Four Small Luxuries.

• The papaya. Allegedly. Anyone who's actually talked to me in the past 4 days knows I've been slaving over my papaya paper like a crazy person. (The papaya wouldn't have been my first choice, since I've never tasted one, but we had to pick our topic out of a hat.) I decided to buy a papaya to do some research. First off, they are expensive. Five bucks! I'd better get an A for that sort of investment. Also, I thought it was disgusting and tasted like musky feet. Now I feel like a fraud for waxing poetic about the luxurious, sensuous papaya fruit for 4.5 pages.
• Chairs with backs. Sitting on a stool for two hours (and crouching over a piping bag for the following four hours) is wrecking my spinal alignment. For sanitation class, we sit in these middle school-esque desks... they might as well be velvet thrones.
• Poached pears. My mom's favorite dessert -- we made them today. Factoid of the day: pears are the only fruit where it's classy to leave the stem on when you serve it.
• The ridiculous ice cream machine that I used today. I dumped in a pot of creme anglaise, stood around for seven minutes, and voila! Perfect ice cream. Too bad it's like 8 thousand bucks, or you'd all be getting one for Christmas.