Week 23

Day 154: Jan 11, 2015

Today was the big day! We found out the gender of Shane and Meredith's baby. So I was entrusted with the envelope and making the reveal cake. Since it was my day off, someone who was on the shift actually made the cake and then I came in and did the color/icing part. I had to be very sneaky because Shane was on the shift. So I took the gender reveal cake rounds down to the walk-in fridge and brought some of the frosting with me. I wanted to be quick and not spend all of my time in the fridge so I made a border of white frosting around the top of the bottom layer of cake. I then mixed up the pink (It is going to be a girl!) frosting and put it in the middle. By having the white outside I was able to bring the cake up as soon as I put the second layer on top. I, then, carefully washed the now pink bowl and knife in the downstairs bathroom so that no one would see even a hint of any color at all. When it came to the cake cutting no one had any idea and the cake worked perfectly.

Day 155: Jan 12, 2015

Today the new directors came to town. At this point you should have figured out that we cannot allow such an occasion to pass without bringing out the Holden Hilarity. The theme for today was Dr. Seuss so in the morning we decorated the bus in a Seussical manner and when they arrived we welcomed them with a who-ville style song. Everyone was in costume. J-termers were dressed in random things from the costume shop and many had their hair up around water bottles to make their hair look whovian. We had Thing 1 and Thing 2 who were renamed as Chuck 1 and Chuck 2 (One of the current director's name is Chuck and one of the new director's name is Chuck) and I was the Cat in the Hat. I found a black velvet dress, attached a white paper stomach, put on a red fabric tie, painted on whiskers, and put on the hat. It was a pretty great costume, if I do say so myself.

Day 156: Jan 13, 2015

I made risotto today for dinner and the shift went wonderfully. We were basically done with dinner by 1pm. That meant that we spent most of the shift deep cleaning the kitchen. In the evening there was a showing of a movie about Bonhoeffer which sparked some conversation which was very interesting. I also spent part of the day trying to figure out scheduling things so that people could have what they want. I think I figured something out that will hopefully make everyone relatively happy. No one's off days are switched and people are working shifts that they generally like to work. I just hope we don't have a bunch of people wanting to go out because we are already tight on staff.

Day 157: Jan 14, 2015

A calm non-routine day off. Because the cooks had to work on the village's last stop day (a day when no one works) all of the cooks are entitled to an extra day off. Right now we are trying to make up for 3 of such days (a stop day, Christmas, and New Years) which means that I am trying to fit in one a month between now and March for all of the cooks. There are a few of the cooks who either had an off day on one of those days or just wasn't here yet but I don't want to try to figure it out so I am giving the same number of makeup days to everyone. Today was my first one. It makes this week easier because I worked a shift yesterday and then I will have a three day week. It makes for a nice change. I did some work things in the morning, though. I wanted to make sure that staffing knew that we could use a few extra short-term staff for February and March and I found out that we are getting two people to help for the end of January into February. That at least helps to cover when I will be out at the beginning of next month (I am so excited for the out!). Other than that little bit of work I mainly just kept a low profile/ I did some knitting, reading, and meditating. It was a nice, chill day.

Day 158: Jan 15, 2015

Irv's diner! It was so much fun (the shift) but also so very tiring. It is only 7:30 and I am ready to go to bed. We were cooking burgers to order (basically) and were serving people for a solid hour before we got a chance to eat. There was music, dancing, homemade buns, malts and bacon. Hard to beat. We even dressed up in 50s fashion. It was exhausting but I got to yell at people as if we were in a real diner. To end the night, Terry, our local brew master and mechanic, had a birthday party! It is always fun to gather and celebrate.

Day 159: Jan 16, 2015

An uneventful day.

Day 160: Jan 17, 2015

My dad comes to visit in less than a week!!! The snow is falling in big flakes and has been falling all day. It is beautiful.