Be Like The Squirrel

Be like the squirrel, girl
Be like the squirrel
Give it a whirl, girl
Be like the squirrel

Yesterday I made a beef and vegetable stew out of the leftovers from my steak I grilled the night before and every canned and frozen vegetable I had in my kitchen. I threw in some Campbell’s vegetarian vegetable soup for the broth effect. Added a dash of Tony's and I had a masterpiece. Ok... maybe not a masterpiece, but it was pretty tasty. After it cooled I ladled it into six or seven Ziplocs to be frozen. Now when I get home from school this fall and I'm too tired to cook, I will have a decent meal. I'm thinking about finding some casserole dishes to give the same treatment to.

As time gets closer I get a little bit more anxious. I've started hearing stories about 12 hour clinicals and tests on the first day. It's starting to sink in that I'm REALLY going to nursing school. I know it's not med school or grad school, but I've been working towards this for so long that I can't help but feel that it is momentous. I'm a little worried too. I mean, when I graduate people are going to be trusting me with their lives. That is scary.

I feel like a little kid at the theme park for the first time. I am the first one in line waiting on the 'Super Scary Mega Coaster' to get back to the station so I can step on. I'm excited, anxious, scared and impatient to begin.

Yesterday I met an acquaintance, Amelia, up at the coffee shop. She starts law school at Tulane in the fall. We had a nice conversation and I look forward to visiting her in NOLA and eating lots of Cajun food. Man! I love Cajun food!

While we were there I met a girl my age who is writing her master's thesis on Human Trafficking. I was surprised to learn that the Bush administration is actually very active in punishing countries that do this. The Administration did research to collect data on human trafficking in each country. The countries with the worst records are on a trade embargo. Not surprisingly, America wasn't even researched for the list. She also told us how W often uses it as an excuse to further his war-hawk causes. Politics. Meh.

Salvation Through Nudism

The domestic demi-goddess in me had her way with my kitchen this weekend. The layer of cocoa powder on the counter top and splatters of spaghetti sauce on the stove are a loud reminder of the fun I had. I haven’t gotten the nerve to clean it up yet; not because of laziness, but because I like the way it makes my kitchen looked lived-in and used.

The truffles I made were not half bad. I made three varieties: ginger and allspice, peanut butter, and almandine. The ginger and allspice ones were divine. While I was working I got it in my head that I should open a truffle shop. By the time I finished designing the shop layout, advertising, credo, and premise of my store I was finished making the truffles. It was a very relaxing evening. Solitude has its rewards.

I have also been reading You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe. He had this to say:

"They, too, had begun as seekers after truth, but had suffered some eclipse of vision and had ended as champions of some limited brand of truth. They were the ones who became the special pleaders for things as they are, and their names grew fat and sleek in the pages of The Saturday Evening Post and women's magazines. Or they became escapists and sold themselves to Hollywood, and were lost and sunk without a trace. Or, somewhat differently but following the same blind principle, they identified themselves with this or that group, clique, faction, or interest in art or politics, and led forlorn and esoteric little cults and isms. These were the innumerable small fry who became the literary Communists, or single-taxers, or embattled vegetarians, or believers in salvation through nudism. Whatever they became- and there was no limit to their variety- they were like the blind men with the elephant: each one of them had accepted some part of life for the whole, some fragmentary truth or half-truth for truth itself, some little personal interest for the large and all-embracing interest of mankind. If that happened to him, how, then, could he sing America?"