An odd couple.

+ =I love summer. It includes my birthday. And while --this year, anyway-- it does not include rain, it does include two of the best things to come off the vine: tomatoes and yes, hatch chiles. The hatch season is barely a flash in the pan and by the 4th of July, whispers of the coming harvest are buzzing around. While many hoard the peppers and freeze them, I choose instead to wait patiently every year. I think this makes me appreciate the arrival of hatch season better, plus it's a good excuse to put them in every dish I can imagine while it's possible. And being as how I've also never met a chocolate I didn't like, I decided to try my hand at combining these two loves (with inspiration from a spicy brownie recipe from Serious Eats). I gotta to say, the result is a delicious treat, better than the hatch brownies at Central Market. You can thank me later:

• 5 oz. good quality dark chocolate (I used 100% cocoa baking bar from Ghiradelli), broken into pieces (also, you can substitute 1 oz. chocolate bar with 3 tablespoons cocoa powder+1 tbsp. oil, although I'm not sure you'll get the same fudgy consistency)
• 10 tbsp butter, plus a lil more for greasing
• 2 tbsp hatch chile, raw, seeded and ground (I used the hot variety. If the batter tastes a bit too spicy, that's fine, some of the heat bakes off)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (this will set a nice background flavor profile for your hatch to take stage)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate with chiles, cinnamon and salt. Stir regularly and be careful not to burn your chocolate!
3) Grease a 9"x9" pan.
4) In mixing bowl, combined melted chocolate mix with sugar. Add eggs. When it's smooth, fold in the flour.
5) Transfer to pan and bake approx. 40 minutes.
6) For the best result, let your brownies "rest" at room temperature for several hours/overnight, before cutting. And devouring.

Oranges, and ice cream, and snow skis, and time.

Usually, I don't post an entire poem if it's especially long, but this one (from our workshop last week) is too good. Besides, it's dead without all the moving pieces:

Oranges
By Gary Soto

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted–
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickel in my pocket.
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn't say anything.
I took the nickel from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady's eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.

Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl's hand
in mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, for some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

We started with the prompt, "I remember..." pretty simple, but effective. We asked what this poem reminded them of. A group with memory/cognitive challenges means we frequently go completely off the tracks, but that's ok–

Carl remembered the prestige of having a nickel in your pocket -all the candy you could buy- and an old ice cream maker on a summer day (like I said, we get off track). For those of you who have no idea what such a thing looks like, please see photo above. Some of my fondest childhood memories are churning ice cream. Only ours was kind of wonky, so one of the younger children (read: me or my baby sister, Clare) had to sit on top of the churn while it was being cranked. We'd fold up a swim towel so our butt cheeks wouldn't freeze. This story made Carl laugh. He has a good laugh, like a story book.

Lee told us about a time he was skiing in Switzerland and got lost. He ended up crossing the border into Italy. I've spent a significant time living in places where I plainly do not belong, speak the language, or know how to count the currency. My first trip to Amsterdam, I wandered into the Red Light District where I was offered cocaine and a chance to prostitute myself. I think maybe snow skiing into the Italian Alps would have been nicer.

I'm listening to these stories and wondering if it's just me, or are some of the participants looking older? I swear Vic is suddenly aging, but still I hope it's just me. I want these people to be timeless, to go nowhere. Because they may not always stay on task, but what they remember is golden to me. Golden because it reminds me that sometimes life isn't about sticking to the path. It's about getting lost and figuring it out. And if we didn't get lost, would our paths ever cross?

It's about sharing the story. It's about ice cream churns. It's about all those lovely, simple things that tie us together. The memories that maybe have nothing to do with anything, or nothing to do with each other but –across generations– make us laugh nonetheless. It's about oranges, and ice cream, and snow skis, and time.

That is what it's about.

Intuition.

This morning, I spent two hours with an intuitive. *cue my parents rolling their eyes* I won't go into all the details, but I will say I left feeling energized, confident, inspired and lighter. Mostly, I just listened to what she was sensing, but she did ask me a couple things. Without being prompted, she felt strongly I had a connection to Africa and should return soon. I told her I had wanted to do return this year, but "put it on the back burner" as they say. She asked what I was afraid of. I told her I am afraid of failure, of shaky finances. She asked me for evidence.

"Evidence of what?" I said.

"Evidence that you can't. Evidence that you cannot create and do. Evidence that it cannot be."

I was stumped. There is no evidence.


...here's a short bit she left with me, and I think we could all use it:

TRANSITION

Don't resist your destiny.
Don't fight your way to it.
Tell the universe you are ready and waiting for what is next.
Then surrender.
Be still and listen.
Allow a moment of quiet everyday so you can hear.
Be ready.
Be open.
Allow and create.
If you meet resistance or experience pain, you veered off path.
Stop and listen again and again.
Move only when it is time.
There is no need to run to or from.
Float to what is next.
Invite in your destiny and then practice gratitude with grace.

Love is a many-splendored thing.

There is something funny about being the youngest person in a room full of people talking about love, but that's exactly how I spent yesterday morning. In honor of Valentine's Day (really, will Hallmark just go ahead and trademark the stupid thing?) Neena brought exercises involving that great, ever-moving target called Love.

We looked at the underbelly of Love with Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath (poor Miss Plath lived quite squarely in the underbelly...I mean, she put her head in an oven for crying out loud) but also the quirky, sweet, irresistible side with Love Poem by John Frederick Nims (incidentally, Mister Nims never put his head in an oven).

After reading and discussing the poem, Carl said, "if it's normal, I don't want it!" We asked him to elaborate:

"One of the things I love most about my wife is that she's wack-o. She is colorful and unusual. Never boring. That makes her more beautiful."

I learned many things that morning, encouragement and caution alike: I learned to never marry someone whom you want to change, you have to just marry the person as they are. I learned you do -contrary to popular opinion- have to say you're sorry a lot. I learned that after the initial infatuation, reality will set in, but from that you can create an exciting, fulfilling grown-up sort of love. I learned that sometimes, your partner can be a real pain. Sometimes, they might drive you crazy. But after I listened to Carl and then watched as Vic's wife slowly made her way over and gently put in his hearing aid (which he refuses to turn up, for the record) and he sent her off with a kiss and genuine "thank you, my darling" I also learned that sometimes -if we're willing- we can't live without each other.

Love Poem
John Frederick Nims

My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing

Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.

Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before apopleptic streetcars-
Misfit in an space. And never on time.

A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease;
In traffic of wit expertly maneuver
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.

Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gaily in love's unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of spilt bourbon float.

Be with me, darling, early and late. Smash glasses-
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.

Thursday, Favorite Day.

Well, it's official: I'm in love with the participants of my Thursday workshop. That means Thursday is my new favorite day of the week. You can pretty much anticipate a weekly update relating to this group...

Per the usual both classes had me laughing out loud. The nice thing about them is that they're too old to give a f**k about what they say. I admire this. It's honest. It's endearing. Often it's funny. Sometimes it's sad.

In one exercise, everyone chose a random (blank) postcard and wrote the message that it inspired. Carl bemoaned the bad food in England where "they have a hundred religions and only one sauce." Vic, who is in another group, is tenacious, outspoken, and likes to question everything. EVERYTHING. Por ejemplo:

Me: "My name is Phyllis. We'll be doing some creative writing today."
Vic: "Why?"
"Pardon? Why what?"
"Why is your name Phyllis? Who named you that?"
"Umm. My parents named me Phyllis. After a friend..."
"Oh, well that's very nice. Now what exactly do you mean by 'creative'? And why writing?"

and on and on and on we go. Anyway, we read a poem by Charles Bukowski, Bluebird. The exercise was to write what was in their own hearts. A lot of the responses were funny (a rascal) some poetic (a herron) but I really loved Vic's because it surprised me:

He said: I have joy in my heart. Because I am 80 years old and that is older than my mother and father lived to be. I could live to be 100. I feel good.

Bluebird
Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Old timer's.

I'm departing from the norm today. I'm not writing about the two little urchins. And I'm not being funny (am I ever? nevermind, don't answer that). But I do want to share something new I started today: assisting in a weekly writing workshop for adults in the early phases of Alzheimer's, via the organization Badgerdog Literary Publishing.

In a couple weeks, I will also be assisting a weekly writing workshop for under-privileged fourth graders, with the Austin Bat Cave. I can't stand people being told they have nothing to say. That they're just kids. Or they're poor. Or they're old. We start to tell people this, and then we start to believe it, and then -before you know it- we have fallen prey to what Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie so eloquently calls the danger of the single story.

I, for one, believe reading and writing are transformative acts. Often, listening can be as well. Here is a list of the people I met today:

• Eugene: currently working toward his black belt in Tae Kwan Do. A photographer. His name means "royal one" in Hebrew. He suffers from mild cognitive impairment
• Nadine: with her husband, opened a school in Louisiana for mentally disabled children, and later, a school for girls
• Terry: a retired archaeology professor
• Vic: a retired psychology professor
• Mona: a self-deprecating songwriter
• Carol: a 30-year 5th grade teaching veteran, whose students still sometimes call her on the phone
• Mickey: an artist in colored pencils, she dreams of having a Siamese cat
• Bill: retired geologist, who at 82 years old says he's, "not gonna get any better, and not gonna get any worse" his wife still calls the shots
  
• Carl: retired Russian Orthodox priest, who grew up Jewish, in a very German community in 1938.
• Ruth: retired high school english teacher, she has published a book and now struggles to hold a pen

Carl shared with me today that he loves reading. And because he loves reading, he wants to try his hand at writing. I was amazed that although I had to repeat the date several times, he was able to recall with perfect clarity that as a child, his mother would read The Little Red Hen to him every day. Finally in the third grade, his family could afford to buy him glasses. From that day on, he could read to himself. He never stopped. I laughed out loud with this group of people today, but Carl nearly brought me to tears when he said, "I can't do a lot of things anymore. But I can still read."

Today, I also came across a quote from Howard Thurman:
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

...I wonder, in fifty years, what some young writer might say about me? What would my life be in one sentence? I hope they will say that I was a reader. That I was a writer. And that in this life, I came alive.

Lucky day.

I didn't really know what to write about today. I need a break (in every way) from the two small children, but I had some time to kill. So why not entertain myself the blogging way? Anyhow, turns out today is 1.11.11, which many say is lucky. I wonder how many nincompoops will get married today, kind of like that craze over 7.7.07 (for the record folks- some things just can't save a crappy marriage, as Tony Parker and Eva Longoria will remind us).

Anyway, I can't mock too much because I am still guilty of "kissing" the clock and making a wish when all the numbers are the same. I also ate crayolas as a child, so there might be a connection there...

I had a little fun on Google searching for superstitions. I found two that I especially loved: apparently, an old wive's tale is that if you meet either A) a chimney sweep or B) a black cat on your wedding day you will have a happy marriage...

What I really want is to meet a black-cat-chimney-sweep. You might think this impossible because, after all, cats have no thumbs making the process of operating a broom difficult at best. But I would like to site the case of my little sister's cat, Digit, who had at least eleven extra toes on each paw (he was inbred, god bless him); with slightly more brain matter, he probably could have run a GM assembly line with moderate success. However, I do admit it's quite unlikely to run across a black cat that also happens to be a professional chimney sweep. In lieu of that happy occurrence, I think what I really, reeeeeally want is to meet a delightful Cockney chimney sweep, a la Mary Poppins. Actually, if I'm gonna run into a chimney sweep on my wedding day I would be de-flippin-lighted if it were in fact Dick Van Dyke with tap shoes and all. Also, I would like him to tap dance across the ceiling while singing, as he did when I saw the west London stage performance.

Now that, dear readers, would be lucky.

Noveau.

To my handful of readers out there, I'd like to go ahead and establish a new blogging rule of thumb (for myself anyway): "special day" posts (eg: birthday, Christmas, Saturdays, etc.) are given a 7-day grace period before officially becoming irrelevant.

On that note, I'll share a quick word about New Year's: First, the house party last Friday was an epic success. If I say anything more than that, it'll take away all the mystique and exclusivity, thereby rendering the experience nearly vulgar. But yeah, it was better than I could have expected.

Also, visualization boards. This weekend I'll be making one for 2011. The idea is that we attract into our life whatever we give attention to; we literally manifest our thoughts, dreams, and energy. I was looking for images and words that I want to bring myself in the coming year when I found this bit from Walt Whitman (I will always love him, forget that he's almost certainly gay and definitely dead) and wanted to share it:

"this is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem."

I was fortunate to welcome great love and new friends into my life last year...here's looking forward to a year of new laughs and adventures with you all :)

A gobble-gobble-gobble and a ho-ho-ho!

Christmas. I have mixed feelings about this holiday. OK, maybe they're not so mixed: basically, I see this day as entirely inferior to Thanksgiving. You know how sociologists talk about "white guilt"?-- as a Liberal Arts educated kiddo in Austin, I no doubt suffer from it-- well I'd like to talk right now about Thanksgiving guilt. I actually feel burdened by the fact that the rest of the world does not have Thanksgiving. It is positively troubling. We are endlessly fortunate to have one day a year that entails the following:

• Gluttonous food, heavily focused on carbs, fat, and sugar
• A guaranteed four-day weekend
• Copious amounts of alcohol
• Family, friends, and football (American)
• No stressful gifting

But anyhow, this is supposed to be a Christmas post...On the 23rd, PB and I had some friends over to his place for a traditional -English- Christmas dinner. I ate parsnips for the first time. Thumbs up. We made a trip to the Farmer's Market to get all the good vegetables, and of course some duck bacon for the roasted brussel sprouts (shout out again to the Kocurek Family Charcuterie!) Got a small turkey from a farm in Waco (via Whole Foods).

About the turkey: at Thanksgiving, my sister prepared the most heavenly turkey. Well, heavenly for us, not so much the bird. On second thought, maybe heavenly for the bird, assuming he was a good little guy. Anyhow, PB followed her recipe to the T and wow! Success! I was charged with roasting vegetables and making a goat cheese cake (with ginger snap pecan crust and lemon pumpkin topping-- not to brag or anything)

Anyway. The turkey had to bathe in brine for about 12 hours. We needed a very large bucket for this task. Between the two of us, we did not have a very large bucket. At least one *not* covered in paint. I was midway through cheesecake and just about to offer up a quick trip to Home Depot for a new bucket, when I looked over and there was PB: removing the vegetable crisper drawer from his fridge. For reasons unbeknown-st to me, the glass top has always been missing from that section of his fridge. Without blinking, he triumphantly declared he would simply put the brine and turkey in the drawer and return it to the refrigerator. It was one of those moments in the relationship when you think to yourself, "Wait a second. This is my boyfriend, right?" I watched with relative horror as in went a 9 pound turkey, a gallon of ice water, and a gallon of salty brine, with the greatest, most ginger of care (of course).

...But then again, we all have our "things." We clip our nails in the bathtub. We wear the same socks for eight days straight. We drink our milk over ice. We know every word to Big Trouble in Little China. We brine turkeys in vegetable crispers.

Blessedly, we also create love for each other despite it all, despite the oddities and warts. And if that isn't the spirit of the season, by golly, I don't know what is.

Thanks.

This is a few days late, but since it's still November, I believe I can get away with a Thanksgiving post.

Over the weekend, I spent an inordinate amount of time sifting through old photos while at my parent's house. To my horror and delight, I found that not much has changed since I was five years old.

I still have unruly blond hair. I still get food on my face. I still hate wearing pants. I still over-accessorize. And I am still to this day, the happiest kid on the planet.

I am thankful for that five year old wriggling inside of me. She is enthusiastic, friendly, sweet, quirky, funny, scrappy, smart, and obsessed with ice cream. She makes the adult me love every single day of this unbearable hell, enviable paradise, brutal, and beautiful experience we call life.

On that note, I leave you with this query, courtesy of Mary Oliver:

I ask you again: if you have not been enchanted by this adventure--your life--what would do for you?

The great outdoors.

I'll just go ahead and stop apologizing now for my continual re-lapses into blog comas. Anyway, the weather in Austin has been perfect: sunny, cool but with a tinge of warmness, sometimes breezy. And while the ravenous mosquitoes have not heeded my pleas to kindly eat shit and die, they have at least slightly calmed themselves...probably lulled into a deep winter sleep from their summer feeding frenzy.

The weather and buzzing predator count is good enough for the girls I nanny to finally "play outside." Now, this is not quite the playing outside I enjoyed as a tiny thing in northern Virginia: long before the days of GPS, cell phones and microchipping (my dog has this in her neck, has the technology moved to children yet? anyone?) my parents more or less tossed us five kids outside and assumed we would return at the end of the day mostly in one piece. If we got lost in the woods, we had to rely solely on our wits and ability to sob loudly enough for a pigeon to get the message, fly home, and relay it to the neighbor's cocker spaniel -Muffin- and hope she could bark the message to a trustworthy adult.

I now work at a house in the most popular and expensive zip code of south Austin. Everyone has a privacy fence leading to locked homes and no one has a screen door. The kids can't walk down to the stream to catch crawfish or minnows, but they can walk to Flipnotics for a cafe au lait (best one in town, btw).

So I was in the kitchen loading dishes, I told the girls to go outside and play. They blinked. "You have to come with us! Mommy always comes with us!" I told them I'd be watching from the kitchen window. They considered this for a moment and -emboldened by their new freedom- both stripped naked and ran out the back door.

I remember The Mother telling me early on that the girls should always be supervised in the backyard. Honestly, by the way she talked you'd think the place was littered with landmines and war heads, with child molesters lurking in every tree branch. As I watched from the kitchen window as #1 picked up an 8 foot piece of bamboo and started swinging it wildly at the hanging hurricane lamps, I felt fulfilled. Here is what every kid needs: the ability to be out of doors, naked as a jaybird, taking their four-year-old lives into their hands, and perilously dangling it at the edge of impending doom and physical harm. This, dear reader, is what we call learning experiences. Character building. In the end, both girls kept their appendages and eye balls and I had an hour of time to read quietly.

Yup, my mom and dad had it right.

Oz.

First morning in Australia. Here's my bullet list:

• I struggle with remembering to look right when crossing the street. This makes me think that a plane crash will likely never kill me, but I might very well kick the bucket if getting hit by a car that drives on the left side of the road.
• Staying in Rose Bay, a suburb of Sydney. Sitting on the patio feels like being on the Discovery Channel...these birds sound much nicer than our Texas grackles. Oh, and a cockatoo just flew by.
• Sydney is expensive. This most hurts the boyfriend, who hasn't been here in 13 years...times they are a'changin! Also, we picked a stellar time to visit, as the Aussie and US dollar are on parity for maybe the first time in recent memory. Joke's on us, folks!
• Apparently, you drop the end of basically every word and replace it with an "i" or "o." Breakfast is now "brekki," mosquitoes "mozzies" etc.
  
• For the (14 hour) flight from San Fran to Sydney, Phil and I chose the seats in the middle, against the toilets --the ones that *don't* recline -- disproving conventional wisdom that two brains are better than one.

Jet-lag shot me out of bed at 6:00 this morning, and I feel absolutely famished...it's lunchtime back home. Going to rustle up some herbal tea and see if I can't get myself back to sleep.

Also, had a request from the States to investigate the toilet situation south of the Equator: have not been able to determine if they do indeed flush opposite of northern hemisphere toilets, but will keep you all posted....

Free wheelin'

Today is Tuesday, which is automatically good because it's not Monday. Also, I had a morning so splendid, I simply had to write about it:

After getting up for an early walk with my dog, followed by strategically organizing my guest bedroom closet, I enjoyed my peanut-butter-honey-wheat-toast with African roobois herbal tea. I refinanced my car (I'm saving $40 per month!) and mopped my floors. But even better: I had the best bike ride ever....

About a month ago, I made the commitment to forsake my car for the ol' Fuji road bike. My reasoning had several prongs:

• By my calculations, my poor-graduate-student-self could save about $35 a month in gasoline
• I could also cancel my monthly gym membership...doubling my savings
• My shrinking carbon footprint would be the envy of all my bearded, granola friends

I always enjoy my friendly waves to fellow cyclists, fellow fighters against the evil of motor vehicles. There's a camaraderie. Unity. Solidarity in the battle. I've also learned a few lessons:

• Hills are not your friend. My vintage Fuji is uber-cool, looks great but also somewhat impractical for a bike commuter...the bike is so old, the gear shifts are actually at the center of the handlebar stem. Shifting is not graceful, or easy. This is compounded by hills.
• Traffic lights are not your friend. Rather, hills with traffic lights are your worst enemy. By far, stopping at a red light at the crest of a hill (Stassney and I-35, I'm talking to you!) makes me want to weep...just imagine if you will the trickery of pedaling enough to maintain upward momentum, but not too much that you cruise into the intersection and get yourself flattened.

Oh, and a word to non-cyclists with whom I share the road:

• don't shout at me to get on the sidewalk. Seriously, I don't shout at you to get on a treadmill, do I?
• don't honk at me as I struggle uphill. I mean really, throw me a bone here.
• as you fly by me, gently grazing my arm with your side mirror, please keep in mind that my Fuji and I have a combined weight of oh, say, 140 pounds. That's about 1/bazillionth of you and your tank. I don't want to die.
• also, yes, I am allowed to ride in the middle of the lane. In fact, that's where I'm supposed to be so that ass clowns like you can see me better.
• if you're that bothered by bicycle commuters, you should probably move to Dallas.

K-so.

Man, I tell you what: in the words of my friend Stacy May, "bloggin' -like pimpin'- ain't easy." My grad school classes are back in full swing and I suddenly remember what it's like to have a precariously limited social life. Fortunately, for the remainder of my degree I'll pretty much just be taking writing workshops, which I love love love. That also means anytime not spent at work is spent, well, writing. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

The biggest event of my last ten days of life has been meeting the boyfriend's dad and his girlfriend for the first time...visiting from good ol' foggy London town. OK, not foggy London town at all actually, but England nonetheless. I really wasn't nervous because:

• Parents looooove me
• Grandparents loooove me
• Hell, everyone loves me

We did all the usual Austin stuff: ate shredded rabbit leg and braised pork belly at The Odd Duck, saw the South Congress bats, went wine tasting in Fredericksburg, and had drinks at The Driskill. But most importantly, we introduced them to a culinary delight that they (tragically) have been missing for their seven decades of life on Earth: QUESO.

This was a moment of which I had only dreamed: the opportunity to bring the most greatest food ever to a sweet old English couple. It was like a mission from God. Suddenly, I understood the reason missionaries "go to the savages." This was truly a Genesis moment, like taking two people on a desolate, dark planet and saying, "Let there be Light!" My friends, queso is Gospel to me.

I could hardly contain my excitement as we ordered margaritas, a bowl of queso AND guacamole (I wanted to tell them that in Austin, we like to fold guac into our queso, but not wanting to overwhelm them with too much sheer awesomeness, kept them in separate bowls). I eagerly awaited the reaction to their first taste of heaven. And you know what?

They weren't really blown away.

Strike one for Texas. I'm not really sure how one's toes don't positively tingle at melty, spicy, cheese but I'll blame it on England. Clearly, their taste buds lack the necessary receptors needed to appreciate queso. Or maybe in true English form, they thought it best to downplay their wondrous amazement. Regardless, I basked in the glory of my (low key) conversion, my spreading the good word, and knew that deep down they appreciated -nay, admired!- my good taste and benevolence....

On Earth as it is in Queso. I mean, Heaven.

Amen.

Babysit.

It's Wednesday and I feel fully recovered from an "alter-ego" themed party at my house Saturday night and an 80s dance party downtown on Sunday night. I also spent Saturday evening doing something I haven't done in years: babysitting.

All in all, an easy time because I more or less just put the girls to bed, then worked on a reading assignment for my Literary Journalism class. Actually, the whole experience kind of made me feel like being an 8th grader again. It also made me think of the very worst kids in the entire world that I had the great, reeking misfortune of babysitting in the late 90s....

See, babysitting is always kind of hit or miss. The second Texas neighborhood that our family lived in, I sat for two girls that were literally angels. The very first time I ever sat for them, they each gave me a kiss goodnight, said "I love you" and informed me that they hoped some day I might find my very own unicorn, because I was the best babysitter in the world and God would send me just such a magical creature as my Earthly reward. Even the dog, Winston, was curiously kind and well-mannered: I would open the back door and he would only walk on the tile...never a single paw on carpet or rug. Their parents also had a bad-ass stocked refrigerator and paid me $12 an hour, in cash. Sweet gig.

Of course, this scene starkly contrasts with the big "miss" of my babysitting days: the first Texas neighborhood that our family lived in, was home to three little devils. I have completely blotted their names from my memory (recommendation from my therapist) but the family unit contained one clueless father, one nagging, neurotic, medicated mother, two screeching daughters and a rambunctious son.

Funny enough, the parents had an entire bookcase of parenting books. Quite literally a library of "how not to raise three devils" and yet, they managed this Olympic feat. I remember distinctly this stupid effing M&M jar, which was the kids big treat...after dinner they were each allowed to have as many M&Ms as their age. Seems fair, right? Wrong. The fatal flaw in this holy treat system is overlooking the fact that most toddlers hate fairness. Let's be real: they are the center of their own universe and no one should have as much as them. Case in point: today, I cannot tell you how much I had to convince Tot #1 that she did, indeed, get many, many more strawberries than her little sister. So, giving one child 3 candies, one child 5, and one 8 is just plain stupid, something even my 13-year-old brain was able to understand.

Anyhoosen, one evening after allotting just the right number of candies to each kid, the middle threw a fit, as the older had more candies. In one quick flash, that glass jar was shattered on the ground in a sea of "melts in your mouth, not in your hand." Nothing a little broom couldn't fix. But then came bath time, and this family used these really odd soap flakes. Ya know, because liquid or solid soap would just be too difficult? Whatever. Anyway, the fatal flaw in this soap plan is that soap flakes -unlike liquid or solid soap- have the unique ability to be transformed into a projectile in the hands of a toddler, thanks to its powdery consistency which is easily handled by tiny fingers and I'm sure feels absolutely delightful being launched through the air...ever seen a tyke and a bag of flour? Yeah. So there they are, all three in the bath tub when the oldest takes both hands, and in yet another quick flash, tosses a fistful of soap into the eyes of the littler ones. Screaming. Crying. Burning, red eyes. Pretty sure the little boy threw a punch.

After all this, the parents wrote me a check, paying me $6 an hour. A check. To a 13-year-old. What the crap am I supposed to do with a check? I still had a mason jar for crying out loud, with a piece of paper taped to the outside outlining my savings plan for a palomino horse or Nissan Z car. They might as well have paid me in clothes pins. Useless. Absolutely useless.

Oh, and their refrigerator sucked, too.

4x4.

Day 39 of my freedom, day 2 on the job. The house was a teensy bit chaotic: in addition to the usual milieu of clients, architects, musicians, and neighbors coming through, there was also a guest chef from Durham here to develop new recipes, some painting guys, and another man in a baseball hat that was doing something involving bunches of wires coming out of a hole in the wall.

So. Needed to get the girls out of the house and out of the way. Fortunately, we are within walking distance of lovely Zilker Park, made even lovelier by the fact that currently, there are *not* eighty billion sweaty, dehydrated music fans stomping around while trying to figure out who's on the main stage at 8:00.

This marks my first experience with a stroller in, say, ten years. My god, they've come a long way! Truly, this thing was the way of the future. It was a two-seater, with a braking system so complicated it had to be explained to me by the Mrs. Honestly, I had an easier time navigating a mountainous foreign country in a popsicle of a rental car. This stroller actually had a spare tire. I mean, what the hell am I gonna do with that? Wouldn't I need a pump or inner-tube or patch or something in order to fix a flat? And when did strollers start boasting spare parts? I'm pretty sure that when I was a child, the wheels on my stroller could have caught on fire while rolling over a bed of flaming-hot nails, then flown off after being shot at by a drug kingpin and my mom *still* would have jerry-rigged the damn thing with a piece of bubble gum, some baby wipes, and a freakin' bobby pin. Respect.

That's another thing...what's with kids always wanting you to "go faster!"?? Listen tyke: I'm pushing you uphill, in a stroller that also converts into a single-engine airplane, in strappy sandals (they're cute, yet impractical, a hanger-on from my old life), in 100 degree August heat, while my sunglasses ever-so-slowly slip down my sweaty nose...don't you know that slow and steady wins the race?

Tomorrow we make an "adventure trip" to Walgreen's. Can't wait to see what the car seats are like...

Spoon full of sugar.

Day 38 of my freedom and first day on the new job as: super nanny. In an effort to *not* drown in graduate school debt -because spending $30K on a master's degree which will never actually increase my earning potential is always a good idea- I've taken on the glamorous task of dedicating 30 hours per week to two tiny tots: girls aged 2 and 4 years old.

I know the family through mutual friends and Mom and Dad are textbook Austin. Naturally, they live in 78704 in a house rehab'd in the [seemingly effortless, yet impossibly unattainable] rustic-vintage-meets-modern-industrial style. Mom rides her bike to the office at Whole Foods corporate, while Dad works in his [at-home] design studio with Ray LaMontagne crooning in the background. There's a Prius in the driveway, vegan sausage in the fridge, and oh yeah, they also run a recording studio used by the likes of Sarah Hickman and Ben Kweller. Naturally.

[Knock on wood] but the girls are cooperative and mild. I loved that this afternoon, I didn't have to meet with any clients or sit through sales meetings...instead, I collected rollie-pollies (sp?) and caught up on some class reading. Sure, the lack of adult interaction might leave me just this side of brain dead if I did this for, I dunno 18 years, but it's a sweet gig for now.

Today was uneventful, although I'm sure there'll be plenty of blogging fodder. Although, I was a little bushwhacked when I arrived at 8:00 this morning to a "poopy explosion" that had taken place a mere moments before my arrival. I cannot describe to you the horror of these two words, so I'll let your imagination do the talking. Clean-up involved a lot of bleach. And not even organic, fair-trade, dolphin-free kind. Like, real Clorox. It was definitely a "situation."

Other than bug-collecting, I realize one great joy of this job will be that I essentially live in a universe of Casual Friday. No strict dress code! Love it! Especially considering my corporate job was so heinously corporate, that there was no such thing as Casual Friday...the Suits saw denim as nothing short of an abomination against Christ himself.

Actually, I take that back. There probably should be a dress code for nannies: as I left the house [on my way straight to class for the evening] I realized I was covered in peanut butter, purple chalk, yellow finger paint, snot, baby powder, and an unidentifiable substance that was likely radioactive...yeah, I should probably go ahead and invest in a haz-mat suit now.

Nuckin' futs.

Day 35 of my freedom and I find myself at home, waiting for a potential roommate to show up. Last night after class, I interviewed with a family for a nanny position and next week, I'll be interviewing for internships. Seems like we spend an awful lot of time jumping through hoops...always screening. impressing. trying too hard. I mean seriously, we all know that even in the romantic world, the first couple dates aren't really "dates" in the sense that you'd like to enjoy yourself while also forming a connection with another human being; but more "dates" in the sense that they're a thinly veiled screening process in an effort to fill an opening (some may call this a deep, emotional void) in your life.

But here's why I love Craigslist: it does half the work for you! Call me shallow/conceited/lofty/bitchy but if you cannot properly punctuate a sentence, or have an annoying habit of *constantly* splitting infinitives, I don't want you under my roof. I find e-mail is a nice, detached way of weeding out potential renters. Case in point: I received interest from a young lady whose 900 word [first contact] message I will condense and regurgitate here, with my bracketed, [literally] colorful commentary:

Hi! My name is Crazy (typo, but it stays...ok, ok I did that on purpose) I'm 18 years young (young doesn't even begin to describe you, toots) and I graduated this year from McCallum High School. Yay me! (thank you for at least using/spelling the proper form of 'yay' as opposed to 'yeah') It was a rough 4 years, but I got through it. Finally.(hmmm nice use of foreshadowing here. Your pointedly vague use of "rough" sends little shivers up my spine. What does it all mean??) I'm an only child (did you really scare your parents into stopping reproduction?), so having a roommate will be interesting.. lol. (your tone says 'laid-back' but your uneasy ellipsis with 'lol' says 'emotionally wheels-off')

My past: (I like the subtitled chapters. Nice touch. Also means you have too much time on your hands)

During my freshman year in highschool, I began having lots of trouble. (Again, vague use of "trouble" frightens me). I would skip school, cry out of nowhere, have panic attacks, etc. (Ahh, there it is! Some real character exposition. Love it!) Finally, I was admitted into the Shoal Creek Psychiatric Hospital for self-harm. The psychiatrist later diagnosed me with Bipolar Disorder, and I was put on medication. I haven't been back since, and I've been stable (I'll go ahead and assume you use the term 'stable' loosely). Sure, I still have my depression moments and mood swings, but that's all part of being a hormonal teenage girl (really? I thought it was boys, breaking curfew, more boys, drinking Boone's Farm, and lots more boys...I like my version better). By the way, I'm NOT psycho. (No, no of course not!) Bipolar Disorder is a chemical imbalance in the brain. No, I'm not going to come after you in the middle of the night with a knife (I'm sure you prefer a chainsaw). I'm a sweetheart, trust me. (Again, experiencing extreme discomfort at closing this sentence with "trust me." Pretty sure those are the last words you hear when waking up in a basement outside Guadalajara, in a bathtub of ice, with your kidneys neatly packaged in a Zip-Loc bag next to the hairdryer on the sink).

My current situation:

So after graduating high school, I decided to take a year off. Now I work full-time at a pet store, which I love because I get to see and pet animals (do they not smell the crazy on you? I thought animals could do that.) Oh yeah, last week I picked up a German Shepherd puppy off the streets (Because this seems like just the kind of responsibility you can handle at the age of 18).The vet estimates that she is going to be between 80 and 90 pounds. She is already displaying protectiveness signs. And she loves to chew on her toys. (Basically, she will kill you).
Another thing.. my mom and I fight constantly, and my dad doesn't do anything about it, so I'm always feeling kind of helpless (Wow! This just keeps getting better and better! Alright, alright I do kind of feel for you here. Kind of.). I want someone who I can get along with and just will be there for me and will be like a best friend and will talk to me and just let me vent when I need to (Well, I need someone that can just be a responsible grown-up, not flush tampons down the toilet, or set up a meth lab in the closet. How about we both just shit in one hand, wish in the other, and see which one fills up faster, k?).

Anyway, that's currently where I stand right now ('Anyway'? That's it? Whew! Thought I might really have a crazy person for a second there!).

Hope to hear from you soon!

That's the other thing I love about Craigslist: while you might not ever find someone to rent out your third bedroom, at least the shit's entertaining!

Un-office.

Day 33 of my freedom and here is an excellent example of my typical day, post-Costa Rica bliss, post-corporate life, in my favorite format (aka: list compilation):

* List of things I did not do today:

• Open an Outlook Inbox with 35+ unread emails, all the while wondering how long my stupid freakin' Dell will let me work undisturbed by Malware pop-ups and Unused Desktop Icon alerts before I have to shut down the whole system and call [useless] IT man.
  
• Sit in traffic on northbound I-35, thinking the Jetsons had it right. Especially with the whole fold-up-your-flying-car-into-a-suitcase thing (oh, and the robot-maid was a good call, too)...no traffic *and* no parking issues. Genius.
  
• Drag myself to 6:00 am spin class, so I can get in a work-out before the office at 8:00, cursing myself for again forgetting that 24 Hour Fitness has no actual body wash in the little shower soap dispensers and let's hope I don't get foot fungus because while I did manage to pack my Hair Pro 500, my frackin' flip-flops are in the car.
  
• Guiltily leave behind my dog for a ten hour day, then spend the rest of said day concoting in the back of my mind all sorts of destructive images of how my sweet golden girl has avenged her loneliness by either destroying a pair of shoes, or swallowing a large, unidentifiable object resulting in a frightful pile of vomit for mommy to clean up when she [finally] comes home.
  
• Deal with clients -maybe unhappy- always demanding. 'nough said.
  
• Try to assuage the childlike temper tantrums of a certain Director of Operations, marveling at how one can arrive at the age of 35 and still be such a daft, unbearable assclown.
  

*List of things I did do today:

• Opened an Entourage Inbox with a handful of unread emails, all regarding assistantships
  
• Step over a fuzzy-faced doggy pile on the way downstairs (that's my kinda' gridlock)
• Made an afternoon bikini wax appointment
• Solidified lunch plans
• Put on pants...but then thought better of it. Why wear pants when you work from home?
• Read the remainder of 1968 in America: Music, Politics, Chaos, Counterculture and the Shaping of a Generation for my History class
• Perfectly formatted my email signature in Entourage. Why hadn't I done this before?? Decided on bang-up combination of century gothic in maroon and dakota handwriting in teal, bolded for added contrast. Shazam!
  

In the meantime, I also did not make any money but miraculously feel unbothered by this point...must be the new e-mail signature.

Regresar.

Aaaaand we're back! Day 28 of my freedom, back in Austin and back to blogging. Apparently, internet can be hard to come by in the remote, mountainous regions of northwest Costa Rica...who knew?

Here are a few reflections for today:

• Updating my online portfolio was a tiny bit painful, as I had to revisit the days of only having an Olympus point-n-shoot. That being said, the process was also a powerful reminder that mediocre equipment coupled with a passion for capturing humanity and a good eye, will always out-shoot a lackluster spirit with an expensive, fancy lens. Always.
• Last night, I drank Franzia Sunset Blush wine out of the box, over ice, in a glass emblazoned with the Confederate flag. Not sure when this became my reality, but c'est la vie.
• Traveling for a straight five days and nights in a foreign country, in a tiny 4x4 with unreliable GPS, across a land that does not have street names or numbers, then getting up at 4:00 am for an international flight on a Sunday, is the ultimate test for a relationship. If you can survive it happily (as we did) then hold on tight...you got something good.
• A few Benadryl, an Imperial beer (ah, sweet nostalgia), and the bf's insanely spicy Thai curry will scare away even the worst case of Austin allergies.
• There is something oddly satisfying about spending the past two hours of this Friday evening cleaning the hell out of my house. I feel domestic and proud, goddamit.

Tomorrow: attending my first baby shower as a grown-up for one of my friends that is, well, preggo. Expect an update for sure.