Sausagefest 2009

So I worked my first job in San Diego last weekend.
Get this, I sold, of all things, SAUSAGES at the Chargers preseason game!

If you know anything about this land of wangs, are thinking the same thing I was when I heard which booth I would be working at.

"Sausage, here? In Man Diego?"

Really?
Yes really.
I hustled Italian Sausages, imported from Boston, from 2:30 in the afternoon 'til 11 at night.

"Hot Dogs, CHEESESTEAKS, chicken, beef tips, SAUSAGE!"

I bellowed from my station, directly in front of the serving windows and even into the pedestrian walkway to make a sale.

This way I could hustle some $10 sausage sandwiches before people even knew what hit 'em.

What can I say, it was fun.

One lady got pissed when she found out a sandwich was $10 and a 20 oz bottle of soda was $5.25. I was definitely happy I didn't have to pay those prices, but what do you expect at a football game??

Sourpuss looked up at me and scowled "$10 for a sandwich? Oh, that's outrageous."

I took one look back at her scowling sourpuss and couldn't help it, this woman was a shrew.

"Well 'maam, I wouldn't breathe too deep if I were you. You should see our prices for hot air."

My bike and my 2 step

So, about 3 weeks ago I landed in sunny San Diego with roughly $1100 in the bank and an air mattress awaiting in the home of an old friend.

It's go time.

That day, I got my pride and joy here in the land of eternal sunshine and air mattresses. Pepper is my fire-engine red, one-speed beach cruise with black tires and a black front basket.

And Pepper has a bitchin' bell.

Tonight, I rode on the trail that runs along the bay from Crown Point to Mission Beach. It attracts the masses, walkers and runners, bicyclists, skateboarders and roller bladers, all for good reason.

It is lovely.

The marine layer was starting to come in as I took off around 7 p.m.

I didn't know it would be smart to take my light off the bike, or even that it came off, till somebody already swiped it. So, I'm limited to day cruising. I'll buy another one on credit soon.

Hopefully I'll have a job by then, so maybe cash, but tonight, I had to get back from my first ride to Mission Beach before it got too dark. I hate driving cars at night and I don't expect a bike to be much more fun.

It was excellent, however, to cruise down the bike trail that the city of San Diego installed around the whale's vagina (You'll know what I'm talking about if you've seen Anchorman. Or you are German :-).

The trail is pretty safe, I believe, but the light thing will still be clutch in my adventures on a beach cruiser. And as long as we're on the safety kick, I also believe I am the only person in Pacific Beach who wears a bike helmet. I'll be honest, it's uncomfortable and I hate it (though it has gotten better since I started wearing my Phil's cap underneath). But, I must, so I do.

I think I would probably be pretty safe from other cars while I was on the trail, but there is still danger on this trail.

Remember all those walkers and bikers and roller bladers? Oh yeah, and dogs too. There's always something out there to be wary of. People can just be oblivious and sometimes that trail can get pretty packed. You can yell out, but who wants to yell at somebody?

That's when I use my left index finger to employ Pepper's greatest feature, Bella.

"ring ring" she goes.

"Don't just stand there, bust a move... ON YOUR LEFT" Pepper cruiser says as Bella chimes. Bella ringer has a silver body with a turquoise center and a flamingo perched in the middle.

I love her.

Tundra Jumping

'We’re almost there,' my guide told me, but I didn’t know where there was. The fireweed only told me there was 5 weeks left in the summer.



It all just looked like tundra as far as I was concerned. Spongy, absorbant, Summertime tundra that makes for a soft landing. I couldn’t wait to get to the cabin at 8 mile lake after what must have been miles of hiking.


Stampede Road only continued so far before it became Stampede Trail, just east of Denali National Park.


Stampede Trail seemed to continue forever until I saw the cabin. We took a 4-wheeler part of the way out, then hiked.


I brought my flask and had nearly finished it before I knew the Irish Whiskey was having it’s way with me. That was when I toppled over like a domino on my right side. I don't think I tripped on anything but my own inebriation.


We eventually entered the cabin, and as a native of the busy Mid-Atlantic region, this experience was new to me. After lighting the fire and warming up, we headed to upstairs to the loft. Once we took a look around, I was confused by the doorways on either side of the second floor. On the side of the cabin, the side facing 8 Mile Lake, there was a balcony, and sometimes Denali would come out on a clear days, rising over the lake with a distant, but distinct alpen glow.


On the other side of the cabin, facing the trail, the doorway had no balcony attached. I wondered if they were going to add another balcony but money or weather had thus far prevented the addition.


I asked my traveling companion what the deal was and he replied "Oh, that’s for tundra jumping.”

He was standing on the side of the loft facing 8 Mile Lake and took off his cumbersome backpack and before taking his mark.

"What the hell is that?" I asked.

As the words were coming out of my mouth, he took off and ran across the loft and through the open door, launching himself into a pike and landing, ass-first into the squishy melted permafrost.


"That," he said, with a hearty laugh and a swig from his flask, "is Tundra Jumping."

Take a number

So I picked up my unemployment check today. It's kind of a pain dealing with unemployment, but I guess it probably should be. It's not like any of us have a job we need to schedule around, right?

Today I was supposed to receive 2 checks because they denied my benefits when I didn't report any income. See, it's a long story, but because I filed for "reduced-hours" unemployment, I am able to work part-time and make as much as half of my weekly stipend. If I make more than that, my check is deducted dollar-for-dollar.

Therefore, each week I call a number and spend about 10 minutes touch-toning my previous week's earnings. It takes about 10 minutes and 2 days later, I usually receive a check, but they get backed up and things are spordic sometimes.

On Tuesday, I made my sixth (6th!) trip to the Department of Labor since I opened this claim. I am happy to say they have made some improvements to their customer service systerm, but I have definately spent DAYS in that office now.

Sometimes I see people I worked with at the Rudder while I am there. That has happened at least 3 times. No one I knew was there on my first visit , but by my second visit, I ran into Art, the old man who carves beef on the buffet.

My first year at the Rudder, I got to know Art because I worked there year-round and there isn't much to do in Dewey Beach during the winter besides get to know everybody else who is there. Art is barely 5 ft. and has white hair and when I started there, he was hard to understand because a lifetime in Sussex County poverty level did a number on his teeth, but he is still a really nice little old man but oh yeah, he's a little crazy too, definately crazy.

There was one summer when Art hooked up with little white-haired his tall black crackhead, we'll call her "Chickenhead." He used to drive her all around everywhere and she stayed at his house and they both worked the buffet. Come to think of it, I think I saw "Chickenhead" there too. Unemployment is crazy.

Well, this one Sunday that first winter, so there was the brunch buffet in the morning and a slow dinner shift to follow. Another young waitress and I were sitting in the smoke area, waiting to be cut. Back then, we used to have a smoke area inside. As soon as you went through the swinging kitchen door, you were there. Take 2 more steps and you are in the kitchen. The smoke area was right by the service bar, which was housed inside a larger"back of the house" complex including the kitchen.

Anyway, we were sitting there smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee and waiting to be cut and Art stepped out of the dish pit and grabbed a bulky steak knife and started sawing on his fingernail.

The other waitress and I were puzzled, but I had already seen so much crazy shit at that place, it was just par for the course, but my friend spoke up.

"Oh Art, what on Earth are you doin?" she asked with a little Sussex County twang,

"See here, I got myself this hangnail," he replied.

"Well why don't you just bite it off," she said, putting her hand up to mimic the action.

"I aint got no teeth. "

Only at the Rudder.

Plants? Really?

I'm still toiling with the turbo tax I'm going back through the deductions it is checking for.
I'm writing this so I will remember the next time I want to buy some nice potted plants I will save the receipt and deduct them because obviously they will be for my home office.

*Plants for home office
*Paint, repairs, maintenence, theft in home office
*Interest from student loans
*Interest from almost anything
*Mileage
*Cell phone bills
*Donations to charity
*Moving expenses

I'll keep my eye out.

Doing Business

I started tackling my taxes today. I only had 3 W2 forms and 1 form about my unemployment. I hadn't even opened some of the envelopes yet but I spent the whole day today figuring out where I made money and how I did it.

In 2007, I had seven, yes SEVEN (7) jobs! Two of those jobs were in Alaska. I also graduated college and there was a lot of stuff to report with that. I didn't get my return until August because I messed up writing on of the taxpayer IDs and I just barely got the taxes in on time to begin with, so it was a while before I could finally think about them again but the money took a big bite out of my credit card debt so that was cool.

Not surprisingly, this year was still my highest-earning year since the year before my car accident, but I still didn't make shit. I think I made slightly under $26000 on the books and everything else has been freelance work or bullshit you don't have to report.

The more I think about it, the more I am becoming increasingly agitated about my poverty. My baby sister has out-earned me pretty much every year since my accident, but she's still not raking it in either. (but I guess in comparison she sort of is...)
I also downloaded some business program so I can organize my freelancing thing. Basically I am an independent contractor now, but fortunately I didn't even make enough to report it last year. I'm glad I'm taking the time to organize myself now before I have piles of hell to sort through at tax time next year.
So anyway, back to the poverty level thing. This is bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

I can live modestly, that's for sure, but I am really sick of HAVING to do it. I went to college in good faith, believing this endeavor would provide me a comfortable living.
It got me health insurance and with a degree in journalism and a job at a newspaper, that was about it. I guess people also begin to know your name, some people learn your office number too, and your email address.
Ugh, the best part about freelancing is NOT having to publish my contact information with my stories.


So, back to this poor house situation. I'm busting out. I have the freedom to really hustle and now that it is nearly springtime, I'm getting ready to make some moves.

In my quest to do some serious traveling and hard work and money-making this year, I will need to remember how important discipline will be. I'd be really pissed if I got wasted and broke myself in Alaska and it de-railed my aspirations.
So, I might just observe some limits for a change.

Inspiration

Not long before my car accident happened 4 years ago, I wrote about my need for inspiration in a new journal. It was winter, life was dull and at 23 with no end of the monotony* of going to college in sight, I thought I wasn't getting anywhere. My inspiration occurred about 2 weeks later with the car accident.

ation: action or process...
inspire: To affect, guide, or arouse by divine influence....

motive: An emotion, desire, physiological need, or similar impulse that acts as an incitement to action...

Watching my president speak tonight brought me back to the whole idea of inspiration and what it really means. If the above definitions hold true, then in both circumstances (inspiration and motivation) the words are definately talking about "doing" something. The difference is just how you get there.

Motivation describes something that comes from inside yourself.
Inspiration comes from something else, something higher and more advanced, divine.

I think maybe I should have been asking for motivation in that journal entry years ago. Motivation keeps it in my own hands, my own control. Inspiration comes from the divine. Ever heard the phrase 'God works in mysterious ways?"

Exactly.

Today I will ask for motivation.


*monotony is the word I would have used for it then. Today, I look back on a time of a new rich boyfriend with unlimited money to spend and remember it wasn't all that mononous. After all, it took 3 weeks to wake up after I finally passed out. None of it was monotonous, just unfulfilling.

Prom

I finally made it out in public in the prom dress and it was pretty.

PRETTY SCARY! Ahhh!

The concept was good, but we showed up and were the oldest people there. The girl I used to work with threw "prom" in her garage.

There were some pictures was taken in front of a backdrop she set up, and there was all kinds of streamers and crap hanging from the ceiling in neon colors. It was festive for sure, but everybody was young really young.

Most of the people got dressed up too, especially girls, but it was more of an 80s party than a prom party, except for the backdrop. Me, I just had this "prom" dress I got at the Salvation Army, but no matter how much blue eyeshadow I put on, my reach really exceeded my grasp.

The dress just had nothing 80s like about it, it was just the only one that fit. Terrible. These pictures are doing a number on my psyche, but to cope with it I just need to own my embarrassment. Therefore, I am posting this blog and going tanning because I am so pale I am practically translucent.

In my defense, the premise I was operating on when I left was this picture: taken at my house before leaving. It was on my phone and the lighting is well, different. The pictures in that bright light are somethin', I tell you what. In this picture, I still look sober and I think that's before I got the royal BLUE treatment.

I just looked like a crazy person, and then, I went to Wawa and saw these girls there that I thought had been at the party. They seemed sorta 80ish, I thought, so I went up and started talking to them like they had been there. They looked at me and my big "more blue, you need more blue!" eyes and laughed in my face.

I didn't really care because I was hammered off cheap pinot grigio, so I just started laughing hysterically and walking around wawa in the getup. At least I had a long coat on over it.

Everybody started smoking inside the garage too and now that I'm not a smoker it got to me more. Not that I ever really liked cigarette smoke on its second round anyway, but still, it got close... And the very bestest part of the smoking thing???

Remember all those streamers coming from the ceiling?

No, the place didn't go up in flames, don't worry, but I left before it had a chance to go up, or down, or anywhere.

Moral of the story?

I think I'm too old for prom.

This stuff really works!

While I was at the newspaper, I tried to sort of promote the things I was interested in through the stories I pitched. Really, this practice isn't all that uncommon, seeing how writers have to write so much so often. Might as well make it something I'm interested in, right?


So, aside from being educated about global warming and the damage of littering (the crying Indian was burned into my mind while I was still in preschool), I still didn't really get behind green lifestyles until I went to Alaska in 2007.


This was still light years ahead of Sussex County it seemed, when I proposed the idea of a Going Green section in my paper and my editor looked at me like I was a silly hippie as she drove off in her Jeep XXL Durango Wrangler Denali Beast Commander with a pink hawaiian lei hanging from the rear view.



Anyway, I did manage to slip in some articles about how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. I managed to slip some stuff into the real estate section over the spring about making your spring cleaning green. A new all-natural cleaning business opened in town, so I could slip that into the business cover. I wrote 8 covers for about 6 different sections each week, so with a little creativity, I finagled some stuff in.

I also wrote a piece about cleaning green for a web site I regularly contributed to after leaving Alaska, Life More Natural, but I so rarely clean that I had very little opportunity to try too many of these natural remedies.

I have, however, been pleased to find the market is filling with natural cleaners produced by large companies so there is a wider variety without the need to mix it up at home. Lazy as it sounds, I just don't have the ambition to not only acquire all the common household items (ie: baking soda, vinegar, lemons, squirt bottle) but mix up the solutions these natural remedies call for. If I have those items, it is for a purpose already. Like, if I use all the baking soda from my fridge, how will I keep it from getting stinky sometimes?

Before you chastise me for my laziness, you should be happy to hear I am changing my ways. With these new mass-produced items, I can clean green without making a kitchen laboratory. I just tried it tonight with some Clorox Green Works, which kicked the Lysol Kitchen's ass at cleaning my stove. Even though the green works was meant for bathroom usage (not like I stuck it directly in the crapper before I cleaned my stove. I just figured a cleaner is a cleaner, right?) it still delivered a shining, almost spotless stove (I've done some damage to the flat-top with my inadeqacies as a chef- take out is always a little safer with me.)

The all-natural stuff worked wonders! I mean, I had been slathering that lysol chemical configuration of (probably) carcingoens over my surfaces to sorta-clean them (but leave all the residue and reminants) but the stuff made with coconut extracts and lemons gave me the sparking stove you see here.
On the other end of the spectrum is the traditional Lysol kitchen cleaner. I'm working with only my phone for my art on this thing (and the stuff I snag online), so this picture is pretty fuzzy, but the warning labels on traditional products make you really unsure why we ever believed this was the best way to live.

Though you probably can't read this, the Lysol said "do not keep in close proximity to humans or domesic animals"

And this is a "household" cleaner.

Obviously, if you keep on using this stuff, you might want to relocate to the garage, like my dad or your husband.

Falling into places

Big news today! I got hired in Alaska!

I talked to one of the guy who runs the kitchen today and got really psyched. It is just so different there. Magical. The place I worked is the only bar in Denali with live music regularly and independent ownership. I love it there. They have rules that make sense and they are all very strict, but not without reason.
They have a rule that employees can't have alcohol 8 hours prior to their shift. 10 or 12 if they are driving. I love that.
How wonderful. Alcohol is my biggest vice, though I have six other "close seconds."
I like working at this place (and the money is good enough), I don't even mind living in a shack all summer with no heat, electric, water, plumbing inside. Just a couple mattresses on a thin carpet and a sleeping bag.


What am I talking about? I can't wait to get there! I might switch shantys this summer, I scouted them out when I was there before. I might not. It doesn't matter when you are living in Neverland.

In other news, the plan to drive is out. It would be a wonderful stunt, yes, but in all, it was an expensive and time consuming endeavor. Too much to be classified as a stunt.