Week 16

Day 105: Nov 23, 2014

Well, we have officially lost a step. It was so beautiful this morning. It was like there were baby snowballs falling from the sky. As Steph (one of the directors) said, “It is like living in a snow globe that was turned upside-down.” It is just so amazing. Coffee and Conversation (C+C) was held at our chalet today and so we turned on the VHS of the 2012 olympic gymnastics and put it on mute so people could still talk. It was funny how much people were sucked in even though there was no sound. C+C was capped off by watching James (I think he is in his 50s maybe and has some sort of mental disability) running toward the sledding hill with his shirt off and tucked into his pocket. He then proceeded to grab a sled and run up the hill. It was great because a few of the kids were on the hill and the look on their faces as he passed were priceless. I mean just imagine, an overweight, balding (yet still has long hair), shirtless, older man runs past you as you are heading up a hill to go sledding. After he went down the hill (still shirtless) he came up to us (we were watching from the porch) and told us that it was his tradition to go sledding shirtless. I am not sure if that was specifically for the first time or if it is every time. I guess we will find out.

The afternoon was filled with a nap, some work on the fort, and a snowball fight. The fort now looks like something from Dr. Seuss. It has three arches and a slide. I just hope it doesn't get ruined by the predicted rain. Tomorrow is apparently my last early morning at the cart. I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, there are only two regulars who still come in the morning but I like seeing them and I like the solitude and faster internet that comes with waking up early. I guess the current kitchen coordinator said that she could use me this week so I will spend some of my extra time with her. The change is coming and I am not sure how I feel about it. I do know, however, that I am more confident then I was before. I realized that I wasn't hired because of any cooking experience but, rather, my experience teaching others the basics of cooking. I may not have the experience in an industrial kitchen but I can lead and teach others who may have no cooking experience at all.

Day 106: Nov 24, 2014

So, today I am going to give a quick overview but something just happened that I would like to share. This morning was my last early morning at the coffee cart and as much as the earliness sucks sometimes, I am going to miss it. I really enjoyed meeting and talking to a few of the remediation guys every morning. I learned about their lives, their kids, their personalities, their quirks, and, of course, their drink preferences. I know that most of them are gone at this point anyway but there were still three guys who came in this morning. It hurt a little to tell them that this was the last morning but there was another feeling mixed in. I can't think of the right word but gratitude comes to mind. These guys really appreciated the fact that I was there and today they truly voiced it. I almost teared up. But tomorrow starts the transition. I will work a few hours less at the cart and a few hours more in getting ready for the kitchen. The day was capped off with a homemade meal (soup, bread and pie) to celebrate two birthdays and a session about movie production.

Now on to that previously mentioned thing that I wanted to share. After the session ended (it was about twice as long as I thought it was going to be) I headed up to the dining hall to get some hot water for tea. As I was heading toward the hot water dispenser, I noticed one of the twenty-somethings on the couch. He looked kind of down. He says I am intuitive to others' feelings but I think in this case it was pretty obvious that something wasn't right. I mean, he was sitting on the couch with his legs up, listening to music, and writing in his journal. If he didn't want someone to talk to him he would have been in his room but that is not the point here. He pointed out something that I already knew but hadn't thought about too much. We live in community here which means, contrary to what he thought when coming in, that cliques tend to form. Everyone is welcome into the community but it can take a little more work to fit into a group. It would be nice if we could all truly be ourselves all the time but, as he found out, that is just not always realistic if you want to fit in. It sucks but is true. The benefits of living in community are great. Lasting friendships are made, conflict resolution skills are (hopefully) refined, and people are more willing to welcome your faults. One downside that we realized tonight (and kind of on other nights) is that there are few people to be your friend. So in this case, he is younger than most of us but not in high school which means he is generally less mature than most of us but also hasn't formed the thicker skin that comes with going to college/living an “adult” life. It makes it harder to fit into the community and I am sorry to say that I did not try as hard as I could have to get the other twenty-somethings to welcome him. I saw the way that they looked at him and judged some of the things he did but because they didn't spend the time to get to know him they weren't able to see past the goofball exterior. I don't really blame them, it is human nature to judge people before they get to know them but sometimes, when living in community, I think we need to work harder at looking past those first judgements. While living in community here I am noticing some similarities between here and college. Granted, I did go to a small school (although not Holden Village small) but in hanging out with friends you are making miniature intentional communities. Sometimes (ok, mostly) those communities have faults, friends fight, people start to grow apart while others try to hold the group together, and all sorts of other things. We just need to find a way to welcome all into our community (even if they will only be here for a short amount of time) while still maintaining our individual friendships. It is hard to spend the time trying to maintain a friendship that you know will end/be separated in three months when you are also trying to maintain a friendship that you know will last at least 9 months if not longer.

I feel like that was kind of all over the place but I needed to at least get my thoughts down onto the page so thanks for reading.

Day 107: Nov 25, 2014

It was a wet, slushy day. It rained for a good chunk of the night and into the morning so all of the compacted snow had lost its structural integrity which meant that much of my walk outside was me sinking 4 inches into wet snow. It didn't get any better into the morning. The road had about 5-6 inches worth of slush and water all over it. This made for some very slow street crossings. It even rained and snowed at the same time today. It wasn't sleet. There were literally raindrops and snowflakes falling at the same time. It was kind of miserable. However, by the afternoon it had started to snow again which was nice because it helped to solidify the mush that was the street. I was able to “sleep in” today (I still woke up at 6) so it was light out when I went to work which was weird but ok. It was funny, though, when I walked into the coffee shop, the carpet was gone and the yoga class was in there because the library is full of furniture from the coffee shop. So, I did what any good shop keeper does, I started opening up the cart. I set up, turned on the water, and turned on the cart. The only things that I didn't do involved a fair amount of noise, like grinding the beans and cleaning the steam wand. I held off on that so as not to disturb their class too much. I had extra time and so was in no rush to start grinding beans. This afternoon I started some of my kitchen duties. I am doing the work schedules so I spent most of the afternoon fixing an excel document (putting in functions that had disappeared) and figuring out days off and making sure that ever shift was covered. It wasn't as hard as you might think but I am sure it gets harder as people take outs and other things happen that mess with the beauty of a schedule that makes perfect sense. After a quick meeting, I headed to one of the lodges to watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Mark and James. I was really tired but it was their last afternoon here so I wanted to hang out with them. If it hadn't been such a good movie I probably would have fallen asleep on someone's shoulder. My calm evening ended with watching Community and helping Alex with some more of his knitting. He is getting much better and is faster than most of the knitters here (it is mostly because he is knitting in the continental style which means you don't have to let go of one of the needles every time you make a stitch. It is, in general, a much faster knitting style once you get used to it.

Day 108: Nov 26, 2014

Over all, it was a pretty calm normal Wednesday. I worked at the coffee cart in the morning, tried to take a nap in the afternoon, and played dominoes after the staff meeting. The only downside of the day was that I burned my hand with some very hot water. The burn was focused on the back of my hand and my thumb. Of course, the part of the burn that doesn't move ended up being the part that cooled off quickly enough. So the back of my hand is pretty much fine but after running my thumb under cold water for about 15 minutes and spending almost the whole afternoon icing it on and off it still burns if it is off the ice for too long. We shall see how I sleep tonight. Hopefully, once I fall asleep it won't wake me up. At least I get the day off tomorrow!

Day 109: Nov 27, 2014

ugh. I am so incredibly full right now. Even though this is the first time that I have been away from family for Thanksgiving, it was a wonderful day. I slept in a little but then quickly joined the photographing of the Turkey Trot. The Turkey Trot was about a two mile run/obstacle course where people guessed their time before the run and whoever got the closest to their predicted time won. There was snowman building, sledding, pin the feather on the turkey and a few other things. I just ran around and took pictures of people doing the course. It was a lot of fun. We had brunch at 10 and then got ready for the Copper Bowl (the football game). It was the Saints vs. the Sinners. I was on the Sinner team which was pretty great. I went down to Potty Patrol to grab some clothes that I could trash. The football game was two hand touch and was played in our parking lot. The lot was filled with slush and mud. I ended up wearing soccer cleats that had holes in them. I tried to patch them up with duct tape but found out after walking through a puddle that I didn't do as good of a job at patching as I thought. By the end of the game my feet were drenched and freezing but I had so much fun. The game was streamed, live, into one of the buildings so people could watch the game with commentary while being warm. By the end of the game, the sinners were up 4-2 and so the ref started helping the saints. For example, he called a delay of game even though a timeout was called and then placed the ball right beyond the goal line and said that a safety was worth a touchdown. We kept the ball out of the end zone so no safety was called but the saints almost got a touchdown on the final play. ALMOST but the ref called it good just to make the game closer. So the ref called it as worth one touchdown which would have made the game 4-3 in favor of the Sinners but the commentators called the game a tie. Basically, in one play the actual score was 4-2, the ref's attempt made it 4-3, and the commentator's score was 4-4. Honestly, I was just glad to go inside to warm up my feet. My time indoors was cut short, though, by the announcement that a bunch of people were going to go to the jacuzzi to warm up. So, I quickly changed and ran off to the jacuzzi to warm up. While in the jacuzzi we decided that it would be a good idea to make snow angels in our swim suits (hint: it was still really cold) and a few people even ran to grab sleds and went sledding. It was great fun which had to end so that we could shower and get ready for our Thanksgiving feast. There was turkey, ham, stuffing with cranberries and apples (pretty amazing), mashed potatoes (way better than usual), candied sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, roasted root veggies (really good), and a huge table of desserts. I was only able to eat about 3/4 of the relatively small plate of food that I took before I felt like I was going to throw up. I hadn't even had a bite of dessert. Luckily, there was some foil that I wrapped up my baklava and pumpkin pie in. I figure I have a pretty good breakfast all ready for me for tomorrow. It feels like tomorrow is going to be a sunday. After the meal, a group of us gathered in our chalet and watched a movie. Even though it was only 8pm by the time the movie was done it felt like it was 11. It made for a wonderful evening filler because otherwise I can see me just sitting in my room thinking about all of the family things that I am missing. BUT THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN! Instead, after the movie, I sat in my room typing this up, listening to Christmas music, trying not to fall asleep, while a bunch of people watch Lord of the Rings in the living room. At midnight, tonight, the bookstore is opening to do a (short) Black Friday sale. Apparently, there are going to be some items that are going to be 90% off. At that discount they are almost forcing me to go. My alarm is set for 11:30pm so that I can still get enough sleep tonight. I work tomorrow so I do need to sleep a little before I head to the sale. It was such a wonderful day and I hope your Thanksgiving was just as wonderful.

Day 110: Nov 28, 2014

Today was my last day at the coffee cart until spring (hopefully that is what I will be doing in the spring). It was bitter-sweet. I really enjoy working at the coffee cart. I can chat with remediation workers and be a “therapist” to villagers who just need to talk to someone. However, it will be nice to be able to sleep in 5 out of 7 days. It is time for a change, I guess. Other than the finality of it, today was a pretty normal day. I worked the coffee cart, loaded a kiln with pottery, made some arts and crafts, bought some stuff that was super on sale at the bookstore, (90% off. I got a jean shirt for $4 and a badly printed photo for $3- I figured I could take the photo out of the matting and put in one of my dad's and put the photo that I bought on my wall as some decoration until I get something better) and pulled out some decorations for Christmas. We now have 12 stockings hanging on our mantle. It is a pretty impressive display. I don't think I have ever seen that many stockings in one place hung by the fire with care.

Day 111: Nov 29, 2014

 My day off started with a lovely morning of crafting. I taught Laura and Honna how to knit on one of those Nifty Knitters (basically a circle with a bunch of pegs on it). Then I spent some time doing some random crafts like making some envelopes to send letters with. Why use a regular envelope when you can send a letter in style? I guess I have to write some letters now... The rest of my day was filled with cleaning my room and washing sheets, towels and the like. I still need to vacuum but our vacuum tends to make everything smell like burning rubber so I try to use it as little as possible. Otherwise, though, my room looks way better. The day was completed with a coffee shop and a lovely variety show complete with a spanish pop star, some poetry, a few music videos, and a surprise video from Mark and James (who left on Wednesday). Only one more day until I am in the kitchen.