Out and About

My cake is in the oven--no wait, it's in the agar, and I have no idea what temperature it's at. 350 degrees F is 176 degrees C, and Paule says the bottom drawer is "something like that." Um, okay. I'm paranoid enough about my cooking skills!

Anyway, yesterday was nice, and last night was awesome. I went to see the nurse in the morning about my toe and I told him that I tried to "fix it myself" and he was like, "what exactly do you mean by 'fix?'" So he put some anti-infection stuff on it and wrapped it up all fancy like and that was that. All morning in the food centre Magda and I made Halloween decorations for the coffee bar. Justin came in to get the apple compost for the cows and I asked him if I could have the afternoon off so I could rest my weary toe. He said that would be fine. I had lunch at High Farm with Claire, my Botton Friend, and it was delicious. After cleaning up Claire and I sat in the mud-room with a momma cat and her week old kittens and talked about how things are going so far. Our conversation was cut completely short by some guy who Claire hadn't seen in ages and they went to school together and such. I thought she would ask him to come back in half an hour, or at least apologize to me and say we would finish our conversation some other time, but I got neither--it was like I suddenly wasn't there! It was super awkward and she completely ignored me and I basically just let myself out and was like, "Um, thanks for lunch." I mean, everyone has their problems, and I think this is just how Claire is. It's like a very specific ADD or something; she gets completely distracted and doesn't go back to the original thing.

So back home I told Paule I had the afternoon off and she asked me to clean the bathroom really well, so I did, and now it's spotless. Then I lay around in my bed and fiddled with my computer and showered and got a little costume together for the party. I decided to go as a cat, so I drew on my face with eyeliner and wore all black and wore a black headband with paper ears pinned to it. After supper and cleaning up I made some gooey pasta and ran to the coffee bar. It was awesome. The villagers were all so excited and Marc Antone led songs and told stories and there was a spooky walk through the inner gardens where people jumped out at the villagers and the Magda and Liza and Mycha and I worked the "What is THAT?" station where the villagers put there hands through holes and into bowls of flour, porridge, gooey pasta and this weird cherry instant pudding stuff that was so slimy and gross. Aterwards I helped clean up and was fiddling around on the piano and playing On the Radio and Ben and Marc Antone came over cuz they recognized the song and they said I have a nice voice. Woot.

So then Mycha invited me to come watch a movie with her and Maisa up at New Botton Farm (Mycha's house, the farthest you can get from Bracken), and even though I was exhausted, I couldn't pass it up. So we watched a really bad chick flick called Trust the Man and drank tea and then I had to walk all the way back to Bracken in the rain. It was fun, but also not the best idea.

Saturday morning I did all my usual chores and on friday Ben had invited me to go to Middlesborough with him and a few others, so I met up with everyone (Mycha, Shojin and Ben) at the carpark and we got a ride to the train station and met Nastasia (another lovely co-worker from Germany; she and Mycha are best buds) there and we all went to Middlesborough together! It was lovely. Ben knew his way around pretty well cuz he's been here for like three months, and we went all around the mall (the outside kind) and shopped for all the things we needed. Ben got shoes and I got posters and we all got alcohol. It's so funny to go into the grocery store and buy vodka. And kaluah. And gin. And beer. And rum. And coconut and pineapple juice. Partayyyy!! And partay we did. After we got on the wrong train and had to call for a five-seater taxi....it's cool how these things don't bother me. I mean, I can't even say it sucked that we got lost money since we had return tickets and we had to pay 7 pounds each for the taxi (which I thought was amazingly cheap since it was a 40 minute drive!). I'm just very go-with-the-flow about these things...I think I get it from mom and dad, especially dad, being all zen and such :-). Anyway, we got home eventually, and after supper and another round of excruciatingly boring "groups" Luis and I walked to Rowan, Ben's house, for the "gathering." Ben had sent out a paper to every house inviting all the co-workers to Rowan for some much-needed bonding...aka drinking! His house is designed so that the noise from where we were, in the kitchen dining room and sitting room, isn't heard by the rest of the house, so we didn't have to worry about noise level too much. I met a bunch of the staff kids too, and this one girl, Johanna, was so cool and nice and talked just as much as I do, and everyone was like, "Oh man, look at them go!" cuz we were talking a mile a minute about every detail of our lives and we had just met.

The party was great, and I'm not gonna say I got trashed, but it wasn't my most sober performance :-). It was nice to be uninhibited and goofy, and I certainly was--I told Andreas I was so happy that he was nice to me and I wrote in my blog that I had made a friend and I gave Mycha the biggest hug and said, "I'm so glad you're from America!" because we talked a lot on the train to Midd. about all the anti-american crap we get. Anyway, it was super. Except that Luis got too drunk towards the end, and walking back to the neighborhood he was in that whiny mopey state of drunkenness that annoys me to no end. But other than that it was lovely.

It was like 3:30 by the time I fell asleep, and I slept through breakfast by accident, but got up and showered and started cooking by 10:00. It went okay for a first time. Paule was baby-sitting for her granddaughter Selma (Paule's daughter Emily and her husband are Ben's house parents in Rowan) so she was available if I couldn't find something or had a crisis. Basically it was unorganised and late, but it tasted great. The soup was wonderful and the pasta (which I made WAY too much of) with the roasted veggies was good but Paule said I should have made a sauce or something and even though everyone complimented me she said things like, "actually you could have done more veggies and skipped the pasta because there are potatoes in the veggies so we don't need more carbs, and then you wouldn't have needed to make a sauce," and i hadn't made a sauce so....whatever. I was really most worried about her opinion; she's a really good cook and I wanted to live up to her standards, so I was really anxious about what she had to say, and it wasn't totally positive, so that sucked a little. I mean, I was still proud of myself for pulling it off, and I thought it tasted amazing. The cake was also really good, served with cream poured on top of each slice. After lunch I slept until supper, and after supper I was putting everything away and getting the breakfast tray ready while Paule did the washing up and I was randomly putting things away and putting dirty dishes by the sink for her to wash and I gave her an empty jar of jam and she got totally snippy with me and said, "it would be nice if you were aware of what's going on around you." I was like WHAT?! Fuck you I'm helping! She had drained the sink already, and I think she was pissed that I hadn't given her the jar sooner or something. I didn't say anything, just finished doing my work, occasionally banging things down on the counter harder than necessary.

For the rest of the evening I puttered around, read the newspaper and did my laundry and tidied my room and talked to Phil over a drink. Then I came up here to my room and started writing this, only to be interrupted by Paule, who apologized for snapping at me. Then we had a huge conversation about everything. She said it takes her while to get to know someone and feel comfortable with them and she doesn't want me to feel under-appreciated but today was hard because I didn't come to breakfast and since Phil had surgery on his hand he can't do the washing up and so she did it at all three meals today. I told her that she should have asked me to do the washing up because I would have been happy to do it, and that it's hard for me to find the balance between working too hard and not enough. I told her about how hard I work on the farm and that I've been over-compensating for being a girl and at the end of the day I'm exhausted and in pain but I still feel like I don't do enough in the house and I think SHE doesn't think I do enough in the house and I don't want her to think I'm lazy. She also said that when she listens to me talk I SOUND more confident and competent than I actually am. That was a pisser. It was a bit of a tense conversation at first, but then we came to an understanding and started talking about Emily and how she might be sent home soon because she flipped shit on Friday in the garden and was kicking and spitting and cursing at people...among other things. Then we talked about Christmas and gingerbread houses and that was that. I'm glad we established how we feel about things. Well, most things. In time I think we'll understand each other more, but we are really REALLY different people. Now I've stayed up way too late again. The internet isn't working so I'll post this tomorrow. Nighty night.

P.S dear god please let obama win love robin