Shades of Grey. That is the name of the world's stupidest, most cowardly, completely devoid of all the instincts innate to its species, cat. The cat actually belongs to my boyfriend. My presence in the apartment when we first started hanging out as friends post my divorce, terrified her even while I was two rooms away.
Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger!
The only way I could have been more threatening, sitting on the couch watching tv, is if I decided to vaccuum. This is a wrongness most species understand, in fact, I myself share the aversion to the appliance.
The things that scare Shades most: anything on the floor. Heaven forbid if the item is *ugh* fluffy. She tentativly reaches out a paw, not actually touching of course, and rears back as if the sweater is in fact a stricking cobra. There is one exception to the floor, plastic bags. Those are friendly and should be slept on or chewed on, or both. She, in her 'fluffy bad' concept, also avoids like the plague the bed, as it tends to be populated by a comforter, an enemy best avoided with poofed tail and big eyes.
Once several years ago, her instincts fired. She is not prey! I am a cat--a predator! (this story was related to me by my boyfriend, as it is before we met.) She was out on the back deck, on the rail, when a pigeon alighted. Time to wax on-wax off, said her kitty brain. She stalked...slowly..so slowly stalked up to it. Succesfull at sneaking up on the head bobbing bird, she swatted it with her clawless front paw. The bird bobbed a step away, and turned toward the odd furball to its left. It need not have bothered, Shades had already retreated in a fluff of panic back into the house. Instincts had said strike, she did, and aaaeeeiiyyyaaahh instincts were WRONG! Thank god she got away before the demon could breathe fire back at her.
It took us about a year to make friends. After she got to where she would let me pet her and such ( a big point for me as I worried that my boyfriend might dump a girl his cat didn't like) I decided to buy my way further into her heart. Inspired by a friend's story of becoming what he called "treat machine" to his wife's beagle pup, I began occasionally buying the cans of wet food.
This was a good move, not only am I in good graces, it taught her to read a calendar. I fed a can to her every other day, and now, every other day, she begins to pay special attention to me, knowing the good stuff is coming.
I know that my boyfriend puts high stock in his brother, with whom he is very close. Knowing that the brother must approve of me, I think I'll begin to bring him cake or beer every other day or something. Though, having him wake me up every other day meowing at me, might become annoying.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
getting there
So, not too surprisingly, this is the world's least entertaining, most boring blog. It's not an accident, and anyone who knows me would tell you my personality, the way I am in real life, is far from boring. I don't mean I'm the most fantastic person you could meet (although many drunks have told me so, some without even slurring or drooling that much.) No instead my personality leans toward the annoyingly melodramtic.
So why is my blog different? Several reasons. I rant and rave in person to let off steam, so well...no steam brewing right now. Two, I actually write more coherently (and spell and punctuate better) when I'm calm. Any state of excitement or anxiety makes run on sentences paragraphs long that even I cannot later make sense of. Three, and here's the biggie, I'm kinda private actually.
That last line has sent all my friends, hell even my aquaintances, into gales of disbelieving laughter. But there's a big difference between what I will say (and how I carefully word it) in person, and what I'm willing to have recorded. Recorded. In court, someone types EVERYTHING down, you know, the court recorder. It's legal; it's binding.
Writing real things down doesn't allow me to convince you later you misunderstood me. Or, well I was being melodramatic. Or, I was hyperbolizing at the time, you know, to be funny. Or the always popular, Geez, I cannot believe you bought anything I said while drunk! Yes, my reality baring conversation was your foolishness, you silly, you!
In college, being that writing was my major concentration, I took amongst other things, poetry classes. I write the absolute most boring poetry. (this blog is a real page turner by comparison.) I wrote about, oh I don't know, the sky or picnic tables at parks before I'd write about the day I stared at the sky asking the great beyond why my Grandad died, or what it felt like to have a man older and smarter than me, an accountant, decided to make a move on me while sitting on the picnic table at our supposedly platonic picnic. The real things were to real, too accountable, to record where just any fool could read it, critique the poem, or *gasp* critique ME.
One of the reasons I'm a horrible blogger is I've never journaled in any way before. It's not in my innate nature, for the above reasons. Even in a private journal, I'D have to face it again, and that wreaks havoc on my preferred methods of denial. I'm gifted with a fantatastic memory, so I don't need a record for myself. And the things that fade out in my mind, fade for a darn good reason, thank you.
"Hey, girl, remember that time you got drunk and danced on the pool table half naked?" Hmm, I cannot possible recall what you mean.---Yes, that works nicely. As opposed to: Hey girl, remember that post where you recorded for all mankind and prosterity the time you got drunk and....well you see my point.
No, this isn't an excuse for my boring blog. It's partially an explanation, but more aptly it is both an appeal for patience, and a warning/introduction for what is to come.
Oddly, I am now very aware that I started this blog because I was inspired by the open bravery of a friend's blog. (www.barenada.com) I think I want to try this, a sort of open forum of exposure, meant to get some things off my chest, invite commentary, make some realities permanant to me, and yea, even get a bit o writing practice in.
If you've already given up, cool 'nough. Who'd blame you? I was aware, as I stated in my first post, that I may well be the only one who ever reads this, but facing these things myself is a good enough reason to write. But, I do now have an intention, to write more intimate thoughts, to record some inner worries, to admit some things to myself and the world.
And now that I've written the above--recorded that intent for all mankind--I've made step one. I'm getting there.
So why is my blog different? Several reasons. I rant and rave in person to let off steam, so well...no steam brewing right now. Two, I actually write more coherently (and spell and punctuate better) when I'm calm. Any state of excitement or anxiety makes run on sentences paragraphs long that even I cannot later make sense of. Three, and here's the biggie, I'm kinda private actually.
That last line has sent all my friends, hell even my aquaintances, into gales of disbelieving laughter. But there's a big difference between what I will say (and how I carefully word it) in person, and what I'm willing to have recorded. Recorded. In court, someone types EVERYTHING down, you know, the court recorder. It's legal; it's binding.
Writing real things down doesn't allow me to convince you later you misunderstood me. Or, well I was being melodramatic. Or, I was hyperbolizing at the time, you know, to be funny. Or the always popular, Geez, I cannot believe you bought anything I said while drunk! Yes, my reality baring conversation was your foolishness, you silly, you!
In college, being that writing was my major concentration, I took amongst other things, poetry classes. I write the absolute most boring poetry. (this blog is a real page turner by comparison.) I wrote about, oh I don't know, the sky or picnic tables at parks before I'd write about the day I stared at the sky asking the great beyond why my Grandad died, or what it felt like to have a man older and smarter than me, an accountant, decided to make a move on me while sitting on the picnic table at our supposedly platonic picnic. The real things were to real, too accountable, to record where just any fool could read it, critique the poem, or *gasp* critique ME.
One of the reasons I'm a horrible blogger is I've never journaled in any way before. It's not in my innate nature, for the above reasons. Even in a private journal, I'D have to face it again, and that wreaks havoc on my preferred methods of denial. I'm gifted with a fantatastic memory, so I don't need a record for myself. And the things that fade out in my mind, fade for a darn good reason, thank you.
"Hey, girl, remember that time you got drunk and danced on the pool table half naked?" Hmm, I cannot possible recall what you mean.---Yes, that works nicely. As opposed to: Hey girl, remember that post where you recorded for all mankind and prosterity the time you got drunk and....well you see my point.
No, this isn't an excuse for my boring blog. It's partially an explanation, but more aptly it is both an appeal for patience, and a warning/introduction for what is to come.
Oddly, I am now very aware that I started this blog because I was inspired by the open bravery of a friend's blog. (www.barenada.com) I think I want to try this, a sort of open forum of exposure, meant to get some things off my chest, invite commentary, make some realities permanant to me, and yea, even get a bit o writing practice in.
If you've already given up, cool 'nough. Who'd blame you? I was aware, as I stated in my first post, that I may well be the only one who ever reads this, but facing these things myself is a good enough reason to write. But, I do now have an intention, to write more intimate thoughts, to record some inner worries, to admit some things to myself and the world.
And now that I've written the above--recorded that intent for all mankind--I've made step one. I'm getting there.
The Beginning of (my) Gaming
To write a blog about myself and not include something about my gaming would be as remiss as writing a relationship blog and never mentioning I was female. However, to write about a topic that became so vast in my life, one should start at the beginning, and so here it is.
I was born in 1971, I can remember the Iran hostage affair as the "moment of silence" it would bring into my second-grade day's life. I, therefore, remember all the big things of the eighties as childhood memories, having finished out the decade by graduating high school in 1990, as if to perfectly coincide my leaving childhood with leaving that decade, so yeah, I had an atari.
We got it when I was in fifth grade, or perhaps a bit before. I enjoyed it, and played many games both that my father bought or I would occasionally trade, library loaning style, with my freinds. I remember several favorites, but the real winner for me was called Adventure. My avatar was a cube, but I got to fight dragons and unlock castles. The fault was after a while, the game became old--something I could do in my sleep. It's world was static, not randomly generated, so it was pretty much the same everytime.
I also enjoyed racing games, and as a side note must say I sort of miss the simplicity of them. You got a poorly represented car, then you tried to go fast without wrecking. The physics of those games were stupidly simple, but I sort long for the days when I could just load up and race. Now, I must spend time tweaking my suspension and engine and whatnot before ever getting to a track. I asked for more realism, now I want less--isn't that just the way. Remember when a football game asked you before a play, 'run, pass, punt?' Now I can control every man on my team, and I both love and hate Madden's NFL for giving me what I wanted and making me work at it.
We did get a computer somewhere in the middle of the decade, but we got an IBM pc, which at the time and for my age group was lame. (it was in fact more adaptable and powerful that my friend's comodores and apples,) but getting games for it wasn't all that easy. It was a work comp, not a gaming comp. Remember there wasn't a best buy and gamestop on every corner, the comp gaming had yet to boom, and my allowance was something like 50 cents a week. So I played a lot of text only star trek and castle wolfenstien (oh yes, there was one before the fps, btw.) but otherwise spent my time learning to program in basic drawing kitty cats that would move across the screen.
We didn't have a nintendo, but most of my friend's did, and I was temporarily addicted to Mario, despite my complete lack of competence at hand-eye coordination. So I finished the decade as I came into it, not gaming.
In the early 90's my dad had been given by a workmate some computer game he wanted me to try. I repeatedly refused. I do not like the pointlessness of spending my time at the computer gaming. It's stupid. No, Dad, not interested. Ok, fine, what is this game called again? Doom? What a stupid name. ....Now enter a few weeks of solid living in my basement killing demons with cool weapons. LOVED IT! Then, after those weeks, left it.
The latter half of the nineties had me again not interested in gaming, but in 97 I married a man addicted to them. It was fine, he did that, I did other things. I then read an article about a game once panned by all critics but was the best selling game of all time until the Sims unseated it years later, Myst. Now, THAT was awesome, but it had no real replayability, and there wasn't much else like it, at least not of the same caliber, so again, I remembered I didn't like gaming.
Then the game that changed it all for me, Diablo. Diablo was different, I was a person, not a cube, and I could be several types of persons. My diablo stories are a post all their own, and maybe I'll let you in on how lame I was at it at a later date, but for now the important thing about Diablo was it set the stage for the passing fad to become a raging addiction.
One evening I got up from TV to see what hubby was doing. He was playing a game. It had people, set in a medievil sort of place, and he was sewing things to make money. He walks up to another little person and asked a question. The answer was amazing.
"Wow," I said, "that game has a very sophisticated dialog tree."
"No," he explained, "that is an actual person. That's why."
Well, that was silly, how would a person be able to contact him like that while he was playing a game? He explained the game was over the internet, and people all over the world were hooked up, doing the same sort of thing he was, and he could talk to them.
"And those clothes you are sewing...you can wear them?" I ask. He changes his little avatar's outfit.
"Whoah! it's like Barbies with swords! I soooo have to try that!"
The game was called Ultima Online, and was what is now called an MMORPG, massively multi-player online role playing game.
He warned me, as I was not the gaming type, that it was complicated and hard to learn, and required lots of time. Well, long story short, I played it for years, had three accounts, four houses, and did volunteer work for the company that ran it.
Since then, I've played many non MMORPG's. The other pieces in the Myst series, the Civilazation series, other role playing games, but my fav is still the MMORPG's. I've played and beta-tested many of them. I've played, oh let's see, Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Dark Ages of Camelot, Sims Online, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, and a smattering of others. Some of them I can remember the worlds and my characters, but the name of the game escapes me. And currently, I am playing World of Warcraft. I've played around with Lord of the Rings Online and Guildwars, but not enough to really mention.
A couple of years ago I was on a panel at a sci-fi/fantasy gaming convention (I actually did three panels that year) on online gaming, particularly the aspect of female gaming. Female gamers are well on the rise, and have been for years, but we are still a minority in the game world.
I still think of them as Barbies with swords. As a child I loved Barbie dolls. My sister and myself would dress them up and spend hours out of our days constructing storylines for them. At least one storyline lasted for months. Our dolls didn't have weddings or tea-parties. They were warrior princesses, sometimes mages, that adventured out to save their kingdoms. It's the fun of make-believe with the social aspect of playing with others, and like I said, there's lots of swords and weaponry.
Online Gaming is often considered the province of geeky high school children and college kids bored between classes, but I have played these games with lawyers, physicists, teachers, and other professionals rangin in age from my own children (my eldest daughter started playing UO at 4) to people in their fifties, of many genders and several nationalities. I once had a guy in Singapore I used to play with all the time, and he had schooled in his youth at Oxford, and I still miss my old buddy from Everquest who could play with me in the early mornings because he lived in Australia. There was the french woman who I couldn't hardly speak with due to our only having a smattering of each other's language. Everytime I healed her she'd reply, mbc--just like we say ty, when we mean merci.
These games have nicknames, Evercrack, World of Warcrack, because of their addictiveness. South Park dedicated an entire episode to WoW. They are big business. There are people who are actually employed to play these games, because the games' money have the highest exchange rate on the planet. You can spend real life money to buy money and items in game--very irritating to those of us who play, but a reality nonetheless. You can buy characters and accounts even.
Getting to enjoy these games in your life while still enjoying your real life is a trick that took me a while to learn, and some people never do, but I'm glad I have that excapism personally.
I was born in 1971, I can remember the Iran hostage affair as the "moment of silence" it would bring into my second-grade day's life. I, therefore, remember all the big things of the eighties as childhood memories, having finished out the decade by graduating high school in 1990, as if to perfectly coincide my leaving childhood with leaving that decade, so yeah, I had an atari.
We got it when I was in fifth grade, or perhaps a bit before. I enjoyed it, and played many games both that my father bought or I would occasionally trade, library loaning style, with my freinds. I remember several favorites, but the real winner for me was called Adventure. My avatar was a cube, but I got to fight dragons and unlock castles. The fault was after a while, the game became old--something I could do in my sleep. It's world was static, not randomly generated, so it was pretty much the same everytime.
I also enjoyed racing games, and as a side note must say I sort of miss the simplicity of them. You got a poorly represented car, then you tried to go fast without wrecking. The physics of those games were stupidly simple, but I sort long for the days when I could just load up and race. Now, I must spend time tweaking my suspension and engine and whatnot before ever getting to a track. I asked for more realism, now I want less--isn't that just the way. Remember when a football game asked you before a play, 'run, pass, punt?' Now I can control every man on my team, and I both love and hate Madden's NFL for giving me what I wanted and making me work at it.
We did get a computer somewhere in the middle of the decade, but we got an IBM pc, which at the time and for my age group was lame. (it was in fact more adaptable and powerful that my friend's comodores and apples,) but getting games for it wasn't all that easy. It was a work comp, not a gaming comp. Remember there wasn't a best buy and gamestop on every corner, the comp gaming had yet to boom, and my allowance was something like 50 cents a week. So I played a lot of text only star trek and castle wolfenstien (oh yes, there was one before the fps, btw.) but otherwise spent my time learning to program in basic drawing kitty cats that would move across the screen.
We didn't have a nintendo, but most of my friend's did, and I was temporarily addicted to Mario, despite my complete lack of competence at hand-eye coordination. So I finished the decade as I came into it, not gaming.
In the early 90's my dad had been given by a workmate some computer game he wanted me to try. I repeatedly refused. I do not like the pointlessness of spending my time at the computer gaming. It's stupid. No, Dad, not interested. Ok, fine, what is this game called again? Doom? What a stupid name. ....Now enter a few weeks of solid living in my basement killing demons with cool weapons. LOVED IT! Then, after those weeks, left it.
The latter half of the nineties had me again not interested in gaming, but in 97 I married a man addicted to them. It was fine, he did that, I did other things. I then read an article about a game once panned by all critics but was the best selling game of all time until the Sims unseated it years later, Myst. Now, THAT was awesome, but it had no real replayability, and there wasn't much else like it, at least not of the same caliber, so again, I remembered I didn't like gaming.
Then the game that changed it all for me, Diablo. Diablo was different, I was a person, not a cube, and I could be several types of persons. My diablo stories are a post all their own, and maybe I'll let you in on how lame I was at it at a later date, but for now the important thing about Diablo was it set the stage for the passing fad to become a raging addiction.
One evening I got up from TV to see what hubby was doing. He was playing a game. It had people, set in a medievil sort of place, and he was sewing things to make money. He walks up to another little person and asked a question. The answer was amazing.
"Wow," I said, "that game has a very sophisticated dialog tree."
"No," he explained, "that is an actual person. That's why."
Well, that was silly, how would a person be able to contact him like that while he was playing a game? He explained the game was over the internet, and people all over the world were hooked up, doing the same sort of thing he was, and he could talk to them.
"And those clothes you are sewing...you can wear them?" I ask. He changes his little avatar's outfit.
"Whoah! it's like Barbies with swords! I soooo have to try that!"
The game was called Ultima Online, and was what is now called an MMORPG, massively multi-player online role playing game.
He warned me, as I was not the gaming type, that it was complicated and hard to learn, and required lots of time. Well, long story short, I played it for years, had three accounts, four houses, and did volunteer work for the company that ran it.
Since then, I've played many non MMORPG's. The other pieces in the Myst series, the Civilazation series, other role playing games, but my fav is still the MMORPG's. I've played and beta-tested many of them. I've played, oh let's see, Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Dark Ages of Camelot, Sims Online, City of Heroes, Star Wars Galaxies, and a smattering of others. Some of them I can remember the worlds and my characters, but the name of the game escapes me. And currently, I am playing World of Warcraft. I've played around with Lord of the Rings Online and Guildwars, but not enough to really mention.
A couple of years ago I was on a panel at a sci-fi/fantasy gaming convention (I actually did three panels that year) on online gaming, particularly the aspect of female gaming. Female gamers are well on the rise, and have been for years, but we are still a minority in the game world.
I still think of them as Barbies with swords. As a child I loved Barbie dolls. My sister and myself would dress them up and spend hours out of our days constructing storylines for them. At least one storyline lasted for months. Our dolls didn't have weddings or tea-parties. They were warrior princesses, sometimes mages, that adventured out to save their kingdoms. It's the fun of make-believe with the social aspect of playing with others, and like I said, there's lots of swords and weaponry.
Online Gaming is often considered the province of geeky high school children and college kids bored between classes, but I have played these games with lawyers, physicists, teachers, and other professionals rangin in age from my own children (my eldest daughter started playing UO at 4) to people in their fifties, of many genders and several nationalities. I once had a guy in Singapore I used to play with all the time, and he had schooled in his youth at Oxford, and I still miss my old buddy from Everquest who could play with me in the early mornings because he lived in Australia. There was the french woman who I couldn't hardly speak with due to our only having a smattering of each other's language. Everytime I healed her she'd reply, mbc--just like we say ty, when we mean merci.
These games have nicknames, Evercrack, World of Warcrack, because of their addictiveness. South Park dedicated an entire episode to WoW. They are big business. There are people who are actually employed to play these games, because the games' money have the highest exchange rate on the planet. You can spend real life money to buy money and items in game--very irritating to those of us who play, but a reality nonetheless. You can buy characters and accounts even.
Getting to enjoy these games in your life while still enjoying your real life is a trick that took me a while to learn, and some people never do, but I'm glad I have that excapism personally.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Work, sort of. Rant, definately.
So I returned to work post-surgery in the third week of August, but due to not having full strength back in my shoulder/arm, I'm hosting instead of serving. The very first job I ever had in a restaurant, oh so many years ago, was hosting, so I know what it entails. However, when I did that I was the only host on the floor. Now, in corporate land, we run our busy weekend shifts with five to six hosts. Two to three of them actually seat people, taking them to tables, getting the high chairs and whatnots, and bringing menus from their deposit areas back to the front. One person organizes where everything will go. Another takes the names for the waits, handing out pagers and fixing quote times. The last, is what we call Greeter 1, but should be titled, World's Most Boring Job.
This person, and I'm not making this up, opens the door and says, "welcome." Years ago I worked for a temp agency and spent a week at a print shop coallating papers. That was riveting compared to this. When I'm assigned this job (which is less frequent now that we have newer people hired in) I cannot help but wander off. I'm normally a pretty good worker, but this takes all my work ethics and pushes them past where they will go. Despite how low my hourly wage is for this, it seems ridiculous for a job that in no way other than boredom resembles what I'd call 'work', but for the boredom, I think it should warrant hazard pay...as its making me crazy.
I think it would bother me less badly if it wasn't so pointless. Our restaurant has double sets of doors; I'm only opening the internal set, so I'm not saving you much. You still have to open the outer doors yourself. Telling you welcome is pointless, as at least two other hosts and your server after me will do the same thing. And the worst, is that you will quickly figure out I'm pointless. The first employee a person sees upon entering is expected to answer thier most pressing question, "How long is the wait?" and being that I haven't left the freakin door for two hours, I haven't a clue.
On a side rant...to those who never worked in a restaurant...that question is pointless. Even in the position of taking names, and therefore making expected quotes, I cannot answer that question without knowing if you want smoking, non, or first available, and the even more important, how many in your party?
I'm amazed every week, especially on sundays when we get the most large parties, that people get angry that tables get seated before them. NOTE: two people can fit in a four-person-top booth. Fifteen people cannot, and as booths are affixed to the floor, I cannot push them together for you, so yes, those four couples will go before you. And yes, I know those eight people came in after you, but they wanted the currently empty section of smoking. I do not feel that you should sacrifice your health, even for the short term of a dinner (which greatly affects the taste of the meal) to sit in smoking. I'm just saying, don't blame me that other people would like to exercise their rights in enviroments that still allow them to do so.
My job is not created, nor is my personality geered to, trying to jip you out of your good dining experience, quite the opposite. We are not playing favorites, either with the parties or the servers. When I organize who gets seated where, I am looking at a set of names and group numbers, and no one has recorded for me your race, religion, or how nice you are. It just goes how it goes best, in the quickest method possible for everyone. I can see that a table has paid, and hope they will get up soon and you can sit there, but if they decide to then drink their coffee for another hour, there's nothing I can do about it. And although everyone in the restaurant dislikes their doing it, we will later not stop you from doing the same thing, nay, we will just keep bringing you the coffee.
Last sunday I really wished someone had included personal information on a party. I sat these three people in the center table in the dining room, having not been warned that one of them (on a sunday afternoon post church crowd lunch, mind you) was wearing a T-shirt that said, "Jesus hates pussies." I wouldn't have made them wait longer, but I'd have sent them into a booth somewhere to avoid the angry looks and complaints from the tables around them. I politely explained to the other whispering patrons there was nothing I could do, to which they explained their religious affiliation back to me. As if that changed matters. What I wanted to say was, "Like it or not, the same ammendments that give you the chance to worship as you'd like gives him the freedom to wear that shirt any day of the week." But that would have just hurt the tips of the servers on the floor.
Oh, and although I'll now wrap up my sunday restaurant rant, one last point. Bible tracts from your church can be left WITH the tip, but not instead of it. You might be surprised to learn, but I cannot feed my children on your compliments or good wishes for my soul, no the grocery store still only accepts money.
This person, and I'm not making this up, opens the door and says, "welcome." Years ago I worked for a temp agency and spent a week at a print shop coallating papers. That was riveting compared to this. When I'm assigned this job (which is less frequent now that we have newer people hired in) I cannot help but wander off. I'm normally a pretty good worker, but this takes all my work ethics and pushes them past where they will go. Despite how low my hourly wage is for this, it seems ridiculous for a job that in no way other than boredom resembles what I'd call 'work', but for the boredom, I think it should warrant hazard pay...as its making me crazy.
I think it would bother me less badly if it wasn't so pointless. Our restaurant has double sets of doors; I'm only opening the internal set, so I'm not saving you much. You still have to open the outer doors yourself. Telling you welcome is pointless, as at least two other hosts and your server after me will do the same thing. And the worst, is that you will quickly figure out I'm pointless. The first employee a person sees upon entering is expected to answer thier most pressing question, "How long is the wait?" and being that I haven't left the freakin door for two hours, I haven't a clue.
On a side rant...to those who never worked in a restaurant...that question is pointless. Even in the position of taking names, and therefore making expected quotes, I cannot answer that question without knowing if you want smoking, non, or first available, and the even more important, how many in your party?
I'm amazed every week, especially on sundays when we get the most large parties, that people get angry that tables get seated before them. NOTE: two people can fit in a four-person-top booth. Fifteen people cannot, and as booths are affixed to the floor, I cannot push them together for you, so yes, those four couples will go before you. And yes, I know those eight people came in after you, but they wanted the currently empty section of smoking. I do not feel that you should sacrifice your health, even for the short term of a dinner (which greatly affects the taste of the meal) to sit in smoking. I'm just saying, don't blame me that other people would like to exercise their rights in enviroments that still allow them to do so.
My job is not created, nor is my personality geered to, trying to jip you out of your good dining experience, quite the opposite. We are not playing favorites, either with the parties or the servers. When I organize who gets seated where, I am looking at a set of names and group numbers, and no one has recorded for me your race, religion, or how nice you are. It just goes how it goes best, in the quickest method possible for everyone. I can see that a table has paid, and hope they will get up soon and you can sit there, but if they decide to then drink their coffee for another hour, there's nothing I can do about it. And although everyone in the restaurant dislikes their doing it, we will later not stop you from doing the same thing, nay, we will just keep bringing you the coffee.
Last sunday I really wished someone had included personal information on a party. I sat these three people in the center table in the dining room, having not been warned that one of them (on a sunday afternoon post church crowd lunch, mind you) was wearing a T-shirt that said, "Jesus hates pussies." I wouldn't have made them wait longer, but I'd have sent them into a booth somewhere to avoid the angry looks and complaints from the tables around them. I politely explained to the other whispering patrons there was nothing I could do, to which they explained their religious affiliation back to me. As if that changed matters. What I wanted to say was, "Like it or not, the same ammendments that give you the chance to worship as you'd like gives him the freedom to wear that shirt any day of the week." But that would have just hurt the tips of the servers on the floor.
Oh, and although I'll now wrap up my sunday restaurant rant, one last point. Bible tracts from your church can be left WITH the tip, but not instead of it. You might be surprised to learn, but I cannot feed my children on your compliments or good wishes for my soul, no the grocery store still only accepts money.
There I am!
Okay, so the surgery was in May, and I was too drugged up/miserable/busy trucking to physical therapy to post for a while. After that, well, as embarrassing as this is--I couldn't get back in to my blog. It refused to recognize any input I gave it.
I finally gave up on it a couple of months ago, then recently got some advice on a course of action that should have dawned on me long ago. So, here we are again.
If you read the first post, titled imaginatively "One" you know that I basically caved into writing a blog. Well if that is facinating, wait till you hear this: Moments ago I caved into a Myspace page.
My favorite comment on not needing a myspace page isn't even mine, it's my ex-husband's. At his high school 20 yr reunion someone asked him if he had a myspace page. He replied, "No, I'm 38."
I have been asked repeatedly if I had one, and always said no without embellishment as to why. What is amazing about this is the other person's response. Their mouth drops open, their brows furrow, and they stare at me, completely lost for words, in confusion. It's the confusion that gets me. As if my having the internet without myspace is vaguely equal to having a house without plumbing.
As it is now, I have a myspace page with no photos, and precious little information. The simple reason why I never got a page before is the same for the sparseness of the page now. I'm lazy. I spend enough time compulsively worrying about how I am in person, and yet lazily almost never wear make-up or dress in decent clothes. Can you really be surprised I'd get my page more dressed up when I care even less about internet popularity?
In any case, there I am. I will at least eventually title my little myspace and link here to it, but although it WILL happen, I wouldn't, as the old idiom goes, hold my breath for it.
I finally gave up on it a couple of months ago, then recently got some advice on a course of action that should have dawned on me long ago. So, here we are again.
If you read the first post, titled imaginatively "One" you know that I basically caved into writing a blog. Well if that is facinating, wait till you hear this: Moments ago I caved into a Myspace page.
My favorite comment on not needing a myspace page isn't even mine, it's my ex-husband's. At his high school 20 yr reunion someone asked him if he had a myspace page. He replied, "No, I'm 38."
I have been asked repeatedly if I had one, and always said no without embellishment as to why. What is amazing about this is the other person's response. Their mouth drops open, their brows furrow, and they stare at me, completely lost for words, in confusion. It's the confusion that gets me. As if my having the internet without myspace is vaguely equal to having a house without plumbing.
As it is now, I have a myspace page with no photos, and precious little information. The simple reason why I never got a page before is the same for the sparseness of the page now. I'm lazy. I spend enough time compulsively worrying about how I am in person, and yet lazily almost never wear make-up or dress in decent clothes. Can you really be surprised I'd get my page more dressed up when I care even less about internet popularity?
In any case, there I am. I will at least eventually title my little myspace and link here to it, but although it WILL happen, I wouldn't, as the old idiom goes, hold my breath for it.
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