Watermill

Laundry and cooking. Sounds like my Filipina maid was here today. Ha.

I get to spend many hours lost in my own thoughts. It wouldn't matter if I am deep in my work or house chores like today. My thoughts or ideas are constantly on a big watermill rolling forward to let the wooden buckets spill ideas only to pick them up and recycle them again in my mind.

As an only child I was used to spending time in my own company and the comfort of being solitary calms me and can, on sporadic occasion, cause anxiety until I examine my feelings or talk to the angels and old spirits that surround me. It doesn't matter to me if you don't believe, it matters that I do.

The past week I lost my muse to write. I was letting the disappointment of losing my places in my cooking classes get to me. My previous and very timely reservations were ignored and tossed aside in favor of the new online self-serve reservation system. Those four classes I signed up for showed the status waiting list instead of confirmed. I know I was the first to reserve those classes with the main coordinator who is visiting the UK at the moment. The chef/owner and his staff assisting him with this didn't handle the transition well. After trying to rectify it gently via e-mails, I decided to let karma take care of it.

On Friday, all the volunteers/cooking assistants were sent a note saying to disregard every note in the past received from coordinators and that the new system would be the (next to) final say. It would appear I wasn't the only one e-mailing. I am glad I wasn't on the other end of those e-mails.

The classes for next month were a mixed bag, but I can handle those. I have since taken my name off two classes for the current month with waiting list status. I couldn't do the one today as it wasn't enough notice. Still no one sent an e-mail with anyone dropping out. C'est la vie.

During my preparation of a favorite Filipino dish of mung beans, I received a call from my fellow Filipina friend Sharon. She was trying a recipe I gave her today and was shopping for the ingredients. I corrected some of her selections and then waited for her to call me much later. When she did, she was distraught that it had not turned out correctly.

It is Sprinkles to the rescue: Rather than have her start over, I coached her by asking what it tasted like. Was it more salty than vinegary? How many laurel/bay leaves did you put in? How much crushed pepper did you use? Well, we were able to salvage it by adding water to tame the strong taste. Next time, she will also be adding the cubed potatoes I encouraged her to get before. Now she can enjoy her dinner.

Not much the rest of the day. I am bracing for the week that may get screwed up with the hurricane approaching. Lovely. Let me run the mill again while I put another load of wash before bed.


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Watermill

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My morning date ended up with 11 children. No, not a date with a guy -- my gourmet class! It was a last minute addition to my schedule as they were short in assistants. I arrived at 9:30am, one hour before class.

The more the morning wore on, the more I started to feel inept. When I expressed my concern, I was told that we should have had one more assistant and that the recipes chosen were not all kid friendly or cooking assistant friendly. I washed a lot of stuff and boy was I glad I didn't get my nails done yet!

The guest chef was also an attorney during the week. She seemed overwhelmed at some point and we helped her out during the dumpling making. The kids were starting to fling some dough. There were five boys and six girls ranging from 7-9 years old. Yes, I know you can imagine. I had no problem corralling my group. Kids thrive on gentle, but firm guidance.

I was asked to read aloud one recipe and then ended up finishing it with the kids. They were happy when I asked them to take their seats so we could serve them this portion of the lesson. We had them from 10:30am to 12:30pm. After all was said and done, I received a few hugs from the kids. It was 2pm when I begged off to leave. Not only were my fingers morphing into prunes, I was late meeting Sharon miles across on her side of Tampa.

(When I arrived to class, it was sunny. During class, it monsooned. After class, it was sunny and steamy icky. Lucky AGOL.)


I love Sharon's candidness. Here not-so-welcome mat greeted me below:



Sharon gave me a tour of her cute one-bedroom apartment and showed off her Filipino souvenirs which made me laugh. She drove us to Cracker Barrel for her loved Chicken and Rice dish. We chowed down on a late lunch/early dinner and became uncomfortably full.

Filipino flags displayed on a small store window assured us of our visit to a Filipino store. We shopped with our eyes, but somehow a small tub of avocado ice cream made it with us. While I showed her something online, she served us generous scoops of ice cream for dessert. I didn't leave her side of town until 8pm. I was ready to go and I could mentally hear Cabal call my name.

There was one stop at a gas station/convenience store right by my apartment. It was on a sudden idea to buy two lottery tickets (hey, you never know), but nooooooooooooooooooooo I had to stop and give directions in Spanish to a guy who was clearly lost and low on English words. It was late, I was tired and couldn't think of Spanish words. I could barely speak English, but with my demented map drawings and explanations, the guy was thankful. It really wasn't the lottery tickets for my stop; the universe needed me to give directions to this man for a baby hospital across town. I saw him as I was parking and knew I was going to help him. Sometimes it just happens that way.

*Kids in the Kitchen Menu: Cornbread, Chicken and Dumplings, Glazed Carrots and Steamed Green Beans, and Strawberry Shortcake.


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Happy Friday Anyway

Bitchy greeted me at work. It would seem that Bridget's disgruntled feelings at home had bled into her gripes at work. She was being rather petulant and complained about being bored at work and not liking some of the work she was doing. This was said after she had just finished enumerating her displeasure with her live-in boyfriend and the fact she missed her son who was visiting his father in another state. Incensed, I carefully chose my words and delivered them looking her in the eye: I wouldn't say those words too loud in light of the fact that almost 300 people were just let go. If you want to say those words, you'd better have a back-up plan already. I think she felt a bit shamed, but being stubborn she held her ground. Whatever.

On the other hand, my boss was glad to see me and stopped by my desk to go over things. The temp was chatty to me, too. She was left yesterday with only Bridget who had no kindness for her. She was trying to engage me in a longer conversation, but my cold wasn't allowing me patience. Damn -- my sides hurt from coughing and sneezing yesterday.

One of the gal's husband in my Asian mafia picked us up for lunch at the Korean restaurant. We met a Vietnamese couple there; I'd met the wife before. Bridget was the only non-Asian at the table. It would be her first foray into Korean cuisine. Through her association with me, she has expanded her Asian palate from Chinese Takeout. She always welcomes new experiences... During the lunch, they determined I looked Chinese, but in the end decided that I just looked exotic since they felt I didn't look half Filipino. This stuff cracks me up.

Our boss dismissed our group earlier than normal because our financial software was being upgraded over the weekend. I stayed anyway because I arrive later and I did have things to keep me occupied. Compared to my normal schedule, I left almost two hours earlier.

Sidestepping rush hour traffic was great. I used my stealth (ha!) driving skills to drive side streets to get through downtown Tampa and pick up the toll road. I was on my way to my aunt and uncle's house. My cousin's kiddies Kristen and Carter were staying the night with their grandparents. When I arrived, the group were playing Wii and Wii Fit that my aunt and uncle had bought. These toys were a testament of them being young at heart even in their 60s.

Kristen surprised me during my visit. I was teasing her younger brother with an activity that I specifically do with them, but hadn't done in a very long time. She asked why I hadn't done that at their home the last time I saw them. My response was that I didn't want to embarrass them in front of their friends. Kristen reminded me that activity was expected of me regardless of their friends being present. I guess I have been kind of standoffish with them and not intentionally. Through extra hugs, kisses and positive reinforcement, I reassured them of how much I love them. Normally, I am very affectionate and easy in giving it. I guess I have been missing giving it to them.

Drove home with Angie in my ear and me giving her the lowdown of my visit at her parent's. Cabal and a mountain of laundry were waiting for me. It was a happy ending to nervy week. I have an appointment to get my hair cut and colored tomorrow. Woohoo! I also remembered to register for two cooking skills classes, one for Sunday and one for next Saturday. Next month, I will only have time to be a volunteer as an assistant instead of paying to attend. I can't wait!
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Happy Friday Anyway

Lunch with a Green Iguana

Are you one of those people who can't get away from work in one form or another during vacation? I guess I am one of those people. Driving to work for lunch was strictly voluntary, but I didn't want to miss out on lunch with my director and the rest of my group to celebrate his birthday.

My boss and director decided to go to one of the several locations of The Green Iguana. This bar and grill is a Tampa institution. I can remember almost 20 years ago only having one in South Tampa before it grew to its multiple locations. It is a very fun place to party at night, but certainly a great casual atmosphere for lunch. No, I didn't take pics for you this time around. I decided on Fish Tacos and they were delish!

Saving the best news for last...I'd been refreshing the homepage of the gourmet shop for the August calendar all day yesterday and early this morning. My purpose was to view the cooking class offerings early that I want to volunteer as an assistant and let the coordinator know. It was just minutes from the previous refresh when KA-BLAM! the new calendar was posted. Thanks to my demon-fast typing fingers, I crafted my e-mail to the coordinator in no time. I told him I would be happy with one. Within minutes, I received an e-mail informing me that I was signed up for four. Woohoo! Was I being greedy? Was I getting special treatment? It didn't matter. Later in the day, I saw an e-mail about others having to wait for a reply from him and he apologizing for the confusion with the new calendar system. See...obsessiveness does pay off!

Spent the evening cleaning. I can't think with clutter and try to create art at the same time. Yes, I know, I am stalling.


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Lunch with a Green Iguana

Just a Little...

Hmm...Sunday morning. Slept in a little...just a little. Did my Sunday morning routine sans coffee and replaced it with strong tea and cream.

I drove to the other side of town for my cooking class assistant orientation later in the afternoon. June from my cooking class was there. She had expected just the two of us for the orientation. I expected maybe six only. More than a dozen showed up which was good for the shop.

Our coordinator gave a rundown on safety, requirements, expectations and the benefits of this strictly voluntary activity. Whomever is assigned for a particular class has to be in no later than one hour before the start of class to prep the kitchen for the students and the chef. The job is no glamour job -- the assistant is expected to do grunt work like washing dishes and basic clean-up during and after the class. The benefit for the assistant is being able to learn new things in the class, receiving copies of the recipes, sharing in the food tasting and enjoying a 20% discount on anything in the store plus after the fifth class, the assistant gets to be awarded a bonus gift certificate amount enough for any future class. This gift may be used by the cooking assistant or passed on as a gift to someone else. Those are not bad benefits in exchange for being a kitchen slave.

It was a last minute decision to call my aunt's house for a visit. I saw them yesterday at their grandson's birthday party and visited, but I had time and I was just several minutes away. My aunt woke up from her nap a few minutes after I arrived. If you thought I had sleep problems, you should talk to my aunt. Not having Nan at home for now has allowed her to relax and sleep. She made a delicious dinner which we all scarfed down.

I wasn't sure if my aunt would let me borrow her serger, which is a four thread spool sewing machine that does one thing of cutting and finishing the edge of fabric. Turn your clothes inside out. You will see an edge of the fabric (like the side seams) finished in a web stitching to keep it from unraveling. It is a nice and more professional looking touch. She said yes without hesitation and put it in a box for me including the manual.

High-tailed it home for Cabal who I'm sure was crossing his legs and wondering why his mistress hadn't come home to walk and to feed him. I did. I just had to remind myself that I didn't have to get up very early to get to work. Sweet!


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Just a Little...

Cops and Chefs

I was on my way to making it to work early. Things were going well until I got stopped by a Florida State Trooper who gave me two citations that are going to be a pain in the butt to get rectified. My boss passed me on the highway. I talked to him after my little stop and continued the conversation until I saw him walking in the garage.

Yes, I am (in great shame) going to tell you about my traffic violations. One was for not having sufficient brake lights to suit him and the other for an expired driver's license I was going to take care of next week during my vacation. Sigh.

The trooper seemed to not want to give me the tickets. I had to prompt him if he wanted my car insurance after he had already taken my driver's license and was staring at me. My vehicle registration was also offered. I felt like I was doing his job and was more irritated at being late to work...

Not much later than when arrived, Bridget lifted up her shirtsleeve and showed me her new tattoo below. It is a classic style by a certain artist. It is big and she will have to find blouses that are more discreet. Don't other 37-year-olds get these done?



Work was okay. My excitement and anticipation over my class tonight was almost overwhelming. I couldn't wait for 3:30pm to arrive!

I realized on the way home that the trooper forgot to give me my vehicle registration and my car insurance card back. He barely remembered to give me my license before I drove off earlier. A couple of phone calls later, I was able to leave the trooper a voicemail which he will pick up tomorrow morning...

En route to my class, traffic slowed down to a nonexistent speed. I was forced to take the back roads to get to my class on time. I was the second of four attendees who arrived. The owner of the shop decided to make our class a hands-on experience as opposed to a demonstration. What a great surprise!!

I haven't had this much fun with people I don't know in a long time. We all worked well together in making all the delicious food. It wasn't until after we consumed two dishes that I realized I hadn't taken a picture of the food! You missed out on the Roasted Pine Nut Gorgonzola Timbale and Goat Cheese Stuffed Figs wrapped in Prosciutto with Balsamic Raspberry Gastrique.

Gulf Oysters laced with Chipotle Mignonette


A closer look -- that Chipotle Mignonette (picture in the middle) was super spicy yet delicious!


Grilled Asparagus Spears with Lump Crabmeat over Baby Arugula


The finale of White Chocolate Martinis


Our chef preparing...


Chocolate Truffles with Strawberry Amaretto Jam


Some of the plating were not so elegant, but the taste of the food was incredible! It was well worth the $50. I sipped Riesling most of the evening. It certainly made doing prep work more interesting. Ha. The whole experience reminded me how much I love love love to cook. I was in heaven. The class may have thought I was too cheery from my enthusiasm.

Made it home okay and later, over hot tea, I wrote the chef a note and sent pics. I also wrote the coordinator for the cooking assistants, who was present during the class. He never received my e-mail which has now been forwarded to another address he gave me. I will see him again on Sunday for orientation.

I'm still full from the incredible evening and I am tired from a long day. My bed is calling me.


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Cops and Chefs

Gifts to Myself

Cabal woke me up. Early. Mofo. Grrr.

Found myself making coffee at 6am after our walk and his feeding. My load of towels were dry, too. As I was inserting the yellow towels into my double ribbon, it occurred to me that I never took those pics I promised a while back of my bathroom towels.

The pics below are just one of the set of two I have hanging. Obviously, I don't use these towels. I could if I wanted to, but mostly these just hang pretty while I have another working set hanging elsewhere. I have a few more sets of towels before I have to use the ones below. They are washed at least once a month whether they need it or not. I love ribbon -- what an easy way to dress your towels and bathroom! I added the faux jewel ornaments after buying them on sale after Christmas. The colors were perfect, non?



There is a lady online who has a store on e-bay selling resin, resin molds and accessories. Her mold choices were more expanded than the online art supply stores so I bought four from her along with two different sizes of reusable plastic cups and pipettes. Those should arrive before the end of the week. Yippee!

On the other hand, the reply to my query e-mail from the gourmet shop has yet to arrive. Well, I couldn't wait anymore because the class choices were narrowing each day and the Cooking Class Assistant orientation is next Sunday. I had to find out whether there was still room today during a Pizza class. It was raining and for some reason I wanted to drive around in it.

After talking to a gal who apparently needed to suck down some serious caffeine, I was registered for the cooking class that will allow me to attend orientation next Sunday. Your AGOL was saved from taking the Pizza class this afternoon. The lady bragged that there was still a waiting list. More power to them -- you know I don't like pizza unless some conditions have been met in making it. High maintenance? Yep.

(Drum roll please..)

The class I ended up prepaying today was very appropriate for the AGOL: Aphrodisiac Foods. While I am sipping wine on Tuesday night, I get to watch a chef prepare the following tantalizing dishes:

Gulf Oysters laced with Chipotle Mignonette, Grilled Asparagus Spears with Lump Crabmeat over Baby Arugula, Roasted Pine Nut Gorgonzola Timbale and Goat Cheese Stuffed Figs wrapped in Prosciutto with Balsamic Raspberry Gastrique. The finale is Chocolate Truffles with Strawberry Amaretto Jam and White Chocolate Martinis.

Are you jealous? My mouth is already watering. I'll have to cancel on Happy Hour with the gang and tell my boss I am leaving at 3:30pm to take care of the dog and still make it on time. I'm sure the chef will allow me to take a few food pics to share with you...

My day was not to be wasted. I drove to two art supply stores for supplies, mostly related to resin. The grocery store took some more of my money on the way home because my freezer was near empty again. Is Grey Goose vodka a frozen dinner? To some, it might be. Ha! I needed to take advantage of some of the Buy Guy Get One Free deals. Making sure I have stock in certain staple ingredients makes it that much easier to put together a good meal quickly that is full of flavor.

Tawny was back in town tonight from her vacation with her sister to see their parents and to pick up Tawny's daughter for part of the summer in between college semesters. She texted me earlier to let me know when she was in Florida and when she arrived home. I didn't expect to see her for a bit, but she called me tonight to drop off a small gift and to show me some goodies that came in the mail for her. How I missed her! Not sure if she will be able to take one day off to play during my creative week. I will have to ask her again. Well, my lovelies, it is off to bed for me.


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Gifts to Myself

Step in a Better Direction

The Internet greeted me early today as I searched for the website of a local gourmet food shop. It is a chain, but this is the first time I have seen them have a gourmet kitchen for cooking classes. Even when I worked for their competition part time in the early 90s have I not seen this kind of set-up.

My near demonic quest for information was fueled by a late night conversation with one of my close friends, Tab, who intoned that I have not been doing enough...or have not been consistent. He told me to stop wasting myself. He didn't start out lecturing me. It was very late and I was winding down when he came online. We were just having a conversation about nothing when one thing led to another.

As I said yesterday, on the surface you can read him as bastard, but I know the words he expresses are true. He's right. I've been distracted. My upcoming vacation was my cue to reset myself. I'm not sure if it is the restless energy at work, but my focus has been scattered. Keeping myself on task is a challenge. He just feels I need to step it up more.

Well, the least I could do as a response to his impassioned speech was to do something. At this gourmet shop, they have cooking class assistants. You must attend one cooking class first prior to going to orientation. When you assist, you get to attend the classes for free. Fair enough. This morning at home I found the site, but it was at work that I sent my query note to the head chef of the shop.

I need to do more networking. You can never meet enough people who might be the ones to lead you where you need to be or introduce you to other people who can lead you to where you want to be. The next step may not be the best, but at least it is in a better direction. Wish me luck, my lovelies!


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Step in a Better Direction