The Verdict: Soup Beans Are Tasty and Filling

I'd definitely make them again, and I actually like that it's a long process, as anything bean-related is. It feels more substantial, like I've accomplished something. Corn muffins are an essential accompaniment, though. Wow, what a combo. (Do we hear fried potatoes next? I've made those before, just not as part of a full Appalachian dinner.)

I thought of another food-related literary gem that has inspired me in the past: Celia cooking a whole beautiful table of food for Minny, in The Help. 

Cooking makes me happy, it turns out. 

Work today has felt weird - the time is stretching out to what feels like forever, AND I can't quite shake this sense of urgency, almost emergency. I was super distracted earlier while trying to complete the usual paperwork and couldn't figure out why. 

Winner Wednesday: Cooking Edition

I'm making soup beans and corn muffins for dinner today. Lately I've been studying Appalachian cooking because the food from that area of the country looks AMAZING. Yesterday's shopping adventure was fun - I had to locate ham hocks (I bought them at Safeway, then asked about them at Winco, and will be buying them there from now on - if we like soup beans, that is).

This love of and interest in regional recipes started young, with my childhood habit of reading any nonfiction book I could find, including cookbooks. I (haha) devoured them, particularly the pictures of delicious looking cakes, stews, etc.

Nothing influenced me like my first reading of Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, with its wonderful, detailed descriptions of the foods Almanzo Wilder's mother prepared, even down to the contents of her pantry. To Laura, who grew up impoverished, the meals of Almanzo's New York state childhood must have seemed magical, a sort of riches beyond her wildest dreams. Too, when Laura's Ma had ingredients, she was also a masterful cook. 

My obsession continued with John Grisham's books - Mr. Grisham also takes great time and care to describe meals of the South, especially those prepared by people of color. The love and respect he feels for these folks, and their cooking in particular, just leaps off the pages. 

Right now the pinto beans are soaking on the kitchen counter and will be ready to cook when I get home from work. I have my usual dinner appointment with Taylor tonight, so I plan to be trying them for lunch tomorrow. Here's hoping all goes well and we'll have a new Appalachian favorite for dinner!

Graduation Weekend

...was lovely and went well. Hubby and I are very proud of R, and ourselves for navigating multiple people and cars and hotel rooms. 

Now we're back at work. It's (basically) summer, I've had daily mini adventures in mind for myself and I'm wondering if I'd like to take one today, or just go home and dive back into cleaning and decluttering. We moved a load of R's stuff from her dorm back down to her bedroom at home, and when I say she'll barely be able to get through the door of her room, for once I'm not exaggerating. Maybe just a tiny adventure today? It's hot and I have my wading sandals on...

"Canby?? It CAN'T be!"

(this happens whenever we see the name Canby)

R and Hannah are graduating from college tomorrow. How wonderful and how trippy! R is our first to graduate with a bachelor's degree. Now she'll be all smarter than us and everything. B has his associate's degree and is back at school for a bachelor's right now, and it's so cool. Hopefully M, H and C will get there one day too. Sometimes I think about going back to school, but I can never decide what for. Maybe I'll figure it out one of these days. At the moment I'm not too motivated. 

Yesterday I worked hard on the kitchen. Today I'll work on R & H's room and the rest of the house, then continue with kitchen stuff. I started a load of laundry before I left for work and will continue with that after work.

H hurt his hip Sunday while playing soccer, which was sad because it was his first time playing for this team (he'd been sitting on the side waiting for several Sundays in a row). He and C are on the same team, which is so fun, and we loved getting to watch them both on the field Sunday, until H fell and got hurt. We spent Sunday afternoon in the ER with him. Fortunately it's not broken again, but he's still in pain. He went back to work today and is suffering away there at his desk, poor guy. Hope he can go home early.

Little R and Little C are with L as of yesterday, and we'll be picking them up tomorrow on our way to Olympia. M is kind of at a loss for what to do with herself, but she'll find something fun. 

I saw C last Sunday, while playing soccer of course, and then he came over and returned Maxine, Grandma & Pa's old car, to us after borrowing it for the weekend. He went to go home on his skateboard,  but the rain started falling, so I took him home. Good thing, because hail started falling as well. 

In work news, I have had minimal interactions with that person. She apparently had a chemical peel on her face Tuesday, then hid in her office all day yesterday, and my morning was quite dreamy. I've seen her exactly twice today (as of 10:30) and spoken one word to her. Just go back to your office..... 

These are the small happenings of my life. Sometimes you just have to puke them out, you know.

LATER: Stress. Stress. Stress. Graduation is at noon tomorrow and I reaaaaaaaaaally don't want to endure a multi-stage road trip (meeting my mom in Salmon Creek, picking up the little girls in LV) on our way up to Olympia. We're talking about possibly heading up tonight. Maybe we all should. 

11:00: eating my feelings.

Sure Happy It's Tuesday

And why not? We've been having some fun and interesting weather lately - typical for June, but it's nice that when it rains now, it's not stinkin cold. You just get wet and there's no threat of hypothermia. 

Work is good - so far this week, the sightings have been kept to a minimum. If she can just continue to ignore me as fastidiously as I'm avoiding her, life will be a dream, sweetheart. Kyle is helping with a family member's post-surgery recovery for the rest of the month, and we miss him, but my other cashiers - most of whom I hired last summer (obligatory patting of self on the back) - are so funny and a blast to spend time with, so I'm still pretty happy at work. 

At home, we're getting ready for R's graduation on Friday. I meant to make a major dent in the decluttering and cleaning yesterday, but instead I ate two croissants from the bakery after work, and was down for the count for a couple of hours. Flour is not my friend. Today will be better. Even so, I was able to wash R's sheets, complete a load of dishes in the dishwasher, scrub out the sink, and fully unpack my suitcase from the trip. I need to move a bunch of my stuff downstairs. 

Hubby went to Olympia on Saturday to take R's and Hannah's senior pictures, and we were able to get grad announcements created, printed, and picked up, ready to be mailed. We can start working on that today, too. I will employ M, Little R, and Little C in the addressing and stamping and mailing; the little girls will enjoy that. 

June the Fourth Be With You

Today's Rowan's birthday. Their little card is sitting here waiting for them to show up. 

Life has been great here so far. The coffee is good, the biscuit is good, the waves at Lincoln City are good. No sightings of ... anyone yet. I miss Kyle, but Damaris is here with his anime books and we're both content to chill out and have funny conversations here and there.

This is my first regular four-hour shift I've had since leaving on vacation, and I'm happy to be here for exactly that length of time today. My work agenda includes the usual paperwork and finishing the monthly Foundation receipts, which ran into a few snags yesterday and needed some extra help. 

Taylor and I went to dinner and our favorite antiques store last night, and they bought a new possum t-shirt - can't wait to hear the feedback about that. There's usually a comment from... someone. 

WELP we made it to 9:09 before the first sighting. Back to my desk I zipped, silently. She doesn't like us making noise or having, you know, happiness. What a miserable human being.

Predictable

Today I'm wearing my purple Smokey the Bear "Resist" T-shirt and when I put it on this morning, I just had a feeling Stupid Monica would make a comment about it. 

Kyle saw it and said he liked it. I said, "I bet Monica says something about it," and he said, "WHY would she?" 

Ten minutes later, she saw me with my arms folded across my chest, and after a second or two of peering at my shirt, trying to read it, she asked, "What does your shirt say?" I uncrossed my arms, she read it, and gave me a meaningful look that I think was supposed to be conspirator-ish, like she's all in on the anti-fascist thing, or she's cool and I can trust her, or whatever. NOT HAVING IT, lady. 

Anyway, my instinct was on point and I wanted to make a note of it. I've seen enough of her stupid behavior to notice patterns, and that makes her easier to dodge, and I'm happy about that. KNOW THINE ENEMY. 

EYEBROWS UPDATE: Chris, Head of Security, visited us and let us know that we have the authority to bar Eyebrows from entering the store. We should tell her that she's not allowed to be here, and immediately call Security. 

We have screenshots of her walking into the bookstore printed out, and I gave a copy of several of them to the Security receptionists (Jeannie's back!! We love Jeannie and were sad when she left). When I did so, I learned that Eyebrows has NOT been trespassed from campus after being thrown off campus yesterday, but she is no longer allowed to enter the bookstore. Jeannie had never seen her, and Tara didn't know who we were talking about, so hopefully the printed screenshot will be helpful. We here in the cashier department had fun imagining having to throw her out.

Also: Kyle's spouse's surgery is happening Friday. Today was his last day with us for a month or so. He will be missed. 

I don't really love that this is turning into the "gripe about work" blog

...but let's just call it what it is. 

We had a theft, again, by a woman who has stolen from us twice before that we know of, and who will forever be known around the bookstore as "Eyebrows" because of her crazy makeup habits. 

Kyle and I watched Eyebrows walk out of the store with a bottle of coffee without stopping to pay for it. I called "Ma'am" as she walked away into the main hall, but she was wearing headphones and very clearly ignoring us. I called Security at 8:41 AM and then went back to the staff area to tell Heidi what happened. I saw Dan in the doorway of Receiving and said, apparently too loudly, "She did it again!" 

At the end of the hallway, Heidi and Stupid Monica immediately popped out of their offices, confirmed that the thief had stolen again, and Stupid Monica said, "If this happens again, let's be a little more discreet about it instead of announcing it into the hallway." 

sigh. LIKE THAT IS IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. Hence Stupid Monica's nickname, "Stupid Monica". What the hell is wrong with the way I said it? Nothing - she's just neurotic and annoying as hell. I was gone for two weeks and already my level of rage with her has risen up to where it was before I left - in less than 24 hours! Way to go, Stupid Monica!

UPDATE: Before 1:00, one of our Security folks came through my line to buy snacks, and said that Eyebrows was trespassed from campus, and that she RESISTED. My stars and garters!!

I texted Dan, Ryan, and Kyle about this in our group chat, and Dan called her a "smelly pirate hooker" (he's an Anchorman fan). Cody and Damaris, to whom I showed Dan's response, had no clue this was an Anchorman quote. 

UPDATE 2: Later in the day, we learned from Dan that the nickname "Eyebrows" did not fly well with Stupid Monica, who found it offensive that we would assign a slur to a CRIMINAL WHO IS HABITUALLY ROBBING HER STORE. She launched into a lecture about RESPECT, directed at Dan and Ryan, right there in their monthly meeting. The control-freakiness is strong with this one.

Back into the swing of things

Taylor was here about 30 minutes before Monica saw their new haircut and made an insulting comment about it. The dipshittery continues. 

In other work news, it's great to be among my coworkers again. It's cap and gown season, which is always fun.