When the winds of autumn blow

one may never know what can happen. This morning it was pouring rain. I walked to school with an umbrella wondering why in the world I was even bothering to go into work. I just wanted to curl up in bed and fall asleep. Within minutes of me being at work it was sunny...SUNNY!!!! At noon I get ready to leave work and it's pouring. The other work study said look at the sky and, as if he were the creepy little kid in all of the horror movies, it rained. It just started to pour. After bragging about how real men don't use umbrellas he waited for me to leave, so I could escort him in the down pour.

After that rain died down, it rained again, while it was gorgeously sunny outside. The wind was blowing and the weather was sporadic to say the least. I ventured out again for a panel on the future of journalism. Ha! future is such a creative term. Honestly the panel went well and, while I still don't have my lede for the article I have to write about it, I am hopeful that I will come Friday, when I sit down to create a masterpiece.

I had intentions to write this masterpiece tonight. I got a thing of chicken out of the freezer, defrosted it, baked some sweet potato fries, and when they were done I turned on the broiler to start the chicken. Matt is a super fan of the broiler chicken, and I honestly hadn't given it a chance yet, but I thought I was ready.

When the winds of autumn blow one never knows what may happen. After opening the broiler the first time my fire alarm went off. This is why people take the batteries out of those things and they aren't ready for the real fire. I swatted my fire alarm with my oven mitt, it turned off, and I went back to check the chicken. It wasn't ready, but my nice newish looking pan was beginning to burn. GAHHHH!!! I took the fries off my already burnt pan and put the chicken on that pan. Back into the broiler it went. I am starving by this point, just so you know.

I was getting kind of restless, so for the last time I pull the chicken out of the broiler. The problem. I had broken the cardinal rule of cooking by letting my oven mitt get wet while cutting the chicken to see if it was done. It sizzled. The tip of my middle finger sizzled, through the oven mitt. In what seemed to take 5 hours I dropped the pan and the chicken slid onto the floor. My meal, my sanity, fell on the floor. I placed the pan while my finger was sizzling on top of the stove and bent down with a spatula to pick up the chicken. One burn a day is enough. I wasn't up for picking up sizzling chicken. My finger is in that throbbing, burning, ouchy stage and any good thoughts I had about life just didn't exist anymore.

I am starving and that stupid chicken is sitting on the spatula. I would like to tell you that I threw it away. My floor is a cesspool of dirt. It's gross really. Just this week I thought to myself that I hadn't swept it in a while. Even if I sweep, scrub, and clorox the entire floor I would not call this floor safe to eat off of. I live in an old apartment and the dirt on these wooden floors runs deep.

But I had to eat the chicken. My finger was throbbing. I was still starving and it was just not fair that all of that work should just end badly. If it makes all of you Monkish people out there feel better, the chicken did not taste good. I swallowed it. It didn't satisfy me and my finger still hurt. In fact it still hurts. And I really want a soda. I am still tempted to walk to Trader Joes to get something to make me happy, but I really am trying to save my money since this weekend I'm going away. So here I sit, hoping I'll feel more enthused about my story Friday, finger throbbing, wishing I had something to eat that would make this ball of dirty dirty chicken feel better in my stomach. The winds are blowing. What will happen next? I'm hoping that a lot of leaves fall on the ground and nothing else.

Happy Eating!!!

Emily