Normal Coloured Eggs and Ham

My Omi makes delightful ham and my family snatches whatever we can of her leftovers.

Her generous six slices of ham results in none other than a salty, smokey, juicy slab of ham along side a sunny egg freckled with pepper.

And I know butter's bad for you...but eggs in butter has my heart a-thumping, even if it is just from cholesterol build-up.

Eat breakfast as a king, they say.

Once You Go Black, You Never Go Back (for 4 years)

Well. Thank the gods.

The one sad thing is that all the Romney satires are over now.

Up the Food Chain

After writing three articles (not including my work last semester), I have officially been promoted to staff writer for The Concordian newspaper!

This week I've written up a tea/shisha lounge review and a promo for the Rocky Horror Halloween Ball to get people in the mood for decadence. It'll be good to see my name in print in two sections.

In which I nerdgasm for 410 whole words...

Sometimes I feel there is nothing in this world I could love more than Lord of the Rings.

Usually this sentiment is felt strongest when I've just finished dedicating my life to the whole 12 hours worth of extended edition glory. But truly, and with the utmost reverence from the bottom of my being where the remotest shards of spirituality reside, Lord of the Rings is the greatest thing in the world.

I won't lie - I fell in love with the movies before the books. (Writing that sentence not only killed all of the purists out there, but the book lover in me died as well). Every word uttered in the films are perfect, weighed and cut through to the purest sense of etymology. It's the words I love most on the great and towering pinnacle of my adoration. After that comes everything else in a sweeping rush of brilliance. The sheer passion felt by everyone working on the set comes through so strong it is impossible to justly criticize. If ever there was a way to capture this trilogy to film, it was in these movies, with these actors, and these prop-makers, and these editors and scriptwriters and music scorers, and, especially, this director.

I will probably always think of the films first when LotR comes up in conversation. But everything - the books, The Hobbit, the art by Alan Lee and John Howe, even the shitty weird movies made way back when they still thought it was a good idea to mix live-action with animation - everything about the story and (nearly) everything that was a byproduct of the story is amazing. The world would be a darker place without J. R. R. Tolkien, and, at the very least, my own life is made better because of Peter Jackson.

The one thing that is always frustrating upon finishing the movies, though, is the feeling of disorientation that follows when you realize your own journey through this story has been a lot less impactful than Frodo's. It's rather a drag to peel yourself off the couch amid crumbs of chips and chipped mugs of emptied tea and remember you're in your parents' basement, still at school, working for minimum wage, and unlikely to change the world any time soon.

Except it tends to wake some little spark of determination inside like no other thing in this world.

Because, if nothing else, these movies make me want to write.

Nice People

This actually happened yesterday, but I forgot to write it down.

I was working on cash, and this woman came in to pick up an order. She didn't have any photo ID on her, which is required as the pick-up policy, and it sort of created a bit of a hassle. I felt bad, so I conferred with a fellow cashier and we told her we'd be able to swing it this time but we'd need it in the future to avoid giving someone's order away to the wrong person.

Then I went to find the order, only to realize that it wasn't there. I hate when this happens, and it's been happening a lot because of the sheer volume of orders coming in of late. I returned to the woman, who was looking rather frazzled in her face by this point, to tell her I couldn't find it, and ask when she had received the phone call. She informed me that she hadn't been phoned at all and that relief of understanding settled on the scene like one of Horatio's episode-concluding one-liners. It tends to happen a lot; customers get the confirmation of shipment email and think it's a confirmation of arrival.

I always feel bad having to tell customers that they came to our store for no reason, and that they have to go back home empty handed. I tried to be as nice as possible to the woman to compensate, and she shrugged.

"I guess I was just so excited I got a little carried away," she said, eyebrows rounded high above downcast eyes.

"Yeah, I can imagine," I told her. "They really get you going with the anticipation."

She laughed and started flicking through the Godiva chocolate bars displayed in tantalizing rows in front of the cash register. "Might as well get something while I'm here."

"You know," I said, leaning my elbows on the cash, "We just got these really amazing new ones in - they haven't even put them on the shelves yet, they're still behind the cash."

She paused, two lacquered nails resting on the dark chocolate raspberry bars. "Yes?"

I nodded. "Yeah - there's one with cheesecake filling. My coworker keeps telling me how amazing it is, and I was going to get one yesterday but my other coworker said I'd explode in fatness if I indulged." I grumbled the last bit and shook my head.

The customer laughed again. "Well I think I want to try that one."

"Awesome," I smiled.

I ducked behind the cash to search through the floor level cupboards. I found one cheesecake, and two other kinds.

"I've also got tiramisu and chocolate truffle cake."

"Well you've got me craving cheesecake now," she chuckled.

"Alright - excellent choice if I may say so!" I rang it up for her.

"Actually add another one in too," she said, pointing a long finger in the direction of the cupboards.

"Sure thing," I smiled.

I looked through the boxes of severely depleted chocolates - my friend seemed to have raided the boxes a vast amount - and with a consternated brow said, "I'm having a bit of trouble finding another...I think my coworker might have eaten them all."

"Oh, are you sure?"

"There's a lot of tiramusu - she says that one's excellent too...?"

"No, no, cheesecake, cheesecake," she said. "Definitely has to be that one!"

I dug deeper into the cave of boxes. "Okay, lemme see..."

With a couple of more rifle-throughs, I managed to get my hands on one.

"Last one!" I declared triumphantly.

The customer smiled and I added it to her bill, sliding it over to her with a mild pang of regret that I'd never get to taste the famous Godiva milk-chocolate coated cheesecake.

"Do you need a bag for those?" I asked.

She looked at them for a second before shaking her head and hand at the prospect. "No, no, should be fine."

"Alrighty, it comes to $8.55."

She handed me her card and as the receipt printed, she said, "Wait do you think you could give me a bag after all?"

"Sure," I said, a little exasperated as I always am whenever a customer asks for one after everything's been paid for (they cost a whopping $0.05 and we're not supposed to give them away for free).

"I'll just hold onto this one here and I'll put the other one in the bag," she said.

"Sounds good," I smiled pleasantly, and handed her the bag with the chocolate inside. She took it, carefully put away her card and zipped her bag, then took her time rolling the chocolate in the plastic bag.

In one swift and understated movement, she slid the package back across the counter to me and patted it once. She didn't say anything at all, just smiled.

I picked it up and held it to my chest, mouth in a wide O. "Oh my god, are you serious?" She just smiled. "Thank you so much," I said, genuinely close to breaking down in a full-on weep at how touching this simple act of kindness was.

"Thanks for being so kind," she said, and walked off.

And there we go, folks: moral of the story is karma does exist.