trucks, snacks, corn, & jodi

Time for another fun session of Share Your World with Cee Neuner.

Complete this sentence: I’m looking forward to….

I’m looking forward to getting my Explorer back. Two months ago, the block cracked in the 2000 Explorer I had been loving driving for a few years. The estimate for putting in a rebuilt engine was 6k, so at first it looked like bye bye old friend, but then my brother found an engine online for under 1k, and a friend of his (a farmer in his off-season) agreed to put it in – again for under 1k. I ordered the engine and it was delivered to our farmer/mechanic. Got the Explorer towed out to him, and he’s been working on it. Should be ready soon!

The tale of my recent automotive woes goes on. The 1991 Ranger I’ve been driving since the Explorer exploded… well, it broke down last week, leaving me on the side of the highway 15 minutes from home and 15 minutes from work. Thereupon ensued a whole tragi-comedy of errors between me and three different taxi companies, with the end result of me climbing out of the backseat of a beat-up Bronco an hour and a half later, paying the driver (a great guy) $45, and going on into my place of employment.

The wheels that are under me at the moment are attached to a Honda Fit.

All of which just goes to show how eagerly I’m looking forward to my Explorer!

What is your favorite comfort snack food?

Comfort snack food eh? That’s pretty specific. Let’s see… my favorite food is lasagna, my comfort food is mac and cheese or pizza, and my usual snack… hmmm… I don’t usually snack, actually. Here at work at the hotel, I sometimes have a freshly baked cookie or a packet of the Strawberry Craisins we offer to loyal guests. Those are good. It’s weird though, don’t you think – strawberry flavored dried cranberries? Seems like a lot for the berry to go through. One of my favorite comedians, Demetri Martin, has a bit about prune juice. He says look, we start with a plum, dehydrate it to make a prune, then we juice the prune?! What are we doing to these poor plums?! lol.

What was one of your first moneymaking jobs (other than babysitting or newspaper delivery)?

Oop – you headed me off at the pass. I was both a babysitter and a paperboy. My babysitting claim to fame was that I changed the diapers of the half-brother of a relative of the Dalai Lama. Woot. As a paperboy in a fairly poor neighborhood, I learned to squeeze people for money they didn’t have, which served me well when later in life I became a collector for a bookie. Haha just kidding. Now give me your money.

My first paying job besides those two was corn detasseling.

Detasseling corn is removing the immature pollen-producing bodies, the tassel, from the tops of corn (maize) plants and placing them on the ground. It is a form of pollination control, employed to cross-breed, or hybridize, two varieties of corn.

At 15, I was surprised to find that I enjoyed getting up before dawn, catching a schoolbus out to the fields, and working the rows. My chief memories of that experience are these:

• making friends with the guys from the catholic school, whom I had never met
• noticing that the older guys driving the machines had arm and leg hair and wondering when I would grow some
• the guy who turned out to be the star pitcher on our baseball team winging rock after rock directly into a sign which seemed a mile away, who when I asked him how he was doing it, answered, “You got to trust your arm.”
• my skin itching like crazy

What inspired you or what did you appreciate this past week?

I’m not sure that this is fully in the spirit of the question, but what I honestly appreciated most last week was the understanding and generosity of my boss. Not only did she put me up in a hotel room for free the night my truck broke down and let me hang around all day the next day, but she was also big about that fact that I couldn’t make it in for work at the end of the week because of my transportation malflaption. I believe she covered my shift herself. It’s a blessing to work for someone like her. I’ve had managers who never would have extended such aid and courtesy.