Vance's visit

 

Just two days ago I was telling you about Vance, of Vance's Vending, and his unique personality, and the eccentric snacks he stocks in his vending machine, like Rap Chips: Snoop Dog Flavor, or sardines (both cans sold out!), or Fruity Pebble Candy Bars.

Well Vance was just here!

I went into the break room and he was stocking the machine. He said "I like your hat." My hat is made out of recycled cashmere sweaters and is warm, lightweight, and festive.

I thanked him for his kind words, and then he added by way of explanation "I like to compliment people about things. There is too much negativity in the world so I go around all the time and compliment people on any small thing I can think of to make the world more positive."

I guess this is nice. 

Though, not to be too negative about it, I would have preferred his complimenting my hat just cause he really liked it.

In which I reach out to a co-worker

I would perhaps not write this particular brief, pointed account if all my co-workers read this blog. I am sensitive to the feelings of others. But I am less sensitive to the feelings of others who do not read my blog. They're just so... disappointing. In the end how much respect have they actually earned?

But oddly this post, brief as its actual content may be, would be best applied if all my co-workers did read my blog. And so into this conundrum I say:

I take up perhaps more than my fair share of space in our work and break areas. I have commandeered drawers, cabinets, and sections of counters. I cook elaborate food that fills a many tens of thousands square foot library with odors more befitting a large, busy restaurant. Our break room kitchen is like a refuge to me from the storms of work-life.

So I try to be respectful of others. I am accepting of the various spaces likewise taken over by my co-workers for all their own inscrutable reasons. I do my best to share the many explicitly common spaces. I turn the other cheek to dishwashing and cooking habits I don't like. I make what peace I can with the minor peccadilloes of using in common a break room and work room with dozens of diverse people. I make every effort to understand or at least look the other way at those habits I would normally find... unpleasant. What's good for the goose...

But if for some reason you have decided to spend half or more of your lunch hour, every single day you work, walking "exercise" laps in our modest sized break room, while reading a junky novel, like you're the Captain of a Frigate on a transoceanic journey in the 1700's, pacing along the paltry deck, while people scatter before you, even though you are not on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and you are not a Captain, and the entire rest of the world is available to you for all your pacing and walking pleasure, all I can really say to you is:

"Seriously, what is your fucking problem!"

It's not a question.

Tacos in a jar, a recipe!

In the library breakroom there is much notice for our upcoming holiday potluck. And on the table where one is to sign up and indicate the dish one is bringing, someone thoughtfully placed a copy of Emeril's Potluck, presumably to spark ideas for what to bring. I promptly opened it up... 

and was horrified! 

This was for reasons I feel I can best express by providing my own recipe below.





This recipe is for my super popular, and very handy, and perfect for potlucks, Clerkmanifesto's Tacos in a Jar. Festive, portable, tasty, and charmingly packed, Clerkmanifesto's Tacos in a Jar will enliven any party or picnic!

Clerkmanifesto's Tacos in a Jar

Ingredients:


3 cans Clerkmanifesto brand tomato paste
2 pounds ground beef
2 onions
2 packets of Clerkmanifesto Tacos in a Jar! Seasoning Packet available online or at your local grocery
2 cans Clerkmanifesto Style Special Italian Pitted Black Olives (generic substitute is okay if you don't care whether anyone likes the food you cook)
4 ears shucked F1 Hybrid Feldenstein Variety Corn on the Cob
1 lb. extra sharp white cheddar, as aged as you can afford.
24 corn tortillas cut into inch sized pieces


12 Clerkmanifesto's Tacos in a Jar Taco Jars!


Assembly:


Carmelize the onions, set aside in a Clerkmanifesto Fiesta Bowl.

Salt and brown meat, drain, stir in tomato paste, and Clerkmanifesto's Tacos in a Jar Seasoning, set on low heat.

After awhile add onions, Clerkmanifesto Style olives, and shucked Feldenstein Hybrid Corn (non gmo).

In an oversized Tacos in a Jar, a Recipe!, the Blogpost Skillet, cook the tortilla pieces in salt, lime juice, and olive oil until they are crispy as many places as you can get them. Add the meat mixture and cheese. Stir.

Using a Clerkmanifesto Taco Scoop, fill your 12 Clerkmanifesto's Tacos in a Jar Taco Jars!




You're ready to go!

Don't forget to mention where you got the recipe every few seconds while people try to avoid you at the potluck.

And remember: Don't eat any of that other potluck food, that stuff is not wholesome. It may be full of Emeril products!

Everyone in their place

It is 2:45 at the library and no one is where they are supposed to be.

A complicated public institution, like the large library I work at, runs on reasonably detailed schedules. But even more so it runs on a lot of workers generally being wherever they absolutely have to be and then doing whatever the hell they want the rest of the time.

I was talking to a volunteer, though I was supposed to be shelving. Another person who was supposed to be shelving was looking at things in the donation room. A third person who was to shelve in non fiction was walking around looking important. The person handling the giant automated self check in machine was... missing. The person on the phones was in the break room, looking for something decent to eat, even though there wasn't anything. Our front desk staff was in the Circulation office.

And out of the corner of my eye I saw a manager. He looked kind of upset that no one was where they were supposed to be. 

It gave me an uneasy feeling.

And then I realized that he was supposed to be home. 

It was his day off.

Not I alone

Someone whose identity I will protect brought in two enormous chocolate bars to the free food table in the break room (it was Marcus, the teen librarian, but you didn't hear if from me). It was more than two full pounds of chocolate in sheets too thick to break by hand. One had to drive a knife down between squares to get it into usable chunks. I strongly resist eating any food on the free food table. Usually this is easy because that food is disgusting. Sometimes though the free food is marginally good enough to require a reminder to myself that I have my own food and don't really do well eating whatever it is. But chocolate I do eat, and this was not bad chocolate. In fact it said right on the package that it came from Belgium. That's gotta be worth something, doesn't it, chocolate from Belgium? So I had a square of chocolate.

Several hours later when I was in the break room getting my 14th square of chocolate I suddenly noted that all this once seemingly endless chocolate was nearly gone. I was stunned. I did a quick, rough calculation and realized that for this to be possible nearly everyone else at my job had to be eating as much chocolate as me!

I had no idea. They all look so innocent.

Parking karma

While taking a break eating olive oil popcorn in the back room of my library I entertained myself by watching people parking in our "Carpool and Vanpool Parking Only" spots. This is an entertainment that never fails to astonish and fascinate me. Though usually it's too emotional for me after about 15 minutes and I have to turn away. But today something extraordinary happened. A van pulled up and a person climbed out of the driver side door just like normal, but then other people started getting out of the van. There were at least five people in that van!

I had been watching these carpool/vanpool parking places for about ten minutes and, as usual, I had seen maybe five or six vans and cars, pulling up or leaving, and everyone of those vehicles carried but one person. Who even knew that a van could carry as many as five people? I mean, besides the visionaries who created the "Carpool and Vanpool Parking Only" spots.  Those people must have the kind of imagination the rest of us can only dream of possessing!

Years of watching lone people park in the "Carpool and Vanpool Parking Only" spots has given me a kind of revenge over the years. At first it was all a bit upsetting, seeing people violate with seeming impunity something so sensible, but slowly I noticed our carpool parkers were growing more and more crippled over time. These regular library patrons, parking scofflaws, had so devoted themselves to avoiding physical activity that they began to fall apart. They can now hardly walk into the library even from the cozy proximity of the "Carpool and Vanpool Parking Only" spots. Pretty soon they'll be legally eligible for our disabled parking spots, opening up our carpool spots to a new group of self-punishing criminals.

I see some of these vanpool parking people in the library, after they've transmuted into library patrons. They seem more troubled than evil. I even help them.

They say revenge is sweet. I don't know.

A prayer

May the holy one keep and protect you. May the great lord guide you and refine you. Let the master of spirit see fit to watch over and lead and inspire your soul, infusing it with the sacred light of the exalted one's magnificence. And may the King of the Master of Hosts endow you always with wisdom, tranquility, and the shining light of intelligence. Rest in the hand of God, in beauty, sanctity, humbleness, kindness, and the connection to all creatures in the world as you go forth and steal someone's lunch from the break room refrigerator.


Amen.

A thousand miles

My library employer is not noted for its great generosity to us employees. Perhaps the library's outpouring of free books, movies, provisional "day" housing, classes, and information to the local community has exhausted its ability to give. Instead I have my strict employment contract, hammered out every three years between my union and the county. Never in all the years of contracts has my library ever said "Let's just this once throw the rule book out the window. What say you to a four percent raise! More vacation? A sushi lunch?" No, ever has it been a strict exchange of labor for an exacting attempt at fair compensation. We receive no special perks as library users other than that which craftiness and knowledge affords us. Our no-late-fines perk was nailed to a cross at least a decade ago. I regale new employees with stories about it. They are not sufficiently dazzled. Perhaps they recently worked somewhere that provided something amazing, like free pizza twice a year.  The most lavish holiday gift ever provided to the staff here consisted of a large, three flavor tin of popcorn: orange flavor, brown flavor, and tan flavor. The annual In Service Day has long ago been stripped of any moments that might be seen as entertaining or engaging, let alone non work oriented. The desperately anticipated free lunch provided on that day consists of three dozen day old whole loaves of bread dropped simultaneously onto four tables. Each table also includes two jugs of water, one with a thin slice of lemon floating in it, one not. If you want to drink the water you must remember to bring your own cup.


This explains, perhaps, why I feel as I do about our paper towels. Loaded into the dispensers in ready locations, they are great big rolls of cheap, white, sort of absorbent towels. Tear a healthy chunk off and more towel spits out at you, all with a pleasant whirring sound. It seems to cheerily insist "Have more!"


"Don't mind if I do." You say as you help yourself to seconds. Two towels are better than one towel. Rainforests denuded? Global warming wastefulness? I don't care. I have so little. Let me have my endless towels!


I use these towels for everything. They are my plate or bowl for food. They are a safe work surface. They function as gloves. I dry my hands with them. I store things in them. I have made costumes out of them, and provisional garments. They are useful for cleaning and as a dish mat. Folded enough they function as padding, perhaps for an uneven table, or one can make a witty book cover out of them. One can sneeze into them or spit out into them the food one has inadvisably sampled from the free food table. I have made ice packs out of them, written on them, and applied them as a cooling poultice to my fevered brow. I have piled great gouts of them into a giant mop. And in a pinch they can be used to strain things like coffee or curds and whey. Endless towels are what I have here, my one free gift, and they are all the more dear to me for that.


I have always measured my time at this library in years. I have been here 21 years, almost 22 now. But perhaps I have gotten it all wrong. Rather I should measure my time here in towels, miles and miles of towels.

Community

Dear Staff:



The free food table used to mean something around here, and though the food on it frequently disgusted and horrified me, I still took a kind of reassurance from it. It said that even if I forgot to bring food to work I would not starve, or, even worse, be forced to drive off during my precious lunch hour to procure food from one of the miserable restaurants and fast food joints around here. Instead I would be able to help myself to some of those sugar encrusted bacon saltines that someone brought in after either a culinary disaster or under a confused understanding of "generosity".

Well, who knows, maybe it was generous after all. And though mostly my main goal with the free food table was to resist eating anything that was on it due to my commitment to living past the age of sixty, it was still somehow good to know that that disgusting, profoundly unhealthful food was there. At least we made that gesture towards hearth and community, pathetic and misguided though it may have been. Unlike now. Have you seen what's been on the free food table lately? 

Coupons.

Coupons! Five cents a gallon off on gas at the station that charges seven cents a gallon more than anywhere else. An "introductory" offer for a wine by mail club. A certificate for a 35 dollar haircut. A 35 dollar haircut? I have a wastebasket and a pair of scissors, why would I pay for a haircut? And these really aren't even coupons. They're advertisements pretending to be coupons. Why would you put those on the free food table? Do you hate your co-workers that much? Surely in the past few days you must have made something like a Spam and Tabasco hotdish that didn't go over with your family like you hoped it might. Bring it in for god's sake, not these ridiculous coupons! You don't think people would eat such a dish, but we will! And even if we didn't it would give us all something to talk about besides who drives us crazy around here or our all too common complaining about wretched American politics. We already agree on all these things. What else is there to say?

So let's put out the vegan cucumber brownies and be a proper workplace once more. Trust me. I've been here for decades, and I can guarantee you that no matter how harmonious it seems between us all right now, we're always about two bare inches from completely hating each other. Workplace cultures are fragile, so you've got to attend to the little things, like the free food table. It all goes south so much faster than you can imagine.





 

Saffron in the break room

The subject of disliked foods came up one day with a couple of my colleagues in the break room. One of them disliked papaya. She said she felt slightly guilty not liking papaya. I wondered at the things we don't like that we try to like, that in some way we know we should like. I have known people who have a real love of good, real food, but somehow just don't like blue cheese. How strange and mystifying. I myself don't like much the taste of saffron. I can't figure it out. I have tried a thousand foods that people said were good, trustworthy people, people of good judgement, and they were right all along. What makes saffron different? I know it should be good to me, but it isn't particularly. 

I mentioned all this to my colleagues. 

"You don't like saffron!" They cried. "How can you not like saffron?"

And I thought the strangest thing: 

I have really got to stop having so many opinions.

Gluten free pretzels

Today I have decided to discuss the gluten free pretzels in the library break room.



Will you being doing this in a "call and response" format?

Why, yes, yes I will.

Why would you, who usually writes such an entertaining blog, write about a bag of gluten free pretzels in your library's break room?

Tough, tough question. But I don't shy away from tough questions around here.

You don't?

Not unless we're discussing gluten free pretzels.

So, fine, what's the deal with these gluten free pretzels?

Ah! I have a ten point list to discuss the mild curiosities of these pretzels.

Wait, don't you usually do blog essays in a "call and response" format or you use a list format, but never do you do both a "call and response" format and a list format?

Yes. It is a very special day here.

I'm ready for your list.


1. These pretzels, in a large, but by no means huge bag, have defied every historical measure of the break room free food table and have been here for six days. It's not that people aren't eating them either. People are eating them, the bag level goes down, but they seem to last forever!

2. Even though I have had no interest up until writing this post, people keep weighing in on their feelings about these pretzels to me, like it's the new Star Wars movie or something.

3. 75 percent of respondents dislike the pretzels and think they have a weird aftertaste. 25 percent think they are unusually good and don't normally like pretzels.

4. I have no interest in trying these pretzels, but it is unclear at this point whether I will have to for the sake of art.

5. The pretzels' slogan is "We are what you eat", and that phrase is trademarked.

6. The pretzels are made with palm oil which, in its environmentally degrading production guise, kills Sumatran tigers. The package could also say "Tiger killing pretzels" which they could also trademark because one can apparently trademark pretty much anything. We are what you trademark.TM

7. The package says there are 13 pretzel servings inside, but so far there have been 218 servings inside, making these the Hanukkah miracle of tiger killing pretzels.

8. I don't really have a ten point list of peculiarities about these pretzels, only eight, of which I suspect only two were truly peculiar.



Which two?

Items one and two, with seven being a repeat of one, and three being an addendum to two.

Have you tasted these pretzels?

No, but they are sitting right here if you want one, and you like to keep gluten free, and you hate tigers.

So, seriously, what was the point of all this about these pretzels?

Sometimes I just start with something and see where it goes and magic happens!

Has magic happened?

Not that I am aware of at this point.

The loving blog post product

A food product, mostly eaten, was sitting in the staff refrigerator today. It was in the way of my shrimp and broccoli, so I had to gently poke it aside. I'm not sure what it was. It had lots of plastic and labels. The label said "Packed with love".

No corporate product is made with love. Jesus is not packing your mass produced hummus. Cliodhna, the Irish goddess of love and beauty, has not swathed your California blueberries in plastic protection. And when the marketing department comes up with the labeling that says "Packed with love" they are not doing it with love, they are doing it with a bland, merciless ambition, with a workaday calculation.

But I am no naif. I know how the world works. I know that it is a hard world full of mean lies, casual lies, soulless lies, mercenary lies, general lies. You shrug them off. It's no big deal, a bit of mud, a spot of crude oil off a duck's back, right?

But it's good to notice anyway, because every impersonal lie is like a bit of wrapping. It can be all kinds of wrapping; pretty wrapping, tough wrapping, luxurious wrapping, and on and on through all the adjectives. But inside it holds something that is always the same; a little bit of the inexhaustible darkness and coldness of deep and absolute space.

We have wrapped this nothingness with love.

The rules

The rule at my library is:

Your break shall be directly in proportion to the difficulty of the co-worker(s) you are teamed with.

If you are working with one of the big three:

the one who stares blankly at the computer and mishandles each transaction in slow, exacting detail,

the one who turns the simplest transaction into a 45 minute chat, 

or the one who cheerfully deflects all actual work that comes directly at them and fails to notice everything else,

any of those and you get a two hour break, but you have to spend an hour of it meditating quietly in the willow hut in the children's garden.

If you work with any of the group that doesn't quite pull their weight, complains too much about the patrons, and isn't exactly clear on what we do at the front desk, but are too nice and aren't quite crappy enough to complain about, you get a 45 minute break and a homemade chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie.

If you work with any of our many, good enough, basically competent workers, you get a 20 minute break and you have to listen sympathetically, for at least a couple minutes, to those people who have to work with one of the big three, even if they do get to hang out in the willow hut meditating while you're slaving away shelving.

Is that fair? I don't know, but that's the rule.

Turkey at library

I've missed a few of my walks, so it was probably inevitable. I'll be walking the river tomorrow, but what with car things, weather things, schedule conflicts, I haven't seen my spirit turkey for a week, maybe two. So the turkey wandered over to the library.

Rumors of four turkeys on the fringes of the parking lot had been circulating. Then the children's librarian cried out "There's a turkey at the back door!" 

Well naturally. I know that turkey.

Everyone ran to the back door. I went to the windows in the break room instead. That's on the other end of the building. I needed to be alone. That's how it works. Sure enough the turkey headed there. It danced in the parking lot traffic. It gave me one soulful look in the eye.

"Don't be so mad at everything." My turkey seemed to say before heading out into a trafficky avenue.

"I'll see you tomorrow." I whispered.

Raspberry torture

Today, as I write this, is the first day of my summer vacation. But one needs to sort of ease into vacation. Calmness, bliss and luxurious indolence don't flood in the minute the gates are down. They have to be coaxed in. You have to fluff up the pillows for them. They're very fussy about the pillows.

And so I have one last little work story for you. After this it's probably going to be all talking about mooses and the aerodynamics of sitting around, and how enchanting all the dolphins are as they frolic under the rainbows of Lake Superior.

So, this is a story about raspberries.

I was in the break room having my supper. Due to a sort of clearing-everything-out-before-vacation austerity this was not a glamorous affair. I had the very last semi-petrified corner piece of a huge pan of enchiladas. Strangely, though, it was still pretty good. Just, there wasn't enough. I also had a failed attempt to make mango syrup that had been turned into ice cream that, realistically speaking, was inedible. I was giving that one more shot, but ended up throwing it away.

Somehow, while dining upon this repast, despite the fact that I was READING, I fell into conversation with my co-worker. But, okay. She was eating something with a lot of lovely, fresh raspberries on it.

"I have so many raspberries I don't know what to do with them." She exclaimed.

I grunted. I was READING. But then again she mentioned the word raspberries.

"I have stopped even picking them and now just let them fall to the ground and rot." She continued.

I quailed in horror.

She told me a lot about her over thriving raspberry bushes. I told her about how mine do the same, spreading wildly, expanding constantly, but that they refuse to produce any more than 14 raspberries a summer. I think there's too much shade for them. Then I started reading again. This caused her to tell me about all the things she had done with the raspberries. She told me about all the ways they had been eating them at her house, the parfaits, the sauces, the binges. She told me about how many they had frozen. She told me about how heavy the buckets get when you are out filling them up every single day. I looked at her like someone in the headlights of an oncoming car, as if to say "You do realize you are driving directly at me. Hello? Do you see me here?"

Then she started to tell me about all the people she had given raspberries to before she could not think of anyone else to give raspberries to. "I gave a bunch to the neighbor who mows my lawn. I gave some to the mailman. I gave some to these 18 relatives. I gave some to a couple of people walking down my street. I gave some to a couple of stray dogs. I went down to the local garden store and stood in front giving them away. Then I gave up. I had no one else to give them to."

This is a rough approximation of my co-worker's "giving away" speech. It was actually much longer and more detailed. Every minute or so I would look meaningfully at the library free food table, where kind and thoughtful co-workers bring in free food, like, for instance, if you have a bumper crop in your garden you can bring that in and put some there.

Each time I looked meaningfully at the free food table it seemed to make her remember another person she gave her burden of raspberries to.

This co-worker does not read my blog. I do not use my co-workers' names, without their permission, in my blog. And I do not, as a rule, write accurately and specifically about things my co-workers do if it is basically an unflattering story about an identifiable individual. 

But, clearly, there are some lines of decent humanity that a co-worker can cross so far over that I am no longer able to hold to my strictest rules of respect.

It almost never happens, it takes an incredible amount, but yes, if you go racing past the line of basic human decency far enough, you should expect to appear here. It won't be pretty.