More kitchen humor

There really is never a dull moment in the Johnson kitchen.  If you haven't been to our place, I don't think I can really create a picture small enough to describe the size of our kitchen.  It's tiny.  As the owner of a bed-and-breakfast once phrased it, we have a "one-butt kitchen" for sure.  Only one butt can fit in it.  This makes all of our cooking projects pretty interesting.


This weekend we hosted our Sabbath community on Sunday night - the group that meets once a week for a shared meal and time together - about 15 or so.  We decided to make chili because the weather has turned cold and soggy for the season ("crisp" Falls do not exist in this city).  Conscious of our community, we also decided to make two different chili's: one meaty, and one veggie.  Unfortunately, however, we only have one large stock pot big enough to hold an entire batch of chili.  


What to do?  What to do?


Get creative.  


And, boy, did we ever.


And, boy, did we pay.


T (yes, I will blame this on him - it was his boyish curiosity) really wanted to see if the ceramic insert of our crockpot could cook a pot of chili on the stovetop.  I mean, it's meant to get hot, right?  Oh, how you must be chuckling at this point.


I argued - but not hard enough.  "I don't think it's a good idea."  "But it's meant to get hot!"  "Fine, T.  Do whatever you want."


Aye - never good words to utter.


So, as you may have guessed, T put the ceramic crockpot insert onto the large eye of our stove.  In our bedroom, I heard him say, "It smells kind of weird."  But, after a few minutes it seemed to be working ok.  


We had about 45 minutes before our Sabbath group was supposed to arrive, and, as any amateur chef knows, soups need to boil to actually cook all the flavors together.  So, T turns up the heat: medium-high.  I was nervous, standing over the sink, washing a few dishes, my third eye on the stove.  


Then, we hear POP!  


I cursed...loudly, quickly.  One syllable.  Just enough to allow T to utter, "Uh-oh."


"It cracked!"


I frantically began scouring the counters for our oven-mits.  I shoved them in his face.  "It's not hot, Kelsey, it's cracked!" T yelled.  He grabbed both sides of the pot, pushed the halves together, and lifted.  He did not know that a perfect circle had cracked in the bottom of the pot - when he lifted, the bottom of the pot stuck to the eye,  and chili came flowing out like molten lava.  (It seems like our kitchen disasters always involve a molten-lava-like substance).  Yes - a steaming river of chili.


As you can imagine with the burner still on medium-high, the chili instantly started cooking right to the stove.  Not to mention that it also flowed right underneath the burner, covering the innards of stovetop.  Then onto the floor and dripped all over the counter where T carried it to the sink.  Chunks of tomatoes, beans, and zucchini everywhere.  Not to be disgusting, but chili already looks unpleasant as is - when it has been thrown all over kitchen floors, cabinets, and counters it's really appetizing.  You would have thought someone vomited over our entire kitchen.


30 minutes till guests arrive.  What do we do?  We don't have enough for everyone!


"Here, this is big enough to hold all of it," T says, as he pulls our roaster out of the cabinet.  I shrugged, grabbed hold of the roaster, T with his spatula, and began scraping all of the stovetop chili into the pan.  Yes.  Scraping chili into a roasting pan.  Salvaging our crockpot-vomited chili.


I had lost most verbal capabilities at this point.  I chose, very intentionally, to mute myself because I knew that anything that rolled off of my tongue would have been regretted later.  T chuckled as we were scraping glops of chili into a turkey roasting pan and I gave him a look.  "T, I'm sorry, but this just isn't funny to me yet."


At least I knew it would be funny eventually, right?


And yes, we got it cleaned up, heated up, and served on time.  Don't worry, we didn't do any intense scraping so as to get the burned chunks into our friends' dinner.  Gross.  Just the top layer of goodness that we could still salvage.  We told them the story and of course they laughed and were shocked because they had no idea when they came in that anything like that had happened.

I'm so glad we'll have such a substantial repertoire of stories to share with our kids - keeps us humble.  Real, real humble.


T, honey?  You did a real good job.


Ironically, my lovely friend and House of Love roomie, Dana, brought T and I a gift that night as a part of an inside-joke from living together.  While I can't fully describe the extent of the joke, it felt too appropriate for our cooking experience.  Little did she know what this little gift meant!

Little lights

It's no question that I've been swimming in several weeks, or months, of deep, dark waters.  Oceans thick with confusion, haze, frustration, grief, sadness, loneliness have been my playground.  I blend the metaphors intentionally: I'm swimming, I'm playing, I'm falling, I'm drowning, I'm getting back up, I'm climbing, I'm laughing, I'm scared, I'm trying, I'm failing, I'm succeeding.


Yes.


Again, I am.


Yes.


I'm a child.  I'm the parent.  I'm an Olympian.  I'm on the bench.


Our journeys are never linear, right?  We're all over the place - I'm all over the place.  Yes.


Yes, and amen.


Over the weekend, T and I went over to another couple's new place to watch a movie together.  It was lovely to be invited into their new home - a big step for them - and to be invited to just be silly and to simply be.


Ok, so we watched Bridesmaids.  Those of you that read this, I'm sure, have mixed feelings about this movie whether you've seen it or not.  I know for a fact that I have some family members that saw the movie and totally hated it.  Regardless of what you do or don't think about it, however, I have been dying to see it since it was released in the theaters.  I even went with a group of girlfriends to see it, and the theater sold out of tickets by the time half of my group got in!  I...was not one of the ones in.  Very sad day.  Since then, I had been anticipating it's DVD release like crazy.

Let me just tell you - I haven't laughed so hard in such a long time.  I mean, tears-rolling-down-cheeks, stomach-hurting, cheeks-burning laughing.  It's so inappropriate, so crude, and at times so uncomfortable that I wasn't sure I should still be watching.  (But no nudity - which I realized the next day and thought was interesting).  But it was friggin' hysterical.  And, my God, what a relief to laugh and laugh and laugh uncontrollably.  My body had to remember how to do it.  Thank goodness laughing is like riding a bike - but way better.


Also, on the subject of movies, I have to see this.  And so do you.





It looks beautiful!  So sweet, heartfelt, and moving.


Movies may be trite, or a waste of time, but there's something really significant about finding little light points when I'm weighed down so heavily.

Grief is close at hand.

Grieving death on behalf of a very dear friend.  Yesterday, The Seattle School felt like it was under the weight of the world.  Dark and rainy, the clouds pushed our building, with all their weight, a little further into the bowels of the earth.  Death seeped into our community, and death forced itself into our community.  A steady trickle, and a mighty wave.

We sat in one class for over an hour in silence.  Some quietly wept.  Runny noses.  Wiping tears.  Staring at the wall, at the floor, at the ceiling, at nothing.

"Death stops us in our tracks," my professor said.

"I don't know these people personally," my friend said, "but the amount that I'm feeling right now tells me how deeply we're all connected."

Connected, yes.

Stopped, yes.

Angry, confused, lost, helpless, small, fearful, anxious, devastated, yes.

I am.

I don't intend on only updating you on the weather here in Seattle.  But, seriously, Seattle is confused.  Yesterday, we were in shorts, tanks, and sandals at the Puyallup Fair - tan lines accomplished by the end of the day.  Today we have seen clouds, rain, hurricane-force wind, and sun - all at the same time.  We left the apartment at 10am to run a bunch of errands (really, to go Fall shopping...and grocery shopping), and every time we came out of a store it was as if the seasons had changed all over again!  It was different every single time.

Poor old Seattle....she doesn't know what to think.

It's coming

Well, today will be the hottest day of the week with a record-breaking high of 72 degrees.  After that, it gets almost a degree colder every single day of the week as it progresses.  When our alarm goes off at 6:15am, it's still dark.  The sun will set around 7:25pm - a markedly noticeable difference than sunset times in July when there were little remnants of daylight still leftover at 10pm.


I love this place, but, man, you sure know when the good gets goin'.  It's goin' alright - right on outta here.  

Read it.
Period.

My iPhone life

Oh, the glories of the iPhone. A portable phone, computer, camera, and a thousand other devices that I probably don't even realize the iPhone is capable of mimicking. I love having a decent little camera with me at all times - I get to capture good stuff that normally I wouldn't have a way to record.

First official "swag" from The Seattle School. I was lucky

enough to still be working at school on the official day of the name change

so I scored of these beautiful items. I use my mug literally every morning.

Woohoo! It's official!

Best view of the city - the Columbia Tower. 76 stories

up and only cost $3. Definitely more bang for your buck than

the Space Needle - in fact, we are towering over it in this picture.

Not only was this year a huge one for our school because of the name change, but it was also an incredible year for my team - Admissions. This year, we helped to enroll the largest incoming class that our school has ever seen! First class at The Seattle School is a gigantic one! So, after I worked my last shift for The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology Admissions Team, we all went out for a surprise celebration. Last week, I got this text message from my boss:

"Hey Team. Here's the scoop for tomorrow. We will meet at The Seattle School at 2:30 and caravan to an undisclosed location. The dress code is end of summer South Beach. Think lots of skin, lots of bling, and lots of champagne. But bring something to layer with because, well, this isn't South Beach."

Little did I know that I would be boating on the waters of Lake Union, Salmon Bay, and Portage Bay. All places that I drive to on a regular basis, but never experiencing them from the water! It was a GORGEOUS day and we had so much fun celebrating our year together. I love this team and will miss working with them dearly.

Our captain for the day.

First mate - he won a bet so he won a hat.

Our spread.

Best team leader - loved working for and with this lady.

Under bridges.

On the water.

Cheeks hurting from laughing.

Love this team!

Over the course of two weekends, T and I went hiking just an hour Northeast of Seattle at Mt. Index. We wanted to discover both a beautiful waterfall, Bridal Veil Falls, and a beautiful lake, Lake Serene. The first weekend we went, we only made it the 1.5 miles up to the waterfall and back - it was much more brutal than expected! Since we really wanted to see the lake at some point, we decided to make a trip back for Labor Day.


August 28, 2011:

View from the falls.

September 5, 2011:

Crossing the bridge at the bottom of the falls

that we had been to the top of last weekend

 Giant sheets of rock

More giant rocks

 Stump!

Snow-capped mountains - we were finally reaching the top!

 The water is so clear!

 We sat on a rock in our bathing suits and ate lunch.

Happy hikers.

Silly hikers.

I've been avoiding you

I've been subconsciously, but purposefully, avoiding this blog.  That's kind of sad.  Sometimes, you go through seasons of life where you don't want to think about your life, much less write about it and look at the words on a screen, much much less know that other people are reading it.  Sometimes, it's just a little too much to make life concrete - to type it into existence.  Sometimes life's just hard.  It's hard.  For me, right now, it's hard.  


Thinking about a lot of beginnings and a lot of endings.  A lot of changes.  A lot of evaluating.  A lot of questions like, "What kind of person do I want to be?  What kind of life do I want to lead?  Do I want to be a risk-taker?  What kind of regrets do I want to have?"  A lot of growing-up - in the not-fun, really uncomfortable, here's-a-hard-look-at-life's-realities kind of way.  A lot of putting on big-girl pants when I just really want to stay in diapers.  


Part of it is having started my internship.  I'm over a month in, saw clients on my first day and have been seeing four clients regularly for this whole time.  That's crazy.  But I don't know how to talk about it here because of so much confidentiality, so I've avoided it.  It's a huge part of my life now, and I don't know how to share my life without sharing parts of my internship.  Blop.  It's heavy.  I am learning so much.  I feel like an aged woman and a five-year-old all at the same time.  This work is so full.


I've started my third year.  The beginning of the end of my graduate education.  I can't begin to explain how loaded that is - I'm not ready to leave this place yet.  A year doesn't feel like enough time, and yet I'm so tired and ready to be something other than a student.  This year holds so, so much for me.  I feel so invested in my classes - both because I feel like I'm choosing them and excited about them and also because I know they will be my last ones.  This is my last Fall term at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology (Yes, it's official.  No, no one is getting it right yet in conversation - we all still say "Mars Hill Graduate School." That's ok.)  This morning was my last beginning-of-the-year breakfast.  I have been so emotional this week because I keep thinking in "lasts"!  "My last this, my last that."  I love this place so much.  


Yet there is so much, as I said, that is beginning.  I am a part of Student Council this year - involved with serving the student body as a whole and what we, as students, want and need from our institution.  T is a member of a different realm of student leadership at my school - group called "Mosaic" that serves the spouses, partners, and families of students at The Seattle School.  We're leading/serving separately and together!  It's a beautiful thing.  I don't have a paying job.  That's weird and scary.  Although I'm sometimes selling pizzas at markets with T and I's friend who has his own wood-fired, brick oven pizza business.  I'm doing an independent study with my favorite professor and one of my dearest friends about food and hospitality and the sacredness of their interplay that already has me buzzing despite the fact that it doesn't start until the spring.  The three of us are going to eat a lot of good food together.  T and I have also developed relationships with several of our neighbors which is thrilling for us.  Both couples are older than us and not connected with our work or school lives whatsoever.  They are refreshing, beautiful, budding relationships.


There is so much goodness in the midst of much difficulty.  Isn't that how it goes?  That's what I'm experiencing in these recent weeks.  That's where the diapers come off and the big-girl pants go on.  I don't like them - my metaphorical pants.  They're tight, uncomfortable, constricting, and too responsible-looking.  I liked the freedom of the diaper - to have a metaphorical accident and to have someone else clean it up for me.  Or at least help me clean it up.  Big-girl pants means it's time to do it on my own.  To clean it up myself, or to never make a mess in the first place.  Yuck.  I don't like it.