the interns go gourmet.

so, yesterday was the day it all began. i finally met all the fellow interns, and our director (who showed up with bagels and cream cheese...yes please). it was all really pretty chill, we spent lots of time just kind of talking and getting to know each other, as well as discussing expectations and why we got ourselves into this, which got me to thinking about why i'm doing dietetics in the first place.

we ended up getting out of class early, so susie and i detoured by the farmer's market on the way home, feeling ambitious and eager to cook. i bought a prune, singular, for ten cents, for the sole reason that i have never had one before. i ate it this morning...it tastes just like a plum to me.

anyway, we swung by qfc to pick up some other odds and ends, then home. i'm telling you, the food was gourmet. people would pay $15 a plate in a restaurant! i had a salmon fillet with chive and garlic cream cheese, susie had a turkey burger with chives and garlic. on the side, we cooked up some squash and made a delightful little salad with some farmer's market lettuce, some raspberries, walnuts, feta, and kalamata olives. it was a beautiful plate, only missing a garnish (apologies to my food service management professor, garnishes are her pet peeve).

we also found some decently priced pinot noir at the store, so had a glass with dinner, and ended up just sitting and talking for a while about all kinds of things. like sororities, school, the internship, and why WE are doing nutrition.

i guess when it boils down to it, i'm just passionate about empowering people who don't think they can eat healthy to beat the odds and do so. to teach them how to shop and cook on a limited budget, to plan, to organize. i love those kinds of things, especially when it's in meeting needs.

after that we had every intention of hitting the books...until lori's friend robert came over with his huge malamute dog. so we spent the next hour or two all just sitting around the table, talking and playing with the dogs. come ten, i was tired, but i managed to crank out an hour of medical terminology before hitting the sac.

evening, morning.

the last thing i wanted to do was get up and go on a jog this morning, i even hit the snooze, which i rarely do. but i got up and put my running clothes on, before i looked outside, which is a good thing. had i seen the misty gray morning that met my eyes while i still had my pj's on i would have just crawled back in bed. after all, no class today. but my running shoes were eager to go, still being fairly fresh out of the box, and i knew that i would be better off to just go ahead and go.

i only got minorly lost on my way to the beach....i should just stick to the main roads. but i finally got there: alki. i hear about it all the time, and i drove along it the other day. i spotted a bakery as well, and was really wishing that i had a book so i could grab coffee and a scone after my jog....but not today. jogging was wonderful- it was so peaceful and beautiful, mysteriously serene with all that fog.

quiet too, except for the birds. and the dogs- everyone here has one. i'm not kidding. everywhere you look there is someone and their dog....in the coffee shop, in target, on the street, at the beach. as i was jogging i discovered that there are constellations designed in the sidewalk...i stopped to look at the first few, and then decided i'll come back one night to actually find them in the sky. 30 minutes later i was back at my car, headed home for some breakfast.

okay, i know i'm getting long-winded. er...i AM long winded, and this is getting long. but, truth be told, i just realized that it's 5pm, which means that i might as well stay where i am for another hour, because if i go anywhere now, i'll spend the next hour in traffic anyway.

so after breakfast i went to starbucks to read and study for a bit, and this old philipino man named angelo sat down at a table near me. i hadn't bought a coffee yet, and he asked me if i wanted anything. honestly, i thought he was a creeper. i said no thanks, if i wanted something i would get it later. 5 minutes later: "what you like? i buy drink for you, i'm nice guy." uh, no thanks, i'm okay for now, but thank you. ten minutes later he strikes up a conversation about how he works on a cruise ship and his family is still in the philipines. he's been living for himself for the past 5 years here in america, squandering away, but just got this cruise ship job, "praise de god." he then hands me $5 and insists that i go buy a drink. i assure him that it isn't necessary, but he persists. so i did, a tall nonfat pumpkin spice latte, mmmmm. i thank him for being so generous, and he proceeds to explain that he saw me reading my bible. he said that he has been going to a local church here in seattle, and that he has all this money and basically nothing to do with it. he said he likes to be generous, and we talk a bit about what it looks like to show grace with the things that we have, to give to those in need. we then continued on to our separate tasks, me reading, him working on the computer.

now, i'm not in need or anything, and a latte is far from one of the necessities of life, but i still learned much from his generosity. jesus talks a lot about being generous with the things that we have, because they are only temporary. after all, all that we have is his, we can only give to him what was his to begin with. so why do we hold onto things so tightly? regardless of his intentions, what a sweet picture of generosity, from a total stranger. thanks angelo.

okay, that's all. tonight i'm headed to a community group potluck, but i have to get back across town to get there, which is at least a 30 minute affair. unless i happen to encounter another drawbridge, which was crazy cool to watch...draw up(?) on my way here. here being a coffee shop named zoka in the university district, where i met stephanie, a fellow intern, to study (though we probably talked real life for half the time...which, let's be honest, is way more worthwhile than a silly quiz).

thanks and gig them.