Le Monde de Fromage de Kate

From my “Insult-A-Day” Calendar:
He knows so little and knows it so fluently.
– Writer Ellen Glasgow

Okay – just one more.* Take a look at this:

Just let me know: Is it nearly as HILARIOUS and simultaneously worrisome as it is in the middle of the night? The interesting (or just sad) thing is that it somehow reminds me of To Kill A Mockingbird when Scout is a ham.
Whatever the time of day, it is an image that tells a story.

*Though you really ought to take a look at the first few pages of this.

 
Angry? Bemused? Pensive? No one will ever know.

A wise man once said, “Everybody’s fancy, everybody’s fine.” But, alas, my “Monde” is not fancy nor is it fine. It lacks pizzazz, magnificence, aesthetic appeal and even zest. I kvetch and whine about falling down and spilling under the pretense that it is amusing to the reader. I glorify cheese. I venerate cheese poetry.

All this when there are those in the world with texture, witty prose, amusing photographs, and yes, oh YES, ART. Take a look at this. My friend, Wee Chris, has galleries (and that is plural – GALLERIES). But he has a Masters of Fine Arts, you might argue; he should have a gallery or two. Ah ha, say I. I say that for no apparent reason.

BUT, and this BUT I do say for a reason, note the blog of his lovely and talented wife, Maria. She has a portfolio of her HANDICRAFTS!!!!

It is official. I have blog envy. I have no patterns or pictures or ANY design element of note. I can’t even figure out how to get my blog entries to line up on the left when I want. See? SEE??????

P.S. I do have a shop. It’s just a fetus shop at the moment, but it will mature and grown into a full-blown SHOPPE (with, naturally, the ostentatious extra “p” and the inexplicably silent “e”).

For those who don’t know, for my “Joe Job*” I work in a hospital in an office setting. This means that though I am, at this very moment, in a state-of-the art medical facility that is rated very highly by someone (US News & World Report or Playboy or something), yet I couldn’t tell you how to put your hands on a Band-Aid or some aspirin or such. I take it back. I know for certain that you could purchase those items in the pharmacy. But I don’t know how to get a Band-Aid for FREE like at most workplaces. Then again, if I coded I probably would get some quick and excellent treatment…

Today, in the cafeteria, which is now very officially called “8th & C Street Cafe” (This theoretically makes it tastier and more like Paris? I would say that too many people dragging IV poles around distracts from the Parisian illusion rather effectively), it was “Asian” day. I should back up a tad – it’s “Diversity” week or “Multi-cultural Hullabaloo” or “Foreigner Fête” or “Funny Talk Hootenanny” this week.

Please don’t think I’m a wretched, ethnocentric bigot. I’m most fond of multi-culturalism. I am the whitest woman in the world – literally – but I honestly do love meeting and learning about all sorts of people and cultures. And kudos to the hospital – they had some great dancing and singing and informative displays around the hospital this week about many different cultures and peoples and such. And yesterday I ate a tasty and rather authentic-looking tamale (wrapped in the corn husk and everything). What I mock is the concept of “Asian” food all lumped into one category so that the reality today was that they served a lot of rice and fried meat lumps, put out the soy sauce and called it “Asian.”

But then there was the sushi. Yes, I kid you not, sushi. And not just California rolls – there was tuna and salmon, and what’s more, the chef was even trying to make the presentation lovely. So I got two pieces of salmon roll and some yummy pickled ginger and enjoyed it thoroughly. This brings me to my point (and it only took a number of semi-lengthy paragraphs – HUZZAH!):
Today I ate RAW fish served in a hospital cafeteria located in the Capitol city
of a land-locked State.

Was I brave and fun-lovin’ or was I foolhardy? I feel fine; I’ve had nary a sign of food poisoning and I ate the fish hours and hours ago. I should also add, for those who don’t know Salt Lake City, you can actually get excellent, fresh fish here. They fly it in daily for a number of restaurants (including sushi bars) and markets; they actually claim it may be fresher than its coastal counterparts as they purport to catch the seafood and throw it right on a plane. Ha. That’s a funny image if taken too literally. Envision big-ol’ tunas and halibuts flopping all over some Southwest Flight Attendant. Afterall, don’t most fish take passenger jets?

Anyhooo, the question is, what kind of raw fish makes its way to a hospital cafeteria????? Since I am not dead, it’s still an interesting question.

*Joe Job = The job you work that actually pays the REAL bills though you have a degree in music or acting or some other completely unmarketable pursuit of the fine arts vein but no – oh NO, SIR – you would never claim the “Joe Job” as your career, especially since you have private students or get paid for a few gigs here and there or do a show once in a blue moon and get paid 50$ or so and thus you are a PROFESSIONAL, SIR, A CONSUMATE PROFESSIONAL!!!! This means that you certainly would never, ever, EVER list only “Office Coordinator” on your taxes, for you actually have to pay self-employment taxes on your 50$ or so of fine arts income. This also means you’ve earned the very officious title of “independent contractor” and that you can “Do Business As” and just put your own little name on the dotted line. It does beg the question – can you “Do Business As” (DBA) Flunky Toilet-Squirt (that is, by the way, my Captain Underpants name)? Yes, but you’d have to incorporate as Flunky Toilet-Squirt and be an S Corporation or the like, and that’s just too much for this artist. Fí­n.

I have a 2004 “Insult-a-Day” calendar. I’m not sure what this says about my character – I chose an “Insult-a-Day” rather than inspiring thoughts or useful facts or new words to learn – I suppose I’m an aspiring curmudgeon. Here is today’s insult:

He has not so much brain as earwax.
-William Shakespeare, from Troilus and Cressida

Dearest Pamela, on this, your natal day, I dedicate that thought to you.

One of my sisters sometimes sends me those little forwarded humor tidbits (altered pictures, jokes, little movies and whatnot). The message she forwarded today was entitled, “Fairy of Joy.” It sounded like just the thing to make one’s day better. Alas, I opened the email, and there, where the picture ought to have been, was that damned white box with the wee white box in the corner that contains that infamous red “x.” Yes, instead of the “Fairy of Joy” I saw the “Screw you – no humor for YOU” box. What does this say about me? For indeed, I cannot see the Fairy of Joy.

Happy New Year.

Yes, today I spilled my beverage again. I admit this is not an unusual occurrence, but it would be misleading to say it was constant or daily, as a rule (I won’t mention the fact that I spilled enough times at my last job that they got me one of those “commuter” mugs with a lid on it and wouldn’t let me use my mug with the Smurfs on it). Nor do I want to be pathetic enough to add a “spill” category to my blog, because my propensity to fall AND spill might seem pitiable traits, instead of merely quirky and charming as they are now.

BZZZZZZT!!!! Don’t deny my little world of comforting delusions!

Anyhooooo, yesterday I had a 20-ounce cup of coffee with a lid on a lunch tray. I had successfully negotiated the various doors and stairways (once or twice I have failed that challenge). I got to my desk, the coffee flew off the tray, thrown, no doubt, by those invisible people who trip me. Even with the lid on coffee managed to coat a goodly portion of my desk, most notably my keyboard tray and my keyboard. It then leapt to the floor, lost its lid and made a good-sized puddle, leaving splatters all over the drawers and my chair.

I spent a long time yesterday popping the keys out of my keyboard so that I could clean the inside, wiping down five bijillion surfaces and making many trips to the restroom to get towels out of those machines with motion sensors that parsimoniously dispense only ONE TOWEL AT A TIME. Housekeeping had to come and clean the carpet. I think I’ve ruined my nice squishy gel-filled wrist rest. When I got home I discovered a very large brown stain on my bodice. The whole thing wasted a lot of time. Needless to say, I did not refill the coffee yesterday. I figured that was asking for trouble.

Today, however, I thought I could start anew. I held that Styrofoam coffee cup onto my tray with a vise-like grip. I set safely out of the way on my desk. I even managed to drink some of it. A little later, though, I somehow, for no apparent reason, managed to literally fling the cup out of my hand. The lid, naturally, came off in the process. Yes – coffee all over the desk. On some of the mail. And down the wall. And in those weird, difficult-to-access “cable” crannies under and behind the desk.

It is genetic, but that’s a story for another time.

A good friend of mine, the Goddess, a Divine Diva of many things (let’s just call her “Kathleen*”), who I don’t contact nearly often enough, said the loveliest things in an email the other day. So I’m going to quote a portion, completely without her permission (forgiveness is easier than permission when you don’t want someone to say no – right?), this very moment. It’s just good and should be shared:

Was thinking the other day that only you would appreciate my search for the cheese of my youth. When I was a little girl I would visit my grandfather, Daddy Odye, in El Paso. We would go over the border to Juarez, Mexico and he would buy small wheels of mild, white cheese that was made there. It would peel off in thin sheets and it tasted so good. I loved it. I loved him. He’s been gone for so long.

About six months ago something shifted inside me. I’m still not sure what or why. I just decided to try to find a few things that would make me feel good. Nothing big or expensive, just comfort stuff. I started looking for my own cheese. Something other than Kraft American Singles or string cheese. It wasn’t even a conscious search at first. I wanted something to go on my wheat bread but I was never quite satisfied with the different cheeses. Then I realized. I was looking for that one cheese. My grandfather’s cheese. Don’t know what it will do for me if I ever find it. Don’t know if I ever will find it up here. Just know that I’ll keep looking for that special cheese.

It does bring to mind that hackneyed old aphorism, “It’s the journey, not the destination,” but I do hope you find that special cheese. It just couldn’t hurt.

*Wait – are you supposed to use a pseudonym in cases like this? Whoops…