friday

serena i will do my best to keep you updated, especially if jdate becomes a topic of discussion. but jdate is really just a device i use for my mother to upset my father. also january is like the worst month to be asked to loose weight. all i want to do is eat chocolate and pack on my winter weight so i can hibernate without starving.

also because im admittedly creepy i was lurking on a friends facebook (holler foran) and i stumbled upon a quote i hadnt read in a while. its from an old pal oscar wilde, and goes as such:

"it is absurd to divide people into good and bad. people are either charming or tedious"

isnt that so true. i mean quotes are quotes for a reason, and when it resonates it really rings loudly sometimes.

tomorrow is our all staff breakfast at work, im dragging my mother and two younger brothers. i feel like my restaurant job holds the same importance to me as being on a youth soccer team. im not sure if thats charming or tedious.

nye

ok so its about 3:30 in the morning new years day and i just crawled into bed from work. as a joke i told everyone i was working all day on new years eve to set the bar low for 2010. but i have to be honest with you internet friends, that just is not the case, and further more if tonight/yesterday were to set a precedent for this upcoming year i would welcome it quite warmly.

the fact is i was surrounded by people that i genuinely care for, working hard and once the dj showed up dancing quite a bit. not to get all preachy, and i will most likely regret being so sweet in the morning and delete this, (much like i did that one time i got really stoned and decided to post some horrifying self loathing blog) but i really do work with and for some incredible people. in the past ive always tried to make new years something special, have it somewhere fun with important people. last year it was new york, the year before tel aviv, and when it came time to decide what i wanted to do this year i kind of "copped out" as it were. but i guess it turns out i ended up right exactly where i wanted to be.

i find myself to be at an interesting impasse in life. i know that my time here is but another stop on my journey, and yes becca i did get accepted to the culinary institute of america so i will in fact be leaving virginia shortly, and this time it looks like for good. i know that when i look back on this past year, on this particular job, on those people that have helped grow me personally and professionally i will remember it fondly. and the real blessing in that is that i right now am truly happy, and i know it. this particular posting is grossly sentimental which is something i try to avoid, but its sincere and hopefully that counts for something.

other than that, im currently cat sitting for a woman who has been living alone long enough to write (and respond to) notes to herself around the house, and who would like to "make a meal with me sometime" as the voicemail she left informed me. paul is in florida for the new year so im watching ginger, and today i didnt even yell at her because its 2010. my mother really got into the idea that i would do things for money, duh, so she is now paying me to a. lose weight which is followed by and directly linked to b. get a boyfriend. im not sure how i feel about all of this, being a grown woman and all...but if i end up being less of a lush, thiner, not alone forever and with some spare change that would be kind of nice.

p.s. becca youre like the reason why i still write this blog. i could just send you emails you know. also seeing as cia is in new york when youre done with school and interning or doing your residency or whatever thing you will be doing it will also be in new york. basically this means that we are probably destined for what will be a beautiful and lasting friendship spanning multiple decades. what i mean is you could at some point (pending my current weight loss and boyfriend acquisition) be added to the list of "bridesmaid friends". isnt that exciting?

if anyone cares i actually do have a list there are right now 7 people on it.

ok thats enough babbling

anne

perfect

my life has reached impressive depressing new depths.

first i have come to take serious pride in guessing portions correctly. that is to say that as a part of my kitchen job i have to portion the lettuce mixes into individual bags. and when i free hand exactly 3 oz of mixed field greens its like scoring the winning touchdown, or something else comparable and infinitely cooler than portioning. the issue is that after 3 hours in a walk in refrigerator 2.7 oz, 3.0 oz and 6 lbs of lettuce all feel about the same to the frozen blocks attached to the ends of my arms.

also about five minutes ago i was upstairs in my roommates* room borrowing his tweezers because my eyebrows looked like christmas garland that had not been fluffed correctly. well the roomie's got quite an eye for the art, and needless to say that the decorative coral he has on his sink counter is now buried into my forearm. which is in fact bleeding.

lastly my pandora station is called country pop.

feel free to judge.

oh and how embarrassing is it going to be if i dont get into the school im telling everyone im going to, ugh lets hope that doesnt happen just for the blogs sake you know.

*the side here is that i moved out of my parents house because im a grown ass woman capable of taking care of herself

farms

oh do you know what i totally forgot to talk about in that last entry, food. i mean yeah i did talk about the restaurant and like me making food at it, but that is not at all what i am referencing right now. heres the thing, so my mother is one of those liberal jews of the middle class. where i am going with this story will work significantly better if you have some moderate understanding of this type of person. if you dont i will try my best to explain just a little bit. understand that first my mother truly believes that in order to be successful in life one must be a good person. ok, now i know that sounds normal and your mother probably believes it too or whatever. but look a little deeper, ok. what she literally means by that statement is that to survive all you need is to be a good person. i would say that this woman probably makes less money a year than i do, which is assuredly not saying much at all. but she does work at a high school for student who are mentally and physically handicapped. that is to say, she does something good. now the fact that my father slaves at some job i couldnt even tell you the slightest about, to provide for us, is something she does not factor into the equation. in her mind she lives off of being a good person. is any of this making sense? i hope that is it.

so understanding her mentality, or i suppose her sentimentality, i think it should make sense to everyone that a large concern of hers is this here world of ours. her big thing as of late has been going green in whatever way possible. being of a slightly younger generation i think i already intrinsically do a lot of these things, you know reusable grocery bags type shit. but for her she really has changed a lot of the way she lives her life to do these things. for example she is trying to trade in her car to get a hybrid, and wants to rip up our flooring so we can have something more economical (this by the way includes our driveway which she imagines she will cover in gravel because its absorbs water or something that didnt exactly make that much sense).

ok so we are finally getting to my point. now me being as concerned with food as i am, i have been doing some reading on factory farming and the likes. and whatever, change has to start somewhere right? so barb and i have decided that we are going to start buying all of our meat, dairy and produce locally. the thing is, though we may not be wealthy, we are of a certain "class" or i suppose a more politically correct way to phrase that would be that we have a certain level of education. one that has shown us the truth, one in which we cant continue to deny our awareness of. and we have the funds to buy our food in this conscious way. clearly i dont have an answer for how we are simultaneously meant to solve world hunger, and start to really regulate and perhaps disassemble factory farms, but being the good person barb has raised me to be, i know i dont want to continue to be a part of the problem.

bang zoom

ok so lets see...

it's november 28th, not counting thanksgiving which was my "free pass", i have successfully made it to this day sober. this of course means i only have 2 days left, which will clearly not be a problem. now what i could see people taking issue with is the fact that i got a free pass, and rightfully so. i mean that is kind of bullshit. but that being said i had made it 25 days, which is like over a month in business days.

other things that have happened...

whilst in florida i started playing a little bit of tennis again. it has been three years. this fact was only further driven home today when i was hitting with nicole when she decided to look to see when the last time my racquet was strung, which was apparently sometime in 2006. that is not a good sign. however, i am hitting pretty well for taking such a long break, so thats nice.

lastly, and moderately important, i have started working in the kitchen finally. approximately twice a week i make southwest american salads, and plate appetizers as well as desserts. little known fact about myself, but i do not speak spanish. in some ways this has become quite a barrier in a kitchen in which i am the lone monolingual speaker of the english variety. i dont imagine my work associates were too thrilled with this gringa when she melted an entire gallon of garlic butter directly into the open refrigerator where we keep our chilled salad bowls. luckily for me i couldnt understand all of the shit i can only assume was being talked about me.

also on a work related note, it has come to my attention yet again that smiling and i are at odds. both in the kitchen and serving, it appears that my hospitality is of a marginal rating. thankfully my higher ups have noticed i may not be alone, and have created "hospitality 2010". what i can only imagine will be an amazing 2 hours of my life. this seminar, i truly believe, will take me to a place beyond outstanding. dont worry, i think it would be safe to assume i will have things to comment on about this, so you can be looking for that on tuesday.

anywho thats probably all for now. i need to shower the tennis off of me.

princess amelia

back from my floridian vacation and nine whole days sober. barb better be getting her checkbook ready.

day 3

over and done with.