Veggie Delight
This is why I keep working in the food industry — leftovers from a catering gig. I get to take all the fabulous veggies I can fit into a takeout container and call that dinner at the end of each one I work. Yum!
Here we have (I don’t know the names of the dishes but I will ask on Monday for anyone who cares): a stack of widely cut veggies that include eggplant, three pepper colours, zucchini and portabello mushroom - all presoaked in balsamic and extra virgin and then baked in rich tomato sauce, some delicious asparagus stalks drizzled with unknown ingredients and steamed to perfection, and one of two stuffed tomatoes (I ate the other before I thought of taking a photo - pls forgive!) that was hollowed out and restuffed using the guts mixed with all kinds of yummy goodness (again, ingredient list to come) before being baked to the perfect softness to dig into with a fork without the risk of it falling apart.
Oh.my.gawd this was the best dinner! I got full after a bit of it so I have some leftovers from the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Yee-haw!
Higher Anxiety Learning
As someone who has, for the better part of her working career, found herself working random jobs in a few college settings, I have to say that with each new school shooting - and especially the one from Montreal where the shooter was running around the cafeteria - I, along with my co-workers, have had to find a way to deal with not only shock and grief, but escalating fears and anxiety because it’s not just those whacky Americans shooting themselves up, we’re starting to do it, too.
Also with each new school shooting ramapage, we must find a way to calm not only our own nerves, but those of the students who look to the staff in various parts of the campus for guidence, protection and reassurance that the chances of something like that happening here are next to nil. Well, with each new school shooting rampage, that becomes harder and harder to do. I couldn’t look the students in the eye the other day and tell them everything was going to be just fine, and to go back to living their lives like it never happened or like we are somehow untouchable because we are passive-aggressive Canadians, and we have gun control laws, dammit!
Truth is, we are all sitting ducks in that school. Everyone of us. Every single day. You would have to be made of stone to deny that fact or dismiss it. You would have to be made of stone to shrug it off and pretend it can’t and won’t happen to you because stuff like that only happens in the States or Montreal or Vancouver. Truth is, we have tonnes of international students there who are so lonely, isolated, alone and depressed about being here so far away from home that we should all be worried about their mental state. And a gross amount of these students are here to study arts as they apply to new media and video gaming.
About to shit your pants now? You should be.
I like to smile and joke around at work, but I just know one day something I say won’t be taken the right way or with the lighthearted intention it was meant to have. That’s always in the back of my mind because half of our staff speaks another language first and English second, and even we have trouble communicating clearly on the best of days.
I don’t want to talk specifically about each shooting par se, or even this last one in detail, but I do want to wonder out loud about how it is the media in any small town USA can live with themselves after cutting back resources so much they can’t afford to have local coverage of big stories that imapct the whole country like this, and then turn around and blame those on the ground making very tough decisions with very limited information who put themselves in danger to save others?
Where is the local coverage in those four rich, deep radio selections?
How is it that the very students these men and women were on the ground desperately helping to save could turn around and tell the media they couldn’t hear the gunfire over their iPods but still expected others to inform them of critical moves needed to keep their sorry asses alive. I wonder, how in the bloody hell were cops and university staff supposed to warn these kids even if the kids cut their hearing off? They tuned reality out a long time ago, so this day shouldn’t be any different, no? They should be held accountable for not keeping their own eyes and ears open, no? Why is it always someone else’s job to keep them alive and safe? They are in university, for gawd sake? Grow up! Live your life without your parents holding your hand at the big, bad university! And take responsibility for tuning out reality when your attention to detail was required but not given!
(I just know I’m going to get shit on for this post, but I don’t care. I really don’t.)