Full Circle

this could be me at home or at Pi Phi. there is no difference.

from here

I chose my major in college for the final time (after dabbling in Radio Television and Film for a semester freshman year and then choosing Sociology because...I have no idea...) in my sophomore year because I had decided I wasn't going to actually *use my degree because I wanted to be a pastry chef. My parents wisely convinced me to continue towards my degree just to have one while I went to cooking school on the weekends. So I chose Women's Studies because it had classes that sounded interesting.

And most of them were. I took loads of literature classes--British Women Writers, Carribean Women Writers, Black Women Writers--because I've always loved to read. I was introduced to "classics" that probably still aren't recognized as such but that sit on my bookshelves next to Hemmingway and Fitzgerald. I learned about women's economic frailties should their husbands leave them. I experienced and studied the psychology of eating disorders in young women. These classes were enlightening.

Some classes were boring but necessary evils. Statistics was one of them. It was very frustrating to slog through a class I was certain I'd never need. It felt like the math section of the SAT's.

So I graduated with a BA in Women's Studies and went to work as a pastry chef right afterwards. I worked long hours on my feet and learned, among many things, a whole lot about how not to run a business, how to make beautiful edible art, and perhaps most importantly, that a degree in Life and Common Sense was as important as a "real" degree, if one did not want to have one's head up one's ass forever.

Then after having my kids and staying home with them (some of my professors would've been HORRIFIED at this decision; others thought like I do, that being able to have a CHOICE was the entire point), I got back out there and, after a couple different cooking forays, found myself at a sorority.

I've mentioned before that I was at first extremely hesitant about working for such an antiquated social set-up for women. "I have a degree in Women's Studies for christ's sake," I'd say. And while I see life more in shades of gray now (like, not all sorority girls are bimbos) than when I was in college myself, I'm sometimes unsure about how I feel about Greek life. There are a whole lot of things wrong with it; like almost everything being organized around alcohol and a serious lack of social structure when it comes to romantic relationships. But I see the positives too. Sisterhood, tradition...and a place to relax and just be a girl. They put up a strong front, these girls, but deep down, many of them are still unsure of themselves and just trying to become grown up women of some substance.

So now I've decided to make a change that will send me back to my roots a bit. I'm going to go back to school to get a Master's in Education Student Affairs Administration. Not exactly Women's Studies, but I think I'd like to use the degree to ultimately work in a women's center on a college campus. I've loved getting to know girls this age and I think I have an affinity for this kind of work. I love being involved, even in a small way, in a such a pivotal point of their lives.

So I'm glad (sort of) I took (and PASSED--yay!) Statistics. And it turns out that math does mean something at least as far as I have to know it for GRE's *gulp*.

Best of all, my dad is THRILLED that he paid for a degree that I'm actually going to use.



*this was a proud moment for my parents.

The Middle of Things

I started work, in a very small way, yesterday after having 4 months off. I know, I know, cry me a river, but I LIKE being at home. If I could figure a way to stay home and make money that didn't involve telemarketing or getting my kitchen dirty, I'd do it. I just love having all my stuff around me, having a little routine and not thinking about what I'm wearing. Luckily the latter part of that also goes along somewhat with what my actual job requires. The most "dressed up" I get at work is wearing a pair of fun chef pants and finding a funny t-shirt (this year's favorite: Mr. Potato Head dressed up as a hippie with "Baked Potato" under it).


So anyway, I started work yesterday by unpacking my kitchen. The sorority I work for moved into a house that used to belong to a fraternity that got kicked out of Lehigh last year. The house is beautiful. It's not one of the classic old frats with the columns, etc. It was probably built in the 60's or early 70's. But it's open and airy and the girls chose beautiful colors (I even got my requested yellow kitchen!). And anyone who saw it when it was a frat will appreciate just how beautiful it is now. To say the place was shabby and REEKED would be kind. Yuck. I love boys but massive drunken parties and preserving beautiful architecture don't mix.


So it's beautiful, the kitchen is incredibly well-appointed (a place for everything and everything in its place--YAY!), and the girls, especially the Juniors, are happy to see me. Everything is good. A new year is exciting and full of possibilities. Great!


I wish I could be really happy about it.


See, I have this problem of hating the beginning of things (ANXIETY) and the end of things (sadness). I never like to be the first one to arrive at a party and I hate when my last guest leaves from a party of my own. I love the middle of things.


I try not to show this to my children because I don't want them to be afraid of new experiences or regret that something has ended. I'd like to be the kind of mom who helps her kids to enjoy the moments in life, to revel in the excitement and to feel the sadness and not fear it. So I'm trying not to think about how great it'll be when I establish a routine, when I know all the sophmores' names, and when it's finally December, halfway through the year. Because if I keep thinking like that, it'll suddenly be May, the end, and I will have missed all the fun in between.

*Back to the Brothel

let the drinking begin

It happens to me every Summer. In the beginning, I start out feeling guilty that I have all this time to myself before the kids start their vacation. So I vacilate between frantic project planning (not doing) and utter lack of movement and copious movie watching. I want to do everything I can think of that I won't be able to do when the kids are home too. Not that I couldn't do all these things; my kids are getting older and pretty okay on their own. It's just that I feel like I should be Camp Director or something, planning fun (and ocassionally educational) events for us to do.

pretending to observe nature on an Educational and Fun! outing

Then THEY'RE HOME. And don't get me wrong, I love love love them and even really like them, but they require so much nagging. Only when they are *old* and parents themselves will they understand that it's annoying for the nagger too. I cannot tell you how many times the phrases "Put your dirty clothes down the shoot" and "Wipe the grape jelly off the counter" or that old chestnut "TURN OFF THE TV!!" have been uttered.

Muttel is an optimist

So I start to wish I was back at work. NOT for a solid week, mind you. Just at my leisure. I love the idea of waking up and thinking, okay, the kids are annoying today, so I think I'll work for 8 hours. Tomorrow? Nah. I'll probably sleep until 11:00. Of course no job, save possibly hooking, would allow this so it is just me wishing. This is the I-sort-of-wish-the-Summer-was-over-but-not-really-just-that-the-kids-had-school phase. During this time I also start formulating menus for my job and cooking/baking up a storm. These could also be called The Fat Ass Days.

Nothing says July like sour cherry pie

Then August rolls around and I panic. Oh my god it's almost over! Oh my god I haven't finished planting the new flower bed/painting the basement steps/going to the pool/thoroughly enjoying my children's company! WORK STARTS SOON!!!

And the regret sinks in.

What does all this say except that I might need to up my 40 mg of celexa or actually call the therapist I keep procrastinating about? It says that I need to start trying to live in the now. I know that sounds so crunchy, so self-help book, but it's true. I've always been a planner who panics about getting something done and so either becomes a total vegetable and does nothing or gets herself so amped up about time ticking away that I don't enjoy the doing.

This is something I really want to work on.

So please, enjoy the pictures from this Summer. I'm going to try to just relax for these waning days until I go back to work. While I've got a lot to look forward to there (will a certain Junior have sex in my kitchen again this year? how many girls will be taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning? will the girls bring lots of young man-meat for Mrs. Robinson to ogle?), I'm going to hang out with my Handsome Husband and my kids, see more of my BFFs and maybe step out into the garden a bit to pull some weeds.

*No, I don't actually work in a whorehouse, but I found it interesting and annoying to find out that the reason why sorority houses are "dry" is because there is a law that if more than a certain number of women live together it is indeed considered a brothel and therefore cannot serve alcohol. How archaic is that?

2008 was the Summer of Ice Cream
thanks to David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop

some excellent thrifting (total:$3!) was done

Gibson the Hunter, with dead vole

My Girls

When I got the job I have now as a sorority chef I was happy and slightly horrified. Happy because I had been at a place that was a nice place to work at but incredibly boring and not-in-the-least-bit challenging. And there is nothing worse to me than boring. My idea of a great day at work is when I have to figure out how I'm going to get all my stuff done in time, NOT one in which I get everything done early and then hang out for a few hours. I'm weird like that.

Anyhoo, I was happy that I was going to have to slam out lunch and dinner weekly for 51+ girls. It's the *sorority* that had me horrified. First of all, I myself went to a college that not only didn't have Greek Life, it didnt't have a football team or any other common sport. SUNY Purchase had Ultimate Frisbee (boys' team: Atomic Dogs; girls' team: Atomic Bitches) and instead of sororities and fraternities it had a Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Union that was extremely well-attended. Oh, and I was a Women's Studies major. You get the picture.

So I had a preconceived notion of sororities, mostly comprised from Animal House (remember Babs with her pearls?) with a dash of the bitchy sniping of some of the snotty girls I went to high school with. HH and I always thought of the Greek system as one in which *friends* were purchased. He still, 1000 years after college yells "GDI!" when someone asks him if he was in a frat.

But I was hired by the closest thing to perfect that a sorority could be for someone like me. Nice girls who came in all shapes and sizes--athletes and dancers, brainy geeks and bubbly goofballs, born rich and working class. A house that is a sort of microcosm of the Real World (if the real world had secret rituals and Hell Week because yeah, there is a bit of that there too). I was hired by a 19 year old in the sophomore class who was waaaaaay more nervous than I was at the interview. And though I had to TRY OUT (huh? never had to do that before), I felt almost immediately that I was going to get the job simply because I talked to the girls and made them laugh. Well that and the chocolate mousse cake I served.

So I started the job with a lot of notions in my head (and yes, there are a lot of sororities who fit the stereotype here too), but also with a mind willing to be open to this new experience. Before long I totally got the whole sisterhood thing. Lehigh is an extremely competitive college and has only been coed for 30 years. And, whether they realize it or not, I think women still have to prove themselves worthy of being there, let alone being there as engineering majors. The sorority house provides them with a place where it's okay to be a goofy girl and I think that's really valuable. I didn't have that experience at my school because for one, the gender lines were blurred and two, were celebrated for that. As my dad like to point out, my college's colors were lavender and white.

So why am I feeling sort of nostalgic about the beginnings of this job? Because my sophomore class is graduating. I've only been there 2 1/2 years but I feel about them like I feel about my own kids in that I can't believe they're this grown up already! They were the class that hired me and because they were also the class that fired the former cook who made tuna casserole at least twice a week and also made them too scared to come into the kitchen, they remember what it was like before I was there and so, consequently, they LOVE me.

They are an amazing group of girls too. A few of them wowed me almost daily with their insightfulness and maturity. One of them is someone who I'd like to be when I grow up. A good number of them are the kind of girls I hope my daughter becomes. I will miss them terribly next year and think of them often. And though they laugh at my assertion that I will just be a blip in their college memories, I know that I won't be hearing from the majority of them anymore. It makes me sad because they've made an impact on me. And I think with all my heart that they'll make a real impact on the world when they get out there. And I'll be so proud to say that I knew them when.

OOPS! and a few more humble displays

Please forgive me while I try to *oops* my way through blogland. It's so hard to make things look nice that I'm forgetting key things like when to add the reserved chicken poaching liquid from the previous post. I'm sure you're saying to yourself, "For the love of G-d, WHEN DO I ADD IT?? WHEN???" Well, just add that stuff to the lime juice mixture and then call it a day. Whew. That was close.