectures so well, that it's the color of warmth and security....Would any of these things make me more eligible for a job brewing and serving and smelling like beans? Then they asked me, "Have you ever been to a Starbucks before?" ...Are you kidding me? Um, no! What are star bucks? How much are they worth in American currency?

Yesterday Mom tricked me by telling me I should apply at Kohler, then dragged me (and I mean dragged me; I have never said "No" so firmly to my mother in all my life) into their showroom where they displayed three floors of toilets, sinks, faucets, and bathtubs. Couples and threesomes of old ladies walked around admiring the lovely painted and marble productions. I couldn't swallow an 8,000-dollar bathtub, even if it did look divinely inspired.

I'm tired of trying to sell myself to places at which I don't even really want to work. If it weren't for workers, they wouldn't have a business at all, so why aren't they the ones trying so hard to get us, instead of the other way around? I'm bitter. If anyone needs a nanny, I'm good with kids, I like apples, and I know a great little place with three floors of bathroom fixtures where we can spend hours....

I'm-a gonna raise a fuss, I'm-a gonna raise a holler
about workin' all summer just to try to earn a dollar....
Sometimes I wonder what I'm-a gonna do
but there ain't no cure for the summertime blues....

in the summertime, when the weather is fine

My forearms are speckled with yellow paint. I told Mom I wanted Lemon Curd, but she said it was too bright, so I settled for Chickery Chick. If I had gone with Lemon Curd, I think it would have been like staring into the sun, because as it is, I feel as though I have captured a Pedestrian Crossing street sign and smeared it all over my walls. Mom tells me that it won't be so bad when I put up all my posters, and so I give thanks for Mom, who saved me from Lemon Curd, and for Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Aragorn, and Scarlett and Rhett, who will be shielding my sensitive eyes from the brightness of my walls.

My side muscles (I'm sure there is a much more accurate medical term for those, but I think "side muscles" is sufficiently descriptive) are sore. Yesterday Dad and I took a 2-mile hike on the Ice Age Trails, a hilly, rocky, woodland formed from glaciers many moons ago. The sky was contentedly blue and the air was tinted green with leaf-filtered sunlight. Dad made me use a pair of his hiking poles, and at first I hoped against hope that we wouldn't pass anyone on the trails, but after about a half a mile I hoped the guy we saw noticed with what ease I used the helpful sticks, leaping down hills and climbing rocky terrain with speed and efficiency. It was lovely with white flowers off the path bobbing their heads to a 65-degree breeze. I think my poles deserve to be named, after we bonded so mightily in our adventures yesterday. I'll give that some thought.

Yesterday I baked a banana cake for Dad's 59th birthday. Grandma Krauss made the best banana cakes, and its her recipe. I have a picture of us frosting a banana cake, me wearing a pink skirt and matching pink shirt that used to be white until Mom washed it with the reds. I've made banana cakes at least three times before, but this time we didn't have buttermilk. I knew, somehow I just knew deep down, as though the Holy Spirit was whispering to my heart, how important that buttermilk was. But Mom said to try regular milk. Oh, why did I listen? Why didn't I forgo the project or run next door to ask a neighbor? Who couldn't spare 2/3 cup buttermilk? And we all know how friendly Peggy and Phil are, after I "locked" myself out of the house over Thanksgiving break. But I didn't listen to the Holy Spirit, if it really was Him caring about my buttermilk. I used 1% milk. And it's probably the most pitiful cake I've ever made. It broke apart like I imagine those glaciers did that formed the Ice Age Trail. It all sort of sunk in in the middle, slumped like a tired soldier's shoulders at the end of the day. So pitiful! The frosting didn't even make it all the way around the cake. Dad says it still tastes good, but I feel as though my child graduated college with a bachelor's degree in biology and hopes of medical school, but then lives in my basement eating chocolate covered peanuts and watching MythBusters. It was capable of so much more.

I have three major books on my "To-Read" list, and I am counting on you to keep me accountable. This summer, I want to complete Robinson Crusoe, The Count of Monte Cristo, and at least one Jules Verne novel (I have about four to choose from). After those, I have some books I want to re-read, like To Kill a Mockingbird (only for the 4th time) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I wonder how much of this I will accomplish this summer. I wonder when my parents are going to realize I haven't applied for any jobs yet. I wonder if my retinas will slowly sizzle every time I open my eyes in my newly painted room.

The past two nights have proved an interesting - and I hope not a habitual - experience. Around seven or eight in the evening, a wind blows in from somewhere and blows harder and longer than I have ever felt or seen wind blow. The temperature drops and suddenly the smell of cow manure fills the air. I understand Wisconsin is America's Dairyland (or so say our license plates), but this haunting wind of invisible death makes me want to shove towels in the cracks of the doors and light cinnamon candles until winter comes. I'll be sure to mark "day 3" in my journal of fertilizing habits if it happens again tonight, and if you don't hear from me again, the cold fingers of odorous farm winds have choked me to death. Think of me when next you enjoy a bowl of ice cream or a glass of milk. Your dairy products were the cause of my demise.

humility and cakes

I am invincible.

Today I worked as a "runner" in the cafeteria, those people who magically appear with refills whenever the mashed potatoes run out. I find cafeteria workers to be very helpful, about 3 seconds too late. There are two "hot boxes" where the food is stored. Upon running out of Philly cheese steak, I opened the first hot box to find some more. I didn't find any, so I closed the door to open the other hot box.
"What are you looking for?" Asked a helpful cafeteria worker, whom we shall name Mrs. White.
"Cheese steak," I said.
"It's in the other hot box," Mrs. White said.
Well, yes, I know that now that I've already looked in the first hot box. Thank you. I'd appreciate it if you could just read my mind and tell me which hot box the food I need is in before I have to open anything.

Once, we ran out of the chicken cacciatore. I looked in the first hot box, and when it wasn't there I went to look in the second one. (Sounding vaguely familiar, eh? So goes my employment.) Suddenly a helpful cafeteria worker whom we shall name Mr. Black approaches me.
"What are you looking for?" He asks.
"Um...I don't know what it's called. Is it jambalaya?"
He looks at me like I've accidentally mistaken his son for a girl. "Noooooo."
Mrs. White comes up from behind. "What's going on?"
What is this, a national emergency?? Just let me look in the second hot box!
"She's looking for something, but she doesn't know what it is," Mr. Black says, like they're going to have to call a meeting of all helpful cafeteria workers to solve this mystery. Oh, come on! You know what I'm referring to. It looks just like jambalaya, it smells just like jambalaya...use your deductive reasoning!
"I know what it looks like," I say, trying to imply that if I could just look in the second hot box I would be able to get it myself.
"What does it look like?" Asks Mr. Black.
"It's got..." I motion with my hands.
"Oh," he says. Yes, "got" is a very descriptive word. He reaches in the second hot box (oh, is THAT where it's kept?) and pulls it out.
"So what's it called?" I ask.
"Chicken cacciatore," says Mr. Black.

Later while I was wiping down one of the lines, two students walked by. "Oh, jambalaya!" One of the students said. "My favorite."

On my first day washing pots and pans last week, the supervisor told me to take the trays to the conveyor belt. I didn't know where that was, so after turning on the water to fill up one of my tubs, I picked up the trays and approached Mr. Black. "Where do I put these?" I asked.
"Once they've been cleaned, you can put them on the cart."
Evidently he didn't know about the conveyor belt. "Yes, but isn't there a place to put them--"
"Once they don't have any junk on 'em anymore, there's usually a cart here to put them on."
Okay. Yes. I know I have to clean the trays. I took the trays back to my station and set them on the counter. "I'm not stupid," I mumbled to myself. Then I turned around and realized I hadn't put the stopper in the sink, so the hot water had been running down the drain for a good 7 minutes. I felt very stupid.

You know you have the Holy Spirit in you not when you speak in tongues or bear good fruit, but when you gain spiritual insight out of a Backstreet Boys song.

I don't care who you are
Where you're from
What you did
As long as you love me

Today while my accounting tutor explained cost pools and cost drivers to me with the analogy of cakes made at a bakery, I decided to drop out of college and go to baking school. Alton Brown graduated from the New England Culinary Institute, and I can graduate with an associates degree in baking and pastry arts.























I think it's sad that Asbury College students need signs to let them know what certain substances are. Just in case you weren't aware, that brown soupy stuff on the ground is, indeed, mud.