profession

I'd like to own a small hotel.
Perhaps a bed and breakfast, perhaps just a hotel...
Sometimes I think it would be a contemporary place with no more than 20 rooms, on the island where we like to vacation. In that situation I would furnish it in white and blue and it would be spare and beautiful.

I'd like to be a waitress at a restaurant with ten tables.
Ten tables and a limited menu -
I'd wear a white shirt and black trousers and a long long long white apron.
I would be quiet but friendly and knowledgeable without assumptions.
I would know the specials and be very attentive.

I'd like to spend a month living in a foreign country.
I really mean live, not vacation -
I'd like to shop for food and do laundry and get used to the place, to feel accustomed to a routine there.
I would meet my neighbors.
I would eat very different foods.

I'd like to work as an apprentice in some kind of skilled labor position.
I would enjoy learning a skill and losing myself in the learning of it each day.
I could be one of those wonderful ladies who sews for a couture house, or a restorer of fine art or a tile installer.

I'd like to be a pastry chef or baker.

I'd like to be a mechanic.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ok - the bed and breakfast, and the waitress I can see you doing, but the skilled laborer and the mechanic - not so much.
Joke said…
You could be a mechanic in Italy, then come back here and charge confiscatory hourly rates for, say, an oil change.

-J.
Amy A. said…
Life is so short to do all the things we want to do, isn't it?
Angela said…
I'd like to be:

1. a barista who wears short ridiculous skirts with combat boots--just for a day

2. your neighbor
--erica said…
I would like to live abroad as well. Can you get to know a place in just a month?
I was thinking a year. To be able to see a place through all of the seasons.
Jess said…
Is living abroad really a profession? How do I sign up? I've lived abroad for 2-3 month stints and love the way you get just used enough to living there, routines, etc. but you know you're coming home soon so you don't have a chance to get homesick.
Anonymous said…
I want to open a small hotel, in an old house somewhere. Stock the bathrooms with huge jars of soaps and smelly creams and what-not. And call it "Home." So when you call, the receptionist answers "Thanks for calling Home."

Don't steal my idea. I know you want to.
Anonymous said…
I have always wanted to be a baker/pastry chef, too. I did work as a baker part time during high school and some of college, but the things I made were pretty limited - just the basics. I never learned croissants, for example. What I would give to be able to make the perfect croissants at home. Mmm...
Anonymous said…
Perfect croissants?
Keep putting the dough back into the refrig. The butter has to be kept icy cold so that it gives off it's moisture in the oven - that's what makes the puffy layers in croissant and pastries. And work on a cold surface. I keep a jelly roll pan full of ice on the counter.
And the last few you roll out? Will still bake up flat as pancakes. Which you will then be forced to eat so nobody sees them ...
Anonymous said…
msc, thanks for the tips! Maybe I will try a batch amid all the holiday baking.
KPB said…
I'd like to be a pastry chef.
I'd like to own a little restaurant/cafe with Chef - with probably only 10 tables, doing great food from a limited menu, but with the ability to make special things for the customers we love.
I would like to live in Canada where it snows and there's mountains and water, Alaska, Newfoundland, Italy and Vermont. Go figure.
I'd like to be a feature writer that didn't have to spruik for work, where editors just came to me.
I'm just saying.
KPB said…
Or run a hotel/guest house like the one in Bob Newhart's show. Is that his name? That comedian who plays Buddy's Dad in Elf. I loved that show. The one with the twins(triplets? or were they just brothers) who were idiot handymen.
Anonymous said…
Great, you can do everything you mentioned right here (Italy), including the mechanic (my husband's cousin is a REALLY good one!).
So, it's much more simple than you would think.
Anonymous said…
I've thought about this too.
I'm a 51-year-old mother.
— I'd like to have a rock band. I'd call it "Yo Mama".
— I'd like to work at a zoo with the animals. I'd even shovel shit.
— I'd like to own and operate a surf shack in Hawaii. I'd also like to learn to surf.
— and finally, I'd like to be either a co-host on "The View" or, if that offer doesn't pan out, a columnist for a small-town paper. So there.