Work vacay...

Turns out, when you get a real job your time is suddenly sucked away into a black hole of productivity and procrastination. Its a strange paradox of getting stuff done, but never really getting anything achieved. So my days are full of putting newspaper bundles full of plant material into giant shelving systems and then taking those bundles out to insert little bits of paper identifying the plant material and sending them to someone else's office. THen I usually get the plant material back (now mounted on cardstock) where I get to put them back into the shelving unit. Its a circular process. I never am able to clear my shelves completely.
Yesterady we took a little field trip on a mission to find a plant in the forest. This is seriosuly like a needle in a haystack. We drove two hours down to the Mark Twain National Forest and picked a spot along side the road and dove into the woods. Once we found the particular plant, we weren't allowed to collect it (permit issues) so we wrote down the GPS coordinates and continued to look. It was great to take a hike to relieve the travel stress I have been feeling, plus it was a BEAUTIFUL day in southern Missouri. I got a bit of botany lessons along the way, which is always a plus.
A milkweed bloom:

Wildlife:


My favorite plant:


Side trip to Elephant Rocks!

Trivial Pursuit

I have a new tradition. The Marine, JoeCool and I set out last night to start our new Thursday night ritual of drinking and answering ridiculous questions to compete with people we don’t know in a cozy bar down the street from my apartment. The Tower Pub is the location, and Tenacious trivia night is the event. The Marine has been before but it was JoeCool and my first time attending, and let me tell you, we kicked ass. Well, JoeCool did, The Marine and I kept insisting on wrong answers (that we were so sure were right!) and we ended up getting third place. But third place prize was a quick drying towel that I quickly snatched up and used this morning. First place prize is always $25 bar credit and if you are sad enough to end up in last place, you get a free round of shots. Nice! There is usually a theme to the questions, and last nights theme was: Seasons.
See if you can get these trivia bits correct…

-Name the movie where Richard Gere and Winona Ryder play star crossed lovers.
-Something like 16 artists have recorded a song by the name “Summertime”, name 2.
-Who is the actress who had a role in Three’s Company and Step by Step?

You get the drift. It was a lot of fun, and we were a pretty good team. Our name was very badass too, The Marine insisted on it. We were Anubis and the Zombies. Nice!

City Living

This goes out to all of those who insist that St. Louis is a dead city. I heard it all the time when I was in school, and now I get it all the time at work that there is nothing to do in this town! I am the only one at work that likes St. Louis as a place of residence. When I was interviewing, someone even listed “St. Louis location” as a downside of my job. Huh? For instance…

A couple of Fridays ago I went to a casino on the Illinois side (in Alton, IL) to see the Preservation Hall Jazz Band perform. I have one of their CD’s (gift from the ListMaker) and have always enjoyed the funkiness of the New Orleans jazz. It was amazing! I am, however, not amazing at gambling. But it was so much fun to get out and see a nationally recognized act perform live in a small venue. Not mention, they really rocked out on “St. Louis Blues”…

This past weekend I saw Jesus Christ Superstar at the magnificent Fox Theater. Jesus was played by the original Jesus from the movie, Ted Neeley, and Judas was played by Corey Glover. It was so much fun to sit and sing along (under my breath of course, I mean, it IS the Fox Theater). Before seeing the musical performance, we ate at a really cute Greek restaurant called Momo’s. The feta cheese and chickpea cakes were really good.

And of course, on Saturday I participated in the second largest Mardi Gras celebration in the country. Soulard is virtually shut down to anyone other than beer guzzling, hurricane pounding, bead throwing St. Louisans. Live music is on just about every corner, and residents of this area set up shop on their balconies to watch the debauchery unfold. My favorite was when we found the DJ booth that played oldies of my youth such as “No Diggity”, “Gangsters Paradise” and “Tootsie Roll.” Awesome!

The Third World Country of St. Louis

That giant hole that was dug in front of my apartment last Friday is still there. Just sitting there, while the street is pretty much blocked off and half of the parking spaces are gone. I am puzzled by the giant hole and why it is still there, slowly filling with the rain we have been getting this week. I made the tongue in cheek reference last week about how it reminded me of the sewage line project I witnessed in Nicaragua. In Nicaragua the [dirt] street was [hand] dug up to lay the [first ever] sewage lines in the city, a process that took about 4 days to complete for each street. I would have never thought that a project like this would take longer to do in car-centric St. Louis than it would in a third world country.

In other news, when I am sorting plants Pandora tells me I like to listen to music that features “electronica and acid jazz roots, rap and funk influences, mellow breakbeat rhythms, and vocal sampling.” This would include Prefuse 73, Mark Rae, Cut Chemist and This Kid Named Miles, and Girl Talk. Just in case you were wondering what kept me sane while I decipher stipules that distinguish Rubiaceae (interpetiole) from Moraceae (lateral that leaves a scar).

Hope the overtime pay has kicked in.

It is 10:45pm on a Friday night here in Southwest Gardens. This is going on outside of my window:


You can be sure that they are not quiet, or finishing up anytime soon.

Edited to add: As Sarah mentioned, it looks like street construction in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua. Except for in Nicaragua, it was all done by hand...

The big city has nothing on us

I think I just heard my BigCityCoWorker say, “It’s good to be back home” at the end of his story about how tiny the kitchen was in his mother’s apartment in “The City.” Score one for St. Louis!

Edited to Add: Okay, maybe not. Right after that someone made the mistake of asking BigCityCoWorker how his vacation went. 20 minutes later the entire office was more knowledgeable on THE CITY'S drop in murder rate since the 70s, change in attitude since 9/11, and how much better their park is than ours. Well damn. I thought we almost had him.

Real World

I am happy to announce that I will no longer have entertaining stories of the ballpit, caves or firepit. Instead, my blog might turn into "the funny thing Dr.Portulacea said at the water cooler" and the new strain of quinine we found in oregon. That's right, I got the big institution job! I start on Monday. ON MONDAY!! Tomorrow is my last night at the glorified playground and Monday my first day at the research center. I am beyond excited and getting a little nervous. I am confident in my skills (woohoo inflated ego!) but nervous in starting a career. How silly, right? Right? tell me that is silly.

Sweet Justice

Saturday nights I work the front desk at the glorified playground. We are open until 1a, and the bar is open until 1:30a, so the crowds get a little rowdy at times. For that reason, we have three cops stationed at the museum on friday and saturday nights. They are the three/four same guys most nights, so you get to know them pretty well. Officer Gato is the one everyone knows and respects the most. He is definitely an officer that would intimidate me the most, if I were ever on the other end of his flashlight beam. Officer Tired is one of my favorites, he is constantly tired and constantly eating cookies from the cafe, and often texting his wife from the caves. Officer WhiteBoy alternates with Officer GoodLooking and they are pretty much equally removed from caaring about the playground and like to just chat it up with floor staff.
Now the playground might not be the most action packed place ever for the officers. They do get a kick out of breaking up teenagers in the dark corners of the caves, they are excellent at sniffing out cigarette smoke from fire pit smoke from illegal smoke, and they love getting after people in the ballpit.
So Saturday night I was giving a break at the ballpit that was full of 9-10 year old boys. Then two guys, about 22 years old, get in the pit. This is a recipe for disaster. So the inevitable happens, and the older guys are picking off kids left and right. They are throwing really really hard, and the kids are getting really worked up. So I yell
"Guys! Take it down a notch!"
"If you bleed, we alllll have to leave!"
"YOU! Red shirt! Stop throwing so hard."
Nothing works. The guys girlfriends are even yelling for them to stop. So I yell one last time.
"Blue hat! One more head shot and you are out."
blue hat: "YOU'RE out!"
me: "Excuse me? I work here!"
blue hat: "I WORK HERE!"then he starts to throw balls in my direction
me: 'Thats it you are out!"
blue hat: "Oooh, YOU ARE OUT!"
So I call for the officers on the walkie talkie, and the desired effect happens. The guy heard me do it and they all left the ballpit. When the officers show up, I tell them what happened and they get mad.
Officer Gato: "What does he look like? We are going to get him"
Officer Tired: "Where did he go? How old was he?"
THey are on a mission, and finally they find the guy. They do their whole officer intimidation thing, and this guy is pissed. Officer Gato asks me to come over so the guy can apologize to me. He of course, does not want to. He thought I was joking around. He didn't think the kids that were half his age were being hit too hard.
In the end, he finally apologized for being an ass, and I told him to have a good night. Officer Gato escorted him and his friends out of the playground.
Now, I didn't need all that to happen, but it is kinda awesome it did.

Maybe a major change...

After my interview with the big institution I have always talked about working for, in the department i thought only existed in my dreams, I of course had second thoughts. i mean, am I a career type? could I go to the same office, same cubicle year after year? I mean I really never ever want to say I have an office job, and where this new big job comes with benefits and salary (say what!?) it also includes some travel. i mean, I have to grow up eventually. I really can't work in the glorified playground for the rest of my life! And today it really hit me. I was at the playground, doing my duties, when i was asked to go on a "special project." since my duties at the time consisted of sitting in front of a fake cave system making sure none of our 5 customers walked in without an adult with them, I was stoked to be put on a special project. i was handed a bucket of cleaning solution, and a squeegee (squigi?). My special project was to clean the bathroom walls. As i was cleaning the walls, one of the nice housekeeping staff poked his head in the bathroom.
"Say, Alyse. I heard something bout you."
"Is that right? What did you hear?"
"I heard you had a college degree!"
"Yes, thats right, I went to WashU'
"Oh you go girl, you get it! you got it!"
It wasn't even in irony that Anthony brought up my degree from washU while I was cleaning a public bathroom. But right there, yeah, I'm ready for a research position in my field.