9.19.2006

Bowling for Spinach


Well hello there! As you can see, I haven't been posting lately. I've been a little bit busy molding young minds in the morning and treating grown up diners like kindergarteners in the evenings. So.

First off, I would like to say that I will hopefully sustain from any pre-9 am posting, since last time I actually wrote the phrase "bushy what-have-you." Goodness. I didn't mean it that way. Get your head out of the gutter!

Is it out? Of the gutter? Good. Now let's do some housekeeping.

1. I recently received an email from a certain journalism listserv. Even though I dropped out of the program in December, and even though they threatened to sever my life line to all of the secret journo activity that goes on behind closed doors, I still get emails. And it's a good thing they didn't keep good on their promise, because I heard about the most amazing job opportunity through it. Was it perhaps an editorial position at Conde Nast? Uh-uh. A reporting gig for the NYTimes? Nope. What then? Maybe a shit paying freelance position for some trendy website? Again, no. It was this:

"I frequently hear about childcare jobs, generally paying $10/hour. If you're interested in being contacted about such jobs,
please send me--not the entire list!--an email at professorwithkid@expensiveuniversity.edu."

WOW! I'm so glad that these exclusive openings are being well-guarded by the educated elite. Who knows what regular citizens would do with this sort of access?

Come to think of it, $10 an hour isn't bad for someone with a journalism degree.

2. Remember the good old days, when spinach was free of killer foodborne bacteria? Me neither. So last weekend at work we 86'd our house greens, which are spinach. Fresh, bagged spinach, delivered to our back door. Most people understood when I told them why we didn't have it (Why did they even want it? Don't they watch the news?). But others, the special "foodie" customers, were like, "OH. So you don't use FRESH spinach?"

And I was like, "HMMM. We use fresh, bagged spinach."

As in, the spinach has not been frozen or canned and we don't get it pre-cooked. But yes, shame of all shames, put a scarlet "S" on us, we use spinach that has come in bags. Fresh. Is it wilted, you might ask? No. It is fresh, green, leafy, delicious spinach. By Sunday, the conversation was going like this:

Foodie: "Ah-HAH! So you don't use FRESH spinach?"
Me: "Well, we don't have a spinach farm in the back of the restaurant. The chef doesn't just walk into the FRESH spinach farm in the back and pick out FRESH bushels of spinach for the night. We get it delivered it here, in bags. Inside those bags is fresh spinach."

Aaaaarghh! Why, people?

3. Last, I would like to propose that local radio DJs, specifically the ones at WFNX, the local "alternative" radio station, stop playing any and every crappy Beastie Boys song every day on every show at any time. The Beastie Boys are just really really really really bad. Even if I liked the BBs, the amount of play they get on WFNX is unprecedented. It seems that if Julie Kramer isn't trying to sell me a mattres (leave off the last "S" for savings!), then she's blazing through her show with a sweet Beastie tune. It's almost as bad as the Red Hot Chili Peppers on WBCN. If I never hear the term "funky monkey," again, it will be too soon.

9.07.2006

AM/PM


It is 6:58 pm as I write this (ok, I don't know how to make the time right on my blog). Why am I awake at such a crazy hour, you ask? Because today I start my new job at an elementary school, I answer. This morning it was easy getting up, I popped right up a 6:45, no zonkiness, no zombie walk, all bright-eyes and bushy what-have-you. But, since I'm not going to be able to scale back my hours from the restaurant, it's going to be a big adjustment of not-sleeping-'til-noon, or as my Umass professor kept putting it Tuesday night, "transformative." Oh well.

In related news, I kind of hate the Charlie card. It's not that I hate it, but I hate how it's taking a dog's year for the switch to happen, resulting in some stations being Charlied up, and other being Charlie-less. On my way to UMB the other day, I bought two tokens one to get there, and one to get back at the Harvard Square station. Only to find upon my return that my grubby little token wasn't going to help me at JFK/Umass at all. Long story short, I ended up running smack into the doors of the train in an attempt to not miss it, even though I should have been able to if only I had known beforehand about Charlie. I actually kicked the door shouting "No! Wait!" as if I had a real emergency. At least the building didn't collapse on me though.

9.05.2006

Full Bloom/Everything but the Kitchen Sink


I kind of have lot of balls in the air right now, or however that saying goes about juggling.

To list:
-Working like a dog at the restaurant, about to take on more responsibility for awhile
-Starting my sociocultural perspectives on ed. class in about two hours, meeting one night a week (one of my precious nights off) until December
-Just got back from an interview for a library assistant at an elementary school. This job would be great, but I am secretly hoping I don't get it. It would involve teaching 19 different classes, average size of 22. That's...418 students!! Can I make them wear nametags? Can I just let them use computers while I cat nap amongst the encyclopedias? Probably I won't get it because I am horribly unqualified for it. Pretty much my best qualification is that I wear glasses.

To make up for my stupid schedule, I just went to Formaggio's Kitchen and bought obscenely overpriced gourmet food. Some fancy granola, french bread, and of course, cheese. Fancy, expensive cheese. As the one perk of shopping at fancy, outrageously priced, don't-these-people-know-there-are-children-who-live-off-of-25 cents-a-day Foramaggio's, I got to eat a lot of samples while I was shopping around, trying to avoid the cheese boy's steely glare. The thing is, I could buy a jar of Newman's Own Basil & Tomato Sauce and a box of Bucatini pasta (my new favorite kind) at Shaw's and be just as satisfied. But where's the perk in doing that?