Food Talk

Could I possibly talk about food more than I already do in this blog? Oh yes, and now there is a blog just for that very subject. It's a place to talk about recipes and good food in general.

UPDATE: Sadly, the food blog I started died an ignominious death so I have removed the link.

Weekend of Cynthia

Remember that episode of Seinfeld where George proclaimed the upcoming summer to be the summer of George? In other words, he was going to live it up that summer. He was free from his engagement with Susan, due to her poisoned death while licking their wedding invites. I love that episode. Of course, nothing ever goes George’s way. He slips on some party invites and winds up in the hospital. As the nurses wheel George away he cries out, “But this was supposed to be the summer of George!”

Last weekend I was supposed to have my own Summer of George. Only I appropriately called it the Weekend of Cynthia. I bought myself a plane ticket for my birthday to go see my friend Liz in Olympia, Washington. I was going all alone—away from my demanding children and away from the dishes, laundry, etc. The weekend did turn out to be perfect—once I got there. I did have my doubts though in the Salt Lake Airport.

For those of you who don’t know—I don’t fly well. I get queasy and lightheaded. My motion sickness seems to be getting worse as I get older. I get queasy getting on the onramp of the freeway if it’s a cloverleaf. And I don’t ride Star Tours anymore at Disneyland. I know better. But I digress. I am sure that the persons sitting next to me on airplanes get nervous when I fish out the air sickness bag from the jumbled mess of magazines in the seat pocket. I’ve never had to use one yet, but just in case, it’s nice to have quick access to it.

As the plane takes off I try not to focus on my queasiness but rather on my freedom. Three days sans children. I look over at the lady next to me with her two squirmy children and in the words of Mr. T. I think, “I pity da foo.” (I also remember that Mr. T. didn’t fly well so Face always had to drug him. I’ll remember that for next time.) I turned up my iPod just a little bit louder to drown out her children. Just as I get used to my new found freedom of an entire 30 minutes the captain tells us over the loudspeaker that the plane is broken and we’ll be returning to Salt Lake. Nobody seems to be alarmed, but I am! I am feeling like George Costanza. Nothing is meant to go my way. I won’t be flying to Seattle after all. Oh the inhumanity of it all! “This was to be the weekend of Cynthia!”, I scream in my head. Once we return to Salt Lake we are told to get off of the plane and they’ll let us know soon how the problem is to be solved. They give us vouchers for free food at one of the airport restaurants. Now, in my head I’m thinking airport food is never good. But worse than that—free airport food must be worse. But I do like to medicate with food so I depressingly eat the hoagie sandwich. That sandwich will come back to haunt me. I just know it.

Finally we are routed onto a new plane. After three more delays of broken computers and who knows what else we finally take off for Seattle. I arrive in Seattle three hours late but with spirits high because the Weekend of Cynthia is back on track. I don’t think blogging about digestion is in good taste, but this time I going to make an exception. That sandwich made by Russian immigrants almost ruined the Weekend of Cynthia. I was in denial. I thought my stomach pains could be attributed to the fact that I had a total of 4 take offs and landings the previous night. Twice as many as I was mentally prepared for. For those of you who don’t know, another one of my talents is that I have an iron stomach. What goes down never comes up—ever. After eating a lovely lunch of halibut and crab while overlooking the Puget Sound, though, that rule of mine came to an end. I had such a good streak of stomach health. Now I have to start all over and build up to the next twenty years of my moratorium on vomiting. Once that moment passed my good health returned and I enjoyed the rest of my Weekend of Cynthia. Ah, now my canteen has been refilled and I can go on! Which is a good thing because as I type this I am looking out my window at the snow falling on my brown and ugly treeless lawn. Winter is a devil, but somehow it doesn’t seem so bad now.

California Dreamin'

We just returned from a trip to southern California to visit my parents and other family members. We had a great time. Of course we did all the usual stuff like picking our lemon tree bare and also stealing grapefruits, tangerines, and oranges from my brother's tree. Getting there, however, proved to be a challenge. In my 13 years of trekking the I-15 between Provo and the Southland I have never encountered the traffic I did while on this trip. Oh sure, anytime one travels between these two destinations one must think about the Las Vegas traffic. What? You don’t know about the Lost Wages traffic? I thought I did—until this last week. Apparently living in Southern California isn’t enough of a gamble—one must travel to and from Vegas each weekend to pay their stupid tax. And sometimes it really does feel as if every Californian is on the two-lane I-15 traveling to and from Vegas.

We were making great time on this trip on December 26th, reaching Vegas in only 5 hours or so. I quickly called my mom and told her where we were. I said that we had reached a bit of traffic but that would clear up as soon as we passed the Vegas strip and to expect us in about 3 ½ hours. Wrong! From Vegas to Baker (a.k.a the Arm Pit of America) took us 4 hours! I could write an entire blog about the Black Hole called Baker, starting with that ridiculous giant thermometer, but I won’t. It got to the point where we were completely stopped on the freeway. People were getting out of the cars and walking around! My own kids hopped out of their seatbelts and reveled in their rebelliousness of being in a car unbuckled. Oooohh, we’re living dangerously now!

Of course it wasn’t long before Mother Nature was calling and I knew this couldn’t be good. The bankrupt state of California has only 2 rest stops along the I-15. And usually one is closed—no doubt due to budget constraints. How much does toilet paper cost? We get ours at Costco and it ain’t so much. For the decency of humanity why doesn’t California have more rest stops? Hmmm….one rest stop for the 10,000 people on the road in the middle of the desert. Does this sound like a good idea to you? At the rest stop we encountered lines that make Disneyland look good. More on Disneyland in the next paragraph. I counted 67 women in line for the restroom. Exaggeration would make this story a good one, but alas, I am not exaggerating. I had a revelation while standing in that line. No, the revelation wasn’t that women really do have the short end of the stick when it comes to public restrooms. The revelation came when I realized I was the only person in this line speaking English. Everyone in this line was Asian. Now, having grown up in California I can usually figure out what language is being spoken. I can pick out Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc. But I couldn’t figure out half of these languages. Where were these people originally from? You got me! Here's the revelation. Up until that point I naively thought that only white trash gambled in Vegas. Wrong! The wonderful immigrants who make this country rich with culture and commerce have fallen prey to the lure of Vegas. They too travel to the City of Sin to pay their stupid tax. I was so disappointed. After 20 minutes or so my children were done using the restroom with their dad in the considerably shorter men’s line so I abandoned my line and left. I guess you could say I was gambling myself. No explanation necessary, right? To make a long story short I’ll pass over the rest of my trip leaving out the other fun stories about my quest for a public restroom.

Two days later we found ourselves in long lines again—this time at Disneyland. Now, I didn’t want to go in the first place. By then the 10,000 people had returned from Vegas and went straight to Disneyland. In the end I decided to go because we got the tickets for free. Any Southern Californian with brains and a few contacts can always get free tickets to Disneyland. That person was my sister who got them from her co-workers partner. So my family of 12 fell into the touristy trap and went to Disneyland. I’ll give you three examples that illustrate just how crowded it was. First—the sign in the parking structure said, “Disneyland is very crowded today. Plan accordingly.” What the heck is that supposed to mean? If there was fine print on that sign it would’ve read “Disneyland is very crowded today. Don’t waste your money here—go to Medieval Times today.”

Second example—at lunch time we headed to the Bayou Restaurant where we asked how long the wait would be for a table. The waiter said he could get us in for dinner Saturday night. It was Wednesday. Why don’t they just put up a sign saying “Restaurant Full” instead of making you wait in line to ask? Do they like rubbing it in to the masses of hungry people that there is no room in the inn?

Third example: We tried to get a Fast Pass at 10am to ride the completely redone Space Mountain roller coaster. The Fast Pass return time was 9pm. Who is going to wait 11 hours to ride a roller coaster? What-ever! All in all, we rode maybe 5 rides that day. Thank goodness for free tickets. My sister returned a few days later (to use the remainder of her free tickets) with my kids so that they could catch what they missed. This time the sign at Disneyland read, "Disneyland is now full." But they already had their tickets, so Disneyland let them in anyway. But I didn’t go. No way. I had waited in enough lines on this vacation to last me until my next trip to the Southland.

Moms Don't Get Sick Days

A few weeks ago I went out to lunch with my sisters. Both my sisters work full-time and they were discussing their company’s sick leave policy. One of them said her sick days accumulated year after year. One of them said, I think, that her sick days were a use-it-or-lose-it kind of thing. Not wanting to be left out of the conversation I quickly explained that I didn’t get any sick days ever. They both thought that was kind of funny, but I didn’t. Mom’s don’t get sick days and that is truly a crime. Because nobody needs sick days more than a mother.

In case you can’t tell by my congested tone of voice, I am sick. I have been sick for almost two weeks now. The house is disgusting, the kids are hooked on Nick Jr. TV, and we seem to eat a lot of pancakes and eggs for dinner lately. Why? Because I am just not getting better. I am what I like to call, functional sick. I am not feverish with delirium anymore but I simply feel like a big piece of garbage. I am functional, yet still sick. I feel like a walking zombie.

So today I am breaking down and going to see my doctor. I have no idea why. He’ll simply say something like: “Be patient. This is a terrible bug that’s going around.” In reality I’d like him to say this: “Here is a prescription for valium. Take it whenever your kids are going bonkers. Oh, and I insist you take at least a week vacation in Mazatlan where you will do nothing but lie on the beach all day long and sip fruity drinks. I forbid you to change any diapers or do any laundry. That is the real reason you are still sick. You must be allergic to laundry.” I’ll explain to him that I don’t have any sick days saved up and he’ll say that it’s a shame. Mazatlan really would cure me. I’m sure of it.

Bonding through Blogging

Bonding through Blogging

I complain too much in my blogs. I know I can be critical when I blog because the other day my friend Jenn gave me an invitation to a bath and body party she was hosting and the first thing she said when she handed the invite to me was: “Please don’t blog about me but I’m inviting you to this party.” I feel terrible that she would think I would blog negatively about her. I need to work on that reputation I’ve created.

Some of (what I thought) were some of my best blogs, Food Snob, elicited hardly any feedback, while some that I thought were not so great, Razor Blades and Cyanide, elicited the most responses. So apparently I have no idea what inquiring minds want to know. Too bad. I keep blogging anyway.

I started blogging because Allison did. And in turn my husband, sister, and my dad started blogging because of me. I’m such a leader. So here’s to another six months of blogging about nothing and having a good time while doing it. Here are some of my favorite blogs I’ve read over the last six months—in no particular order. If you haven’t checked them out, you should.

1. I learned that my very quiet husband has a lot on his mind when given the right forum to express himself. From taxes, his childhood paper routes, and his days of evil music, they all make me laugh. He is quiet—not shy—I always tell people. Paul is so quiet that I often can tell when he is about to speak because he clears his throat. Yes, he actually speaks so infrequently that he has to clear his throat in order to speak. Blogging has been his voice I think.


2. I have confirmed the fact that my sister Carolyn really is a great writer. She, like my Dad, is good with words and reading her blogs truly brings a smile to my face. She doesn’t feel 600 miles away. Isn’t that a song? Her blogs are also very informative. I had no idea people across this country were dedicating their cars in loving memory of the dead. Oh, what’s next?


3. I’m enjoying my Dad’s blogs about his days during the Vietnam War. His ordering of hot dogs in Japan had me in stitches!


4. I enjoyed Carlie’s expose on hair salons. With blogs like that the world can change. Boy did she hit the nail on this head! Nobody likes the painful small talk or being forced to look at themselves in a giant mirror for over an hour.


5. I love to read Kacy’s blogs about anything from the past. Her Adam Ant blog left me wiping tears. And does she really believe that Bono is LDS? Curious. I’d love to hear more on that kind of crazy talk. Good laughs, good laughs.

Things in Life I Find Confusing

There are a number of things in life that are a mystery to me. My top eight ( I couldn’t think of 2 more things to complain about and round this to a top ten—hard to believe) are listed here. In order of perplexment, here they are:

8. Wallpaper borders—A room gets painted but alas, it doesn’t look finished. Oh wait, add a 6 inch wide piece of wallpaper around the top of the room (or worse yet, around the middle of the room to form a faux chair rail) and voile it’s done and looks like a professional tackled the job! Please forgive me if you have a wallpaper border in your house. I’m sure yours is the exception and is beautiful.

7. People who don’t like vegetables—I know plenty of people who do not like any vegetables. I could understand not liking certain vegetables—but all vegetables? I can never seem to give these people the benefit of the doubt and assume they have tried every single vegetable from rutabagas to leeks. I always assume they are closed minded and never grew out of their childish ways of hating vegetables.

6. Wicker furniture indoors—This is technically my sister Carolyn’s pet peeve, but I am stealing it. Once I heard her explain all about how outdoor furniture shouldn’t be indoor furniture I was all on board. Oh yea.

5. Psychological Pricing—Okay this is the marketing term used for pricing things at 99 cents or $11,999. The psychology behind this is pretty obvious. Wow, this taco is less than a dollar! You get what I’m saying. But who is fooled by this? Once, in the Gap, or some trendy store like that, the following conversation took place:

Clerk: Welcome to the Gap. We’re having a special today. Buy two paisr of jeans for only $59.99.

Me: Does the $60 sale include the corduroys too?

Clerk: The sale is $59.99. Not $60.

Me: Okee-dokee. (As I roll my eyes.)

Oh how I wish I were making this up!

4. Carpet in bathrooms—Wet carpet, now sticky from all the hair spray, covered in hair. What about this makes sense? It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

3. Fake hugs and kisses—This is a growing trend in the good ol’ US of A. People have started hugging upon the very first meeting. You know it’s fake because they do the pat-pat thing on the back of the person they are hugging. Nothing says “I am uncomfortable now” more than the pat-pat on the back. I see this especially on TV. It drives me crazy when I am watching design shows. The extremely satisfied homeowner hugs and double kisses the designer who was just paid $20,000 to re-do their master bathroom. Hello lady?! This designer didn’t do you any favors out of the goodness of his heart! He re-decorated your bathroom because of the inordinate amount of money you paid him! This isn’t philanthropy. Don’t hug people in professional situations unless you truly have feelings of love for them. And don’t get me started on the double kiss thing. People like to pretend they are French, I guess. I know in Mexico they do this too because I have relatives who double-kiss. I think it’s completely appropriate as a cultural custom. But I doubt anyone double kisses because they want to be a Mexican. No, that is not a slam on Mexicans. It’s a slam on people who wish to be Euro trash. So stop the kissing and fake hugs and stick to good old handshakes. Pretty please.

2. People who make you take your shoes off in their house—When you are a guest in somebody’s house their job is to make you feel comfortable and welcome. Nothing makes me less comfortable upon entering someone’s house than being told to partially disrobe. If you are worried about dirty carpet then get your carpet cleaned or buy dark brown carpet next time. What’s worse is these people also have a sign on their door that says, “Thank you for removing your shoes.” My feet are always cold so I prefer to keep my shoes on. So I act like I didn’t see the sign just to stay warm. I’m not trying to be defiant—just warm. Does this bother anyone else?

And the number one thing that I just don’t understand in life…….

1. Cheesecake—I love how people think that Cheesecake is very special and therefore served only at special occasions. Cheesecake is dense, heavy, and usual not good eats. But for some reason it is served as dessert at “fancy” church dinners, “fancy’ work Christmas parties, etc. You want fancy? Serve me a slice of Scarlet Empress—a jam-filled Biscuit Roulade formed in a dome to encase vanilla Bavarian cream served with a tart raspberry sauce. Now that’s special! But I doubt you’ll be seeing any Scarlet Empress cakes at the ward Christmas party. Let’s be realistic. We serve cheesecake because it is cheaply bought at Costco. Let’s acknowledge the real reasons for our love affair with cheesecake and quit pretending it’s fancy. Can we all agree on this one? The only good cheesecake I’ve had was eaten at Carmine’s in NYC and that’s because it was made out of mascarpone cheese. Now that was heaven.

So what confuses you in life?

Unorthodox Restaurant Review

I’d like to think that here in Small-Town, USA we have a Zagat’s Rating guide just for Provo that rates all the fabulous restaurants. Alas, if you do a search for “Provo” only two restaurants come up. Pathetic. So I’d like you to humor me and consider this blog entry my very own restaurant review. It may be a bit unorthodox, but here goes.

Chinatown Restaurant
300 S. 700 E.
Provo, UT 84604
377-6699

We discovered this restaurant about a year and half ago. We had been in mourning for some time for the closing of our other beloved Mandarin restaurant—Taiwan Café—but felt it was time to move on and find a new love. Red Lantern in Orem made me puke—literally. And Panda Express is for people who also love McDonalds and TGI Fridays. Chinatown Restaurant is a pretty dang good substitute for Taiwan Cafe. Aside from the delicious food served there are many things about this quirky establishment that humor me each time I go.

Décor: All four walls of this dining establishment are paneled with very rustic splintery, knotty paneling. It seriously looks like they have a termite problem. I don’t know about you but the first thing I think about when I think of Chinese food is really bad wood paneled walls. I asked the owner once about the walls. She mentioned that the building used to be a steak house. 20 years ago. “Oh, that explains it”, is all I could say. But that doesn’t explain it. They’ve had 20 years to update the walls. Do you see what I mean by quirky? That must be how prices are kept low.

Music: Each time we go to Chinatown Restaurant we eagerly await to hear what goofball music they are playing this time. The first time we went it was something akin to the William Tell Overture. It wasn’t that, but close. It was really fast classical music that is played during movies when someone has just fallen off of a cliff. Simply not good for digestion. And it was loud. I thought maybe we were on Candid Camera or something because it was simply that humorous. I can’t believe I didn’t complain to them about the music. Tonight when we went it was really bad instrumental themes of really bad movies—Evita, Titanic, Pocahontas, etc. Paul and I would try to guess each song. The only theme we could come up with was that all of these movies sucked.

No Crowds: Tonight we were the only ones eating there. Granted, it was 5:05pm, but still. This made for a pleasant dinner because the service was faster than usual and because we could listen in on the Chinese conversation of the owners’ family at a nearby table. There were 4 of them and it seemed like very interesting conversation. Of course I had no idea what they were saying but it must have been about politics or maybe family gossip. It sounded like one of the two. Each word was enunciated and they made no effort to keep their voices down even though there were customers (just us) eating at the time. I like that. I like that we carry no airs about us so that others feel free being themselves in our presence. Or maybe it was the fact that Hallie wouldn’t stay in her high chair and was screaming and they really wanted us to leave. Nah.

Booths: If you do go, make sure you sit in the booths by the window. Those booths offer an extra bonus. When huge semi-trucks are at the stop light on 7th East your table vibrates as do your innards. Kind of fun in a weird sort of way.

Food suggestions: Wor Wonton soup and Hot and Sour soup. You’ll also love the Orange Beef (filled with lots of strings of orange zest), Pork Fried Rice, Moo Goo Gai Pan, and Chicken with Snow Peas.

Please patronize this restaurant. I don’t see why anyone would go to P.F. Changs, which is over-priced and over-Americanized, when they could have way better food cheaper and the privilege of eating in a log-cabin type building where weirdo music is played and you can actually hear Chinese being spoken. Love it.

Razor Blades and Cyanide

In my neighborhood there is something going on that I find scary and perplexing—anonymous treat giving. Last night we were “ding-dong-ditched”. When Paul opened the door there lay a plate of pumpkin bar treats along with a poem about Tom the Turkey and a big picture of a turkey. The poem explained that we were to make three copies of the poem and turkey picture and then “ding-dong-ditch” three other helpless and unsuspecting families with a plate of “goodies” in hopes that this treat giving will grow exponentially until the whole dang world has been given a plate of inedible garbage! Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one? Oh, and we had to post the picture of the turkey in our window so that other neighbors will know we have been “hit” and somebody else will enjoy the privilege of homemade treats. Unfortunately, the plate of treats had a note that said to refrigerate them. I didn’t see the note until this morning. So I’m guessing it isn’t safe to eat this treat because it lay at room temperature all night long on our entryway table. Bye-bye pumpkin treats that could make us sick!

Two weeks ago we were “Booed”. Yup, you guessed it. We were given a plate of hard hockey-puck chocolate cookies with a poem about a ghost and a picture of a ghost. Same instructions as the Tom the Turkey. You get the picture.

Many things disturb me about this anonymous treat giving.

• How do I know these treats were not placed on my porch by some criminal mind that baked the treats with razor blades and cyanide?


• If I am going to give a treat to someone, they are going to know about it. They are going to know that Cynthia is a dang good baker and a giving person. No anonymity for me.


• If you are going to give someone a treat can you really insist that they give someone else a treat also? I didn’t sign any contract when those pumpkin bars where left on my porch; therefore, I am not obligated to obey the attached note and give three other neighbors a plate of treats.


• The treats are always gross. One bite and straight to the garbage they go.


• I don’t like posting the ghost or turkey picture in my window. I think it’s silly. If that many people love me then who am I to deny my adoring fans the privilege of gift giving?

A few years ago when this silly tradition started in my neighborhood I refused to put the silly ghost, turkey, or Santa picture in my window. I would not conform. Well, night after night the treats kept coming. After at least a week of being “ding-dong-ditched” with plate after plate of yucky treats I conformed and put the picture in my window. This insanity must stop!

So to all you anonymous treat givers out there—please know that I love homemade butter pound cakes.

P.S. If you gave me the pumpking treats or chocolate cookies, I lied. They were delicious.

My Life's Embarrassing Moments...So far

My previous blog entitled, “Embarrasing Grocery Store Moments” didn’t even scratch the surface, so here are more:

Childhood:
Being 10 and saying to your parents, in front of the Morans, in hopes of convincing them to let you stay the night at your friend Olga Moran’s house, “It will be one less mouth to feed.” They said no, right there on the spot.

The Teen Years:
Being 15 and getting up to play the piano at a ward fireside only to hear my sister Carolyn shout out, “Look at my sister’s butt.” Apparently my double ruffled oh-so-stylish flowered skirt’s hem was tucked into my pantyhouse. Yup, all the boys and girls saw my Hanes. Don’t deny you said that Carolyn. It is burned into my brain. Forever.

Being 14 and in Junior High and laughing so hard at lunch time I pee my pants BAD.

Being too embarrassed after previous experience to go to the office and call my mom so I stank like pee the rest of the day. I tied a sweatshirt around my waist to visibly hide the accident. Hello Cynthia?! People can smell!

Wearing a swim suit in co-ed sophomore swim class and having everyone tell me I looked like a boy. (With hair down to my waist I can only assume they were referring to my stick-like shapeless body frame.)

Being 16 and at your friend Stew’s house (who is also the Bishop’s son) and flushing their toilet and having it overflow out of the bathroom and onto their carpet. Having to go tell his parents was like telling them, “Um I use too much toilet paper. Sorry about the carpet.”

Walking around Newport Beach after junior prom with my date and dying of humiliation, while thinking, “Is he pausing the walk because he wants to kiss me?” “Should I stop talking so he can kiss me?” “Do I even want to kiss him? He has braces!” No first kiss then, nor for many years.

Only going on one date (see above) during my entire high school years.

Being 14 and having my dad take me to the cardiologist. I was in the exam room forever half-naked having an Echocardiogram done. A nurse comes in and asks if I want my dad to come in to keep me company. “No! Please, don’t bring him in!”

My college years:
Being 18 and walking to BYU in the snow for the very first time in my life. I remember thinking, this is snow? It’s all brown, muddy and can only be described as Coca-Cola Slurpee. Just then I fall in the muddy snowy gutter wearing my brand new white coat at the Hart's Gas Station on Canyon Drive. Even more embarrassing was the cute guy who reached down to help this accident-prone freshman.

Being 20 and going to the traffic office at BYU to fight a truly unfair parking ticket. While standing in line a lady comes in after me and walks right up to the ticket counter. As if I wasn’t in line. Well!
Me, in a huffy: “Um excuse me, I was hear first. The line starts behind me.”
Her: “Um, excuse me I WAS in line, they sent me outside to get my registration.”
Me; “Oh, sorry.”
I hate eating crow!

Being 20 with my friend Winnie at the Brick Oven and having her confess to me that she told my most embarrassing life secret to her brother (whom I was dating) that I had never kissed ANYONE. Paul married me anyway.

Being a senior at BYU and having the professor call on me during a case study of Wild Turkey (or something like that) alcohol. He asked me something about their product’s target market. I get all flustered and start flipping through the case study to find my notes. In the meantime, he says, “Forget it! You don’t know. Someone else?”

Having the same professor call me up at home that night and apologize. “That’s okay”, I say. No it is not okay! Oh to be shamed in public!

Now:

A few months ago I was stopped at the train tracks on 820 North. It was a false alarm. There was no train coming. I was the 8th car in line. There were at least 10 more cars behind me. I can’t take this anymore! Can’t they see that there is no train? Why won’t they just drive around? I put my car in park, hop out of the car, and run down to the train tracks, looking both ways to make sure my suspicion is right that there is no train coming, and then motion to the first car to go around the gate because again, THERE IS NO TRAIN. Just as I am motioning to the stupid driver the gates go up and everyone starts driving through. Except for me. Because I am down by the tracks, and my car is 8 cars back blocking the other 10 cars behind me from going through. Gosh, I am an idiot.

Alias Fans: What's going on?

Anyone out there still watching Alias? And if so, will you admit it? I am not a fan of how the season is going. But like a car accident, I just can’t look away.

Killing and Cloning: Why did they kill off Vaughn/Andre Michoux? Okay, we know he is NOT dead. They brought back Irina because Jack really only killed her “clone”. I know she wasn’t really a clone, but something like that. I read someone elses blog where they called these doubles “clones” and they got ripped to shreds by all the Alias wanna-be scientists (and I’m suspecting Star Trek fans) out there in internet land who then proceeded to correct this imbecile. So for lack of science expertise, I am calling Irina’s double a clone. Don’t forget they had a clone-like double of Ethan Hawke and of Francie in seasons past so you know in actuality either Vaughn had on a bullet proof vest and he is in hiding because he doesn’t want the really bad wicked new SD-6 dudes to kill him, Sydney, and their unborn baby. Or his clone-like double was killed. Did anyone follow that? And don’t forget that Sloan was put to death by lethal injection and then Jack brought him back with anti-venom. Or something like that. So that’s like four people that have been doubled and or re-incarnated on the show. The writers are simply stretching out the plot to last until their contract with ABC is up—in 2008 I believe.

New characters: I am not loving the addition of new characters. I don't even know their names nor care to. They should have just kept the old and saved me the trouble of having to bond with the new characters. And because this is Alias you never really do know if the new people are good or evil. Never.

And speaking of things I don't like, why are they writing in Jennifer Garners pregnancy on the show? We all know it’s Ben Affleck’s baby and not Vaughn’s. I keep looking at Sydney while I watch the show and I can’t get it out of my brain: “Why is Jennifer Garner with Ben Affleck?” How are the writers of Alias going to deal with Sydney as a Mom? Will the baby be with Sydney in a backpack while she scales the skyscrapers? Will the baby travel with her to Budapest, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong and be in a perpetual state of jet lag? Will the bad guys threaten to pull out the baby’s teeth if Sydney doesn’t cooperate? Or will the show go down hill once they have a baby—just like Mad About You. You know what I mean—all of sudden Jack’s fatherly instincts will kick in for Sydney and his grandbaby and he will be all mushy and lovely-dovey. If they make him cry the first time he sees his grandbaby I’ll stop watching the show. I will. I’m not bluffing. Okay, I’m bluffing.

Lastly, I predict that during sweeps week Vaughn will be brought back, Nadia will emerge from her coma (although my sister Carolyn contests that this show doesn't have room for two beautiful women so they'll have to kill off Nadia), Weiss will return, and Sydney will give birth. All in that order. (Okay, maybe Weiss is really gone, but you know the others are not.) Mark my words.

Working in a Coal Mine, part 2

Once my days of working in berry factories and bi-lingual business plazas ended I was ready to move on to the era of college jobs at BYU. For three years I worked at the Cannon Center Cafeteria on campus. I started as a cashier and I quickly became the envy of the other college kids because I did not have to start at the bottom of the employee food chain—the dish room.

I was hired as the oh-so-glamorous cashier. I’d like to think I started at the top of the Cannon Center Cafeteria employee food chain because of my poise and good looks but who knows the real reason. Nonetheless, I was a bit hated for working at the same wage as the kids in the dishroom or the salad prep folks yet I never had to get my hands dirty. However, I did have to get dirty in other ways. I had to enforce the dress standards of the BYU Honor Code. Basically I was the gate keeper of modesty before any student could enter and partake of the delicious smorgasbord. This is where I learned to be tactful and yet tell other students to get lost: “Sorry, your skirt is too short. Beat it.” Oh the power! I also was in charge of stopping the smuggling of food outside of the cafeteria. Students loved to load up their backpacks with bags of chips, fruit, and other contraband food items as they left. I pretty much turned a blind eye to the shrinkage of food. Being a meany about the dress code was enough venom spilling forth from my mouth for one day, don’t you think?

Now the really interesting part of cashiering was seeing how many local Provo families came to eat in the cafeteria on Sunday. Let’s analyze this: it is clearly breaking the Sabbath to go to eat at the Golden Corral (although that should be illegal on a whole other scale—see Food Snob blog) but for some reason it’s okay to pay to go out to eat if it was at the BYU Cannon Center. Does anyone else have an issue with this? Usually it was the folks in administration and their families that came. I understand that students need to eat on Sunday as well but do others living in homes with kitchens need to patronize the cafeteria on Sunday? Also, for employees, you could get a free meal on Sunday if you worked at least six hours. Any other day of the week, you had to work 8 hours to get a free meal. Come on! Cheapskates….

After a year of cashiering I moved higher up the employee food chain and worked as a secretary in the cafeteria office. This felt like working in a fishbowl as the office was all windows and situated in the center of the cafeteria work zone. From here you could watch the giant vats of ranch dressing being mixed like potions in a cauldron with huge wooden spoons. There is something eerie about a recipe that calls for 3 gallons of mayonnaise that makes your tummy sick—and that’s coming from someone whose favorite condiment is mayonnaise. Anyway. My favorite part about being a secretary was changing the names on the student files once the female workers got married. And if you know anything about being LDS you know that for the most part we get married young during the college years so updating the names on the student files alone took hours each week. My favorite file was of a girl names Dana Swain. I thought that was such a cool name—nice, short, easy to spell. Then she married a co-worker with the surname of Wolfersberger. Yea, you read that right. It took me weeks to change the file tab on her manila envelope to Dana Wolfersberger. I just couldn't do it. I secretly wanted to tell her that she should claim to be a feminist and keep her once respectable last name and refuse her husbands name. But alas my job description did not entail counseling. So I painfully changed her name on her file. Changing my name on my own employee file was a lateral move if you ask me. I went from Harrington to Winward during my junior year. It’s a toss up which name I like better. Then again, the bonus to becoming a Winward was that professors stopped asking me if I was related to the then-famous Polynesian Harrington brothers who played BYU football. Or something like that. "Do I look Polynesian to you", I wanted to ask? I hardly look Mexican in the summertime and with a surname like Harrington no one ever asked if I was Hispanic. Sheesh I am getting off subject.

During my senior year I entered the real workforce and got a job at Mountainlands Community Health Center on Freedom Blvd. Once again, my inability to speak Spanish didn’t help but that was a fun job. Once I graduated I needed something full-time so I got another job, in addition to the health center, at a security company doing the Accounts Payable. This job was worse than the berry factory in Boring, Oregon. My boss loved all that Steven Covey garbage but implemented none of it into our office. One time I got the credit card bill and on it was a $3,000 charge to an animal hospital in Texas. I approached the owner about this charge and he informed me that his gross and disgusting dog that he brought to work everyday and shed fur all over me needed an emergency hysterectomy while he was doing a job in Texas. “Um, okay, so how do you want me to code that?” His reply: “Just put it under miscellaneous expense.” For more outrage about this very subject look at Paul’s blog called “Paying your Fair Share.” I should’ve quit that job on day one but Paul was in graduate school and we needed the moo-lah. So I suffered at the security company for 9 long months. In the end, I quit to get a full time job at Wasatch Mental Health. Chances are, if you are still reading this blog you are crazy. And if you are crazy, then chances are I have seen your name on intake forms while working there. But don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.

Scraped Noses & Broken Irons

After my Mother of the Year blog I made a rule never to have an entire blog about my kids again. It is incriminating and frankly, nobody cares about my parenting. But I am breaking my rule today and am going to blog about my youngest—Hallie.

There are a number of things about this picture that are disturbing, least of which is Hallie’s scraped up nose. Nevertheless, Hallie’s nose is the subject at hand.

Two days ago I strapped Hallie into the stroller to go on an errand walk. You know, walk around the neighborhood and return things to others I have borrowed or to retrieve children playing at neighbor’s houses. I crossed the street with Hallie and left her in the stroller on the curb (bad mom) while I quickly rang Nedra’s doorbell to return her iron. I had to borrow her iron because I was making a board-mounted valance for Nathan’s room (good mom) and my iron broke in the middle of the project again for the 3rd time in three years. Ten seconds later Hallie is face down in the gutter, still strapped in her stroller. I tried really hard not to swear (because I was in front of Nedra) as I ran super duper fast to help Hallie. She scraped up, or rather the concrete scraped up, her nose, left arm and right thumb.

Now for the secondary issues—why does Hallie’s hair look so bad and why is she wearing boys pajamas? Her hair looks so bad because she won’t leave in her Ouchless rubberbands. Apparently they are not ouchless to Hallie. She thrashes around and foams at the mouth while grabbing the Ouchless rubberbands out of her hair, all the while screaming, “Owwww-eeee”. Owww-eee is also the sound she makes for a cat. That’s kind of cute—kind of a backwards Meee-oww. So maybe she is really meow-ing as she grabs at her scalp. Hmmmmm. Secondly, I make Hallie wear her brother’s old jammies because I like to foster a spirit of deprivation among my children. I learned this from Liz Nelson who loves to tell her kids no. It builds character. Someday Hallie will look back and see this photo of her scraped up nose, nasty pompadore, and boy pajamas and there will be no doubt in her mind that she was a deprived child.

P.S. This time I replaced my Black and Decker iron with a Sunbeam iron. The B&D iron broke a year ago and was still under warranty. So as directed by the gods at B&D, I cut off the cord, mailed it in, and was rewarded with a new iron in 6 weeks to replace the piece-of-junk first B&D iron. My second B&D iron broke the other day, as already mentioned. I am not cutting off the cord and mailing it in again because I can not go 6 weeks without an iron. I assume they have you do that to cut down on all the scam artists out there fleecing B&D with claims of bad irons. Instead, I bought a Sunbeam iron in hopes that this one is a well made product. I’ll let you know in a year……

Martha Stewart's Fall

(pictured here making yogurt with Jennifer Garner on her show "Martha")
I have been a big fan of Martha Stewart. There, I said it. I know many of you are contorting your face in disgust and I don’t care. So before I get all the negative comments let me start out by saying that I am not sure if I like her anymore. Why? Two words: The Apprentice.

I first began watching Martha Stewart Living when I was a new mom. Her show came on every week day from 10-11am. I enjoyed watching her show. These were the years before we had satellite—so it’s really Martha’s fault I am a food snob and not the Food Network’s fault. I enjoyed learning new recipes and picking up style tips. Basically speaking, I enjoyed her joie de vivre. She seemed to find excitement in the everyday domestics as well as her field trips like kayaking down the Columbia river and then roasting her freshly caught Salmon on a spit. Mind you, I have never wanted to kayak, but Martha made it look fun! I enjoyed her other field trips to organic Pumpkin patches and small production factories where vanilla is made the old-fashioned way. She was like my Mr. Rogers for grown ups. I started subscribing to her magazine and buying some her cookbooks.

I feel like she helped to make homemaking cool again. My friend Allison would argue, “It’s always been cool!” and while that is soooo true my friends, she helped to bring us out of the 70-80s mentality of the doldrums of domestics. Okay, enough about why I like her.

Even when she went to prison, I thought, “Well, everyone makes mistakes.” Did I want her life? No. Do I wish I lived alone with a plethora of chinchillas, dogs, and well manicured cats? Heck no! But everyone has something to offer—and I thought Martha had a lot to offer.

And then the debut of The Apprentice: Martha Stewart occurred. Mind you—I have never watched a reality TV show. I despise them. I think they are mean and an insult to my intelligence. Shows like Survivior and American Idol I have never seen. Blech.

But I was a bit excited for Martha’s new reality show. I thought it would be some kind of cross between the Pillsbury Bake Off and a sewing contest. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! A bunch of people that are way too good looking (that makes me suspect right there) make up the cast. On the episode I watched they got together to write a children’s book. Huh? They fought and bickered the entire time. If I wanted to see that I would turn off the TV and spend time with my kids. I have no idea how the show ended because I couldn’t bear to watch it. I really expected more from a homemaker. Okay, I know she’s not a real homemaker, but you get my drift. What would have made the show really good is a scenario like this: You only have 20 minutes to get dinner made. Your freezer has some frozen shredded chicken and your refrigerator has tortillas and ketchup. Get going. Now that would be entertaining.

Alas, Martha has fallen prey to all the other garbage nothing-about-reality TV shows out there. I haven't seen her other new show, Martha, but I'll watch it this afternoon and see what I think. This is your last chance Martha. I'm counting on you!

Words that Business Students Love to Use to Sound Smart & Professional

(or Words-That-Show-I-am-Smart-and-Therefore-I will-Be-a-Rich-Businessman/Woman Some Day)

I realize that in blogging about such a specific topic that I may be losing a vast majority of my reading audience (all 3 of you) but I must be true to myself. I have a previous lame post called “Sew Much Fun” where I talk about my favorite sewing words. In my last post I talked a bit about my days in the Marriott School of Management at BYU. That brought on a lot of memories. So here goes.…

1. Bottleneck--No one bothered to explain what this meant to me in terms of business operations. I’m sure it was defined in a textbook, which I obviously didn’t read so I just kept hearing this word tossed around the classroom for months before I finally caught on. Heaven forbid I ask! This was the most overused word in the Marriott School of Management during 1992-1996. I bet nothing has changed. I bet every professor still urges every student to find the bottleneck in the operations of the such-and-such company. As long as you mentioned the word “bottleneck” in a paper you got an A. Give me a shovel.

2. Opportunity Cost—Unfortunately I saw Dana Carvey’s movie, Opportunity Knocks shortly before coming to BYU so every time I heard the words Opportunity Cost in class I snickered and thought of Dana Carvey’s impersonation of George Bush Sr., “Not gun do it. Wouldn’t be prudent.” This prevented me from focusing on what the Opportunity Cost was that my Professor was talking about at the time and instead to focus on all my favorite Dana Carvey skits. Can you blame me?

3. Paradigm—This word should be illegal. Every time I hear this word to this day I think of the brown-nosers in Professor Perry’s (OB) Organizational Behavior class who always said phrases like “a shift in our paradigms” to prove to the teacher that they were listening. Pardigm. Paradigm. Paradigm. Why not just say example, model, or even prototype. Snooty business school. And speaking of OB, I got a C+ in this class and went crying to the T.A. telling him that I lost my scholarship because of that C+. What I left out was that that scholarship was really my usury of my Hispanic heritage to sustain a scholarship through the Multicultural department. I’m sure those scholarships were intended to help minority students who maybe didn’t have a command of the English language (not that I do) and were underprivileged. But I didn’t care—I needed the money and I did go to public school so that is underprivileged, isn’t it? So the professor changed my grade to a B- but it sill wasn’t enough to get that Mexican Kid Scholarship. Dang!

4. PV (Present Value of Money) or FV (Future Value of Money)—We all loved our business HP calculators and also loved to enter in all the required fields and then hit the “FV” button to figure out just how much money we would have on a certain date in the future, if we sustained a certain interest rate and therefore, how rich we would be. Maybe our (mine and Paul’s) obsession with calculating the FV of money led us to realize how much we were being ripped off if we took the entire 15 years to pay off our student loans! Ignorance is bliss my friends.

5. FIFO and LIFO—No these are not names of dogs, but if I ever have a dog, and I won’t, I would name him FIFO. That way only smart business people would know just how smart and witty I really am. It would be our own little inside joke. I think a dog would respond well to Fifo. What cracks me up is that these terms were tossed around here and there in class and study groups as if we were using real business words like “investment” or “depreciation” instead of some lame acronyms. (FIFO/LIFO are systems of accounting for your inventory—First In First Out and Last In First Out. In case you are just dying to know, which you are not.)

You must be wondering to yourself why I haven’t gone on to get my MBA with such riveting course work as sampled above. Laziness…my friends…just laziness. See my previous blog….would a higher degree in business get me money’s worth? Doubtful.

Will I use my college degree again? Vote here...

Now that I have my own sewing business I am getting calls to sew this and that. It makes me feel as if I will again start using my college degree. Is this stretching it? Sewing curtains…..Finance…..Sewing Curtains….Finance. Possibly this is a stretch. Time will tell. If my business ever went hog wild (not that I even want it to) then possibly I would need some tax help and financial statements, but that’s why I am married to a CPA, so again, this is a real stretch. And why did I just say that I don’t want my business to go hog wild? What kind of red-blooded American capitalist am I? A lazy one my internet friends.

My business does involve math, but more like measuring windows and figuring out how many panels of 54” wide fabric I will need to piece to span the size of the window. In other words, 6th grade Math is sufficient to measure a window. Not the Business Calculus or Statistics I took at BYU. In statistics we learned that the standard deviation is equal to the risk in an investment…..but when will I ever use that knowledge in making a slipcover for a chair? Help me out here because maybe I just don’t see the connection. I need to make my $10,000 in student loans very worthwhile here. (At 8% interest we paid those suckers off fast! Paul’s brother is consolidating his student loans at 1%. Boo hoo for him!)

In my final business class as a senior at BYU we had to take Business Management 499. I can’t even remember the whole purpose of this class (there was none really), except that we studied real life businesses as case studies. My teacher was Professor Money. (That’s the truth.) We would analyze the various aspects of a business’ successes or failures—marketing, finance, operations, etc. Gosh I hated that class. We studied everything from Wild Turkey alcohol to Carmike movies and the theory behind charging different prices for different tickets. (It’s called “capturing the market” and has nothing to with the fact they love Seniors and children and therefore give them cheaper tickets and everything to do with Economics.) Speaking of Economics, did you know that it is an economic fact that when you raise the minimum wage you increase unemployment? I could explain this to you on a wonderfully basic supply and demand graph. Oh how I loved Economics! But I digress….

As you can see, my head is filled with charts, graphs, and statistics that I may never use again. But that’s okay because talking about chenille, gabardine, silk, and chiffon is much more interesting for you to read about…..That is if you are still reading. I may have lost you when I said standard deviation.

The Death of Summer

Is it pathetic to already be missing summer? It’s only the beginning of October for crying out loud!! But it’s true, I already miss summer. The tell-tale sign is that my tomatoes in the garden are not ripening anymore and frankly, the ones that have are kind of tasteless. Tomatoes are all I even plant anymore. I planted three pear tomato plants, three orange tomato plants, one cherry tomato plant, and 2 romas. My salad last night was dotted with beautiful orange and red tomatoes but it was a bit tasteless. Tomatoes need heat to be sweet and delicious. Maybe that’s why I love tomatoes so much? I need heat to be sweet and delicious too. Give me 100 degrees any day over today’s pathetic 56 degrees. Sigh. (Photo: Nathan and Ilene baking like salamanders in the sun at my childhood home in Chino, CA in May 2004)

And today I will make my one last pilgrimage to Allred’s Orchard to buy my last box of peaches. After that it’s boring apples and bananas for the rest of winter. Do you remember that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer and Newman go hog wild eating all the Macinaw peaches? And how they mourned the day that the peach season was over? Oh it’s true my friends! That wasn’t just a sitcom.

I already miss going to the swimming pool—and so do my kids. The other day Ilene asked, “When are we going to the BYU pool again?” My answer: “Oh, maybe in 9 months or so.” That’s just plain sad. To make matters worse—that very same day that Ilene asked this question was the day I dropped my mom off at the SLC airport to return to my hometown of Chino, California where it was 85 degrees that day. Sigh again.


(Photo of Santa Barbara Mountains)
Here is one situation I can cite as to why the cold depresses me: I was watching the snooty show “Homes Across America” on HGTV back in March. And as you all know, or maybe you don’t, each February and March I am ready to put a “For Sale” sign in my yard and move back to California—no matter the circumstance—job or no job—house or not house, etc. On this day on “Homes Across America” they were touring Santa Barbara and all their beautiful Spanish style homes. They have city ordinances enforcing the Spanish style architecture. Even the Ralph’s grocery store has a terracotta roof and stucco walls. I decided on this gloomy March day (that was most likely accompanied by an inversion layer in the atmosphere) that we were going to move to Santa Barbara. So I Googled “Santa Barbara Real Estate” on my computer and proceeded to fill out one of those real estate questionnaire forms where you enter in the price you want to pay, the number of bedrooms you want, etc. Basically, the only homes for sale that returned from the search in the $300,000-400,000 range are double-wide trailers. Brings new meaning to the term “trailer trash”, doesn’t it? Suffice to say, I will never live in Santa Barbara. Or probably anywhere in California again. (Sigh again, wipe tears, etc.)

The one exciting thing to me about the impending cold weather is that now I have new winter clothes to wear because I have been on a sewing frenzy with brown wool, chocolate twill, and green corduroy. (Doesn't Ilene look cute in this corduroy jumper?) And I made my kids their yearly fleece jackets—this time embroidered by their Grandma with their names. Oh and I also bought lots of lovely winter coats at the Lands End Overstock site. Love that website! I’m getting into trouble there though. Who can resist pink wool jackets for $45? Oh the vanity. But if it keeps me sane, then what’s the harm? A monthly purchase of sweaters and wool fabric is cheaper than a house payment in California. That’s one way to look at it Paul.

30-Minute No-Nos

Dear Rachael Ray, I was watching your show 30 Minute Meals this afternoon—as I do most everyday from 4-5pm as I cook dinner, or in today’s case, sit on the couch with a cranky baby. I have a couple of your cookbooks and download your recipes quite frequently. Yumm-o, as you would say. Anyway, I don’t mean to be a complainer—it’s just not my nature to criticize—but a few things are happening on your show and I don’t like it. First—I noticed today you now do all your chopping with an orange-handled Santoku knife. What’s that all about? I also noticed a few weeks ago that you switched from your beautiful All-Clad sauté pan to some tacky non-stick oval pan. I thought to myself—“Why is Rachael doing this? My testimony of always using stainless steel frying pans to produce a good fond will not be shaken!” Then my Sur La Table catalog came in the mail today and there you are on the cover holding an orange-handled Santoku knife. And inside is your oval pan too. Sellout! All-Clad is the best—you know it and I know it—so cut the nonsense and go back to the good pan! I realize you are now a famous celebrity chef and have your own line of lesser quality kitchen stuff, but do you have to showcase them on your show? I am watching a cooking show—not an infomercial. Even Emeril with all his ego doesn't cook on his show with his line of cookware. (By the way, I do own, embarrassingly enough, some of Emeril's pans because not everyone has a TV show that furnishes you with top-of-the-line cooking products.)  Sincerely, Cynthia P.S. The peppers you used on your show today where Poblanos—not Anaheims. Puh-lease.

Typing 101 Class *&^%

Reading Lori’s blog about the age of computers reminded me of my own computer experience in typing class. (Were you in my typing class Lori?)

In 1988 I was a high school freshman and signed up for an easy A in typing at Don Antonio Lugo High School—East Campus. (We had an East campus which consisted of portables in a parking lot around the corner from the main campus because our school was so dang over crowded there was no room left for the incoming freshmen.) Our teacher, Mrs. Burr, was used to teaching typing on typewriters. Lucky her, our school had just switched over to computers where we learned to type in Word Perfect 5.1. She didn’t like it one bit. Here she is—faced with a bunch of bratty freshmen who knew way more about computers than she did. Nonetheless, she stuck to her old ways when it came to typing. She laminated sheets of construction paper and taped them to the tops of the keyboards so that we couldn’t cheat by looking at our hands. We had to flip up this paper “hood” to put our hands under top begin typing.

She would teach us to center a title or heading by counting all the letters/spaces in our title, subtract that from 66 and divide by two to get the number of spaces we needed to space over before typing our title. I can't believe I remember that formula. I really am a Math nerd.I remember raising my hand after she explained:

Me: “Um, Mrs. Burr, can’t we just hit “Shift-F6?” That will automatically center our heading for us.”

Mrs. Burr: “No Cynthia. You need to learn to do this the right way. You won’t always have a computer to do it for you.”

I am not making up her response.

Later on in the semester she started having us type words or phrases for speed and accuracy. We were no dummies. We learned how to use the Copy and Paste function. This is where the construction paper hood came in handy. She couldn’t see us NOT typing the words under the paper hood. Instead we were just copying and pasting over and over until the timed test was up. The problem was if you copied and pasted too many times then she knew you were cheating because nobody can type 300 words per minute, let alone a 14-year old kid. Foiled! That’s when she figured out we were up to something. Down came the paper hoods so that she could spot the cheaters. Typing had changed forever for Mrs. Burr. I wonder what she does today?

Sew Much Fun

Most of you know I sew—I sew a lot. In fact I am going to be starting my own sewing business soon because I love it so much and I am actually really good at it. Who knew? As with any hobby, there are pros and cons.

Things that bug me about being a sewing enthusiast

1. Patterns for lingerie—bras, underwear, skimpy stuff. Is there a shortage of good women’s underwear to be found in the stores?
2. Dealing with the employees at Joann’s. I think the criteria to work here is if you have been fired from the DMV.
3. People who use the word “sew” in puns. “Sew Perfect”, “Sew Exciting”, etc. It’s getting old.
4. Crazy ladies on patternreview.com--
a. Should I reply to their pants reviews that pleats around the midsection are out? And that no one should ever wear tapered pants anymore?
b. The women who make bras and then review those patterns.
c. Ladies who sew anything for a pet and then review those patterns
5. Unable to pay retail because as soon as I look at the price tag the following phrase immediately comes out of my mouth: “I could make that for way less!”

Things that I love about being a sewing enthusiast
1. Buying fabric online. What is it about the UPS man delivering a package to me at 3pm that makes my day?
2. I get to use obscure words and phrases like placket, nap, flat-fell, entredeux, feed dog, pile, selvage, stitch-in-the-ditch, and my favorite: armscye.
3. Giving free advice to the lost customers in fabric stores.
--In Joanns: “Oh, you don’t want to buy knit here. You want to buy it from wazoodle.com.”
--In HomeFabrics: “You’ll want about 8 yards of fabric to slipcover a chair.” I’m such a know-it-all.
4. Unable to pay retail because as soon as I look at the price tag the following phrase immediately comes out of my mouth: “I could make that for way less!”

Working in a Coal Mine

As I read Kacy’s blog about her previous jobs, I realized I too have had many wacko job experiences. Many of you already know some of these stories but I bet most will be new to most of you. I’ll leave out the nightmare stories of babysitting between the ages of 11 and 16 and skip right to the good stuff of 1991 and 1992.

The summer before my Senior year of high school I went to Oregon for the summer to work. I stayed with the Hesters—a family I had previously babysat for for many, many years. No, there wasn’t a shortage of jobs in California but this was supposed to be a really good opportunity that didn’t require frying hamburgers. I was a speed demon at typing and the job was for data entry at a dentist’s office. They were changing software programs and needed someone to transfer all the data. Unfortunately, this job fell through once I got to Oregon. I decided to stay in Oregon anyway and find a job elsewhere. The Bishop in the Hesters’ ward owned a berry plant in the city of Boring, Oregon. I am not making that up—the city really was named Boring. Google it. Red Flag #1—the name of the city alone should’ve clued me in to how bad this job would be. My job was to pick all the gross and smooshed raspberries off of the conveyer belt as they headed to Berry Heaven. Brain cells at their best. Oh, and the occasional larvae was to be picked off too. I couldn’t bear to touch the larvae so I let those go by. Oops.

Red Flag #2—I was the only English speaker working in a sea of Latino workers. Yes, I am Mexican also, but I hardly speak Spanish. This made for a lot of silence on the conveyer line. Oh wait, there was a young man also from church who worked there. Gosh, what was his name? Well, anyway, since he was the only other English speaker there we were forced into a bizarre-o friendship. REM’s Out of Time album had just come out so we would have very intellectual conversations, like, what the song, “Losing My Religion” really meant. Deep. (I finally learned it is a southern phrase meaning to lose one’s temper. So don’t blog me about what it means.) This kid also confessed to me all sorts of weird sins he had committed. I’ll say no more.

While I had this job I apparently attracted the attention of a 27-year old man—let’s call him Jose. There's a stretch. I was 17. Isn’t that illegal? Jose didn’t speak English but he did ask me out in Spanish one time to go dancing. “Quieres bailar?” My reply, “Um no. No quiero bailar.” Later that day he got in a fist fight with some of the other guys. I found out it was because they thought he was a homesexual. Great—only gay guys ask me out. I worked there a whopping 4 weeks. Four weeks too long. I didn’t eat raspberries for at least five years though. Oh the trauma.

Once I went back to California I applied for a job at a new eating establishment (I can't bear to call it a restaurant) in the Chino Towne Square called Cajun Joe’s Chicken. I got the job because I had a 4.0 and the owner was all kinds of impressed. Apparently you need a 4.0 to fry chicken. Or was it rotisserie? Anyway, before I even had time to start that job I got a better job (hard to believe) as a receptionist. So I called the manager, Mr. Cajun, and told him I changed my mind. He was ticked. The next day I started getting perverted crank calls. These calls lasted a few weeks—and I know it was Mr. Cajun calling me! I can’t prove it, but this is how I know: One night I got one of the dirty phone calls and I screamed into the phone—“I know this is the chicken man!!” and hung up. The calls stopped. This franchise of Cajun Joe’s went out of business within a couple of years. I’m sure it was God punishing Mr. Cajun for being a pervert and freaking the heck out of a naïve 17-year old girl. But I can’t prove that either.

Now the job I got in place of Cajun Joe’s chicken was to be a receptionist at the El Dorado Plaza—a business plaza in Ontario. The owners were a young chain-smoking Chinese couple from Montebello. They paid me under the table to avoid paying Uncle Sam. They would come in once every few weeks to pay me, get the mail, shut themselves in their office and smoke like a chimney. I never saw anyone smoke that much in my whole life. The cloud of smoke would literally creep out of their office and crawl around the corners in the office--just like the angel of death in The Ten Commandments. Because I was still in school I only worked the afternoon shift. Mr. and Mrs. Marlboro asked me if I knew another girl who would want the job in the morning. The only teenager I knew who didn’t go to school in the morning that wouldn’t mind being paid an extraordinarily low wage illegally was Colleen Kinnick. She had recently dropped out of high school and took her GED. So Colleen became the morning gal and I became the afternoon one. Colleen was a Groovey Gooley, as we called them. She dressed all in black and died her hair fluorescent colors. She loved Oingo Boingo more than should be allowed. (A few years later Colleen got married and on top of her wedding cake was Jack Skellington (the pumpkin head) and the main girl (?) from The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Romantic.)

Apparently neon-haired receptionists were not what the El Dorado Plaza was looking for. Tenants started complaining to Mr. and Mrs. Marlboro. So Mrs. Marlboro called me up one day and asked me to talk to Colleen about her hair. I did. Colleen started wearing a beret to work to cover up her highlighter yellow hair. I don't think that's what Mrs. Marlboro had in mind. That job ended half way through the school year for Colleen—due to her hair—and at the end of my senior year due to my inability (once again) to speak Spanish very well on the phone. My oft used phrase on the phone was, “Mas despacio, por favor.” Translation: “Please speak slower”. Mom—why didn’t you teach us Spanish you crazy Mexican lady? Dad was fluent too!! I’ll never forgive you for that! Thus ended the horrific jobs of my high school era. Thank goodness I left for college and began a whole new era of creepy college jobs. Stay tuned for that installment........