Bonsai Trees

I've always really loved bonsai trees. I've also always wanted one though I kept this notion to myself anytime there wasn't one around, giving me cause to announce heartily that I really really wanted one. Sometime in December, as we strolled through a sushi joint filled with plastic bonsais I mentioned to no one that I really wanted a bonsai tree and Chris caught it. That Chris is really on the ball.
He got me a bonsai tree for Christmas.

Meet Carman

She's a Fukien Tea tree (carmano mycrophylla, if I'm being snobby and scientific)(which is how I got her name). This means she'll make little white flowers on occasion and if I feed her properly, she'll also make tiny cherries. Carman is but a wee baby in the life and times of a bonsai tree. Carman has lots of growing to do before I can bend and shape her in such a way that makes me look like a wise master of sorts.

My first few weeks with the new gal were very stressful. Her leaves would fall off with just the faint breeze of my walking past her. All the research led to me mass confusion on wether she was a beginners dream or a task for a seasoned bonsai veteran. Make sure she gets water but too much will cause root rot. Make sure the soil is dry before you water again but don't let the soil dry out. Fukien Tea trees are sensitive to these tiny little bugs that poop acid, killing off leaves. Don't forget to fertilize! But not as often in winter. 

So I had a talk with ole Carman, told her she had to hang in there because she wasn't cheap and I couldn't let Chris down. And also, I'm a big fan her kind. I told her I'd do my best if she tried too.

So I decided I should mimic the climate of her homeland. I moved the gal into my bathroom and each time I shower I create an incubator for her, heating up her bright green leaves and keeping her soil damp how she likes it. Since this grand experiment, Carman got her first blooms.

As Carman grows into wise old lady, her trunk will quadruple in size and her leaves will become a dense forest of Chinese secrets. In the meantime, I've got to decide which haircut to train her for. I just don't know which one suits her.

Lunch Lady Lu

Today's rant will be accompanied by pictures of sailboats. Because why not?
(Because I haven't taken any pictures in weeks. I'm sorry!)

Being a lunch lady is an insightful job. You encounter folks at the height of their hangriness, that pre-first bite excitement, or sometimes a rushed frenzy to grab a snack before class. "Keep the penny!" they shout, scuttling out the door.
And really I'm not a lunch lady but rather an employee of Quiznos or Subway, slicing open foot long hoagies and filling them with the wildest of sandwich dreams. I also make pizzas.

Without being too critical of the cafe, I'll tell you that we're always out of something and I never have enough quarters in my register. I've come to enjoy the other school employees, like the maintenance man, Kevin and the two campus police officers. One of whom consistently pokes his head into the cafe just to let us know that we are out of his preferred bread or salad dressing, chastising us for not being like Burger King. "I'm supposed to have it my way!" he says, flashing his bright white smile.

I've learned to see through the impatient students waiting at my register and determine if they're late, really hungry, mentally preoccupied, or if simply, they just don't like me. There are a handful I simply can't impress. There are also a handful I simply can't read. Or understand for that matter.
"Ugotta cakalata?"

In an interesting turn of fun facts I'll tell you that the kids (folks around my age) are typically polite enough, saying either please or thank you and maybe smiling at me if they look up from their phones. It's the adult students that snarl and snap and fight me about change. I'd say the school is nearly half adult students and I reckon they're there because previous plans haven't worked out and now they're trying something new. But when you've gotten to your fifties and you realize you have to go back to school, you don't have a whole lot of patience. And with the loss of patience, apparently goes all your manners as well.

I'm often appalled by the adults' behavior. I would expect, after all these years, that they would have learned the power of a kind word here and there. You're a grandmother after all. Don't you have the slightest clue how to speak to people? I am shouted at so regularly that no one even looks up.
"You want $4 for a sandwich?" a woman will howl, throwing it down on the counter and then looking at me as though I'd sawed through a kitten with a butter knife. Typically I respond calmly and this seems to enrage the victim, causing them to cuss and mutter while they gather their things and stomp out the door. I've heard the F-word from more middle aged women than, well anyone actually.
I also receive distasteful stares when I'm midway through fixing their sandwich and they discover I'm out of olives or green peppers. I get lots of teeth sucked in my direction and also expressions that would suggest that I am simply an imbecile that doesn't know what a green pepper is.

All this being said, some of the students, adults and kids, are the kindest people that remember my name and ask me about my day. Some of the kids have a fun sense of humor and we'll both get tickled at my sub-par sandwich making skills or the running commentary I feel is necessary while someone watches me watch their pizza bake.

My lunch lady services are now on and off for the rest of the month and probably a few to-be-determined days in February. I'm also still doing those conference set-ups though now they have hired two other men, making it five guys and me, and I feel like I really have to prove my usefulness.
Lately they keep giving me tablecloth duty. Is it because I'm a girl?

Bloggers Block

The last thing I want to do is to once again tell you that I have no exciting news. As I say this time of year every year, tis a dull time of year. I'll give you the usual family update, it's been a while I suppose, but after that I've got nothing. I've got a serious case of Bloggers Block.
When I started this blog all those years ago, I never imagined I'd be sitting here four years later still desperately searching for ways to make you two Idaho Mountain People miss life in the South and come on home. I get the feeling this whole "homesick blog" plan seriously backfired.

My riotous posting has been sparse as I am back in the dungeon working as a lunch lady for those surly Trident students. I will continue being a slop serving wench for the rest of the month of January, somedays working 10 hour shifts. I will save any commentary on this for another post. Just know, it's the pits.
To ease my workplace woes I've conjured up a few friends for a nearly-once-weekly dinner and game night. Rotating who cooks, who's house, and what games we play. I've not yet taught them Shanghai. It's not my game week yet. I'm on cooking duty this week.

Ellen has taken a job as an assistant property manager for a fairly large commercial real estate firm. I don't really know the details of this other than last week she was still planning on becoming a high school teacher and then Wednesday she had her first day training at the firm. She feels overwhelmed at the moment, which is to be expected. She is the assistant to three or four folks I think, and they all have thrown a lot at her at once. It seems like a good gig though and once she gets used to things I imagine she'll be running the place. A fun bonus is that her office is one block up and one block over from my cavernous cafeteria. I told her to come over one day and I'd make her a sandwich. I don't think she will.

The Chris and Chris Duo are carrying on in their usual busy fashions though both have taken to betting each other on the outcome of various football games. This has resulted in passing the same $20 bill back and forth for the last few months.

As for Moppy, well she's just kind of crazy. I feel like I've spent so little time with her since going back to work and the few times I've seen her she's singing wildly while cleaning the house. She encourages the vacuum cleaner, "Come on, you can do it! Just a little more." and seems to talk to no one while loading the various washing systems.
"Who are you talking to?" we ask her.
"Well, no one," she realizes and then laughs maniacally.

I'm going to try to get back into posting regularly. To be honest, I'm just so tired when I get home. I fall right to sleep.
For now I shall leave you only with our latest acrobatic act. This was just our first try. Give us some time.

Juicebox

When my high school best friend left the South for the cold and grey of a northern city, I became the foster mother to her perfectly white, somewhat hefty gerbil, Juicebox.

Juicebox was quiet and wary of strangers. He mostly kept to himself and enjoyed the everyday thrills of his hamster wheel and chunks of cardboard that I would slip into his cage for him to gnaw down to dust in a matter of seconds. My family regarded Juicebox kindly and Dad utilized him for the disposing of bank statements and otherwise confidential information.

In essence, Juicy had it made. He could rely on me to change out his cedar chips and feed him pebbles every morning. I made a point of holding him a few times each day and stroking his soft white fur while I told him all about my distaste for the educational system. He was a patient listener, terrified and edgy. Occasionally Juicy would disregard my small talk and make a run for it, hurling himself out of my gentle grasp and landing with a thunk on the floor. While I was happy for Juicebox to experience the exhilaration of a full-throttle run, I’d spend the rest of the afternoon coaxing him out from under the sofa with a combination of love ballads and threats of rat poison.

I made sure Juicebox was perfectly comfortable while he waited around to die. For months I watched his little body quiver from each strong heartbeat. He ate and drank and chewed. He bit me a few times but more often than not he’d sit on my shoulder and wait for his next chance to hide away from life under his bunker of cedar chips. Just before I reluctantly left for college, Juicebox kicked the bucket. I should have realized this sign.

Seven years later, I am Juicebox. Content to just be and delighted by the same simple thrills that Juicy reveled in. I live in my own hamster paradise and my parents call to monitor my cedar chips and food intake. They prevent me from any preventable fatalities and they most definitely won’t let me live out my days underneath the sofa, even though I keep trying. Back in the day, I pitied Juicebox.

“He’ll never be free. He’ll never accomplish anything.” I thought, wildly shaking tin foil to frighten him out of his hiding place. Then again, what did I expect Juicy to accomplish? He wasn’t tech savy nor did he have thumbs. What’s wrong with just being a gerbil? 

Now I've taken Juicy's place in front of that frightening yet oddly unmotivating, sheet of thrashing tin foil that the world is waving at me.
"What do they want from me?" I wonder from the dark recesses of my light grey sofa, ready to bite any fingers that extend in my direction.

Maybe if I'm really still, they won't see me.

M'HomeMents. See What I Did There?

My computer is low on storage. This is because I perpetually fill it with photographs that I never do anything with. So I've been sifting. Mostly I've been finding crap to delete and I've discovered that it's not the perfectly timed shots of exotic locales that I love most. It's my boundless collection of haphazard snapshots and sweet moments from home that make me smile and feel warm inside. 

In fact, I love home so much, I can't look at homeless people without getting misty-eyed and blowing my cover as a tough guy. It's not because I'm worried that they're hungry or cold (Though I do. Big time). It's that I wish so badly they could have what I have and feel the way I do when I walk in Mom and Dad's front door.

I think it's good timing to sift through so many lovely home moments. (M'HomeMents). I still feel a little like I'm working with my arranged marriage to Charleston, which leaves me spending lots of time thinking about places and adventures and not really paying attention to real life. 

But gosh. What a dream I live in. 

Happy Lou Years

This is my buddy Louis and his adorable girlfriend Amy.
He's as dry and sassy in real life as he looks in the picture.

You may know him from Asheville this summer.

Louis is about the only good thing to come out of my time in high school. Ole Lou forced me to be his friend in french class our freshman year because he said that befriending mutes is a fun challenge.
I was the mute mind you. Louie forced me out of my shell and tried to teach me the importance of Jimi Hendrix and drinking enough water. We've been buddies ever since.

In college he became the captain of the Ultimate Frisbee team and his apartment was filled with roughly 9-12 fellas during the week and 20+ on weekends. I was the only non-frisbee player and at the time, also not a student at CofC. I was known as "Louis' high school friend" or "Cupcake Girl." They still call me Cupcake Girl actually, even though I haven't shown up with a delicate pastry since 2010.

This was the core group of weekday fellas.

And something like this was a typical day.

Since Louie moved to Asheville last Spring I've barely seen any of these guys. I'd be more angry about him moving if he wasn't so darn happy up there. It was New Year's that brought Lou back to town and reunited the whole gang this past weekend. I was elated to see this bunch and a few of them, since it was a special occasion, even called me Laura. It was here, as I waited for 2015, that I realized that 2014 was Louie and my 10 year anniversary. I was officially the oldest friend at the party and was promptly congratulated for being "the only consistent female in Louis' life." 

Pre-Amy of course. (I think they'll get married and I can't wait.)

This has nothing to do with anything. Just that thinking about the early adventures of Lou and Lu made me think about school where Louie and I were looked at by some of our teachers as adult kids that didn't belong in high school. I was so quiet all those years. I mumbled something to the kid next to me at graduation and he turned to look at me with surprise on his face. 

"I didn't know you spoke English." he told me.

Anyways, I celebrated New Years with some of my favorite people. I guess that's my point.
I'm still so happy about it.