khakis and cupcakes

yesterday morning i awoke to my same old self; particularly, my unemployed same old self.

but my friends, today is the start of a new me...an EMPLOYED me. say hello to the new assistant caterer of a nationally acclaimed bakery-cafe franchise. and i will not just be working part-time but full-time...talk about going zero to sixty in a span of about three days (okay, so that doesn’t sound so good if you are still stuck on the car analogy, but hear me out). i literally met with my (now) boss on tuesday and received an offer by thursday. now that’s what i call a short and sweet courtship. we are officially dating, an item if you will, and i can’t tell you how excited i am for this relationship to begin! there is just one thing standing in my way...

khaki pants. that’s right. not jeans. not black or even gray attire. the official dress of my catering kind involves khaki pants and a white polo shirt. maybe if i grew up on the east coast i would have a plethora of these items lying around, but growing up in northern california, it was all about the casual look. torn jeans, skater shoes or reefs, t-shirts...nothing like what i witnessed during my freshman orientation at the private northeastern university which i attended. never before had i seen that much plaid and salmon colored attire outside of a jcrew catalog. in fact, i think if anyone had dared to wear pants stitched with tiny lobsters or crabs at my high school they would’ve been promptly beaten up in the parking lot. i digress. the point is that throughout these years i have successful averted the khaki kingdom and now i must join it. i really should’ve seen this coming though. khaki is really the only alternative to black when going for the “business casual” look. i’m just whining that i have to now go and purchase clothes for my job before i even start making money.

in lieu of my transition from unemployment to employment, my parents want to take me out to celebrate. i’m tempted to just nix the dinner and instead ask them to purchase a polo shirt for me but now i’m thinking that’s the wrong way to go. it’s not every day that you are around people who genuinely care about you enough to want to celebrate your successes in life. so i have decided to honor that by spending some time with my parents (as if we don't spend enough time together). i actually kicked-off the celebration stage by doing something wild and crazy last night: i baked. you see, i recently bought these adorable mini cupcake trays and baking cups and decided to bring out the baker in me. my mission was to successfully decorate my cupcakes using homemade frosting and spell out something like “hallelujah” on them to express my relief at landing a job. i even wanted to photograph my finished project and post it alongside this blog entry.

well, let me tell you: the whole decorating process is far more complicated to master than you would expect. just transferring the frosting from the bowl to the pastry bag was a gooey catastrophe. the consistency of the frosting was poor to begin with and losing volume with every stressful, passing minute. my cupcakes didn’t need face cream, they needed some fluffy flair! and because they were so small, i found out that i had to keep them in the baking pan so that they wouldn't be wobbly and tip over while i applied the frosting. to my disappointment, what started off as a blissful, celebratory experience resulted in absolute failure. we now have about forty-five abandoned and naked mini cupcakes sitting in the corner of our kitchen. this personal aspiration of mine will have to be tackled another day. proof that you shouldn’t underestimate anything “mini”.

(that’s what she said).