I say "last night", but when I took that photo, it was all of 6:12 p.m.
After the time change tonight, this will be the light at 5:12 p.m.
I'll have to start leaving work earlier (even with lights, I don't like biking in the dark), but at least there's more light in the mornings...
ANYWAY. . . the cake!
It worked.
Big Boss pointed out I've never made cake for work before.
I was surprised. Is that true?
I guess so...
We get so much donated bakery, even if it is Palm Oil Delight dyed the color of that sunset, above, I haven't felt like bringing more, thinking people wouldn't care.
I was wrong.
"You're going to make me fall in love with you," said Jeff Croquette, who doesn't usually express enthusiasm. [See, Medicated. That's literally how he explained how he keeps his cool at work, when I asked. ] "You can bake!"
Jeff cooks––he's the one who told me how to make salmon croquettes when we got canned salmon donated––but he doesn't bake.
"Would you ever make a pound cake?" he said.
I told him my mother used to make pound cake with orange zest.
So, that's next up.
When I left work, Louise, my coworker who's always saying
the food is so much better in Mississippi where she's from, praised the cake and said, "Thank you for being so thoughtful and studious."
"Studious"?
I love that. But how does it relates to cake...?
Maybe because I paid attention to what Grateful-J likes? I actually just asked him. I guess that's studying! Paying attention.
I set the table in the break room with a plastic tablecloth--the only one I could find was for a one-year-old baby boy's birthday. I covered the printed 1s with handwritten 42s.
I got everyone to sign the mushroom card I'd watercolored.
When I gave it to Grateful-J, he looked confused. "Did Ass't Man paint this?" (AM draws illustrations--used to work as a graphic designer.)
"No, I said. "I did."
Grateful-J texted me later, "You made me feel very special."
So, that's nice, but it also made me a little sad that we don't celebrate each other more. But that's not this workplace's culture.
I'm always talking about class and race, but I think here, it's gender.
What do you think?
I think women are more likely than men, percentage-wise, to make a fuss over a birthday.
I work with a lot of guys.
All the guys at my job do for celebrations is buy pizza. Or, nothing.
The nice thing there is, hey, you don't have to do anything much! And they don't take it personally. "You forgot my birthday"? No.
Marz is working with all women at the French bakery café.
"When it's all females, sometimes we treat each other like trinkets," she said.
Yes!
When I was looking for clothes to wear to bink's wedding, the women were all helping.
Manageress gave me some shiny lipstick and found me a little handbag. Louise lent me a necklace of her own. Noa (who has since quit) advised me on earrings.
It's true that Big Boss advised me that the all–dark brown velvet outfit was too dark.
"It looks like for a funeral."
And he was right--I ended up switching out the jacket for the vintage one that matched my "lemongrass green" shoes.
But that's not treating me like a trinket.
Mr Furniture harping on my unshaved legs isn't either.
Hm, maybe that's the difference?
The guys help with joshing.
Women help with--literally--trinkets.
When my sister came to help me get ready for the wedding, she showed up with hair clips, a bracelet, and mascara.
But it's not the physical trinkets Marz means, I don't think. It's an attitude. An attitude that studies what people like, and makes a big deal with little things.
The attitude can be fraught with pitfalls--watchful jealousy, among others. ("Why didn't you make me a cake?")
But generally I love it, and I miss it at my workplace.
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