The Blue Paint Day

 

It all started on a Wednesday… I was having an extremely unproductive day. Often I found myself staring at my computer, yelling at characters who have decided to go on their own adventurous path – not the one I carefully laid out for them.

 I decided to do some laundry, so that I would at least have something to show for the stagnant day. I put the load on and went back to stare at my computer for the forty minutes until it was done. I hear the beeping and, on the way there, decide I need to take a long walk to clear my head so I can keep writing. However, when I enter the garage I feel a horrid squish. I find I am ankle deep in a sea of soapy water now seeping into all of our hoarded boxes (boxes we refuse to get rid of and refuse to unpack because we move so much.) I know immediately what has happened. In my I-am-angry-that-writing-is-not-going-well-and-taking-it-out-on-the-laundry-state, I had flung a sock into the sink. I thought I removed it but I had not and, since that is where the water drains with each cycle, it had formed a nice plug and every full load of water was now on the floor of the garage.

I call Al at work and give him a heart attack because I lead with “Is there any way you could come home from work?” Plus, my voice was a little panicky. We spend his entire lunch break(and I spend the rest of my afternoon), mopping up the suds and moving boxes from one side of the garage to the other and trying to figure out how to get the water mopped up from under the sink which has a quarter inch gap between it and the floor. (We are geniuses at this point because we came up with a towel wrapped around a homemade “girls rule” sign. And really, girls do rule…) Anyway this, combined with the fact that we got the free old fridge from Al’s work, meant we had to clean the garage. Our weekend plans were thus solidified: awesome day with friends/movies swapping on one day and horrible cleaning out garage the other day.

The “other” day arrives. In order to get us all motivated, I decide we should eat breakfast out. That way the kitchen stays clean (because there is nothing worse than returning from the clean garage to melted cheese-encrusted bowls and chips crumbled and crunching under your feet. (I am not sure why there are always chips on the carpet; my daughter swears it is not her but I don’t find I am swinging bags of chips in an arch until the crumbs fling out everywhere. Perhaps I am: it could be subconscious but, either way, there are always chips on our carpet.)

So, off we go to the cafe. Al orders a gluten-free pasta salad which, as he said “has no taste… absolutely no taste. It’s like they tried to find all ingredients that taste like nothing and put them in my bowl.”

I had a yummy muffin and Amelia had nachos.

As we arrive at the Warehouse (for US readers: Wal-Mart equivalent, still crappy stuff but way over priced.) We make the fateful decision to allow Amelia to redecorate her room, moving from princess (which she has loathed for a couple years now) to a style more fitting a 10 year old. This seemed like a good idea at the time; however the pricing and thought of spending the day assembling “some assembly required” furniture will be a waste of money and time, so we end up negotiating over colors of five-dollar, cheaply-made boxes and decide to repaint her current pink furniture blue. This whole process leaves Alan almost comatose as far as his ability to make any decisions and me bordering on murderous rage because no decisions are being made. It is 1pm and we still haven’t started on the post-war-zone garage.

As we stand staring at the various plastic bins we initially passed by, we are approached by an elderly gentleman wearing a bike helmet. Not particularly odd except that he is not currently on a bike and he is wearing it unclasped and backwards so the large pointy end is sticking out at us.

Here is the conversation:

‘Man, these bins are great aren’t they?’

Alan and I nod. ‘Yes we sure like them.’

‘Yeah, amazing! I just got one of those trailers for my bike. I was thinking of getting one of these for the back.’

Alan starts squinting, trying to picture how the large bin would fit in one of those.

‘Oh cool!’ I say.

‘Yeah, you guys should get one of those! It just attaches to the back of your bike and you can go anywhere. I am thinking of taking this camping!’

Al is looking very skeptical and opens his mouth so before he says something mean I jump in.

‘Wow, camping, that sounds fun.’ Alan crinkles his brow at me and shakes his head. This guy should not be going camping with a plastic bin and a bike trailer.

‘Well, excuse me. I’ll just grab one of these he says taking one and then gives us the website for the bike trailers just in case…’

We head home after purchasing blue paint from a guy with Ed Sheeran lyrics tattooed up his arm (which I found a little strange… Not that I don’t like Ed Sheeran. In fact, I REALLY like Ed Sheeran: I am just not sure I would tattoo his lyrics up my arm. Because even if some of his lyrics may really speak to you, you have to wonder, will they still speak to you when your skin is saggy and you have way more wisdom? This may just be an argument against tattoos and have nothing to do with the content of tattoos but really the content is the tattoo…) Anyway, we arrive home and get started.

Amelia begins painting and we start grumbling about the mountain of plastic broken toys that she has to keep for “the new baby”. I am not pregnant but she is convinced one is on the way… so is saving everything from the previously mentioned princess room, in case “the new baby is into girly stuff” which Amelia would like made clear she is NOT anymore and actually on more than one occasion has been very worried the “new baby will be into princess stuff and where will that leave them with nothing to talk about, that’s what!”

Anyway she begins to complain that she is not feeling well but we tell her to “just quickly finish – it should just take you ten minutes; that way we can wash everything out”. This is followed by an increase in sighing and grumbling under the breath but, as per our policy, we don’t pay much attention.

This turns out to be a mistake. When one of us looks up from being buried in Barbie dolls with amputated limbs we see that the grumbling was just the light breezes that precede a tornado. She has taken her frustration out on the paint and it is now soaking into the cement up and down the driveway (we have a home inspection from the landlord this coming week, which in and of itself is a ray of sunshine!), all over her new shoes (which she took off because we said don’t get paint on them) and slopping over the top of the bookshelf which was supposed to remain green. We now (“gently” and not yelling of course because we are outside and so are the neighbors) inform her that she must scrub the paint off the driveway while I try to fix the bookshelf, which Amelia has painted in large globs rather than smooth strokes. She spends the next hour crying and scrubbing like our own little Cinderella, saying she doesn’t feel well to which we say “ha! That is convenient….” We spend the time, as we continue to throw broken walky-talkies and lost headbands at each other for sorting, monologuing  about how important it is for her to finish cleaning off the driveway so she learns the valuable lesson of taking the time to do something right… (We are very proud of our parenting skills. And the tough love.)

The next two days she is home from school, sick… I finished painting the bookshelves and am no longer sure I am qualified to be a parent.

Loaded Baked Potato

 I recently took my parents and my 9 year old out for dinner in downtown Denver while on our way to the Festival of Death (see below). Once off the train, we alternate taking the free bus and walking to decide on a place to eat. I notice my nine year old is getting a bit nervous. She has been to a big city before but she spends most of her time in a small town with trips to the “city” once a week (the city being population 50,000 as opposed to nearly 650,000) so, the first time we pass a man yelling at himself, I find she is trying to fold herself into my side. She also can’t figure out why my parents keep talking to random strangers. Such as the courier whose legs are complimented upon by her grandpa. She wants to know why. Why would someone comment about a perfect strangers legs? In New Zealand, people pass you on the street with little or no eye contact but, in the States if you are walking  along, often conversations occur with random strangers. She feels the need after each one to say  'Why was he saying that to us??' 
After a while, we stop at a deli (just to set the scene here, this is not a restaurant, it is a deli; it serves sandwiches, soups, salads and pastries…) and place our order. My Dad goes last and he asks if he can have a baked potato with chili on it. The poor teenager at the till is very confused and says ‘ummmm. You want chili?’

‘No I want a baked potato with chili on it. Do you have a baked potato?’ 

My mother then tries to explain what a baked potato is to the now very red-faced young man who is still trying to smile at us. ‘You know, a baked potato. You take a potato, poke it with a fork and bake it in the oven until it is cooked.’

‘It says you have a "loaded baked potato" right there on your menu.’ Dad says with confidence. I can’t see it anywhere, so cannot try to help. But then the server nods and places the order. When it comes to our table, there is just a bowl of chili with a bread roll. Dad says to a nearby server ‘there is supposed to be a baked potato with that.’ 
The server looks very confused. ‘We don’t have baked potato’

Dad says, ‘On your menu it says "loaded baked potato".’

‘Umm... we have potato soup…’

‘But it said loaded baked potato…’

‘Yeah, that’s loaded baked potato soup.’

Dad studies his tiny bowl of chili that looks like a kids portion and, in fact, matches the size of my daughter's Mac and Cheese, which we got as a side dish to my half a sandwich. A little defeated he takes the bite of chili.

About half way through the meal, Dad starts to get worried. ‘Melody… I haven’t seen a single bus pass by…’

I say, ‘Dad, that’s not where the busses run. 16^th St is behind you.’ I begin to worry about how Mom and Dad will navigate around their hometown after I am gone...

Since we have eaten very little, we decide to get some cookies but there are no chocolate chip ones. It should be noted here that, if you go to purchase a cookie and they are out of chocolate chip, you should just walk away; very few other cookies are worth the money or the calories. We ignore this sound piece of advice, that I usually adhere to with strictness, and buy the inferior cookies. Mom and I share because, as stated in a previous post, if you share a cookie this negates all calories. Unfortunately, she drops half of her share on the ground. Now, most of you don’t know my mother but for her this is a tragedy, a real one, on par with being robbed.  If she is going to buy something, she will eat every last piece of it; whether she likes it or not, whether it has spoiled in the fridge, or whether it takes an additional twenty minutes to scrape the last few drops or crumbs from the bottom. She does not waste. However, thankfully she does draw the line at eating food off the Downtown Denver sidewalk.  
Dad's disappointing meal finishes with a terrible oatmeal raisin cookie. (Is this really a surprise, I mean, come on, what is the deal? If I wanted a breakfast bar, I would have ordered a breakfast bar. If you are going to make oatmeal cookies, at least put chocolate chips in them.) We divide the terrible oatmeal cookie and my remaining half between us.
I then have to beg and plead with Dad not to eat the cookie off the ground. He claims it will just build his immune system. I am trying to explain that it is not just dirt on the ground and consuming whatever is on the ground is not the same thing as getting immunized and may in fact have the opposite deadly effect. My panic, as I watch the contaminated cookie get closer to his mouth, has made my voice rather loud and shrill and I am not very coherent. I think, just to get me to stop, not because he agrees with me, he concedes and the E. coli cookie remains abandoned on the empty plate.
 We leave the restaurant, navigating around the homeless people being arrested and the man shouting at the fence. Amelia and I leave a couple of paces behind Mom and Dad and are now faced with a choice: Mom has gone to the left to have a look at the miniature golf course with mini replicas of Denver landmarks and Dad has taken off to the right and down the street to catch the bus to the event. Now I find myself trying to yell over the heads of the arresting officers to get Dad to come back, but simultaneously trying not to draw attention to myself because I do not want to be arrested. And you never know when a case of mistaken identity could end up with you in prison...
Amelia runs off to follow Mom (because she lives in a safe country where running off does not normally end up in grievous bodily harm).  Now I am yelling for both Amelia AND Dad, yet still trying to keep a "I-am-a-normal-person" expression on my face. Because I can't get Dad's attention I run over to Amelia and Mom and force them to follow me, ending their tourism. As we serpentine through the homeless people, I remind Amelia not to step on the blanket that is on the ground. She of course asks why. I then have to explain that it is the man's who is being arrested and, even though it looks like trash, it is his and we must respect it. This is all so confusing that she attempts to ask several questions but can't quite form them in her mind and gives up. We finally catch up with Dad who has missed a bus, so is waiting for the next one.  Next time, I am going to put those leashes you can buy for kids on everybody.

Festival of Death

Since many of you know me, it may come as a shock to you (it did to me and I would like to think I know me better than I know myself…) that I don’t like festivals. It seems to be a new development because I have very recent memories of being up for anything. Put some stalls up, invite all the town crazies and I AM IN. However, lately, I seem to choose to skip the festivals in favor of… sitting at home in my pjs. So I have to wonder: am I just getting old or are festivals getting more annoying?      For instance, we decided to head into downtown Denver for the July 4^th Eve festival. We take the train because all of the event organizers pleaded on websites for everyone to take public transport. I spend the whole time yelling at Amelia because she keeps touching the pole and then wiping her hand down her jacket. I can see the germs from the hundreds of people before her now crawling happily up and down the front of her jacket. I realize this makes me seem like a germaphobe; feel free to believe this about me. I am. (I do have a legitimate medical reason though, which at some point I may share with you all. But to be honest, my obsession with germs began in my first microbiology class, so with or without the excuse, I would still have been yelling at her the entire way.)
Anyway, we disembark the Petri dish disguised as a train and head out to find some dinner. This is successful in that we eat some and I get material for an additional blog post about the perils of taking your parents and a 9 year old out to dinner downtown. (To be posted soon, mainly for my sisters' benefit.) Anyway, our bellies full, we jump on a free bus to get closer to the excitement. This is when we make our first mistake. A neighbor had told Dad to get off at California St. because this is the closest stop. It is not. It is the closest stop to the Convention Center… unfortunately, we are not going to the Convention Center, we are going to the Civic Center. Both places starting with double C’s but just because they share letters does not mean they share the same space in the universe. We must now walk eight city blocks. (To be fair to festivals and people who misunderstood where you were going before they gave you directions, I was in a significant amount of pain due to the briefly aforementioned illness, so I am willing to concede that, at this point in our trip, my distaste for festivals may be biased.)  We finally make it. There is a sea of people. (I realize that this is an overused metaphor so give me a moment and I will try to figure out a better one.) We arrive at the front, near the stage and my parents begin trying to make their way into the throng. I start to panic a little. Now, I feel there is some rationale to my panic. Leaving aside the fact that I can see the germ count floating above everyone’s head like an aura, I have been living in a country whose entire population is equal to Denver but spread out over the square miles of Colorado, so I am feeling a little claustrophobic. Also, people don’t tend to hate New Zealanders so I have grown used to the low terror threat. However, living overseas has made me keenly aware of how much other countries hate Americans so I am a little afraid of the security risk of being in a large group of them. Anyway, we decide not to navigate our way through the people penned in like sheep and opt to sit at the front, on the sidewalk, behind the tape that says “Police line :do not cross”. Here is a photo.

The Event staff is very paranoid at this particular location, yelling at anyone who steps over the line that they are not safe and to get back behind the line. It occurs to me that I am sitting next to the flimsy tape and, if it is not safe on the other side of it, how is it that we are safe…?  This apparently has occurred to my daughter as well because, 45 minutes before the fireworks start, she is asking me to cover her ears and is trying to bury herself into me. We can’t tell her when the fireworks will be starting because every time someone gets on stage to talk they sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown, as we are sitting beside the stage, not in front.
The fireworks do get started, with cannon blasts that seem to be pointed directly at us, causing my daughter to scream and instantly sob. She is sure I have brought her to her execution. This is fun, I think to myself as she continues to cry and then screams as pieces from the exploding bombs fall on us, confirming her belief that I have brought her to the Festival of Death. I keep offering to leave but she is too scared to move. (And I think secretly she is against standing up in front of the entire crowd, crying.) I spend the rest of the time hoping it will just end. When it is over, we join the masses of others who have done their civic duty and taken the busses and trains. Unfortunately, none of the busses are running… apparently they just wanted us to get to the event, not leave. So we walk the two miles to the train, picking up millions of others who were at other events downtown and also did their civic duty. We arrive at the train station now really feeling like cattle. And realize that they are not running very many trains (again, I don't know why... perhaps the homeless population is dwindling and they are hoping to boost numbers?) It will be a half hour before we can get on the next train. That is, if we are willing to push old ladies and small children on to the train tracks so we can get home. By sheer luck, we end up standing behind a cute family with an even cuter baby and we shamelessly use them as a human shield to get on the train.  My daughter spends the ride home watching the baby and decides that the tiny feet and hands are the cutest things she has seen in her entire life. And she informs me that she has changed her mind about not wanting a sibling. Now she REALLY wants me to have another baby: boy or girl as long as she gets to hold it. Barely holding on with my screaming-in-pain fingertips, packed in to the cattle car, I ponder what it is about festivals that I used to like.
Perhaps it is just a question of money. The following night, the Fourth of July, we decide to drive our own car, park four blocks from the baseball stadium for 25 dollars, sit in our amazing comfortable seats, eat overpriced  yummy junk food, laugh, sing, dance, watch fireworks from a safe distance, walk the four blocks to the car and make such good time on the way home that Dairy Queen is still open, so we can finish the night off with some ice cream. Maybe money really can buy happiness...

 

The Perils of Gym Going PART TWO

I have two words for you: Stump Class. The explanation on my gym’s website states that Stump Class is a combination of two things called Stepping and Pump Class (weight training). It adds “make sure you give yourself three or four times to become familiar with the steps.” I think to myself, “I have walked up steps before, I am sure I can go up and down on just one.” I start to get a little nervous when I clarify with the front desk lady which room the class is in and she repeats the warning from the description. As I enter the large room with the stage up front, I first notice that there are mirrors on every wall of the room as well as weight machines and free weights around the perimeter. I approach a very serious person, ready to go with her step in front of her, and asked in a voice resembling a kindergartener if this is “Stump”. She informs me curtly that it is and that I need to get a step from the hallway and a “Plate”. I look frantically around the room for what she could possibly mean as a plate. I see various things that I hope are not a “plate” one of which is one of those skateboard tops with the rolly thing underneath that you use for balance… I swallow the large lump in my throat and consider running from the room but too many people have seen me. So I trudge out to get my “step”. I grab the large platform and then try to grab the four gigantic, plastic, Lego-like squares that attach to make it an actual step. This proves more difficult than I had anticipated and several people come and go collecting their own steps. I try to look like I am debating about which of the hundred identical cubes I will choose. I watch how they manage to carry all of the components at once, copy their technique and stumble my way back into the room. Then the instructor tells us we need a plate. I wait, “pondering” again, until the others go and get one of the large, round, flat weights and I follow suit like I have finally made up my mind.

Comfortable now that I can do this (because it is not the skateboard/rolly thing), I grab a big one like everyone else had and haul it back to my step. The room fills with even more very serious people. The instructor then asks if there is anyone new. I put up my hand and she says “Don’t worry; it takes at least 3 or 4 times to get the steps.” Now I definitely want to leave but I can’t because everyone is looking at me so I try and find my most enthusiastic smile and give her a thumbs-up. Then the music starts and she starts yelling “just up and tap”.

“I got this!” I think, “This is just stepping and tapping your foot.” Then it is up and tap your heal and I am like, “Whatever, they clearly don’t know I used to dance as I child. I am going to be the most amazing first-time stump person EVER!” I amuse myself for a few minutes picturing the instructor coming up afterwards to congratulate me on how amazing I am. Then she says, “That was our warm up! Okay, here we go!” Now she is saying things like Grape Vine and I know what a grapevine is but I am not exactly sure how to incorporate it into my step. Everyone is stomping in unison and the girl in front of me has decided that stepping and weight training mixture is not enough – this should be a dance class as well! So she is flailing her arms back and forth and in wide dancing arcs (still not smiling though). Then everything becomes a blur as we make our way through steps such as Sumo and Macarena (which I also remember from the nineties but can’t quite understand how to incorporate into a step nor the associated clapping). And then there is Basic which is not basic and involves stepping over (and I am pretty sure some people went under) their step. Then there is the Marching Around the Step where I am always going the wrong way and almost smacking into the guy next to me.

                Now it seems that, just because there is a class in the room, it doesn’t mean people can’t come and do other things. First there is the old man, fully dressed in jeans and a winter jacket and carrying two bags, looking a little lost who wanders in and out of the rows of steppers and up to the stage where he stops for a minute to (as I would if I were him) ponder the insanity. Satisfied that we are all certifiable, he sits on the chest-fly machine, gives it a couple of squeezes and walks out. Highlight of the class! Low point of the class was the young guys training for the… sitting marathon? It must be an event where you lift a little and then stand around and watch everyone for 20 minutes: if so, they are going to WIN!

Finally we switch to resistance training, which I can comprehend because it is things like lift your leg and do a crunch etc., words I recognize as opposed to Cross Over Double Back which sounds more like the name of a spy mission than a step move. Unfortunately, because I had copied everyone and taken one of the heaviest weights, halfway through I have to do the walk of shame back to the racks to get a lighter one. The Dancer/stepper/weightlifter is not impressed with this at all. I try not to make eye contact as I slink down to my spot again. And, much to my chagrin, the stepping portion is not over. We have to get up and do it again. The instructor keeps saying some of the same moves as before but with new endings like Sumo Double Back instead of just Sumo. And Macarena Pop and Basic with Side L…

So now I find I am just spinning around and around in a circle that sometimes includes stepping on my step (picture Alex in Flashdance). Annoying dancer/stepper/weightlifter girl is doing it all perfectly and incorporating her extra dance moves. As for me, avoiding smacking into the guy next to me becomes my only goal. At one point I am so dizzy and, along with the Michael Jackson music blaring, I am pretty sure I time traveled and was in this same class in the eighties, legwarmers and all…

I make it to the end where I do not get my accolades but instead the instructor says “Wow, you made it to the end…” and of course she reminds me to “give it time…” I nod and smile and thank her. Two days later I am back at home with my good old dumbbells and exercise ball because I do not think three or four times will ever be enough.

The perils of gym going PART ONE!

So, I joined the gym at my university… While I am glad I did, it has presented some problems. Because it is 45 minutes from home, I must plan ahead. Now this may seem straight forward, and experienced gym goers (Marleen I am talking to you) may be confused at my ineptitude. My first problem is I have to park on campus which means I have to park a mile away from everywhere. And I have no shoulders. I do not know why but, when I place a bag over my shoulder, it promptly falls off. When I look in the mirror I appear normal not, as the endless slipping bags and purses indicate, a 1920s circus freak. “Step right up ladies and gentlemen – see the terrifying, mind-bending freak lady with no shoulders!”

Anyway, so now I have to walk a mile with bags of clothes, shampoo, water bottle, three towels (one for the hair, one for the body and one for sweating). Plus various offerings to the beauty gods, such as: Hair dryer, straightener and, of course, Moroccan oil. Otherwise, no matter how much heat I apply to my hair, the beauty gods think it is funny to watch as the day progresses and my hair expands 'till I look like my daily job is checking electrical sockets are working. So, Moroccan oil to wrangle it into place.

Then I need my school bag. I am usually running late so I park and then take off jogging towards the gym. Now, the reason I joined the gym is because I hurt my Achilles tendon running so, about three steps into the jog, I must stop. But I am still late so now I look like a speed-walking homeless person with all my worldly goods slung over my non existent shoulders. People have to give me quite the wide berth as my various bags swing randomly from their perch and threaten them. I am angry at my shoulders at this point so people are also giving me a wide berth because I look like I might be trying to hit them with my wildly swinging bags. I arrive at the gym and throw all bags on the floor in front of reception. The young, large-shouldered, golden goddesses behind the counter look at me sideways, sure that I should not be this out of breath heading into the gym. I try to keep my expletives as quiet as possible as I fish my wallet from the very bottom of the school bag.

Finally I produce the entry card and stomp back to the changing rooms. Now I have ten minutes before spin class begins. This may seem like enough time but clearly you do not wear sports bras. I start by hopping around the gym with my toes lifted, to avoid the dreaded athlete’s foot, and to avoid dragging my pants on the ground while simultaneously pulling them on. Then, it is time for the bra. I like the kind that goes over your head… when they are on that is. I get it over my head and now handily absent shoulders but then I am stuck. To be fair, I have dumb arthritis elbows that don’t straighten, but still… So now it is balled up under my armpits and I am flinging my body around like I am trying to escape from a straight jacket. This is when I hear the outer door to the changing room open. I dive for cover into the shower stall, still balancing on my heels to keep my toes from touching the slimy floor. I keep flinging my body sideways, trying frantically to get the damn thing over my squished boobs. Then it occurs to me that, if I fell over in here and hit my head, it would appear to my rescuers that I had been strangled by my own bra. Determined not to be headline news “Woman strangled by sports bra” I wrestle with it determinedly until I finally triumph.

I am ten minutes late to class…

Crab, Chili and Mint Crostini 

So… I did catering. I must now bow to all caterers out there; you are a stronger breed than me. I agreed to this insanity during a meeting where many things were being asked for. You know, “Who can do this?’” and “Can someone take care of the thing in the place?” Most of the time I was not even sure that they were speaking English. I kept occasionally saying yes to jobs that sounded normal like “check this on the website”. Anyway, feeling particularly useless at one meeting the convener said the word “food”. Instantly I sat up, back straight and ready. I knew that word! It was a word in the English language AND I knew how to MAKE that word! Like the student in class who puts her hand up before the question was asked, I volunteered my and my friend’s (who was not present and could not stop me) services in the kitchen, creating food to make the event special.

I left the meeting finally feeling like I had contributed. As I began planning a menu it was only then it occurred to me to confirm the number of attendees. I say confirm but I had not bothered to ask at the time and had a solid number in my head of 30. I was sure 30 people would be coming. Because the max I have ever cooked for is 40 so I thought in my head how magnificent I would be with 30. Then came the email “we are expecting 80 to 100 but plan for 100”. Totally fine! I was all cocky and arrogant. I KNOW what I am doing and I will be amazing. I wrote back saying this in a slightly more humble tone. After the email was sent however, I did sort of black out for a while; I am not sure for how long but Amelia arrived home from school and pulled me out of the stupor. I recovered and set about planning the day. There were testing days with friends (the one I had already promised to use and her family), shopping days, and more shopping days.

Next, I was asked for a cost estimate. I stared at my computer for a while and then opened the Google page and typed in “What do I do when someone asks me for a catering quote?” Google tried to be helpful but I think it was confused because only an idiot would agree to do catering without knowing how to make a catering quote. Luckily Word saved the day and gave me a template. I chose the menu template first and filled out an entire menu including amazing writing descriptions like:

Caprese Skewers

A mini caprese salad on a stick

(This one took the longest, oddly. I kept staring at it because the title seemed self explanatory and I could not think of another way to explain it.... even though I'm, you know, trying to be a writer and all...) I did this with all of my dishes and then realized because “my clients” are used to professional caterers they probably just want an invoice. Which I then Googled and subsequently found a template for on Word. I could then arrive at the next meeting looking all professional and confident (thanks Word, if you are reading this, which would be hard not to since I am writing on you).

On the first testing day, I discovered that I do not have a sophisticated palate, when I tried to make crab crostini with actual crab. I cracked open the can and mixed all the ingredients carefully in to the bowl, placed it on my perfectly toasted crostini and spat it out. Apparently, you can take the girl out of Colorado, the land locked seafood deprived State, but she will never get over her aversion to eating a crustacean. (Much to the disappointment of my extremely classy sister, who continues to try and refine my taste.)  So, on the menu it remained but with fake crab made of fish and dyed with streaks of pink. Yum.

 

Two days before, I spend the entire night figuring out how to make chocolate cups. This ends with me covered in chocolate (picture a giant human version of the chocolate Easter bunny) a nice decorating of the carpet and couch with beautiful chocolate drips, and some misshapen cups which I hope no one will notice because at least they taste yummy.

Finally, after dreaming about roasted red peppers attacking me in my sleep and dreams about cooking at the event and having to run around the counter to rescue someone from anaphylactic shock because they had consumed an allergen in my food (yes, actual nurse-turned-caterer dream), the day before finally arrived. I spent the day with gallons of cream cheese and cursing my tiny sink, all the while reminding myself that people actually do this for a living and I should just snap out of it.

My husband arrived home to my chaos and I began to assign him some jobs. I find it best to give him one job at a time otherwise he ends up looking like one of those patients in the mental institution (in the movies) that paces back and forth and finds it particularly important to study the corner of the ceiling. So, one job at a time. Unfortunately, I usually lose track of how long it has been since I gave him the last job and mindlessly shout another one. At one point (we are nearing the ten pm mark) I yell “Arg, I asked you to chop the celery! What have you been doing!?” I turn to find him elbow deep in the dishes that I asked him to do after I asked him to cut the celery. And he responds “I have been doing the ten other things you asked me to do after you asked me to cut the celery.” He remains calm.

“Never mind,” I say, not bothering to apologize, “we really need to make the bruschetta.” And I go back to the chocolate cups. He says under his breath that “it is late and you really should get to bed” to which I snap “if I don’t get the bruschetta done, it’s over its ALL OVER, this whole thing is just a DISASTER.” Dutifully he starts slicing the bread and I set about conquering more chocolate cups. After the first batch is out of the oven he asks me to rub the garlic on top. As a side note, if you are making 400 pieces of bruschetta don’t balance them on top of the strainer which is balanced on top of the large stock pot because if you do you will send all of them to the ground. And you will swear a lot. In my defense there was nowhere else to put the tray… as you can see…

We get to bed at 3 am with 2/3 of the bruscetta (all of it was made but a third ended up on the floor.)

Day of, I ask my husband to go in late to work because I need help loading the car. I had planned to drive our van but unfortunately it needed a warrant (a New Zealand thing) which required new tires. So I am stuck with the toy yellow car with two doors and a moving truck worth of food. Also, as an added bonus, I had to go to class so everything had to be kept chilled and out of the sun for two hours (it's the middle of summer).

I arrive at the university and fall out of my clown car, picture my unwashed hair, crazed look in my eye. I look more like one of those clowns who live in their car and arrive to a children’s party with all their worldly possessions and completely drunk and are then “asked” to leave by a couple of the fathers present.

 

I then drive to my friend’s house to continue cooking because I live 45 minutes away. I take over her kitchen and boss my two best friends around for three hours then have to pack the clown car back up again. Then I drive back to University where the event is being held and fall out of the clown car while trying to keep everything else from falling out. Meanwhile, I am thinking this may have been a mistake and is there any way I could just cut up McDonald’s hamburgers and call it “retro”?

I have to get everything put together and plated in under one hour. I do not. I act like a Russian dictator (one of the bad ones, you know, from before...) to those assigned to help me.  The honored guests arrive (including several of my professors and the head of the English department) to find me trying to squirt mango sauce out of a receptacle that is now clogged with a piece of chili. In the end I went for Jackson Pollock-inspired plates called “Splattered chili mango”. Then they all watched (because the kitchen is in the middle of the room, you know like on a stage) as I tried to fill the afore mentioned chocolate cups with dairy free pudding. I was trying to use a cake decorating tube with a screw on lid. I would fill three and then the tube lid would explode off causing me to shout (under my breath of course) MOTHER ffffffffffffffff…dang it! And again MOTHER FFFFFFFFF… dang it!

I think the evening was a success… people were smiling and eating… I couldn’t really see straight... there is one picture of me at the event… I hope I don’t normally look like this… no one ate the celery…At the end of the night I found the 100 plates I had purchased for the event… apparently I didn’t notice people trying to balance food on napkins all night… I spent the next three days trying to convince my daughter that she liked crab, chili, mint, crostini because I went over budget and had to even it out by eating the leftovers instead of buying groceries. She does not like crab, chili, mint crostini, especially for breakfast strangely. But not wanting to be mean she would say with ultimate diplomacy, “I know it’s good I just… I just don’t want it right now…” This was usually followed by an uncontrolled sound like “ugh” as she gagged down the bite I begged her to try.

So hats off to all caterers I think it is safe to say your job is secure from me at least.

Musings of an Aging Mind PART TWO

More Birthday questions…

1.      Is it okay to let pandas starve in order to get a smart phone? If you are looking for money in your budget for a smart phone and you notice that the monthly payments to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) is almost the exact amount you would have to pay to have a smart phone, could it be time to let the Pandas fend for themselves? I mean they have always been pretty good at finding food before. Can’t they just go back to eating bamboo? Do they have to have a three course meal every day? I know I am willing to go without food sometimes for the sake of my phone so maybe they will be fine…

2.      I always wondered if at my very core I am a terrible person who would take money from pandas and buy a smart phone. The jury is still out. I still have my kindergarten phone but I have made the trip to the shiny phone store twice now…it’s starting to look ominous for the pandas… maybe they could start saving up? Like those doomsday prepers?

3.      Can people stop saying ‘Thus sayeth the Lord?’ Stop talking for Him please and if you are quoting scripture you better be ready to give me the historical context and the original Greek and Hebrew otherwise shut up because your “thus sayeth the Lord” just became “thus sayeth Joe Blow” and I, for some strange reason, do not trust in Joe Blow or his Bible. Also, as a bonus, there is a 50/50 chance I won’t know the original Greek and Hebrew so you might win the argument. (It is unlikely though because if you are screaming hate I am likely to be laughing at you, which means I have already won. Or  I may be running away from you because you are scary for no reason. Like it would be okay if you were scary because you were saving kids from sex slavery or something but just scary because you are filled with hate is a definite red flag about pursuing a friendship with you.) Plus, your first clue you might be on the wrong track is you are still using “sayeth” instead of says or said or babbled or jabbered or tweeted!! (see I’m getting the hang of it now).

Maybe we could try interjecting comments like, “I don’t know, let me think about that before answering and say it is absolutely what God believes.” Just a thought, because people are getting really upset and yelling and making signs painted with hate and looking ridiculous and I thought the whole point is that we are NOT God, so, maybe in the future, we can just let Him speak for Himself (or insert a non-gender based word for God here. I could not come up with one because I am running late). And then maybe our collective IQ would go up a few points.