Tag: truth

Pit Duty

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Today was very long. I got up early and slammed two large iced coffees with coconut creamer, hoping I’d be awake before I had to show up at work. Sunday is the one day a week I’m scheduled as the dishwasher, where when I walk in the door, the amount I have to do is overwhelming. There is no “easing into it.” I clean all four bathrooms, mop everything, and then go into the kitchen, where the prep cooks have been at it since 0900, so the stack is usually above my head.

The one funny story I have about cleaning the bathrooms is that I don’t have children, and I’ve never had a niece or nephew (or babysat a child) who had a Diaper Genie.™ You cannot imagine how long I stood there, just dumbfounded and scratching my head at how to work it. There was no one else in the restaurant but me, so I have to get out my phone and YOUTUBE HOW TO EMPTY A DIAPER GENIE. And even then, I asked the prep cooks with kids if I’d done it right, and they told me they were too expensive and they didn’t have them, either. No one came up to me later and said that I broke it, so I guess it went okay. That was several weeks ago, and now I wish every trash can was a Diaper Genie. I want to empty all trash cans without having to touch anything. People are disgusting.

We weren’t terribly busy today, so there were a couple of times when the dishes were done that I got called up to the line. My lead line cook said, “that is a sexy, sexy plate.” He’s said it before, and I blush every time…. and yet, I also know he’s telling the truth. I do love making people feast with their eyes first. I know I’m not the first person to say that cooking is art, but I am a huge advocate. Of course I want everything to taste better than it looks, which means that I want every dish to be over the top delicious because the plate has already made you smile.

And now that it’s late and I’m getting ready for bed, I am starting to concentrate on what I’m going to do with my next two days off. I need to go shopping for a new outfit since I’m interviewing for a job on Tuesday at University of Maryland. I discovered this when I did all my laundry and there are still food stains on the knees of all my pants. All of them. You might ask how one manages to get food stains on one’s knees. That’s pretty simple, actually. Everything in the kitchen has to be scrubbed down at the end of the night, so I’ve had plenty of evenings end with my kneecaps in aioli (compound mayonnaise, generally containing garlic) as I’m soaping up the lowboy (I’ll be delighted if you think that’s something dirty).

Generally, because of the acrobatics involved with cooking, food, cuts, and burns magically appear in weird places all the time. The one time it was not so magical was dropping a two quart jug of ice-cold kimchi down the front of my shirt. Luckily, only the juice splashed everywhere, and the cabbage stayed in place…. but boy, did I smell delicious…. for days.

If I get the job at University of Maryland, it is unlikely that large vats of food will fall on me, but then again, I haven’t asked all the hard questions. They were very impressed at my first interview that I cook professionally, and unsurprisingly, ever since I’ve been able to say in any interview that I cook professionally, I’ve been the most popular candidate, but only if there’s an upcoming company picnic.

In the past, though, it’s been funny how fast I’ve been relegated to salads and desserts, because men grill. Period. The end. I have had my fair share of hockey pucks to know that this should not be a thing, and yet, it persists. Pro tip: if you grill at your parties and they offer to help, trust the people who do it for a living.

I expect no thanks or praise- tell them you cooked everything yourself. Just don’t make me eat any more burgers that could more accurately be described as a lump of coal. I’ll be thrilled.

Company picnics aside, I’m excited about the interview. I talked to my manager about it, and I’ve already told her I have no plans to quit at the restaurant- there’s just some scheduling we need to work out. So, it was easy to get the full day off on Tuesday because I didn’t give her a heart attack. It was actually really sweet of her- I have both Monday and Tuesday off this week, and I promise you that two days off in a row is an absolute luxury for anyone in the industry. My usual “weekend” is Saturday and Monday.

Tomorrow is about preparing my body and mind. New clothes, perhaps an eyebrow wax (so huge right now I could donate to eyebrow-less children at this point). I really, really want to get my nails done, but it’s illegal to wear nail polish in the kitchen and I don’t like regular manicures. I’d rather have nothing at all than go without acrylics…. mostly because I’d rather spend $25 and have polish that lasts for 10 days than pay $12 and have the paint chip that afternoon. I shall think about a pedicure. I could care less about the polish- the nail technician will massage feet that have never needed it more. I might even be able to walk without pain on Tuesday. I know I’ve said this before, but it really is embarrassing when I wake up and toddle down the stairs one step at a time, as if I am hurling myself toward my dad for the first time.

The thing is, though, even in my thoughts he’s right there to catch me.

I don’t know if I’ll have time to write again before I go into The Big Show.™ It’s at 1300 on Tuesday and will last approximately three hours, because I have to meet each and every person I’ll be working for and with, plus a few interns that will be working for me. Thoughts and prayers, even the black magic variety, are welcome. Knowing you’re out there cheering me on is just one more thing that makes this easy.

Easier than figuring out a Diaper Genie.

Knackered

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Despite getting sleep and coffee, I am already exhausted. One of our line cooks quit yesterday, so my day off today is canceled. We are closed tomorrow, so I will get some rest then. Don’t get me wrong; I absolutely love what I do. Rest and recovery, however, cannot be underestimated. It remains to be seen how this line cook’s absence will affect future days off, but if I can’t get rest, at least I’ll get extra hours. It’s not a bad trade, but it comes at the cost of my physical health. I have mentioned this so many times before, but even if you don’t cut or burn yourself, after a shift, everything hurts. Everything.

My hands and feet get it the worst, followed closely by my knees. Anti-inflammatories help, as does Tylenol, but even after taking them, the pain doesn’t go away. It just fades into the background, the soundtrack of my life a series of pops and groans.

But there is nothing in the world that beats the busy rush of a pub, or prepping food that people will enjoy. Because we’re a brewpub, every snack and entree comes with a suggested pairing, food and drink that work together to make mildly happy into fabulous. That part is priceless, and I live for it.

It is the anti-office job, which is why I will still try to fit in as many shifts as I’m allowed if I get the job at UMD. The hiring process at any public university is a slow one, so I’m not holding my breath. It would be nice, though, to work with my head and my hands at different times, not forsaking one for the other. I am aware that my schedule will be full, but to me, it is worth it…. both in order to keep having fun and the fact that I will have two streams of income instead of just one. It is a win-win situation.

I really haven’t put too much effort into having a personal life, so my need for balance is different than most people. I am comfortable with the level at which my coworkers and I interact, I get together with my friends when I can, and for me it is (and will be) enough. I don’t have interest in dating or being part of a family, except for the one into which I was born. If that seems weird, I definitely have my reasons. I’m just not in a place emotionally to be that person, and I have no clue if or when that desire will arrive.

I put myself out there, once, and nothing came of it. Soon, it was like it never even happened…. and that’s fine. The reverberation for me was that putting myself out there was possible, and that I am too old to be worried about rejection. I just don’t care that much. It’s so much easier to talk to women when you feel you have nothing to lose, because your life is already amazing without them…. just icing on an already great cake.

The other piece of knowledge I’ve gained is that my standards are not quite impossibly high, and I won’t settle because the relationship is “good enough.” I am not interested in the mundane or the mediocre. I also feel too old to chase someone if they’re not into me the first time around. Better to cut losses and move on, something that has only come with age & experience.

There’s only one person in the world with which I have trouble taking my own advice, and that is because she is, as someone once called me, “the princess of mixed signals.” I never know where I stand. I take my own advice and leave the relationship be. Then something happens and my own advice goes out the window.

It’s a tumble and roll that leaves me, in a word, knackered.

Sleep

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have managed to get a lot of sleep over the past few nights, and I think it is really helping me out. I’m not in as much pain as usual, because I’ve finished early, skipped the shift beer (it keeps me up more than anything), and taken a sleeping pill as soon as I’ve gotten home so it kicks in within an hour. Sleeping with my natural circadian rhythm so that I’m up before the busyness of the day really starts is infinitely more restful than falling asleep around 0400 and waking up at 1200. Tonight I am closing down the restaurant, but it’s a Monday, so we won’t be open that late. I can be in bed at a normal time, and this is my weekend. Even though I don’t get an extra day off because of the holiday, it’s nice to know that I won’t get called in on my day off for it.

The only problem on Saturday was that I had Alexa set an alarm for Sunday morning, and instead of hitting “snooze,” I hit “stop.” I ended up sleeping until 1222, and I had to be at work at 1300 (Benedryl does not wear off easily for me- I slept almost 13 hours). Believe it or not, I still clocked in four minutes early, though it was a special kind of hell not to have time for a cup of coffee. This is because I was throwing on clothes and shoes while I was waiting for my Uber to arrive.

The only thing I forgot was my socks. Not a big problem because my Bistro Crocs are naturally antibacterial… just not as comfortable without them. I went shopping with Sam two weeks ago and finally splurged for some relatively expensive moisture-wicking socks that are a godsend… and Adidas brand so they look cute with all my shoes. One set of black, one set of white. I think I am most like Albus Dumbledore in this way. I am crazy for socks, both the kind that have special utility AND the kind that are weird patterns. I even have knee socks that look like the old Portland airport carpet. They were a gift from Lindsay when she used to have to work in Salem frequently.

Perhaps it was because I was so tired that when I was cleaning the fryer, I dipped my thumb right in. It was so painful in the moment, but the next day, there was no swelling, no burn, no redness. I joked on Facebook that I thought I saw Jesus. Because it healed so quickly, maybe I did. Who knows?

The restaurant was so dead yesterday that I left an hour early, and today might be the same if there are two people closing. I might volunteer to close down the restaurant if we get to pick who goes home, because my coworkers are better at it, but it’s the one thing with which I need practice. We don’t have a checklist in place yet, and it’s a lot to remember in one’s head. Checklists are being made, though, and that will help a lot. There will also be a lot less going home early for the next couple of weeks, because our main prep cook is going on vacation, so the time in which we’d usually be standing around because everything is already done will be filled with cutting vegetables and maybe cooking- things like sauces and hummus. Nothing big, but vitally important.

There’s two solid reasons we’re not as busy as we normally are. The first is that the beer garden is huge, and yesterday it was way too hot for most people to want to sit outside. The second is that July 4th is a big weekend for people to go out of town. So lack of business didn’t just affect us, I’m guessing.

I’m still trying to prime the faucet to get to something real, because even though I’m slamming iced coffee, it still takes a while for me to get from the “walking through Jell-o” phase of waking up after sleeping pills to the “now I’ve had too much coffee” stage. I tend to overdo it in the morning so that by the time I get to work, I’m just right. It’s not exactly morning. Right now it’s 1304. But for a cook, it’s close enough. I’ve actually woken up several times this morning, the sleeping pills not worn off enough for me not to fall right back asleep within minutes. I also didn’t think it was quite time for coffee yet, because getting as much sleep as I can, again, prevents pain.

My muscles don’t feel quite as much like they’ve been put through a pretzel maker, and when I feel good, I’m even faster and more focused than when I was younger. It makes me feel good that this time around, it is as if I actually learned something. 😛

Part of it, though, is the ability to compartmentalize better than I could then. So many things were wrong with me psychologically that I didn’t even realize, and my emotions would leak all over the place. Now, I’m not constantly doing something while thinking about something else. I do when I’m in the dish pit, because of the ebb and flow. But on the line, it’s impossible and necessary. And even in the dish pit, it’s not rehashing old wounds, but writing in my head. The most frustrating thing is having good ideas without the ability to write them down or dictate them on my phone, so that by the time I get home, those “great lines” are gone.

I think the most important thing I have to say is that being in the kitchen is lonely at times. Only two other line cooks besides me speak English, and when they’re not working, I have little ability to contribute to the chatter around me, neither able to comprehend it all or respond. I enjoy listening to the lilt of their voices, and the music they bring. As a writer, it is a good thing I am able to entertain myself. I know that because I am listening to Spanish language courses and completely immersed, the language barrier will close more and more over time. But right now, I feel like Marcus from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Indiana Jones: The hell you will. He’s got a two day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Brody’s got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan, he speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom, he’ll blend in, disappear, you’ll never see him again. With any luck, he’s got the grail already.

Later…..

Dr. Jones, Sr.: I thought you said he would blend in, disappear.
Indiana Jones: Are you kidding? I made that up. You know Marcus, he got lost in his own museum once.

Apt.

Noon

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It is 10 minutes until 1200, when my alarm is supposed to go off. I got my schedule wrong last night- I thought I was supposed to work until 0130, but I was finished by 2230. It’s tonight and tomorrow that I “clopen,” slang for closing down the restaurant and being back in by Sunday at 1000.

I’m slated for the dish pit on tomorrow’s shift, which means that I will have to set up the restaurant for lunch. Of everything I have to do, that’s probably my least favorite, but there is only a small jump from last to first. Tonight is pantry station, which means cold foods and fried brussels sprouts, chips and salsa, etc. I get paid too much to think that anything is too bad. And what I mean is that being a dishwasher and line cook will never make me rich, but in comparison to other jobs I’ve had in the same industry, my hourly wage is insane. Plus, I also get vacation days (which I receive after six months), another thing I’ve never had from a small, independently owned restaurant. I also have the option to sign up for health insurance, but I like the state-run plan I’m on now, so I’m going to wait and see how my income averages out to see if I need to change it. If I switch to private insurance, my co-pays and drug costs will go up.

Although I am not a candidate for advancement, not wanting to go into management, I do get raises based on how long I’ve worked there and/or COLA (cost of living adjustment- my obsession with soda makes this my favorite acronym).

There is only one problem, and it has nothing to do with business. It’s that the woman who has slowly become one of my best work friends (despite the language barrier, closing more every day) is moving to Atlanta. I think either tonight or tomorrow is her last shift, after only finding out she was moving yesterday. I am heartbroken. Who else is going to hug me every day? Who else is going to make fun of me in a language I don’t always understand, just nodding and laughing because I am great at self-deprecation? But, in true kitchen wisdom, “go cry in the walk-in.” There’s really no time for emotion on the job, so that is a long-standing kitchen joke that works across all restaurants everywhere.

However, she is so loved that I’m not the only one with ALL THE FEELS. She gets along with everyone, from waitstaff to dishwasher. It also leaves us in a bit of a bind because she’s additionally a prep cook, so we’ll have to do a lot more at night rather than it all getting done before we arrive.

I wouldn’t mind a few prep shifts, leaving the restaurant earlier or getting doubles to increase my income… but to tell the truth, I’m really bad at it. This is because I will follow a recipe up and to a point, then decide I can make it taste better (ego, but not unjustified)…. but I do it with a pinch of this, a cup of that, so that I have no idea how to modify said recipe when I’m done because I don’t keep track of small improvements along the way. I can’t help myself- it’s a sickness.

For instance, Lanagan’s Pub Chili at Biddy McGraw’s was my own recipe, I always made it, and when I needed to write down the recipe, it took me two or three weeks, because every batch was a tiny bit different, as was my recipe for pancakes and oatmeal. I had several customers who came to the pub for brunch specifically to eat my food, something of which I am intensely proud. My pancakes in particular were a big hit, thin and crispy around the edges like a crepe with hazelnut fluff, the result of extra butter on the griddle.

It is always my goal to make foodies cry. One of the best chefs in Portland sent me a text and said, “even though it’s not a true Texas red, your chili is feckin’ delicious.” But he understood why I did it, adding light and dark red beans to make the ground beef stretch. That was 10 years ago, and I still remember that text dinging as if it were yesterday.

Sufficed to say if you have the ability to invite me over to cook dinner, you won’t regret it. The best indicator I have of this is that I made a French onion soup that sold out in less than one shift, and was supposed to last three days. Again, butter.

I have a keen sense that I am in the hospitality industry. My job is to delight people’s palates when I have free range, and I am comfortable with almost all nationalities. I’d love to work on my African food, though, learning to make Ethiopian injera, the flatbread you use instead of utensils for spicy beef stews that make my own palate dance.

There are two Ethiopian restaurants I highly recommend in Silver Spring. The first is Lucy, and the second is Arbol. Neither have web sites, you’ll just have to show up; you can also order from GrubHub or Seamless. I don’t recommend ordering from home, though. Get it fresh and hot, caliente y picante (temperature hot and spicy hot).

Also, if I cook for you, know ahead of time that portion control is important, because I have a blatant disregard for fat and calories. This is because I’ve read French Women Don’t Get Fat. Mireille Guiliano asserts that the reason Americans are fat is not because of the content of the food, but because we eat so damn much of it. Believe me, it’s true. Restaurant portions in the United States are generally out of control.

It’s also the entire reason I gained so much weight when I first met Dana, because as a Cordon Bleu trained chef, she fed me rich, rich food in stunning amounts. I took the weight off, and am now obsessed with keeping it that way. I don’t weigh myself, ever, but I back off the intake when I feel my pants are getting tight. I don’t want to go back to being overweight, and I don’t want to spend money on new pants, although it’s probably time, anyway.

Some of my Dockers are stretched at the seams, not from being overweight, but from the acrobatics involved with working in a kitchen. I have designated the black ones for work, because if I get bleach on them, I can fix them with a Sharpie. 😛

The thing I have spent money on this month is drugs. It is amazing how cheap Zyrtec, Tylenol, Aleve, etc. are on Amazon, because they sell Costco sized bottles that render each pill about .004 cents. I got a year’s worth of ibuprofen for $11.00, and 200 Zyrtec for the same price. If you’re not watching your cash flow, a year’s worth of Zyrtec is only $21.00. I just didn’t want to wipe out all my money until my next paycheck. I’m not the type person that particularly enjoys splurging one week and peanut butter sandwiches every meal the next.

I also have Uber to think of, because the buses aren’t running by the time I’m finished closing down the restaurant. I don’t particularly want to buy a car, because even though I could save up the money to buy one, I don’t want to pay for upkeep and insurance…. and it’s fun when someone else is in charge and I can just check out in the backseat and play with my iPhone…. and especially with Uber Pool, I only pay about five dollars a trip. They just add up, as does adding money to my WMATA SmartCard.

Public transportation is one of the reasons I love DC so much, because it’s cheap and readily available. Houston and Portland just do not have the infrastructure for it. Being one stop away from DC doesn’t hurt, either, because I can get nearly everywhere in the area in 40 minutes, even Silver Spring to Alexandria. Especially in heavy traffic, I couldn’t drive it that fast. So, at least for the moment, getting a car is not even worth it.

The only time I wish I had a car is for heavy shopping days, and those are so few and far between that it doesn’t really matter. Uber takes care of that, too, but I always feel bad when the driver has to wait for me to unload all my crap. But sometimes, it’s a blessing, because they’ll help me unload it. Some do, some just stare. It’s always a toss-up.

And now it’s time for me to slam iced coffee and get dressed, because I have officially written way past noon. I might even take a shower. Lord knows I need it. There’s probably aioli in my hair.

Starting the Faucet

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I officially have writer’s block, which means that I need to write more and not less. Whenever I truly feel it coming on, I just write about nothing until I find something. I’ll be going along talking about soda, junk food, etc., and then my brain triggers into a memory that I hadn’t thought of in years, so I take that tangent and go with it until writer’s block becomes null and void. I think it was Louis L’amour who came up with the idea of starting the faucet as combat. Writing is nothing more than man vs. man conflict.

I am sure that I have a lot to say about the news, but I don’t want to go there. It’s depressing to an enormous degree. At this point, I just hope the rumors of a ghost op shadow government are real, because the president and Congress are just stressing me out and I want to think they have no real power. It’s equally depressing that all of this is happening roughly 10 miles from my house…. so close, so powerless.

The one thing on which I will comment is the mounting attack on journalists, because even though I’m not one, how far behind are bloggers? Because I write about my own life and experiences, I doubt anyone would come after me personally… but that doesn’t mean that some of the bloggers I’ve followed for years and real life friends are out of the danger zone.

It makes me happy to be “out of the loop.” The kitchen takes over everything in my life. I was called in on one of my days off this week, and ended up having more fun at work than I would have had at home, anyway… even though I really needed that day for laundry, taking my chef pants to get tailored (still haven’t done it), and giving Rachel a tune-up (for those just joining us, “she’s” my Chef’s knife- sharper than a Maddow takedown). I’ve just been so exhausted that my time at home is mostly spent in bed with my laptop, either writing or watching The Affair. I’m up to Season 3, and it’s terrifying.

It’s also a departure from the things I normally watch, which are action-packed… car chases, hacking, shadow governments I wish existed (Scandal). It’s a good thing to branch out, I suppose, but The Affair also irks me because it punches below the belt, reminding me of ways I’ve treated others and they’ve treated me.

Sometimes I have to completely switch gears and watch something with DIY or cooking… anything that makes me think of happy times, even though if I were to DIY it would end up looking like some version of “Regretsy.” Cooking shows energize me, but The Great British Baking Show makes me think that if I were a contestant, it would look more like Cake Wrecks…. but at least I can spell.

I spent my actual day off with Pri Diddy, where we met at Teaism for brunch and lots and lots of chatter on both ends. Exactly what I needed that day. My friends are good for the soul, as was the bowl of ochazuke I inhaled.

The restaurant is closed on July 4th, so I may be headed out to Del Rey for more Leslie Avenue Capers…. minus, I always have to add, stealing a street sign. I feel like I have to say that up front in case one goes missing by someone who has more guts than I do. I will sit there and stare at the sign, wondering how I could get away with it and knowing that my luck just isn’t that good…. and I don’t look that great in orange. Maybe if I was 18 and still dumb. Now, not so much.

I’m reading a book right now called Letters Never Meant to Be Read, which was free the day I got it for my Kindle. Some of them are well-written, some poorly… but all precious in their own way. So, of course, I wrote one of my own. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written, and yet, will not publish it because it lays too many cards on the table… not thinking of consequences for me, but them. It’s a new thing I’m trying out. I am saving it, though, because the person to whom it’s written would probably love to read it, and I would send it if we were in the same emotional place. But, we’re not, and haven’t been for months now. Also, to whomever you think this letter might be, you’re wrong. Just putting that out there for keeps.

I also have so much other writing/editing/reviewing to do that I’m starting to feel a bit overwhelmed, or at the very least, whelmed. The phrase “so far behind I think I’m first” comes to mind. Again, the kitchen is taking over my whole life, the way it’s been every time I’ve ever had a service industry job. Those who are in the know will really, really identify with this statement. Most days, I’m so busy I feel like I can’t catch a breath, but I like it that way. It makes time pass so much faster, with absolute distance from anything having to do with emotion, or the complete hurricane-level flooding my brain experiences while overthinking about just damn everything.

I save most of it for my dreams, where my issues resolve themselves in my subconscious mind, wandering around for hours. Sometimes it’s directed dreaming. Sometimes it’s “SUPRISE! Here’s everything you haven’t discussed to death” (yes, I have) or “SURPRISE! Let’s think about everything you’ve done wrong your whole life.” I suppose the good thing is that it doesn’t keep me up at night. Sleeping is a wonderful way to present solutions you wouldn’t have thought of while awake, because your thought processes are completely different, and often don’t make sense right up until they do… usually at about the four hour mark.

I feel like now is a good time to close this entry, because I’m working until approximately 0130 tonight. I’ve had lots of coffee, so I won’t sleep that long, but a nap sounds like it’s in order. Have to keep up my strength in my elder years, especially when most of my coworkers don’t even remember the ’90s……………

Work It

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My interview with University of Maryland is now scheduled, which is the first step toward becoming a Terrapin. I hope it works out, but it is clearly a good place in which to feel confident in an interview by having nothing to lose. s-l300I am happy where I am. If I get the position, it is a silver lining on an enormous fluffy cloud. If I don’t, I get to continue having fun cooking every day for a little while longer.

I keep on getting stronger every day, beating my depression and anxiety into submission. What’s been different this time is being able to distinguish true feelings from the lies my brain is capable of telling. Just because something seems true doesn’t mean it is. When I feel isolated and lonely, that’s a lie. When I feel loved and surrounded by friends, that is the truth. I need look no further than my own house to see it, where I have fit in as family for three years. I have friends and biological family members all over this city. Lindsay, my sister, flies in often. Every time I think I am alone, I list with gratitude all the ways I am really, really not.

There’s no way around acknowledging that my world fell to pieces in three years flat, and especially the last year has been rebuilding from the rubble left behind. Apparently, I am better at DIY than I thought…. continuing to fill the spaces between the rocks with gold, as goes an old Chinese proverb, so that the cracks become the part that is most beautiful.

I don’t feel as if my personality is split in half anymore, that there’s anything so terrible I have to keep it stuffed down into my socks. Everything has become authentic, albeit with a bit of cognitive dissonance. But, as I have said before, if my past is any indication, I can live like that forever. Everyone does. For instance, I can be devastated that Dana and I are separated and thankful at the same time in perpetuity. One does not overtake the other. I hurt a lot, and I learned a lot. Those lessons will (and have to) stick with me.

For instance, I have learned that I can never talk my way through an apology ever again. Words are one thing. Actions are another. I have lost too much not to make that a 101 “Mickey Mouse” course. It helps remind me that I wear a Mickey Mouse watch when I’m not in the kitchen, made of silver and gold, words that have been used to describe friendships for thousands of years.

It also helps that my industry is entertaining others, being of service to everyone I meet while on the clock. I am sure that customer service in Information Technology is the same way, because I’ve done it before. The only difference is not getting to take Rachel (my Chef’s knife) for a workout as often as I’d like.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with her if I ever stop cooking professionally, probably just hide her in my closet somewhere. I don’t trust anyone outside of my coworkers to treat her right. I think it may be almost time to get her honed, though, because we don’t have those tools in our kitchen. It will make her sharper, but it’s not quite the same. Honing is keeping the blade straight ahead, taking out the impurities in the edge that make it lean left or right after a while. She’s still sharp as a Maddow takedown, but with several of us using her with different techniques, it’s time. Most of it has to do with the way we hold our knives, because we all use French technique (back of the knife) rather than Japanese (front of the knife). But, like a fountain pen, the way you hold a knife is a little bit different than everyone else, even though the ink still flows.

It’s all in how we work it.

U Street

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I never want to forget this day.

My dad read my last blog post, about how I’d wanted a signed copy of Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History from the International Spy Museum, and how disappointed I was that they were sold out, and how I’d searched the Internet for a copy and couldn’t find one, etc. Maybe everything IS bigger in Texas, because when he searched for a copy, he found one. It is on its way to my house right now. Because of the cover, I think it’s an early edition, and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. For the record, though, it was not $20, and does not come with a coffee mug. I do not need the Argo coffee mug. I know this because I saw it at the Spy Museum and it only holds eight ounces of coffee. So, while cool, utterly useless to me. The screenshot of the signed copy of the book and the words “deliver date” made me cry so hard that my dad couldn’t even understand me on the phone. Just unintelligible sobs of “it’s not even my birthday.” I was going to meet Lindsay for dinner, so I was crying as I got into my Uber and retold the story to the whole carpool, and then they were crying, too. The driver, a big teddy bear of a guy, wiped off a tear and said, “that’s just what daddies do.”

Then, we switched subjects. He said, “so, you’re going to the Metro station?” I nodded and he said, “then you’re going to my day job. I sell them the rail cars.” I got really excited telling him how much I loved the new ones with the better signage and the electronic voices that are loud and clear, rather than muffled and/or give no fucks. Then he puts his Metro access pass on the dash and drives me RIGHT UP to the entrance. I think he was showing off, and it worked. I was very impressed.

Lindsay and I grabbed some ceviche for dinner and frozen yogurt for desert. Then, we went back to her hotel and watched Shark Tank. I left around 9:30 and started walking toward the Dupont Circle Metro, realized I was going  the wrong way pretty quickly, and proceeded not to care. I just walked. It was a tiny bit rainy- Portland spitting- and perfectly comfortable outside. The street lights shone and music spilled into the streets. I stopped for a drink at a bar with an AMAZING jazz band that I wanted to hear- the trumpet player being the main draw, of course, but the entire house was packed. I couldn’t find a seat anywhere, so I just left without buying anything…. although would have taken the trumpet and run if I could’ve- it was a Monette, unlacquered, with a sound as viscous as motor oil. Even on fast licks, one note oozed into the other, a brass Southern drawl. I don’t know the name of the band, or even where the club is. I was just out walking, and happened to pass it. It’s a true testament to a local band when there are no tickets being sold, it’s just a regular Wednesday, and the house is packed. I would have waited for a table if I thought there was a chance in hell that anyone was leaving.

Eventually, I made it to the U Street/African American War Memorial/Cardozo Metro on the Yellow Line, and made my way to Ft. Totten, where I transferred to Red. The train was delayed for quite a while pulling into the station, so I sat somewhere between Takoma Park and Silver Spring playing Solitaire on my phone. By the time we actually arrived, my bus had stopped for the evening, so I Ubered back home.

I walked upstairs to the sound of a movie in Arabic, obviously coming from Abdel’s room because he’s the only one on my side of the house that speaks it (the layout is that the homeowners have one side of the house and the renters have the other, with separate kitchens, bathrooms, etc.). Though Hayat speaks Arabic as well, I don’t know if Lebanon and Morocco have the same dialect. My friend Anthony says that if I’m going to learn Arabic, learn the Lebanese dialect first, not because it’s the easiest, but the most beautiful.

I believe him. Listening to Hayat on the phone is one of my favorite pastimes. She knows I’m not eavesdropping, I’m listening to the lilt of her voice. I felt the same way about Nasim, whose Persian phone calls reminded me of Tehran. Literally every time she started speaking, Cleared Iranian Airspace would start playing in my head. It was apt, as her own escape from Tehran is much worse than being rescued by Tony Mendez.

We’ve lost touch, but that is the book I was going to write before Nasim moved to New York, and unfortunately hasn’t been back since.

Tony’s book will have to do.

Presents

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Now that I’ve given Lindsay her present, I can tell you what it is. I sent my mom some earrings that are flowers pressed in acrylic in a teardrop shape for either her last birthday or Mother’s Day (my memory is failing), so I reordered them for her and told her it was the last present I ever sent Mom. I think I scored a direct hit, which made me feel like a million dollars. We also went to Afterwords Café, my default Tuesday spot that made me happy to introduce to her. They had live jazz playing in the bar that you could hear from the restaurant, another plus that made everything over-the-top cool. It was a good day yesterday.

This morning has not been so cool. For a long time, the International Spy Museum sold, for $20, a signed copy of Argo with a coffee mug. I got paid last Friday, and it was the present I wanted for myself in honor of working so hard.51FM7IsJI2L._SY445_ So, I went to the web site to see if it was still available, and they’d sold out. Tony Mendez has Parkinson’s now, and is no longer making public appearances. Therefore, there was no way to buy a plain copy and get it signed later. I pored through web sites with collectible books, and no dice. My inner grumpy old man came out in spades. I “Argo Fucked Myself” by not buying it earlier. Apparently, they also used to carry signed copies of the script, which also made me say said phrase, because in addition to that line, there are just so many I adore that I can’t just pick one. The reason I love the movie so much is that in addition to the drama, it is so damn funny. To wit:

Jack O’Donnell: Carter said you were a great American.
Tony Mendez: A great American what?
Jack O’Donnell: He didn’t say.

In terms of the funny, though, John Goodman steals the show from his first line, which is “hey, Tony.” You’ll just have to watch the movie to realize why.

I may have to watch it again today just to mitigate sadness at being late. But if I had a nickel for every time I was late to the party, I could retire right now.

However, if that is my biggest problem right now, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t even matter. Too much is going on in the world that is making my weird shitometer go off, and the hairs on my arm are standing up. Supposedly, President Trump is going to sign a document ending separating families at the border, but no word yet that he’s actually done it.

My personal triumph for the week has been getting my laundry done, folded, and put away all in one day. For someone like me, this is a big damn deal. Every little victory must be celebrated.

If you are a fan of intel movies, John Goodman also steals the show in Atomic Blonde, but the movie is more serious than Argo, even though James McAvoy does provide some comic relief.

It would be a pleasure to get back in bed and watch a movie, because I am also not physically feeling the greatest. In addition to fever and pain from having the painters in, by dose is sduffed up. I bought some real Sudafed™ at CVS yesterday, but it’s not helping as much as I thought it would. Luckily, I don’t have to go back to work until tomorrow evening, so resting and doing nothing is not a problem. I don’t think it’s allergies this time. I think that because I’ve been isolated so much, my immune system is rebelling from being in such a public space all the time…. or, at least, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

If there was a vaccine for the common cold, I wouldn’t even care how much it cost. Just shut up and take my money.

I did get relief from my monthly malady because it’s the only time I crave chocolate. I basically had “Death by Chocolate” for dinner last night. It was delicious, even though I normally go for lemon or lime desserts. Theobromine is a beautiful thing.

What’s provided me the most laughter this week is people complaining about the heat and humidity. It’s only 80 degrees with 56 percent humidity, and as a Houstonian, I just think that’s adorable. I mean, yes. It’s still warm, but unlike Houston, it’s not hot enough to melt a doorknob, so I’m comfortable. I just carry a hoodie in my backpack at all times for the constant overcompensation with air conditioning. I will also never make the mistake again of wearing shorts to the movies.

Deadpool 2 introduced interesting timeline changes in the Marvel Comic Universe, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with it. The biggest surprise in the second film is Dopinder’s character development…. although I will have to see the movie again at some point, because I was so tired when the movie started that I almost nodded off in a couple of places. Believe me, it’s not that the movie was boring. I’m just a cook, so I’m always tired no matter what time it is.

Speaking of tired, it’s time for a movie which I will fall asleep to in about 10 minutes. Maybe I’ll switch to watching Baby Driver, because the first six minutes are the best.

Throwing it Together

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My kitchen manager could not have been more supportive of me. When I walked in last evening, he said, “I know your work ethic. What happened?” I said, “I would have stayed until everything was put away, but I got kicked out of the kitchen because it was so late.” He said, “I knew it must have been something like that, because it never would have happened under your watch.” And then he hugged me. I’m paraphrasing because I don’t exactly remember the words, but that’s the gist. So, everything worked out despite my stomach being in knots and practically tearing up all the way to work. There was just one slight problem.

I couldn’t explain it in Spanish. So, the person who had to come in at 9:00 AM and see all my mistakes couldn’t possibly fathom why I’d “fucked everything up.” I was completely speechless because I was all up in my head trying to pick a phrase I actually knew that would help. I had nothin,’ and no one to translate for me. My kitchen manager speaks better Spanish than me, but not enough to express everything I wanted to say. So he made up for it by letting her off early. I hope it was enough.

I would have been home pretty early last night if the dishwasher hadn’t decided to dump water all over the floor. Though technically, it wasn’t my fault, I am still taking one for the team on this one. I emptied all the traps as I’d been shown, but what I didn’t know is that you had to use a shop vac to get out all the water, too. That part of the training had been left out, through no fault of anyone’s, just an oversight. So, the kitchen manager and I stayed a little later with dry (at first) mops and got up everything we could, then turned on big fans. By now, it’s dry… or here’s hoping, anyway. 😛

By the time I left the kitchen last night, my mood had lifted, because I got fired up listening to Eminem and got it handled, as if Olivia Pope (Scandal) worked in a brewpub. My shift drink was a Mexican-style cola, one of the few things I attribute as a gift from God directly. Beer is one thing. Sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and a heavy syrup to soda water ratio that brings one right back to the drug store (that reference ages me) is quite another. As I have said before, it is on my “chef’s game” last meal list.

This morning, because it was after Eid, I made real Irish imported steel-cut oatmeal for my roommate, Abdel, and me… along with homemade coffee. And by this, I do not mean that I brewed it myself. I mean that one of my friends buys green beans and roasts them herself. It is insane.

I asked Abdel about something I’d always wanted to know. During Ramadan, do children fast? He said that unofficially, fasting begins at seven, but officially, it begins after puberty…. but that most of the time, children compete to fast so they can be just like Mommy and Daddy.

It reminded me so much of both Christianity and Judaism. In the Catholic church, seven is “the age of reason,” when you are accountable to God for your sins and start confession. In Judaism, puberty is also the sign that you are an adult. Dear God, we have so much in common, all children of Abraham. I just wish more people could see it.

Don’t get me started on Israel and Palestine, and the unwavering USG support of Israel. It just makes my blood boil, especially with one word- settlements. Never mind that Israel has a fully-functioning army (possibly a nuclear weapon, definitely chemical assault capability) AND a world-famous intelligence agency, Mossad…. Palestine has homemade bombs and rocks. They can barely sit up to Israel, much less stand. I realize that atrocities have been committed on both sides. I am not immune to the news. But the whole thing is ridiculous. Not our circus, not our monkeys…. mostly because the United States is such a young country that we legitimately have no concept of tribal wars that have been going on for centuries, and yet, we have unilaterally decided that Israel can do no wrong. And yes, I realize that the state of Israel is young, but the concept of an Israeli is not, and neither is the concept of a Palestinian.

I told you not to get me started.

All I can say now is “thank God for Ireland,” because without them, I would not have had the good breakfast I need to be happy enough to let go of this and move on to something else.

Lindsay is coming to town tonight, and this is my Friday, so we’ll have two evenings together before she goes back to Houston. I got her an amazing birthday present- I hope it scores big. Lindsay’s birthday is on June 17th, which often lines up with Father’s Day… so she still gets him a present, even though she is the ultimate gift.

I got my dad Eric Ripert’s autobiography, 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line, and a multi-tool he’d forgotten he’d put on his Amazon Wish List. I was going to get him Anthony Bourdain’s cookbook for home cooks, Appetite, but unsurprisingly, it is out of stock…. or at least it was before Father’s Day. Thanks, Obama.

The Kindle version was available, but a Kindle cookbook seems somewhat useless. I mean, what is a cookbook without notes in the margins and stains that make some of the pages stick together? How ELSE would you make a ground beef trifle (that reference ages me)? It might have been okay, I guess. A few Christmases ago I got my dad a cutting board that has a slot for a tablet in case you’re cooking with a YouTube video. Still, though, not as good.

I am not a fan of cookbooks, because I won’t use them. First of all, I have no place to store them except my Kindle, and secondly, I trust my own palate and can throw together pretty much anything. The only time I ever need a recipe is when I’m baking, because cooking is an art and baking is a science; it’s a totally different skill set.

In cooking, though, I know innately what something needs to make it pop, and how to correct mistakes (acid balances salt, etc.). I remember fondly the days when Dana would make soup, taste it, then look at me and say, “fix this.” It is not that either of us is a better cook than the other, we just have different strengths. For her, it’s technique (unsurprisingly- Cordon Bleu trained). For me, it’s palate. One is not more important than the other.

For instance, I could beat the pants off Karen’s potato salad.

Parts Unknown

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 15 Comments

It was 0745 Friday when I got the news that Antony Bourdain killed himself. Even though Central Time is an hour earlier, I couldn’t think of anyone to call but my dad. We’ve both read all his books, we’ve both been fans of the TV shows, and I broke the news to him. He told me it was awfully early for a cook to be up. I said that I was asleep until the news dinged on my phone (I get alerts from Apple News aggregator). I went back to sleep as visions of old No Reservations and Parts Unknown episodes played in my head.

As it got closer to service, at first I didn’t want to go. I just wanted to stay in bed and mourn. But then I realized that there was no better homage to Chef than getting my ass into the kitchen, mourning with everyone else. The weird thing is that everything was normal. I’m not sure my coworkers had ever seen him, and I couldn’t have explained the concept of my grief in Spanish if I tried. “Triste y llorando” (sad and crying) were the actions, but not the reasons. They didn’t know how hard he fought for them. I am not sure whether my coworkers are illegal immigrants or not, and don’t care. What I do care is that whether their immigration is legal or not, Tony fought for them. In Kitchen Confidential, he said that there was nothing better than a Salvadoran line cook. He believed that illegal or not, immigration was key to the melting pot of culture, even if they were on the line at Les Halles, exclusively French food, because it wasn’t always about the line- it was about eating where they eat or having them cook authentic dishes from their homes.

All locations of Les Halles are closed now, but in New York, the building is still there. People are crowding the doors with flowers and memorials. The DC location of Les Halles closed in 2008, so I never made it. But Tony wouldn’t have been there, anyway. If he had, he would have introduced me to the real chefs- the Central and South American sous chefs (assistants to the executive chef) who really run the place. I know this because he did this on an episode of No Reservations, where he exposed the real manpower of the restaurant in New York.

Everyone knew something was up with me, because I was not the usual “Bob Esponja” I normally am. Thankfully, someone else closed for me, and I was home by 11:30. That gave me plenty of time to sleep off depression and anxiety, for which I feel no urge to kill myself in turn, it’s just that grief is its own situational depression, especially if it dogs you in other areas of your life and you just happen to hear something terrible.

I have an old, old picture of Argo and I couldn’t help but stare at it last night. The reason I did this is that she did something for me that is different than the traditional wisdom of “reach out,” although she did plenty of that, too. She reminded me that I had power in the situation, and I wasn’t using it. It’s so important for friends to remind you that you are loved, but what worked for me is reminding me that I was not powerless. I had agency. I had the ability to help myself. It was a strident, pull yourself up from your bootstraps, no crying in baseball kind of love. I can’t help but think it might have worked on Tony as well, because if there’s anything that Tony appreciated, it was no bullshit conversations.

Because often what happens is that when you are really down in the shit, you forget that you have the ability to dig yourself out of a hole, and someone reminded me that I was more powerful than my illness. That my illness was not my personality, and my personality was not my illness.

I have a feeling that the only reason it worked is that we were low-key fighting at the time, and the cortisol from it gave me an “I’ll show her” attitude. Cortisol gave me the short-lived strength I needed to get myself to a hospital, where I collapsed once I realized someone else was in charge now, and I could stop being strong. So, even if those words were designed to say “I’m tired of your crap,” that’s not what came across. What came across is “this is the only way I know how to help you, which is hopefully kick your ass into next week so you provide yourself with options instead of relying on others to do it for you.” I remember that the nurses were going to take my phone in two minutes, and in those two minutes, I took the time to send Argo a voicemail by attaching it to an e-mail, thanking her and telling her that I’d indeed checked myself into a hospital. I was so scared, and the voice mail reflected that. Because it’s stored on my Google Drive, I’ve listened to it since, my voice rushed and a different pitch because of fear that I wouldn’t get the voice mail done in time and even though I wanted help, asking for it was tantamount to a black mark on my employment history, especially in DC, where in terms of working with databases, you generally need Secret and Top Secret clearances- not because the work itself is hard, but because of the information you could possibly run across. I will not say hospitalization was a bad move, or short-sighted, just that it is unlikely that I’ll be able to get said clearance. My only move, should I get a job like that, is to disclose everything up front so that the government doesn’t find it on its own.

So, in short, I understand Tony’s demons. I understand what it’s like to go to that place, to feel like earth would be better off without you so that you are not a burden on your family and loved ones as they watch the roller coaster of your emotions, completely helpless in the process.

The thing about depression is that talk rarely works. Checking in on your friends is key, but unless you’re the type friend that is glued to them at the hip and you’ve been through a depressive scare with them before, they don’t want to be seen. I could be honest with Argo because she’d already seen how bad it gets. To everyone else, I was “fine.” If you’re not in the inner circle, it’s hard to fight your way in. It also helped that she was not in my inner circle physically, because the wall of anonymity across the miles allowed me to write the truth into the night, open and vulnerable in a way that I couldn’t be daily. Without ever seeing me in three dimensions, it allowed for the stranger on a train feeling that allowed me to communicate just as I was. Angry at the world, confused, needing her love, counsel, protection, and all the things mothers do. I am not extrapolating this into Argo acting as my mother in this situation, only that mothers love differently than everyone else. They have experience at carrying a cub through the mountains in their mouths, and no problem with tough love as it’s required.

If you are in the inner circle of someone who struggles with depression, don’t ask how you can help. It is too much energy for the person to try and figure it out on their own. Show up with trash bags and an offer to do the laundry. Get them out of their hole, because the likelihood is that they’ve stopped taking care of themselves when nothing matters, anyway.

If you are not in the inner circle, they won’t let you see that gigantic mess, anyway. Don’t say, “I’m here if you need me.” We don’t have the energy to return a phone call, and we don’t want to talk about it. As much as we’ll hate you for it, knock on the door or text and say, “I don’t care what you look like, I don’t care what your house looks like, I’m coming over in ten minutes. We’ll figure it out.” Don’t worry. We’ll be home. Some of us can make it to work, some of us can’t, but when all social commitments fall by the wayside, it isn’t that we don’t care. We don’t have enough energy to leave the house. Or interact, in any way, at all. Even if the text goes unanswered, there’s your indication that it’s even more important to ring the doorbell, and hope that they live with someone else who’s willing to come downstairs and open the door.

But this entry is not about turning Tony’s tragedy into my own story, it is about empathy and sympathy. I feel like I understand more than someone who’s never felt what depression and anxiety can do. It always knows the very best lies to use against you, like the planet still spinning for your family if you’re gone. It is truly my mother’s death that convinced me suicide was never, would never be the answer, because I got to see the planet turn upside down, never the same, as it never will be again for Eric Ripert.

If there’s anyone I feel truly sorry for in this garbage dump of a situation, it’s Tony’s best friend, Eric Ripert, who had the awful job of finding him hanging from the belt of a bathrobe. When people say their hearts go out to his loved ones, I wish they would say his name specifically.

We often try to make sense of the senseless. Maybe his addiction came back. Maybe he never pictured himself as an old person. Maybe he wanted to go out on top, rather than withering away. Maybe he’d just received some incredibly bad health news. But that’s just spitballing and the truth died with him. As far as the news has reported, there was no note, unusual for a suicide…. but my hope is that there is some explanation, some note, and the reason it hasn’t been reported is out of privacy, the press is allowing Eric, his girlfriend, and his daughter to read it first.

As a member of the service industry, even though my restaurant wasn’t ensconced in grief, save the pallor I put on the place, I imagine that there were thousands of others bogged down, serving covers as fast as they could not because they felt truly capable in their grief, but because it’s what Tony would have wanted.

As my friend Drew so eloquently put it:

Great service chef. You clocked out, now get your shift drink and head on home. We got you covered.

Where heaven is Parts Unknown, and you need No Reservations.

The Invisible Hand

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

-S. G. Tallentyre (Evelyn Beatrice Hall)

We are in a moral morass thanks to the SCOTUS ruling that a baker does indeed have the right not to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple due to religious beliefs. It would have been a totally different case had the baker just posted a sign that said, “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone,” and kept his mouth shut. But, he didn’t. He brought in the phrase through counsel that “decorating cakes is a form of art through which he can honor God and that it would displease God to create cakes for same-sex marriages.” Here’s where that gets tricky. It was masterful to bring in artistic expression…. probably the only reason that this became a SCOTUS case in the first place.

Let me be clear- these are the ramblings of my legal brain, after completing a course in Constitutional Law (in which I did very well) and becoming a paralegal in the state of Texas, which does not give me license to either claim understanding of Colorado law or dispense legal advice, but does prove that I understand rules of civil procedure. It has nothing to do with how I feel morally about being treated like a second class citizen. I am talking about jurisprudence, which often departs from morality.

The truth is that the ruling was sound. I’m sorry, it’s terrible, and it’s the truth. One paragraph in a news article regarding Kennedy’s opinion stands out to me, and apart from anything else, it is the question at issue on which the entire case rests:

Kennedy, the author of some of the court’s most important gay-rights rulings, began by explaining that the case involved a conflict between two important principles: on the one hand, the state’s power “to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons who are, or wish to be, married but who face discrimination when they seek goods or services”; and, on the other, the “First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.”

In that vein, I find for the baker as well. Again, artistic expression is key in this First Amendment ruling. It is also important to note that this case began before Kennedy’s landmark gay rights rulings occurred, so some of the ruling reflects being “grandfathered.” On the other hand, the state of Colorado did itself no favors:

The Court concluded that the [Colorado Civil Rights] Commission’s actions violated the State’s duty under the First Amendment not to use hostility toward religion or a religious viewpoint as a basis for laws or regulations. Under the facts of this case, the Court determined that Phillips’ religious justification for his refusal to serve Craig and Mullins was not afforded the neutral treatment mandated by the Free Exercise Clause.

This conversation is not over, but it does not begin and end with this SCOTUS ruling. It begins with the American population. An overwhelming majority of Americans support gay marriage, and, in fact, its sanctity. It is time for the hand of the market to reflect it. More powerful than any court decision is not giving money to businesses who discriminate against anyone, and to fight like hell for sexual orientation to become a state and federally protected class.

I understand both sides of the issue- wanting to correct a wrong, and also being skeptical of wanting to give a raging homophobe your money in the first place.

And if you are a liberally religious person, it is time to stand up and reclaim Jesus as your own. Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, so as theologian Jim Rigby proclaims, it cannot be essential to his teachings. I personally believe that because Jesus was all about widening the net of acceptance, he would be horrified at current Biblical literalism. As in all things, I could be wrong, but I doubt it. If we are to have true religious freedom in this country, the Religious Left needs to do more to make itself known- not that they are not fighting the good fight, but they do not have the clout, basically controlling an entire political party, of the Religious Right. It is not my goal for the Religious Left to control the Democratic Party, because I believe that separation of church and state should remain intact.

I do believe, however, in protesting all of the freedoms that the Religious Right says we should not enjoy, because they are trying to create a theocracy…. As in, you can have religious freedom as long as it’s the one we believe, too.

Never forget that we also have the right to fight like hell for freedom from religion, as well. Even as a liberal Christian, I am on board with this, because again, separation of church and state should remain intact. Religion can and should influence how we vote, but as a result of going into our closets to pray and meditate, not trying to subvert the entire political process.

We were warned a long time ago, and we didn’t listen:

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

-Barry Goldwater

It has become so prevalent that the word “Christian” is associated with bigotry and literalism that it sometimes makes me sick to my stomach to admit I am one, because I don’t want to be lumped in with the uncompromising Word of God™ that needs no translation after thousands of years, becoming stagnant and not the ever-living document it was meant to be. For instance, I think that we are constantly adding to the Gospel, that our words are no less important than the ones set forth for us by the writers of the Old and New Testaments. They were just regular people, like us, who felt divine inspiration…. and not only that, it was a regional council in 1546 which resulted in the Canon of Trent.

Furthermore, the King James edition was specifically made to reflect the views of the Church of England, the basis for the Protestant church today. So think about all of those regular people we left out…. all of whom had something to say and weren’t deemed worthy of inclusion.

We all need to keep writing the Gospel of our lives, whether or not it is deemed officially worthy of inclusion, because even if we are not included in “canon,” it is already well-documented that it doesn’t matter. Someone else long ago threw out regular people’s truths because it didn’t line up with their beliefs…. but that doesn’t render them invalid.

Because if we’re going to talk about religious freedom and the government, it has to reflect the changes in our own lives, as well. My favorite stories are the ones in which Biblical literalists step into the light of inclusion, leaving behind the comfort zone that is only “thisbig,” due to the threat of hellfire and damnation…. or simply reaching out to someone unlike themselves after un-thinking that it is unpleasing to God.

The reality is that reaching out to people unlike yourselves is the entire point of the Gospel. For that part, there is no translation needed.

We have to prove it with our money. Few things speak louder than fear of losing money or going completely bankrupt because of discrimination. We may have to drag bigotry out of society kicking and screaming, but it is what needs to happen. We cannot rely on the courts to do it for us. Some things have to start with realizing what is true for us, and acting on it.

Sometimes, the invisible hand of God working in our lives coincides with the invisible hand of the free market. It can either be life-stifling or life giving.

You get to choose.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

Ramekins, Man….

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I feel like I am the SpongeBob SquarePants of my restaurant…. always unfailingly cheerful in the midst of incredible busyness. This is because I get paid a lot for what I do, more than most people in my position, actually, so being happy is easy. I prep, work the line, wash the dishes, and keep smiling.Cleaning_Dishes It’s not glamorous in the slightest, but when you’re the member of a team, it’s so much fun. When I’m in the dish pit, I am the most important person in the restaurant. Just try making it through a shift if one of the cooks walks out. It’ll be fine. Now imagine that the dishwasher walks out. You’d be up shit creek without a paddle in five seconds flat. Even the chef could walk out and we’d still make it.

There’s only one thing that drives me up the wall, and I’ve been searching for YouTube videos and subreddits to try and figure it out. Ramekins…. those little silver cups that hold all the sauces.  They get stacked and dumped in the prewash, which becomes useless when there’s ketchup, cheese, and grainy mustard in them. I swear to God, ketchup will be the death of me. I can’t even look at it anymore. Right now, washing hundreds of ramekins is extremely time consuming, because even if I run them through the dishwasher, they flip around and stack, making the dishwasher cycle useless as well. Doesn’t matter if I separate them…. in one minute they’ll be stacked again. So, I separate them and clean them out before I run them through the dish machine, which gets me in the weeds faster than anything I have to do…. and if I save them until the end so that I can keep up with the rest of the dishes, I’m not leaving until it’s dark thirty.

The best method I’ve found so far is to separate them and put a cutting board on top so that they don’t flip around as much, but they still have to be clean because all of those sauces won’t come out in the wash. They’ll just be hot AF from 140 degree water and I still have to clean them out.

This was especially taxing last night, because our business died down severely and there was only one cook and me left when the bar flooded with people wanting to watch the Capitals game (which we won- go Caps). I had to step up to the line and leave the dishes because there was no way one cook could keep up. So then it’s closing time, when we should have been done with most everything had the night gone according to plan, and I didn’t get home until 0200. Despite that, I am still eager to be back at work tonight, because it’s Sunday, which means we close earlier, business will be steady yet not overwhelming, and it will be a much more relaxed atmosphere, even if I have to both wash dishes and prep my brains out.

Last night, we were so busy that I didn’t even know the Capitals had won until I got home.

I am sure that this entry is very boring for those who don’t work in a restaurant, but I feel that I need to illustrate just how hard a job it is for people who think it is unskilled and not worth a good salary. How much would you want an hour if you had to dig out other people’s dirty food and condiments for eight hours at a clip? I’m betting I couldn’t pay you enough.

Plus, there’s all the pans we use to cook that have food caked on that the dish machine won’t clean on its own, so how much would I have to pay you to get you to scrub caked, burnt cheese out of skillets until your hands are cracked and bleeding from steel wool?

How quickly could you memorize where everything goes when it needs to be put away?

spongebob-sqp1-620x500How quickly could you deep clean a kitchen so that no one is kept past their scheduled shifts by an hour or two?

How many of you would sign up for clothes that are beyond dirty and barely any time to get your laundry together before you have to be back at work? How many of you would sign up for a job that always leaves you soaked and smelling like old food? I’m wagering that of all my readers, not many. I realize that people coming to this country illegally is not necessarily the best policy, but immigrants are generally the ones willing to do those jobs in the first place. The “they’re stealing our jobs” trope is getting so tired, because the hospitality, farming, fishing, and crabbing industries are running out of people to employ, because the same people that say “they’re stealing our jobs” aren’t exactly lining up to get hired. Write it down.

Additionally, immigrants will work so cheaply that it’s what makes our groceries affordable. The cost of groceries will rise to support minimum wage and benefits, so enjoy your $14/lb tomatoes…. not that I’m opposed to them, necessarily, because all people should get a living wage and benefits. I’m just saying. Even if the cost of groceries rise, it’s still cheaper and better for you than eating in a restaurant.

The magic trick that I don’t see happening is people who want to be upwardly mobile and think they deserve high-powered jobs “lowering themselves” to become dishwashers and cooks. To wit:

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

-John Steinbeck

I don’t see a lot of people with my attitude and optimism, because I absolutely know I’m doing important work. I am actively involved in an industry that makes other people happy, often at the expense of living my own life. For instance, I am not available to socialize during the hours when other people socialize, because I’m taking care of them. I make sure they have excellent food and clean dishes on which to eat. No one screams louder than people who don’t get both of those things….. more likely than not, people who are both opposed to immigration AND getting a job in the service industry.

It’s probably because they’d have to clean ramekins.

Mileage May Vary

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have silver in my hair and eyebrows. I am also only 5 feet, four inches tall. When I go to work, I wear either jeans or khakis, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap. Therefore, you can neither see my wrinkles or old person hair. When I am “all nellied out,” a phrase that makes me laugh because it comes from Nelly Olsen in Little House on the Prairie (code for lesbians and gay men dressed to the nines), I look every bit of my age. When I am “all dyked out,” I look barely above 15-year-old boy. I am sure that I will look older once I get my chef pants tailored and buy a coat to protect my arms (burned myself pretty bad last night and hope chicks dig scars), but maybe not, because I still have to cover my hair… and in a baseball cap, I look like I am wearing the universal uniform of “my daddy’s a lawyer,” or “yuppie douchebag brotard.”

I also really like getting mistaken for a boy, but not because I want to actually be one. It’s just hilarious watching people get flustered and be all like, “I’m so sorry, ma’am.” They’re bothered way more than I am, and I enjoy it immensely. There’s just this moment of OVER apologizing while I laugh internally.

As I have said before, I just enjoy boys’ clothes because the shoulders fit and I can still look crispy, while even a men’s small is too big…. thus, why I have to get my chef pants tailored because they fit in the waist and the cuffs go over my shoes into the tripping zone. It also wouldn’t hurt to get my shirts, Dockers,™ and blazer dry cleaned. When I am not working, I am all about the sharp. It also helps when I’m not wearing a hat and my hair and jewelry are all cute.

But this status update on Facebook slayed me. As you know by now, I work in a brewpub, where we brew our own beer on site and serve it with food:

2018-05-31 10_53_20-Window

When the van pulled up, the automatic door opened and the driver immediately said, “how old are you?” I said, “40.” “Good,” she replied. “I just didn’t want to get in trouble for taking a minor to a brewery.” I didn’t want to laugh at her, so I was absolutely shaking internally with laughter, the kind where no sound comes out but I am absolutely coming unglued.

It’s kind of cool that I haven’t been a minor for 20 years and I still get mistaken for one on a regular basis. I was in a liquor store a few months ago, and even though I was only buying spicy ginger ale, I still got carded because the cashier thought I was too young to be in the store.

I feel like I should have a t-shirt that says “Older Than Advertised.” There’s a reason I don’t dye my hair anymore. I am looking forward to a little more grey coming in. It’s a shame people can’t see inside me, because they’d instantly know how old I am by the way my spine corkscrews and the inflammation of 40-year-old arthritis.

Or, as I told my mother when I handed her an eyebrow hair, “your daughter’s first grey one. You can put that in the baby book somewhere.” She laughed and told me that she went grey much earlier than me and to just relax. It didn’t mean I was old.

Unsurprisingly, it was not comforting in the slightest.

It is now, though, because sometimes being mistaken for younger than I am is great, and sometimes it’s annoying.

Mileage may vary.

Empty

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I feel as if my writing brain has gone empty, because my energy has been zapped for every minute I’m home. I just don’t have much brain power after I get out of the kitchen; for me, that’s part of the point. I am often wandering the earth with my head in the clouds, and not all memories/thoughts are pleasant. I got divorced, I lost a great friend, and my mother died… memories that are still extremely loud and incredibly close, because even though I can count years between all of those memories, I can’t often count distance. I am sure there is a lot I will forget about losing Dana and Argo. Losing my mother divides time into “before” and “after.” Grieving the death of a parent is infinitely more severe than the loss of the alive… or is it?

I am occasionally not sure which is worse. I will never see my mother again, our last conversation being truly the last. There will be no news of her. There will be no updates. There will be no future. It is devastatingly final. On the flip side, memories of the living flood my brain, and I think about both women, people I love dearly, out in the world living their lives without me. Grief that I won’t again know who and how they are is often just as painful as finality. Growing and changing with them has stopped.

Even the grief between them is different, because of their levels of participation. With Dana, I can honestly say that we destroyed each other, and with Argo, I can own up to the fact that because I was in the middle of the worst time of my life, shit rolled downhill. I abused the absolute privilege it was to be her friend. Our connection was explosive, to the point that the chord that used to run between us was akin to touching a live wire and living to tell the tale.

What sticks with me about the relationship with Argo is that we could be angry to the same extreme we could love each other- that live wire alternately overclocking my brain to its limits and burning me up inside. I have since come to believe that we are both minds you only meet once or twice in a lifetime… but for very different reasons. Logically, she can see all 75 sides to a problem and have them figured out before you can even tie your shoes. Emotionally, I am one of the most intense people that everyone who’s ever met me says they know. Therefore, I think we each served each other magnificent dishes in which the other had only a few of the ingredients.

She was my soulmate, but not in the stereotypical definition… in the Elizabeth Gilbert definition in Eat. Pray. Love. Argo was one of the people sent into my life to shake me up, to get me to see things that I could not see on my own, and those people are generally not designed to be permanent, and not always your partner. Anyone can be an Elizabeth Gilbert soulmate, and the analogy I draw is that she is Richard from Texas. It was a mistake to feel those in-love butterflies where she was concerned, but two things about that. The first is that I am not unique or special. It was transference, like falling in love with your therapist when they uncover the root of your problem and the AHA! moments they cause in you. The second is that I was aware the entire time that was all it would ever be. It was all my shit to work on, my shit to move past, and when that day came, there was much rejoicing (yaaaay). But by the point I could sincerely look at her as a ride-or-die, we’d broken so many plates it was impossible to glue everything back together…. or perhaps a better phrase would be that the live wire burned our whole house down….. and everything inside will always smell like smoke.

What sticks with me about the relationship with Dana is that I could have been better to her, and she could have been better to me. Our demise did not happen overnight, but a series of years in which we thought we had it handled and in fact, did not. Life gets in the way when you take your eye off the ball. But that time in my life is just one of the many things that make me want to be a better person in the future. I could have gone my whole life without learning all those painful lessons, thinking that she’s the only one I’ve ever wanted to chase around a nursing home. Because of this, it’s been years and I still feel like being in a relationship would be inflicting myself on someone else. I don’t yet have that internal sense that I would be a good partner for anyone until I have learned to be a good partner to myself…. and in fact, I think that was the biggest problem I had in the relationship with Dana altogether. My self-esteem was low, as well as self-reliance.

I feel that these years of being alone has increased both, and I am grateful for them. You have to find gratitude in divorce so that it doesn’t eat you alive forever. I count the good things about being apart from Dana like a rosary. I have to, because otherwise the self-esteem I’ve gained gets flushed down the toilet and I focus on all the mistakes I made that led me to this often lonely place. That being said, there is gratitude in loneliness as well.

Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut you more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few humans and even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender, my need for God absolutely clear.

-Hafiz

Gratitude for loneliness has allowed me to crack open to let some light in. But, there are things in which I miss specifically about being married to her, and things I miss about being a wife as a role, rather than being attached to a specific person. I don’t miss romance as much as I miss simple contact comfort. The former, I have learned I can do without…. the latter, not so much.

But I hear that in order to get those things, you actually have to put yourself out there, often where I fall short. It is a universal axiom that hurt people hurt people. and I am reminded of that fact every time I think I’m ready to date…. and then I hide. I keep thinking, “one day, I’ll be ready, and I have to be prepared for it.” But at the same time, there’s never going to be a moment in which I truly feel prepared, because introspection is a lifelong process. Some things I won’t know until I do meet someone, and have the chance to act on the things I’ve learned while in isolation.

I do take comfort that I am a good friend, that I have at least learned that much. It is the basis for all good relationships, and I feel solid in my ability to love my adopted brothers and sisters like the family they are.

For instance, I think the biggest lesson has been learning not to pour from a cup that is empty.

 

Long Days, Short Nights

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 7 Comments

I find that the longer I work at the pub, the stronger I get. This is naturally what’s supposed to happen. You can’t carry stuff that heavy and do what’s basically a cross between Zumba and hot yoga for six to eight hours at a clip and not feel a change in your muscle mass. Although I will admit that though I’ve been tempted, there’s been at least twice where I just wanted one of the guys to take over. I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

I’m short, and I have trouble dead lifting 50-60 lbs over my head. I also have trouble admitting that men have better upper body strength and are taller, because what comes to me first is that women can do anything men can do, and I’m just admitting weakness and proving to myself that they can’t. Simultaneously, I would kill for someone to say, “that looks heavy. Let me carry it for you,” while I am thinking ” I would legit fall over and die before I admit defeat.” I feel I am forgetting something important- that it’s not my femininity that’s the problem. It’s that I personally am short and weak after long years of computer butt. To my credit, the “I would legit fall over and die before I admit defeat” part of me won, and I muscled through. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of working smarter and not harder. The walk-in refrigerator is set up the way it’s set up. There’s nothing to lever, pulley, or otherwise physics into being. It’s just mind over matter. If I think I can or I can’t, I’m generally right.

It makes me feel good to see these changes in my body after such a long dormant period. Even working in an office is physically lazy, though I mean no offense. It is mentally taxing to an enormous degree. This has changed due to Bluetooth, people bringing their laptops to you on battery power, and wi-fi, but when I was low on the food chain in IT (late 90s, early 2000s), I did get workouts from climbing under desks to fix cabling and the like. In IT now, you barely have to get up.

Even with the relaxed atmosphere physically, depression and anxiety build up for two reasons. The first is that you tend to see the same problems every day, sometimes from the same people… every day. The second is that they’re always mad about it, and no matter what they did, it’s all your fault. I had one person get mad at me because their thesis disappeared- they’d stuck their floppy disk onto their refrigerator with a magnet and of course, had no backups, because why would they?

For me, the difference between working in IT and working in a restaurant is that with cooking, it’s always fresh hell instead of stale. It is also a proven fact that movement is an excellent treatment for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. None of my own mental problems were caused by working in IT, but if you’re already feeling all of these things, being mentally taxed and not physically makes it ten thousand times worse.

People haul off and call you a piece of garbage and you’ve agreed with that for years, despite the fact that you cannot help them fix their computers while their computer is on their desk at work and they’re out driving and just thought to call you from the car. I am sure that now it’s possible with remote desktop, but not if their computer is off and they’re in New York and you’re in Oregon. I’ve often been sorry for not being able to plug a computer into the wall from 3,000 miles away.

You might laugh at this, but I guarantee it’s a sad place to be, because the feeling is so helpless. You couldn’t do anything to fix the problem and even though you’ve just spent 15 minutes on the phone with a total idiot explaining in three different ways why you’re useless, it gets to you. You live for the moments when all you do is walk into a room and press one button and the entire office thinks you have magic powers.

IT jokes about idiot users conceal deep, deep rage for the very scenarios I’ve described… especially when the customer is always right and their idiocy has to come with an “I’m here to serve you” patois.

With cooking, there’s a buffer zone called waitstaff, and never think I’m ungrateful for it. While cooking is busy, it’s not nearly as abusive as working with the public.

It is, however, perpetually exhausting even as you get stronger, because I can’t speak for everyone in my profession, but my sleep cycles have gotten shorter as my body rebels against my natural circadian rhythm. If I don’t go to bed until 0200-0300, I’m still up by 0630-0700. Part of this is that there’s a ton of natural light in my room. Part of it still is that the rhythm of the world keeps going- traffic noise, lawns being mowed, construction… I try to nap, but so far, that isn’t doing anything for me. I just “keep calm and coffee on.” Because of the noise, even if I take a sleeping pill, it doesn’t keep me asleep. I just feel like I’m walking through a Jell-o mold at dawn.

Yet another reason why my shift drink is usually club soda with extra ice and lime. The sugar rush of beer keeps me up even later. I give in when I don’t have to work the next day, because sometimes a cold one after work is a good thing, and it is also important to say that I’ve at least tried our products…. I haven’t had a bad beer yet, and it is vital to me that what I’m drinking is local to my adopted hometown.

I have also learned the hard way that too much alcohol makes my medication less effective, and the last thing I need on earth is that happening. And, apparently, too much alcohol, for me, is having a beer every night… something lots of people do, and I joined them until I had my own epiphany about it. Too much for me is different than most people, and I’m okay with that.

Plus, beer doesn’t have ice in it, and by the time I get out of the kitchen, it is the first thing I want. I could take a bath in ice and it wouldn’t be too much…. and in fact, might be a good idea given how badly I have osteoarthritis in my back and hands.

But for all my aches and pains, I never think about what’s happening mentally with me. I just act on instinct. Childhood trauma and adult chemical imbalances mean nothing to the ticket machine, which, for me, is all about saving the waitstaff from customer abuse. In a way, it’s giving back to all the people who’ve helped me along the way.

I do get a break on Memorial Day, though. It’s up in the air as to what I will do, because there will be several parties going on that I don’t want to miss, giving toasts to the fallen… with extra ice.