In honor of it being the warmest today that it's been all year, I made a delicious, delicious Greek-ish dinner. Spanakopita, tiropita, Greek salad with grilled chicken. Mmm, spinach and feta. La famille will also benefit, provided that they remember to come by for the spanakopita and tiropita triangles I made specifically for them tomorrow.

I'm kind of happy that I've reached the point where I don't really need recipes for most things anymore. For baking and candy-making, yes-- but that's because of the chemistry involved, and I'm usually comfy enough to maneuver within those recipes. But for cooking, I'm pretty good at just doing it. The other day I popped a chicken in the oven with just a little oil, salt, and a Penzeys spice rubbed on the surfaces. No timers, just let it go until it smelled right and checked the temperature. It came out with the skin crispy, the meat juicy, and the juices cooked down into an excellent pan sauce. No fuss, no muss. The spanakopita filling, I mixed by intuition-- spinach, feta, onion, egg for binding, nutmeg and white pepper for seasoning. And it turned out pretty well, if I may say so myself. It's empowering to leave the cookbook nest.

Which is all a roundabout way to avoid what's really bothering me.

Once upon a time, la mère bought a St. Jude novena candle on impulse. For those not in the know, St. Jude is recognized as the patron saint of impossible causes and hopeless cases. Given my family's historically downright bizarre luck, la mère in particular keeps up a certain level of devotion in the form of medals, prayer card at her desk, and donations to namesake orders. Novena candles tend to more of a Hispanic than Slavic tradition, so it was kind of funny at first. Then it became a sort of family ritual to light the St. Jude candle in times of need (like when I needed a certain job), and the next thing you know you've impulsively bought one yourself. You? Er, me. I. Right.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that I'd really rather appreciate some divine intervention of some kind pretty soon. Because, er, graduation is a month and a half away and I need a job.