The Calamitous Campaign: Super Dark Coconut Ash & Banana

I am a singularly blessed human being for many reasons - being born to a loving, attentive, well-educated family with great taste in food and a penchant for sci-fi is a pretty darn good deal. Being a reasonably attractive white, middle-class gal in the richest country on earth, also stacks the deck in my favor pretty heavily. I've also been blessed with great friends, and a staggeringly charmed work history. In fact, in my 8+ years in the workforce, I've never dreaded going to work. I've never had a single job that I didn't like, work that I didn't enjoy, or boss that I didn't get along with. 

In other words, something eventually had to give. 

Photo & Design Credit: Nathan Myers

The past two weeks have been so tremendously, comically awful, that I have to believe there's been some kind of radical, cathartic readjustment of my karmic balance. It's made more fascinating by the fact that running the annual United Way Campaign is something I look forward to all year long and is one of my very favorite parts of my job. The universe has a particularly bleak sense of humor sometimes. 

Even before the campaign began, it had already adopted a tone of gloom and disaster - our big plans for a softball tournament were quashed when our field reservation was summarily canceled by the City of Grand Prairie, one of my planning team members had to undergo emergency surgery, leaving us shorthanded for several events, and one of my campaign leads suffered a tragic, unexpected death in her immediate family.

After the campaign started, we had dismal turnout for one event after another, a reporting breakdown, confusion with the online pledging system, the dunk tank was damaged by previous renters, the big grill was mysteriously reclaimed by its previous owner and nowhere to be found, no one brought anything to the bake sale despite it being an annual tradition for almost a decade, we suffered supply shortages, lack of enthusiasm and volunteers, over-communication, under-communication, scheduling mishaps, late starts, missing pieces... Basically one calamity after another. In fact, in our two weeks of "fun," there wasn't a single event or activity that didn't have some kind of tragedy, complication, or disappointment attached to it.

And finally, on our last day of the campaign, I went to the refrigerator to take inventory for our afternoon nacho bar, only to find that the over-zealous cleaning crew threw out all of the food for the event. All of it. The fridge, which had previously been home to a quart of frozen fajita meat, two bags of shredded cheese, two unopened jugs of salsa, a bag of shredded lettuce, and half a pot of beans (in my mother's pressure cooker, no less), stood there, gleaming, as pristine and empty as if it had been delivered that morning. 

And then the fire alarm went off.

Perfect. 

Still, with the help of a small team of stalwart, generous, adaptable, and determinedly good-natured volunteers, the campaign is concluded having successfully raised more than $9,000 for good works in Tarrant County ($18k, counting the matching funds), and I'm more than ready to move on with the rest of my life. I'm immensely grateful that on Monday I get to put away the flamingo decorations, disassemble the jail cell, and apply my energies to chasing down customer loyalty surveys, writing that Amarillo grant, organizing the next set of volunteer events, planning that Louisiana workshop, setting up interviews for our next batch of interns, composing a perky, upbeat Campaign write-up for the newsletter, eating lots and lots of chocolate, and looking forward to next year's campaign. God knows it has to be better than this one.

It was a worthy battle. I'm glad I did it. THANK GOD IT'S OVER. 

*sigh*

Time for chocolate.

Item: Super Dark Coconut Ash & Banana
Percentage: 72%

Made By: Vosges
Made In: Chicago, IL
Purchased At/Price: Gift (but retail is $8 - this is the good stuff)

Review: The Vosges Super Dark line is a fascinating and somewhat intimidating collection of "SUPER FOODS + DARK CHOCOLATE." The chocolate itself if great, with a really dense, clean chocolate flavor. The banana is both unusual and pretty dominant, with tiny, barely-there flecks of crunch distributed throughout the otherwise smooth, straightforward chocolate. This is not a busy bar. There's also a great ashy aftertaste which is very subtle and quite likely an acquired taste. It's just a hint, but it adds a savory note to the flavor profile. This really comes across as a chocolate and banana bar, but the coconut ash adds a little somethin'-somethin' that's quite nice. Also, my main squeeze informed me that he tastes far more coconut than banana, so I'm not totally sure what gives. The package informs me the health benefits are simply off the charts, though, so regardless it's probably a good thing to be eating.
 
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With love,
 - K