My Lede... Or What's Been Steaming in the Pitcher So Far...

I was making a mocha. I was “barring” and Jeremy was on register. With a metal pitcher of milk in my right hand, my free hand reached for the steam wand. Steam wands look like non-knuckled prosthetic fingers...generally. Instead of flawlessly lowering the wand into the pitcher sitting on the espresso machine’s grill-like platform beneath its chrome awning, my hand slipped. The smooth, white paper cup emblazoned with the Starbucks logo, was just about to be filled with two shots of espresso. It was going to be filled with steamed 2% milk. It was going to be topped off with a swirl of whipped cream. But with the slip of my hand, it was all going to be downhill from there.

My eyes hung onto the cup how a big cat looks at a slow wildebeest as it made its descent from the bar's silver-colored ledge. I hadn’t any time to wait for this stupid cup to fall. I had at least thirteen more drinks to plow through before the afternoon rush quieted down. But it seemed as though it took three whole days for the cup to actually hit the ground. When it did hit the ground, the cup didn't spill over onto its side like I imagined (or hoped) it would. Rather, it decided to land right-side-up on the grimy, black, rubber non-slip mat beneath my feet. The cup's bottom made a startling 'pop,' signifying its touchdown. The force of the ground on the cup sent the four pumps of rich chocolate mocha syrup, resting peacefully at the bottom, straight back up and into my face. I had just pumped the mocha into the cup not even two seconds ago―story of my life. In a matter of seconds I went from being fairly clean, to literally dripping with mocha chocolate. Spots of it covered my soft, cottony, kelly green apron like sprinkles of blood that would soon begin to crust over.

Chocolate inhabited the lines in my face, where my smile used to be. It lay in my forehead’s wrinkles―the ones that only reveal themselves when one or both of my eyebrows are raised. I could never get my junior high volcano to erupt, but I sure as hell could knock over a cup of dark, messy, chocolate, inducing a sugary eruption that would cause my eyebrows to go into shock mode, leaving me to discover dried mocha in my eyebrow hair a day later. One thing’s for sure... I made friends with the tweezers that day.

I was convinced that everyone in the store had witnessed my spill―even the customers. I wasn’t even a newbie anymore, either. I kept wondering what thoughts were running through everyone else’s heads. All of a sudden, I realized that no one out in the lobby saw, nor cared about my slip-up. I also realized that I still had a decent-sized line of drinks to make. I astutely cracked a laugh, and got back to work. I finished making and handing off the line of drinks following the dreaded mocha and finally made eye contact with Jeremy, just about to leave the register. A spasm of laughter snuck between his lips. Turns out, he was the only one who noticed.

California Drizzlen'

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not a native Southern Californian. But I will admit to having considering it on more than one occasion. For some strange reason, that will forever remain foreign to me, Californians--at least the Southern ones--suck at driving in the rain. I don't know what it is about water. But I do know that us Californians have an undisputable love-hate relationship with it. We can't get enough of it when we're half naked and it's 80 degrees outside. But when the thermostat drops below 60, and it's "sprinkling," life gets turned on it's side--only until the clouds part, and we're warmed by the sun's gentle rays once again.
I had the utmost privaledge waking up to thunder and lightning this morning. It almost never happens, but when it does, I soak it up. My dog Sammy, on the other hand, trembles like one of those toy characters that you wind up and watch bumble across the diningroom table. My mom thinks he was traumatized by loud noises as a pup. I also had the privaledge of waking up with a more accommodating version of the flu this morning. Not nearly as miserable as yesterday morning, but I was still feeling drone-like. Regardless, I was GOING to GO to CLASS TODAY, no matter what. But just my luck, after driving behind a bunch of harebrained Southern California drivers who don't know how to turn on their windshield wipers, and then paying a whole 8 dollars for all-day parking, my first class got cancelled. So now, I am coming to you LIVE from the University of California, Irvine's Athletic study lounge, because I have no where else to plant myself until 2 p.m. To make matters... (I'd say 'worse,' but I'll go with) more interesting, I'm forbidden from running... at least until I'm done with class, am at home, and the weather dies down. Hopefully all of those things take precedence, because I'd love nothing more right now than to shove out for a succulant little 30-minute run. My last class of the day should be great though. It usually is. Plus, my professor was born and raised in New York. So I'm eager to hear her perspective on Californians and weather (other than sunshine, and north of 60 degrees). On a positive note, I'm sure that my umbrella has enjoyed its time outside of the backseat of my car.

Tardy Voices

I was planning on writing this the moment I got home from the first day of school. Three weeks later, here I am.


Do I leave? Do I stay? I don't know. I never know what to do in these situations. A debate was going on. It was a debate that I'd prefer plant itself on C-SPAN, instead of vocally bantering behind me. It's the debate about whether or not it's okay to reasonably leave class if a college professor isn't present for a specific amount of time in which class should have been in session. But here we are. It's the first day of school--not to mention my first class of the fall quarter-- and my English professor is already 32 minutes late. And counting.
The first ten minutes of class was comparable to a field trip to a mortuary. But now, after listening to, and simply overhearing cordial conversation, I've already learned that at least three of my new classmates have accents. Two sounded Austrailian; the other one was most likely a British or an English one. Either way, I like accents. I've always wanted one. I've even tried speaking in one for an entire day. Too bad I only lasted about thirty minutes. After a half-an-hour, my dialect seemed to change and fade out, and it only went downhill from there. I think it's fun to watch their (people with accents) mouths as they're speaking. Creepy, I know. But for some reason, I feel as though their mouths move differently as a direct result of the accent, itself.
Soon enough, my class caught word that our professor was "on his way," from a teacher down the hall, apparently. "He'll be here in fifteen minutes," so she said. Apparently he "forgot" there was class today. Or something like that. I laughed when my classmates joked about how our professor was probably going to stagger in, wearing sweats and sunglasses, in attempt to hide his drunken stupor. Too bad he turned out to be about 80 years old. On a positive note, he has an accent. And even though he speaks in the slowest drawl I've ever heard anyone speak in before, I have a whole ten weeks to figure out what the accent is.