Not quite Utopia

A few weekends ago a friend and I went to the Austin City Limits music festival (ACL). Tickets to the event are fairly expensive and must be purchased months in advance. We had been looking forward to the experience for awhile, and we were determined to have $xxx.xx of fun.

The festival is held outdoors in Austin's Zilker Park, and because it would be impossible to re-schedule that many bands for another weekend, the festival is held rain or shine. In the past ACL has been in September, and historically it falls on one of the hottest weekends of the summer. This year we were excited that it was pushed back to October. My friend and I are big fans of Fall (note the capital 'F.' That's how much we love it.), so we envisioned cool breezes in the lush (new) grass of Zilker...which would have been nice.

We began checking the forecast for the weekend as soon as we were within 10 days, and with each passing day the chance of rain increased. By the time the big day arrived, I decided that I should invest in a poncho. Unfortunately, there were none to be had in any of the nearby stores. I finally wound up in a hardware store that was sold out of ponchos, but had yellow rain suits complete with a jacket, an attachable hood, and pants. I had a winner (although wearing the contraption I'm sure I looked like a loser. For the record, I didn't wear the pants.).

The rains definitely came. Fortunately, it only rained during 1 of the 4 concerts we saw on the first day. Unfortunately, it rained between all of them. During Flogging Molly, the rainy concert, we were standing in front of a group of guys with umbrellas. I'm not sure if we wound up under their umbrellas because they were being nice, or because we were in such close quarters. But wind up under their umbrellas we did...sort of. We were really half-shielded from the rain by the umbrellas, which meant that all of the umbrella run-off wound up on the other half of our bodies. By the end of the day though, it didn't really matter. Everyone was soaked, and the place was a mess. So much for the new grass.

By day 2 I had decided to forgo wearing shoes. They were more of a hazard than a protection, as my shoes were inclined to stay in the mud rather than on my feet while walking. Unfortunately, on day 2 I realized that I had also forgotten something very important--deodorant. And day 2 was hot.

A little history of my love for deodorant: When I was in 8th grade, my US History teacher assigned a "Utopia project." Each group had to come up with a limited number of rules that must be followed in a Utopian society. Somehow, I convinced the rest of my group (or manipulated, but who's really keeping track?) that one of the absolute necessities for a Utopian society was for all members to wear deodorant, and it became a law. I have also had a fetish for men's deodorant for quite sometime. One of my college friends used to give me his old deodorant bottles so that I could smell them...but that's probably too much information.

Still, by the time I realized that I had not put on deodorant before leaving for the music festival, it was too late. We had already parked downtown and had walked most of the way to the park. Neither of us had any in our bags. Luckily, I'm not much of a sweater, and Austin is a pretty forgiving city (I was going natural). Nonetheless, when I did my laundry a few days later and came across the shirt from that day, my love affair with deodorant was renewed.

We did have $xxx.xx of fun. The music was fantastic, and we realized, as B would say, that "Dave Matthews is one sexy beast!" Who knew?

The one with the really bad food

I do not consider myself a particularly picky eater. Certainly there are foods that I do not prefer, and I would never cook them at home nor would I order them off a menu. However, I must admit that there is one food that I despise more than any other on this planet: papaya.

My first encounter with papaya occurred when I was staying with the sisters in San Antonio. Until that point, I had never disliked a fruit, so I put a large helping on my plate. It only took one bite to realize that the fruit had the unmistakable aftertaste of vomit. I ate the other things on my plate, waiting for someone else to recognize that the papaya was obviously spoiled. As it turned out, one of the sisters exclaimed that the papaya was exceptionally good, and everyone else nodded in agreement. I vowed never to touch the stuff again in my life. I have actually walked through the produce section of the grocery store and felt my stomach church, only to realize that I have gotten too near the papaya display.

Fast forward to breakfast this morning with the Sisters. A bowl of papaya on the table. I had turned down the opportunity to engage in such a delight a few weeks ago because it was on the table in front of me (holding my breath...) but no one specifically asked me to take any and I filled my plate with other things. Today, however, I was passed the papaya with nobody else to pass it onto, thought it would be rude to turn it down. I took two small pieces and swallowed as quickly as possible. My stomach actually did a bit of a sick somersault as I was helping with clean up. The cutting board must certainly have been used in cutting up the dreadful fruit, and still held the smell of vomit.

On another note, I realized that I never provided a tiramisu update. You can probably guess that all did not go as planned or I would not be including it in this particular blog entry.

I used to believe that I was a relatively good cook. Taking into consideration the episodes with the hot pink cinnamon cake, the caving in fruity birthday cake, and the "healthy" brownies with pieces of grass and sticks, I have come to the realization that while I enjoy cooking, I am not really all that good at it. Still, I had recently made my first tiramisu which turned out well, so I had confidence that #2 would be no big deal. Perhaps this confidence is what led to my careless mistake that is the likely cause for this epic fail (ok, it wasn't quite an epic fail, but definitely not a winner either). I whipped my egg yolks for the specified amount of time, until they were thick and light yellow, then I mixed in the rest of the ingredients to make the creamy layers. The mixture was way too soupy, partially because I had decided that the mascarpone would be easier to blend if I let it soften while I whipped the egg yolks (a reasonable assumption), but mostly because I had left out the sugar, which was to be whipped with the egg yolks for a thicker consistency. I whipped some sugar into the mixture, but it really had no hope of survival. I poured (not spread) the mixture over the first layer of ladyfingers, and it just pooled at the bottom. I had the idea of whipping it more, and I also tried cooling it in the refrigerator to make it thick, but nothing would help.

Tiramisu is expensive to make, and combined with the late hour of this project, I looked for the next best fix to starting anew. I knew that the tiramisu would taste good, but it looked anything but appetizing. If I had made it for my friends, I would have told them the story, we would have had a good laugh, and everyone would eat it anyway. But this one was being served to my boss, the rest of the Sisters, the church staff, and the priest. When I told my boss what had happened, she suggested putting it in the freezer. She had not seen it yet. I told her that wouldn't work, because the underlying problems went way beyond temperature. Upon seeing my concoction, she agreed.

Luckily, I am a chocolate pudding fiend. My friends laugh about the massive amounts of chocolate pudding and cool whip that I consume on a daily basis, but I always secretly knew that my habit would have benefits. Because of this addiction, I buy cool whip in bulk, so I happened to have a brand new container in my freezer. I brought it to work, spread it over the tiramisu-like blob, sprinkled that with cocoa, and aside from the startlingly white color, no one could tell that they were eating a cooking disaster. I was even asked for the recipe.

A Shower of Ideas

Sorry that it's taken me this long to post another update. My computer was on the fritz for a bit, to the point where I could quickly check my e-mail and respond to anything urgent before my computer froze up for good. All I had wanted to do last Friday evening after a long week on the road was snuggle up and watch Grey's Anatomy, which unfortunately my computer would not permit. Luckily, my parents were here last weekend and my dad got me fixed up.

The job is going well for the most part. The drawback to working for a nun is that I must be on my best behavior at all times. We share an office, so I must literally be good all day. The way I see it, being on my best behavior at work all day has 2 potential outcomes: 1) I get used to always being cheerful, helpful and holy and that becomes my permanent disposition; or 2) I get sick of being on my best behavior all day and switch to being a bit of a pessimist/jerk the rest of the time. So far, the trend has been in favor of option #2. Anyone reading this knows (hopefully) that I'm not really a jerk, but that I am independent and sometimes opinionated, and I have a hard time being entirely subservient to my boss. I'm using this time as a lesson in the virtues of patience and humility.

One thing that can be said is that, for better or worse, there is never a dull moment at work. Last week on the way home from a service fair in San Marcos, we stopped at Cabela's. Not really the place that you expect to see a nun in a habit. No, Sister is not preparing for a hunting or camping trip, but we are getting ready to host a group of volunteers at the end of the year. Our new place has great office space and some classrooms that we can use for our training sessions, but we are severely lacking in living space for our volunteers when they stay with us for almost 3 weeks. Although we can easily convert a classroom into sleeping quarters, the most significant problem is that there are currently no showers in the building. Sister had the idea that we could transform the handicap stall in the girls' bathroom into a shower (not by actually remodeling, but by temporarily hooking up a portable shower or hose). Portable showers are sometimes used during camping, hence we went to Cabela's to check them out.

The idea raised several red flags in my mind. First of all, I asked if there was a drain in the bathroom. I envisioned the flood that would occur as volunteers unleash a shower of water directly onto the bathroom floor. She assured me that there is indeed a drain, although as it turns out the drain is not positioned in our potential shower area. I still foresee a bit of a flood, not to mention a lot of really wet toilet paper. Secondly, portable showers need to be connected to a water source, and stringing a hose across the bathroom doesn't seem like such a fantastic idea to me. For one thing, a standard hose for a portable shower seems to be 4' long--not long enough to stretch from the faucet all the way to the stall. And we still need some way to fasten it or else the volunteer will be forced to hold it the entire time. If dropped, such a short hose is likely to fall on the outside of the stall (toward the sink where it's connected), forcing a naked volunteer to retrieve it. Strike two. Because we will have at least 4 volunteers, Sister came up with the idea that we could connect showers to both sinks. One volunteer could shower in the stall and another outside the stall...in the MIDDLE OF THE BATHROOM! Oh, but wearing a bathing suit. Personally, I don't actually bathe in my bathing suit. Somehow I feel like crucial areas may be neglected with that approach.

2 other ideas have been thrown around regarding potential locations for showers (the girls' bathroom actually being my preferred location of the 3). The 2nd location is the boys' bathroom (for the girls to shower). The idea was that again, one volunteer could shower in the stall, but the boys' bathroom has the advantage of having more open floor space for another volunteer to shower outside of the stall and next to the urinals!!! GROSS! I just cannot imagine feeling clean when the same water that is supposed to be making me clean is ricocheting off of a urinal and back onto me. However, I still think that option 2 may be better than the latest idea. One day this week we were coming back from lunch, and Sister excitedly asked me to follow her because she had something to show me downstairs. She opens a door that proves to be the janitor's closet. In her mind this space is ideal because it already has a floor drain and some raised sides so that water does not escape when the janitor washes out his mop. The entire closet is no larger than an ordinary shower stall, but reeks of chemicals. In this scenario, the volunteer would be trapped inside the very small but steamy and potent closet, which opens directly into the main hallway. I would imagine that a bathing suit would be necessary here as well, because I'm not sure who would be comfortable showering naked in a janitor's closet that opens up in to the main hallway of the CCD building. Perhaps it wouldn't the that big of a deal, because I'm not sure that there is even a light in the closet.

As it turns out, we did not purchase anything from Cabela's. Operation Shower is still in the works. I'll provide an update when a decision has been made.