PaperGirl Blog by Mary Fons

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12 Nov 2015

Miss District of Columbia.

by Mary | posted in: Chicago, D.C., Day In The Life, Paean, Travel, Washington | 0

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Photo: Me, July 2015.

Six days — six days — from right now, I’ll be back in Chicago. It has been such a long, long, long, long and incredible trip. God, I’ve loved living in Washington, DC. It carried me so far and I loved where we went. My darling, a short list of what I’ll miss the most.

– The scent of my tenth-floor apartment: fresh paint, trees, French perfume, clean air.

– The drive to Ronald Reagan National Airport from my building. The taxi takes me the length of Rock Creek Parkway and it’s like driving through the countryside, right there in the city.

– The macaroons of consequence at Firehook Bakery. Baseball-sized, dipped in dark chocolate. With a cup of black coffee, my favorite breakfast.

– How when you turn a corner or approach a park, another bronze or marble memorial greets you and you appreciate the artists who carved the art, the humans who carved the country, and time that carves the rest.

– Mr. Lumbibi, my favorite of the Kennedy Warren front desk staff. He always asks me where I’m off to when he sees me lugging suitcases. John’s usually on the night shift.

– The view of the Klingle Valley outside my window. Cue tears. That’s one’s gonna hurt.

– The opportunity to get closer to Elle, to Carissa, to Carla, the gorgeous girls I met at the DC Modern Quilt Guild and never spent enough time with while I was here.

– The National Gallery.

– Le Diplomat, the perfect French Bistro: I went on three different dates there and the Lyonnaise salad is the best I’ve ever had, especially with a glass (fine: two) of Charles Hiedsieck Brut Reserve NV.

– The Mid-Atlantic weather. I am going back to Chicago at the worst time possible, weather-wise. Great, Fons. Very nice.

– Dropping my mail through the mail chute. It goes all the way to the lobby! I love that!

– Telling people, “I live in Washington, D.C.” It always sounded amazing. And it was.

11 Nov 2015

To A Female Veteran.

by Mary | posted in: Paean | 0

Detail, Vietnam Women's Memorial, Washington, DC. Photo: Wikipedia — Detail, Vietnam Women’s Memorial, Washington, DC. Photo: Wikipedia

Dear Female Veteran:

Thank you for taking a job with a company who is up front about the fact that what you do might kill you. Thank you for rolling those dice. Thank you for actually doing what I say I would “totally do” if I got drafted. Thank you for having the courage to not wait to get drafted.

Thanks for saving my life, my sisters’ lives, the lives of all the women in my quilt guild, my mother, the niece I hope to have someday. Thank you for saving my friend Heather’s life, my friend Bari’s life, my Aunt Leesa’s life. Thank you for saving the plot where my paternal grandmother is buried, the plot where my maternal grandmother is buried, the lives of my friend Annie’s daughters and the lives of all three of my beautiful female cousins. Thank you for all those lives and all the millions of other girls’ lives you protected or protect now or will protect when you get out of basic.

Thank you, Female Veteran, for doing the hard part. There are times — no one can honestly deny it — the mud on your boots is muddier than the mud on the boots of the guy in front of you because you’re a girl and it’s different for you, different because some things really are different and different because they tell you they are, even when they aren’t. All of us out here, all us girls, we get it. Thank you for doing it for us, for not just matching the guy in front of you but for exhausting yourself further to prove our worth. I promise you, I am trying in my own ways. But I can’t bounce a quarter off my bed, so you win.

We are so distracted. We are inside a box of Cheez-Its watching Say Yes To the Dress! — but if I start listing all the things I’m ashamed of, you’ll miss some kind of checkpoint thing and get in trouble and that is the opposite of what I want for you right now. Thank you for fighting for us anyway, even if we’re inside a box of Cheez-Its.

Happy Veteran’s Day, Female Veteran. I really love this country, even so. And we don’t have it, I don’t have it, without every single one of you.

Love,
Mary

9 Nov 2015

Hello, Denver! And Fort Collins!

by Mary | posted in: Day In The Life, Quilting, Work | 0

Hello, Denver!

On Thursday, I’ll be getting in an airplane and flying to Denver. That evening, I have the pleasure of giving a lecture to the Denver Modern Quilt Guild. I can’t wait to meet you all.

Then, on Friday and Saturday, I’ll be at Above & Beyond Sewing, frolicking among the BabyLock machines, doing lectures, demos, and a robust trunk show. My friend Bari said my life sounded glamorous, flying from here to there, working on a stage, flying through TSA pre-check. I corrected her and I’ll make sure you know: I love doing these events (love) but the glamour factor is pretty low, at least regarding the travel part. I wheel multiple suitcases full of quilts and often an extra duffel bag of them. I have to keep track of receipts, so when I pay for a coffee, I pull out a big, pink plastic envelope. The Starbucks guy is surely thinking I’m either a hoarder or a serious cheapskate. And I know the insides of a lot of Courtyard Marriotts. Which are actually really nice, but I like a Holiday Inn Express a little better.

Whatever the hotel, I’m thrilled to go on this trip and look forward to meeting all the Colorado quilters I can meet in the three days I’m there. Come on down; let’s hang out.

Did you know Colorado has an average of 300 days of sunshine every year? Did you know when I get back from Denver I have 1.5 days to finish packing before Claus comes to help me move to Chicago? Did you know I tried to hire an army of lilliputians to help me but they were booked?

8 Nov 2015

True Tales From Brunch: SCRAM FLAT, Part II.

by Mary | posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life, Food | 0

Way bigger than the restaurant's actual kitchen, but a decent facsimile. Photo: Wikipedia — Way bigger than the restaurant’s actual kitchen, but a decent facsimile. Photo: Wikipedia

Please read Part I of this story (one post prior) or you’ll miss the important setup.

I approach the family, who was spilling out of the booth. There were Cheerios everywhere, but we did not serve cereal at the restaurant, so these were brought in from home. Two booster seats were cramming the narrow aisle but it was cool; these folks deserved (?) brunch like everyone else in Chicago. A yoga mat was stuffed into the corner because Mom had just come from class. Even though there was jelly soaked into my apron and egg on my shoe, I was chipper.

“Good morning, you guys,” I say, “You’ve been here a few times — I bet you know what you want!” I’m doing the assumed close, you see. Three new tables had been sat behind me and had already gotten coffee. Let’s do this.

“Yeah,” the mother said, and she put her fingers to her chin to ask what I prepared myself to be a focused question. “Belle is going to have the corned beef hash — do you think that’s something she’ll like? Corned beef?” Belle was six, so probably not. I told Mom, “Probably not. There are lots of peppers and corned beef is kind of an advanced thing… It’s a big plate.”

“Okay… I think… Belle, do you want corned beef?” Belle colored her placemat and said “Whatever,” without looking up.

“Let’s do that,” Mom said. “And Slade wants scrambled eggs, but can you have the kitchen make the eggs flat like a pancake?”

“Eggs on a pancake, sure,” I said, scribbling on my pad, making sure to press my pen hard so the carbon copy would come out clear for the kitchen.

“No, not on a pancake,” she said. “I’m wondering if you can scramble the eggs, like, flat.” She cocked her head and she looked like a cockatiel.

I looked up. “Scramble them flat.”

“You know, like put them on the grill and smooth them out, so they’re scrambled but, like, flat. And then flip it? So it’s flat? It would be like a pancake?”

I couldn’t stop blinking at her. Teddy, my righthand man, the best busboy who has ever lived, squeezed past me to grab the twenty-fourth pot of coffee of that morning.*

“Well,” I said. “I’ll ask the kitchen,” I said. On my pad, I wrote the shorthand word for scrambled eggs, which is “SCRAM.” Then, cocking my head like a cockatiel, I wrote, “FLAT.” So on my pad I had “SCRAM FLAT.”

“Thanks,” the woman said, “Is that weird?” I told her it was really, really weird. And I left them with a thank-you and a smile and banged through the double doors to the kitchen like we all banged through the double doors because that’s what double doors in a restaurant do: they bang.

“Glen,” I said, approaching the line. I could see the Great Men through the metal line where they were putting plates up. It was like a ballet back there. “Glen, this ticket says SCRAM FLAT. They want…” I could hardly tell him. This was a grown man. This was a man with dignity. I just came out with it: “Glen, they want the scrambled eggs flat. Like, scramble the eggs… Flat.”

There was no time for pausing but Glen stopped what he was doing and asked me what the [redacted] that meant. I explained the best I could. And he said “Alright,” because that’s what a Great Man does when faced with a challenge and indeed, about fifteen minutes later, I had a plate with SCRAM FLAT, sprinkled with parsley, with a twisted orange slice on the side. And love in there, because every plate had love in there.

Belle sent back the corned beef; Slade ate every bite.

*Teddy once caught me in the coat closet, bent me back like we were on the cover of a romance novel and kissed me on the lips. “Mi amor,” he said, “I’m in love with you.” That’s a story for another day.

8 Nov 2015

True Tales From Brunch: SCRAM FLAT, Part I.

by Mary | posted in: Chicago, Day In The Life | 3

There are many, many pictures of eggs on Wiki Commons. You do not need to go through them all because I have found the only one you really need to see and this is it. — There are many, many pictures of eggs and pictures including eggs on Wiki Commons. You do not need to go through them all because I have found the only one you really need to see and this is it. Photo: Wikipedia

From about 2004 to 2006, I waited tables at a hot brunch restaurant in uptown Chicago. I got the job right when it opened and it was almost immediately the spot to eat breakfast on the north side. this was a lucky break for me because I needed money and I made good money there. I worked for it, as you’ll see, but it was worth it.

We were only open on Saturday and Sunday from 8am-3pm, so it felt like an event to be there, even if you just had coffee and toast. The dining room was small: at capacity, we packed about 45-50 people in there — not many people if you’re a brunch restaurant in Chicago. There were many weekends when the wait for a table would be three hours long, and folks would wait. If your friend tells you he waited three hours to get into a brunch restaurant, you’re going there next weekend. You going to get there earlier than your friend did, but you’re going there.

The decor was fabulous, the front-of-house team was tight as a drum, and the owner has been beloved by the community for decades, but true honor and praise has to go to the cooks. Oh, the cooks! How I loved (my) cooks! Those three men toiled in that tiny, city kitchen and like some six-armed Indian god, they turned out delicious, gorgeous breakfasts for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people every weekend.

Yes, hundreds. I would do my tally sheet at the end of a shift and I’d have turned 300 covers. That means I waited on 300 people. In eight hours. But there were three waiters. So you’re talking a thousand plates of food served from 8am-3pm on a busy Saturday, same thing on Sunday. Much factors into a successful restaurant, but honestly, it comes down to the food, man, and we were doing breakfast well: perfect chewy-crispy bacon, a lox platter big as your purse. Hollandaise so creamy somebody’s gonna get in trouble. A vinaigrette with the perfect tartness, everything organic, blah, blah, blah, yum. And the people who prepped, handled, and made all food in that hot beehive back there were the engine. The food people are the engine for any restaurant, so you should always be nice to them. But that was the other thing about my guys on the line: they were great. It was a pleasure to be in the weeds with them.

“Glen! Pot-roast Benedict on the fly and I’m missing an over-easy bacon –”

“Look at that,” Glen would say as he handed me the eggs before the order was out of my mouth, magically plating a perfect pot-roast Benedict in the time it took me to toast the toast. This was all happening in a hurricane, you realize.

“I will marry you,” I’d say, and Glen, who was about 6’4, Jamaican, and had thick dreads down the middle of his back all the way to his waist, would turn to his physical opposite, wan, beanpole Steve at the grill and say, “She loves me, Steve.”

“I know!” Steve would say, and flip ninety free-range sausage patties. “If I can’t have her, you’re alright, I guess.” I’d whirl around to get another cup of apple compote before I forgot it and bang! Out the double doors, back into the fray. It was a punishing job made well because of the people.

So one Sunday morning, this family comes in. I’d waited on them before. They were nice folks. But they were extremely high-maintenance. I did not have time for maintenance, so when I saw them my heart sank a little. Many children. I like kids, but the kids in this family ran the show. They got whatever they wanted to eat and if they didn’t like what they ordered, they’d get to pick out something else. At 11:30 on a Sunday, one round of food per table was all anyone could handle.

For the next part of the story, please see the Part II post. This is getting long. But the best part is coming, I promise.

*Hi, Michelle! Thank you for giving me the opportunity for this story and for all the wonderful years I had at Tweet.

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