Quitting+Ham

So, I wanted to tell you about my new job, which I am quitting, but first, some other musings about the bus. 

Seriously, so much goes on on the bus that I almost feel like I should have a second bus-oriented blog. 

Anyway, the other afternoon I was coming home from work and this junkie was on the bus. He didn't look like a nutter though, I mean he wasn't muttering to himself or carrying on or nodding out, it was just obvious to me that he was a person who did a lot of drugs, but he was pretty lucid. He was sitting in the front in the old or handicapped people seats, and I was next to the back door, so I couldn't hear what he was saying, I could only see that he was talking to the girl sitting across with him and that she didn't seem too thrilled about that. He had a paper bag in his hand, like a lunch sack, and he kept shaking it around. 

A couple stops later, he made his way toward the back of the bus. I was really hoping he wasn't going to approach me, but of course he did. He sat in the seat ahead of me and turned around to face me and held the paper bag up, shaking it in my face.

"You wanna buy some ham for three dollars?" he asked?

"No," I said.

He shrugged his shoulders like, "oh well, I tried," and got off the bus at the next stop. So I wondered what was really in that bag. Was it really ham? Why the arbitrary amount of $3? Or is "ham" some kind of drug slang I'm not aware of, like the time that big tranny came up to me at Motor City and asked if I wanted to see Tina and I thought she was just referring to herself in the third person, but then later I realized she was asking me if I was interested in purchasing some crystal meth. But what kind of drugs could I get for $3? And the guy seemed intent on getting the $3 so that he could buy drugs, so why, if he already had some drugs would he be trying to sell them off? So maybe it really was ham in that bag. 

This and my many other tales of the bus make me concerned about one of my dad's new job ventures. He has applied to be a busdriver for the VTA and I just don't think it's the best idea in the world. I mean, my dad is no codger, but he does not need to be spending his days physically removing racists from and telling junkies not to sell ham on his bus. I just think that if he could find anything else to do, it would be better than being a busdriver. Maybe people on the bus are more civilized up north, I don't know. I just don't like it. 

Anyway, on to my job that I'm quitting. 

I've been working at this coffee shop for a couple weeks, and when I got hired, it was with the understanding that eventually, should my skills prove sufficient, I would be made assisstant manager. That sounded good to me and figured that then I could eventually phase out waitressing altogether. 

The problem is that they do all this stuff that I find appalling. They make cappuccinos with the big, frothy, Starbucksian foam, which, for some reason, I have a really hard time creating now that I'm used to texturizing rather than frothing. When I sent my resume, I said I made a good cappuccino, which, if you like your capp with bubbly, airy milk, turned out to be a lie, so that makes me look bad. Also, they only use nonfat milk for cappuccinos because "it's easier to foam." Also, their large sized espresso drinks have three shots in them. Do you know how they get the third shot? By pushing the single shot button on the espresso machine after the first two shots have been pulled through that same filter. If you order an iced espresso drink there, the shots will be measured out from a reserve of chilled espresso that has been brewed ahead of time, so it's almost always at least an hour old. They prep it at night so it's already chilled in the morning, so if you come in for your morning iced latte, the espresso in it will not even have been brewed that same day. When I come in in the morning, the machine is still covered with coffee splashes and grinds from the day before. I never work at night, so I don't know how the closing ritual goes, but the condition of the espresso machine in the morning leads me to believe that it is not cleaned at night, not even wiped down, much less taken apart and treated to an application of Puro-caf once in a while. I've been dying to tell you about this, because no one else I try to explain it to really understands the horrified feeling that it fills me with. 

Recently, it has come to my attention that there will be more shifts available at The Cafe where I am a waitress, so I think that what I'm going to do is just take 4 shifts there and quit the coffee shop. I mean, I can get up at 5:30 in the morning, but it just doesn't seem worth it to go to a place that has "expresso" written on the awning and make crap coffee on a dirty machine. The tips aren't very good, and the job also requires things like making deliveries to the various loft buildings downtown, cooking eggs in the microwave, and taking extensive phone orders from difficult people, all of which I hate. So I think, after Wednesday, I'll quit. 

If you're keeping track, this will be the third job I have quit in as many months. I am amazing. 

*Puerco*

Wasting Time?

My new favorite website of all time, it's not really a website but one that links you thousands upon thousands of sites and blogs and photos that involve your interests. I know, it doesn't sound real, does it? But really, you should check it out....

stumble upon!

(I will write a better post soon, I'm sorry...)

pidge

The Wheels on the Bus

I would be all for doing this sign business if it was a real sign that I could get posted somewhere along Sunset Blvd. so that I could see it on my commute to work. It would say, "The Lord Is Telling You to Learn to Drive."

It's true. Just as soon as I remarked to my mother that "the public transit situation is working out a lot better than I'd thought it would," it started to get a whole lot of shitty. I'm sure I cursed myself by making such a remark. You know how it is. Saturday morning, I'm not going to lie to you, I was in a little bit of a weakened state to begin with, due to the late-night movie-and-Two-Buck-Chuck marathon. I left the house extra early to get to work, meaning I allowed 80 minutes for the trip instead of 60, because the bus isn't as frequent on the weekend and I didn't want to miss one, wait 20 minutes for the next one, and end up late. I work for the male Leslie, so it goes without saying that lateness is frowned upon.

You know what? That's a really stupid phrase, "it goes without saying," because in order to use it you have to say the thing that is supposedly implied, so it does not at all go without saying.

Anyway, so I got on the bus, which was packed and I was lucky enough to get a seat, but the ride seemed to be taking forever. I'm pretty sure the driver stopped at anything that was a bus stop, and not just the stops designated for that bus, so it had been almost 45 minutes and we weren't even halfway down the stretch of Sunset between my house and the Fairfax stop where I catch yet another bus that takes me the rest of the way. I had my iPod on, so as not to accidentally imply that I would welcome any sort of interaction with anyone else on the bus, so I didn't initially realize there was quite a hubbub up in front of the bus, but soon enough, everyone was staring and gaping so I had to take notice. Up front, there was this old guy in a windbreaker and one of those straw Arnold Palmer golf hats. He didn't look like a homeless or a mental but he was ranting at this other guy sitting up front, this black guy in dress slacks and a button-down shirt, spewing all kinds of racist things, things so awful that I can't even type the dialogue with euphemisms in place of the words he used. When I craned my neck, I saw that not only was this guy not provoking the old man in any way, but he was also sitting with his two kids, a boy and a girl who looked to be about 5 and 6. This didn't go on much longer before the bus driver pulled the bus over and announced that "this is not the way you speak to people on my bus. This is a family wagon and if you can't comply with that, then you can get off my bus and wait for the next one."

Unfortunately, the bus driver was also black, so all this did was cause the old golf hat man to unleash a racist tirade on him, at which point the bus driver, with the help of a couple male passengers, had to physically extricate the old man from the bus. All this took about 20 minutes, and that, coupled with the bus' unnatural slowness, caused me to be 15 minutes late. The excuse, "sorry I was late, there was a racist that had to be ejected from the bus" was not met with a lot of sympathy or belief. 

As if the trip to work wasn't bad enough, on the way home, an old man insisted on touching his leg to mine aggressively and when I noticed that he was also rubbing his crotch I elected to move, but alas, I was in the inside seat so I had to pass in front of him to get out of it and he scooted forward so that I had the whole Fight Club dilemma of crotch or ass. I decided on ass, and he touched it on my way out of the seat. 

Sunday (which was Pride, as you may have been aware) there were a couple of wasted, foul-mouthed, beer-swilling guys sitting in the back of the bus. They were not gays, so they had no excuse for the public drunkenness, and they were commenting on the body parts of every woman who got on the bus. They weren't even drinking out of paper bags or anything, they just had their Heinekens right out in the open! Where, I ask you, was the kicking-off bus driver then? I love feeling like public scrutiny and perhaps assault might be possible on my morning bus ride. In all my years of riding the subway in New York, I have never been so skeeved out than by those three trips in that 48-hour period.

So obviously, this is a sign. And you know it's always good to do what the Lord says (is it a capital "t"? The Lord? Whatever)

*Puerco*

What Would Yours Say?

I think we should get a road sign!
We could have it say anything we want!
like:
"CALL YOUR MOM!"

or

"YOU'RE ALMOST THERE"

OR

"STOP BEING A TOOL"

The Incredible Edible

So, as you know, I don't have any money. I did make some tips last weekend, and I finally got to pick up a paycheck for all my training time at The Cafe (thank God for the $8 an hour, huh?) but for the most part, I've been trying to get through the week on basically nothing. 

I was good. I didn't buy anything for myself or the apartment. I didn't even buy beer. And yet, the little cash I did have on hand managed to disappear and what did I spend it on?

I spent it on food. 

Monday I went to Vons and bought a pound of thick-sliced applewood-smoked bacon (they didn't have any pancetta and no one even knew what lardons were so I had to make do) and garlic-infused olive oil so I could make a garlicky linguine with chewy porky bites. Tuesday I went to the Asian market in Echo Park and even though stuff is sort of insanely cheap there, I managed to go kind of nuts, buying fish balls (that's little meatballs made of fish, not fish testicles), shrimp balls, udon, and fruit pudding mixes, along with all the ingredients for Vietnamese summer rolls, some of which turned out great, some of which were a little wonky. Yesterday I was going to make chicken noodle soup, since Mr. Puerco has had some kind of bird flu all week, but it turned out to be more cost effective to order Thai food. But that still cost money.

The thing is, between going to all my interviews, I have all this downtime, and all I really want to fill it with is cooking or plotting things I want to cook as soon as I can afford the ingredients and apparatus, or flipping through cookbooks or watching Top Chef. I've been waiting for so long to have my own kitchen and now that I do, I've filled it with all kinds of gadgets that I've always wanted. Like my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, which I've only used for pizza and cookies so far, but I am totally getting the pasta roller attachment so that I can make homemade linguine and ravioli and whatnot.

 

I've become sort of obsessed with pasta lately, because it's cheap and easy to make interesting with just a few ingredients. When I was still in New York, I hardly ever ate the Infamous Tuna Pasta, but here, I eat it about once a week. Usually what happens is that I'll make a big batch and then eat some and then eat the rest periodically throughout the day, so that on that day, all I consume is Tuna Pasta. 

Also, I've become obsessed with putting fried eggs on things. Sandwiches, burgers, pasta, arugula salads, everything is better with a fried egg on top, and as soon as I have a regular income I am totally buying those round fried-egg molds from Williams-Sonoma. I would be happy to spend all day cooking. I almost wish that I was going to culinary school next year instead of learning to be a digital editor, which, for the record, I really want to do, it's just that it doesn't involve many fried eggs.

*Puerco*

List of Things I Want that Start With the Letter "B"

After just having moved across the country and pared down all of my belongings, naturally, I want more stuff. Although, I think the stuff I currently want is bordering on necessity. While there are other things that I "need", the "B" segment of the list is my favorite.

---- "B"

- bed - Currently the boy and I are sleeping on his air mattress that he used when he first moved to New York, some 5 or 6 years ago. Granted it's a pretty great air mattress, it keeps air in through the night and maybe even two and when the air starts slipping out there's an electric motor attached to pump it back up. Our living situation is this: The Red Headed Jew Boy has a pretty awesome apartment, but when you break it down, there are walls and doors but no real bedrooms, it's a super-glorified studio, and our part is the "dining area" a.k.a. the kitchen. So, there isn't much space. We are talking about getting a loft bed, the same Ikea loft bed that I had at the 13th St. apartment. It's the perfect solution, but makes me feel like a not-so-responsible-20-year-old again. AND... I have to buy Another mattress, seriously they are supposed to last like 10 years. How have I bought so many mattresses?



- bike - The public transit is pretty good in this city. A good cross-section of people ride public transportation, there are a few drunks, and smellies, but overall not so offensive. There are buses, light rails, Cable Cars!, and underground trains, and for the most part all electric and zero pollution. It actually goes places and the places I need to go. Monthly unlimited passes are only $45. But, it takes forever! Seriously, our apartment is about 3.5 miles from work and sometimes is can take close to an hour to get there. My theory is it's because so many people ride, the buses become weighted down therefor are just slow... There is a vast biking consortium here, of all types of people, not just die-hard cyclists and messengers. Normal people ride bikes. I think I want one.


- book - It's just been too long. sidenote: Can I still love books written by New Yorkers, about New York and that take place in New York, or do I have to start loving books about San Francisco, and do they even write those?

- bag - I got what I like to call "my stimulus package" and I will not use this money to pay bills or debt or things that I need. The Pres. wants me to buy stuff and that's what I intend on doing. He hasn't done that much much to please me so I'm looking at this as an "I'm Sorry" gift. I've been wanting a real Louis Vuitton bag for a while. The Canal St. fake has done me well, but I think it's time to dive off the deep end. Then I start second guessing myself, what if I really am Gucci girl, should I spend my $600 on a Prada, do girls like me even carry those kind of bags? All I know is I better decide quickly this money is "burning a hole"!

Pidge

First Post

Ahoy!

So look, I've been having issues with my hair. I don't even know what to do with it, and I kind of just want to cut it all off, because I'm starting to look like late-'90s Stephen Baldwin, the ugliest Baldwin, who also happens to be pigeon-toed, which I hate. Did you know he became a born-again Christian? He has a website.

And speaking of celebrities, the Cafe Which Must Not Be Named (seriously, I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement) where I work is a magnet for them. In the two short weeks I've been there I've seen:

1. An Olsen, I think Mary Kate. She comes in wearing these men's button-down shirts that look like they came from the Big and Tall store, and ridiculously high strappy heels in which she insists on bending her ankles at 90 degree ankles (this grosses me out). She orders her soy latte and leans all over the beverage case and is all up in my way when I am trying to reach the Diet Cokes (which is the only beverage we sell that contains high fructose corn syrup because apparently in L.A., if you don't sell Diet Coke, customers will boycott). Remember when they sat at Cosi and ate one marshmallow and got served liquor even thought they were underage and basically ruined the whole night? I still kind of hate them for that. 

2. Elijah Wood. It was my 3rd day of training and I was annoyed to have to be following another server because the place isn't that big and I felt like I was in everyone's way. I heard a high, intensely nerdy-sounding "excuse me" from behind me and when I turned around, there he was. He is about the size of a swizzle stick. I don't know if he's a good tipper, but I would hope so, because I know he's got that hobbit money.

3. Giovanni Ribisi, star of one of my favorite retard movies of all time. Known Scientologist. He's a regular and wears cute hats. 

What else. . .

The Great Los Angeles Job Hunt continues, as I am only working at The Cafe two days a week. It's better than nothing, but it's not nearly enough scratch to pay the bills and also allow me to buy things, which, as you know, is something that I like to do. I had an interview yesterday for a coffee shop manager position, and I feel really good about how it went. I managed to make my answers to his questions like "what do you think is your best quality?" sound genuine, because they were, because I really liked the place (not like when I interviewed at The Cafe and they asked me bullshitty things like "tell me about a time you had a conflict with another employee and how you resolved it" and I didn't have the slightest idea what to say because the only intra-employee conflict that came to mind was the time that I felt that Bacon had slighted me and I "resolved" it by not speaking to him for months on end until he quit, and I couldn't very well tell that story so I just made up a total lie and then answered all the rest of the questions they asked my with more lies, punctuated by nervous giggling) and I'd really like to work there. The owner, a guy  not much older than myself, seemed enthusiastic and his exact words were "I have some other interviews this week but I really want to get back to you," which to me sounds like, "it would be unprofessional to hire you now because I haven't seen everyone, but you've pretty much got it in the bag." I don't want to get my hopes up, but 5 days a week from 7-2 in a position of power sounds pretty good to me. I'm hoping he calls tonight, because if he doesn't, I am going to feel obligated to attend the interview I have tomorrow at The Cheesecake Factory.

That's right, The Cheesecake Factory. It's like Cosi 2.0. Probably with better tips, but still, I think they wear ties. And white pants. Eew.

Puerco