It's New Year's Eve tonight...

It's New Year's Eve tonight.
I confess, that as I write this, I'm still a little bit loopy from the ambien my brother gave me last night to help me sleep. I just can't DO that stuff - too hard to shake it off the next day. However, for now, I have a pleasantly goofy feeling all through my body. QUITE relaxed.

Tonight I'll bring the New Year in working. Which is just as well, and quite good, since I don't have a date anyway. It's how I hope the coming year will follow - lots of WORK!!!!
 I feel good about the year to come. Good about things in general. Lucky to have such great kids and such great family all around me.

But I DO have SERIOUS New Year's resolutions this year.
For the first time in a long time - I am DETERMINED to make some that are top priority and follow through like a maniac.
It's just no good anymore - this - this lollygagging about, this using only a tiny part of my potential. It simply WON'T do any longer. This year I will :

1. Stop Drinking. (either full stop or mostly)
2. Learn French. For REALS - like enough to have some simple conversations!
3. Learn to pay 3 songs on the piano.
4. improve my Spanish.
5. Do yoga. EVERY WEEK.
6. Walk around the lake at least once a week.
7. get a job (that goes without saying, really)
8. do theatre. (it's been FAR too long!)
9. sing. a LOT more.
10. write letters - actual ones, not e-mails.
11. take dance classes.
12. fall in love.

The only thing I see as a real challenge is the falling in love part. Kind of hard to MAKE that happen. But I'll write it down in a spasm of hope.
Check in with me next year, and see how I did.....

MAY YOU ALL HAVE THE MOST AMAZING, MEMORABLE , HAPPY 2013 !!!!!!

Christmas Eve, 2012

It is Christmas Eve.
As I am writing this, I am looking out over the hills to the sparkling lights of the city. It is so warm here.
So warm in so many ways. And I must be the most pampered and spoiled homeless person on this earth.

I have just come from church (yes, I went to my childhood church - quite odd - looked so much smaller!) and Christmas Eve dinner with my family. I am full of good food and good feelings. We are the lucky ones. Everyone is well and full of good cheer this year. Everyone is grateful. Perhaps a little bit because of the Sandy Hook shooting - it certainly puts things into perspective right before Christmas.

I have to confess, I couldn't sleep the other night  - so I turned the TV on looking for an old movie to calm my mind. 'Miracle on 34th Street' was on, and the first thing I thought of was how horrible it would be to see these sweet, family Christmas movies if your child had been shot dead at school just a week ago.

Tomorrow I will give gifts to my family that I have accumulated from all over the world. Exotic things. I have dragged them with me on planes, trains and automobiles in an attempt to share a piece of my adventures. I look forward to giving my little nieces the headdresses from Bali - golden tiaras studded with jewels (not real ones, of course),  saffron tea to my mother, cashmere scarfs from Scotland for my nephews, jewelry from South Africa for my sisters and the impish mask of happiness for my grown up cousin who runs a theatre. As I wrapped all of the trinkets and treasures - the silks, the woolen things, the wooden carvings, the beaded art, etc - I thought of where and how I got them. All of the different looking money used over the last many months, the adventures associated with each and every item.

And as I enjoy the greatest gift of seeing my little cousins faces light up, or a smile from one of my sisters, I will not take a single moment of it for granted.
I will treasure each second of tomorrow's Christmas, and feel deeply how lucky I am. How lucky we are. We had a close call in our family - very recently - but we've made it through. So far.

We are here. We are safe, well fed, healthy and loved.
We have each other.
And after a year of great travels and adventures and culinary school, I feel like I am about to embark on the very greatest adventure of all.
I don't know what it is exactly.
I just know that's how it feels.

the OK Cupid experiment...

SO.... (big breath)

Before I left Portland, my sister gently shoved me into the online dating world via OK Cupid.

"Look," she said, with a note of resigned pity on her face, "we both know that you are a breeder."
Before I could shake my head, "no", she went on.."A MATER - someone who likes to partner up. Am I wrong?"

"Well..." I said, thinking about it. "I guess so."
"And this is how it's DONE these days, Jennifer." she instructed me. "At the VERY least - you can just look at the guys in Texas and see what you think."

So, I started looking at the guys in Texas.
I was rather amazed at how many lovely, intelligent men were swimming around the pool of the OK Cupid waters. AND with good taste in books and music and film!

The first conversation I had online, was with a nice Atheist man from West Texas who scolded me for not having good photos up. "You need one where we can see your FACE." he wrote to me.

Ok, ok. I put more photos. 2 without sunglasses.

"That's good." He wrote. "Now fill out your profile and answer some of those questions."
"I don't like the questions. " I wrote back. "And I can't sum myself up in one page!"
"Well, I don't know what you want out of this experience.." he replied, "but I don't really want a pen pall. I really want to meet someone - and the more specific you are, the better chances that you'll meet someone you actually like.."

I thought about that. What DID I want? Just to look at the big, tall Texas cowboys? A pen pall? Well, no. I DID want to meet someone cool and great and all that. But I was NOT going to answer a million questions about sex and intimate stuff like that on a public site. So, I decided to try something different. I put up a link to this blog. Now - it's ALL out there. They could research me if they so chose to. My thoughts, my worst Christmas, my past - some of the TV shows I was on - easy to google, etc, etc.

I thought for sure I would get some hate mail - but I was ok with that. It certainly would be a weeding out process, wouldn't it?
Instead, I got lots of positive responses. Not one hate mail. (not yet, anyway). This OK Cupid thing was going pretty well - and the most LOVELY men were writing to me! Maybe it would WORK!!!

But then, conversations began to develop. Online. On screen.
These lovely men all had a LOT of questions. Good ones.
"Do you have a job lined up?" "Where will you live?" "How many times a week do you work out?"

Uhhhhh.....
Uhhhhhhhhhhh........

I realized very quickly that I have NO answers to these questions.
Then I felt like a COMPLETE IDIOT.

"What the hell is wrong with you, girl?" I asked myself - while laughing at myself.
I have no job lined up, not sure where I'll be living and last week I worked out ZERO times and in fact was sitting in a car for 12 hrs at a time and only now am regaining feeling in my ass, and am on some road to recovering my poor stomach from the dreadful road trip crap I've put into it over the last few days.

In short - I am a mess.

So...as much as I really do want to cover all of those lovely Texas men with freshly sliced Texas peaches and eat them all up - as much as I want to go on a million coffee dates with different fellows - this one gentleman told me something that sticks in my head. He told me that he went on a date with this woman from OK Cupid and she BRAGGED at dinner that she just went out with all these guys to get a bunch of free meals out of it. If you can BELIEVE that! Not cool!

I in no way want to be like that woman.
And these super nice guys deserve a little better in my book. They deserve to go out with someone who can  answer at LEAST those first 3 questions. I mean, they ARE pretty basic, after all.

Gentle readers - I have torn myself away from the scintillating and slightly addictive world of online dating for NOW.
I intend to get myself into a place where I can answer those questions (and more)very happily, and then I'll just dive back in.

 Maybe.

In the mean time - single ladies who read this blog - if you EVER thought about moving to Texas - I can tell you that there are some MIGHTY FINE gentlemen here - smart, cool, athletic, single (unless they're lying - but I don't think so) - that are ready to meet you for coffee!

Sandy Hook Massacre

On Dec. 14th, I couldn't sleep.

All that early morning I was awoken by terrible, horrifying, violent dreams. I kept sitting up and physically shaking myself to try to get away from the nightmares.

I dreamt about my mother, after my family's car accident, on the side of the road just outside Clovis, New Mexico, with her 10 year old boy in her lap, his neck snapped. I couldn't shake the extreme, deep horror and sadness of that moment.

Then I dreamt about my best friend, Mieke.
She, too, held her daughter in her arms after it was too late. Nothing  - no amount of love or desire - could bring her back. I dreamt and felt so distinctly how that MOMENT - those moments - must have felt. A mother losing her child. It felt so real.

Then, I was awoken by a random dream. It was vague, and hazy - but there was a man with a gun. I heard the shots, and again was awoken in terror and a deep, deep sadness - not knowing why these dreams were coming to me this morning. I shook my head, hard. "Perhaps it's just because I'm leaving today.." I thought. "Maybe I'm scared and don't realize it fully?"

I tried to sleep for another hour, then gave up and switched on the TV to see what time it was. Almost 8:30 am , on the West Coast. I was getting a late start to my journey back to Texas.

And then I saw the images.
Little children being hustled out of somewhere. Grown ups hunched protectively over them - cars everywhere - a scene of chaos.
I turned the sound up and listened to the news in disbelief. A SHOOTING? At an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL??? TWO FREAKIN' DAYS AFTER THE MALL THING HERE IN PORTLAND!!?????

It was hard to believe. Awful to believe.

I tore myself away from the terrible images, packed my car, made a couple of sandwiches, and left.
I'd been looking forward to the drive through Southern Oregon. Grant's Pass, all of those beautiful mountains - and I was also in a hurry to beat the next snowfall.

My cat, Zyll, and I , took in the glorious scenery as Handel's Messiah washed through me. Clouds swept and swirled around the tops of tall evergreens and snow capped mountain tops. Then, as I lost one radio station and searched for another, I landed on NPR. The reporters were clearly accounting the details of the Sandy Hook Massacre. TWENTY young children believed to be dead, and SIX adults, not including the shooter and possibly his mother. It was almost too horrible to believe - and RIGHT before Christmas!

I cried and cried through the beautiful trees, mountains and vistas. The sun popped out at times looking like those paintings of 'God'. The green pastures dotted with white sheep were so vibrant they almost  glowed green. I lost the station, and switched back to classical music. It was raining off and on, making my over active imagination feel like the beautiful sky was crying with me. Then, just passed Grant's Pass, a rainbow appeared.

I went to Catholic school as a kid. I am not Catholic any longer, but all of those stories stuck in my head. And, I feel like the bit about rainbows being a sign of hope just makes sense. Even if I never heard those stories - I think a rainbow WOULD make me feel hopeful. Just from it's sheer beauty and magic. Maybe there IS a pot of gold, maybe everything WILL be ok....

But then again, if there is a God - how the hell can these 2 realities be reconciled? The horror of those poor families losing their children ( AND the adults, too, of course) in such a terrible, disgusting way -  and this incredible, peaceful, glorious rainbow - looking innocent and HOPEFUL!!!???

I stayed in Lake Shasta, then continued my drive yesterday, crying off and on all the way into L.A.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
No sense at all.

Back to Roots

After I sold my house a year ago, I didn't know where to go.
I felt homeless.
So, I traveled the globe looking for options.

I thought perhaps it would be good to go back to where I was born, South Africa. I could get citizenship there if I wanted to, and I hadn't ever been back. "Perhaps these are my roots?" I thought as whizzed through the sky in a huge man made machine, looking down at fluffy, white clouds underneath me.

South Africa felt familiar and strange all at once. There WAS something of me there. A tiny part of my history. But it was not where I belonged. Not now, anyway.

Then, after much travel, I decided on Portland. Partly because of my sister. She'd been wanting to move here for years, and I truly loved the city when I was coming to "scout it out".

But now, after a few short months, I know that Portland is NOT where I belong right now, either. I feel like a ghost here, and that's quite something for ME to say. If you know me at all, you know that I am not a shy or introverted creature. I did not feel like a ghost in Bali or Paris or South Africa when I was traveling there alone. Not in Amsterdam or Scotland.
Something about this beautiful place and I - is just not clicking.

AND....I do feel, after many conversations with my sister, that perhaps both of us were running away from something at the beginning. She certainly was and is. And maybe I was, too. From family - from perceptions of both failure and success - from my past....

But I've come to a glorious and wonderful new enlightenment.

I don't WANT to run away!!! NOT FROM ANYTHING!!!
I WANT the messy family stuff - the lovely, complicated, complex relationships that make us who we are. I want it ALL.  I want the drama, the stress (sometimes) the laughs, the love, the food... I want to see my little cousins and my niece grow up ...I WANT IT ALL.

So...I am packing up my car once again. getting rid of even MORE stuff (a serious shedding)...and heading back to my roots, and my family in Texas. Of ALL places.

Shaken, not stirred.

There is a great debate in my family.
About martini's.
One camp (my father and his cousin, Jim, belong to this camp) believe that a true martini is made ONLY with gin - NEVER vodka. This camp prefers their martini's shaken, not stirred.

A great, and very old friend of mine, I have recently learned - is staunchly in my father's camp about the gin, but he prefers his martini's stirred. Gently. "You'll bruise the gin if you shake it." he explained to me earnestly on the phone. "Gin has a distinct and delicate flavor - you want to taste that." he explained.
I laughed on my end of the phone - hundreds of miles away. I laughed because people can be so very passionate about these seemingly little things. My father and Jim are the same way. When I order a VODKA martini in my father's presence, he shakes his head and looks very sincerely disapointed.
"It's not a MARTINI, Jennifer." he'll say. "Ask Jim! He'll tell you."
"I know, Dad." I said the last time we had martinis. "I remember."
"Well..." he said back to me with an accusing look on his face."When you went to Harry's Bar, in Venice - you went, right?"
"I did. I went. I promise. I took photographs to prove it."
( I HAD gone, and I KNEW I'd have to have some evidence, so I begged my friend, Dorian , to take some pics of the martinis, the bartender - the whole scene)
"Well....did you have a REAL martini there? Or a "VODKA martini"?" (I could hear the sarcastic quotes hanging in the air around those 2 words)
"Oh, Dad...gosh..." I struggled to remember exactly what I'd ordered. For some reason it seemed important. It had been important to my Dad that I go there in the first place, so I had. These strange little strings of communication that we all hung onto in our family. Our bizarre versions of tradition, I guess. Harry's Bar was famous for being a Hemingway spot and an American x-pat spot, so of course the artists and writers of our family felt they had to make it ours as well.
"I just ordered a martini, Dad. That's what I did. You told me to order a martini, and that's what I did."

My father's face was suddenly covered with a cloak of righteous happiness. He looked fulfilled and delighted. A half laugh forced it's way out of his lips, "Ha...WELL..then you had a REAL MARTINI. A GIN martini - that's how they do them!"
"Mmmhmm. Yep. It was gin."
"A PROPER martini! THAT'S Harry's Bar for you!"
"It was a good martini, Dad. Cool place."

I prefer vodka martinis in general. But my father and I do land in the same camp when it comes to shaken, not stirred. I don't think a martini is drinkable if not shaken vigorously. And of course, I grew up hearing 007 say, "Shaken..not stirred".

This Thanksgiving, I had the impossibly great pleasure of having all of my children around me. And my brother, my sister and my mother. These days that's quite something. We are all so spread out and mobile. And after the girls all got on their planes and trains, the boys and I decided to go to a movie as it was spitting rain. The new James Bond on Imax won out. 50 year anniversary of the series this year. Wow.
It was great fun seeing that with my boys - Jake, Max and August Blue. The theme of the movie (or the hook, rather) seemed to be 'Sometimes the old ways are the best ways'. And I loved that. But - with that set up - I was disappointed that James never ordered his martini "Shaken, not stirred".

I found myself daydreaming during the movie. Remembering the drive around Lago Maggiore a couple years ago - how I felt like I was truly IN a James Bond movie - and little drives around the English countryside when I lived there many years ago. "Shaken, not stirred" was really sticking in my mind. I couldn't shake it (pardon the language).

That night I dreamt about all of the roads not taken. The safe roads. The predictable roads. The destinies I so often yearn for. And every night since, I have had similar dreams. The life that eludes me.

How can I say what I am trying to say?
I don't know how yet.
I am an awkward toddler of a writer at best.
I write like a toddler walks - like a drunken sailor. No balance, no form, no grace, no expectation or taking for granted that the next step will land well...or at all.

These dreams have been tormenting me.
I could have taken over my Grandmother's shop. She wanted me to. I didn't hate it. I sort of loved it.
I could have done a lot of things differently.
But I didn't.

I must come to some peace with the fact that I like my whole freakin' life shaken, not gently stirred.
I have loved so passionately, been hurt so terribly.....bruised all over. My martinis must be shaken. HARD. So must my life - at least up until this point.
And the question that remains - that dangles in front of my face like a cat toy - is...

......STILL??????

Fall in a rain forrest

Halloween has just come and gone.
The sunny fall days have turned into rainy, cold days here in the Pacific North West. When I drive into school at 6:30 am, the sky is pitch black. When I get to the lit up bridge, I can finally see the beautiful curves of Portland reveal themselves as curtains of fog move and sway like a dramatic set. The city is placed among hills of Christmas trees with this giant river and many beautiful bridges acting as a frame as you come in from the east. The darkness and fog at that time make the city look like a grey-blue water color painting - or an old photograph that is slightly out of focus. It is heartbreakingly beautiful to me every single morning. And every single morning I am reminded of all the different types of people who have cultivated and built this place - from the rich people in the twinkly houses that scatter down the hills, to the working class people who built these bridges and have worked by them, on them and under them, to the native American Indians who were here with the bears and the salmon and all this luscious growth long before any Europeans found it.

Rainy days are for lovers.
They always feel especially lonely to me when I am without it.
Here, I find myself moving from one rainy day to the next like an invisible woman. Other than my one friend, Chris, and my sister (whom I see once a week if I'm lucky) - I am invisible here. It's a strange feeling for someone as extraverted as myself. I know there is a lesson to be learned - I'm just not sure what it is yet.

I'm not invisible anywhere else.
And, as if to prove my point, the ONE person I have met on my own in Portland - I met in the air (on a plane) above Los Angeles. ( my invisible cloak had not yet descended, you see)
Her name is Cindy. She is roughly my mother's age, and she has invited me out to hear her daughter sing tonight. Of course I am going. I am dying for a friend!

I miss my friends and family in L.A. And I miss my friends and family on the East Coast. So many of them are STILL without electricity after hurricane 'Sandy'. Some I have not heard one word from since the storm and have no assurance that they are ok. So I worry and hope from this far corner of the country.

There is nothing wrong with this beautiful rain forrest. No terrible storms here, no fires or drought. The fall days and nights are saturated with colors and nostalgic smells - smoke from fireplaces mixed with rain and flowers. There is no shortage of culture here, either. More art house cinemas, live theatre  and music venues, more amazing restaurants than I can relate to you. The only thing missing is all of the people that I love.

Now I'm Pissed.

Just got back from school. From my first practical final (which just means all of the actual cooking and everything else that's done in the kitchen - as opposed to written tests, math, etc) - and I was so mad, I drove straight home and took it out on the dishes. Not throwing them or anything - just DOING them.
I know - it would be so much more exciting if I told you I threw them all across the kitchen and glass and porcelain were flying everywhere - but that didn't happen.

(Now, Mark has a GREAT 'throwing glass' story, and if he doesn't agree to write a guest blog one of these days soon, I may just write it FOR him - as heard second hand, of course!)

The thing is, these chefs are (as so many people warned me ahead of time) such ego-maniacle jerk- holes, it's hard to take sometimes. Let me, at this time, try to paint a picture of the three chefs I have had the occasion to study under so far. I shall not use their real names, of course, and as you may have noticed, I will never even name the school which I am attending for fear of being sued or failed.

First, there was the night time chef. Let us call him Churchill. He seemed like a nice enough fellow - just a little defeated and not seeming to love his job. Churchill is an older man (late 50's , I should guess?)  quite tall, with a thick head of salt and pepper hair and an unfortunate goatee/mustache combo. I posit that he would be much more attractive if he would grow his full beard in. I asked him meekly one evening if he ever DID wear a full beard and he looked at me as though I had asked him to join my satanic cult.
 Despite the fact that we are expected to learn about a jillion things every night and our lecture time is precious, Chef Churchill chose to amuse us with stories about his glorious youth. He told us all about how he was a super star in San Francisco - smoking weed and doing blow with the hottest chefs in town. He had been an unstoppable young gun in one of the most exciting cities in the world. He told us all about how he could do any station on the line - and how he frequently did (when someone called in sick or something) - all the while dangling a cigarette in his mouth, or resting it on the edge of his cutting board. Those were the days before health and sanitation were concerned with things like cigarettes in the kitchen. "We all smoked in the kitchen!" he laughed.
I rubbed my hands together in the freezing cold lecture room and tried to imagine him when he was young, hanging out with my heroin, Alice Waters. I imagined that he was very cute back in the day, and very cocky.
 I can tell you all kinds of things about Chef Churchill. Because that's how he spent our evenings. Telling us all about his personal life. I know where he grew up, that his first restaurant job was at Mc Donalds, all about his culinary training, his 2 wives that both divorced him (he seemed a little sad about that), that he used to have a cat and he doesn't have any children...I could go on and on.

Next in line comes Chef Jefferson. That's what I'm calling him, because he thinks he's so cool. And if he had slaves and lived in the time of Jefferson, I bet he'd sleep with them. This chef seems to think of himself as the young, groovy, "hot" chef. He's married with kids (cute kids - we saw pictures), but he's not really all that. It is immediately apparent that lots of young, female culinary students get crushes on him, and of course he loves it. Why wouldn't he?
 Jefferson's the one I'm so mad at right now. This man makes my bullshit detector go off like crazy. In fact, I'm so mad at this moment, that I think that's all I'll say about him right now. Except to say that he's only made ONE dish that was any good so far.
 And THAT is what my sister thinks is really bumming me out so much about this whole school experience. That the FOOD doesn't taste very good. Seriously. So far, it's like we're learning to cook for a geriatric cruise ship.

You see, I'm ok working with or for megalomaniacs IF they are brilliant. If they are truly brilliant, they can be as nuts as they want to, as far as I'm concerned. And of COURSE I've worked with and for these types of people. I'm an actress! Directors have yelled at me, sometimes made me cry, sometimes I held my own...but, I guess I have this idea that one has to EARN the right to be a crazy jerk-hole.

Which brings me to my favorite chef. The only ray of hope I can see in this twisted learning environment. I shall call him Napoleon. Chef Napoleon.
I adore this man. He has made me cry already. That was embarrassing. But he is the ONLY one catching me out on my bad habits, AND the only chef so far that seems to have a real LOVE of the culinary arts.
Chef Napoleon is a smaller man (not tiny, but a hair shorter than me) with a HUGE amount of energy and sparkle. He is from another part of the world, where life is harder and he has worked harder than anyone there, I believe, to achieve what he has. He yells a lot, and his sparkle can turn on a dime into anger or impatience, but he doesn't seem to hold on to any bad feelings. He is funny and intimidating.
Chef Napoleon can yell at me or make me cry all he wants - because he is BRILLIANT. What this man knows about spices and flavor profiles is invaluable, and can NOT be found in any book. I believe he is the absolute treasure of the school. He is the reason I want to go to school every day, and dread going to school if I am even slightly unprepared.

It is another glorious day here. The sun is shining, it is barely cool and crisp, and the wind is sending the fist of the colored leaves around in flurries. Believe it or not, there are still roses blooming all over town, and the views outside my windows could not be more idyllic. All of this gentle fall beauty is taking the wind out of my little huff. And as I am calming down, enjoying the chestnut trees and the golden leaves, I have to laugh it off, shake my head and remember that I have a LOT of work to do before monday - Chef Napoleon demands perfection, you see. And HIM, I don't want to disappoint.

NOT sticking my foot in it - for once!

Just got back from another hard day at culinary school. All of the instructors over there seem to be in CRANKY moods.(how can they be when it is SOO beautiful outside?)

I should be going over my math quiz right now to figure out all the stuff I got wrong - but I just can't face it yet. I feel like I'm in some bad high school movie. What's that one where Drew Barrymore has to go back to high school as an adult - and they STILL treat her like she's a total dork? THAT'S THE ONE!!!! THAT'S THE ONE I'M IN!!! Only there's no cute teacher to fall for in my movie.

Oh well. I'm proud of myself for today. I can be pretty awful about sticking my foot in my mouth, and for ONCE in my life, I kept quiet.

I got to school 4 minutes before the classroom door closed, and some other chef was in there chatting with my instructor. Out of the blue, he turns to me and asks, "So, do you miss Chef _, yet?" (my other night-time chef instructor).

I just looked at him. Immediately 2 answers flew into my head.
The first one was,"Well I'm pretty damn sure he doesn't miss ME."
And the second one was, (dripping with sarcasm) "Oh yes. I really miss hearing him lecture us about his X-wives. Riveting!"
But instead - INSTEAD, dear readers, I merely looked at this chef for several seconds with my mouth open (I'm sure I looked like an imbecile), telling myself very sternly, "Don't say anything, don't say anything.." and finally sort of blurted out, "....uh...yea."

This was a small victory for me. Especially considering how out of it I am in the morning. I am just not a morning person. I do not like this new schedule very much. Sometimes I wish I could whine to someone over there about stuff. I wish I could tell someone that that other chef seemed to dislike me quite a bit for some reason (maybe I remind him of his X-wife - one of them? I don't know!) , and that I'm too lonely here as it to be able to handle that AND the mean kids at school. I don't know what it is about Portland, but no one talks to me here. It was so different feeling when I was on my own in Paris or Bali - even South Africa. I spent loads of time there on my own - but people TALK to you. If you are sitting at an outdoor cafe in Paris all by yourself - someone will strike up a conversation with you.

One lovely evening in Paris, I was having a drink at Duex Magots all by my lonesome. I started writing in my journal, and before I knew it, a handsome man a couple of tables over asked me if I was a writer. We ended up talking for two and a half hours - despite the language hick-ups. It was great fun to meet people like that - all over the place. This couple that Mark and I met in Bali are still our friends - we ended up hanging out with them in Portland when we up here scouting it out. Total strangers. But one of us was brave enough to say "hi", and now we have some really cool new friends. Mark's even written them into his screenplay!

Here, I may as well be a leper.
Thank goodness for you, gentle readers. You are the most communication I have in any given week.
Thanks for hanging in there with me!

What's good is good, right?

I am going to fail culinary school.
This is a fact.
A statement.

Right now, I am (let's face it) chowing down on the plum/blueberry tart I just made tonight. It is FABULOUS. It really is. The perfect amount of sweet to tart - soft to flaky. And I made it to cheer myself up from a BAD day at culinary school.

The thing is - I'm not good at math. And all these years - I guess I've just somehow faked my way through things - SOMEHOW changing a recipe for for Moroccan chicken that serves 8 into a dish that serves 150. How did I DO it without the math???? I DON'T KNOW!!!! I really don't. Apparently I am super math challenged. Well, I knew it all along. I'm dyslectic. Mr. K held my hand through the last 2 years of high school math at an ART SCHOOL!!!! My 14 year old is 4 years past any math I ever did right now. I SUCK.

And the thing is that this school preached a good sermon about giving extra help, etc - but they're not around. They are going fast as lightening and there's no time for an old broad like myself.
"How many teaspoons in a gallon?" - who the hell knows THAT???
 How do you turn 5 pounds of potatoes into ounces???? I DON'T FUCKIN' KNOW!!!!!

Some kid barked at me - SCOLDED me - for scrubbing a pot that had food stuck on it the other day.
"We don't DO that." he said, condescendingly. "We just just dip 'em."
I looked at him in horror.
"The 'THREE DIP SYSTEM'!!???" he asked me as if I were an imbecile.

I just don't know. If there's food STUCK on a pot or pan, you gotta SCRUB it. RIGHT? I don't want someone serving ME food that's just been cooked in a bunch of sani solution with goodness knows what else all over that pan....!

I started bawling TWICE today in front of my instructors. VERY embarassing. I am BEHIND on the math stuff. And I'm not making any excuses for that. That's WHY I came to culinary school. To learn all that. I know I've been faking it all these years. I WANT to learn the math. I do. But - I think it's the  attitudes and the lack of ANY ...whatever - kindness  - that's really getting to me.

And the thing is - is that sometimes I feel like getting up and making a speech when these kids are such brats - saying (all public- movie-speech-style) "You know what? Most of you are the ages of my children. And I GET that you just look at me and see some older woman and don't want me here. But - if your mom or dad ever came to your side and was protective of you - think about this :  What if YOUR mom was in culinary school as part of a second career move?  Wouldn't you be proud of her? Wouldn't you want the other students to be decent to her - regardless of  anybody's age?"

That's what I would like to say to some of these students.

And, bottom line is, we're producing food every day. Some of it REALLY sucks. But nothing I have had a hand in so far has. It's always tasted GOOD.

Math or no math, culinary school or not - what's good is GOOD - right?

Ask for What you Want..

 I grew up terrified to ask for what I wanted.
That's what spoiled, bad children did. Good children are grateful for everything they get and are only allowed to ask Santa for what they want once a year IF they are instructed to compose a letter to him by their parents. That's what I was taught. In school, at home, in church.

Church and religion class also taught me that it was better to be poor - a rich man had a harder time getting into heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle, etc. If I ever had a teacher I didn't like, it was my job to tough it out and be grateful I had any teacher at all. If my food was terrible ( and it often was growing up - money was TIGHT), I was to eat it anyway and be grateful. "There are children starving in Africa, Jennifer!" my father routinely barked at me.
"Well THEYcan have my food!" I thought, but didn't DARE say. I frequently imagined boxing up the dinner I was loathe to eat and sending it on a plane or a ship to some starving kids in Africa.

This lesson was pounded so successfully into my head as child, that I am beyond surprised (when I look back at things now) that that, along with a terrible fear of authority did not successfully trap me in Texas in some dead end job forever. Grateful for it, of course.

I don't really know where the little flare ups of rebellion came from. Starting as little sparks, then growing into bigger and bigger sources of energy. Maybe it started when my Grandmother took me to Broadway and showed me her secret ninja method of getting tickets to a sold out show. I was only 14 then. I had seen Patty LuPone sing 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' on the Tony's, and after witnessing me weep and hearing me sing that song for days on end everywhere I could, she bought us a couple of tickets to New York.

At the Plaza Hotel, we asked the concierge if there were any tickets available for 'Evita'.
"Oh no, Madam." the concierge said wagging his head at us in the manner of talking down to silly Texas tourists who didn't have a clue. "It is sold out for MONTHS, Madam."
"Well, alright." my Grandmother said, clearly irritated with his attitude. "Come on. Let's go get changed for dinner, Jennifer." she then said briskly as she bustled my crestfallen face into the elevator.

At Sardi's, she said, "Well, if we just get a bowl of minestrone and some pie, we'll have plenty of time to walk over to the theatre."
I looked at her in disbelief. The thought briefly went through my mind the she might be losing hers. After all, it hadn't been that long ago that she had lost her husband and continued to talk to him every morning at breakfast. "Didn't you hear him, Granny?" I asked her gently, "It's sold out for months.We can't go."
My grandmothers eyes sparkled like  a million diamond firecrackers. "Well, we'll just see about that. He doesn't know everything - I have some tricks up my sleeve."
I sighed and shook my head a little, but I couldn't help smiling at her radiant spunk. I was grateful to be here. I LOVED getting soup and pie at Sardi's. If that's all we did the whole trip - I knew how lucky I was already. It seemed like WAY too much to ask to actually get into 'Evita', the show I was obsessed with beyond anything.

I followed my Grandmother over to the theatre and watched her negotiate with the young man in the box office. She looked so cute in her Chanel suit, but I could see the young man shake his head, 'No', even if I couldn't hear him. But Granny didn't seem disheartened one bit.
"I told him we'd be waiting right over here." she said confidently.
I was positive it was all for naught, but I was caught up in my own feelings of excitement to be this close to Patty LuPone, and biting envy of all of the dressed up people walking through those doors with tickets in their hands. Just when I thought the last person had gone through, the bells were ringing people into their seats, and we would have to go back the hotel - the young man waved us over.

My Grandmother turned to give me my ticket exuding happy triumph.
"Fourth row, center", she said, gleefully.
My jaw was on the ground!
 "What!? How did you..??"
"Come on. Let's get in our seats before the curtain goes up."

As we sat down in our fourth row center seats at my first Broadway show, I thought my heart would explode with happiness. I really did. It was the absolute highlight of my young life. I was so full of love and excitement and gratitude  to my amazing grandmother - I could hardly contain it.

She looked over at me as the orchestra started to play and patted my leg with her pretty, plump little hand. "Sometimes you've just got to ask for what you want, Jennifer." she said matter of factly. I looked at this little woman in awe. As far as I was concerned, she'd just pulled off a miracle.

She looked right into my saucer-sized eyes as if she were a great Ninja Master imparting the core of her secret wisdom.
 "Just remember to ask nicely. That never hurts."
The red, velvet curtains began to part. But before I could become completely engrossed in the magic  around me, I felt as if the curtains of my brain were parting and a great ray of golden light was pouring into it accompanied by the dramatic score of 'Evita'.

"Ask nicely." I whispered to myself.

LP's are my only friends.

Over the last few days, this feeling of loneliness has crept up and over me like a blanket. It has become so intense, it is physically painful.

I'm listening to Stan Getz on my new RECORD PLAYER right now while I write and launder my uniforms for culinary school. I went into the record store downtown to see what they had the other night and was a little surprised to find it so shockingly pristine and clean and organized. Every single LP was in perfect condition. No bunged up dollar rack in this shop. But they didn't have a ton of stuff.

I took my handful of LPs to the register and a nice man who looked like he was straight off of the set of 'Portlandia' asked me if I had found everything ok.
"Well, I didn't see any classical. Do you have any?" I asked.
"Not anything good. Not right now. We only take albums if they are absolutely perfect. You might try some garage sales.."
"Yea, I noticed. Thanks."
"You from here?"
"Nope. I just moved here. I don't know anyone. That's why I'm at the record store by myself on a Saturday night."
The man with the chin beard looked at my face, as if he was decoding me.
"Well the records will keep you company."
(I chuckled) "That's exactly what I was thinking.."
"Hey, welcome to Portland - I'm gonna put a couple of freebies in here for ya. I think you might like these. And I hope we see you in here again."
"Oh, you will," I said, (aware that my throat was aching a little bit from the mere thought of walking out of that lovely store and the 2 minutes of human interaction that came with it), "..I'll need some more friends."

Canned Tomatoes.

Ok, this will have to be a short one, as I have school this afternoon/evening.

I've just finished doing my homework and reading out in the beautiful vitamin D, while sipping my coffee and eating a carrot cake muffin that my sister made me for breakfast.

I am happy to report to you that yesterday's class was a little improved. Mr "I don't want to be here" seemed a little happier to be there, and we made 4 kinds of potatoes : Lyonaisse, french fried, potato pancakes and  Duchess

and 4 grains : jasmine rice, rice pilaf, barley pilaf, polenta.

and fresh pasta with alfredo and red sauce.

Despite the fact that the red sauce was inedible (I wouldn't be caught DEAD serving that - not even in an institution of any kind), the rice pilaf was not good, and the jasmine rice was too soft and sticky - I was at LEAST reassure that I would be learning a GREAT DEAL at this school - and VERY RAPIDLY. Which is good, because I am not a patient person.

I am rattling around this big house here all by myself (with my cat, Zyll), and I have to confess it's getting a little bit lonely. I was hoping to make friends in culinary school - but in my mixed class of 25  (the majority of them will split off in a month to do pastry and baking) , I seriously think that at LEAST half the class (I would venture to guess two thirds) legitimately has something along the lines of Aspergers syndrome. They are painfully shy. In fact, they seem terrified of other people. A couple of times, I have innocently asked someone, "What's your name again?" and they reacted as if I'd whipped my french knife out, pointed it right at them and threatened to slice their throat.

Interesting to think about, really. I guess it makes sense that a lot of shy people would seek out professions that put them socked away in a kitchen (and if they are baking it's generally in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep).

But HOW THEN, (I lament and wail to you) am I EVER going to make any new FRIENDS in this beautiful, beautiful, lonely place?????
        I DON'T EVEN HAVE ANYONE TO GO TO DINNER WITH IN A LAND FAMOUS FOR IT'S INCREDIBLE RESTAURANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    GOOD GRIEF!

Culinary School

My first REAL day of culinary school was yesterday. We were given our knife sets, our aprons and some other sundries, and learned that we would be fed dinner every school night.

Our main instructor (whose name I will not mention) started out with a ......jagged, crumbling...thud. He  
told us about the business he used to own ( an expensive meats shop), and announced that he would be serving a whole, stuffed pig for dinner. A pig stuffed with more pig.

"Well, I used to sell these for five or six hundred dollars..." he told us in his nasal, bored voice.
"People would buy the whole pig?" a student asked him.
"Oh yea. They'd order it and I'd stuff it with whatever - sausage and maybe pork loin, like this one..People loved it..." he said sounding like a man disappointed and bitterly resigned.

 In my head I was asking him why his beloved business was closed. But I already knew the answer. People that ate a lot of pig-stuffed pig probably died off, and/or then the recession hit, and they couldn't afford to pay six hundred dollars to give themselves high cholesterol and all of the things that go with it, and THEN pay their bloody doctors to fix the problems that they had gone to so much trouble and expense to inflict upon their own bodies.

Don't get me wrong.
I'm not a vegetarian.
And I love French food - lots of it.
But I NEVER want to look like that man, or sound like him, or be in ANY way like him.

Food makes me happy. I derive GREAT JOY out of cooking and eating really good food. I derive even greater joy out of cooking great tasting food that is GOOD for a human's body and a little better for the planet than pig-stuffed pigs. It's a stone cold fact that if China ate meat (any kind of meat) like we do in the USA - that alone would destroy our planet. We are the greediest and most ignorant consumers of food on this planet by FAR. We ingest poison chemicals and bio-engineered foods and defend our right to do so passionately, while many big American food companies are NOT LEGALLY ALLOWED to sell their same formulas/recipes in other parts of the world.

I am working - WE are working - on our knife skills this week. And that is one of the reasons that I wanted to go to culinary school. I have a big fancy bag of fancy, sharp, shiny knives now. Super fun. But, as my BORING and UNINSPIRING instructor rattles on about how he uses so many of the different knives to get into "small animal parts", I am day dreaming about making salads look like flowers and all of the scrumptious salad dressings I am going to hone and invent to make more people LOVE their veggies!

PS - this uninspired "Chef" had the audacity to claim that we would be using canned tomatoes in our red sauce tomorrow because they are "better than fresh". Oh my GOODNESS. Have you ever TASTED the difference? It's pretty intense - how great red sauce is when you make it from fresh tomatoes. I wouldn't fault him for saying - "You will probably be cooking for a giant hotel, and fresh tomato sauce is not practical" - but to say canned is BETTER.....!!!!!!!????????
I am tempted to wake up at 6 am tomorrow and make FRESH red sauce for 80 people so that I can bring it in for comparison. (and, no - there are not 80 people in my class - just in the whole school at one time)....signing off for now. Almost 3 am, haven't been sleeping. If I'm lucky, I will sleep a little tonight, and have sweet dreams of feeding fresh, organic red sauce with home made pasta and flower-like salads to the whole wide world.

Insomnia, continued

As she took her seat in the small concert hall and tried to look normal for her son, she was more than aware that she looked quite the opposite of normal to her very good friend, Kenneth. He knew her so well, she was without any doubt that he could see the entire storm system swirling around inside her - hurricanes, tornadoes and thunderstorms all raging inside of a fairly small skeletal frame covered over by her brighter and brighter pink skin. If anyone in the audience was noticing her, they must have thought she was dying of a fever.
Kenneth leaned down close to her ear before the music began and murmured only, "Hmmmm.."

It was all he needed to say. Incorporated into that tight, quiet little "Hmmm.." was all the sardonic amusement and understanding of a gay man watching his girlfriend fall off an emotional cliff bigger than the Grand canyon right in front of his eyes faster than he could say "Martini, now!"
Kenneth was so amused and intrigued by this unexpected turn of events, in fact, that he quite forgot to peruse the audience in search of young 'talent' before the lights dimmed.
"Damn this one and her drama," Kenneth thought as he tried to look around in the darkness, but could only be aware of the raging storm and heat coming from the blonde woman next to him, "it's always about her! What on EARTH could have happened between these two anyway?" he thought.

As the music started, that was exactly the question racing through his friend's mind - like an actual race. Like the chariot race in 'Ben Hur'. Horses stampeding the thought through her brain and heart unrelentingly. "What on earth COULD have happened between us, anyway?"

When the music started, it took less than a moment for the tears to start streaming down her face. They came along with the most powerful truth that any of us can ever know. The same power of truth that comes when someone we love dies, or when our child is born. There are some things in life that are undeniable. Inescapable. Some emotional truths that are so powerful we are like helpless, raw animals in their wake. She could not have stopped crying for anything in the world. She could not have denied every or any of the feelings and thoughts that were rushing over and through her like tidal waves. She was every bit as helpless to them as if she were in the eye of a tsunami, in fact. And as the music filled her with love, longing and the deepest, sharpest regret she had ever known - she knew with every molecule in her body that she had made the biggest mistake of her life...

Insomnia

It was 1:34 am. She thought about going upstairs "to bed"...."But why?", she thought. "What's the point?" Two years ago, she had been reacquainted with a long lost love. Reacquainted. What a funny and misleading word - in this instance. Let me start again. Two years ago she had been invited to a concert. It was funny, because she drove two and a half hours to see it with her friend and her son, and when they got there - they couldn't find the venue. Roaming around this little beach town in the pitch dark, looking for a concert that had already started. When they finally found the place, they were told it was intermission. She went in search of the ladies' room, laughed at herself in the mirror after much scrutiny and primping. Why should it be so important, after all? He was married, lived far away, and it had been a very, VERY long time. Surely every silly thought floating around in her head was just that. Silly. Laughing at herself was the only thing to do. She hurried back to the concert hall, but just as she turned the corner, she saw him. What happened to her then can hardly be described. She'd spent the last two years alternately trying to forget it, and trying to hold onto it as hard as she could. She saw him from a little distance, standing in the corridor, and in less than an instant, everything was different. In less than an instant it felt as though they were the only two people on the earth. In less than an instant, she felt like she couldn't breath, couldn't make sense of anything, and felt like she couldn't even exist if she could not be with him. In less than an instant, the world started to spin in slow motion, she could focus on nothing but his face - her heart beating furiously, her cheeks bright red - it took all of her will power to move like a human, shake his hand, and find her way into a seat. She choked on her own longing as she watched him move into the space with the same boyish grace she remembered from so long ago. Only now his tall frame was more self assured and life had clearly been gracious and good to him, for he was more handsome, confident and talented than any human has a right to be - all at once.

The Black Bali Sea

I find myself in Bali.
A tropical paradise. An island teaming with life. An eco system working like mad in crazed but perfect harmony. The cats of Bali are in heat. And the flying bugs here love to eat me. I tell my traveling partner, Mark, it is because I am so sweet.
"I'M not getting bitten!" he declares in his superior,gay voice - a derisive tone to say the least.
"That's because you're so bitter." I reply sweetly. (Mark is always referring to himself as a 'bitter gay man').
He chuckles. "Well, maybe so.."

A petite brown woman with a long pony tail of jet black hair, wearing a Winnie the pooh shirt has just approached me at breakfast.
"Good morning." she says in a beautiful Balinese accent (they roll their r's in a lovely way) "How was your sleep last night?"
I smile back at her wanly,"It was ok..." I say.
She can tell I'm full of it. "You did not sleep well?" she asks, concerned.
"Oh, it's just me. It's not this place....I...I have trouble sleeping." I confess, feeling like a freak. I say this to her as I am sitting in the cafe of a mountain side hotel, perched high above the Bali Sea - a plate of exotic fruit being brought to me before the words have even left my mouth. How could I NOT sleep in a paradise such as this? And as a pot of steaming hot Bali coffee is put before me, it is all I can do not to throw my arms around her and burst into tears.
I want to go home.
I'm tired of tropical paradise and villas and bungalows. I love it here - but I can't sleep.The worms make an assault on my room, and when it's not worms it's roaches or mosquitos. I am so sleepy and tired - I just want to back home and sleep in my own bed. But I don't have one anymore.
No bed. No home.

2 days ago, I was swimming in this black sea at Amed. The Northern coast. You can't put your feet down there. It is very shallow for a long,long way out and the ocean floor is covered with sea urchin and coral. But it is easy to float. I felt like I was light as air, floating effortlessly in black ink. The clouds above me seemed so low. As if I was in a very,very large room. The sky was the ceiling,the mountains and black sand the walls, and on the ocean side - it seemed as though I could see the curve of the earth. It was surreal. I felt like I was in a children's novel. 'Alice in Wonderland'. Or in Narnia. A perfect pace / time to meditate.
"This is my home now." I thought.
"Right in the middle of the black Bali Sea."

I know where I've been, but I don't know where I am going or where I will land. I miss my children and my family and friends. That didn't take long. I am a Taurus - and although I am not entirely into all that astrological stuff, there do seem to be a couple of things that ring true. Taureans love their homes. And I loved mine for over 20 years. After all of my amazing travels and adventures - I always loved coming home. No matter what chaos or mess I was coming home TO - it was home. And I managed to make a pretty damn great one for all of those years. I haven't accomplished much in this life, but I am proud of pulling that off. My home in the Hollywood Hills was just as magical as this place in it's own way. My terraces were also filled with lizards and exotic sounding birds, deer in the back yard instead of monkeys - but I prefer deer in the long run. And it was MINE. My Tara. My earth. MY HOME.

Mark is diving today. He is diving to see a shipwreck very close to here. The sun looks like it may finally appear after a morning of harsh wind and rain, so I suppose I will snorkel. Go look at some pretty fish.
After all, this is my home.
For now.