Couple of Crumbs

Summer Lovin’: finding the silver living in a variety of unusual places

Hey everyone!  You can usually find me blogging from MK in Wonderland, but I had to take up Couple of Crumbs when they offered me a spot as a guest blogger.  I blog about everything – from money troubles, life as a twenty-something girl, online dating, to the adventures of being a new Mom.  Since most of my recent posts have been consumed by the new addition to my life, I wanted to return to my “roots” and write about things I know well: moving, red wine, and finding at least one good thing about the most miserable of situations.  Enjoy!

Moving sucks.  There’s no way around it.  And I can say that because I’ve moved 10 times since I graduated from college 5 years ago (5 years…shudder).  Don’t believe me?  In order:  moved from my apartment in Burlington, NC back to my parents’ house in Lawrenceville, NJ then to an old, furnished one bedroom in Roland Park while my actual apartment was at the end of the previous lease.  Moved into a shoebox sized one-bedroom apartment in Mount Vernon (Baltimore), then to my favorite rowhouse in the entire world on Streeper Street, then to one of my best friends’ parents’ house (last minute emergency/necessity), on to another apartment in Hanover with two of my girlfriends, then to yet another one-bedroom in Arlington, VA, back to Baltimore in another rowhouse (after sleeping on a few friends’ couches in between the move), and then here I am, right outside of Baltimore for over a year now, which – as you can see – is some sort of record for me. 

 There is one, teensy upside to moving and it takes a lot for me to admit that there is ANYTHING positive about moving as I have endured packing and unpacking as a second full-time job.  Moving forces you to get reorganized, throw out the stuff you’ve been hanging on to for no reason, and just get your life back in order.  I think it started in Virginia – my odd stash of mail and bills.  I’m not a big pile person, in fact, piles drive me insane.  So, I take what I think at the time is the “higher road” and do not put my mail in piles, but instead, shove it in my underwear drawer.

Yep. 

And every house that I’ve lived in since I’ve lived in Virginia, I vow that I won’t start stuffing things into my underwear drawer and that, instead, I’ll form some sort of organized method like a normal person…but I never do.  In fact, my underwear drawer is currently full of bills (as in…I owe money…not bills as in dollar dollar bills ya’ll ßnothing has sounded more unnatural than that statement coming from my mouth) and my sock drawer, for whatever reason, is full of office supplies.  And it’s not like I take out the socks and replace them with office supplies…no, the socks and office supplies live together in the top drawer furthest to the left.  In all fairness, I don’t carry one stash of bills from one house to the next.  I take the opportunity to reorganize myself and purge whatever I need to/everything.

The storm this past weekend had a similar effect.  Our basement flooded.  To give you an idea of how the evening went, I had taken a three -hour nap earlier that day so when the electricity went out at NINE PM…there was no way I would be able to just fall asleep.  So I did what any person (just me) would do…popped in a few melatonin and threw back a couple glasses of wine….the mellie cocktail, as I so affectionately call it.  And then the basement flooded and I had to coherently fill up buckets of water and come up with some sort of logical game plan all whilst feeling a bit…wobbly…if you will.  (Word to the wise…consider assessing your situation during a natural disaster BEFORE going into party mode.)  The end result, aside from my miserable headache the next day, was that the basement carpet had to be ripped up and replaced…which has led into full blown overhaul of the entire downstairs level.  B figured that since everything was already getting ripped up, we might as well replace the heinous tile by the back door and repaint over the god awful color selection on the walls (none of which were my choosing).  The end result?  Everything that he had wanted to do was getting done.  Under the best of circumstances?  No.  But chances are, without a little water in the basement, it wouldn’t have gotten done anytime soon. 

So the bottom line is that two things that are in no way fun – moving and flooding – have at least ONE positive outcome.  A fresh start.  Even if it just means having a meticulously organized sock drawer for one week…it’s still an improvement.  So when you’re packing up your life belongings for the 11^th time or filling up pitchers with clay water after red wine time…try to remind yourself it’s a blessing in disguise.  A little one.  But hey, two natural disasters in two weeks…I’ll take whatever blessings I can get at this point.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I have a Visa bill to pay and I believe I’ve misplaced it…and by that I mean…it’s probably in my t-shirt drawer…with all the old sorority t-shirts I swore I was going to throw out last time I moved.  

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Finding the silver lining in a variety of unusual places is part of our Summer Series.

Summer Lovin’: One Girl. Four Countries. Twenty-Five Days. (Part 1)

”Fight the future” is a shy cupcake who lives in her own little world. A pop culture geek, lover of languages and different cultures, and professional daydreamer, her mind usually takes her to mind-blowing places. She is fearless. If she sets her heart on something, she knows she will get it… or that’s what she likes to believe. 

This summer, I decided to make one of my wildest dreams come true.
 
It started when my sister and I bought tickets for not one, but two music festivals - one of which included sleeping under the stars for three nights. But a suggestion from my sister turned it into something much different. I took the plunge and decided on a detour. Or a series of them.
 
Going on an adventure throughout Europe to see the sights I’ve always longed to see.
 
Solo.

Read More

Summer Lovin’: Little Ghost Girl

Eatinist Bitch hails from Queens, NY and loves food almost as much as she likes to talk. She’s been blogging since Summer 2010, and is currently interning for Robicelli’s Cupcakes in Brooklyn, NY. Check out her blog and like her on Facebook to get recipes, reviews, and other tasty nibbles.

“Can Geico save you 15% or more on your car insurance? Does a 10lb bag of flour make a really big biscuit?”

A mother walks in on her son, standing on a chair in front of the kitchen table. He has a look of utmost calm upon his face as he carefully butters the top of an enormous biscuit. Flour and baking materials lay askew, and a fine cloud of the powdery stuff hangs over all. She stands speechless for a beat, and goes right back out of the kitchen shaking her head and leaving him to his handiwork.

To my friend, Tana, that entire commercial is how she imagines me as a kid: a food obsessed child with permanent flour streaks on her face (also, a biscuit enthusiast). I don’t think she realized how close to home the commercial hit until I told her this story.

On a rainy Saturday, my 5 or 7 year old self took to wandering around the house, because that’s what I did when I was bored. My afternoon cartoons were in reruns, and you could only read the same books so many times. So, why not go exploring? My house isn’t that big, but at the time I thought it was a castle of warm wood and cozy spaces. Even if I couldn’t find somewhere new to play, I could at least find a nice place to nap. Eventually my wanderings led me to our kitchen, one of my favorite places in the world.

I was greeted by the lazy whoosh of the ceiling fan as soon as I walked in. I stood in the middle of the kitchen to assess my situation. Did I want something to eat? Did I want to go to the big bookshelf filled with cookbooks and pull something down to read? I wasn’t hungry for food, or reading or anything like that…I wanted to play. That’s when I turned around and saw it.

My mom had 3 ceramic canisters that she used to keep dry provisions in. One marked “Rice”, and another was marked “Sugar”. The third, well, it was unmarked and looked very different from the first two. Those were on the tall side with square edges and domed lids with grips on the inside of them.  The third container was a circle all around with a shiny white cover that looked like a tam o’shanter cap. And, its belly was always filled to the brim with white, unbleached flour.

 (source)

I pulled a chair over from the kitchen table and climbed on top of it so I would be level with the counter. I positioned the canister in front of me using both hands, because I knew it’d be less likely to fall that way. I pulled off the lid slowly, and a little puff of flour rose into the air. It tickled my nose and made me giggle, and the sound echoed in the silence of the room.

On the side of the flour jar, there was a little ceramic loop that held a little wooden dipper. It was carved smooth and light, and looked like a tiny ice cream scoop. I saw mounds of soft vanilla ice cream in this pile of flour, and I thought it should be scooped as such. I began to scoop the flour, lifting the little trough high in the air, and then turning it over so that the flour would fall out with a soft plop.

The kitchen soon began to smell nutty, as I was sending quite a considerable amount of flour into the air. I had long since abandoned the scoop, and instead, plunged my hands deep into the cool powdery mass, letting it slowly sift through my fingers. My mother didn’t really bake very much (she used the flour primarily to make dumplings, which I despised for their doughy heaviness), but I knew from the cooking shows that I adored and the Jewish bakery that we got our Challah and cookies from, that flour was usually the start of something good. In flour’s pale blank state lay the promise of cookies, pie crusts, cakes, and big fluffy biscuits to drag through rich brown gravy. And aside from all that, playing in the flour was just plain fun.

Now, my back was to the kitchen door, so I hadn’t noticed that my mother had been watching me powder myself and the kitchen counter like a doughnut for the past 10 minutes. There’s always a change in the air around you when you’re about to get in trouble, though. Almost as if the air’s ions are scrambling to find a hiding place because they are scared of your 5’11, Jamaican mother.

Somehow, I came to the realization that something was amiss, and stopped.

I slowly turned myself around on the chair and looked up right into to her big, brown eyes. What a sight I must have been! Face, hands and arms completely covered in flour, and sprinkles of it dusting my plaited pigtails that stuck out like sausages from the side of my head. I was a complete mess. I saw my mom’s hand reach out for me, and I wasn’t too sure I wanted to see what would come after that. I jumped off the chair with a yelp and ran away, twisting around her long legs, and hoping with all of my might that I would disappear, like the little girl ghost that I had become.

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Little Ghost Girl is part of our Summer Series.

Summer Lovin’: Summer/School

Pecan Praline is a self-deprecating cupcake who really does enjoy her “job” and is trying to get started with some creative hobbies to lessen her tendency towards workaholism. Circa 5th grade she thought she would be a writer and yet for some reason, she now only writes creatively when Funfetti asks her to.   Talk about a positive influence….not to mention inspiration.

Rather than following the Western calendar, like most people I know, I follow the Academic calendar.  To me, next year means next school year, not January 1, 2012.  It begins August 25, ends May 15 and the limbo in-between is that grace period known as summer.

I am teacher and student, boss and minion; you Gregorian aficionados would recognize me as a graduate student.  So as the undergraduate population melts away, I am left with my fellow grads haunting empty halls and trying to make every minute count by working on the projects that will finally set me free with the blessing of three letters:

PhD

Paradoxically, summer is actually my most productive work season.  I know pop culture is fond of stereotyping us grad students into a caricature of liberal, argumentative, socially alcoholic, beater car owning, dreadlock sporting man-children who mooch off our parents while wearing thrift-store hipster/dork clothes just to make sure you know we care about our research more than anything else, unless of course it’s social injustice!  I’ll admit that the stereotype exists for a reason. I don’t sport dreads, but anyone who knows me will nod their heads at liberal, argumentative and beater car owning.  What pop culture misses, however, is the insane level of self-motivation required of any grad student who actually hopes to finish someday.  Yet it’s not a “real job”.  I wear shorts and tank tops to the office, frequently argue with my boss and am daily subjected to TMI from my lab-mates.

(Source)

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to work in a 9-5 where people dress like adults, defer to their superiors and leave work behind when they leave the office. Even if I’m not actively doing science, I can’t let it go.  Discussions pop into my head; I re-write papers and plan the logistics of experiments I want to do.  I’m not saying this is a good thing.  I fear it detracts from time I want to spend developing real hobbies that are NOT science.

But is this really a possibility?  Grad students may be depicted as procrastinating slackers; but professors are always characterized as the epitome of obsession.  All science, all the time.  But I guarantee you, that same professor will also say they love their job.  And it isn’t a lie – they talk about science all the time because they love it.  Is that what it means to have a job you love?  That it becomes both your work and your hobby?  Or are those just the kinds of people who are drawn to science?

Or maybe my daydreams of “real jobs” are really just fantasies. Mostly they involve me wearing elegant office-chic outfits in my corner office where I verbally spar with my equally chic colleagues about the latest court ruling. Law & Order anyone? But this is usually only on days I’m supremely frustrated by (a) my failed experiments, (b) my PI (or boss to all you real-jobbers out there) or (c) the guidance of said PI resulting in failed experiments (double argh!).   My brightest dreams involve graduating, spending 2-3 years working as a post-doc in an exotic locale and eventually becoming a professor, where I will proceed to wear elegant outfits and verbally spar with my colleagues about the latest scientific findings.  

Until then, I am trying to balance my school life with real life.  I’m attempting to train for a triathlon, planning a garden, and spending quality time with my husband, who dutifully listens to all my school-related venting.  But I am still curious - to all of you out there who have “real jobs”, what is it like?  Do you really love your work?  Does it seep out of the office and follow you home?  Feel free to share any juicy office gossip; or your work-fashion – its summer after all, and I need to procrastinate a little.

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Summer/School is part of our Summer Series.

Guest Post: Making Adjustments

 ”Fight the future” is a shy cupcake who lives in her own little world. A pop culture geek, lover of languages and different cultures, and professional daydreamer, her mind usually takes her to mind-blowing places. She is fearless. If she sets her heart on something, she knows she will get it… or that’s what she likes to believe.

When I was first approached to write this piece, I didn’t hesitate. I really admire what Funfetti and Red Velvet are doing here and I wanted to be a small part of their adventure in blogland.

I had thought of a topic which was close to my heart at the time but, due to a series of events, all the words I had typed suddenly lost their meaning and I needed time to rethink my guest post. Sometimes I feel that too much joy ultimately brings about tragedy. The universe has some sort of secret mechanism to balance the world.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had a dream: travelling around the world. The year 2011 was supposed to be my year, I began planning my dream trip and it all seemed so surreal. A week in Paris and another week in London, a weekend camping at a rock festival and a day trip to the English countryside. I was on cloud nine… the fall was inevitably going to hurt.

Most reservations were made, I was deciding on what sights to see, what museums to visit and what plays to attend once I got to Europe, when my parents and I realized that my doggy had a bump which looked like a tumor. We were afraid of what the vet would say, yet we had no other choice but to call him. The vet came home and told us that our dog had to be operated on before it got any worse. I don’t know if it was the confidence in the vet’s voice or the fact that we wanted to believe that everything was going to be alright, but we thought that, even at age 15, our little guy was strong enough to endure surgery.

We were prepared to hear bad news, or that’s what I thought… I had never lost anyone close to me; my grandparents died either before I was born or when I was so young that I didn’t fully understand what death implied. When the phone rang and that confident voice told me he had had a heart attack and there was nothing he could do, I felt so weak and empty… as if someone had ripped out my heart and stepped on it, repeatedly. It’s impossible to prepare for the conversation I would have with my parents: “where were we going to bury our dog?” I asked my grandmother if we could do the burial in her backyard, he loved it there. I wasn’t expecting her response: “Of course, he’s family.” And that’s the exact moment when it hit me, and the tears came rushing uncontrollably.

That night was the longest night of my life. All kind of thoughts crossed my mind, wondering if we had made the right choice, if we should have done anything differently, if the outcome would have been another one. Now I’m positive, we did what we were supposed to do and he left with dignity, I could have never handled it otherwise. Tough, that doesn’t make it any easier.

Every day I wake up and look around to let him go outside, at noon I expect to hear him asking for lunch and when I get back home it takes me over a minute to remember why he is not there to greet me. When I’m in the kitchen I feel he’s behind me, but I look at that corner where he used to take his nap and he’s not there. I miss him, and I will never forget him nor the fifteen years he shared with us. He was there when I was a little girl, he was there when I was a teenager with boy troubles, he was there when I turned into an independent young woman, moving away from home to study at University and he was there when I graduated and started looking for a job. He watched me grow up and comforted me along the way. He made the ride so much easier, he brought me peace whenever it was needed. I watched him as a playful puppy nobody wanted to adopt, with his piggy tail and his awkward looks, I watched him turn into my very protective best friend, I watched him grow old.

So, what now? I have to go on. I have to put reality aside and carry on with my plans. The thing is, I no longer feel like planning. The idea of travelling through Europe no longer seems… important. It took me years to be this close to actually living my dream, but all of a sudden, it feels rushed. I should be mourning, I want to crawl under the covers and lay in a fetal position, I don’t feel like choosing a hostel and a sightseeing route. I need time to process the changes and I don’t have any.

As the departure date approaches, I’m scared. I’ve invested so much time and energy in making my dream come true, I want everything to be perfect – being the control freak that I am – but I don’t know if I’m ready to face the fact that things just might not go as planned.