This Beautiful Lady...

...is Wando High School's newest Hospitality teacher.

Ye be warned, kids.

Kids These Days

I've gotten to where I get a little queazy when I go into the work in the morning. For a number of reasons work has become extremely frustrating and also has taken over my life. Six days a week I work 9-5 and I also go in for a 10pm-1am stint on Friday and Saturday nights. This is not conducive to living a happy life. I'm achy, tired and lonely, for I have no time but work time. I don't read or watch movies and as you may have noticed, I barely have time to regale you with tales of the life I'm not living. I've been sightly down the last few months and I find myself sitting in my car until exactly 9:00 so that I'm not in the office even a minute earlier than I have to be.

Last weekend I had to go in early and as I was standing over my kitchen sink gobbling up some breakfast, an early morning sun ray lit up the window in front of me. I looked out at the pond and saw that the ducks that live back there have had four little babies and they were splashing around and zooming across the water and then I noticed that the jasmine has bloomed and all the trees are green and something about how the light was coming through the banister outside made me really homesick. I'd forgotten about animals and quiet mornings. I realized I hadn't looked out my kitchen window in months and it all made me really sad. I stood there so long, just staring that I was late that day.

So then Big Lu snapped. I let out a hearty and well-stated rant to no one of consequence at work and then marched on over to HR and shrieked, "I can't take it anymore!!"
Actually I sat quietly and explained to her that my interests have shifted and I would like to be the company's in-house floral designer (instead of the overworked and under-appreciated warehouse wench I've become) and Kablamo! I'm off warehouse duty. And after this month, no more 10pm-1am shifts. I might even work just four days a week, snipping stems and fluffing petals. You know how I love flowers.

With this promotion of title comes a diminishing number of working hours and subsequently, a smaller number on my paychecks. And this means I can really only afford to do this for a few months and then I'll have to find that elusive "real job" I keep hearing about. I don't see that ever working out for me though because I'm not money driven and will gladly leave a paying job early for an extra hour in the backyard that day. I just don't know how I'm ever going to make any of this work.

Just in time though, Mom and Dad left for a weekend for some work conferences so I stayed at theirs on Pet Patrol. I got up extra early to have my quiet mornings and squeeze in some dock time for Buddy. It all made my heart happy. I think it'll hold me over for a little while. I just think this place is magic.

En Guarde

You know what makes you so angry when you’re already a little cranky? 

I’ll tell you.

Have you ever gone to take something out of your closet and the hanger gets caught on another hanger? Doesn’t that just make you crazy? You’re already mentally working on something and you’re a little heated about it and then you go to grab a shirt, a simple, thoughtless action that you complete effortlessly everyday and then it catches something. Another hanger. A strap in a dress. Doesn’t matter. You wind up in battle.

I call it Coat Hanger Fencing. That initial snag makes you give it a little jerk. Maybe up and to the right and that will unhook it. But no. Again you try. And again, until you’re in a wide-legged crouch with your head leaned way back, one hand on your hip and flailing your other arm up and around, stabbing left, right, up. How about an unexpected JAB! A quick shimmy.

Nothing enrages me more and as I antagonize myself by refusing to simply stop and untangle the hangers, my closet falls to pieces. Neighboring dresses slip off their plastic pegs. Nearby blouses jump ship, floating delicately down to the pile of by-standing casualties. Belts whip around my head and sweater sleeves blend into the storm while I continue to leap forwards and back. My balestra lunges will surly catch that attack hanger off-guard.

The shirt I wanted fell to the ground ages ago but it’s the principle. I cannot be defeated by a wire hanger. I WILL have this hanger. And in the end, whether the fencing tactics do the untangling or I concede and go in manually, when I finally hold that sole hanger in my stinging, wire-whipped hand, I feel no sense of relief. For having even engaged in a battle with a coat hanger takes away the pleasures of victory. I’ve won nothing. Red faced and angry, I cast that hanger to the ground, my heart pounding and my ears hot with rage.

Look at the state of this morning's attack hanger.

Just makes me SO angry.