noises in the darkness

Walking home after a long day of work that followed a long night of being social and a very short time actually sleeping, I dial up my voicemail to check a new message,

"Hello, Jenna, this is Tim. Um, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but when I woke up this morning your rear window was smashed in...well yes someone broke into your car sometime last night, and well, I thought I should let you know..."

I didn't really hear the end of the message as my feet changed directions, leading me a few blocks away to the driveway where I park my car. The entire rear window shattered, a hole bigger than a basketball leered at me. The things in my trunk were uncovered from the canvas that hid them but...nothing was missing. My CD case holding my entire collection of music, a stand of drawers that holds miscellaneous electronics and crafty items, my kitchen scale all sat grinning under glinting shards of glass.

Only a hippopotamus will do...

Well Merry Christmas everyone!

The restaurant is closed Christmas Eve and Day, which gives me enough of a break to relax, but not enough to head anywhere. Although checking out all the weather and delays across the country, seems I might not have gotten anywhere anyway. This past weekend, my roomie and I went and picked out a Christmas tree, which was a nice first for me. He also seems to be a bit of a Christmas decoration hoarder as the apartment has glittering globes and sequined fruit, lights and garland pretty much everywhere you look. A tiny Christmas wonderland if you will.

I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing tomorrow, as I have a couple invites if I want them, or I might just enjoy my day off relaxing and making use of the cheese I tried my hand at today. There is currently a ball of perhaps too firm mozzarella and bowl of not-the-best ricotta in my fridge with the makings of pizza dough hanging around. So homemade pizzas are in my future at some point that might not be too fantastic, but will be made completely from scratch. And Haagen-Dazs has peppermint bark ice cream, which was a nice early Christmas present I bought myself. Delicious.

I just want to know today

Whenever I can, I have been working catering events in my downtime. Other than everyone saying the events are occurring less than last year, the events don't seem to display the signs of economic turmoil. As women run around department stores, grabbing sparkling wine out of my outstretched hand and lumbering out of the event bogged down by shopping bags, some people are obviously still spending.

And THEN there was the event I did Saturday.
"WHOA!"
"What?"
"Did you see that girl fly off one of the electronic bulls?" pointing at the huge screen of the stadium.
The electric bullS...between the ice skating rink making fake snow and the ferris wheel, behind the four band stages and next to one of the four dining tents.

Happy Holidays to those employees I guess.

One of my coworker's fiance is a glassblowing artist. So yesterday a bunch of us headed to the middle of nowhere in San Francisco to hang out with furnaces and torches and molten hot glass. All of us are pretty used to being in environments where burns are easily acquired (evidenced by the beautiful badges of honor lining my forearms), but sitting at a bench with a spinning glob of burnyourskinoff got all of our adrenaline pumping. I think I said, "That was so much fun!!" about 20 times on our drive back to Berkeley.

A time to plant, a time to reap

Today on my day off I got the chance to go to one of the farms where we source produce. Dhondup drove me out to the farm in Sonoma County, which gave me the chance to find out he had lived in or visited a lot of the same places I went to in India. Small world.

There is something about being able to frolic in the mud and crush herbs in my hands and feel the weight of avocados hanging from the branches. Chatting with the farmer Bob Cannard and learning about rose hips and strawberry trees. Quite literally a breath of fresh air. I feel very lucky to be able to get involved and learn about the entire process of my work. A great way to spend my day off.

Want them to know what your name is

Have I mentioned that one of the photo shoots at the restaurant was for San Francisco magazine, which was doing an article on desserts in the area and one of the photos features yours truly.

Oh yeah, in the background of a picture the size of a postage stamp. woop woop.

Dashing through the Snow

I came home from work at 5...technically I'm done at 3:30 everyday but I hung out to make cocoa nib truffles...so anyway I staggered home drunk with exhaustion and sugar. My eyes brightened as I climbed the stairs to see my roomie Sam bustling around our new "outside" Christmas tree and a present from "St. Nick" was sitting on my counter...complete with my family's "It's not Christmas unless you have this cookie" Cookie.

With a Smile on Your Face

I never thought about the concept of someone screaming off key until I was at a concert last night and suddenly I can't hear the blaring music over:
"AAAhaaaaaahhhhhhhHHHAAAAaahHHHHahhhAAAAAaaaaaHHH"

For the entire song.

My first thought is, I wonder if something is wrong with this girl, who seems to be making this incredibly loud jarring noise for absolutely no reason. Just screaming. But then the song ends and so does her yelling and she starts telling her friends how she doesn't want to have a voice tomorrow. Imagine the most nasal voice you've ever heard and add raspy, Jersey/surfer accent and you have this girl. I didn't get it either. So as I began pondering whether I complain to someone, move and hope to not get caught or what. And then the song comes on that I had been waiting and hoping to hear. But wait, I can't hear it because of the wahaAAAhhhhHHHHAAahaha wacko behind me. So then the visions of fists flying begin flying through my head.
The song ends and the dude next to me leans over, "if no one fills those seats up there after the next song, we're moving" which alleviated the idea that it was all in my head and actually not that horrifying a noise as I thought...as the girl starts talking about how she's going to be as loud as she wants to be, she doesn't care, yadda yadda yadda.

in my head I was was screaming as loud as she was.

I turn around and tell her I can't hear the music over her screaming.

She feigns shock.

And other than a handful of comments "directed at her friends" *wink wink* about how she couldn't make noise anymore, and some screams at normal junctures, I heard every song from there on.

Anticlimactic story? yes. But I am constantly surprised by the anticlimactic strangeness found in everyday life.

My moon, my man

So in about a month and a half I will be leaving Cali and heading back to New York. Which means I can start stressing about the possibility of driving cross-country by myself in winter. Yikes. So if anyone knows someone along the way who 1. wants to join in the drive or 2. wants to let me crash at their pad...OR if anyone wants to come visit me in Berkeley and then take an awesome road trip to anywhere between here and NY, that would be awesome. I'll pack the snacks.

Oh anxiety.