Escaping the uniform crackdown, but not Mother Nature

I braved the Storm of 2008 this morning to stand in the howling wind at the ferry terminal with about 5 other hardy souls, including the guy who rides his bike to from Rockridge to SF SOMA every day via the ferry. He was really wet. One woman asked if I felt safe on the boat, and I told her I'd rather be on the ferry than on the freeway. Besides, I said, if the ferry was unsafe, they wouldn't let us get on. Which is exactly what happened. The boat pulled up, right on time, and once they docked, one of the deckhands came up the ramp and shoo'd us away. They'd already made two round trips to the City and back, he said, and weren't ready to make another. By the time I got back to my car, a block away, my jeans were soaked through. I headed back up the hill (slowly, with limited visibility), and since the power held out today, I worked from home.

I worked on some recipes for upcoming e-letters (potato leek soup, spinach with walnut sauce, pork chops with scallions and sour cream) and answered some emails. I checked the CCA website for some clue as to our graduation date, which Andy asked me about last week, but couldn't find information. Posted on the home page, though, I found a new 36-point "CCA Uniform Code: DO's and DON'Ts." Of special note: "DO wear the commis cap squarely on the head about 1 inch above the eyebrows. (I hate that hat.) DO wear pants with one 'break.' (This means that the length of the pant must reach the top of the shoe just below the shoestrings.) DO NOT wear a commis cap while smoking and riding the shuttle. DO NOT wear uniform components outside of Academy facilities and the shuttle. DO NOT wear nylons as it poses a safety issue should hot liquids be spilled." I'm glad I'm out of there -- not so much because I'd be affected by these strict requirements, because I wouldn't. (Except that I often went to the grocery store after class, in uniform.) But I can just imagine the uproar among some of my classmates, and the amount of non-cooking time that would be used up in order to enforce the "new" rules.

And just to elaborate on my NYE "revelation": I don't want you to think that there's any thing WRONG with my internship. Um, I see how you might think that, especially since I said "what's WRONG is..." It was more of a spontaneous realization, in the middle of an afternoon putzing around the kitchen, that I really enjoy putzing around the kitchen for hours every day. I really don't want a cooking job. I just remembered that I like to cook. If you know what I mean.