Some as big as your head

I dream of produce almost every night. Usually sorting grapes. Sometimes figs or pluots.

People in Motion

"Hey, Sixty Minutes is coming."
"I'm sorry?"
"sixty minutes"
"What?"
"Sixty Minutes is coming today. Did you know that?"
"..I'm not understanding what you're saying...wait, are you saying 60 minutes? Tick tick tick tick 60 minutes? 60 MINUTES is coming here today!?"
"Yeah, doing a photo shoot, talking to Alice, you know."
I tug at my unwashed hair, thinking of my dewy face glistening from the speedwalk to work this morning.
"...Great..."

Nothing really changed today except that we had to put our To Do lists and glasses of water out of sight in preparation for "the photo shoot." Nobody seemed as wide-eyed as I did. Although the crew mostly ran late and my shift was over before they started up, but I did joke around with the lighting guy for a few minutes about being a functional drunk. So for all of you that don't know about where I am currently doing my internship, I'll try to find out when we will be featured on an episode of 60 minutes and you can check it out. Right. Of course. No big deal.

In other news, I am now sitting on my freshly made bed in my cute as a button apartment until January. Love the new roomie, love the new surroundings and finally feel like I can settle in here a bit. I think I am on the verge of a great day...set to Repeat.

Well How can we ask for more?

Milwaukee Urban Farming

Been up thruway, down thruway

I am not sure if I have that much to write about, although I get a lot of questions asking about life out here. I feel almost like I did when I was in Chile at first. I'm busy and doing a lot things, adventuring around, trying different restaurants, seeing different sights, but it's also just waking up and living the day. Nothing too extraordinary. There are times when I love Berkeley, when I find a new store or restaurant that is exciting or when people surprise me with their kindness or craziness. There are other times when I hate it a bit. When people are oppressively and obsessively liberal or ignorantly out of touch.

The librarian laughed at me today when she saw how giddy I was to get my library card. Fancy.

I move into my rest-of-Berkeley-time digs tomorrow. The current place has been getting a bit old. Dealing with the second rate Von Trapps living next door and the two Chinese guys who moved in last week, and promptly neglected to turn off a single light, put the seat down or try to be quiet at any time of night when they are stalking around the house. It took me literally 15 minutes yesterday to realize that the reek wafting into my room was their cooking and not the garbage. Yeah. Not good.

In other news, I'm going to go ahead and assume my accent is full blown at this point based on how many people perk their eyebrows after a few sentences and query, "wait, so where are you from?" Great.

Remember what the doormouse said

Bumper Sticker of the Day: Wouldn't you rather be behind a book?
yes, yes I would.

Have I mentioned that one of my current housemates is from Singapore? Her mom is on the tail end of a visit. Lunches at Chez Panisse, dinners talking about Asian food, while eating some authentic and homemade. Yes.

There is also a house full of children who live next door. They are often very loud and luckily at least one of them is in the "learn to play the recorder" year at school. They are currently having a family sing along. Some nice falsetto anyone? Yikes.

You know you got it when you're going insane

"Ok So, see these lighter raspberries? Taste this."
My supervisor holds up a perfect little raspberry, with an even rosy red hue. Enjoying tart berry sweetness gives me a chance to catch my breath in the middle of kitchen mayhem.
"Now, taste one of the darker ones."
She gives me a burgundy colored raspberry that is everything a raspberry should be. I grin at my boss as she directs me in sorting the moldy to the compost, falling apart to the processing tub, perfectly ripe to a glass bowl and leaving the pre-perfect on the tray.

My concept of ripe has totally changed. Picking the most pristine flavor king pluots, soft autumn flame peaches, greek royal figs or bronx grapes. Apparently I had no real idea when fruit was actually in its prime. Work is filled with knowing which farm certain fruits came from, hulling strawberries until the seeds pucker and roughen the skin on my fingertips, cooking langue de chat to the exact golden brown color and stalking the clock to check how far behind I am. Constantly behind. That's pretty much how I feel right now.

Tell it to me slowly

Girl from small town drives across the country to move to California and make her dreams come true.

My life may have become a bit cliche on the surface, a thought that ran through my head a few times as my tires ran through state after state. The trip was mostly uneventful but I landed in Berkeley ready for it to be over.

So I finished my second day of work today, at which I feel slow and inefficient and ignorant. I'm sure after a few days and eventually not needing to ask, "and, um...where would I find that?" every five minutes, I will feel a bit less defeated as I walk out the door. I don't mean to make it sound unpleasant, I'm working with some of the most beautiful and delicious produce I've ever seen or eaten, I get fed EXTREMELY well at family meal (the meal that is served to the kitchen staff, lunch for me--it is wonderful!!!), everyone is quite friendly and my work environment is comfortable and pretty. I have no doubts that all of my friends from school would be jealous. But then I also grew cross-eyed while de-stemming thousands of grapes for literally an hour this afternoon. Getting into the swing of things is difficult but I'm expecting to be there after this first week is over.

In other news, I found a yoga studio that works on a donation basis, the food in this city makes me very happy and there is a fig tree on my walk home...which may or may not be missing a ripe fig from one of its branches. AAAAaaaand, I love my current and future abodes. Que bueno.

But it seemed so natural, darling

I plop down next to an odiferous gentleman, bruises appearing on my arms, big toe a bit bloody where my suitcase disrupted the nail and admittedly smelling a bit 'athletic' myself(as we say in my family) from carting about 80 pounds of my crap through the subways and airport. Exhaling and just wishing to be back home already, I scan through JetBlue's tv system, hoping for ESPN and the score of the Wisconsin game. Halftime and up by only 3. Grumbling, I flip around a bit more and, stunned, land on the Big 10 network. I had to deal with smelly man's aroma, and he had to deal with my stifled yells and folded arms holding back fists that yearned to pump after every interception and touchdown. JetBlue can count itself back in my good graces.

I landed in Chicago and was swiftly escorted to my hometown which was celebrating not only LobsterFest (Lobster dinner + wine + live music + table decorating competitions = awesome) but also SputnikFest. This was almost too much for me to handle and I promptly fell asleep at 10 o'clock with visions of giant cows wrapped in aluminum foil mooing through my dreams. Pictures to come.