The Perks of Being a Barista

As you might know, I work as a barista. It's probably the coolest job ever. I love making coffee and making my customers happy. This summer I'm actually working at a place that allows me to earn tips, which is new for me. Tips are great. Ever since Zach gave me the idea to use my tips to buy lunch, I haven't once had to use my debit card to pay for lunch while I'm at work. I love using cash on other little things too.

But one of the best perks of being a barista is the ability to make yourself free coffee, and that right has been taken away from me recently.We have to pay for everything we make ourselves from now on. I guess the owner is trying to actually make money or something? All I know is I'm pretty sure taking away my free coffee rights is unethical and against the International Law of Coffee set down by that giant coffee bean guy from that one episode of Regular Show. I mean, I don't have it in writing, but I'm almost positive.

It's not just that I enjoyed the perk of free coffee; it's also that sometimes I make weird stuff and I'm not sure how much to charge for it. Much like the pretzel pizza the guy next door makes himself. That's not on the menu.

With all the ever-changing policies and Zach being let go and Big Brother (the owners have video cameras, with audio. They watch us from home. It might be all they ever do?) and everything else, I'm starting to love my job a lot less. Which is good, because I needed to want to go back to school next month.

Too Creative?

I have two things working against me this summer. The first is that I've started watching cooking competition shows, mainly MasterChef. The second is that when I'm at work, my favorite place to get dinner is a sandwich place. The result is that when I'm at home I never feel like making myself just a sandwich. Why would I want a sandwich for lunch if I'm going to have a sandwich for dinner. I'd rather try to be creative and make something exciting!

Friday I decided to just see what was in the refrigerator and whip up something amazing. I started by putting some fresh pineapple in the skillet, then added sliced red onion. When I decided the juices of the pineapple had cooked off and I needed more moisture, I added some pear wine. It seemed like a good idea. I also threw in a little broccoli and a bunch of cauliflower among other things, having no idea where any of this was going to go. Eventually I decided the pineapple and wine would be too sweet, so I added soy sauce to make it savory and then half and half, I'm not sure why. After it cooked for a while, I gave up on any other ideas and decided to fold it into a tortilla. I slid the mess onto a plate and plopped a buttered tortilla in the pan. Then I waited for that to crisp up a little, slid my messy concoction onto it, and folded it as well as I could.

It tasted kind of surprisingly delicious, for the most part. There was too much of something. Maybe sweet, maybe sour; I couldn't tell. Afterwards the whole idea seemed stupid. Clearly I had tried to be too creative because of too much tv.

Today I was sure it would be better. I decided to make myself a quesadilla with bacon and artichoke hearts. I changed the recipe a little when I decided ham would be easier than bacon. After throwing my main ingredients on top of my tortilla, I decided to add spices. I started with chili powder my favorite spice that I probably use on too many dishes (Ramen noodles, popcorn, scrambled eggs, easy mac...). And then I thought, Cumin. Cumin adds a nice flavor to Mexican foods, right? I sprinkled a little more than I had intended, then put the bottle back in the cabinet next to the cumin...

Wait, if that's the cumin in the cabinet, what did I just put in my quesadilla? Well, it also starts with "c" but cinnamon doesn't taste so great with melted cheese and garlic-marinated artichoke hearts.

I have to admit, the cinnamon smelled amazing as it heated in the skillet. For the most part, it was tolerable to  eat too. But the first time I bit into a cinnamon-sprinkled artichoke, I wanted to puke. They just don't complement one another.

Learn from my mistakes. Don't let cooking shows make you overcreative about your lunch.

What Goes Up...

Why is it that what goes up must come down, but not everything that goes down, must come up?

I know: Gravity. Except it rained in town tonight so I rolled my windows down in my car and one of them never rolled back up so I really wish the dumb rule would go ahead and work both ways. Whatever.

I wonder how long it will take before my mom realizes I took her car out of the garage and replaced it with mine so no one could steal my radio through the gaping hole in the side of my car that used to be a window. I wonder what I will do once I have to go back to school? I have to get this fixed, don't I? Cool. I needed an excuse to spend some good money.

I had a bad night.

The Heart of London

I was going to blog about something else, but then I was distracted, and eventually I ended up watching the opening ceremony for this year's Olympics, and how could I not blog about that?

First off, I just want to say I'm pissed I was an extra hour behind because I live in the Mountain Time Zone. Central Time isn't delayed compared to Eastern. Why do Mountain and Pacific have to suffer?

Anyway, this was the first opening ceremony I ever watched, and I was very impressed. From what I hear, there was no matching the display of Beijing's ceremony from 2008, but I'd like to think London had something Beijing didn't. What I saw tonight was a strong and inspiring national pride. In the opening ceremonies, I felt like I was seeing into the heart of London and of the United Kingdom.

Probably the first thing I was really excited about was seeing Kenneth Branagh read the quote from The Tempest. I'm a big fan of Branagh so I thought it was neat to see him be such an important part of something as huge as the Olympics, but also the guy just looked delighted. The grin on his face seemed to reveal his own personal joy at having the games return to his home country.

I also really enjoyed the illustration of the Industrial Revolution. Aside from being a pleasure to watch, this demonstration really highlighted Britain's history and really spoke to me as London's way of saying, "This is who we are." This was followed by the beautiful "Second to the Right and Straight on 'Til Morning" which highlighted numerous themes and characters of British literature. I mean, literature. You know I had to love that.

Later, Paul McCartney performs "Hey, Jude" and there is a slight hiccup somewhere in the first lines. I thought maybe he was laughing at something, but I couldn't imagine what. Then later someone mentioned he had choked up. What? Paul McCartney? But then it wasn't really all that hard to believe, because I was almost in tears myself.

Overall, I thought London did a great job. So they're not Beijing. So what? Their ceremony had incredible heart, and the lighting of the flame was incredible to watch. I'll be watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics for many years, and I think I'll always have to compare future performances to what I saw London do tonight.

I'm Not Feeling It

Surprise, surprise. It's five minutes to midnight and I haven't even attempted to post a blog entry for today. True, part of that is because my computer died and I was too lazy to carry it up to room and plug it in. It's also because I just don't feel like blogging today.

To be honest, I don't feel like doing much of anything. I didn't have a bad day. I went to work; I made delicious coffee and smoothies; I made a second attempt to introduce myself to my new co-worker, the manager's daughter, and I think I did a much better job of that today; I had another delicious sandwich from the sandwich shop upstairs, this time with amazing grilled onions; but then I got home and just became lazy. Took a double nap. Ate the rest of the leftover guacamole. Played with the apps on my phone. Watched old episodes of Top Chef Masters, whatever that is.

I think I'm just lonely? My sister is gone, I'm sad about Zach being fired, I didn't spend a lot of time with my parents after they got home tonight.

Being lazy makes me feel awful. Tomorrow I think I'll do something. Don't ask me what.

Tacos and Pie

Shirley: Shut up, Leonard; I found your YouTube page. What's the point of reviewing frozen pizza?
Leonard: You're talking about it.
Shirley: That is true... 


I'm using the above quote from Community to argue that the following entry is not entirely irrelevant. You can decide for yourself whether or not the argument works.

Sometimes I don't feel like going upstairs for a sandwich during my lunch break, and I won't eat from anywhere in the food court other than the sandwich place, so I just skip lunch or grab a pretzel from next door. Yesterday was one of those days. I ate my free pepperoni pretzel and then told myself I'd go across the street after work for some tacos. Del Taco has a 3 for $1 deal on Tuesdays, and tacos always sound good to me. I texted my boyfriend saying I'd bring him lunch too.

As it turned out, the deal is a "Taco Nights" deal. I panicked for a second, but at Del Taco it seems night starts at 3, which is luckily when I get off work. I noticed that the "regular tacos" were 3 for $.99 and the "classic tacos" were 3 for $1.99. The only difference is tomato. I don't know why Taco Bell and Del Taco charge extra for tomato (but the Taco Supreme at Taco Bell has sour cream too, right?) but I bought three of the classic tacos for my boyfriend because unlike me, he likes tomato. I still got six tacos for $3.19 total, so I don't really care. That's a deal even if their sauce is a little spicy for my taste.

Then at home we had chicken fajitas for dinner. Tacos and the recipe we use for chicken fajitas are two of the few Mexican meals I actually enjoy, so it was a good day. I ate the leftover fajita chicken while watching MasterChef. That show makes me hungry for some weird reason. As if it's about food or something....

Tonight I worked the closing shift which ends at about 9. I told my boyfriend I wanted to try to get out of there as soon as possible and make it to Pie Rush at Village Inn. If you have a Perkins in your town, you probably don't know what a Village Inn is, because they have a hard time existing in the same area. Same basic place though. Breakfast and pie. Village Inn does this thing where you can get a free slice of pie every Wednesday between 10 and 10, but it's only good for their fruit pies and the featured pie of the month. This being the last Wednesday of the month, I wanted to try the Peach Supreme before it was gone. It was a good idea, but they were out by the time we made it. I had Lemon Supreme instead. The one failure of this pie is the whipped cream on top. You give me lemon pie, I want meringue. Enough said.

To sum up, I really like food. I also had a delicious grilled Italian Sub today from the sandwich place in the food court. The girl whose name I don't know makes the best sandwiches.

That's all I have for today. I hope you like food too.

The Darkness Rises

I'm not the kind of person to complain about the violence of video games and movies or to associate that violence with the real violence that happens in the world around me, but a few nights ago some guy walked into a theater and killed some people, and I couldn't help but see the connection.

You've all heard about it by now. It was the premier of the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises, and this guy just started shooting during the film. Lots of confusion. People thought it was part of the movie or something. The whole thing reminds me of the opening scene of Scream 2, when that lady gets stabbed to death during the film, and the audience thinks it's some gimmick, and the killer is dressed exactly like so many other moviegoers.

It also reminds me of a character in the previous Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Anyone remember Heath Ledger as The Joker? He had no real motives. His game was chaos for the sake of chaos, crime for the sake of crime, murder and death for the sake of murder and death. The character was so disturbed, Ledger had problems getting to sleep at night.

I don't know much about what went down at that theater in Aurora or what the authorities have determined as far as motive, but I did hear the guy didn't even resist arrest. He didn't turn the gun on himself like so many other crazed shooters we hear about on the news. And that's why I think his motive was exactly this: He thinks he is The Joker. He wanted only chaos. There was no more rhyme or reason beyond this.

This is just my opinion. I'm not saying movies should never have violence or even that this movie was entirely responsible for the recent tragedy in Aurora. All I'm saying is I believe this was not at random, that this occurred at that specific movie for a reason, and that the violence in a movie filmed years ago has a direct and deep connection to an act of violence at the movies just the other night.

Challenge Accepted

Hello again. I've been away for quite a while, and I do have some good excuses and some poor ones, but I don't see any reason to list those. The point is I was gone and now I'm back and I'm jumping back in with another challenge. My friend at 13:13 blog decided to do a 30-day challenge, and he asked if I wanted to join him. Of course I couldn't turn him down. So for the next 30 days I will find something and anything to say, long or short, profound or insignificant (but mostly insignificant) once every day. I hope it's fun for everyone involved.

Thanks for reading!