Birthdays and Rules to Live By

True story: the other night, while working at the bakery, I serenaded one of my co-workers with "Eternal Flame" when it came on the radio.  Shock value = 7/10

So I've been thinking about coming up with my own set of rules or guidelines for working in a bakery.  Granted, many of them may be focused toward the female employee, but I'm a girl, so I guess that's to be expected.  And on that note, here are the first two on what will become Brooke's rules for happy bakery employees:

Rule #1: Wash your hands before AND after you go to the bathroom.  Seriously, because when I'm working my hands are constantly caked in flour and dough bits, and I don't know about you, but I don't want to get either of those things near my lady parts.  Every time I think about it, it just brings this back into my mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twkV_xXPMvI

Rule #2:  If you're constantly being made to use the dough divider to make the rolls on your work shift, do not tell your co-worker that you're on "ball patrol."  Believe it or not, I am not the one who said this, rather it was said to me, and I had to stop working for a couple of minutes because I couldn't stop laughing.  The next day the same co-worker saw me using the divider and asked me if I was on "boule patrol" (boule is a term used for a rounded loaf of dough, which is how we shape larger amounts of it before putting it into the divider).  I concurred that I was, indeed, on boule patrol, and he said, "it sounds a lot better than when I say 'ball patrol', right?"  So true.

Work has been interesting lately.  I'm pretty well adjusted to being one of only 2 girls working as a bread baker as well as to working mostly with men who don't speak English as a second language.  My Mom bought me a set of Spanish immersion CDs which I'm looking forward to using, but until then, my Spanish is still incredibly rudimentary.  At time I feel like I'm living in some alternate "Smurf" reality, where everyone uses the same word for everything and anything, in this case it's, "claro" which from what I understand means, "clear" or "exactly".  Yes, my co-workers will use this for it's proper meaning, for example if I ask one of them if I have something right, they will respond with claro, but they'll use it for everything under the sun.  If they want your attention? Claro.  If they're teasing you? Claro.  If they want you to start doing something differently?  Claro.  If they want you to do something the same way you've been doing it, again, claro.  You can see how this would be confusing, yes? (Claro!)  Also, there's this song that they sometimes play on the Spanish radio stations, and the chorus goes, "waka waka...mole mole."  So one time I sang along with it and now one of my co-workers will randomly yell, "waka waka" and wait for me to say, "mole mole!" and if I don't, he will assume that I "didn't hear him" and will follow me around repeating "waka waka" until I respond appropriately.  I am definitely living in a cartoon.

Dave and I had a great time being back in Buffalo for my birthday.  It was a fun-filled weekend of driving, exhaustion, fasting (here's to being born around Yom Kippur!), birthdaying and babies.  Luckily we were able to see a lot of people, and spend time with most of our family members, especially since it had been 9 months since we'd seen most of them.  All of it just really makes me wish we were living back in Buffalo already.  I know that we're planning on getting back there in the future, but as with anything you want, it's always hard to wait for your plans to come to fruition.  Plus, just being able to hang out in the same room with my hubby and my sister Morgan is always a great time.  It's like we're in this never ending contest trying to make each other laugh and then my Mom will eventually throw her hands up in the air and say that it's like she's living in an improv show.  It was also fun to see some of my friend's kids, I can't believe how quickly they're growing up, I can't even really call them babies anymore seeing as they're all pretty much toddlers.  It's nice to see that they're already learning to ignore football games in favor of toys though...being a Bills fan is rough stuff, no matter what age you are.

p.s. I also want to send special thanks to all of my friends who conspired to make me a ridiculous amount of bandannas/hair-kerchiefs.  I love them all, and they greatly amuse my co-workers.