Musings over cookies...

I have 57 cookies in a red food container waiting to be sent to Florida.  I may have spent a little too much time baking cookies tonight, and I had to blog as a result.  Something about the sense of smell sends memories flooding back.  Combine that with any of the other senses, and you’re stuck with whatever memories decide to show up.  Being the domestic that I am, I have baked a LOT of cookies in my day, so I have my fair share of cookie and baking memories.  You’d think cookies wouldn’t be blog worthy, but you’d also think that people wouldn’t get offended about comma use, and here I am. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…  After baking 24 chocolate chip cookies, I moved on to snickerdoodles.  I made them from a mix rather than cheating (as much) with frozen dough.  Stirring was not going as planned, so I thought back to when I made snickerdoodles in the basement of Dykstra dorm with a girl named Alyssa.  I can’t remember who got frustrated with the dough first, but I was the one who ended up smooshing the dough with my hands.  I also ended up brandishing butter at somebody and picking things up with my toes…? Normal.

That evening, our boyfriends showed up to eat the cookies.  The Hope ex loved snickerdoodles, so he was very excited to eat them.  He bit into a cookie and put it back down quickly.

Zac: What did you do to them?

Me: I baked them…  From scratch, actually.

Zac: Well, I knew that much.  You can taste the difference between real cookies and fake ones. (*Note: I bet he was one of those who you could give a water bottle to where the water’s been poured out and  refilled with tap water, and he would brag about knowing the difference between bottled and tap water.*)  How did you put the cookie on the cookie sheet?

Me: I rolled the dough into walnut-sized balls—

Zac: So far, so good.

Me: –and then I squashed them with my thumb because I didn’t know how they would spread out.

Zac:  Oh.  That’s where you went wrong.

Me: That’s where I went wrong?  Anything else?

Zac: No.  Next time you’ll hopefully do better.

In retrospect, I should have slept with his roommate.  I’m kidding.  I just didn’t bake him cookies ever again.  I stuck with baking for people who actually appreciated it.  I mean, not a big song and dance about cookies, but still.

There were lots of people on my College Program who got cookies.  I had a bigger apartment than most, so many of the Skipper Movie Nights were at my place.  Much of the food ended up being my doing as well.  When you make the time to do entertain on a small scale, it doesn’t take much work to put on a nice shirt, pour spinach dip into rye bread, whip up bean dip, make worms and dirt, cover something in chocolate, and have Frank Sinatra playing in the background by the time people show up.  My ex Gui had seen me host or co-host parties all the time (what he probably didn’t realize was that the only thing to stress me out when he was around was him). 

When we both found ourselves in the Midwest, I realized that the only things that actually held us together were working for Disney and not seeing each other every day.  He’d call every day so I could entertain him over the phone.  He refused to make friends in Detroit.  He’d always say I was the reason why he moved there, so I had to show some gratitude.  Spring of 2010, phone calls were a matter of, “Hello, Tiny, did you do anything today?  Make it live!  …that sounds boring… Want to hear about my day?  I actually did something important.”  He’d call the house if I didn’t answer [When I lived with Wayne two summers ago, he did NOT have that house number.  I could go out and leave my phone off.  It was amazing (How did I find these people?!)].  By that time, I didn’t make cookies specifically for Guillermo.  I only made cookies if someone from my College Program came over.

Before I left for Disney that summer, I made Mickey shaped rice crispy treats, put them on a stick, and dipped them in chocolate for my 60’s Lit class.  On the way to school that evening, Gui called.  Granted, it was about a week after I called off the wedding, so he was quite angry with me.  It wasn’t the beginning of the end, really, just a continuation of it.

Me: Can I call you during my break tonight?  I’m running a little late because I was baking, so I’m frazzled.

Gui: You were baking?  For who?

Me: My 60’s class.  Since I am leaving tomorrow, I’m missing the final.  Holt let me take it early.  I made Mickey rice crispy treats like they have in the parks for him, but I couldn’t just make them for him... so I made about 15…?

I could hear him huffing over the phone.

Gui:  I don’t know why you bother.  Are you at least getting paid for this?!

Me:  No.  It’s a gift.  You don’t ask for things in exchange for gifts.

Gui:  I know what a gift is!  I’m not an idiot… I just don’t see why you should just bake for people!

Me:  Because it’s nice, and I’m leaving tomorrow!

I had to hang up after that.  He didn’t see why I should bake for people?  I didn’t understand why I shouldn’t bake for people. If you ask me, I think it’s a nice way to show people that they matter.  The subtext when it comes to baking is that somebody matters, somebody is loved, and somebody is cared about.  It’s simply a nicety.  Instead of not baking anymore, I just stopped telling Gui if I was baking…or anything, really.

By this point, people don’t seem to be offended by me baking cookies.  My cookies don’t come with hidden agendas, and I am not fishing for compliments (even if the first anecdote doesn’t sound that way), so I bake when I get the chance or make the time for it.  While I was baking this evening and these memories popped into my head, I couldn’t help but think about how much I love the smell of freshly baked cookies.  For a moment, I thought, “It doesn’t get much better than that.”  I had to shake my head at myself—I’m shaking my head again, folks, because I’m about to gush. 

There is most certainly something better than the smell of freshly baked cookies.  Tonight I made cookies for my boyfriend Josh, and after 6 months with him, I can honestly say that being myself and happy with somebody else beats the smell of freshly baked cookies.  No contest.  And as silly as it sounds, not having to worry about failing at snickerdoodles or being chastised for baking for a class is also a heck of a lot better than the smell of freshly baked cookies.  But perhaps my favorite part is that my boyfriend deserves all the freshly baked cookies I can send his way.  I think that may be what makes the difference.

For your reading entertainment while I write a bunch more of overdue posts...

I wrote this last year for a class with Sarah White.  It was something I wrote that I actually kind of liked and that other people liked too, so I figured I’d cheat the system, revise it a bit, and hand it in to another class this semester.  Frankly, writing about things that happened last summer would have turned into a hot mess or a personal my boyfriend-is-awesome-fest (which has a tendency to annoy other students), so I went with this.  It needs more revisions, but what doesn't?  While I write more to clear my head, I’ll let you read the revised version of this.

Note: the best notes I got back on the copies I handed out were, “I love your lists!” (I got several of those) and “What this really needs is SEX!!!”

After working in Disney World for four years, the magic starts to run thin.  When you’re going to Disney with your parents who are going through a divorce after years of my mother putting up with my father’s abuses, the magic is pretty much nonexistent.  At any rate, I was less than enthusiastic about the whole vacation at my workplace thing.  I knew it was going to be hard to muster excitement about much of anything this trip.

It was going to be even worse since it takes something major to make me excited about Disney World like guests do.  Disney World guests get excited for seemingly no reason at times.  Most recently, my mom started praising Disney World Imagineers for making the sand cold when it touched her foot.  That’s the kind of magic that just makes me smile and nod.  In spite of, or maybe because of, all of the Disney magic, it was hard for me not to get skeptical.  When you’re a cast member, you quickly learn a few things:

1.      Guests turn their brains off when they go to Disney World.

Example:  I am a Jungle Cruise Skipper.  That means my job in Disney World, in layman’s terms, is to drive around in a boat and tell bad jokes to people (spieling).  One time, while I was spieling in a rain storm, I was running out of jokes for filler material.  I asked, “Are there any questions?”  A woman raised her hand and asked—in all seriousness, mind you, “Why is it raining?”  I was a little confused, so I asked if she could expand on that.  She rolled her eyes at me.  “You know, the rain?  Here on the Jungle Cruise?  Why is it raining?”  I blinked and answered, “Well, ma’am, I think the clouds got a little too heavy for the water that they were carrying.”

“Well,” she said, “it’s your fault.”

2.      The “three o’clock parade” is a ridiculously difficult concept to grasp.

Example:  The day parade starts at 3:00 pm on Main Street, USA, in the Magic Kingdom.  People will walk up to cast members and ask, “What time is the three o’clock parade?”  (Please see point number one.)

Our answer, of course, is, “Where do you plan on watching the parade?”  That way, we stay magical while giving the guests information about when the parade will pass where they will be sitting.  It’s a nice touch, but we loathe that question.

3.      Cast members are expected, by guests, to know everything about Florida.

Example:  Our nametags include our hometown or our college.  Most of these nametags do not say anything that ends in FL.  All the same, my first week on the job, I was asked for directions to the nearest Target.  I found out later that it was about ten minutes away from the Magic Kingdom, but I had no idea at the time.  Again, not knowing that I was ten minutes away from Target when my only voyage off property was on a bus with a very specific route was my fault.

4.      Guest quickly becomes an insult.

Example:  Do I really need an example?  See 1-3.  If you are still confused as to why guest would be an insult, then sadly, the insult probably applies to you.  At best, you are on vacation in Disney and have temporarily lost your mind.  That’s the only hope I have for you.

5.      Disney ducks are a lot smarter than guests.

Example:  This is probably my favorite of the rules since it’s actually something positive.  Because guests are stupid, they think that “those poor ducks” don’t have a place to live.  Or better yet, “these poor ducks” don’t get enough food.  Those poor ducks get food from one out of every four guests.  That is only including the guests who feed the ducks in spite of the ample signage that reminds guests not to feed the ducks.

Now, think of all of the kids who drop their popcorn.  If the custodial cast members don’t get to it fast enough (which, considering all of the puking—I’m sorry, protein spilling, kids all over the parks, could happen), the ducks are more than happy to help clean up the popcorn.

In addition to this, ducks don’t talk back, they’re easy going, they have full reign of the parks, and they stop traffic.  Because of this, cast members like ducks.  We have several families of Jungle ducks, and any who come near the break tent are more than welcome.  I am so fond of the Jungle ducks that every duck I have owned has been named after something Jungle Cruise related simply to keep my connection to those clever ducks.  It also doesn’t hurt that my ducks, knowing where their names came from, will try to live up to my expectations.  Even outside of Disney, ducks don’t disappoint.    

As a seasoned skipper, and, therefore, an expert in snark, I took these truths to heart, and nothing was going to change my mind.  Granted, guests see Disney as a magical place, but for cast members, you are the other side of the magic.  You get your Disney jollies from watching the guests and from being with other cast members who get the fact that without you, there is no magic.  So, dammit, be magical.  It’s a lot of pressure—especially when you’re stuck catering to people who can’t get the idea of a three o’clock parade taking place, promptly and efficiently, at three o’clock pm.

The magical family journey of magical awkwardness and magically uncomfortable situations began at 4:30 am central time—again, magical.  I was a little less than pleased when I heard that one of my sister Elaine’s punky high school friends would be going on our already hectic and awkward family vacation to Disney World.  Little did I know that this girl, Caite, would remind me how magical my place of employment really is.

Her enthusiasm was obvious.  This girl who had only known my family for a few hours started singing “Party in the USA” and dancing as soon as she opened her eyes.  This set the tone for the entire trip.  I stood stunned at her excitement.  A sixteen year old girl was singing and dancing to a Miley Cyrus in my living room at that ungodly hour.  My sister Elaine did not share Caite’s jour de vivre that early in the morning, let alone appreciate it, but even though Miley Cyrus can suck it, I decided to embarrass myself and sing along.

By the time we got to our hotel, Caite was still singing Miley Cyrus.  By this point, I was already in a Disney state of mind.  Everyone has a different idea of when they are “in Disney World.”  When I was younger, it was simple, clear cut.  Disney World begins when you walk through the Castle.  I’m 21 now and a no-nonsense cast member, so the confines of Disney World are still simple and clear cut, but once you are on Disney property, you are in Disney World.  No magical incantations once you see a pretty castle.  You are as much in Disney World at a food place called Earl of Sandwich as you are standing inside that castle.  But of course, first night in Disney, we went past the Magic Kingdom.  My family and Caite got on a bus headed for the park, and got to a part of the road where you can see parts of the park nearby.  I looked at the hotel on my right—Bay Lake Tower, the resort that they started working on when I first started working in Disney.  It looks clean with straight lines.  Strictly business.  It’s been a part of Disney as long as I have, so it’s a landmark I bother to look at.

I heard a sudden gasp across the bus.  Sure enough, it was Caite, and she had just seen the Castle for the first time.  The gasp quickly turned into mini sobs, and she ran to my side of the moving bus.  I felt her arms around my neck and her tears on my cheek.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said.  I looked at the Castle, lit up in its Christmas glory, and, for the first time in a long time, it actually looked like something worthwhile. 

“It sure is,” I said.

            For Caite, the magic was in the moment.  The magic was in the fact that she had a beautiful opportunity to see a place that so many people love and dream of.  The magic was in the experience.  For me, the magic was is Caite’s infectious excitement because of something that had long since become meaningless, something that had become a bad cliché.  I guess sometimes seeing someone geeking out over magic can cancel out the guest-li-ness.  The magic was in her gratitude for everything Disney that had just landed in her lap.  I felt my eyes well up, and I repeated, “It sure is.”