The restaurant business, generally, has two big seasons: Summer and Christmas. Summer is a three to four month rush which pays many a University tuition, first cars and world adventures but for some of us it pays the mortgage, food, vacations and yes also school tuitions. Summer usually means late nights and tourists but it also means sleeping in, stolen hours with the kids at the beach before work and even the occasional late night swim peppered with a few rejuvinating camping trips.
The Christmas season, however, is a entirely different creature. It is a six week drunken party where every night is someone's special celebration worthy of that extra drink or five, worthy of staying out an hour or five later than usual. Most of the servers and chef's I know have families and this is their passion and livelyhood not just another story to add to a collection of short lived jobs. Christmas, like summer, means really late nights but also making lunches in the morning and driving kids to school and there is certainly no sun to provide that extra boost, at least not around here.
Four days ago, I was suffering from the bone deep exhaustion brought about by the last six weeks of all those late nights and beer for dinner with the occasional appetizer of bread and dessert of a handful of nuts here and there. The tiredness that comes from bringing your best forth every night to make someone's party special. But now, I have had four days of family, food, rest and relaxation and I feel good.
When I look around at all my friends in the industry, all of whom are feeling the same way, it amazes me. I don't know too many other jobs or people who can work 10-12 hours straight for days, sometimes even weeks, on end with no coffee breaks, no dinner breaks, Hell, going to the bathroom can be a challenge and still get up and do what needs to be done for their families the next morning.
So Cheers! to you all with the big finale coming up for the amazing stamina, compassion and professionalism and may we all breath a collective sigh of relief on January 1st, providing of course, you don't have to work brunch.
I look behind me at the jet stream that has been this last month and I can only sigh and think OK, Christmas then.
Work has been a crazy, demanding, interesting, frustrating journey while my boss has been away for over a month now. I am both, relieved and sad that he is returning.
The kids have been extraordinarily busy as they are both in a play that opens this weekend. It has been a month of excessive and late rehearsals. Tired and grumpy children who are ecstatic to be participating but a little less so to get up for school in the morning.
I have a happy sawdust, peppered husband who is discovering his inner handyman by renovating one of our rooms. He emerges from his dusty liar occasionally to eat and happily recounts his latest victory then quickly disappears again.
I am resolutely ignoring the mounting housework this morning. Every time Steve pops back upstairs I see him eyeing my PJ's but I just don't feel like getting dressed today, OK.
My sister came over to visit with the wee one's a week ago and sent some pictures today.
How is my kids got so big? Really.
The Best Babysitter in the World.
Don't you just wanna pinch those cheeks!
Reminiscing
Sometimes, I wish I were one of those Mom's who:
- Sews Halloween costumes
- Makes crafts
- Wasn't so cranky
- Washed the sheets
- Baked things
- Liked a lot of noise
- Always know what to say to make it better
The novel I have been reading of late has been speaking of "state of grace", wanting, finding and achieving. It got me to thinking about this poetic place and how I've been there a lot lately in small unexpected moments.
Sitting on my new patio with our shy sun beaming down on me and in the background the sounds of the hundreds of kids, including my own, that roam the neighborhood playing, yelling, biking, kicking soccer balls and all those lovely sounds that combine to provide that low pitched din that I remember from my childhood.
Driving my daughter to rehersal and rounding the corner to see the beautiful, bright full moon shining on us as she sings away in the passenger seat.
Lying in savasana after months of not practicing and remembering how much my body and mind need this.
Sitting beside my son in his class, drawing together as he slowly inches closer until his head is resting on my shoulder as he draws.
Moments, if not states, of grace. Enough moments to remind me not to take this life of mine for granted.
Armed with only a numberless key, how long do you think it takes to find the magic number in this mail monstrosity?
seven minutes. I started with the systematic approach which quickly gave way to a random frenzy in which we located ours, lucky number 13.
Last night a fellow co-worker and I were commiserating about how tired we were. Me, because we've just finished a week long move. Into our new home. It feels so wonderful and surreal. We are living in a brown lego land of boxes upon boxes creating a maze which leads you from room to room. One of the best moments was, after lugging ridiculously heavy boxes up two flights of stairs for fourteen hours, sitting in the hot tub with a glass of wine looking up at the stars and knowing we are home.
Vanessa, however, was tired from being kept awake all night by a hamster they were taking care of which apparently had a rather worn and loud wheel that could be heard no matter what room they put the critter in. I told her we used to let Peaches (our hamster) run around the house but one day she just disappeared. Vanessa said she used to have a pet mouse that she let run around her room and it vanished one day as well but she found her when the stench led her to find poor mousy squooshed between her mattress, not very pleasant. I must say that was a bit of a concern when we were packing up and moving that we were going to unearth Peaches eternal burrow at the back of some closet but luckily no.
Vanessa then goes on to say that her friends found a Hamster once running down the road. That is one lucky Hamster I reply, "Where abouts was that?" "Near the train trestle down the road". Hmmm, the train trestle four houses down from ours. "When did that happen?" "This summer", Hmmmmm. "What color was it?" "Ohhh it is sooo cute, orange and white" she says in her exaggerated teenage baby voice. "They still have her and totally love her". Peaches lives! At our neighbors!
Oh how life changes in one short week.
We bought a house. We are in eternal debt. We move in three weeks.
I've been walking around for the last week like some cheap barbie who's neck and torso are petrified. Extreme pain. Took drastic measures. Acupuncture, Reiki, Robaxisson, Extra Strength Tylenol, Meditation and then we irrevocably signed those permanent papers and Voila!! no neck pain.
Steve was amazing. I don't get sick or slow down too often so he sensed the desperation of my situation and did what any loving, baffled husband can. He cooked. He felt the best way to make me better was to create all sorts of wonderful concoctions that would have made any Nona proud.
What I really need right now is time. Time with my family. Time with my kids. Time with my husband. Time to pack up our house and do everything that needs to be done and work and love and live. I could've never imagined five years ago what a precious commodity time was and is.
Bella finished her first week of middle school. She decided the first day she wanted to take the bus with her friends. She did, however, concede to let me pick her up after school. She gave me the tour, her classrooms, her teachers, her locker. OH MY GOD, I am not ready for this. She is so beautiful, full of love and optimism and crushes me to think of the pain ahead of her. Watching her more sophisticated friends file out of the school together, chatting and then see her come out alone. I want to be like that movie and enroll in middle school again just to be her ally. She's gone from a classroom of 14 to 30. I'm watching the girls file out and thinking how can they possibly be the same age as my little bear and almost simultaneously judging each and every one trying to find the bully or the mean girl and try to figure out how to CRUSH HER. I don't know how I'm going to do this right.
BREATHE.
My neck is knotting up as we speak.
Now I'm no sissy. I've worked with the stomach flu, somewhat elegantly delivering lovely food with intermediate breaks for a dry heave. I've worked with a broken toe, I've done stretches of work involving fourteen hour shifts weeks on end. But this morning after another sleepless night with the neck pain so severe I could only put myself in a sort of corpse, spinal victim position all night, unable to even lift my head with out the aid of my hand, was too much.
I walked into our local pharmacy this morning, bagged and black eyed and asked the pharmacist for help, tears streaming down my face. She looked rather alarmed and lead me toward the muscle relaxants and thrust some super strong tylenol my direction. But the thing is I can't even handle a regular tylenol, never mind muscle relaxants. I was looking for some nice herbal, homeopathic, fix all kind of deal.
I left with some extra strength tylenol and some homeopathic cream. Seriously, the tylenol freaked me out. I was a mess at work until about 10:30 when I think I had enough drinks to counter act the tylenol. Drugs have never been good for me, except if you count beer of course.
So I'm sitting here in my stiff necked, crincked shoulder way avoiding going to bed and it occurred to me where I should be right now. The thing I had tried to plan for months but to no avail. Right now my pain should be coming from a sore throat from singing so loud and sore calves from dancing too much. The bags should be from lack of sleep having to do with the festival sleeping. I should, right this very second, be sitting at the Gorge, in the Colombia Valley, with the beautiful moon rising over those desert mountains listening to Dave Matthews play all my favorite tunes pretending I'm eighteen again.
So instead I'm having my own little Dave concert here. If anyone walks by I'm sure they'll think they're missing a great party.
Cheers Dave!!! Wish I was there......
I can only move my head to the right, very slowly. My neck hurts so bad, also my shoulder and it runs up to my ear even.
The reason for this torment is we have been trying to purchase a house for the last ten days.
What I have been asking for finally fell in my lap, a house that has pretty much all we have been looking for, not on the market, suite.
So I have been trying to create, god help us, the legal documents to enable such a transaction. We have gone back and forth, spent a small fortune on inspections and appraisals only to have things fall apart time and time again.
I hate the negotiation game.
So it seemed all was lost today, however, again on my knees, bought another week.
So it seems maybe all is not lost....again.
The problem is I seem to spend a lot of time convincing Steve, a investor, my Mom (who will be living with us) what a great opportunity this is then when I have them all convinced, I think maybe I'm making a mistake, what if I'm wrong? It's so much money, money we don't really have.
I haven't really slept much partly cause of the pain thing.
I just want to do the right thing.
For everyone.
Very hard.
