Green means go, right? Right?

Well, I had a little accidente the other day...totally 100% my fault. I was stopped at a red light, behind a fella in a Volkswagon somethingoranother and when the light turned green he didn't go, so I hit him. Okay, I didn't hit him because he was refusing to follow protocol when the light turned green, I hit him as a result of his abeyancy.

Obviously, nothing catastrophic in the grand scheme of car crashes - I was probably going about 1 mile per hour and, since I started out about 5-7 feet away from him, the impact was pretty minimal. I've been the hittee before, but never the hitter - I have yet to decide which position is the more challenging one to be in...check back in with me after I pay out on the claim.

Despite the apparent triviality that was this accident, I was pretty shaken up over the whole thing - my hands were trembly and my heart rate was racing. Yet, somehow, it didn't seem like it would be a very good idea to sit there and pop an Ativan at that exact moment. I followed Mr. Volkswagon over to the Walgreen's parking lot to exchange infos.

When I got out of my car, I began to apologize - very sincerely. I asked him if he was alright. Mr. Volkswagon stood there, with a disgruntled expression, looking at his dented rubber bumper and shaking his head back and forth. I told him that I was fully insured and that we needed to exchange information.

He just continued shaking his head back and forth.

"Sir," I said to him, "I've apologized and I've told you that I'm fully insured."

He said nothing - just grunted and glared at me.

"Sir," I continued, "There's no reason to be so angry - it was an accident and those happen. I've apologized, I've told you that I'm fully insured, and the damages appear to be pretty minimal. What more do you want from me?" After a short pause, I continued, "Is it alright with you if we exchange information now?"

"No. You give me your information and I'll send you an estimate," he told me.

"No," I told him, "absolutely not. Our insurance companies will handle this." (Did I look stupid to him?)

"But I did not do any damage, so you don't need my information."

"But we were both involved in the accident, so I do need your information. I will give you my information when you give me yours."

At this point, I was beginning to think that he was pretty lucky that I wasn't some asshat chewing him out for just sitting there when the light turned green.

He proceeded to walk over to the front of my car, where we both learned that there was absolutely no damage to my vehicle. This made him irate.

"See, you don't even have a scratch on your car!" Was he envious? "You drive a nice car and you get away with no damage and you have put a dent in my car!

This really seemed to piss him off. I decided not to take this bait, as I could see no good coming out of an argument over whose car was the nicest and how unfair that was. I told him again that I'd give him my information when he gave me his.

He grunted again and produced a driver's license and a copy of his registration with his insurance information below it. He then told me to write "I hit you" and sign it on the piece of paper where he'd written my infos.

"No way," I told him, "I'm not comfortable with that. I will tell my insurance company that I hit you and it's quite clear by the damage done that I was at fault, but there's no way I'm writing that down for you."

He wasn't happy about that, but that was too bad. What the hell was he trying to do? It was a really minor accident - was he going to try and take me to small claims court or something? Clearly this guy watches way too much daytime television. After the exchange, he just stood there. He really seemed to want to prolong this. I told him that I'd be phoning my insurance company either later that day or the next morning and that they would take it from there. He stood there looking at me and I told him that if there was nothing else he needed from me, then I needed to go.

I then popped an Ativan and headed off to work.

Confiscation, confiscation, what's your function?

Early this morning, J and I drove K to the airport so that she could fly off to attend a national conference. Always the activist, K will be presenting a workshop and then she'll be speaking as part of the closing day panel. Isn't this what all 15 year olds do during their summer break?

Although K is a frequent flier, she can be a little bit absent-minded at times. While she was gathering her belongings to load into the car, we asked her if she had anything in her carry-on bag that could potentially be confiscated at the airport security.

"I don't know. Like what?" You'd think this kid had taken a siesta with Rip van Winkle or something.

"K, you know what sorts of things...sharp objects/tweezers/corkscrews/knives, etc., water bottles, other liquid things - basically anything a terrorist might think to use to fuck things up...and then some."

"Oh." She reaches into her bag and pulls out a book of matches and hands them to J. After digging around some more, she pulls out some tweezers. And then another book of matches and then another.

"Sheesh! For a nonsmoker, that's a hella lotta matches." We weren't really concerned, but found it odd that someone who often spoke up to others about the damages of smoking would carry so many books of matches on her. We asked her why so many.

"Oh, it just seems like there's always someone who needs a light." Apparently she doesn't mind facilitating the smoking. She then continues to dig around in her bag and pulls out a switchblade knife. We both look at her.

"It's for cutting fruit," she tells us. Knowing K, there is no doubt in my mind that this is what she uses this knife for. Her braces make it very difficult for her to bite into things like apples. Luckily, she attends a school where the rules are viewed a little differently than at some high schools. The "think outside the box" approach at her school would prevent her from being suspended for carrying a weapon to school with her. In fact, she claims that when she was helping to create the design and execution of the set for her school's Winter Solstice program (no Christmas programs here, folks), the faculty advisor was delighted when K pulled her switchblade out of her bag after much time had been spent searching for an exacto knife that could not be located.

We made her hand the knife over and she gave us a lighter, as well. I began to wonder what would have happened if we hadn't prompted her to check her back for confiscatables. Natch, her switchblade, tweezers and maybe the lighter would have been seized...but then what? What exactly happens to all of the items separated from their owners at the security check point?

Someone once told me that, when an item that is not permitted on a flight is confiscated, one may mail the item to themselves from the airport rather than forfeit the item altogether. I have been extra extra careful, when I fly, to purge my carry-on baggage of my eleventy spare corkscrews that I carry on me. Way back in the day, I took a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco about two weeks after 9/11 occurred. Ironically, security was over-the-top rigid and SLOW SLOW SLOW to process the peeps (we had to arrive 3 hours before our flight), yet it was probably the safest time to fly - ever. This was when the repertoire of what could possibly be confiscated grew exponentially to include things like tweezers, corkscrews, knitting needles, etc.

Having been a bartender/wine snob for many years, I have always carried a corkscrew on my for as long as I can remember. On numerous occasions, I've been very grateful about this quirk until Sam the Security Guy at the Burbank Airport deemed my most fabulous Dean and Deluca corkscrew a national threat.

"Oh crap. Nooooo!" I said as Sam the SG bored holes through me with his glare. Clearly, he was fed up with all the extra work he had to do and, quite likely, without additional compensation. I could see that he knew nothing about Dean and Deluca.

"It's my favorite corkscrew! I just bought it last year in New York."

Sam the SG's expression remained unchanged.

"Please don't take it," I pled. He said nothing and tossed it into this amazing and ginormous barrel containing all kinds of great stuff. I then began to wonder what happens to all of these seized treasures. Are they thrown away? (what a waste!) Do the employees in security get to choose which ones they want and take them home? (totally unfair) Are they sold on eBay for a profit? (sleazy) Are they sold on eBay and the resulting income given to charity? (a little thoughtful, still unfair) or???

"Wait! What do you do with this stuff?" Sam the SG just looked at me (he is mute?). "What if we do this: could you turn that in to lost and found and then I will pick it up when I return from San Francisco?" Brillz, I told myself, totally brillz.

"No can do." Ah, so he DOES talk.

"Well how can I get it back?" I asked as he was completing his full-body cavity search of my bag.

"Sorry, lady. You should have thought about it before you packed it."

Suffice to say, I never did see that Dean and Deluca corkscrew again. But I'll bet somebody did! But who? And under what circumstances? And did they pay for it (and, if so, how much?) or was it gratis? And so now, today, after rescuing K's switchblade at the last minute from a most certain doom, I again wonder about the fate of the seized treasures. Is Sam the SG kicking back and laughing while he opens a bottle of Chateau Margeaux with my Dean and Deluca corkscrew?

Nah, probably not.

Just wondering: Where did American citizens come from?

Yesterday, in Portland, the largest immigration raid on a workplace in all of Oregon history occurred in a food processing plant in North Portland. Over one quarter of the plant's employees, 167 workers, were taken away in buses and will be detained in Tacoma where they will be interrogated and investigated and, most likely, eventually deported. These are people - many of whom are trying to raise families and are living in poverty - who were working for minimum wage in a job that had virtually no means of advancing, either in position or wage. They pose no potential harm to anyone. They work in a job that many legal US citizens would not be willing to work.

This fuckin' pisses me off.

I don't even want to think about the money and effort being spent on attempts to seize illegal immigrants, many of whom work for minimum wage and often in more than one job. In the meantime, library services in schools are being edged out and school librarians are being cut out of budgets or, if they are lucky, being reduced to part-time. I read a recent article in The Oregonian about gang activity being on the rise in Portland and the graffiti indicating turf wars on many a fence/wall in my neighborhood suggest the same. And where is the money for the programs addressing the problems of gang activity/involvement?

And building a fence along the border of Texas???? Are you fucking kidding me? What a ridiculous waste of money and resources.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is that I know (and have known) several people directly impacted by this issue. Having worked in restaurants on and off for several years, I've worked alongside many an undocumented immigrant. I see them working their asses off (while the high school students from the nearby wealthy neighborhood, who mostly work as bussers, are often total slackers and wouldn't know a work ethic if it called 'em on their freakin' Blackberry), often working overtime. Most make a concerted effort to learn English and, often, are functionally bilingual in less than a year. These are people who have families they are trying to support and care for.

I've formed friendships with illegal immigrants who have spoken rather frankly, over a few beers, about the "coyotes" and the expense and dangers of crossing the border. I've heard some horror stories and the fears involved in embarking on this journey are not to be taken lightly - starvation, getting lost, death, violence. Some time ago, I worked alongside a woman, Rosa, who had recently arrived in Portland via coyote. She looked shell-shocked and the fear and sadness in her eyes were unmistakable. I can't help but wonder what she endured while making her way here. She worked as a dishwasher and she worked hard. She didn't speak much and knew little English. And these sacrifices are made in order to work physically exhausting jobs for minimum wage. Or, in the case of the Del Monte Food Processing plant here in Portland, under allegedly abhorrent and unsafe working conditions, as well as working extraordinarily long hours (up to 18 hour shifts) with no overtime pay.

And I really hate the pundits who cry, "but they don't pay taxes!" Well, you know what, pundit? They also don't reap the benefits of legal citizenship: voting, social services, unemployment benefits, Social Security benefits, income tax refunds (which many, who work for low wages and have children, would receive), financial aid for higher education. Just sayin'.

And, yet, there are folks who want them gone. Whenever I drive back to Portland from Seattle, I encounter a privately-owned billboard in a rural area of Washington, halfway through the trip that always has conservative/very right-leaning - and often anti-immigrant - messages. On a recent trip, the billboard sported the following quip: "Welcome to America! Now speak English."

Here's what I want to know: Mr./Ms. Billboard Owner, where did your ancestors come from? Did THEY speak English upon arrival in the United States? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Do Ya Wanna Makeup?

When I was living in California, J and I worked in the same establishment for a little while (not how we first met, but it was where we reconnected and got together). There was a woman, Jane, who worked there at the time (she was maybe a secretary of some sort?) who sold Mary Kay cosmetics on the side.

One day she came up to J and said, "You're a really pretty girl, but your skin could use some help - I have just the product for you."

J, being much smarter than this peddler of crappy cosmetics, did not take Jane up on her offer. And if I'm going to be perfectly catty (and I am), Jane wasn't so easy on the eyes and it would behoove her to worry more about her own skin than to make subtle jabs at others in order to increase her net income.

Flash forward a couple of years when we're newly in Portland and I'm working at the small neighborhood restaurant where I presently work. I'm working lunches and I have a regular group of 16 who comes in every Wednesday(it's a networking group - so they are all about shameless self-promotion to one another and, occasionally, me) . Most people were pretty friendly to me and appreciated when I went the extra mile for them (such as knowing who drinks the same drink every time and having it waiting for them when they arrive, amongst other nice touches). I remembered all of their names pretty rapidly and would refer to each one by name and do whatever I could to make them happy. Since it was such a large group, I was permitted to add an automatic 18% gratuity to the tab - I also printed out a separate check for each person, even though the restaurant wouldn't typically do that for such a large group. Some of the folks threw me an extra dollar or two on top of that, which I thought was really thoughtful and was much appreciated. One man, Dale, would even peer pressure everyone into throwing me a little extra at Christmas time. Nice guy, Dale.

This was more than three years ago and only one out of the 16 remains a regular customer (although, in all fairness, not all of them lived in close vicinity of the restaurant). Well, one of the women in the group, Maryanne, sold Arbonne beauty products and was very eager to make some cash off of me. Being smart enough to know that I didn't plan on waiting tables at lunch my entire life (this was, of course, before I was admitted to UW), she attempted to recruit me into selling Arbonne as a representative under her guidance. For those of you who don't know, Arbonne is a multilevel marketing structure, not unlike Amway (think pyramid, think trickledown). They claim that all of their products are "100% natural" and comprised of botanical ingredients - I've heard through the grapevine that this is not so, although I can't say for certain. Maryanne showered me with compliments about my customer service skills, how personable I was and so on. I told her I'd think about it, although I had absolutely no intention of doing such a thing. Hell, she was a regular customer and I wanted to maintain a good rapport.

One day, she gifts me with a host of Arbonne samples of skin care products, including one anti-aging serum that she claimed was practically magic. Since I was perfectly happy with what I was using at the time (Lancome or something, I think) and wasn't in the market for a change, I set the samples aside figuring I would use them when I finished off my current product. When Maryanne saw me the following week, she raved about how great my skin looked (note: I hadn't even broken the seal on any of the Arbonne products). Even though I already knew that she was just feeding me fake compliments to hook me in, this confirmed it. I told her thank you and went on with my (honest) business.

She began to pressure me into ordered product (which was expensive, but no more so that what I typically use). I figured that since she was a longtime regular customer and I'd made some dough off of her, I'd throw her an order. I think I tried to get a sunscreen and maybe a bath gel (two things I needed anyway) and she upsold me into a couple of skincare products (what is it with these people and the damn skincare products?) by promising a discount. I succumbed (no, I'm not usually this easy).

She had me fill out an order form, which included a request for my phone number. I told her that I don't usually give that out and, since she saw me weekly, did that really matter? Oh no, they needed that! She gave me some reason (what if there is a problem with the order??? or something) and I wrote it in, but reminded her that I really value my privacy and don't usually give it out.

(You see where this is going, don't you?)

Not long after I received my order, I was accepted into my current graduate program at UW and, as a result, had to stop working lunches in order to have my days free for school (and blogging!). I announced to this group on my last Wednesday that I would no longer be working days and that someone else would be taking care of them in the future. I told them why and several folks congratulated me and gave me an extra large tip that day (Maryanne stuck with the tacked-on 18%). I told them I'd be working evenings and to come in and see me. Since then, I've only seen Geoff, who has come into the bar, but mostly gets take-out.

Within a couple of weeks, I received a phone call from Maryanne. Not recognizing the name on the caller ID (and thinking it might be one of my daughter's friends), I answered the phone. It was Maryanne wanting to know how I liked my products and would I be interested in ordering more? I said thanks, but no thanks - I was good.

Not long after her phone call, I receive an Arbonne catalog in the mail with an enthusiastic note saying that she misses seeing me at the restaurant. I skim the catalog that is littered with testimonies from successful Arbonne reps and what I recall as a very tan, very blonde executive type with a message of encouragement.

A couple more weeks pass and she calls again, but I don't answer this time. So she calls the next day. And the next. And the next. Same scripted voicemail each time, with the latter containing a somewhat agitated tone. Scary. I never return any of the calls. I never order any more scary Arbonne products.

I hear from owner-man John at work that the networking group doesn't come in for lunch anymore.

A couple of years have passed since my last phone call from Maryanne and I'd relegated the experience to merely a weird story that I sometimes told others when the subject was raised.

Flash forward to today when my phone rings and I pick it up, first checking the caller ID. I see the name and know that I know that name from somewhere, but where? Not long after I decide not to answer it, I remember exactly where I know that name. I listen to Maryanne's message and here is what it says:

"Hi, not sure if you remember me, but it's Maryanne - the regional rep for Arbonne Skincare (oh, I remember you, Maryanne). I just wanted to touch bases with you since we'd lost touch and tell you about some of our new products! And, if my notes are correct (she took notes on me?!?!?!), you have a daughter who is about 16 now and I just wanted to let you know that we have some products that she'll just loooooooove! They're younger products with exactly her age group in mind and I just know that she'll love them. I remember (you don't remember - it's in your "notes") that you said you were going to school and I want to see how that is going and catch up with you, see how you're doing. So, give me a call!"

Okay, my very political, activist daughter (who is 15) is currently sporting a Mohawk and pretty much uses no product at all, except for some Burt's Bees lip balm that is tinted. I GUARANTEE that she would not be amenable to Arbonne's aggressive tactics.

I'm really hoping that Maryanne acquires a clue.

Calgon take me away (unless you are made by Arbonne or Mary Kay).

feeling like the underdog

In honor of my birthday, I'm posting a rant that I wrote in early February, 2007...

Dear Lizzie B.,

You fuckin' pissed me off tonight.

When I first saw you many months ago, I thought you were amazing! So accomplished! So articulate! So well read! So beautiful! And you play on my team! Welcome aboard!

But your maneuver of the celebrity-author-handler equivalent of cock-blocking was inexcusable. You seemed so incredibly phony and unlikable when I was initiating a conversation with S-L P as I was reflecting on her previous visit to Powell's reading from her not-a-play novel, complete with guitar and accompanying songs. You whisked her away while I was in mid-sentence, completely disregarding that my conversation with her mattered a great deal to me and might have even mattered to her, as well. All the while, you smiled that fakey pasted on grin, decked out in your white wool coat, trying to look pure, pristine and untouchable. I don't really admire you anymore, for the record. I don't care if you're so young to be holding such a prestigious position in the Portland cultural scene. I don't care if you've published your writing in literary journals. I don't care if I'm the only one who doesn't think you're no longer all that great.

Signed,
bk

and, at the same time,

Dear S-L P,

I wanted to talk to you tonight. I really did. But I was feeling shy and unworthy of attending a reception in your honor in a fancy-pants post office lobby with supersized portraits of Dubya and Dick looking down on me while I consume the complimentary chocolate chip cookies not-from-a-box and wine that doesn't suck at all.

And it's not that I really had anything that compelling to say to you or any burning question about what it's like to be a writer or how did it feel to win a Pulitzer Prize or - wow - what was is like to take a writing class from James Baldwin? I just wanted you to keep talking.

And I don't even fully understand why you couldn't keep talking as long as you were on the stage and the people were listening and enjoying themselves. I mean, what was up with them flashing that blue light at you, trying to hurry you up? Hurry up for what??? It's not as though there would be a late night cabaret or anything and they needed to make way for that. You were happy talking to us and we were happy listening to you talk to us and answer random questions, even ones from young and naive writers-to-be who are seeking a panacea for writer's block.

So what would have happened if you had ignored the blue light and just kept on talking? Perhaps it could have been the literary equivalent to the old Portland story about Prince showing up at the Roseland theatre at the conclusion of some show or another and then playing until 2am. Were the blue-light blinkers telling him 'no'? Of course they weren't.

At the beginning of the lecture, when you were introduced by mean-lady-who-shall-not-be-named, we learned that you entertain even your most far-out ideas and breathe life into them to see what they hold. Would it have been such a far-out idea to just keep talking?

Perhaps the reception at the funky post office had a limitation on the hours permissible for using that space? After all, it is a government facility and there were two bonafide police officers guarding the chocolate chip cookies. And I would have been perfectly content listening to you talk at the reception but, the young man in the hat (who I gather is the aspiring writer with writer's block) seemed to have a great deal to discuss with you.

And by the time we were close enough to say hello, mean-lady-who-shall-not-be-named caught the eye of my friend, Kara, who works with her. Kara had just been talking about how mean-lady is kinda icy and phoney. But I was able to squeeze in a friendly hello and you so warmly returned my greeting. What I was starting to say, before you were so rudely whisked away in the middle of my sentence, was just that I thoroughly enjoyed your lecture /songs/personable book-signing event at Powell's some time ago and your warmth and clear interest in the individuals in your captive audience were so impactful - I have such fond memories of that event.

Here is, in particular, what I wanted to say to you about that event: The way you read your characters from your book and then pulled out your guitar and sang songs from the book and then every single person in that audience obediently nabbed a copy of your novel and stood in line for a moment of your time and perhaps a signature in their new book. The fact that you spent time actually saying hello and speaking to every single person in that line was so kind and generous - I'm certain that I'm not the only one who looks back fondly on that reading for that exact same reason. I left that reading feeling really fantastic.I couldn't believe that, while signing our books, you asked us questions about ourselves - that you seemed to care who we were as individuals. I appreciated that.

And that, even though tonight's event was much larger and less intimate, your warmth, humor and approachability still emanated through your anecdotes and reflections.

That was really all. I know it wasn't important or insightful or brilliant, but I just wanted to express my appreciation. You're a wonderful artist and storyteller and a beautiful woman - inside and out. Please continue to visit Portland regularly!

With warmth and admiration,
bk

'Twas a dark and stormy night...

While I have no idea if, in other lines of work, one has nightmares in which exaggerated versions of the worst possible things that can go wrong all happen on the same day, I can definitely say that this is common in the restaurant industry. It has been my experience that these nightfrights most frequently haunt waiters, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the back-of-the-house is familiar with these terrifying and seemingly real occurrences - they're just too machismo to talk about them.

Interestingly, in all of my years in this business (21, on and off), I have only had "waiter nightmares" and never any of the other varieties corresponding to any of the other positions I've held (host, barback, bartender, oyster bar/appetizer "chef," supervisor, caterer, barista, etc.).

Last night, I had my first "bartender nightmare."

It went something like this: I arrived to work late (something I almost never do anymore) to find that everything in my bar had been rearranged and all of my glassware was mixed up, as opposed to being neatly arranged by type of glass. None of my liquor bottles were in the correct spot and my garnish trays looked forlorn and haphazard. My bar tools (muddler, bar spoon, Guinness spoon, shaker tins, strainer, zester/twist maker, salt/sugar tray for my rims, spindle, cutting board and knife, champagne stopper) were all gone...nowhere to be found.

My bar had filled with people prior to my arrival, but none of them had been helped yet and I had no idea how long they'd been sitting there waiting. The printer that spits out drink orders for the wait staff was loudly regurgitating tickets one after another with no pauses in between. Furthermore, the tickets all had drinks listed on them that I've never heard of. This I found odd because, as a veteran bartender, I know my drinks pretty well and I'm always getting on the case of our novice bartender, Evan, to stop relying on Mr. Boston to save his ass when someone orders a freakin' Rob Roy.

However, when I go to "cheat" and look up the unfamiliar drinks, I notice that our cocktail menu looks different. Initially I am thinking this is good, since I wrote our new cocktail menu about three weeks ago (honestly. regardless of the weather, it's embarrassing to have a hot buttered rum on the menu of specialty cocktails in late March). So I open up the "new menu" which, rather than being a one sheet, is a tri-fold or quad- or quint-fold (I didn't have time to count the panels) that opens into this epic list of made-up cocktails that came from I-don't-know-where and, while the cocktails I'd assembled were on the list recipe-wise, they'd all been given different names and I have no idea how or why this happened.

I'm trying to make the drinks for the waiters and for my customers and, natch, nobody is ordering a draft beer or wine by the glass (and, if they did, there is no doubt that my keg would blow or that I'd pour a fraction of a glass of wine only to discover that there is no more of that wine in the house), yet I'm unable to find the correct glass for the drink and I feel like I'm moving at the pace of, well, super slowly.

I card a customer in the bar and she gives me a driver's license from Illinois in which there is a small inset pic of her as a 7 year-old child and then a larger pic of her as an infant with her dad holding her on his lap. Damn driver's licenses keep changing and hell if I can keep up with the changes, but I've never seen anything quite like this before. Luckily, Sasha, who owns the bar next door had recently brought us an identification manual showing the 2006 versions of the driver's license for each state (this part is true), but of course I can't find the damn thing.

My customers are getting angry because they've waited so long for their drinks and I'm getting more and more frustrated at my own incompetence. As I'm wallowing in my misery and lamenting my sorry-ass lack of skillz, the power goes out - but only in the bar. This, actually, is not such an outlandish thing as, in real life, about once a month, our power goes out in the dishroom only (and always at the most inopportune moments). When this happens, the dishwashers go and get some candles off of vacant tables and continue to wash the dishes by hand, by candlelight. Anywhere else in the restaurant and power outage = freakout. The restaurant is still buzzing with lively activity and the waiters are cruising by my pass-bar looking for their drinks and telling me I need to do comps because the drinks are taking too long. I don't have time to investigate the power outage so I try to keep making the drinks in the dark.

Owner-man John comes in to the bar and I show him the Illinois driver's license and ask him if he thinks I should serve the girl. He pulls out the manual that Sasha gave us and, for him, it was in the spot where it was supposed to be.

People were ordering weird shit like champagne with a shot of whiskey in it and blended concoctions - but not the usual suspects.

I'm looking around my bar and I notice half-made cocktails in glasses full of ice. I don't know who half-made them or how they got there or what is in each. I start sniffing them and sticking a straw in, blocking the top end with my finger, so I can taste the contents and attempt to figure out what partial drink each might be.

I can't identify any of them.

I look over to my tables in the bar and notice that some of my customers have drinks before them, yet I didn't make them or serve them. Where did they come from? I have no idea. One couple who had waited patiently for their drinks, for what may have been an hour or longer, finally gets up to leave. I beg them not to and promise that their drinks will arrive shortly.

I then notice that all of the customers from the restaurant have left and the lights have been dimmed. My customers in the bar are still waiting for their drinks. They're all pissed and I know that none of them will leave me a tip and all will complain to owner-man John about what a shitty bartender I am.

I wake up in a cold sweat with the certain feeling that it was all very real. I suddenly feel very blue. I reach over to my nightstand and put on my glasses; then I open up the book I'm presently reading (Anthony Bourdain's The Nasty Bits) and dive in. J comes upstairs and asks if I'm alright. She brings me coffee and I relive the nightmare aloud. She's laughing hysterically and I join in. Although, somehow, there is a part of this terrifying dream that still haunts me and I fear my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

J knows this, too, but neither of us mention it.

Above the Law

I was at the height of maximum busy-ness when a 40/50-something couple with a child of about seven sat up at my bar. Now, I don't claim to know what the law is everywhere else, but in Oregon, folks must be age 21 or over to sit at a bar. Sometimes bars that are attached to restaurants have a seating area with tables where minors may sit and for the sole purpose of food consumption (the law's words, not mine) and our restaurant is one of those places. However, all of my tables were full and I had three bar stools available, so they just bellied on up.

I'm sure the look on my face was priceless when I turned around to see a second-grader seated at the bar, but then I nicely told dad that I was sorry, but the young man was not permitted to sit at the bar, as per Oregon law. Dude then gestures back to the kitchen and said, "well, he said we could."

This should have been the first red flag that something was not quite right. I asked him who told him that and he said the chef had. (Insert red flag number two) Okay, this just keeps getting weirder because I know for certain that the chef knows the rules. So I nicely tell the man that
I'm sorry that he was told that and the chef must be misinformed. I let him know that I'd be happy to pour them a couple of drinks that they may carry to the lobby and consume there. Seeming to completely ignore the fact that I need that kid off the barstool -STAT- dude tells me that they just want to get a quick dinner, as they are on their way somewhere.

Okay, this hits something of a nerve***, as I have a HUGE prob with folks who come into busy restaurants at 7:30pm and want to have a QUICK dinner. That said, I told these persistant (red flag numero 3) folks that, again, I was really sorry, but I could not serve them dinner at the bar as long as the child was with them. Then, dude tells me that the servers are backed up in the restaurant, but the kitchen isn't too busy so he doesn't see why they can't get a fast dinner. Alright, despite the fact that this is red flag #4, where is he getting this information and why does he know something like this???

Clearly, this was the part of the night in which my brain was malfunctioning, as customers just don't say that sort of thing and I should have realized right then and there that something needed to click. Dude's wife then pointed to an empty table in between the bar and the restaurant and asked if they could sit there. I informed them that there was no server for that table. They asked if I could wait on them at that table and I told them that there would be no way I'd be able to give them the sort of service they deserved (which, at this point, when I say "they deserved," I'm meaning something completely different than what they are presuming I'm meaning). Plus, they clearly wanted preferential treatment (yoohoo! Bad Kitty! it's me, red flag number five!) and I didn't have much confidence that they could be taken care of as quickly as they wanted without the needs of others going unmet.

Dude looks at me and, in a disgruntled voice, says "fine, we'll just go somewhere else then."

Okay by me. One less thing for me to worry about. Or so I thought. I go to chef and try to confirm that he does, indeed, understand the law regarding minors at the bar. He snaps at me and tells me he knows. Clearly, he's fucking busy, despite the kitchen forecast I'd received from rude-dad-at-bar.

Is there a full moon tonight?

Jump forward three hours to owner-man John returning from a catering gig and me asking him a favor. Owner-man John says yes to the favor, but under one condition: that from this point forward I recognize the Butts (not their real name. really, this time) and make sure they get taken care of when they come into the restaurant.

huhhhhhhh?

Owner-man John asks me if I know what they look like. Yeah, I tell him, with the Angelina Jolie lips on the wife, I'm pretty sure I'd recognize them even though I haven't seen them in a really long time. Owner-man John then informs me that it hasn't been that long, as they were sitting at my bar earlier this evening. WTF??? They called owner-man John on his mother-fucking cell phone and ratted me out for not kissing their rude MoFo asses. I now officially hate them even more.

Oh shit.

"Crap," I tell him, "I totally didn't recognize them. They didn't have their daughter with them and I didn't make the connection at all."

"Not even the lips?" owner-man John asks.

"You know, I wasn't even really looking at her. He was the one talking to me and I was looking back at him when I was talking to him. And, besides, okay it was the Butts, but they still can't sit at the bar with the kid, right?"

"Of course, I didn't expect you to let them stay at the bar, but you should have recognized them and told him that you'd try and find a table in the dining room for him."

"But John, he just came from the host stand where they were unable to accommodate him! Am I supposed to override the host and overload one of our servers?"

"In the future, I just want you to find a way to take care of them, even if it means that it takes several people doing different things for them. If I'd been here tonight, they would have been taken care of."

"Yeah, and YOU would have been the one waiting on them," I reminded owner-man John. "You know he's a total asshole," I added.

"Oh, he's a rude fuck, but he's also one of my best catering clients."

"I know. Sorry. I just treated them like I would anyone else in that situation and I should have recognized them. I'm sorry."

At this point, Ginny, who is our pastry chef, chimed in, "I can't believe he doesn't know that he can't sit at the bar with a 7 year-old kid!"

"He doesn't care," owner-man John told her.

This is true. This MoFo, Dr. Butt, is some sort of surgeon and, several years ago, he was at the airport and parked his Mercedes in the zone that is for the immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. Well, he returns to his car to find a parking enforcement officer writing him a ticket, which he refused to accept. Parking enforcement officer tries to get into power struggle with Dr. Butt, who, even then, was under the impression that the law does not apply to him. Long story short, Dr. Butt tells parking enforcement lady that he can "Bye & selll peeple likke ewe." Dr. Butt gets into his car, while parking enforcment lady stands in front of the car trying to bar his escape and force him to accept his citation, and Dr. Butt freakin' runs over parking enforcement lady. Parking enforcement lady sues for a million bucks, wins, and is no longer a parking enforcement lady. Meanwhile, million dollar lost lawsuit doesn't even put a dent in Dr. Butt's holdings and, clearly, he learns nothing from the experience.

Parking enforcement lady should have sued for eleventy gazillion million dollars.

***

1. Food can only cook so fast.
2. What about all the orders who have been put in ahead of yours? Should those folks be expected to wait even longer because you can't manage your time well? And, if so, why do you deserve to have your order bumped up ahead of everyone else's? (trust me, folks in restaurants look around and they know who got there first and they get disgruntled if someone who came in after them gets their food first)
3. Perhaps you do actually manage your time well and this was a fluke...there was an accident on the freeway or whatever. Still, if you only have time for fast food or a deli sandwich, then GET THAT. Or go somewhere that isn't busy. When you go into a busy restaurant needing to get served quickly and get out of there in a less-than-reasonable amount of time (30 minutes or less), it's not fair to the server or the kitchen, but -most of all- it's not fair to the other customers. Furthermore, you might just be screwing yourself over if you're forcing the restaurant into a situation where they will need to take shortcuts in order to adequately accommodate you.
4. If you do, despite all of the above, go into a busy restaurant with only a minimal time to be out of there well-fed and you were accommodated, frakkin' hook that server up with a good tip, because they probably bumped your needs ahead of others and they don't have to do that, but they wanted to please you. A good tip is a lovely way to say thank you.
   

Something visible but without substance

So, it's no secret that one of my guilty pleasures (along with In and Out Burger and lots of music from the 80s) is American Idol.

Anyway, I'll cut to the chase here.

Last season's winner, Taylor Hicks, is slated to come to Portland soon to play a show at the Crystal Ballroom. And do you know what they are charging for tickets?????

Forty (40) fucking dollars!!!!! Each!!!!

Now, I'm neither here nor there about Taylor - he wasn't my fave of last season, but I don't think he sucks either. Just not my style is all. Still, FORTY DOLLARS??

Here is a list of people/events I have seen (mostly at the Crystal Ballroom) in which tickets have been less than $40 (most of which have been less than $30):

• Sleater-Kinney (with Eddie freakin Vedder doing an opening set) $13
  
• The Shins $20
  
• PJ Harvey $25
  
• Liz Phair $17
  
• Belle and Sebastian $30
  
• The Indigo Girls (don't tease me, I did that for my woman) - I have no idea what we paid for those, probably $25 - $30
  
• Patti Smith - yes, THAT Patti Smith - $30-ish
• We've even seen Death Cab for Cutie (after everyone knew about them) for less than $30
  
• I think both Dido and Ani diFranco were both right at $40 - at the Schnitzer, though
• I've paid less than $40 for orchestra-level seats at the opera!
• Alvin Ailey, less than $40
• Upcoming Decemberists show $31 (for some reason, they cost more to see in Portland than almost anywhere else)
  

So tell me how this makes sense??? In fact, it's quite likely that the only person I've paid much over $40 to see is David Bowie. And anyone who knows me knows that there is no ceiling on what I will pay to see David Bowie in concert. But that's David fucking Bowie!!!

Seeing as how Taylor's CD is not selling all that well, I can't imagine that folks are going to be banging down the door to pay forty clams to see him sing bluesy songs and whip his upper body into a seizured frenzy. Seriously, am I completely delusional in thinking that $40 is a hella chunka change for Taylor Hicks tickets?

Perhaps Ruben Studdard is opening for him.

I'm not ignoring you. I just hate you.

The other morning I woke up, after hitting the snooze on my alarm eleventy gazillion times, and proceeded to go about my morning routine to prepare for a day at the Internship from Hell (which, by the way, has gotten much worse than what has been described here). I'm drinking my delicious French Roast coffee, reading the newspaper and checking my email. Same as always.

When I was taking my breakfast dishes to the sink, I noticed that the dishwasher was full of clean dishes, so I emptied it and then put the few dirty dishes from the sink into the dishwasher. I then proceeded to wipe down the counter, which morphed into pulling out the spray cleanser, moving each and every counter-top appliance, then vigorously cleaning the entire counter.

A thorough cleansing of the counter led to the microwave getting the star treatment makeover and each and every cupboard being wiped down until I noticed that the floor was in need of sweeping and mopping. After cleaning the kitchen floor to a state beyond pristine, I noticed the clock. A fair amount of time had passed since I'd finished my breakfast and I should've walked into the library over an hour ago.

Oh crap.

I stood there and fretted for a bit and then sampled various excuses in my head to explain my tardiness/absence. I was sick/had an appointment/had a family emergency/got into a car accident/etc. I feared using any of these excuses lest I jinx myself and have the inevitable karma-kickback occur. As I was pondering my escape, I noticed that the living room was in need of dusting.

My newly-dust-free living room also needed to be vacuumed and not just in a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am way, but really thoroughly and by moving every single item of furniture to clear away the underneath debris. I then proceeded to painstakingly vacuum every speck of dust from each and every stair leading to the upstairs portion of our townhouse. I windexed every glass surface, making every mirror sparkle and rendering nary a smudge on the tv, coffee table, china cabinet or on any of our hanging art. I wiped the dust off of the tops of the molding throughout the house and wiped down each and every faceplate of each and every lightswitch.

What the hell was happening here?

I looked at the clock and, noticed that it was in the middle of the afternoon. I felt a panic attack coming on and tried to consider my options. What should I say to them? I knew that if I emailed them, it would look cowardly and as if I were lying. I could call but, at this late in the afternoon, what on earth would I say? And would they really believe me? I hadn't planned on bailing for the day...I. Just. Didn't. Go.

I called my lovely wife, who suggested I call - and the sooner, the better. I told her I didn't think I could do it and that I had to leave for work soon and I still didn't know how I was going to handle the situation.

Despite feeling anxious and freaked out about my options and the ramifications of no-showing at my dreaded internship, I felt oddly calm and content at the same time. I couldn't really identify if what I'd experienced earlier in the day had been a full-blown anxiety attack or some sort of manic episode or something different altogether. What I did know was that I just couldn't leave the house and kept feeling compelled to clean (and to do so with a Martha Stewart-like standard). It was as if I was not able to leave the house at my own free will and a magnetic force was keeping me rooted.

I went to work later that afternoon feeling great and wishing I could blow off the remaining week of the internship. I'd figure out later how I would weasle out of my unexplained absence.

The tights mishap

So, here I am attending my first ever professional librarian conference in Seattle, Washington (my home away from home) and am doing my best to get it right. When packing for the trip, I selected mostly clothing on the casual/comfortable side of professional on account of you never know who you might bump into and what opportunities may be available to you (as it turned out, there was nobody and nothing, respectively, but, again, you never know). And, knowing that I'd be walking all over hilly downtown Seattle, I selected stylish, yet comfortable, boots to navigate the terrain.

The first discussion that my traveling companion, *Heather, and I chose to attend was, of course, on the other side of the urban landscape. No matter, the weather was ideal for a city trek and it felt good to be out and moving.

Because I would be co-hosting a reception for my graduate program later that evening and didn't know if I'd have an opportunity to return to the hotel to change my clothes, I selected an outfit that could be construed as "business casual," as that had been what I was instructed to wear for the reception. And, again, you never know who will be there. As it turned out, nobody with a job offer was following me around like a lost puppy - and if they had, I'd likely be wary of said offer. But Internet Celebrity blogger, iAsshole, was attending! She was surrounded by, presumably, a hoard of fans trying to acquire some tongue scrapings when iAsshole wasn't looking.

Here's what I selected for the day: a black cashmere sweater (ribbed for my pleasure), a black skirt that fell a good three inches above the knee, kicky chartreuse tights by DKNY, and black mid-calf boots. To accessorize, I added a lovely long scarf that was a sheer black with green stitching in a fancy way and, of course, my green-framed specs. Even Heather told me that my outfit was adorable (thanks Heather!), so I felt confident that I could blend in with the cosmopolitan Seattleites without a hitch.

Unfortunately, there was a hitch.

My elastic in my lovely kicky tights had, unbeknowst to me while I was dressing, decided to go suicidal on me and, about halfway into the walk to the Westin Hotel on the other side of town, slowly started to creep downward.

Uh oh. I saw where this was going.

I asked Heather to stop and pose as a barrier for me so that I could stand near a building and pull up my Southbound tights. So not very cosmopolitan. I couldn't tell how far South those tights were willing to go, but it seemed prudent to stop and hike them up as they were loitering at the fullest part of my ass.

Another two blocks later, the top of my non-elasticized tights were hovering at the equator of my ass again and I just couldn't foresee stopping every block to hoist them up. So I decided to grin and bear it. Or, to bear it anyway.

By the time we walked in through the grand entry of the swanky Westin Hotel, my tights had fallen down the slope of my ass and were pausing at the tops of my legs and I wondered what could possibly hold them in place at that point. An image flashed in my head of my attempt to look dignified while the tights were bunched around my ankles, preventing me to take a stride any longer than four inches. As we took the escalator to the fourth floor, I tried to calculate how much wiggle room I had from the tops of my legs to the hem of my skirt.

The overcrowded discussion meant that we had to sit on the floor. Somehow I was able to manage this sans incident. When the discussion ended, Heather asked what I wanted to do. I told her that I needed to get to the Nordstrom we'd passed stat and purchase a control garment to hold my tights in place for the remainder of the day. Sure, there were probably some other places where a desperate woman could purchase a control garment, but the Nordstrom was closest. She was fine with that and relegated herself to the shoe department while I sought freedom in the form of constraint.

Now, I have mixed feelings about control garments in general and have, for the most part, opted out of partaking in what is so clearly a man-made accoutrement. Worse yet, the damn things come in sizes small and extra small! What on earth would someone so tiny need with such a thing? And just to rub it in, the photos on the tags of these garments revealed a very slender woman - perhaps a size 2 - donning such an item, apparently to show that it is, indeed, slenderizing. I growled at these tags and pulled a couple of different styles in my size. As I pulled on these torture devices, I wondered how they were supposed to create a slenderizing effect - unless I were to cover every inch of my body with them. Sure, everything inside of the garment was contained, but then the distinction between the inside and outside of the garment was drastic and looked freakish. Ironically, I purchased the girdle (these were girdles, weren't they?) that was the LEAST tight so that - should my clothing hug my body at any time throughout the day - I would not resemble a sausage attempting to escape its casing.

Now, more so than ever, I remain of the opinion that control garments seem most suitable for those wishing to trans gender.

*not her real name

The Inept Intern

My introduction to the professional world of information organization began with watching Patricia pull up an unfamiliar computer screen from who-knows-where and proceed to rapidly click in various parts of a template, changing some things, adding others and then calling it good.

"See," she said, " that's all you need to do."

On my second day, it was revealed that I was conducting searches with the incorrect criteria and, since my method would often return the same results as the desired criteria, it didn't occur to me that I might be doing it incorrectly. Well, until it was pointed out to me:

"What are you doing? Why are you searching that way?"

Um, because I'm a total idiot and wasn't paying attention when you whipped through an instruction session that I wasn't able to follow, but thought that I had. That's what I wanted to say. Instead, I sat there somewhat paralyzed willing the ground to open up and swallow me whole and then wake up in my bed to discover that it was only a bad dream.

Nevermind that I'd never used this particular software and that I'd had no experience at all doing any hands-on cataloging. I started asking questions at the rate of one per millisecond. I wanted to know exactly what she was doing, how she was doing it and why.

I've taken on an internship in a local-ish suburban/rural public library where it seems many of the library employees don't really care so much about reading, aren't very friendly and know pretty much diddly-squat about pop culture. On top of that, none of them seemed to have any clue as to who Nancy Pearl was. This, it seemed, was a mere job to them. Employment and nothing more. What kind of Librarian Twilight Zone have I stumbled into?

I continued asking a lot of questions. I wanted to know what I was doing and not just learn the factory imprint of the task, but to capture a true understanding of the philosophy behind the required actions. This seemed to perturb Patricia. I suspect that when she signed on to obtain an intern, she saw this as an opportunity to keep costs down and productivity up and not so much as an opportunity to nurture a curious mind and mentor a student in her chosen field.

My suspicions of her irritation with my continued queries were confirmed when, several times throughout the day, others would say hello to her and ask her how she is doing and she would reply by bemoaning her lack of productivity due to "all of the interruptions" and then I would feel terrible about being the cause of 99.9% of those interruptions.

So I stopped interrupting her.

I would then save all of my items with questions in a pile so that I only had to interrupt her once. This didn't go over so well, either. She simply couldn't understand why on earth I would let it all pile up like that. Frankly, it made perfect sense to me, particularly since the same question would often apply to multiple items and so one answer to one question would knock out about four or five items. She reprimanded me with her words, telling me to ask her when I had a question. Of course, then she would don her headphones and privately listen to music while she worked.

I then seemed to be on the right track for a couple of weeks. Well, seemed anyway.

I came in one day to a stern Patricia face and when the lips moved, the words "We need to talk" emerged, piercing me and causing me to contemplate turning on my heels and walking out to my car, never to return again. What would happen if I did that? Would I still have enough credits to graduate in June? What about the $$$ I'd plunked down for this opportunity?

Turns out, there were some steps I was overlooking in my cataloging. Why was I overlooking these steps, you may ask? Because I had not been taught them - that is why.

Problem is, Patricia was convinced that she HAD taught me these things. How can this be, you ask?

Well, there is another intern, also in my grad program, who is there to learn the same things as I. Turns out Patricia (perhaps not realizing that there are two of us) sometimes teaches him things on days that I'm not there and is under the impression that she has taught me these things. So I am then held accountable for things I haven't even been taught.

Very frustrating, particularly when I try to tell Patricia that I haven't been shown how to do something yet and she is convinced that I have and tells me that she must not have made herself clear. Ayayayayay.

And if that weren't bad enough, I watched in horror as Patricia tormented a high-schooler (let's call him 'Tim') who is volunteering at the library and was under Patricia's charge. Tim was working on putting some labels on some new cd cases and was listening to his iPod and working quietly. He gets up to use the restroom and, after about 7 minutes, Patricia begins to wonder aloud what is keeping him. She exclaims, "I seem to have a student who is more interested in hiding in the bathroom than in working."

A pit began to form in my stomach and my heart ached for Tim, who was in for some sort of degradation that will likely be the cause of a lifetime of gastrointestinal issues. I began an attempt to telekinetically lure Tim from the bathroom to save him from what looked to be complete and utter humiliation.

But I have no telekinesis, I only pretend that I do.

A good three more minutes passed and Patricia was at the bathroom door, knocking loudly and saying, "Are you going to come out soon?"

It was then that I made a mental note to myself to only visit the restroom when Patricia was on her lunch break.

Poof!

Breaking News!!!

Disappearing blogger found buried up to shoulders in articles detailing the minutae of indexing and abstracting, after barely emerging alive from the planning of Mother's 60th Birthday Surprise Party...cites 60-hour workweeks, holidays, lack of Internet access and family drama

PORTLAND - Alive, but somewhat disoriented, relatively unknown blogger, Bad Kitty, emerged this week from an avalanche of homework, family dysfunction (good and bad, past and present), and internship-rude-awakening to find that she does, indeed, still have a life. Time was wasted watching the somewhat sucky Golden Globes, with the hope that something exciting would happen.

A summary of events and potential topics for the near future include:

* Mother - one of these days she'll get around to that dish
* The anniversary of her first brush with death
* restaurant tales, including the latest updates on Manager-dude
* the internship of enlightenment - now she thinks she know where she DOESN'T want to work
* the continuing saga of the incredibly true and heartbreaking tale of her first Hollywood break-up
* the onset of American Idol, Season 6

and so much more. She thanks readers for being patient and understanding and looks forward to her return to the blogosphere.

too legit to quit

ARgh.

I had a dream last night that Amaris found my blog and ordered me to cease and desist telling the sordid tale of the incredibly true and heartbreaking story of the demise of our relationship. I was delighted when I woke up to find that it was only a dream. So worry not, dear readers, as the tale will indeed continue in due time.

Even though I've been found out before, and it was much to my surprise, I'm not too worried about it y'all. Besides, it's all true, so it's not like I'm making shit up (I don't need to!!). I guess it's still slanderous but, like I originally said: nobody is innocent and I can't afford to get all litigous.

Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber

So, manager-dude has reached new heights in stupidity as of late.

First of all, we recently had a wine rep visiting and trying to sell us some of his latest acquisitions, including a dessert wine. Manager-dude felt compelled to stand behind my bar and imbibe in the offerings of the gentle and kind wine rep, who also offered me tastes and solicited my opinion.

Prior to pouring an Oregon-made (evidenced by the name of vineyard and that it said "Willamette Valley" on the label) ice wine, the kindly rep informs us (in case we didn't already know, which we should and which I did) that ice wine is made from a process involving the freezing of wine grapes before fermentation, which renders a very sweet product. After manager-dude and I both taste, he asserts to the rep, "now, all ice wines are from Iceland, right?"

I am barely able to stifle my laughter. Now, admittedly, I don't expect everyone to know that ice wine is typically a German manifestation, but Iceland???? What grows in Iceland? Certainly not wine grapes!!!

I was very embarrassed for him, particularly since the rep had just explained why it is called ice wine, and did my best to nicely point out the label (which was facing us) where it said "Willamette Valley" (and anyone who knows anything about Pacific Northwest wines knows exactly what that means!). He seemed, sadly, unfazed by this, completely oblivious to his faux pas.

Now, if he hadn't previously boasted about his wine expertise, I *may* not have thought much of this...

Furthermore, upon returning to work the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I was mortified to hear Christmas music blaring from our sound system. I felt compelled to approach manager-dude about this. I immediately learned that other employees had complained, but simply because they did not want to spend 4-14 hours a day, every day from now until Christmas, listening to Christmas music. Yet I approached him with a different, less selfish, bent. I asked him: "Do you have any idea as to the demographics of our neighborhood?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, completely perplexed.

"Um, you do realize that we are located near one of the largest synagogues in Portland and that much of our regular clientele is Jewish?"

"So," he quips back.

"So it seems it might be insulting to them or, at the very least, completely disregarding their loyal patronage and disrespectful as a result."

"I don't care."

"Well, you should - why would you want to disrespect our customers?" I ask.

"Okay, fine," his defensiveness is starting to kick in, "find me the Hanukkah station on our music service and we'll play that for awhile."

"I don't think you get it," I tell him.

"Well, how are they going to feel about the thousands of dollars worth of Christmas decorations that we are about to put up?" he quips.

"Probably slighted and marginalized."

"Fine. We'll just be all PC and put up one of those candle things, a Buddha and Kwanzaa decorations as well," he proposed, thinking himself so clever.

He continued, "If you want to be so inclusive and considerate of the diversity of our customers, why don't we just do that, huh?"

Holy cow. There is no reasoning with this clown. I re-explain to him that I wasn't aiming for political correctness or the diversity of our customers, per se, but merely considering the demographics of our existing regulars, a large amount of whom are Jewish. And that, in layman's terms, it just isn't very nice of us to shove Christmas down their throats. I inform him that I have known people, Jewish and otherwise, complain about being told "Merry Christmas" throughout the month of December every time they make grocery purchases, put gas in the car, buy a latte and whatnot.

For what it's worth, he also tried to convince me that, unless the song is about Jesus, it's not a Christmas song, it's a holiday song. Um, hello, I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Let it Snow, The Christmas Song (aka Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), Winter Wonderland, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Raindeer are not Christmas songs??? Sure, whatever you say, manager-dude.

He gets all huffy and then says, "Well, that's why I don't like gay pride parades."

Whoa?!?!?!? What the hell just happened? How on earth are we now discussing gay pride parades?

"And how does that relate to what we are discussing?" I inquire.

"Well, I think that's just shoving it down people's throats and I don't want to be represented by men in leather and drag queens."

Oh boy. Well I disagree with him entirely on this count, as well, but I really don't want to go there. As I'm looking at him in complete and utter disbelief, he continues.

"Why can't we just have parades with nicely dressed gay men and lesbians in pants and t-shirts holding signs (he raises his arms as if he is holding a sign) that don't offend anyone? And why do we need a parade, anyway? I just want more rights and I don't see what parades have to do with anything."

"You know, our (yes, our, he is a gay man) community owes a hell of a lot to drag queens. Do you have any idea how much we have benefited from the courage of the drag queens at Stonewall, who likely had no qualms about representing the likes of you and me?"

"I'm not talking about Stonewall, I'm talking about now."

Oh my, he really is that stupid. I shake my head and tell him that we are just going to have to agree to disagree. I just can't do this anymore. Calgon, take me away...

je suis le mental case, part 2

Essentially, I Tremor

I have a neurological disorder called Essential Tremor. Personally, I think that is one of the stupidest names ever, but since I'm not able to change that anytime soon, I should just get over that. It's a tremor, to be sure, I have no problem with that part of it - it's the whole "Essential" bit that I just can't wrap my head around. There's really nothing "essential" about it. But I digress.

While the onset of Essential Tremor can result in a trembling or twitching impacting many different areas of the body, it is most commonly found in the hands or the face of those afflicted. The tremor is sometimes, but not always, noticeable in a resting position and is frequently seen in moving gestures, particularly those with a more precise or finely tuned sense of movement. Love espresso though I may, those demi-tasse cups are killer. Chopsticks are also difficult for me to maneuver, but I still insist on using them. And it's safe to say that I could never aspire to become a brain surgeon.

For some time, I simply thought that I drank too much coffee and left it at that. I later was able to rule out this theory when I asked my doctor about my shaky hands.

Essential Tremor is surprisingly common (more so than Parkinson's Disease), yet I had never heard of it prior to my diagnosis some ten years ago. And while many are under the impression that she had Parkinson's, Essential Tremor is actually what Katherine Hepburn was afflicted with and that caused her to tremble.

To settle the tremor, I take beta blockers (specifically Inderal) and that seems to work most of the time. Alcohol works, too, but isn't always advisable. Unfortunately, the condition seems to worsen with age and I'm pretty much maxed out on the dosage of beta blockers that I'm permitted to swallow. You see, beta blockers lower one's heart rate and blood pressure and since, in both cases, mine are already on the low side, the consumption of the beta blockers plummets my blood pressure into the alarming region.

And, still, I shake.

Not such a big deal if I were a go-go dancer or a dog washer.

The worst part of it is not so much the shaking itself - it's not as though it is painful to tremble, although it is a little bit agitating. Worse, though, is how some folks respond to me when they notice my hands trembling.

I kid you not. Peeps are downright MEAN. I have had people ask me if I am an alcoholic or a junkie or if I am jonesin' for a fix; I have had folks exaggeratingly mimic my tremble (often with an affected crazy-person expression on their face); I've had customers at work tip me less because I shake and have been the recipient of cruel career advice (i.e. "maybe you should get a job where you don't have to carry things"); I've had people nervously grab things out of my hands and I've encountered people who have just said rude and obnoxious things (in addition to those previously mentioned).

I wish it didn't bother me so much when folks say rude things or when they mimic me, but it does. I don't know why. Years ago, before I knew that I had a neurological disorder, I would cower in shame at the rude comments and mimicry. Now, I just look people directly in the eyes and tell them that I have a neurological disorder and can't help it and that I'm sorry if it makes them uncomfortable. Usually, when this happens, people will shut up already. Unless, of course, I am at work and am serving them a martini and accidentally spill it. But then I just make them a little extra to (over)compensate for what I spilled and that usually shuts them up.

The moral of this story: be nice to shaky people please!

I been framed.

Manager-dude has, in only two months, made countless (ok, but I've counted them anyway: 23) mistakes on the schedule, some of which were not caught in time to fix them. Just to give you an idea, Whitney used to do the schedule and, in four years, made only three (3) mistakes. You get the picture. It's a pain to work around everyone's busy lives and make sure all positions are filled and that the staff is well balanced, but it ain't rocket science. After writing his first schedule, he brought it to me and asked me to look it over for errors - I found about three or four that week and pointed them out to him. For the next couple of weeks, I continued to point out errors to him...the last thing I wanted was to have a busser not show up because manager-dude had neglected to schedule one for the evening. It was in the best interest of everyone that I continue to try to assist manager-dude in mastering that muthah. And with each progressive week, he would get more and more edgy and defensive with me and then start whining about how needy everyone is with requesting certain days off. Sorry, dude, it's a restaurant, not a school/police station/doctor's office/hospital/etc. For most folks working the front of the house, this is not a career, but an end to a means. And so we have other plans.

Like me, for example. Tonight.

It was my lovely wife, J's, birthday and I had planned to wine and dine her at one of my new favorite restaurants in Portland, Nuestra Cocina (sooooo delicious!). En route to dinner, my cell phone rings, indicating that I have a new voicemail. It's Whitney and she's calling from work and wondering where I am since, according to the schedule, I was due in at 5:30pm.

What the hell?

When manager-dude posted that schedule about a week or so ago, I specifically remember him telling me that he scheduled me for only three days, as I'd requested (last week he had me scheduled for five days, which I'd specifically told him I would not be able to do once school started) and I also would have noticed if he'd scheduled me on this date since it was J's birthday and we had plans to celebrate together. I am 100% certain that I was scheduled off for Oct. 18 when that schedule was posted.

How can this be, you ask?

To my credit, this sort of thing has happened before. Manager-dude discovers errors on the schedule and fixes them on the computer, putting the updated version where the old one was posted and discarding the old one. Does he tell the people whose schedules are impacted by his changes? No he does not. He somehow magically expects us to know that, not only should we check and write down our schedule when it is posted, but we should also check it every day thereafter in the event that it has changed.

I don't think so!

That's the most crazymaking expectation I've ever heard. Is he nuts? Does he really truly believe that it is my fault that I missed my shift tonight? Let's look at the facts:

Number of times bad kitty has (in four years) missed a shift at work (including tonight): 1

Number of times (in two months) manager-dude has made mistakes on the schedule (including tonight): 24

I rest my case.

our restaurant customers say the darndest dumbest things

and here are some examples of them:

1. Customers, after entering the restaurant through the front door, ask the host(ess), who has been in the air-c0nditioned restaurant since the start of her shift, "What's the weather like on the patio?" Some of our hosts are savvy enough to inform the customer that the weather on the patio is not unlike the weather outside the front of the building, which the customer should be quite well acquainted with, seeing as how they just came from there.
   
   
2. "Is that real ice?" This is a frequently heard query regarding ice sculptures as well as a large glass sink of crushed ice holding martini glasses (which exists in the bar where I currently work)...to which I frequently can't help but reply, "Why wouldn't it be?"
   
   
3. "Do you know where the restroom is at?" OK, I hate the whole preposition at the end of a sentence, but give me a break. Of course I know where the restroom is located - I work there! C'mon, folks, don't be so silly. Ask me where it is, don't ask me if I know where it is! And please don't tack an 'at' on the end of the sentence! KThnx.
   
   
4. When they have finished their dinner and their dessert, I always ask if there is anything else I can get for them, hoping that perhaps they will order a glass of port or a nip of scotch to end their evening. At least once a month, however, someone will reply with, "a winning lottery ticket?" and the entire table will burst into laughter as if that is the funniest thing they've ever heard. I refrain from informing them that I could likely retire if I'd had a dollar for every time I'd heard that one.
   
   
5. Folks call on the phone and will ask "How busy will you be at 7 o'clock?" Gee, I dunno, let me pull out my crystal ball and check! I know, on the weekends especially, it is relatively easy to determine that we WILL be busy, just not HOW BUSY. Sure, we can look and see if there are alot of reservations, but sometimes there are a lot of walk-ins as well and sometimes not. C'mon folks, really, how we would be able to give an accurate response to that?
   
   
6. Cutomers will ask me a question about an item on the menu or whether or not we carry a certain item. After responding (with confidence!), some will look at me and say, "are you sure?" Please. If I wasn't certain, I'd say so - or I'd excuse myself to go and make certain. If you ask a question, please just accept the answer that you are given. If someone asks you a question at your job and you answer them promptly and with confidence, how would you feel if they came back with "are you sure?"
   

who's the bad kitty now?

Last day of vacation and we're pretty ready to be home. We're tired, we're hot, we're grouchy and we all want to sleep in our own beds, for a change.

Nevermind that we ALMOST RAN OUT OF GAS on our last leg of the roadtrip...

We pull up in front of our still newish-to-us townhouse and we're all delighted to see our Edward Scissorhands-ish abode. J was talking about how much she missed our kitties and how she was looking forward to seeing them. She jumped out of the car and ran to our front door. I tried to grab a couple of random items, figuring it'd be less to lug in later.

The smiles of excitement on our faces, as our key was unlocking our front door, turned to utter disgust as we stepped into our home and took a big whiff of the hot, muggy, cat-urine infested air.

What the fuh...?

Our cats had sitters and were well fed and paid attention to while we were away but, somehow, this was not sufficient for them and they were angry. They were pissed. They pissed!

All over our dining room carpet.

And our living room carpet.

And our kitchen wood laminate flooring.

It was utterly disgusting. They'd never done this before.

We busted out the Nature's Miracle. We lit scented candles. We opened the windows and turned up the fans. After a few hours of cleaning and wiping down surfaces, our home smelled like Pineapple Cilantro candle. AND cat pee.

We'd been considering tearing up our carpet and installing wood laminate flooring on the entire downstairs living area, but that was to be next year's home improvement project. Should we consider doing that now? Or just borrow a friend's carpet shampooer? Or call a professional cleaner for the carpets?

We opted for the latter and selected a gay-friendly, environmentally-conscious carpet cleaning service to do the job. Karen found the concept of gay-friendly carpet cleaning to be a hoot, but hey, I don't want negative angry energy directed at me in my home, so we use gay-friendly services whenever possible. Besides, this way the money that we pay them won't later be used against us politically.

Well, the carpet cleaners came yesterday and -even though it smelled 100% better when our carpets were saturated with their nontoxic chemicals- the smell came back as soon as the carpets dried. Turns out that the angry urine invasion was pretty pervasive, plummetting deep below the carpet surface and through the pad underneath, then onto (into?) the sub-floor. This is a larger problem, we are told. This will require a tearing up of the carpet, discarding the pad beneath it, painting the affected area with a product called "KILLZ" (something every aspiring Buddhist should use, no doubt), then re-covering the floor. It looks like our wood laminate remodel will be happening much sooner than we'd originally intended.

In the meantime, the enviro-friendly carpet folks gave me some volcanic ash to sprinkle around and then vacuum up after several hours. Yes, volcanic ash. Who knows if this will help rid our home of the odor in the meantime. I do not understand at all how volcanic ash of all things will be plucking each and every odor particle from the air and taking it away forever.

We shall see.

insomniacs anonymous

I have insomnia.

Fierce, vicious insomnia.

I've had it on and off for years since high school (so, about 25 years) and, for the most part, I've learned to live with it. During the school year, I make the most of it and typically get a LOT of studying done between the hours of midnight and 4am. Sometimes people think I'm crazy. Which is fine, I guess, but the insomnia has become so normalized for me by now.

Sometimes I am completely incapable of making sleep happen until 6 or 7 am.

When I embark upon a group project at school, I have made it a habit of letting my groupmates know that they ought not be alarmed if they receive email from me at three in the morning or so. I learned the hard way that that sort of thing tends to freak some people out a little.

Here is a list of things I have tried in an attempt to rid myself of said insomnia (either permanently or temporarily - ya gotta take what you can get):

• warm bath
• hot tea, milk, and other warm beverages (without alcohol)
• alcohol (in varying quantities and temperatures)
• Chammomile
• Lavender
• Melatonin
• Valerian
• St. John's Wort
• reading
• thinking about something peaceful
• thinking about something boring
• several over-the-counter sleep aids, none of which worked
• Trazedone (kinda works, but takes too long to kick in)
• Ellavil (did not work AT ALL)
• one other lame Rx that did nothing Restoril
• Sonata (worked well most of the time)
• Valium (kinda worked)
• Ambien (got me to sleep, just didn't keep me there)
• Morphine (this worked!)

So, you see the problem. And even though I go to my doc and say that I wanna try this Lunestra stuff that I see advertised in my New Yorker or that I did okay with Sonata, or alternating Sonata and Ambien, they tell me no and write me a prescription for Trazedone. When I first picked this prescription up from the pharmacy, the pharmacist told me that I should be really careful if I get up in the middle of the night because this drug will make me so drowsy that it'll be dangerous for me to be at large! In my own home even!!!

This was so exciting for me to hear, I cannot even begin to describe. Hooray! Finally a drug that will conk me out completely so that I can have a peaceful night's sleep like the normal people do! I simply could not wait for evening to fall so that I could battle my insomnia - kapow, right in the kisser!

The kind pharmacist even suggested that I cut the pill in half and begin with a mere half dosage! It's that powerful, he tells me! I consider the possibilities. I so cannot wait to try this and I'm gonna take a whole one because I have a high tolerance and I hate cutting pills in half - they never divide perfectly evenly and this drives me crazy. I do not tell the pharmacist any of this, though. It is my own little secret.

I was nearly giddy with joy when I popped my first Trazedone at around 11pm. I crawled into bed and found a somewhat comfortable position while I waited for the magic drug to whisk me away into a wondrous sleep.

And I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited.

Some grueling two hours later, sleep finally remembered me and claimed me as one of her own. I did not feel like crap the next day and for that I am grateful. In two and a half weeks, I see my new doctor. Perhaps she will agree with me that perhaps a different, better, more effective sleeping pill is in my best interest.

I don't understand why they won't just give me Morphine to take for insomnia. The motherfucker works. And how.

Super-Soak Me

Today (day 4 of my family summer road trip), we decided to spend the day at a water-park to cool our hot selves off. I'd only been to one water-park before (Raging Waters in San Dimas) and I remember it being very fun, so I was looking forward to spending the day at Soak City, a subsidiary of Knott's Berry Farm.

The park had just recently opened the Pacific Spin - a ride in which 2-4 people, on an inner-tube-type-of-flotation-device that is shaped like a Honey Comb cereal, are situated into a small wading pool at the top of a tower (in which said people have climbed about four flights of steps, carrying the giant Honey Comb) and, after being instructed by a 17 year-old O.C. kid, pushes off into a large, dark tube that is flowing with running cold water. The tube twists, spins and turns in complete darkness for a minute or so and then there is a sudden 20+ foot drop. Happy screams ensue while the tube is speedily dumped into the large end of a giant funnel-like contraption, complete with showers of running water in both directions. The Honey Comb then slides rapidly along the large curve of the funnel, and back again toward the original direction, continuing back and forth until the Honey Comb loses momentum and is coerced by the water into a small opening where riders are treated to one last splash via a waterfall raining down on their heads before they are finally dumped into the finishing pool and hurriedly ushered along by the no-longer-thrilled-with-their-jobs teen lifeguards.

Sounds like fun, huh?

That's what we thought, too. So J, K and I decided to make the Pacific Spin our first ride of the day. The line seemed to be on the short side for such a new thrill ride, but we'd gotten there just when the park opened, and we thought it an excellent place to start. The short-ish line turned out to be about 45 minutes long but, judging by the faces of those exiting the ride, as well as the screams of joy heard from nearly every rider, we figured it'd be worth it.

Now, here, I must digress for a moment.

Being something of a dork, I managed to pack my swimsuit top, but no bottoms/board shorts. I realized this by the time we arrived in Long Beach and figured it was no big deal, as I didn't think we had plans to swim and I was content going into the ocean in my cargo shorts and swimsuit top. But then we decided to go to a water-park and, since they're super particular about what one may and may not wear on their water slides, I thought it best to treat myself to a new pair of board shorts. Every other pair I own had been purchased at Target or the Gap and since I was in a major surfing Mecca (Huntington Beach), I thought I'd score some fine authentic surfer board shorts. After trying on a gazillion pairs that were rejected for various valid reasons, I found myself sporting a pair of Reef shorts sporting a green East-Asian inspired design. I loved them and didn't mind being $50 poorer in order to own them. Swimsuit dilemma solved, I was ready for the water-park.

Being somewhat organized, J decided to check the website for the Soak City prior to our departure for the park. In doing so, J noticed a warning about attire stating that swimwear may not have any metal or plastic accessory or be jeweled in any way. Crap. My bikini top had these metal dealies joining the strings and the top of the bra-ish part. We ruled out the bikini top and I just wore one of J's yoga tops with my board shorts.

So here we all are at the top of the Pacific Spin and it's finally our turn, after waiting about 45 minutes. We'd watched as the group before us, comprised of a dad and his two sons, and one of the sons had "illegal grommets" on his shorts back pocket. The ride operator said that the kid couldn't ride with the grommets on his pocket, so dad just rips the whole damn pocket off. Um, problem solved. J, K and I are frantically checking for anything that may prevent us from riding and J determines that a rubber tab on the edge of my pocket flap may not be ok and that I'll have to tuck it in. I do this and, convinced that we are ready to take the plunge on this fantabulous ride, I help plunk our Honey Comb into the wading pool and am asked by the ride attendant to spin around. I happily do so, convinced that I will pass this inspection with flying colors.

"Ma'am, I can't let you ride with those grommets on your back pocket," the tan ride attendant firmly tells me.

"Huh? Grommets? What grommets?" I ask her, as I turn my head in order to look at my left ass cheek, which holds the offending pocket. They're there alright, but we hadn't even seen them because they were the exact same color as the fabric. But eagle-eyes tan lifeguard chick saw 'em and busted me. She tells us that we can step aside and determine what we'd like to do. She offered me the options of: pulling them out or putting my swim trunks on inside-out. J suggested we just pull them out, as many before us had clearly done already, judging by the sprinkling of grommets on the ground at the top of the ride.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

J just looked at me.

"I just paid fifty bucks for these and they're nice shorts and I love them. I'm not about to rip them up just to ride a water-slide that will last all of 3 minutes."

"Well, what do you think we should do," J asks.

I tell her that she and K should go ahead without me and I'll go back down to the fitting room and look into the possibility of turning my shorts inside-out. I meet them at the bottom of the ride and both J and K accompany my to the changing room. J asks if I want her to turn her shorts inside-out in solidarity. It's an incredibly sweet gesture, but I'm not in the right space to appreciate it properly. There's no mirror in the changing room (which is probably just as well) and I feel utterly ridiculous. Oh well, I figure, it's still quite early in the day and I figure that by noon or so, at least 20% of those wearing board shorts will have them on inside-out. Sure, some folks will just tear the grommets out, some will choose to ride the few rides that don't hold this requirement (basically this rules out all of the tubes), and some others will choose inside-out, right?

Wrong.

Total number of parkgoers sporting inside-out board shorts (including me): 1

Total number of parkgoers sporting board shorts with ass pocket grommets and riding the fun rides (where said grommets are supposedly banned): 7+

Time I began seeking other inside-outers: approx. 10:35am

Time I began counting grommet rebels running free: approx. 2pm

Time we left Soak City: 3:05pm

Getting caught checking out the booties of the other park patrons (all ages, genders and races) in order to conduct this survey: priceless

Amount of fun I had, despite this wardrobe malfunction: lots

Funnest ride: Pacific Spin, natch