Mmmmm . . . Chocolate Chips

Lazy days here, people, and few profound thoughts. I'm still trying to finish the needlepoint, but I think it's within reach. Not today, as the Kid and I have some things to do. We already had breakfast--bagel with dried rat spleen (a.k.a. brown sugar) and butter for him (the cream cheese was moldy); bowl of wood chips, gravel, and burlap bags for me--and made a batch of chocolate chip cookies as a surprise for Dad, who loves them. Kid has been playing Zoo Tycoon 2, which pleases him beyond belief. In a few minutes, we're going to get dressed and head to the bookstore, where he can use a gift card to get some books, and right after lunch we're heading to B's house so we can walk in the woods and look for deer. Tomorrow I have to meet with the people from the old work place and probably tell them about the bakery job; the Kid will go along with me and amuse himself with books or a gameboy.

C's at work, so it's just me and the Kid today, and most of tomorrow, but we do pretty well together. When the Kid can play off one adult against another he's more of a pain, and I'm probably a little more strict in some ways, so it's easier when there's just one of us around. I say that I'm more strict, but the ways in which I'm strict don't seem to bother him much when we're alone. I make him help clean up, for example, and help cook, and whatever, but he seems to like that. I also make it a point to tell him what our plan is, so he knows what's happening--that makes a huge difference. Saturday we've got to clean house and then the three of us are going to a local restaurant that's doing a kids' seating for New Year's Eve; I might go to a yoga class first, but the timing might not work or I might be a slug. I have gotten almost no exercise, and I haven't been to a yoga class in two weeks. I've also been sleeping a lot (for me), which results in weird and remembered dreams. (I only remember my dreams when I'm sleeping a lot.) This morning: I was wandering around with Dick Cheney, who was telling me that he's actually a Democrat and doesn't like the Republicans. There are other fragments, but that was by far the strangest.

If you're looking for an end-of-the-year questionnaire for yourself, here's one by the columnist who wrote the "wear sunscreen" column a few years ago.

Sticky Pecan Goodness

Need I say more?

Merry Happy

Seeing as how writing here can work nicely as procrastination, well, you get a Erev Christmas blogpost.* C and I went to see "Good Night and Good Luck" last night, and if you haven't seen it, go do that before it's completely gone from the theaters. I've been forced to move George Clooney up the list. Don't get me wrong--it's not as though I would have thrown him out of bed for eating soda crackers--but, in part as a reaction to the volume of publicity he got around ER, he never really made it to my personal top ten. I saw him being interviewed w/r/t this movie, too, and was impressed by his obvious intelligence, and, after seeing the movie, I've moved him up.

What's on tap for the next few days, you ask? Today I'm making sticky buns--i.e., pecan sweet rolls--and fermented dough; tomorrow morning I'll bake some cranberry pecan bread and some cheese bread (with $12/pound-imported-gruyere, which is probably excessive) with the fermented dough. Tonight C and I go to a local restaurant that has a special Cuban Christmas Eve dinner each year: mmmm; pulled pork and plantains! Tomorrow we go to C's mom's place, where I think pork is on the menu. The needlepoint is coming along, but I haven't done any yet today and there's only three more hours of daylight, so I think it'll just have to go with me tomorrow. I'm also bringing along some cream puffs and some pastry cream to fill them, plus the aforementioned breads, plus the recipe for crepes (for Monday morning, just in case we've run out of food).

The financial situation isn't as bad as it could have been, which is nice. C and I prepared for a nearly-worst-case scenario (i.e., I get no unemployment and no other income), and we could still scrape by, albeit with a little debt on the credit card. Thanks to my unemployment checks ($302 per week! woo-hoo!), and a paycheck from October or November (I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know whether it's a full or partial check; one of our clients paid for some work, so checks have been cut and sent), and, according to my mother this morning, a check from my parents (who are very quite generous about these things), we might even be able to get rid of the credit card debt, which would be very lovely. Plus, I suspect I'll get some money back from the IRS this year.

My current goal is to stop paying for groceries with the credit card. When I was paying off the balance every month, it kind of made sense, because I have a points-accumulating credit card (from L.L. Bean, which also means free shipping from them). Now, though, it mostly feels like it's screwing up our budgeting efforts, because we pay for last month's groceries on the bill. More to the point, when I've been broke in the past, I much preferred paying for things with cash or checks; it kept the debt from piling up. It worked then, so I'd like to get back to it.

I realized recently that the strangest thing about being married is that our finances are even more deeply intertwined--what with a joint return and all--no matter that we keep, and will continue to keep, separate accounts. It's extremely weird for me, and, to tell you the truth, I don't much like it. I've worked my ass off to keep my credit rating as good as it is, but C hasn't been quite as . . . diligent, which is his business. Now that we're married, however, his relative lack of diligence has a much greater effect on me. And did I mention that I really don't like joint income tax filing? Not even a little bit. (In the Kids These Days section of this rant, I feel compelled to point out that many young women don't realize that I couldn't have anything separate thirty or so years ago--women's finances were inextricably tied to their husbands', and woe betide the woman who wanted a separate account of any kind.) But C and I talk about this, so I think we'll be alright.

Okay, people, I've procrastinated enough; I hear the pecans call me from the next room. In case I haven't told you this story, I once asked my father why we celebrated Christmas if we didn't believe in Christ; without missing a beat, he replied, "We celebrate Hallowe'en and we don't believe in ghosts; why give up a perfectly good holiday?" So, in that spirit, have a lovely holiday--hell; celebrate all of them!
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*For those of you who aren't Jewish, "Erev" is the same as "Eve," i.e., the day before the holiday.

Seventeen

In celebration of the solstice, not to mention's B's birthday yesterday, he and I met for lunch. It was supposed to be a festival of meat, wherein we consumed enough protein for a small village; a local Brazilian Meat Restaurant has the same menu, but cheaper prices, at lunch. He got a late start, so we just went to a place near where we used to work. Part 2 of the plan was to walk in the extensive woods near his house, so we changed into several layers of warmer clothes and did that, for about three hours. We saw seventeen deer, including a 10-point buck and a second buck that was nearly as big. It was extremely cool, and, thanks to the traipsing through the snow and so on, not cold. There was a lovely sunset, as well, and then we went to a bar that has approximately 10 Belgian beers and another 10-12 good beers (including three from Bell's) on tap. I started with a glass of mead, though, because it seemed appropriate for the solstice, somehow. The only down side to this place is that it's smoke-filled (at least until the new ordinance kicks in), so I took a shower when I got home, even though it was nearly midnight. C doesn't particularly like sleeping next to an ashtray, and I don't particularly like waking up and smelling it in my hair. All in all, a lovely day.

But why haven't I been writing for you every day? Well, Tuesday I actually did the few fragments of Christmas shopping I can afford to do this year (the nephews, the Kid, my yoga teacher, and an old friend in Philadelphia), and then played handball. Plus, during daylight hours--few though they are this week--I'm trying to finish the needlepoint that's 10 years overdue. I think I can do it, too, in which case I'll take a picture of it for you.

On Sunday, my yoga teacher suggested we each take some time and think about the past year, because most people think they haven't done anything until they think about it. While some people certainly got married this year, few got married for the first time at my age (I've seen the stats on this, and, as with so many other things, I'm more than two standard deviations from the mean), and most people probably didn't throw it all away to become a pastry chef. So what did I do this year? The usual, more or less, for me.

Okay, sun's up, time for more needlepoint.

I, Too, Blame the Patriarchy

Before I forget, I had a rant I wanted to share, about this article. Here are some choice quotes:

Gary A. Randall . . . said the proliferation of antisocial protagonists came from a concerted effort by networks to channel the frustrations of modern men.
"It's about comprehending from an entertainment point of view that men are living a very complex conundrum today," he said. "We're supposed to be sensitive and evolved and yet still in touch with our Neanderthal, animalistic, macho side." Watching a deeply flawed male character who nevertheless prevails, Mr. Randall argued, makes men feel better about their own flaws and internal conflicts. . . . The most popular male leads of today stand in stark contrast to the unambiguously moral protagonists of the past, good guys like Magnum, Matlock or Barnaby Jones. They are also not simply flawed in the classic sense: men who have the occasional affair or who tip the bottle a little too much. Instead they are unapologetic about killing, stealing, hoarding and beating their way to achieve personal goals that often conflict with the greed, apathy and of course the bureaucracies of the modern world.
"These kinds of characters are so satisfying to male viewers because culture has told them to be powerful and effective and to get things done, and at the same time they're living, operating and working in places that are constantly defying that," said Robert Thompson, the director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.

What, you may ask, annoys me most about this?
Could it be that "television producers are [still!] obsessed with developing shows that can capture the attention of young male viewers"? Well, yes, that's certainly part of it--men between 18 and 49 are regarded as the holy grail of viewers. They're the ones with the money, the argument goes, and that makes them much more attractive to advertisers, and, of course, it's advertisers who run this particular part of the world. If you pull in that demographic, then you will get higher ad rates for your show. Yes, it's true, that thinking makes me crazy, but that's not what set me off about the article.

Here's the thing: the murdering, animalistic, morally ambiguous men that male-oriented TV programs want to present, in order to get the cherished viewing demographic, are apparently reacting to this stifling, bureaucratic, world, one that "constantly defies" the urge to be powerful and effective. But who built the institutions that stifle all that power and effectiveness? Who built the bureaucracies? Who made the rules? Was it some alien species? Was it women? Was it some meanie who doesn't want men to have any fun? Hmmm; no. It was men! Mostly men between 18 and 49, for that matter.

Really, it gets back to one of the corollaries to my feminism--that the patriarchy oppresses men, too. It's true that men benefit from the patriarchy in ways that women simply do not (see twisty, at her new site, for a lovely explication of patriarchy), but it's no picnic for men, either, especially if the sex roles to which the patriarchy assigns them don't fit particularly comfortably. Men benefit more, and they're oppressed less--which is why it's called a "patriarchy"--but it's not the system that most of the men with whom I'm friends would choose, and many of them fight it, in their own ways, as much as they can.

So anyway--I wanted to share that annoyance with you before (a) the linkability disappeared behind the paywall of the NYT, and (b) graduation. Which is today, in case you haven't been following along below.

The Last Day

We cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned, and then we cleaned some more. Ovens, walls, bins, boxes, sheet pans, trays, you name it, we probably cleaned it--if we didn't, then the afternoon class did. And then the chefs brought us some pizza, which was nice, though it hasn't been sitting well in my stomach. I'd intended to play handball today--really, truly--but we know with what the road to hell is paved. I did manage to clean my desk and do the laundry, neither of which were small tasks, and I included the kitchen rug in my laundry, so I feel semi-virtuous. (If I'd managed the sheets as well I'd feel completely virtuous, but stripping the bed was beyond my capacities.) I'm just really, really, tired out--and looking forward to not getting up at 4 am tomorrow, for the first time in six months.

We'll do the grocery shopping tomorrow morning first thing, then maybe I can talk C into doing some cleaning with me before we head to the graduation ceremony. After that, I'll be heading out for more beverages with J and B, and possibly S, but not with C. Why is my husband not joining us, you ask? Because tomorrow is Pack Night for the Kid's Scout troop. I was somewhat less than thrilled to hear that last night, but C was damned if he did and damned if he didn't, number one, and, number two, I'm supposedly the grownup, i.e., the person who should be able to understand why he has to be somewhere else. Or, at least, I should be able to understand it better than the Kid. And I do, but I have to say that this scouting thing is getting on my last fucking nerve. It's at least two weekends a month with one thing or another, plus every other Wednesday, plus there's buying and selling of crap (I hate that fundraising shit--I really, really, really hate it, and I pretty much always politely refuse to buy anything when someone sells their kid's shit at work). I suppose that's all well and good if everyone lives in the same neighborhood and has two parents at home and so on, but that would not be the Kid's life, and I doubt he's alone. So, instead, C ends up shlepping all the damned time, not least because he's one of the Scout leaders. That last part is somewhat amusing, in that C is about as much of a deist as I am, and the BSA really rather frowns on atheism. (Apparently some of the parents have their panties in a wad because the other/primary scout leader Isn't Catholic; little do they know. In more ways than one.) I have my own objections to BSA as an organization--the deism thing, the homophobia, the girls-are-icky implications of the whole thing--and I've not been terribly impressed with the things the kids do for merit badges; "undemanding" would not be a harsh description. But I don't see the point of fighting about it; the Kid likes it, all of his friends are doing it, and he needs opportunities to play with other kids, and that all trumps my own reservations. But the demands on the kids' time--and, by extension, the parents' time, or, at least, the time of the parents who are actually involved in the organization, like C--is a bit much.

Anyway. I'm less than a day away from finishing pastry school, and I haven't regretted it in the least. Even more than when I started, l think it was exactly the kind of program I wanted and needed, i.e., one that would introduce me to the basics, in a short, intensive period, with the most highly skilled chefs as teachers. It's been an interesting year, that's for sure.

It's Not My Job

I've already decided that I'm not going to hire, or will fire, anyone who says that. The rule in the classroom kitchen is supposed to be that no one leaves until all of the cleaning is done. The people mopping the floor tend to shoo everyone out about ten minutes before noon so the mopping can be completed without footprints or an injury. In addition, the chefs haven't really enforced that rule. Still, there are several people who practically race for the door at the end of class--they rarely, if ever, lend a hand with the mopping (only one team of two people is assigned to mopping in the downstairs kitchen where we've spent two thirds of our time; upstairs, four people are assigned to it), they don't always do all of their own assigned tasks, and/or they don't pitch in all that much with other tasks. A couple of people always seem to be fussing with their stuff at the last minute--wrapping products, putting away tools, whatever--nearly every day (all of us get behind once in awhile, but a few people always seem to be behind in that way; to be fair, some seem to go clean for awhile and then get back to their stuff, but not everyone). Other people pitch in pretty frequently, doing the needful--I've probably mopped the floors on days when it wasn't my assignment at least 20 times (at least once a week, and often more than that); others routinely lend a hand at the dish sink or wipe down the freezers or help with the trash.

This week has been a little unusual. One person has left already, to get back to her business, which is entering its busiest season. A second person injured herself very badly last week with hot sugar. A third person has been battling some kind of severe gut inflammation, such that she did her exams this week instead of last week. Today, a fourth person didn't show up. We didn't have a lot of cleaning today, because we've mostly been finishing up the things we're serving on Friday (I finished sugar cages and did some sugar curls; other people were dipping chocolate for fucking ever; others were finishing other bits, except for the garnishes). As we finished up, we chatted with the chef for a few minutes, then I asked who was doing the mopping today--I mopped yesterday and Monday, and I really didn't feel like doing it again today, but the task was assigned to two of the people in the above litany and therefore had to be done by someone else. Of course, two people had already left the kitchen, despite the above-mentioned rule, and one of them was the person who said, in the locker room, that it wasn't her job and that she was doing other people's jobs around the kitchen.

Okay, fine, but you know what? The jobs weren't all done. We were short four people today, which meant at least two teams' worth of jobs weren't being done, most especially the mopping. Did it maybe occur to you to check and see what else needed to be done before you hightailed it out of there? No? Then why would I want to hire you? Because someone who doesn't bother to check on things is someone who's going to cost you money, in ruined product, in someone else's overtime, or in some other way. I realize I'll likely assign certain oversight functions so everyone isn't checking everything--that's wasteful, too--but our cleaning is designed to be self-managed; the chefs get on us if we do it badly, but they don't oversee the actual doing.

Most of tomorrow morning is supposed to be spent doing a massive cleaning of the kitchen (while still leaving some of that for the afternoon class, who will be using the kitchen tomorrow afternoon). One of my classmates has threatened to call anyone who calls in sick tomorrow and harass him or her. If we all come in and work together, we can knock it out in no time and get out of there early. I don't want to get all fuzzy and rose-colored, but working hard and together really does produce results.

Funny how?

The good news is that my exam is over. The better news is that it even went reasonably well, except for one thing that went horribly wrong. The lemon meringue tart was lovely, as was the creme brulee (no, I don't have pictures; I forgot my camera). The souffle wasn't terrible, but it was a little underfolded and so didn't rise perfectly. The paper cone was fine. The ice cream bombe was okay--could have been nicer, but it was acceptable, I think. The World Cup Cake was going swimmingly--all of the components came out well, it merely needed some chocolate mirror glaze on top.

The glaze must have a certain consistency so it runs over the cake but doesn't completely run off the whole cake and leave naked spots along the edge; it also must be a certain temperature, or it will melt the chocolate mousse. I made my glaze yesterday and reheated it today. I got impatient and tried to put it on the first cake (the recipe makes two, and, even though we had to submit only one, I went ahead and made two, just in case something went wrong) before it had cooled sufficiently, and the result looked like a cake that had been hit by a car. Actually, that's a kind way of putting it, but we'll go with that.

I had more glaze, but paid no attention to the fact that, even though I cooled it down to the proper temperature, it was way, way too thick--it didn't coat the cake, it kind of glopped on top of the cake. It was . . . not pretty. I submitted it anyway, because I had no choice, but it was a disaster. Once the chef graded it (I shudder to think), I said, "Okay chef, now let me show you the other one." The chef and everyone in the class, including me, was laughing at my first effort. Our intern told me later that the cake made her day, because it was so funny. The chef overheard that comment and said that it was kind of a good thing, because some people are perfectionists, noticing teeny little flaws, whereas my cake would make them realize just how nice their cake was. One of my classmates took a picture of the really bad one, and, if I get a copy, I'll post it for you. One of my other classmates actually complimented me on my reaction (the aforementioned hysterical laughter)--when I looked puzzled (really, what else could you do but laugh at a disaster like that one?), he reminded me that we have classmates who would have broken down in tears or something. He's right, I guess, but it was just too funny. I also got a laugh out of my classmates later: the chef was telling us what we'll be making next week for the graduation buffet, then he said he'd need a couple of volunteers Friday morning to do some final touches on things, so I volunteered to glaze the cakes.

In any case, I'm nearly done with school--it's all over but the celebrating and the preparation therefor. We're having a get-together on Sunday, mostly to celebrate our intern (though she doesn't know that yet), at a local bar (we were going to do a pot luck at a classmate's apartment, but she's been sick for two weeks--she's doing her exams next week, even--so we decided not to make her entertain us). It's been fun--every single day.

One of the things that's been interesting for me is the seasonal aspect. I've taken the same bus every weekday except three or four for the last six months, and walked the same three blocks west, at the same time of day. When we started, it was hot and humid, and I had on light summer clothes. The past two weeks have been cold, sometimes bitter cold, and today there was snow on the ground (we got 6 or 7 inches last night). I tend to notice seasons, but this was a daily march through half of the calendar--much more so than in previous years, because, when I was working, I didn't necessarily take exactly the same bus, and it wasn't exactly the same time of day, and so on, so the impact was different somehow.

Anyway. The Kid and his father should be here soon, and I'm exhausted. The Kid is likely to be tired, too--his grandmother is in Paris, which meant he didn't do his homework last night at his grandparents' house (his grandfather isn't the disciplinarian that his grandmother is). Mom was delayed by the weather and didn't get there until 9:00, which meant the Kid was up until nearly 11 doing homework. I'm hoping Dad gave him a little lecture on taking responsibility for one's own homework, and for sure he's going to bed early tonight. As am I.

Gods? What gods?

I promised you a post on religion in the LOTR trilogy, and, after a really interesting post over at an expert's site in response to my female orcs question, I'm motivated to write it. (I know you people want to hear about pastry, and I promise you'll get an exam update at the end of this post--or you can just skip on ahead if this bores you.)

At least one person snorts derisively at the notion that there's no religion in LOTR, and he details the various deities and deity-like beings in the world that Tolkien created. (For a short version, go to the Encyclopedia of Arda and look up Iluvatar, i.e., the "Father of All," and maybe follow some of the links.) I don't quibble with that in the least. What has struck me, however, is that the characters in the trilogy do not practice a religion--we never once observe anyone going to any kind of church-like meeting, for example, or invoking a deity before doing something. Elrond doesn't ask for anyone's blessings before the Fellowship sets out. No deities get thanked when something works out well. There is no mention of morning or evening prayers--the closest we ever get to that is when Faramir and his men face the west before sitting down to eat (when Frodo and Sam are with them). The beings in Middle Earth have a variety of histories and talents, the normal age to which a given type of being lives varies, and some beings are immortal (Elves), but there aren't any deities that resemble the Jewish, Christian, Hindi, or Muslim god(s), and there are no practices invoking such a being. There are immortal and deity-like beings--the Valar--but they are not routinely mentioned or invoked, and, in fact, unless you rummage around in the appendices and the Silmarillion, you'd be hard-pressed to know much about them.

The other thing about this that stands out for me is that free will is explicit--most clearly when Gandalf tells Frodo (in the book, I think, though Merry or Pippin in the movie) that we can't choose the times in which we live, we can only choose what we do in the times into which we're born. That is, Gandalf recommends choosing a course of action that seems right and honorable, not (for example) presuming to discover what a deity wants you to do and then submitting oneself to the deity's will. (Rather Kantian of him, in some ways, I suppose.)

Tolkien was a devout Catholic, I believe (and, I think, was responsible for C. S. Lewis' conversion to that religion), and I think he regarded the trilogy as a religious work, in some sense of that word. One could easily argue that the trilogy is informed by--or, really, based on--a notion of good and evil, and, given the primacy of ents, the disgust with Saruman and his machines, and the glorification of the basic simplicity of hobbits, a certain crunchy-granola-organic approach to the world. Certainly the "good" beings regard themselves as stewards rather than owners of the land, and they take a quasi-Lockean approach (take what you need, while leaving enough and as good for everyone else) that avoids the tragedy of the commons. The "bad" beings pillage and destroy, often for the sake of being able to do so. Wanton destruction delights orcs and disgusts ents and hobbits and so on. However, a set of moral values does not a religion make. One can argue--and, of course, people argue to me all the time--that religion is somehow a necessary and/or sufficient condition for a moral system, but that's so patently false, in so many dimensions, that I'll only lay out the counterargument if someone really asks me to do so: religion is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a moral system. That, then, is where the question of religion in the trilogy really arises. The trilogy clearly has a moral system, and even a deity, in the sense of a creator, but there isn't anything resembling religious practice.

Yeah, you're saying, but what about exams? Things went reasonably well today, though, of course, not perfectly. The sablee dough fought me tooth and nail, but I finally managed to wrestle it into a tart shell and a disk (for the bottom of the ice cream bombe) and bake them both. Spinning my ice cream was fine, but filling the mold was a pain in the butt. The Cup Cake(s) are in the freezer and I think they'll be fine, too; I only have to present one, but the recipe makes two, and I saw no reason to waste the ingredients, and you never know when you're going to have a glazing accident. The creme brulee was also fine, I think, but, since I didn't get to make a sugar cage today, I won't know for sure until tomorrow when I present it. Tomorrow I have to make lemon curd for the tart, make meringue for the tart and then torch it, torch the brulee and put it in a cage, spray the bombe with cocoa butter, glaze the Cup Cake with the chocolate mirror glaze I made today, and bake a souffle. I will present everything tomorrow, too, including my paper cone, which is a tiny bit of a pain, especially for the chef, but I just didn't get to the cage today. Seriously, I have five hours to do everything I listed there, and I did a lot more than that today, so . . . On the other hand, shit can happen, so I'll only really be relieved once it's over. I'll also be relieved when I don't have to deal with my classmates' lackadaisical attitudes, too--not everyone, by any means, but a bunch of people just piled up dishes near the sink and . . . walked away. Some people don't do their dishes very often, so they pile up on their tables or speed racks and then that pile gets moved and not washed; those of us who make something then wash, then make something then wash, were getting perturbed today. Other people weren't doing their assigned jobs--some people because they were helping with the Mound O Dishes, but some people because, even after 24 weeks, have not figured out how to determine what their cleaning responsibilities are. And, of course, some people are just perpetually slow. Whatever--we're nearly done with it.

Cakes, Tarts, Ice Cream and Whatever

Most of us are in the "whatEVER" stage of this whole thing, though we're all diligently working away. By Friday I have to produce and present:

• 1 Hazelnut Chocolate Cake (a.k.a. World Cup Cake, or, as I like to call it, the cupcake), which includes chocolate biscuit, hazelnut dacquoise, caramelized hazelnuts, chocolate mousse, hazelnut mousse, pate a bombe for the two mousses, and a chocolate mirror glaze; today we all baked the biscuit, and I caramelized my hazelnuts;
• 1 Lemon Curd Tart with meringue decoration of our choice (I made the sablee dough for that today but it's resting in the refrigerator);
• 1 Ice Cream Bombe, which includes chocolate ice cream, raspberry coulis, parfait (cooked egg yolks & sugar, whipped, then combined with whipped cream), and a disk of sablee dough (I made the coulis and parfait and molded them as an insert, and I made the ice cream base and will spin the ice cream tomorrow);
• 1 classic French souffle (I'm baking mine on Friday, so I haven't done any more than write my labels for the scaling);
• 1 Passion Fruit Creme Brulee with a Sugar Cage and Mango Chip (I have to do this second thing tomorrow morning, as they all have to be baked by tomorrow);
• 1 paper cone

I think I did okay on the written exam--probably didn't ace it, but no matter (did I mention I have a job? because I do). Tomorrow is going to be a crank-a-thon, but, if tomorrow goes tolerably well, then Friday should be relatively breeze-like. We'll see whether I get done what I need to get done tomorrow. Some bits depend on my partner's cooperation. My previous two partners spoiled me quite a bit, in that they were organized, focused, and worked clean (i.e., they didn't leave messes in piles to clean up later). This partner doesn't work as clean, so sometimes it's a little more difficult to navigate. Add that to the fact that we have to share the equipment even more than in previous exams--because several items require using first the stove then the mixer, for example, so you can't just divide up between those two pieces of equipment--and it's not as easy to navigate. But, hey, two more days.

Several people have jobs; three have already started, a fourth will start the day before I do, a fifth has one of the internships at the school, and, we found out today, a sixth person got a tryout at Charlie Trotter's, which, given the long waiting list for such things, is a huge deal. She's really quite good, so I hope they have the sense to keep her, though it's unclear whether they're willing to pay her. A seventh person is starting her own business, an eighth already has her own business, a ninth is doing an internship with a cake decorator, and I'm not sure what everyone else is doing. I just wish I could invite you all to our graduation banquet next week! Both J and B are going to be there (as will C and possibly S, if I can score an extra ticket for him), so maybe I'll try to get guest posts out of them.

Are there female orcs? or: What counts as women's work in Middle Earth?

I am, once again, whining in my head, and I'm as tired of my own whining as I am of anyone else's. More, perhaps, not least because I can't get away from it; it also makes me extremely annoyed at myself, because it's just stupid shit. So, hey, I'll come whine to you guys! Or not.

You know what time of year it is, don't you? That's right--time to read LOTR. (I'm planning to spend some quality time with the movies and with my needlepoint after school's done, not least because I have two weeks in there before I start the new job.) This year's question: from where do all of the evil beings come? In the trilogy, they're all male, but apparently there's some speculation and notation in the Silmarillion that they reproduce, which implies females around somewhere. The Encyclopedia of Arda is also a useful reference on this and also speculates that they are "created" more than birthed. What's interesting to me about this (at least today) is that it fits in with the rest of the writings about females in the trilogy. I suspect there are many other more learned discussions out there about this subject, but I'm too lazy today to go find them, so you'll have to settle for my opinion--google females tolkien and rummage around if you're really interested in what other people have to say.

The trilogy is notably bereft of ordinary females. There are extraordinary ones around--Galadriel, Arwen, Eowyn, Goldberry--but no common women (and, of course, the whole Fellowship is male). I suppose you could argue that there are heroic males all over the place, too, but part of the charm of the trilogy, for me, is that the hobbits, at least, and arguably most of the other characters (except Gandalf, Aragorn, and possibly the various kings and leaders of men) are ordinary for their kind. They do great things, they act with courage and so on, but the story is about beings rising to the occasion, not about a Spiderman-like creature who comes in to save the day with his superpowers. The great powers that are displayed (e.g., by Gandalf) are part of his kind; he may be an exemplary version of his kind, but he doesn't have something the rest don't have. (You could argue that those are two distinct ways of telling heroic stories--someone becomes heroic by acquiring powers that others of his/her kind do not possess, or someone becomes heroic by utilizing ordinary powers heroically. One could additionally argue that this fits with John Adams' view that it is incumbent upon each of us to be the best persons we can be--to not waste our talents--and incumbent upon us as members of a community to create communities that encourage and enable people to develop their talents fully.)

So, then, where are the common women? What are they doing? Are their tasks--raising children, for example, or keeping the home fires burning--regarded as heroic? Aragorn and Theoden try to convince Eowyn of that--Theoden even puts his/her people under Eowyn's care in his absence--but Eowyn isn't convinced of the worth of that, and Gandalf acknowledges that when he points out that she has the heart of a warrior. In the movies, even, ordinary women are mostly running around in fear and gathering up children to go hide somewhere.

In one way, I never let this absence bother me much--I think that Frodo and Sam could as easily have been female as male, for example, and, if I were more ambitious, I'd attempt a retelling that does that. What seems to be the case, though, is that Tolkien's Catholicism (and its penchant for giving women a binary choice--madonna or whore) might have had some effect here, at least psychologically. It's also the case that there apparently isn't a lot of glory in tending the home fires--I would argue otherwise, in some ways, but only because I think there's a certain amount of glory in necessary tasks.

Perhaps one way to consider this is to ask what happens if one carries out one's tasks in an exemplary fashion, or merely does one's job reasonably well. For men--and not just men in the trilogy--there may be a lot of everyday tasks, and, in times of peace, for example, not a lot of opportunity for heroism; that is, men's everyday work may be every bit as boring as women's everyday work (and, of course, there are categories such as men's work and women's work only when work is gendered and divided in the ways we are told are "normal" or even "proper"--but I wrote half a book about that subject and won't excerpt it here). Sticking with the world of the trilogy, however, there isn't much opportunity for women to be heroic, unless they do "men's" work--i.e., unless they're Eowyn. And, of course, if all women were Eowyn, then a lot of childrearing and the like would remain undone. Here's another consideration: if women do what we think of as their jobs in an exemplary fashion, not only will they not have an opportunity to be heroic, it's also the case that some part of the job will end (i.e., as the children grow and become increasingly independent) and some other part of the job will merely repeat, with little concrete result. (Laundry is a striking example here: it's a task that must be repeated, endlessly, no matter how well one does the task the first time.) At least in jobs that can be considered careers there is some opportunity for advancement, say.

Anyway, I don't know how I got here, exactly, but that's enough for today. My last set of exams starts tomorrow and I have to remember the differences among Diplomats, Chibousts, Bavarians, and the like. I'll leave the discussion of Middle Earth and religion for another day.

Income(ing)

So I'm sitting around here on Friday, writing a cranky blog post, and the phone rings and it's K, telling me he wants me to start on January 3rd. (I'm still going to try to collect unemployment for the intervening five weeks, however.) I'll apparently be doing laminated doughs rather than cake decorating, which is more than fine with me. After I've been there a week he'll decide what to pay me, which is also fine (that's pretty much how they do things in the food business). I start at 7 am, which, if I work an actual 8-hour shift (i.e., I work 8 hours and get paid for 8 hours, rather than another trick in the food business where you work about 12 hours but get paid for 8), then I'll even get off in time to continue playing handball. He pointed out that I would be making considerably less than in my current position, and I told him I knew that and didn't care. (I'll probably make about 20% to 25% of my current salary, with little or no paid time off--I'm now eligible for four weeks paid vacation.) It's not going to be enough for C and I to have many luxuries (or even really make ends meet completely), but I'm going to start doing some stuff for C's sister's store, and maybe some other unrelated something on the side (that means you, kStyle), and we should be okay, so long as he can find a job.

When Chef Bob came through our kitchen today I thanked him. He congratulated me and gave me a hug, and everyone was pleased (not as pleased as I am, but, hey, that's to be expected). I don't have to tell you what a relief it is.

I do have to relate the stupidest comment I heard today. I was at the unemployment office, filing some kind of statement of wages (I brought my W2 and pay stubs and so on), and the person w/ whom I was dealing tells me, practically over her shoulder as she's walking away from me, that I need to make sure my employer reports my wages. Um, yeah, I'll see what I can do about that. She was the first stupid/sullen person I met in this process, but it was pretty annoying. It did make me all the more determined to get my unemployment compensation, however.

Cross-Eyed and Painless

You may remember the chorus to the song by that name:

I’m still waiting...I’m still waiting...I’m still waiting...
I’m still waiting...I’m still waiting...I’m still waiting...
I’m still waiting...I’m still waiting...

I've tried staring at the phone, but it turns out that watched phones don't perform any better than do watched pots. Chef Bob said he'd shoot K an email and ask how things went (I dearly love Chef Bob, I must say). In lieu of actually writing a Friday Song post, I'll add that I quoted a large part of the lyrics to this song in my qualifying paper for grad school--the part about facts near the end of the song.

I'm kind of mad at myself today. Even my classmates noted that I was not my usual self, at least not by the end of the day. I attribute my crankiness in part to the aforementioned waiting: I hate it, as does everyone else, of course. I think that was only a small part of it, though. A second, much larger, part was the fact that we were doing chocolate showpieces today. I've mentioned before how I don't do well at them, though I suspect I'd get better with some practice. Today's was, indeed, somewhat better than the last attempt, although one of the things I wanted very much to do simply didn't work out, mostly because I didn't think it through and fucked it up. If I had thought about it for five more goddamned minutes and done it right, I could have executed the theme I wanted to execute, or, at least, come closer; as it was, I had to abandon it. I did execute the flower (everyone had to use a heart mold and include one flower, and my previous attempts at flowers were just heinously bad, so the fact that I did one today successfully was a huge improvement, and when I stop being such a baby, I'll be glad of that). A second issue with the sculptures was that I felt like I spent half the fucking day waiting for someone to finish with some piece of equipment I needed in order to do the next thing. Meanwhile, people weren't cleaning up after themselves, and that, in combination with the equipment-waiting, was just irritating. Third, several people in the class were getting on my last goddamned nerve. When school is over I'll tell you more about my classmates, but suffice it to say that there are a couple of people who annoy nearly everyone. (That aspect--that everyone agrees--is really interesting to me, on many levels, but the annoyance factor was paramount today.) It's also the case that there are several people who simply do not pull their weight when it comes to cleaning, and I'm just tired of that. Finally, though, it was frustrating to be working hard on something knowing that I'd be lucky if I managed to complete something that was even marginally competent, even as several people around me were executing much better, and much more complicated, pieces. I had to fight the "why bother?" impulse all day, and I had to fight my resentment about the aforementioned better pieces. Actually, I was most annoyed at myself for that resentment--it's a fucking chocolate sculpture, fer chrissakes; get over yourself!

And, may I say, I totally called the delay in the funding for my old job: The prospective investors have apparently decided, at this very late date, that they don't like the size of the company's debt load. I don't know what took them so long to reach that conclusion--it's not like the size of the debt has been a secret, and I feel like they've kind of been dealing with us in bad faith, given how far along the negotiations apparently had come. Nevertheless, the president has apparently been scrambling to come up with a Plan R (we're well past Plan B or Plan C), which is going about as well as you might imagine. My application for unemployment apparently also lit a fire, as she's now sent in a bunch of payments for back unemployment taxes and so on--which is all well and good, but doesn't uncomplicate the process all that much for me. I still have to shlep to a really shitty part of the city, on a fucking bus, and hope that she sent in what she said she did, and that they have it, and so on.

So, really, my mood isn't all that great today. A job offer, followed by several beers, would improve things significantly. Failing the former, however, I'll settle for the latter.

Update: I start my new job on January 3rd. And there was great rejoicing . . .