Zen Ghosts

I found this book yesterday at Barbed Wire Books on Main St.  I had to buy it.

It's one of the most visually delightful books I've seen in quite some time. 

It's about a panda and his friends telling ghost stories on Halloween...mixed in with an old zen folk tale. 

Beautiful watercolor art. Check it out. 

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Ghosts-Jon-J-Muth/dp/043963430X

500 Writing Prompts

I finally found this book again at Barnes and Noble and THIS time I bought it!
I finally have a minute to blog things so...here goes. Starting off with a very serious topic.

An alien has just abducted you. Give three reasons why it would send you back to Earth.

1. I wont stop talking about Supernatural and asking if I'm going to be home by Wednesday night.

2. I need too many snacks and don't like their space food. OR I like their space food a LOT.

3. I must spread the word about them coming in peace. I will arrange to be on Coast to Coast and I will have many followers.

Best Pie in America

I'm a couple days in on my Village Inn experience so far and it's not going too bad considering I have zero experience in this stuff.

Day 1:
Cracked 90 eggs, made 6 quarts of French Toast Batter- good.
Used 5 gallons of buttermilk and 26 pounds of flour to make Buttermilk Pancake Batter- good.
Multigain Pancake Batter, which smells delightful by the way- perfect.
Brown sausage & make Country Sausage Gravy- good.

Day 2:
Learned how to top pies with all the pretty stuff- Ok, but need a little more practice. It's not rocket science.
Chopped parsley and mixed with parmesan cheese to make the coating for the "Grown-up Grilled Cheese"- Disaster.
Yep. Oh well. Now I know to look 50 times instead of 30 at your recipe in case you're doing it BACKWARDS. I looked so many times too...

Watching the amount of food that goes in the trash makes me assume one must be a heartless son of a bitch to become management there and allow that to happen...but everybody seems pretty nice so far.
They must certainly block out the fact that they could feed hundreds of people with what we trash.
And I'm not talking about the mistakes. I'm talking about the perfectly good stuff that the cooks make so they learn to do it properly and then we throw it away because there's not 20 people sitting out there who want to eat 5 meals a night.
Why they don't let the staff eat it I do not know. That would be just too uncorporate of them.

The pies DO get eaten at least. So I'm told. They aren't total monsters at least.
The servers get to eat them.
Don't know when I'M gonna get a damn pie but apparently if I have the fastest prep time on certain items I will win a free pie a week for a YEAR! I gotta at least try for that.

The day shift is 3 dudes I think, and evening shift is me and an older goofy lady (who may or may not be a former neighbor from the Asylum) so I feel pretty confident about my time.
Our trainer said we did much better with the pies than the guys did.

My toe is numb at the end of every day. So that's new.

 

WWYD?

We didn't win the Powerball last night. Neither did any of you poor suckers.
But it makes one ponder...what exactly would you DO with 500 million dollars?

I have this journal that I write things in stating what I'd do if money was no object. The realistic things, not the ridiculous things. There's a difference even if you do have millions of dollars. I thought of one yesterday while I was pushing my cart at work and I thought to myself "I gotta remember this to put in my book! I'm gonna forget...I gotta remember."
I forgot.
I don't have the book in front of me at the moment but at least one thing in there is- Kitten Sanctuary. Because, kittens.
(Which reminds me of my dream last night which felt like HOURS of tornadoes...but I was going to the neighbors house and throwing all their cats in the basement to save them. They didn't seem to care about the impending windy doom but I tried anyway. There were so many.)

First thing's first- I'd find a house. Don't know where, maybe here. There's one for 16 million just outside town...I don't think I'd dig that one though. I want a house with sections and nooks and stuff. I don't know how to describe it other than...like a fancy Weasley house. But, you know, ranch style. Can I just buy the Weasley house and reassemble it??

I like my current car so I don't really need a new one of those until it dies of very old age. I could paint it though! I could make a Rockies mobile or something. That would be awesome. Todd-mobile! I wouldn't mind having a couple classic cars. 57 Chevy Bel Air, preferably hot pink with sparkles, and a 67 Impala--black, obviously.

 

 





Jason would like a hearse so we'd probably look for one of those too.

Once I moved in to my Weasley home, and bought some real furniture and stuff, I'd get a doggy and a kitty and they'd be friends.
I saw the cutest little curly haired doggy this morning with a little coat on with bear ears. He was with his person who was a relatively large darker skinned guy (which I mention because it's not what comes to mind in Boulder and I'm painting you a word picture here) with funky pants and pinky heart sunglasses on. He had a jaunty walk. I liked his little dog a lot. They looked fun.

Oh I'd pay off my student loans, I guess. That would be nice. I have minimal debt other than that, since my Target credit limit is low. What I wouldn't give to have it go away. It's less than many have but it's more than I can deal with so it's not getting paid any time soon. Take that, Navient. SUFFER!

Of course, I'd want to help out my friends, family, and community but THAT would take much reflection and decision making to do the best thing. I'd start college/life experience funds for a few young folks I know, for sure. Past that, I'd have to give it a lot of thought. I have ideas. Some of them are in my book.

Do I open businesses? Probably. Do I buy property? Probably. Do I start non-profits and find the perfect committed people to run them? Probably.

In theory, I'd stay here at Boulder County until they replaced me. They CAN NOT do this without me, period.

I'd go visit all my friends & throw a big party & buy a new god damn phone.

What would you do?

 

Top 10 movies

I may be starting this too late for it to be sensible, seeing as it's a very difficult topic, but I'll give it a go. I haven't made a top movie list in quite a while. I'm going with the ones I'd not be able to get rid of rather than a well thought out list of uber quality or culturally relevant films. This is a fluffy list, not a professor list.

In no particular order-
Ghostbusters
Harry Potter (they will all count as one and you'll just have to deal with it.)
Muppets from Space
Home Alone
Stripes
Wayne's World
Vegas Vacation
Pirates of the Caribbean
Halloween
Scream