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....

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.

March fools!

This growing up thing has got to stop. The world is a bitter, bitter place that I was not exposed to under the protective feathers of my parents' wings. I thought stamps just magically appeared from my mom's purse, I didn't know they cost money. Seven bucks for three pairs of underwear, people. Hanes her way, my eye. And laundry detergent does not replenish itself, nor is it cheap. Who knew life cost so much?

I am now employed at the cafeteria. They call my position "pots and pans." I feel very much like Scarlett O'Hara, hiding her once-white and soft hands from Rhett Butler. My hands are dry and cut, my nails are frail and breaking, and by the end of my 3-hour shift my fingers resemble little sausages swollen and wrinkled with water. I have dreams about elbow-length, squeaky yellow rubber gloves. I just keep telling myself I'll be thankful for these pots and pans when I'm sporting a sweatshirt from Boston and walking through Louisa May Alcott's house. My magnet shaped like Mark Twain's head and the bread bowl of authentic New England clam chowder will make the accidental drop of bleach on my jeans and the way my hair smells like it's been fried in oil every Wednesday and Friday all worth while.

A little pick-me-up:
"Life's tough, then you die." ~ Dr. Anderson's fatalistic bumper sticker

Or if that didn't do it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3LVXjB_VUfk