In which Our Hero catches a cold and maybe another job...?

WARNING: Massive post!
I suggest that you make yourself a nice pot of tea and put on your slippers before you sit down to read this. Maybe even go to the bathroom before you begin.

I suppose I should have referred to myself (in the title) as "heroine" but that doesn't resonate as nicely in my head as "hero." (I was going to write "it doesn't sound as nice" but there we get into the disjunction (if that really is the word that I want) between the physical aspects of writing a blog (aka typing not actually talking) and the tone that I have chosen to use (I like to think that it is breezy and conversational and to those of you who disagree with me I say "whatEver." Capitalization intended.)

Just put on the headphones and some Neko Case and then discovered that I had the volume set loud enough for using the computer without the headphones, which is WAY too loud for the headphones and I had to rip them off of my head or risk going deaf (which is kind of a fear of mine given the number of ear infections and surgeries I have had. Actually only 1 surgery, and they just put little tubes through my eardrums to drain fluid better which I suppose is routine enough but they put me under general (uh-oh, spelliing trouble) anaesthesia and I had to go the hospital to have the procedure done.)

That's enough rambling; down to business:
At the beginning of this week Hannah, KT, and Will all came down with a cold. It passed through KT and Will pretty quickly and painlessly, but got Hannah good and so she has been fussy all this week. That means that she won't let me take care of her for very long before she starts to scream (and I mean crying/screaming not the screaming/whining that she does). While at work on wednesday night I started getting a stuffy nose and a scratchy throat. Yesterday I woke up feeling like during the night someon had inflated my head with snot to twice it's normal size and replaced my muscles with ABC gum left under a desk for an hour. I tried to take care of Hannah but neither of us had much patience for the other. I took her on a walk and she gabbled and cooed happily through half of it, but then the other shoe dropped and she stopped mid-coo and started to scream like I was trying to kill her. A block later my muscles (which had been lightly aching all day) decided that I had walked long enough and that they were also going to complain until I finally stopped moving. I booked it for home. I kept checking the baby to see if maybe she would cry herself to sleep but evey time I noticed that her eyes were closed and started to lower her seat to a horizontal position her eyes would fly open and she'd cry again.
I took half a dose of sleeping pill/decongestant and went to bed at 7:30. I couldn't even set my alarm clock because it's analog and I was going to set the alarm to go off at 8:15 which was also in 45 minutes as well as 12 hours and 45 minutes. I passed right out and slept for 12 hours (8 hours sleeping pill, the last 4 pure Emily! There should be sleep marathons that I could enter and then win) woke up at 7:30 the next morning, decided that I couldn't face the world quite yet and snoozed until 8:45. I woke up feeling 300 times better. Though, I think that the sleeping pill still messed with my head because I had some problems with giving out change (which isn't something that I have trouble with). It took me 3 tries to give one guy the correct change. I felt like a complete moron, which is different because I usually only feel like a partial moron. It's possible that the problems with change were exclusively my own but I have decided to blame the sleep-aid.
Speaking of work, my boss behind the bar, T, can't quite figure me out. I think that he decided that I am some sort of butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth perfectionist vibrating with nervous energy (he once told me to calm down, which I HATE, because it makes me even more tense) because he was decidedly cool to me one shift, until I said something about fucking up (those exact words) and he said something like "YOU swear?" and I admitted that I did and he was noticeably warmer the rest of the time.

I saw a sign out in front of the Arts Picturehouse (a movie theater a lot like Landmark theaters) for kitchenstaff. So I dropped off a CV and got called back and went in for my interview this morning. I was onlt lukewarm on the job, but after the interview I want it. It's a separate business from the theater and is owned by a guy who's only had the business a few months (and is only a few years older than me). He serves crepes and tapas through the bar and needs a sous chef/chef-type person to help him out. It's a cute little kitchen in a cute little theater, but more importantly people my age who look pretty cool and there has been a dearth of friend-type people in my life these past few weeks. Note: I realize that someone looking cool does not mean that they are cool. What I mean is that they are not terribly hipster-ish but neither do they look like they play warcraft every day of every week. The caveat being that I have met awesome hipsters and because someone plays warcraft does not mean that they are boring/lacking in social skills.
Having decided post-interview that I want the job I spent the rest of the day smacking myself in the forehead over every little mistake that I made in the interview. I went for "cool person to work with" rather than "OhmygodIhavetoworkherethisisthebestplaceever!" Which could have been a mistake. But I get the impression that this was one of the first interviews that this guy had ever conducted and he didn't know what to do and therefore is kind of an unknown entity. So he had me make a crepe for him (he showed me how to do it and then I made one) and I made a pretty good one, only one spot was too thick, one or two too thin and there was only one little hole. So, I hope that my crepe-making abilities mark me as clearly the best choice for the job.
Man, I hope that I get that job. I will be really bummed if I don't get it.
But if I don't get it, it means that there is a better job out there with more fun people to work with. Right?

WARNING! SELF-INDULGENT RECIPE SHARING

Ok Chums, wasn't going to do this, but I can't help myself. Like so many diary/notebook type things that I sit down to write this may dissolve into a cache of recipes. I hope that this post is the exception and not the rule but this soup was really good (if not really my creation).

White Bean Soup with Kale (version February 26)
Serves 4-6, I don't really know.

3-4 Strips bacon sliced into strips 1/4 inch wide
1 large onion, chopped
1-2 medium carrots, chopped to about the size of your beans
(1/2 tsp?) thyme, chopped if using fresh
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced/squeezed
1/4 tsp (or less, depending on how potent they are. Smell them from about 6 inches away and if you recoil in pain I suggest less) red papper flakes
1 can chopped tomatoes w/liquid
1/2 cup of dry white wine
1, 6-inch sprig of rosemary
2 inches of parmesan rind (you pick the side that is 2 inches. Length or width, whatever, it's your soup)
Cannelini beans (if using dried, soak them overnight in cold water, or a few hours before soup-time in a few different boiling water baths until they swell up. After soaking cook them until tender/creamy) what, 2 cans if you're using canned? I dunno. 1 can will feed 2-3 people.
Water
Kale, washed and deprived of the tough stalks (pull the leafy part away from the backbone-y part)

Fry the bacon in your soup pot until crispy. Add the onions and carrots and saute until softened. Add the thyme, bay leaves, paper flakes, and garlic and stir until the garlic smells nice (30 seconds? maybe less?). Add the tomatoes and their liquid. Stir. Add the wine and let it simmer for a few minutes, until the alcohol burns off. Throw in the rosemary, parmesan rind, beans AND the liquid that you cooked them in, and then water 1 inch from the top of the soup-stuff. Simmer for 10-15 minutes. Then throw the kale in and simmer until the kale is tender but isn't grey yet.
Add salt and pepper to taste and serve with shredded parmesan. Also, don't forget to avoid eating the bay leaves, parmesan rind, and rosemary sprig. You will regret it.

Can probably be vegetarianized if you cut out the bacon (then saute the aromatics in vegetable oil or somethig) and use vegetable stock instead of water and add a tablespoon or 2 of really good olive oil at the end. Maybe the same for veganizing it if you cut out the cheese rind as well? I dunno.

Blue-Grey Day

Grey day. I realized too late that I had nothing planned for today and therefore basically bummed around the house. Tried to help with the baby, but she is sick and therefore fussy and so WiIl nicely asked if it was a good idea that he leave (as per the plan), and I said well, maybe not. Chased myself out of the house and went and spent money and bought clothes at some charity shops (second-hand shopping in the UK is different than in the US. It's mostly last years H&M line rather than clothes from peoples garages and attics). I bought useful things that I wanted anyways (hip length jacket, black shirt for work, plaid granny skirt). Dropped off another CV and felt slightly less blue. More planning needs to be done in the future.
I have 20 minutes of music going around and around in my head, all blue-grey day songs:
The Bleeding Heart Show - The New Pornographers
Trains Across the Sea - SIlver Jews
Star Witness - Neko Case
Ideshow by the Seashore - Luna
O is the One that is Real - My Morning Jacket
Gotta go and finish dinner (never made this before, it's white bean soups with bacon and rosemary and kale).

Bonus Picture Post!

My paper hat.

Will made beer!

The beer was super foamy (it was a lot less foamy the next night).

I gesture towards the building housing my sisters flat (where I live too).

KT buys purple flowering broccoli at the market (purple flowering broccoli is neither purple, nor flowering, nore related to broccoli)

Trinity College, that is KT and Will pushing the buggy to the right.

More KT, Will, and buggy.

Of course you're sneezing, there's parsnip up your nose!

The title refers to an incident this afternoon when my sister was feeding my niece some nice mashed parsnip. It's difficult to feed H. so KT just let her paddle around in the bowl of clay-consistency-ed parsnip and hoped that like everything else that H. plays with it would end up in her mouth. Because H. lacks much manual dexterity she got parsnip all over her face, which irritated her and caused her to try and rub it off using her hands which were covered in more parsnip and she ended up spreading it further over her face and yes, up her nose. I wasn't watching at this point so when my sister said:
"Of course you're sneezing, there's parsnip up your nose!"
in a slightly exasperated "I-told-you-so" type voice to someone who doesn't speak/understand words, I found it noteworthy.

So, the job that I worked Monday and Tuesday was not nearly as bad as I made it sound. It was just definitely NOT what I was expecting or would have chosen.

My job was in the canteen of the Cambridge physics lab building. The canteen is almost identical to every other college dining hall, only 1) English 2) It served faculty and construction workers from a nearby site as well as students. I was a caterers assistant, which translates to "doer-of-bitch-work".
I was outfitted first thing with a white lab coat and a paper hat (better than a hairnet, but only slightly). Every person that I came into contact with fobbed me off onto someone else so I spent both days skulking in corners and trying to look busy while asking people if there were any jobs that needed doing, while they efficiently and busily went about their own work. I was working with 3 other women behind the counter (the chefs were all British men) and we were all immigrants of some sort. Milly was from Poland, Sylvia was from somewhere in Africa (judging by her accent and African looks, of course I may be making a horrible assumption and she actually is a 4th generation Swede) and Phang (Phan? Fan? Fang?) was from somewhere in Asia (again, judging from her thick accent and Asian looks, and again possibly an nth generation European). Milly was a hard-ass who told me what to do in an arrogant, unintelligible Polish-English accent and had a clear crush on one of the chefs (whose name was Nicholas). She would growl at me to do something, turn around and trill "NEEEEE-Co-LAhS!" and give him a melting look.
I made sandwiches, which are different than in the US. In America a sandwich usually has a thick mat of meat surrounded by lettuce, tomato, mayo and mustard. In the UK it is one little slice of meat (if any) and the lettuce/tomato combination is called "salad" and is a specific ingredient the way that avocado or cheese would be, and EVERY sandwich is buttered, even the tuna and egg salads. The second day I had to re-do some of the sandwiches twice, because there is a sandwich kind called a ploughmans sandwich, which is a sliver of ham, salad, pickle (= relish + some brown goo) and cheese. The first time I realized that I had forgotten to add the cheese and the second time I discovered that I had forgotten to add the pickle. I also broke a plate which Sylvia kindly wrapped up in a paper towel and then gave it to one of the chefs who (this is the odd part) looked ridiculously happy, as if Sylvia had given him the only thing that he had ever wanted and now he could go and die a happy man. I also tried to do dishes but I was very very slow, and I didn't know where to put them once they were clean.
Serving the students/faculty was interesting because I could have passed for any one of them (not that I am English or inclined to study physics). Just a few months ago I was on the other side of the counter, and suddenly I was behind it wearing the paper hat and hygiene-coat. It was also a job that I never expected to hold for various reasons: 1) I have a BA and people who graduate from college generally have different jobs 2) growing up middle-class conditions you to expect to have very different jobs as well, it allows you a choice of work and the chance to choose a career that tickles your fancy somehow (or else makes you hella bank) and this job is not one that many (or possibly any) people would choose over lawyer/doctor/secretary/sommelier. I also noticed that I was working a job usually done in America by an immigrant, which is who my co-workers were. I hadn't thought of myself as an immigrant, instead I thought of myself (think of myself) as someone on a little adventure, a hoo-rah before settling down and picking a career. For my co-workers, they were more serious about their time in England, they were seeing it as a very different sort of oppurtunity. I am glad that I didn't have to work that job for more that a few days.

Backstage

Best picture ever.
Started my pub job last night. The pub is general pub, the only problem being that the owner loves jazz, and I don't. I spent a fair amount of time last night trying to devise ways of taking over the CD player, none of them interesting enough to report. As I said before, the pub is pretty general. There are about 4 ales, 4(-ish?) lagers and some random stuff (lots of Guinness) and you pull pints differently depending on what kind of beer you are serving. I had one other general co-worker, V., (short for Vanessa, but I am lazy) who is a student at Bodyworks, some sort of stage school in Cambridge. Other than my American accent and her need to perfect her American accent we have NOTHING in common. She didn't know that people in Denmark speak Danish. She and C. one of my bosses (Charlotte, who is married to Tom. Tom works the bar and she works the kitchen) had a whole conversation in which neither of them responded to what the other said, something like this:
C: So, V, what kind of arts are you interested in?
V: Oh, I like singing and dancing, things like that
C: I like opera, ballet and classical music, I was never forced to like classical music.
V: I have dyed-blonde hair and am on a diet even though I take dance classes for hours every day
C: I am Danish and am constantly moving around as if I am actually a mass of clockwork wound to tightly
V: Oh, you're from Denmark, what language do they speak in Denmark?
C:Didn't you take geography in college (uk college = kind of high school)?
V: I got the governor (= princepal?) to let me only take acting and dancing and singing.
C: They speak danish in Denmark
...
and on. I have to go back to work tonight because I am too slow to work on Friday, when I would normally work so I am working tonight (Thursday) instead.

Another List

After today, things that I am more grateful for:

1. Graduating college
2. Having a US citizenship (oddly)
3. Sturdy middle-class upbringing
4. My new pub job
5. The fact that the next 8 months or so are not to be taken seriously at all

I will explain this within the next few days, as the story will not be complete for the next few days and this seems to be cooking up to one whopping big post and, I would like to give myself some time for my sense of humor to see the funny side of today.

I Am Employed!

It's true! I am employed! The second temp agency that I walked into on Wednesday hired me on the spot and gave me work as soon as I finished the registration (I came back on thursday with my passport for the rest of the registration and the only guy there said to come back later, as there was "sickness in the office" which I thought was a little melodramtic, as if they had all just come down with the bubonic plague and I should quickly exit the office and contact my local disease control center) on Friday. After I was entered into the computer they told me that they already had work for me. I am going to be a "caterers assistant" Monday (tomorrow) and Tuesday. Then about a half an hour ago I walked into a pub advertising for part-time help adn mentioned that I was looking for a job and I start on Wednesday. Neither of these employers asked for my references. Will summed it up as "they checked your voice for an accent and your arms for track-marks." Which is pretty accurate. My edge comes from my ability to speak English like a native English-speaker (though not a British-English speaker) and my uncanny availability on nights and weekends.
Anyways, the pub (I am calling it the P.) looks good and quiet and apparently caters to a whole lot of science Ph.D candidates from the polar research lab down the block. I can handle science Ph.Ds. I have also been meaning to go and see the polar research museum, which is also down the block.

Lists

List of Places to Go:
1) Scotland
Glasgow
Edinboroughkjhdrgkjg,hdf (dunno about spelling, don't care about spelling)
2) France (I know all this French, why not use it? plus, there is the cote d'azur which is Mediterranean and probably swimmable. Problem is, I only have one bathing suit bit, and it's the wrong bit)
3) Africa! Morocco...and GHANA! to visit MAUREEN!
4) Croatia
5) Hungary
6) Czech republic? Prague before the tourists?
7) Southern Spain
8) Estonia
9) Ireland... Dublin? Belfast?
10) Portugal? before the tourists arrive?
11) I need a map of Europe

List of Maps to Buy:

1) Europe
2) Uk
3) Cambridgeshire/East Anglia
4) London
5) Slightly larger map of the London Underground

List of Bare Walls on Which to Hang Said Maps:

1) The wall with the door and the heater
2) The wall with the desk
3) The wall with the window and the long side of the bed
4) The wall with the headboard and the dresser and the weird mildewy overhead cupboard-thing that now smells overwhelmingly of bleach, since in my zealousness to un-mildew it I sprayed it with bleach just before bedtime (aka a half hour ago) and now must suffer the pool-odor consequences. Maybe a small map will fit there.

ok, now I need to "go to bed" (lie there in the dark and curse the weird schedule that jetlag has imposed upon me).
Over and out.

Re-Try

I am in England because I wanted to try something new, and Cambridge because my sister and her husband are giving me free room and board if I take care of their daughter, my 8 month-old niece Hannah for a few afternoons a week.
So, in honor of Hannah I wanted to post a little about her, but that's boring so I decided that I would post something BY her. So she obligingly banged on the keyboard for a few minutes. Then she melted down and I thought that I would calm her by showing her my pictures using the slideshow function (she gets distracted by lights and shapes and music) but that involved quitting my web browser and consequently I lost her contribution. But I am going to recreate it here because it was so goddamned cute:

sfggaf GDTSDYSADFDX sfgdges (insert spit-up here and then shuffle as the sibling and I attempt to find something to wipe it up with) dssdsdDSSDCXSDDF

Also, that picture at the top of the post is the blessed child herself, typing away.

That's enough of that.
Today I saw a woman get hit by a mac truck. Luckily the truck was going about 5 mph (in England they measure distances in miles, yes, miles.) and she was wearing a helmet. But one minute she was turning the corner and the next she was on the road. She ignored everyone who asked her if she was ok and shakily walked away. It was pretty upsetting, especially because I am just getting used to biking around on the left side of the street.
I walked all the way to Jesus Green (it's a big, green, park in the center of Cambridge) and the kid woke up, so I took her to Heffers (a bookstore) and tried to walk her around, but I was wearing lowriding pants (or, trousers as in England pants=underwear) and had to find new ways of bending over, propping the baby up with one hand and trying to adjust the back of my pants with the other while she was clutching my fingers and trying to walk around. Then she developed an alarming habit of dropping my fingers and trying to stand on her own without anyone/thing holding her up. I would then panic and lunge for her, which ticked her off. I gave up and rolled her home. Luckily she fell asleep on the way.

The Establishment of the Blog

Hello folks, yes I am in England. Specifically in Cambridge, which is an hour-long train ride northeast from London. It's old and damp and cold (except for the past few days, which have been gorgeous, it got warm enough by early afternoon that you can be perfectly comfortable in only one extra layer). Everbody bikes everywhere in Cambridge because it is flat, biking is cheap, and because non-student Cambridge-folk are somewhat like Whole Foods people in their income-tax bracket and desire to save the earth. People also seem to be very trusting here when it comes to their bikes. You don't have to lock the bike to something, you just have to thread a lock between the frame and one wheel so that no one can ride it away and rest it against a wall. In Santa Cruz, it felt like you had to thread a lock through both wheels and the frame and then to a fence or something, take off the lights and even then you risking someone stealing your seat.
What else... the niece is adorable though she has fussy days because her fourth tooth is coming in and it probably hurts. She is beginning to recognize me when I walk into the room and smiles at me, though she clearly prefers her parents.
The plane ride was... pleasant. Which was weird. I had the entire middle section (five seats) to myself so I watched "Dan in Real Life" (a movie that I kinda wanted to see but never got around to it in Santa Cruz) with my legs spread into the next seat (because I could) then I pushed all of the armrests up and slept for four hours. Then, the guy at immigration barely looked at me, then stamped my passport with the correct stamp and sent me on my way. I was expecting some sort of Spanish Inquisition at customs, but apparently wholesome-looking Americans with the correct paperwork don't warrant a second glance (note: I was not wearing visible jewelery in my septum at the time, though I went through US customs this summer with a visible dealie while traveling with my parents and the immigration dude didn't even ask to see our passports, he took one look at us and waved us through. So maybe the septum piercing isn't as noteworthy as I'm afraid it is).
As for culture shock, it hasn't been an ongoing problem because so far I have spent most of my time with Americans, (my sister Caitlin(KT), her husband Will, and Nick [hi Nick!]). So, I have been pretty comfortable for the most part, but then there are great screaming waves of it when I have to interact more with actual ENGLISH people. I become meek and excessively smiley and I lose control of my eyebrows, which draw themselves up until I look concerned and upset. I also lower my voice to a whisper because I am so aware of my accent. In summation, I haven't been experiencing culture shock so much as mass loss of confidence.
For example, today I went to sign up with some temp agencies and one of them brushed me off pretty effectively, which wouldn't have been a problem but she gave me a very pitying look as I left. I had to walk around Cambridge collecting myself for the next hour to gain the necessary confidence to go into the next one. I NEVER needed that much time to recollect myself in the states. Luckily the next one worked out well. It's a temp agency for catering. They gave me a hygiene test that apparently I scored very well on (I think that I may add that to future CVs and applications, "scored well on hygiene test") and hired me on the spot (I think that my ability to speak English fluently was my edge there, it sounds like many people from the EU who don't speak English sign up with this agency) the staff also kept talking about my experience "at the front of a business" which also gave me the warm fuzzies, I am not sure what it means, but I imagined myself posing in a big glass window, and my first thought (which was rather irraitonal) was "ooooh, I may have to buy some new clothes!" I think that they are referring to my experience with customer service, so more waitstaff/cashier/coatcheck than sous chef/dishwasher/janitor, which is all right with me.
Ok, running out of enthusiasm for writing this, more later.