Portland!

We finally got away for a weekend to visit our neighboring city of Portland, OR. Our cousins Naomi and Tom live there, and we hadn't yet visited them since moving to the NW two years ago!

So many bridges in this city! Nathan and I took our bikes, which is the perfect way to get around Portland. There is lots of infrastructure for bikes, and it's much flatter than Seattle. We basically just biked around and ate a bunch--but the weather was perfect every day!

I didn't take photos everywhere we ate, but this breakfast spot was super charming and the food was incredible. It was scandinavian food--and this popular brunch place had us sign up on the waitlist at the bar open next door, which was open just to accomodate the waiting hords. 

A smorgasbord, lefse special, and swedish hash.

Top five most "Portland" things we saw on this trip:

1. a man riding a modified toddler's bicycle with a really tall seat post and a home-made side car welded to it in which he was carrying is belongings. I think the bike even had handle-bar streamers. I wish we had gotten a picture. It was hilariously undignified.

2. a man zooming down the street on a skate board, walking (or running rather) two dogs. He had a leash stretched out in front and behind him.

3. A fifteen (or more) piece band of vagabonds singing and playing together--instruments included spoons, the saw, and a man playing a single string on a broom handle.

4. Portland's famous food carts, of course. Too bad we were too full from breakfast still!

5. and there was this guy and his didgeridoo we kept seeing everywhere we went.

There was also a man across this street playing guitar and had a base petal thumping the suitcase he was sitting on, while the other foot played the tambourine and a hotel bell alternatingly. I neglected to get a picture, but he actually sounded really good!

And OF COURSE we went and got lost in Powell's, which I think is the world's largest bookstore. 

In the left corner you can barely see the dog who's panhandling owner taught him to play dead. It was pretty funny to see the dog lying on his back like that.

Nathan checks out some D.F.W. Should have known I would find him here!

Then we booked it (or biked it rather...and it's pretty uphill!) to the international rose test garden in forest park. Please excuse the enormous amount of flower pictures I am about to post.

The path through forest park on the way to the roses.

more roses!

If you look closely, there is a bee in this one!

Some other random things:

in front of whole foods.

six people wearing variations of pink in front of a pink wall. weird.

the courtyard that was some kind of old factory where we enjoyed happy hour.

This store was calle "cargo" and was all kind of random imports and recycled/antique things. It was AWESOME.

Hopefully we'll get back to Portland soon since there is so much that we didn't see. 

Things your server wants you to know

This week I'm celebrating two years working at Plum Bistro and almost three years as a server. I enjoy my job, and for the most part the people I meet are pretty great, but sometimes even really great people can make my job difficult without even meaning to. So here are some insider tips for those of you who have not had the pleasure of working in the food service industry!

1. Being seated.
If a host seats you somewhere, it's usually for a reason, even if that reason may not always be apparent. A restaurant may look mostly empty, but especially in a smaller place you really have to optimize seating to accomodate reservations and anticipate rushes. If you don't like where you are seated, please ask about your other options! Often the host can make something else work, but please don't move to another table without asking, or be offended if a host declines to let you sit exactly where you want. They are not doing it because they love to be withholding.

2. Ordering.
Serving is a lot about timing. I don't mind spending time recommending dishes or answering questions, but telling me you are ready to order when you are not (and then me waiting raptly at your table for you to make up your mind) is not an efficient use of my time and it makes it hard for me to remember your table's order. Please decide what you want before you tell me you are ready. I don't mind coming back in a few minutes!
Often I am asked an opinion between two dishes, and after I give it, the customer takes my recommendation, but asks for it without something. Like, say, olives. I love olives, and recommend dishes based on olives being a part of the flavor profile. A lot of times that ingredient you are asking me to leave out is a significant part of what makes that dish good, so if you don't like olives, don't choose something where olives are a central ingredient. The dish without it is incomplete and you are compromising your food experience. It's okay not to like things, but if can't find anything on the entire menu to suit you without adjusting it to your "tastes," you probably need to adjust your tastes. (Granted, I don't personally have a lot of sympathy or patience for picky eaters. I think it's mostly psychological.) Same goes for subbing. I'm happy to sub asparagus for broccoli, but picking parts of different dishes off the menu and asking me to ask the kitchen to make some frankenstein dish is not only a total pain in the arse for me (and the kitchen) it's also a bad idea since the chefs work hard to design flavor combinations that work. That's their job.

3. Payment.
A lot of people don't know that at most restaurants, servers keep their own bank. What does this mean? It means I carry a wallet full of 1s, 5s, and 10s and when you pay cash and ask for change, I keep your cash and pay you change from my personal bank. Then at the end of the night I pay my cash sales back to the restaurant. Still with me? What this means is that there is no drawer of money anywhere that belongs to the restaurant. So if you want change for your $100 bill on a $15 tab that can really screw me for the rest of the night, since you now have all my small bills, and I have your very large bill that is no use to me for making change for my other customers. Even over the course of the night, multiple people asking me to change their twenties into a 10, a 5, and five 1s can really put me in a tight spot. Sometimes I have enough cash sales (especially if it's toward the end of a shift) that it is no problem, but please don't assume I have a bottomless pile of small bills with which to be your personal bank.
It is AWESOME when people pay in cash and say "the rest is yours" that is so easy for me. But if you do need change (and you often do), awesome people let me know how much they want back. Like if your tab is $20.36 and you want to tip me $3-$4, you can just say, "Please give me $6 back." That way I don't have to dig up 64 cents in change just for you to give it back to me. Saves me SO much time.

Paying with credit card is fine too! Paying with 7 credit cards is considerably less fine.  If you are eating out with a large group of people, please consider bringing cash and telling your friends to as well. I have no problem splitting the bill a few ways, it's just when we get to four splits or more that it becomes an issue. Not because I'm lazy, but because running all those cards takes a really long time and I can get really behind with the rest of my tables. Not only that, it means I'm monopolizing the computer and credit card machine (and we only have one where I work) so none of the other servers can run credit cards, put in food orders, or print checks while I'm figuring out your bill. It can mess up the timing for the entire restaurant.

4. Tipping
Tipping is how you pay for a service you have received. Someone has done all the communication and transportation of food for you so that you get to relax. So if you don't tip, even though legally no one can make you, it's no different than stealing. This business works on a cultural assumption that you will pay me 10-20% of your bill, and if you tip less than 10% that is stealing. From me. If you accidentally take your credit card receipt with you--you know, the one you write the tip on and sign--that is no different from accidentally walking out of a store with merchandise you did not purchase. And it happens to me about twice a week. Here in Washington I make a decent minimum wage, but many states have a special "server" minimum wage. In Michigan I made $2.65 an hour, which is basically slave labor if I'm not getting tipped.
So, how much to I expect? Well, that depends.

Were you impressed with my knowledge of the menu or did I spend extensive time recommending and explaining dishes to you? 18-20%
Do you need special food to accomodate your allergies and I have to make special communications with the kitchen? 20% (or 25% if you are really a pain in the butt...we know it's not your fault, but if I'm working hard to keep you safe, please reward me).
Do you have children that have made an enormous mess? 20% at least. Especially because children's menu items cost less, but are just as much work to deliver.
Did I split your bill 6 ways? 20%

Did I provide a basic but efficient, friendly service? 15% please.
15% also acceptable if your bill is inflated by expensive items, like if you ordered two expensive bottles of wine. (This also works in the opposite direction. Order 18 different $1 tacos? Percentage should be WAY up.)
If I made a small error, but fixed it right away? I'm sorry you had to ask for ketchup twice. 15%

Did I make an error that seriously interfered with the enjoyment of your meal? It doesn't happen often, but when it does I always feel bad about it and have no problem accepting a low tip. 10%. Lower only if I was truly heinous.

And just FYI, the kitchen and bartenders get a cut of the tips too! This varies by restaurant, but where I've worked the kitchen gets 20%, so when you tip your server, you are also tipping the kitchen and maybe the bartender. So many people feel your love!!!

Always remember to look over your itemized bill for any errors, and if you are in a larger party, often an "auto-gratuity" is added at 18-20%. You don't want to accidentally tip on top of that, unless it's because 18% isn't enough for the excellent service you received. Then please do! Also, unless you are planning on filing your itemized receipts for business expenses or something, please leave it with me. That way I don't have to print out another one and we can all save some trees. YAY!

5. Camping out.
We all love long and luxurious meals, and I want you to have that. Within reason. Before you decide to "set up camp" at a table, however, please take into consideration a few things. Is the restaurant busy? Depending on the size of the party, reservations are set 1.5-2.5 hours apart. It's hard to plan for which parties are going to be longer than usual. If you're making a reservation, you can ask the host for a longer reservation if you know you are going to be a while, and that will help her plan...but not only can you hold up reservations, but also mess up wait-time estimations. It often happens that I tell a waiting party it will be 15 minutes. But then my table decides to stay half an hour after they've finished eating. The party waiting is never pleased about waiting 40 minutes when I said 15. In fact they are usually pretty bitter about it. I really don't like asking tables to leave. A few years ago at a restaurant, I was asked if I could leave and I was pretty offended, but now I understand why. In any case, it's not fun to be put in the position of potentially offending the people who decide your tip.
"Camping out" keeps one of the tables in my section out of circulation, meaning, I'm not making any money off of that table. It's not a big deal, but it's kind of a bummer. If you decide to linger longer, you may want to tip a little extra.
Working at a restaurant is exhausting work, and when my shift is over, I want to go home...buuuut I can't close out and go until all my tables have paid (and I've gotten the signed copy back.) It's a bummer to sit around and wait while your table neglects the bill. Also, if your server tells you that her shift is over and she is transferring you to a new server, that is your cue to pay (unless you aren't done eating, in which case don't worry about it.)
The courteous way to hang out after dinner is to tell your host or server, "We'd like to stay and chat for a bit, let us know if you absolutely need this table." Pay soon after you are finished, and return your bill to your server.

I hope this info share is...well, informative. I certainly think servers could also improve a lot, but I know it would be easier to provide good service for everybody if everyone knew a little more about how things work in a restaurant.

Mostly what I ate this week.

Well, it's not been a crazy week event-wise, but we've been keeping busy. Nathan decided to invest in a new (used) bike that will be speedier than the heavy road bike he has been riding to work. He has very large hills on his way home from the university.

I think he was installing his water bottle holder here?

Anyways...once this week I made a SUPER easy dinner. 

At QFC you can get chicken breasts individually sealed in plastic, ready for the freezer. They come in packs of about six and often the packs are two for one! Skinless-boneless breast can be expensive, but not when they are two for one in bulk! The packaging is great--one is plenty for me and nathan to split, and better yet, they are sealed, so I take the back of the mug or glass and tenderize it while it's still sealed, and no worries about chicken germs getting everywhere. Stays contained and then cooks up real quick--in about the same time as a pot of rice with some vegis in the steamer on top!

a before and after--frozen then thawed and pounded

This is my rice cooker with the vegis on top. So there's a super simple dinner idea that also allows you to get out aggression by whaling on the chicken breast a little bit.

I also made a not so simple dinner this week. Last wednesday I headed out to the Columbia City Farmers Market (columbia city is a district of seattle I'd never been to before) but there's an express bus straight there basically from my house. Columbia City is south, where I don't venture too often, but it was super cute! It had a little main street type area with shops and theaters. There was an amazing looking used book store with a ladder to get to the high shelves, but sadly there was a sign announcing it was closing due to not enough sales to cover basic operating costs. : (

I bought these beautiful dahlias there for $5. Lots of beautiful arrangements, but decided to stick with straight dahlias since I know they keep pretty well.

Also got these beautiful heirloom roma tomatoes and zucchini for a recipe I had been wanting to try.

I got some lettuce and other heirlooms as well. 

The recipe is "Zucchini Rice Gratin" which I got off of Smitten Kitchen blog, and it looked super delicious to me, and a way to use what the season has to offer. Basically everything looks super delicious on the blog, and her photos are amazing:

http://smittenkitchen.com/

Zucchini Rice Gratin
Adapted from Gourmet, March 2008

My prior quibbles about this dish were that it always stuck to the pan (I try to alleviate this by having you oil your baking dish), was way too salty (and we are hardly salt-phobes, thus I’ve reduced the total amount from 1 1/2 teaspoons to 3/4 teaspoon; feel free to add more if you find it needs it), and that it used too many dishes. You can reduce your dishload by lining your zucchini baking sheet with aluminum foil (tomatoes are reactive with aluminum so I’d leave their tray bare) and hoping that you’ll consider using one skillet for the rice and onions. Despite the fact that I couldn’t reduce the moderate dishload further, we’ve never once felt that this dish wasn’t worth the extra suds.

1/3 cup uncooked white rice, long-grain is suggested but use whatever you prefer
5 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 pounds zucchini (about 3 medium), sliced 1/4-inch thick
1/2 pound plum tomatoes, sliced 1/4-inch thick
Table salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 medium onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, divided

Preheat oven to 450°F. Cook the rice according to your favorite method. The package directions work in some cases, but check my notes above about adjustments I find I have to make. If you cook the rice in a large, wide-ish covered skillet, it might cook even faster but you’ll have the chance to use it again (and save on dirty dishes) when you need to cook the onions in a bit.

While rice cooks, coat two large (or, if you have the same pitifully small oven as I do, three smaller) baking sheets each with a tablespoon of a of olive oil (a bit less for smaller pans). Spread zucchini and tomato slices on the baking sheets in as close to a single layer as you can. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Roast tomatoes for 10 minutes and zucchini for 20. Flip zucchini halfway through; it’s not worth the messy effort for the tomatoes. Leave oven on.

Heat large, heavy skillet (such as the one you used to cook your rice) over medium heat. Once hot, add 2 tablespoons olive oil, heat oil, then add onions, garlic and 1/4 teaspoon salt to pan. Cover and reduce heat to low, cooking onion until limp and tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Combine onion mixture, rice, eggs, thyme, half of your grated cheese and a half-tablespoon of olive oil in a bowl. Add a good amount of freshly ground black pepper. Use the remaining half-tablespoon of olive oil to coat a shallow 2-quart baking dish. Spread half of rice mixture in bottom of dish. Arrange half of roasted zucchini on top. Spread remaining rice mixture over it and please don’t worry about being neat about this; dinner will be “rustic” tonight! Arrange remaining zucchini on top, then tomato slices. Sprinkle with remaining grated cheese and bake until set and golden brown, about 20 minutes. Each oven varies, but I find mine does the very best browning when the dish is on a rack near the top of the oven.

Here was how mine came out:

It was tasty, but not worth all the prep work with the toms and zucchs. Wondering what if I just sauteed the zucchinis with the onions (in the same pan I baked it in) and just popped the tomatoes on without all that pre-baking business. Then it would be a super simple weeknight kinda meal. With a lot fewer dishes. It could also maybe use something a little more zesty? Anyways, you should all be proud that I actually managed to follow a recipe start to finish without straying, and next time I can use this basic recipe (mixing rice, cheese, egg, veggies and baking it) as a platform for culinary improvisation.

Also this week was my friend Jenny's birthday. I made this little girl for her:

And she had a picnic at gasworks park in Fremont. Nathan and I packed our bicycles up with cheese, bread, fruit, sangria, tapanade, etc. and had a lovely bike ride around lake union. Lots of sailboats out enjoying the weather. It was the perfect temperature all evening. How often can you say that?

The gasworks, downtown seattle across the lake, and the moon.

A perfect day...and last week.

It's been a crazy summer. I spent most of July participating in a dance festival that culminated in a performance, and while I kinda enjoyed the intensity of dancing 7 hours a day and then working at plum on top of that, it did leave me kind of short on time to do things like blog.  My dear friend Helen also participated in the festival with me and lived with us, and her last week in Seattle she was joined by her boyfriend and our mutual friend, Kyle. Helen's birthday is July 29th, and she wanted to go to Mt Rainier National Park (Nathan and I had never been) and Helen has lovely family in the area that took us out! So these are pictures from the beautiful hike we had up to Mt Fremont. 

Helen Poses like Captain Morgan. Kyle models the stylin' frame pack I bought for five dollars at our neighbor's garage sale while waiting to be picked up for the day. Sweeeet!

This is totally candid.

Nathan on the path through the shale.

The top! What a view!

AND SURPRISE! Kyle proposes to Helen. Helen says Yes.

This is a reenactment.

a blurry picture I took of the ring. Kyle designed it! Helen's favorite color: PINK!

 On the way down.

Fields of wild flowers!

SNOW!

So that was a grand and most perfect day. Followed by mad packing because Nathan and I had to leave the next morning to the midwest. I was on vacation, saw a lot of people who read this blog (so don't need to fill them in), and got to relax a lot while watching Olympics, which is exactly what I needed. 

Jump to current times...

Nothing too exciting going on here. However, in an effort to write on a more regular basis, here are a few things I did do recently:
Last tuesday was our 2nd wedding anniversary (we got some super sweet cards from the grandparents!) and we also went to dinner using the Poppy gift certificate the Bankas gave us for our birthdays.
Poppy is very convenient to our house and had some delicious, delicious food. You basically order one of a few options, and it comes with a variety of 7 or 10 things. They call them "thalis." There was some indian influence (note the naan bread) but otherwise it didn't feel particularly ethnic unless GORMET is an ethnicity.

Ok, we shared all of our items. Nathan got duck with fresh currents and peaches, strawberry-tomato-sage soup, curried kohlrabi, pickled blueberry and apricots, and a beet salad with gingerbread croutons.

I had some kind of beef, zucchini gratin, fennel blossom soup, the same beet salad, some other kind of salad with cucumbers, and pickled fennel.

Dessert thalis.

 Ok, and then one day for lunch I made myself this with the basil from my window boxes, which somehow survived not being watered for nine days while we were in Michigan/Wisconsin.

Then on Sunday we went to a friend's boyfriend's birthday "Rib Off" in which there were I think 7 ribs competing and we had to vote for a winner! It was extremely difficult. They were all delicious, and the weather was perfect. We played "corn hole" which is a kind of bean bag tossing game, and I was terrible at it.

We hadn't been to Madrona Park before. It was lovely.

 Two of my favorite dancer friends by lake Washington.

Too bad it was a touch chilly for swimming. It's hard to see in the picture (which is funny, because it was very easy to see in real life) but Mt. Rainier is just about center in this picture over the water. I need to learn how to make mountains show up in photographs!

Promises I made my mother

As far back as I can remember my mother has been very fond of making me make promises. All based, I'm sure, on hard won personal experience. Number one has always been that I promise to be financially independent. Knowing my mother I was probably repeating it several years before I had any idea what "financial" meant. For a long time I thought this was simply feminist principal, but now I more completely understand the depth of this issue--how money and decision-making power are intrinsically linked. She also made me swear I'd never change my name if I should marry. And I didn't. And it's not because I swore it to my mother at three years old, but because I came to adopt the same perspective as her. Because our names are so linked to our identities, and I personally couldn't imagine being anyone different.
At eight she made me promise I'd never shave my legs--because my hair was "blonde and if you shave it turns black and then you will have to deal with it forever." As one might imagine, it was no problem swearing this at eight, but keeping this promise in middle school involved a fair amount of mortification (alas, I was also the last girl in my class to get a bra AND mom wouldn't let me wear spagetti straps OR read teen magazines.) But having to be different (in extremely small ways) was probably formative to my personality and maybe I came out a stronger person because of it. In any case, my embarrassment evolved into some kind of ridiculous self-righteous pride in high school, which has now calmed (thank god) into leg hair being something I never think about, and don't have to deal with. Thanks mom! Also, you were right, teen magazines (and People and Cosmo) are stupid.
Then in our family room, right before I got my ears pierced at age 11, my mom made me promise that if we got my ears pierced that I would never get another piercing. Or a tattoo. And I was really good about that. For about 15 years. What I'm getting at here in this long personal history, is that I got a tattoo. It's not a big deal, but I wanted a chance to explain myself to certain family members who might be scandalized. Back in the fall I was talking to the father of my friend, who in most ways was hip with the new generation, but just couldn't understand why the popularity of tattoos in the youth culture. For him as a father, it was devastating to think of his children sabotaging their bodies. I guess I can't speak for my generation, but I can speak for myself, and I think maybe some of my answers might be other people's answers too.
More than ever youth (and all of us) are being bombarded with media images of people who look perfect. I know this is an old rant, but I'm going to engage anyways. It seems I can't go anywhere (especially on the internet), without seeing stuff like this:

Images like this are called (by some) "thinspiration." Like inspiration to make people lose weight and look like that. Note the web adress at the bottom is "help me get thin." But for the vast majority of people, this is a lie. While I'm all about working out and eating healthy, this image is not promoting healthy weight loss or a healthy understanding of one's body. I'm a professional dancer, and naturally slim, and reasonably close to some standard of beauty, and I have never looked like that person or many of the others we see in media every day. 50% of girls between 11-13 see themselves as overweight, and if you look up eating disorder statistics they are terrifying and pervasive. I was lucky enough to have never had an eating disorder, but I remember feeling at times like I needed to lose weight. When I was 15. And 115 lbs. You have to have seriously lost perspective for that to happen, and that's what these images propagate. And it's not just weight. It's wrinkles. It's proportions. It's age. Look at plastic surgery. Cosmetic procedures (surgical and non) have quadrupled since 1997 (according to American Society for Cosmetic Aesthetic Plastic Surgery) and that's against a recession. I don't want to get down on people who diet or get plastic surgery. That's not my point. What my point is, as I see the very first signs of aging on my body (don't scoff--I have little permanent crinkles in between my eyes) I have a choice. I can buy all the miracle cremes and try to fight the inevitable, or I can say no, I will define what makes me beautiful, thank you very much. And I think tattoos, previously relegated to bikers, sailors, and outcasts of society, is a way to say that. That I will not worship at the temple of youth, that I will control my own definition of beauty, not advertising agencies. 

Connected to this is the irritating notion of body un-spoiled-ness. This was particularly relevant to me when I was planning my wedding. As a bride, you spend about a year thinking about how you are going to look on a particular day (hair, makeup, dress, nails, skin, etc.) and I spent an entire summer trying to not get a zit, or a sunburn, or bug bite, and it was totally suffocating trying to make by body perfect even for one day. The nature of bodies is that they do things that are ugly. The idea that you are somehow spoiling something previously flawless with a tattoo is unfounded. My body is sacred, but it is not precious. It bleeds, shits, breaks, and scars, just like everyone's bodies. Letting go of the preciousness of my body is I think a healthy step towards accepting it. 

What was my mother trying to prevent when she made me promise? Probably a lot of things. Probably she didn't want me to do something I would regret in the future. She didn't want me to put something on my body that reflected me at the time, but wouldn't in 20 or 50 years. But that just makes me want to question if my body has ever reflected "me" accurately. In some ways, yes, because we are products of the way we are treated, which is a product of how we are perceived. And I'm not going to pretend even for a minute that it is not in most cases a total advantage to be a pretty, skinny, white girl in this country.  But have people assumed things about me that were not true based on the way I looked? Yes. I have been condescended to, not taken seriously, treated as naive, angelic, innocent, or dumb. I'm not complaining, but it is maybe for these reasons that a tattoo, which symbolically counters some of these perceptions, appeals to me. Back to mom protecting me from regrets: so far I have led a pretty planned, thought out, and responsible life. I never had time to have the rebellious phase that my mother so enjoyed in her youth ; ) and if a tattoo ends up being my biggest regret, that's not so bad.

In addition I'm sure my mother wanted me to keep my career options open, fearing I may not be hired on account of having a tattoo. I totally respect this, but have come to a place in my life where I am certain that any field that would discriminate on the basis of a (non offensive) tattoo is not one I would want to work in. In fact, having a tattoo as an artist is kind of like wearing a business suit as a CEO. It's kind of expected. And in modern dance people are not necessarily interested in hiring skinny, blonde, all-American looking girls with ponytails. They want people who are interesting, whose bodies communicate something beyond the "blank slate" of traditional white-girl dance. I don't want to pretend that this makes me more interesting or unique, because in the neighborhood where I live, probably 90% of people have visible tattoos. I'm not even exaggerating. But it's not going to hurt my career choices.

Anyways, I just wanted you to hear it from me first and I'm sorry this turned into such a manifesto. I promise this is the last time I'll get all self-righteous on y'all. I know that those who love me love me regardless of what my body looks like, so when my artist asked if I was worried about how my family would react, I told her no. That my family loves and trusts me and wants me to be happy. 

So you wanna see it?

WOW. JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is my actual:

Not so bad, right? This is my forearm, by the way.

Happy Fourth of July everybody! Today let's be proud and glad we live in a country where people are free. Free to tattoo themselves with ugly cupcakes, should they want to. ; )