Career Day

It worked! I can't really believe that a Chia Shrek actually grew... I'm shocked... It was the kids that made me do it (aside from the fact that I've always secretly wanted a Chia Pet of my very own... and a lava lamp, but I'll get to that later...) and for weeks before Christmas they were walking around the house singing "Chi chi chi chia!". It has filled out some since I took the picture too, and is starting to look a bit like a young Gabe Kaplan. Fantastic stuff, the Chia. I'm kind of wondering what else we could grow off of the head... which of course, makes me wonder if in colleges all over the country, kids are trying to get Chia-weed to grow. Note to self - put together marketing proposal to the Chia people - "Chia-Rasta".

In the midst of a somewhat tumultuous week at work (annoying personnel issues) I had these little moments of unexpected shenanigans that made for a few spots of fun. Fridays are typically the day when we catch our breath a bit... we actually feed more people on Fridays, but the menus are pretty simple, and we tend to blow through the day without having to put too much thought into it. I was in a groove this morning - coffee, knife, etc. all in place - when someone rolled into the kitchen in a bit of a panic. "Joe", she said, "the Headmaster needs to see you upstairs right now." Since I couldn't actually think of anything I did wrong (today, anyway) I thought it was another annoying chapter in our personnel problems, and scuttled upstairs. Since I'm trapped like a veal in our little kitchen for most of the day, I forgot about the career fair that was about to begin, and stepped through the lobby doors into a sea of students, alumni, and presenters jostling to get to their tables. In the middle of the mess was the Headmaster, who smirked as he told me that the Chef they had asked to come was nowhere to be found... and, long story short, I spent the next hour and a half giving groups of students the rundown on culinary school, the restaurant industry, etc., etc... It was fun, actually, and most of the people who had signed up to hear a presentation on culinary arts as part of their morning didn't even seem to notice that I was just making it up as I went along. Plus, a lot of them had some really good questions, and I think might have actually come away with a somewhat realistic idea of what the industry is like... even the girl who asked me if I had ever seen someone cut their finger off... which I have, by the way... but just part of it, I assured her, and last time I saw it, it still looked pretty much like a finger, so no worries.

On a completely unrelated note, we have new cleaning ladies. Our old one was a bit of a nut, and we never knew if the house would be clean when we got home, or if everything would just be shiny. I don't know how she did it, but even when things were obviously left dirty, they had a pleasant shine to them that sort of fooled us the first few times... and on top of that, she liked to mop our wood floors with a vinegar solution that left our house smelling a bit like a deli. Anyway, we have two women now that are just dreamy. First of all, they're cheaper than our old nutjob, and they actually clean everything. It's awesome. Plus, they re-hang all of the towels (bath, hand, kitchen, etc.) with this neat little fold in them... and even better, they make the top tissue in the box into a little fan, AND THE TOILET PAPER IN TO A LITTLE ROSE! It's freakin fantastic. I'm so excited when I get home I poop just so I can be the first one to use the roll. They're coming again on Monday, and already I'm thinking I should set aside the weekend's Parade Magazine, complete with a Heath Ledger interview that went to the presses sometime in December, for a little light bathroom reading....