A rude awakening

Sometime after six this morning I woke up from a very real and scary dream about somebody coming into my work, taking hostages, and trying to kill a whole lot of customers and staff. It was really intense and actually made me nervous about going in today. Later on I found out that at exactly that same time, someone was getting beaten very soundly and thoroughly in the head with a pipe right outside the back door of my work. A bloody hat, a bloody knife, and video surveillance tell the whole story, but I don't really have all the details.

Say what you will about the coincidence between the dream and the beating; it happens to me a lot, but logically I know that it's crazy to try to draw any really connections between the two. Regardless of all that, though, I find it kind of disturbing that somebody got jumped like that right on the sidewalk at my job, just a couple of hours before we start showing up for work. Most people were kind of making light of it, but it seemed pretty serious to me. Maybe if I work there for a couple more years, things like this will just be normal. I'll let you know, I guess.

Nothin says lovin like my jacked up oven.

You know how some people say they can't keep plants alive, and claim to have a "black thumb" or "brown thumb?" Is there a correlate of that for baking? Because that's what I have. Tonight I had to make a cake for work. I was making a cake-mix cake, because it is easier but mostly because the girl had specifically asked for the Funfetti type of cake. So I mixed all the crap together and put it in the oven; the box said 350 degrees (which I did) for 32-36 minutes for a 13x9 pan. So I set the timer for 30 minutes, just to be safe.

At 20 minutes into baking, I just happened to go into the kitchen and peek at the cake. The thing was totally golden brown and when I opened the oven I even got the faintest whiff of the beginning of that burnt smell. So I pulled it out of the oven, and dudes, that bitch was done. DONE BAKING. The middle was slightly iffy, but the edges were browning, firm, and pulling away from the edge of the pan. The cake sprung back when touched lightly. I don't know what to say. It was insanely early for it to be done. I don't know if our oven temp is messed up (I have never had any other problem with it), or...who knows. I know that I did not do anything wrong, I checked a million times. And yeah, thank god I happened to check it when I did or it would have gotten totally crispy, but it still stresses me out that it might be gooey or gross or something when people go to eat it tomorrow.

Stuff like this happens to me all the time when baking. And I mean, if you can't make a cake mix cake, you should really just quit with the baking. Because that shit is easy, and they test it a million billion times. So, I don't know. It seems like I have finally found one thing that I really enjoy/am interested in, and I have some stupid jinx or something that keeps me from being able to do it at a level above, like, a four-year-old. If I make one more cake that comes out burned, or hard as a rock, or still raw in the middle, or flat as a pancake, I think I will finally snap. Pillsbury can pretty much suck it, is what I have to say. God.

I did make a tasty icing though. I'm good at icing.

I Think I'll Go To Boston

For starters, I just want to say that any time I talk to someone around here who has a British accent, I assume that they are faking. And then I immediately start to treat them like they're insane, because you would have to be insane to fake a British accent all the time. So, I don't know. I have felt that way for a long time and I just wanted to get that off my chest. Stop being pretend British, y'all. It's not funny.

Secondly, work has been insane for the past three days specifically and the past little while generally. I don't want to get into details on this blog, but so far this week has been easily one of the worst since I started working there. To use a totally played out but accurate metaphor, I feel like I am in a huge pool of water and just barely, barely keeping my head above the surface. And when you feel like that day after day it's just like, how long can you keep treading water?

Finally, I have been feeling very overwhelmed lately because I feel like the entire rest of my life is beyond my control. After I graduate I will just be sitting around waiting for someone else to decide where I can work, and I will be moving around based on somebody else's needs, and I have even been planning my free time lately based on what everybody else wants. I just want to call the shots for a little bit. I just want to say "I'm moving here" or "I want to work there" or "I'm paying this much money for ___" without having to consult with anybody else or convince them of my point. It all makes me feel helpless, and kind of worthless, which just makes me feel bad about a million other things.

Pretty much I just feel like running away. I mean, don't you remember what your mom used to say when you were little?

"Running away solves everything."

The Shack of Democracy

I'm sure there are a lot of meaningful things I could say about the democratic process, but my favorite quote from election day comes from Becky, re: finding our voting location:

"I drove back and forth like fifty times, and then finally I was like, oh, am I supposed to go into this shack?"

Hehe! The place was a little gangster, I'll admit, but that train of though just cracked me up. Yay for voting in a new town.