The United States of Friendship - Part 2 - Gerri

Homemade Crusty Bread

Taken from the Bread and Bread Machine Recipes board on Pinterest

Take….

1 cup warm water
1 package active dry yeast
2 tablespoons shortening
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups flour

Step 1 - Place ingredients in bread machine in the order according to the manufacturer's directions.

Step 2 - Use the regular bread cycle.

Step 3 - Serve with laughter and friendship

The United States of Friendship Part 2 – Gerri

In the brief time, I was an admin assistant at Palm Inc, I managed to notch up some A-class goof-ups.

I have already told you about my Butt-In-Anytime predilection and the trouble it got me in with my boss in my post The United States of Friendship Part 1.

Another A-class goof-up concerns bread.

Yes, bread.

I was peacefully eating my lunch at my desk one day.

When a sales VP named Steve came up to me.

Drat – I had forgotten when Nikki was off from work, I had to support her sales vp Steve in addition to my own.

“We need you to get some sandwiches from the deli on Shoreline and bring it to the conference room” he said.

I had never done lunch duty before.

So I was nervous as hell.

“Can I finish my lunch?” I asked timidly –so I could calm down, collect my thoughts and use my ask-a-friend-ticket.

 “My client needs to be out of here by 1:30 p.m., so can you go now” he replied.

Since there appeared to be no choice in the matter, I jumped to my feet and said “Sure, what would you like?”

 “3 Turkeys with Mozzarella on Italian Cheese and Herb, 2 Roast Beef with American on Wheat, 1 tuna with no cheese and no onion on White”, he said. “And oh, bring it to the Sally Ride Conference Room.”

Now, any normal person would have written this down.

But “taking notes” is not one of my strong points.

So I rushed off without thinking.

It was only when the lady behind the deli counter asked me “On what bread?” did I realize I was in a jam.

 “What breads do you have?” I asked hesitantly.

She rattled off a long long list of choices.

Drat - why did ordering sandwiches have to be so complicated in America?

Why couldn’t this be an order for dosas?

I would have been able to remember “keema dosa without peas, rava dosa, plain dosa” much more easily.

I would need to wing it.

On the premise that any choice is better than no choice, I made some selections.

And I was back at Palm with the sandwiches.

But Steve was not in the Sally Ride conference room.

Where could he be?

A note on my desk solved the mystery.

 “Minoo - We have moved conference rooms. Please bring the sandwiches to Amelia Earhart in Building B”.

The prolonged agony was most unwelcome.

I set off again for Building B.

When I reached the Amelia Earhart conference room, Steve announced, “The sandwiches are here”.

A chorus of voices said “Yeah”.

 “Yeah” I said under my breath, trudging back to my desk to eat my cold lunch.

When Steve’s meeting was done, he stopped by my desk.

“You got wheat instead of white on the tuna and “Italian instead of Italian herb and cheese on the turkey”, he said.

“I am so sorry” I said, blushing furiously.

This was in the days before 360 degree performance reviews, PIPs and other regrettable forms of employee torture related to companies believing they exist to create shareholder value.

I’ve lamented about this before in my post Dear Job Doctor.

Otherwise, you can just picture the scenario….

Steve and a group of people are gathered together to provide 360 degree feedback on the performance of the admin assistants.

  

“And what do you think about Minoo?” asks the officiating HR person,

“Would you say she has performed, underperformed, or excelled?

Any incidents anyone would like to point out?”

“Hah!” Steve exclaims, “Incidents!” He looks at my boss. “Did I ever tell you about the sandwiches?”

This is where I get to use imaginative license…..

When Steve tells his story, my boss, guilty about being so harsh on me (which I told you about in Part 1 of this series), heroically comes to my defense.

And so the sandwich story is put behind me.

Of course I am making this up.

Even before my first performance review, I transitioned from being an Admin Assistant into a Commissions Analyst and I escaped sandwich ignominy.

But it was in the thick of my “sandwich days” that I met Gerri.

Gerri sat 2 desks up away from me at Palm, helping some of the AR finance folks.

She was new and I was new and I ran into her at the cafeteria eating alone at a table, so I asked “Can I join you?”

We began keeping each other company at lunch every day from that day.

Before the first week was out, we had become friends.

I learned she had come from the Philippines to America and had lost her husband recently.

She learned I had been in America for just over a year and had a very young child who was in daycare.

When she realized she lived quite close to me, she asked “Do you want to carpool? I could pick you up from your house. We could use the carpool lane.”

“Sure,” I said, grateful for the ride and the company.

It was the start of a wonderful arrangement and friendship.

I enjoyed riding to work in Gerri’s blue Pontiac GrandAm, listening to the country music station she always had the car radio turned to.

Gerri was so kind, I had to coax her to accept some money for the ride.

When Gerri’s assignment at Palm ended, I thought our friendship and the carpooling would end.

But Gerri came up with a way to keep it going.

She had found a job 3 miles away from Palm and her work day started 30 minutes before mine.

“I know,” she said, “I will get off at my workplace and then you can take the car for the rest of the day and bring the car back to my work to get me in the evenings.”

Get to keep Gerri’s car for the day?

Even though she hardly knew me?

It was an amazing gesture.

But that’s the kind of person Gerri was.

And is.

Kind.

Trusting.

Caring about everyone.

And everything.

A devout Christian, on days when it was raining, Gerri would say “I prayed to Jesus this morning to get everyone to work and back safely”.

She didn’t want anything bad to happen to anybody.

Gerri, like Krysia, came to my weekly Wednesday dinners.

She had a bread maker and would bring a warm freshly baked loaf of bread with her.

Gerri’s bread helped undo some of the negative associations that bread had for me after the sandwich debacle at Palm.

Gerri’s bread also reminded me of my childhood and a figure my family called Bread Man.

Bread Man was a jolly bread delivery man who showed up at our door once or twice a week with a basket full of fresh bread, buns and cakes on the back of his bike.

He was a Fatima’s Bakery employee and as soon as he honked to announce his arrival, we would run out to meet him and see what treats he had.

He would entertain us with little ditties as he sliced a loaf of bread for us, or handed us some cakes.

Every year, on Good Friday, Bread Man would bring Hot Cross Buns from the bakery.

He knew the ditty “Hot Cross Buns. Hot Cross Buns. One a penny, two a penny. Hot Cross Buns” and he would sing it to us.

Gerri’s bread was every bit as welcome as Bread Man.

One year, when Tanita was 3, I invited Gerri to go with me to KFOG Kaboom at Pier 39 for the free music and fireworks.

The 3 of us – Gerri, Tanita and me - enjoyed the music, the festive crowds, the food and the chotchkes.

When the fireworks began, Tanita amused us by throwing up her hands and chuckling as each round of fireworks lit up the sky.

“Do you think it’s all the stuff people are smoking here?” I asked Gerri.

After I moved apartments, I got busy with my own life.

Gerri got busy with a different life.

Our friendship rested for a decade.

Then a year ago, I was happy to hear from Gerri again.

We picked up from where we left off.

I now attend Bible Study with Gerri and a wonderful group of people on Fridays.

Cars are most folks’ second biggest investment after their houses, and car insurance is very expensive in America and goes up with every accident.

So people will typically never let you drive their cars.

This is why Gerri’s kindness to me with her Pontiac Grandam stands out to me even today.

Gerri’s ability to trust - then and now - comes from her strong spiritual faith and an indomitable spirit.

It is apropos that both at Christmas, and now on Easter Sunday, I have occasion to reflect on and appreciate this awesome faith and awesome spirit.

Thank you Gerri for our friendship and for being a breath-taking role model to me in this regard.

Wishing you a very Happy Easter.

Dear Reader – hope you enjoyed this post.  Happy Easter to you and do come back next week for the next installment of The United States of Friendship…M, a Pearl Seeker like you.

The United States of Friendship

Taken from the Persimmon Pinterest Board

Persimmon Bread

Take 3½ cups sifted flour
1½ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 to 2½ cups sugar
1 cup melted unsalted butter and cooled to room temperature
4 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
2/3 cup Cognac, bourbon or whiskey
2 cups persimmon puree (from about 4 squishy-soft Hachiya persimmons)
2 cups walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped
2 cups raisins, or diced dried fruits (such as apricots, cranberries, or dates)
Step 1: Butter 2 loaf pans. Line the bottoms with a piece of parchment paper or dust with flour and tap out any excess.
Step 2: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Step 3: Sift the first 5 dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Step 4: Make a well in the center then stir in the butter, eggs, liquor, persimmon puree then the nuts and raisins.
Step 5: Bake 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Step 6:  Serve with a scoop of good old fashioned friendship.

The United States of Friendship  - Part 1 - Krysia

I met Krysia when I was new in America.

Krysia and Teresa were my classmates at Goodwill’s Institute of Career Development.

Krysia was from Poland and Teresa was from the Philipines.

To me anything or anyone new or from far away was exotic.

So Krysia and Teresa were both exotic to me.

As exotic as persimmons, broccoli, asparagus and artichoke.

The only thing I knew about Poland before I met Krysia was the name Lech Walesa. 

When Krysia told me she was from Poland, I probably said “Oh - Lech Walesa” to her.

(You know how it is when you are younger. You think you have to show off about anything you know)

I don’t remember if Krysia said “Oh Rajneesh” back to me.

Or “Oh - Sai Baba”.

Or “Oh - Kama Sutra”.

Krysia and Teresa had both been in America longer than I had.

So they took me under their wing.

I learned where they shopped, where they ate.  (Rites of passage for Sisterhood).

I went to my first Ihop breakfast with them.

I went to my first Mary Kay party with them.

(A Mary Kay, Tupperware, Avon or Amway party is an initiation rite for every new American immigrant).

And they listened to my woes.

As we wolfed down our home-made sandwiches at the cafeteria, the sandwich sticking to the roof of my mouth because the bread was too soft and had become one with the cheese, I would go - “I have such a strong advertising copy background – why can’t these San Francisco ad agencies give me a break?”  Yackety. Yack Yack.

“Did you know in India, I owned my own business, my own creative shop?” Yackety. Yack. Yack.

Meanwhile, the list of things I could not do, and which were essential to survival in America, was long.

I could not drive.

I did not know Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint.

I had poor dress sense (which you could get away with in a creative career and nowhere else).

And I had poor social skills.

I regularly interrupted people while they were talking.

“Excuse me.  Excuse me”, I would say.

2 years later, I learned it was the fastest way to make some people extremely angry.

I interrupted my boss when he was talking to his boss and he blew up.

Lost it.

Let me have it.

Complete with 4 letter expletives and thumping his fists on my desk.

But that’s a story for another time.

With the Goodby, Berlin and Silversteins, the Publicis & Hal Riney Incs, the CKS Partners, the Y&Rs, the Black Rockets, the Draftfcbs all ignoring me, I was glad for the friendship, encouragement and support I got from Krysia and Teresa.

When we got done with the Institute of Career Development, Krysia and me stayed in touch.

We would meet for coffee.

For sales.

For movies.

For walks.

For birthdays.

For the weekly Wednesday dinner I held at my apartment where my hit or miss cooking was mostly “miss”.

I soon twigged out my guests were there for the camaraderie rather than the food.

And camaraderie there was!

On one occasion, we were laughing so raucously, there was a knock on the door.

It was Apartment Security.

They looked over my shoulder for the drunken revelers.

All they saw were 5 demurely dressed women with cups of tea.

“Can you keep it down?” they said, “people are complaining.”

We guffawed.

I taught Krysia to make Pachadi.

She invited me over for Barszcz.

We got to know each other’s families.

I even met her sister and the three of us went to Winchester Mystery House together.

Krysia would watch Tanita grow.

And our friendship would keep growing.

It was always an amazing thing to receive a gift from Krysia – because you knew it would be a very personalized gift, or something really thoughtful.

She would observe all the things my house (or my life lacked) and make a gift of just those things to me.

Thus one birthday, I received this splendid cutting knife from her.

Another birthday she had Alfred entertain Tanita and my Mum at my apartment, while she took me to a birthday dinner at Todai, because she decided what I needed most of all was a break.

It only kind of worked out.

About half an hour into dinner – we see Tanita’s nose pressed up against the window of Todai looking at us, Alfred and my mum just behind her. 

Krysia’s best gift to me is the gift of perfect honesty.

When I ask her a question, she tells me like it is.

She tells me what I should hear and need to hear, not what I want to hear.

The years have gone by fast.

Tanita is going to be 18.

Krysia’s son has already turned 10.

Which brings me to Persimmon Bread.

In recent years, as we have gotten busy with our separate lives, Krysia and I have not been able to meet as much as we would like to.

But every time we do, we talk and talk, and the hours go by like minutes.

I have, of course, learned to drive and do all those things I couldn’t do when I first came to America.

But America is not just the Land of Opportunity.

It’s also the Land of Continual Learning.

And both Krysia and me are currently busy with learning new things.

I am learning to make a go of my new career as a Contract Commissions Administrative and Implementation Consultant.

And Krysia is busy pursuing a new mission of her own too.

Meanwhile, visiting Krysia always turns up new delights.

On my last visit, I got to taste her amazing Persimmon Bread.

Two visits ago, I accompanied her to a Zumba class.

Thanks Krysia for your friendship.

I end this post by raising my, er, cup of tea to you and saying “thanks for the many many years of friendship.

Here’s to many many more. 

One more thing....

I have never asked you the question:  Am I a koleżanka or a przyjaciel to you?  I am going to assume przyjaciel. Hope we remain przyjaciels forever!”

Dear reader - thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed this post.  Do come back next week for the second installment of The United States of Friendship.…..M, a Pearl Seeker like you.