Drowned Mussels – Day 23

I just wrote about icing your mussels the other day. Sad day today, as 3 pounds of mussels drowned over the weekend and didn’t make it.  Such a bummer to open up the reach in and find shellfish sitting in water.  So there I was this late afternoon sorting through good mussels (closed up) and drowned mussels (open and not trying to close when you squeeze them shut, in fact, springing back open)

I found myself thinking of Alice and Wonderland with the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter. I’m rather fond of anything Alice and Wonderland, excluding the books, (I have to read them now that I’m older and can handle more classics) and the part about the oysters, while sad, is incredibly catchy. So okay, we’re not dealing with oysters, but still….

Carpenter:
Little Oysters? Little Oysters?

Tweedle Dee:
But answer, there came none

Tweedle Dum:
And this was scarcely odd because

Both:
They’d been eaten
Every one!

So of course, these poor dears were eaten, but still, dead is dead.  It’s a shame the mussels and clams are not good anymore because of improper care.

A few open clams, gotta be tossed too.

It actually irks me. I know it irked Coffeeman with his texts back and forth with me today. In fact, I sort of laughed because he literally phrased things how I would have had I been saying them. Yep, I just looked again. Clearly the two of us think alike. Weird. Cool. Eh, what am I saying, we both listen to Backstreet Boys and like it… And I know, weirdly off topic….You all know I am apt to digress easily. It’s the ‘Squirrel!’ in me…

I like things done properly. I have made mistakes in the kitchen. I get that. We will all make mistakes, but when it comes to a product being wasted because of ineptitude or lack of care, or for whatever other reason it might be, it irks me even more. Le sigh. Let’s hope that it doesn’t happen again.  And a side note, dead mussels or clams do not smell good. Bleh.

Kate

Beyond the Swinging Doors – 31 Days of My Life in a Professional Kitchen

Behind those two doors my world resides. Oh, and right to the left, where pizza is.

My life as a prep/pastry/pizza chef has been a whirlwind of less than a year. Considerably apropos to spend 31 days writing about it, posting about it, pictures about it, since this is the last year of 31 Days in October. Honestly, I can’t believe that this little blogging thing, which isn’t so little, is coming to a close. But as one chapter of life closes, another opens.  I can honestly say that all my hours spent cooking and baking are taking over my life to the point where I can only blog here and there.

The life has lead to some amazing opportunities, not just within the kitchen, but in my writing life as well. Opening doors to new subjects. New loves. New hates. New, new, new. It’s all new. Exhausting. Amazing.

I write this at nearly two thirty in the morning after not getting off of work till midnight, body exhausted and sore, mind fuzzy and wiped. But it’s all good. In a strange way, it’s good to feel this tired. I wish sometimes that I had more time to devote to writing and being at home, but at the same time, I love my job.

You know how people have to keep saying over and over how much they love something because they really don’t? Yeah, well that’s not the case with me. I say it over and over because it’s true. Even the most frustrating moments, like tonight running out of things the morning prep guy should have stocked for me, screwing up a few pizzas,  not having such and such done, and just not being able to close down till late, I still have the good things overshadow the bad. Like having a guy slip a tip over the window to me because he so enjoyed his dinner.  Having another guy say my pizzas were incredible. And another one saying he loved the mussels (which I did not do, Chef did) but he planned to come back soon because he heard how good my pizzas were. Yeah, those are good moments. It’s a good moment when your coworkers ask you to make them a pizza and they love it. I love my job.

So, I shall attempt for the next 31 Days of October to write and post about my life behind those two black swinging doors. The dance. The magic, the whirling motion of life. The food. I have my camera/cellphone at the ready. I already have several mental posts lined up.  Get ready, dearies and my darlings.

Kate

1. Stainless Silence

Change And Heartbreak And The sweetBitter

Photo by Adrián Tormo on Unsplash

People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all… has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store, did I ever tell you that? It’s a lovely store, and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. Soon, it’ll just be a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person, will probably think it’s a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know because that’s the sort of thing I’m always saying. But the truth is… I’m heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right. ~Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail

Miss Holly and I were talking about change this last Wednesday. By the quote above, can you tell I hate change?  So does Miss Holly. (psst, I knew I was going to need to showcase you in a post, even if it’s not a huge thing) Today was a lot of change. She doesn’t like change. I don’t like change. We talk about how it’s good for us. We still don’t like change.

Change isn’t always bad. Today wasn’t a bad change. But change scares me. I like status quo, unless I’m the one making the change. I’ll make changes all the time, that’s fun. But I don’t like outside powers changing things. I’m rarely ready. Today I wasn’t ready. I knew a change might come, but I just wasn’t ready.

I can honestly say working in a professional kitchen has dropped a boatload of change on my life. Every single time I work, something has changed. Even down to the order of spices. It annoys the heck out of me. I have complained in the past, meaning probably last week, to Lucifer, my sous chef, that I hate change. He always laughs and says it will always change in the kitchen.  “One day!” I always declare. “I want one day where nothing changes.” I actually got that last week. I had one subliminal day. One perfect day where I had a marvelously perfect change free day.

One day.

My sous chef is now my Chef. I have to start capitalizing that. Which is hard because think of my current Chef as the Chef, not Lucifer. Sure, I’ve viewed him as my boss, but he really is the boss now. This is good. This is Sweetbitter. Probably a mixture of both. An even mix. I’m happy. I’m sad…. No, I’m wrong, I think I’m a tad more bitter. Keep reading.

I finally get to work with one person that I have been dying to work with. Not that we don’t work together all the time, but well, he’s in charge now. I’m looking forward to that. But now that he’s my boss, I can’t have him as an on the side friend. “No fraternization with anyone non manager.” is the general rule of thumb. I am no where near manager position. This is the bitter. Very bitter in my opinion. How do you give up a confidant in life? Bitter doesn’t even begin to touch the iceberg here.

Change is hard.

Rugburn, taking a selfie…. Okay, I held up the camera, but it looks like he is.

Last night I lost the love of my life. My baby, my puppy, my Rugburn, my guy for the last 15 years said goodbye last night. You always know your dog isn’t going to last forever, but you always think you have a little more time. You don’t. If someone ever tells you that there will be time, they are wrong. There is never enough time. Not with people. Not with dogs. Never take life for granted.

I fell asleep next to his body last night, curved just right, his front ‘bear paws’ so soft, smelling and feeling just like my puppy, and I woke up this morning thinking just a few more minutes with this. A few more…. A few more never fixes it because he’s not coming back.  At some point I realized that I was prolonging the hurt. Maybe. Because holding his body one more minute doesn’t make him come back. I want to go out and scoop him right up and say “hey, it will be alright.” But he’s not the one that’s in pain. Finally his pain is gone and he’s not suffering anymore. I’m the one that wants someone to say to me”hey, it will be alright.’  I want a hug that won’t stop. I want someone to not let go and suck all the hurt out. t’s kind of hard to feel that things will be alright when so much change happens. The hard kind of change.

Rugburn and I when he was only about 3

I hope anyone else going through change and doesn’t like it, understands that I can completely empathize with you. It hurts sometimes. It’s hard, a lot of the times. And it’s not something we like. I hate when people tell me that change is a part of life.  Which is why I always think about what Meg Ryan said above.  “People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all… has happened.”

Kate

Disney Beats – Day 14

So my forays into the Write 31 Days October challenge went by the wayside on the 13th of the month. I think I burned myself out and just could not force myself to write. It was literally like trying to eat when you don’t feel good. But that doesn’t mean I can’t finish. It just might take me longer.

My sister got her first Disney soundtrack back when Oliver and Company came out. Cassette tape… I think we played that thing all the time. Even when we were taking baths that lasted 2+ hours. We loved that tape. Then came The Little Mermaid.  Once we knew that we could have music from any Disney animated film, it was no holds barred. We played them all. Compact discs made it that much easier and we went through those fun princess years of Disney all the time. I can probably sing every song from every movie from Oliver to Hercules, not counting all the earlier ones that we got later on.

Tell me a girl from the 80s that can’t sing every song from the Little Mermaid and I’ll show you someone that doesn’t know their pop culture. It is seriously insane how well we all know that music.

Disney music has always been a great love of mine since those first Disney movies that had good music. I’d say Mary Poppins was probably the first one I seriously remember, but I think Sleeping Beauty came next. Besides, the best part about Sleeping Beauty was that the prince had a name and could dance like ooh la la.

To this day, I still pay close attention to any Disney Musical, deeming it good (Moana rocks) or mediocre (Tangled could have been better). The music is still one of those things I love to put on, like any good musical, and start belting it out. Yes, I can belt it out and if it’s summer, I apologize, I love it so much.  It’s good, clean, wonderful lyrics.

What was your first Disney soundtrack you fell in love with? If you didn’t, well, you don’t know what you are missing. You’re Welcome….. (Moana)

Kate

Celtic Isn’t No Irish Jig – Day 7

I was in my early teenage years when my parents were introduced to Enya and Loreena McKennitt and Clannad. I was not impressed. I thought that music was depressing and sad and cold. It made me cold to listen to it, it made me want to cry, I wondered why the heck my parents were into that kind of stuff. I would roll my eyes when they would put it on, though I did find Clannad to be slightly more bouncy at times, thank God. I just didn’t get the point.

I can’t say when it was that it started to grow on me, but by the time I reached my mid teens, I was hooked. I listened to everything we had, which was several Enya albums, and come to think of it, several Loreena albums. We had The Chieftains, James Galway, Enya, Loreena, and more, though I’m blanking on what. Then I added Altan and more Loreena, and Celtic women, and gosh, all kinds of things. I even started learning to sing the songs that were in Gaelic. (I even went so far as to learning how to make Celtic knots, and wanting to learn Gaelic, and I have a Scottish dictionary…) My friend and I were hooked.

The music has stuck with me over the years, though I have to say that my fascination for Celtic music has waned some. I was instantly hooked recently when I was watching King Arthur Legend of the Sword and the first song came on, The Life sung by Gareth Williams. Reminds me of Billy Boyd singing in The Return of the King. Haunting.

A lot of Celtic music is haunting and sad, a touch depressing and honestly when it is raining, it seriously fits the mood. I find that I don’t need the ‘depressing’ mood when it rains. I have enough depression/discouragement in my life without adding to the mix. Maybe through those semi angst-filled teenage years I needed depressing. I certainly had a lot of lows. But as I get older, the less sad music, the better.

Loreena McKennitt Rome 2017

But I will say, Celtic music is what shifted me more towards folk music and that is an area I have definitely taken to. So while Enya doesn’t get played as much, and I can’t remember the last time I played Clannad (excluding the Christmas tunes that have several Celtic artist’s renditions), I have a healthy respect for the style of music. I think it has inspired me in many ways and helped me along my path.

Now, it’s your turn. Readers, has Celtic music influenced your life? If not that style, what has? Country, Rock, Rap? Tell me in the comments below.

Kate

Save

The Dog -Eared Snapshots

I’ve been rushing around trying to write more poetry and discard this and that from my manuscript. I chucked most of my sonnets because I felt they didn’t fit, which in turn, dropped my poetry count from 52 to only 40. I was pretty discouraged as I did that, realizing that I had to figure out more poems to add. Then I started typing up some poetry from the last few Saturday writing groups. I got a couple I really like, and in turn, I also found the title of my manuscript!  Exciting things. Due to one poem with a line in it I really like, I came up with Dog-Eared Snapshots. I’m really happy with the title and the poem. Though technically the poem isn’t done because my writing group said to not edit the poem, I did and I like the edited version better because it has a rhyming scheme.

Oh well, you can’t please everyone, but I do want to get some input from a couple friends first. But I have a title. Now to just get quite a few more poems. I keep stressing about the manuscript, worrying I’m not good enough. And stressing that I won’t get it all ready in time for September, what with how fast the summer is already advancing. But each new poem brings one more sigh of relief. Whew! One more down.

So onward adding to the dog-eared manuscript. 🙂

Kate

Dabbling…In and Highlighting NOPW

Writer’s Digest and the Poem a Day (PAD) started and we are here on day 15 with hardly anything to show for it. I started feeling a bit guilty that I wasn’t following along and cranking out a poem for every prompt. Till I got to the halfway point and said, fine, I don’t care. I stopped worrying about it because I knew I wouldn’t be able to play catch up.

Ironically, I was able to crank out 4 poems in 45 minutes the other day with my writing group. Granted, they aren’t that great, though three have promise if I clean them up. I still probably won’t accomplish PAD, but I might be able to dabble in a few more. Sometimes it takes me a while to get back to finding a poem in a simple prompt. This coming from someone that can usually come up with something with just about anything. Give me a picture, let me stare at it for a few minutes, and I can usually start off on the start of a story, or idea. Maybe not a poem, but definitely something.

For some reason though, this time around, the prompts have left me, well, hanging. Maybe it’s me. Today’s prompt is a Two for Tuesday is a Life or Death poem. Honestly, this one hits close to home as I have a friend who’s wife at 30 had a stroke then found out she had cancer. Talk about being hit by a wall.  Talk about a subject that triggers all kinds of things.

But a good segue to bring up something.  For those interested, there is a GoFundMe for my friend and his wife here at, Lift For Lainee, and I also want to bring attention to National Orange Popsicle Week or NOPW which brings awareness to those who have had a stroke at a young age. As they say “We consider a young stroke survivor to have had their stroke under the age of 45 because most statistics show that 45 is considered young for having a stroke. 20-to-64-year-olds make up 31 percent of all strokes.”  Who knew it was kind of rare? I didn’t. And talk about a life changing thing to have to relearn how to walk, or move, or speak, or, well, do just about anything we take for granted. I urge anyone to take a look at NOPW which has a rather cool story as to the name….  You can also check out their Facebook page here NOPW-FB.

Do you know of someone that has suffered a stroke at a young age? Maybe you would be interested in the site and organization.

Also, you can see why life and death have been on my mind, not to mention another dear friend who has had to go back in for another round of chemo. How does one even rationalize death or the word ‘cancer’ and not think of death?  Despite being a believer and knowing where I end up when I die, death still is something I struggle with. Surprisingly, I haven’t experienced much death in my life other than two great- grandparents, one at an early age. It hasn’t been one of those things where I even remember it much. So as friends age, or get sick, it comes to my mind.

I am reminded of Dylan Thomas’ poem do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (which I may or may not have mentioned in a recent post about Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas….)

Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 – 1953

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

SO good friends who read this blog….. Do not go gentle into that good night….

Kate

Listening To Bob Dylan

American folk and rock singer Bob Dylan, who was born on the 24th of may in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. — Image by © 91040/dpa/Corbis

Recently I have taken to liking Bob Dylan and his music. Not all of it, but a select few. I find it funny since I used to inwardly scoff at his music. Possibly because he was popular during the Vietnam War. Why that should make any difference at all doesn’t make any sense since I particularly like music from the 60s and 70s. Maybe it’s because I can actually appreciate the story being told in one of his many songs, whereas before, I was more interested in the beat. I didn’t know how connected to stories in songs I would get over the years of writing.

The first song I remember being introduced to was ‘Lay, Lady, Lay‘, and at the time I didn’t even know it was Dylan. But I fell in love with it. Over the years I’ve slowly added to my small collection of his songs. The stories in all of them are magical and as a writer, I can appreciate the condensed tale told.  I actually wonder if contemporary folk music appeals to the writer in us due to the story being told? I can honestly say that country music that has a story, I do have to quantify it, appeals to me. I like songs without a story, in fact, most of what I listen to wouldn’t qualify as much of a story and more of a ‘feeling’.  But if I start really thinking about songs that grab and hold me, they tell a story.

Thinking about Bob Dylan always reminds me of something I read in Poemcrazy where Susan Wooldridge was talking about him carrying around an armload of words. Turns out, it wasn’t Bob Dylan she was talking about, but Dylan Thomas, the poet. While I have a book of his poetry, I’m not as familiar with his works, so somehow I thought it was  Bob Dylan. While I had the person wrong, I still picture Bob Dylan carrying around armloads of words, racing to get to his black typewriter, up winding stairs in a small garret at an Irish inn on dreary, wet Irish days.

The actual quote about Dylan Thomas from Poemcrazy is as follows:

Dylan Thomas loved the words he heard and saw around him in Wales. “When I experience anything,” he once said, “I experience it as a thing and a word at the same time, both equally amazing.” Writing one ballad, he said, was like carrying around an armload of words to a table upstairs and wondering if he’d get there in time.

My image is certainly fanciful at best in regards to Bob Dylan. Who knows if he used a typewriter or wrote his music in Ireland.  I know I’m probably completely wrong, but if you listen to his words you feel the lyrical quality, and I can’t help but imagine the songwriter is this way. In Ireland. Go figure.

I carry boatloads of words in my head constantly. I have lost countless poems or starts of poems by not having paper at hand when I need it. I have a small pocket journal I have just for this reason, but like my camera when I don’t have it I need it and when I do have it I don’t need it, my writing is the same way. I never write when I have paper at hand. I write when I am scrambling frantically for any scrap piece of paper at hand. Netflix flyers, bill envelopes, receipts, margins of something and various other odd places. I have a folder/envelope of scraps of paper with the starts of poems. I have been meaning to transcribe them onto a document, or into one notebook, but I have yet to sit down and do anything with it. The question of, ‘Will I ever really use that and do I need to compile it all down?’ frequently hits my mind.

There is a panic that starts when I can’t find paper. I try to repeat the lines over and over in my head in the hopes that I will remember it for the next five minutes till I find paper, but inevitably I am asked a question, interrupted or just don’t have a moment to grab a paper and pencil.  It’s aggravating like that itch you can’t scratch. Knowing that the lines were just there. If only there was a way to scoop all those words up in a bucket that holds onto them until you can come back to collect them.

I try to make sure I keep a notebook, journal or index card with me whenever I go out. Of course, because I have that ready, I rarely write out in public.

In no particular order, Bob Dylan songs I currently love are, Lay, Lady, Lay, The Girl From The North Country, Mr. Tamborine Man, To Fall in Love With You, and Shelter From The Storm.

My one Dylan Thomas poem I currently keep rereading due to a friend’s young wife having cancer and is recovering from a stroke, is Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.

 

The Old Pirate – Poem

The Old Pirate

Under the old clock towers on a full moon night
and the asphalt and cobblestones are wet with a shine
he clomps and staggers in cracked leather boots.
He once was a pirate by trade
sailing off to adventures a many
looting and pillaging and carousing around
letting the gold slip and tumble through his fingers
as easily as the rum slipped down his throat
so full of life was he, till it came back to bite.
A rabid dog bite of a drunken haze.
He’s a cloak of invisibility of old man now
worn and tired and rather gray
aged and fat and a little more drunk
ancient adventures lost in delusional bursts
brandishing half empty bottles and shouting
the insanity creeping insidiously in
slumped on the cold stone steps.
He’s less than half the man of long ago
when he was a dashing charming sort.
Now all that’s left is this sad old man
sailing off in memories long forgotten
growing colder under the towers of time
till time eventually stops and he’s frozen
no longer anything but a once told tale
when the morning comes and they heave him so
up into a cart and tossed not into the sea
but to earth interned never to sail again.

 

I was feeling uninspired by the prompts I pulled for writing at my writing group this morning. So Sera graciously offered to pull some for me. I should have requested a random pulling instead of specifically looking for ones…. I know what you did, Sera…., but she pulled ‘full moon, clock towers, he was a pirate, grey silk, adventure, cloak of invisibility.’  I added in my one ‘wet asphalt’ and suddenly I was picturing the ‘wish realm’ version of Captain Hook that was featured recently on Once Upon a Time. But then I thought, what would this old pirate look like in the real world and would he drink himself to death….? Apparently he became that way, though there were some that didn’t realize I killed off this pirate. Hopefully it’s clear.  Enjoy this very random piece of poetry, and very open verse as well.

Kate

Bit Behind

I’ve been a little uninspired, a little behind, and a bit busy to post. I have things in the works, but I’m not getting a lot of time to write blog posts with life getting in the way. Life is very good at doing that. Not to mention distractions and wanting to read instead of write.

Hopefully something new soon.

Kate