Going With The Flow

Wow! It’s been over a week since I posted anything here at the ole homestead. I have been posting plenty at "Women On…" and I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting "…terms…" a bit.

The truth is, I’ve just been tired and strung out and overwhelmed by the café for the past few weeks, and I think my tales of woe are probably getting a little boring. I so desperately need a couple of weeks where I can just put it on cruise-control and give myself a little bit of a rest. Unfortunately, this "economic downturn" (read Bush Administration cluster-f**k) we’ve been experiencing has kept me chained to the restaurant, whether I am there or not. I cannot afford to take labor costs, food costs, or sales for granted, not even for part of a day.

Take yesterday, for example. First day of the Memorial Day weekend. Last year’s numbers indicate that we will not be particularly busy. People on their way out of town and all that.

So, after a slow lunch grinds to a close, I look around and decide that there’s no reason to keep my tired body upright any longer than necessary. I outline detailed instructions to the good and faithful "D," and head for home. Where I promptly fall asleep in my recliner. Husband arrives home a few hours later, and we decide to mosey over to the café and let them feed us dinner.

We arrive. We sit. The place is not exactly hoppin’, but it’s not empty either. We order our dinner, and a few more parties come wandering in. As we wait for our food, it becomes obvious that the floor staff is getting a little overwhelmed, so we pop up and down, greeting and seating folks, take them drinks…take their orders…

Our food has hit our table, but we are nowhere near it. There are seven tickets hanging in the kitchen, and nothing coming out. No salads, no soups…I sneak back into the kitchen to help, and the head cook starts a litany of all the things we are out of (already.) Out of lasagna. Out of spaghetti noodles. Out of chicken parmesan. Out of soup. Almost out of salad greens. As I run around trying to re-stock the entire kitchen while we are trying to get orders out, I wonder WTF they were doing this afternoon during the two and a half hours I wasn’t here. Within ten minutes, I am speed-warming soup, have two pots of water going formore pasta, and am flinginginstructions out to the husband in the service area, where he has set up our portable butane burner in order to cook more marinara and Alfredo sauce. Our dinner has been whisked off our table and thrown into the warmer, where it will heat up and dry out until such time as we can resume our meal.

So…..augh! It was busy, and it wasn’t pretty. And we had to comp some stuff. But I think all the patrons left happy. If it took too long for them to get their food, we acknowledged it and tried to make them happy. Not like in some places where your server hides in the kitchen until your food comes out, and you never hear so much as a "sorry this took so long." I don’t know if we recruited any regular customers last night. But I think we at least didn’t make any enemies.

And this morning…we were all prepped and ready for a busy day. But last years numbers lied to us once again (surprise); so here I am sitting in my recliner and finishing up this post I was too tired to wrap up last night.

I would like to tear my hair out, but it’s sunny and it’s a holiday weekend…so I think I’m just gonna go have some fun and relax while I can. I’m sure some kind of big disaster will come up before the weekend is over…

Frustration

I stayed up until 2:30 am with my computer in my lap, trying to decompress from an extraordinarily crappy day. The following is just sort of stream of consciousness, isn’t great writing and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But I’m going to post it anyway. Because it’s my journal, and maybe seeing this in print will help me get over it.

It was a jolly day, all in all…

I had service men trying to tear the covers off dusty filter panels in the dining room ceiling in the middle of lunch.

I had the landlord pestering me about turning on the swamp cooler, then telling me it wouldn’t work and intimating he might want ME to buy a new motor for it (ummmm…NOT.)

I had the health inspector wander in on his twice-yearly "surprise" visit.

And…

Just after I made the always difficult decision to terminate an employee who’s been hanging by a thread for the past two months, I had another employee call in and take her place at the top of the $#%* list.

That last proved to be my personal undoing today. I’m so upset, I’m numb.

Three days ago, we did a tremendous Mothers’ Day worth of business; the crew was laughing, singing, making jokes while cleaning up the horrendous mess. I was counting the money, I was dog-ass tired, but the happy voices lifted my spirits immensely. "This is it," I thought. "We have finally made it. We are a group of people that can laugh and have fun together, but we can turn on the afterburners and really crank out the food. This is as good as it gets."

Today was nearly as bad as it gets. One of my heretofore most valued young employees, after having called in sick once already this week, calls in a half hour before her shift with yet another personal crisis which will cause her to be unavailable to work. And all I could think was, "Oh my god, what is the MATTER with these children!?!"

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, what has happened to the good old fashioned American work ethic? This girl today called in to say her boyfriend had been injured at work and she had to rush over there and take him to the emergency room.

Um…what?

Let’s assume boyfriend really WAS injuredat work badly enough to need urgent medical care. Then why didn’t WORK call 911 and have him transported to a hospital? Why did my employee have to play paramedic and ambulance driver?

Obviously, one of two things is going on here: Either the entire story is bull crap from start to finish, or employee’s boyfriend’s employer is really dodging a worker’s comp bullet. When I tried to encourage my employee to figure out some other way to deal with this "crisis" she acted as if I was the biggest bitch in the whole wide world. "I’m sorry…this is more important than any job…!" she huffed.

This self-same employee collared me after our last employee meeting and raked me over the coals about how I was punishing her for going to school (and requesting additional days off besides her school days) by not giving her enough hours to enable her to pay her bills. Obviously this was true, because a NEW employee was getting more hours than she was!

I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with this schizophrenic "I need hours, I can’t work" bullshit. Today was really the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. This girl who basically accused me of being an unfair, punitive bitch when it came to doling out hours, and claimed that she, by right of seniority, deserved more than she was getting…calls in two out of the five days she has on the very next schedule. And then once again makes me feel like a bitch for questioning her reason for calling in.

Today’s story was at worst a lame lie….at best a ridiculous way for someone who "needs the money" to handle a crisis. I gave it some thought: Flashed back thirty-some years to when I was young and in love, husband-to-be and I were co-habitating, and maybe something happened to one of us at work. Would we have called our mate, or have allowed our mate to be called in a panic, to drag us to the emergency room?

No. We would have gotten transportation to the emergency room, got our x-rays or stitches or whatever, called our significant other and said, "Hey, I’m at the emergency room because I hurt myself at work. But there’s no reason for you to rush over here. I’m fine and I’ll see you when I get home." There would have been no panic, no crisis, no emergency. And, I’m sorry, part of making the decision to leave or not to leave work would have naturally been, "What bill am I now not going to be ableto pay because my paycheck will be x number of dollars short if I miss a shift?" (Even though we wouldn’t have had to worry about the hospital bill, because in those days there was a such thing as employer-provided health benefits that actually paid medical bills.)

But today, life is lived at 100 mph, punctuated by high drama and histrionics. Everything is a crisis. You don’t take a breath and think about how to deal with a situation with the least amount of panic and pathos. You run around like a chicken with your head cut off. You make (poor) snap decisions in the heat of the moment.

The last thing in the world you take into consideration is your job—especially a crappy, unglamorous job like cooking at a restaurant (ew!)—and the people who may be depending upon you there. You only work there because it’s what was available. You make it very clear at all times that it’s "just a job." Oh, you want every gimme and the benefit of the job, but you have no intention of committing to it in return. Any more than you’ve ever committed to anything in your short life—parents, school, relationships. If you commit to something, that puts a burden of responsibility on you that you have no intention of accepting. Because then you would have to consider how your actions affect other people. It wouldn’t be ALL ABOUT YOU anymore, and we can’t have that. It always has to be about YOU.

So now I’m stuck with one of my longest-term, best trained employees either on the verge of quitting (or being fired) because every other thing in her life takes priority over her job, and I cannot count on her to fulfill her responsibilities at work at the expense of anything else. I was just about to hand this girl a great big piece of responsibility. I had discussed it with her the last time I worked with her. And now I have to put her on a back burner somewhere, only schedule her when I know that it won’t be a disaster if she craps out on me. If she decides to stay at all. I don’t want to fire her, but she’s useless if I can’t use her skills and experience in key positions.

And once again I’m left realizing that the only one I can really count on is myself. And that I cannot run that restaurant by myself.

And wondering if I just should not just give up.

Tags: employee woes

My Family of Felines

The bed is made, the heat is on, it's mid-morning and Mom is home.  Does life get any better than this?

This is the whole famn damily of them.

Yes.  There are six.

Clockwise from bottom left:

Maude, Theodore, Alvin, Bebe, Bart and Chooie.

Tags: cats cats and more cats

aoljurlAdd, aoljurlAdd_1

Tired...

Mothers’ Day at the Old Town Café

2006 sales (original ownership): $908.00

2007 sales (new ownership) $1211.65

2008 Projected Sales: $1500.00

2008 Actual Sales: $2178.85

Woo-Hoo!

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Let's Get This Show on the Road

You might remember the gist of my earlier post being that if I want to do anything at all, I have to just go for it.

At this time, I’m proud to announce that I am going to apply that piece of my personal motivational philosophy to the ensemble blog I suggested last month. I have wanted to start one of these for a long time, but every time I get past the "wishing" stage with it, my life goes into overdrive and I lose the moment. So, f**k the careful planning. Here goes.

The blog is going to be tentatively titled "Women On…" because that’s the best thing I could come up with this morning. Initial members are going to be myself, Jackie (thesheatons), Judi (emmapeeldallas), Kathy (mutualaide), Kat (Sunflowerkat321), Robin (oceanmrc). Click on this link, ladies—"Women On…"—and it will take you to a blog to which you have been added as writers.

The topic for our initial post will be "Introduction." Do with it what you will—post a picture, write a poem, write an essay introducing yourself to the audience. Whatever it is, it should give our readers a sense of who you are. Let’s get this part out of the way, and the we’ll take suggestions for new topics, new members, whatever. I’m sure we can get this at least a few inches off the ground without discussing it to death…

Have at it, my friends!

Sympathy

One of my dearest friends in the Land of Blog, whom I have "known" almost from the genesis of "Coming to Terms…" has had a devastating loss. Her husband passed away suddenly this past weekend. I can’t even imagine the heartbreak.

Anyone who knows Cynthia, please stop by Sorting the Pieces and offer your support...

Love you, Cyn.  Wishing I could extend more than a virtual hug...

Tags: sympathy

(Don't) Think About It

Life coaches and self-help books would have you believe it’s possible to plot a detailed plan, follow it to the letter, and achieve the success you so richly deserve—in any endeavor, or in life in general. Yes, there are people out there who really believe this. And I’m sure there are those for whom the tactic actually works. As for me…well, I’ve never quite mastered the trick to planning ahead.

I think it’s because, early on in the process, one needs to at least visit the idea of possible glitches, or road blocks, or undesirable outcomes. And that’s where two major aspects of my personality—my tendency toward negativity, and my inclination to over-think things—kick into overdrive. I get lost in the "What ifs," never to be found again.

I was a smart, competitive student, back in the Stone Age. But I could never catch a vision for college. Would-be mentors encouraged me to think about it, so I did. And that, of course, was the kiss of death. My mind immediately latched on to the negatives. College was expensive. College was hard. College might just chew me up and spit me out. In the end, I created some kind of vague cost/benefit analysis in my mind, balancing the outlay of money against the end result. And since, at seventeen, I didn’t yet have a clear idea of a career in mind (and to this day, I don’t know how anyone can expect that of a seventeen-year-old…) I opted out. Didn’t go. Went to work instead. Eventually I came to regret the decision, came to rue the flawed and incomplete thought process that led me to it. For awhile, I even tried to blame my parents, my counselors, the system…for robbing me of an experience I really should have had. But it was me (I?). All me. Classic me.

That same stubborn, inevitable tendency toward self-sabotage steered me away from many life experiences that came naturally to "normal" human beings. Like procreation, for example. Generations of women before me just…had babies. They didn’t think about it. It was what was done. Lucky me--I arrived on the scene at a time in history where having children was becoming a choice. Something you thought about. Uh-oh… On top of that, I discovered I had physical problems that would make getting pregnant anything but natural (think fertility treatments, multiple surgeries, heavy-duty hormones and in vitro as an expensive and not necessarily fool-proof last resort.) All that travail to produce little humans who could, in the end, be sources of major heartache (See? There’s that negative thought process kicking in…) Um…I’ll pass. And there are times, now, when I regret that decision. Maybe I wouldn’t have been the disastrous parent I’d always imagined I would be.

Given my history, why am I not…still in high school? (Assuming an increasingly graying and wrinkling student could have flown under the radar for thirty-five years…) The truth is, I’ve learned to work around myself. I know that if I want to do anything at all, I have to JUST DO IT. Hmmm…that’s a catchy little slogan…

It’s a little tricky, because I have to want something badly enough to throw caution to the wind and go after it. And usually by the time I understand I want something, I’ve over-thought it to the point of talking myself out of it. In order to move at all, the only two directions I can allow my mind to take are, "I want to do that" and "I can do that." I can’t predict an end result; I can’t contemplate where I might be in five or ten or thirty years. I can’t try to peer down the little side roads I might encounter on the journey. The Evangelicals call it "stepping out in faith." Other people might call it something else, like "cluelessness." I prefer to think of it as "selective analysis." Or getting out of my own way.

"Overthink" or "Don’t Think at All"—these two concepts have dominated my life. And when I get down to thinking about it (oh no!) neither is really THE solution. Each has saved me or damned me at various times. "Overthink" kept me away from drugs, alcohol & cigarettes as a kid; I surrendered my virginity to "Don’t Think". "Overthink" kept me out of college and rendered me childless. "Don’t Think" propelled me into an unthinkably long and happy partnership with the love of my life. "Overthink" has robbed me of valuable experiences, but has occasionally saved me from myself. And "Don’t Think" has put me on the path to my richest rewards, but has not always led me to a place I wanted or needed to be.

Most recently, "Don’t Think" buckled me into the thrill ride of restaurant ownership well beyond the age of reason for that endeavor. Will this ultimately pan out as salvation or damnation?

I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it too much.

Tags: life, success, thinking

This Turned Into an Invitation of Sorts...

I’m in another of those phases where I want to come here and write something, but when I turn on the computer, all I can do is sit and stare at the screen. I think all my creative juices are being sucked up by the café these days. What with Easter coming hard on the heels of Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day waiting in the wings, I’ve had to swing my creative focus away from writing for pleasure (or therapy…) The movie meme was fun, though, even if only a few people played. I enjoy the interaction of that kind of thing.

Speaking of interaction, I’ve had an idea bouncing around in my head for about a month. Now that AOL has caught up with the 21st century blogging world and allowed for blogs with multiple writers, I was thinking about starting an ensemble blog. A place where several writers could contribute essays, pictures, whatever. I haven’t hit on a theme yet…but I kind of want to keep it as open as possible. Just nothing silly or cutesy…sorry, I hate those blogs with all the little pictures and tags and…fluff. I guess I’m just not the fluffy type.

I’d like this blog to be somewhat serious…a place where we can write, vent, expound upon things that really matter to us; things that might be of interest to others. My thought is that they would not just be little stand-alone pieces, but that the posts would relate to one another in some way. Like, I write something, then someone else writes a rebuttal, or continues on the theme, or something like that. Or we could have a "Topic of the Week" that everyone writes about. I just think this would be a fun way to build a little neighborhood of our own inside the j-land community. Is anybody interested? If you are, just email me, or leave a comment, and we’ll see about getting something together. It shouldn’t be too hard to get it rolling once we get a few people together…

And now to the business I started out wanting to cover when I sat down at the ‘puter this morning…

I just wanted to whine that we have had exactly one day of spring so far this year in the Pacific Northwest. It was last Saturday. Temperatures soared to the 80-degree mark in some parts of Orygun, the sun put in a rare appearance, and shorts, sandals, fake-and-bake tans and jet-skis were all dug out of their winter cubbies and brandished with wild abandon. Unfortunately, by Sunday afternoon, the sky clouded up, the wind started to whip, and temperatures headed south in a hurry. By Monday night, the forecast was calling for "showers possibly mixed with snow." Augh! WAY too schizophrenic for me.

But here’s a picture I took yesterday. He’s not exactly a harbinger of spring (these little guys stick around all year.) But they are one of my absolute favorite birds. In this pic, he’s in the top of my apple tree, having just finished enjoying a seed carefully selected from the feeder below…

Tags: ensemble blog

The Answers

Comment from andrea8358

The first one is The King and I.
Number 2 is Ghostbusters
3: Scrooged

5 has to be Little Women
Number 7 is White Christmas, I think.
8 is Christmas Vacation.

That's all I can get.

Comment from fdtate714

Number 2 is Ghostbusters. Is number 3 Scrooged? I also knew number 8. Really! As for the rest, I don't have a clue, but I love some of the quotes.

Comment from rdautumnsage |

Ok let me see some of these are just guesses:

3 Miracle on 34th Street (when a bell rings an angel gets his wings)

4.Lord of the Rings

5 Little Women

8 National Lampoons Christmas Vacation

9 Child's Play: Chuckie's Bride?

10 9 to 5...Working 9 to 5 with Dolly Parton?

(Hugs) Indigo

Comment from thesheatons |

Well, number one is The KIng and I. And now that you did the second line I can "hear" ol Yul saying line number one.

number five-Little Women?

Jackie

There are one or two obsessive movie watchers out there. I have to give Andrea the big prize. She guessed six—count ‘em six—of the ten. You and I must have some mystic connection, Andrea…

Duane recognized all the films with "SNL" Connections. ("Ghostbusters," "Scrooged," and "Christmas Vacation"…)

Indigo got "Christmas Vacation" as well as "Little Women."

And Jackie correctly identified "The King and I" and "Little Women."

A round of applause for each of you, and thank you for playing.

I keep thinking just one more clue would identify the other four for you. But I suppose it’s time to wrap this thing up. So here are the answers:

#4—HELP! Could a former Beatlemaniac baby boomer not have chosen a Fab Four flick as one of her favorites?

#6—While You Were Sleeping. The eighties holiday romance with Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman et al. I own this movie; I watch it every holiday season. And sometimes in July. It’s cute, it’s quirky, and it is set in Chicago. Kind of like going home for Christmas.

#9—Meet Me in St. Louis. I have a thing for old musicals. This is one of my favorites. It has no plot to speak of, but it has great songs, great costumes and Judy Garland. What more could you ask?

#10—Monsters, Inc. In my opinion, this is by far the best of the "new generation" of animated films. The art is fantastic, and the story is SOOO creative. And what’s not to love about Billy Crystal and John Goodman?

That was fun. It was a satisfactory distraction from some of the less wonderful things going on in my life.

And, in case anyone was wondering, the husband is doing much better than he was last week…J

Tags: movie meme answers

A Little More Info (Meme-wise)

Either I'm really good at fooling everyone, or I've just picked some really obscure movies...

Here:  I've added another quote for each film.  Maybe that will help you figure them out.  At least one or two, anyway...

1. They think you dress like that because you shaped like that!

A promise is a promise! Head must not be higher than mine! A promise!


2. Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft!

3. No, you are a hallucination, brought on by alcohol. Russian Vodka, poisoned by Chernobyl.

"I get it, you're here to show me my past and I'm supposed to get all dully eyed and mushy. Well forget it pal, you got the wrong guy." "That's exactly what Atilla the Hun said. But when he saw his mother, Niagra Falls."


4. How do you know you're not just as filthy and sent by him to nick the ring by being filthy when you have lulled us with your filthy eastern ways?

Look, John, I've had some great good times with this finger, and how do you know I wouldn't miss it?


5. Someday you'll find a man, a good man, and you'll love him, and marry him, and live and die for him. And I'll be hanged if I stand by and watch.

Oh, Jo, I've missed you so. Why does everyone want to go away? I love being home. But I don't like being left behind. Now I am the one going ahead. I am not afraid. I can be brave like you.


6. Listen, Lucy, when I told my mother I was getting married to my wife, her intestines exploded. You tell them the truth now, you may as well shoot grandma.

It was a lot different from hugging. Hugging's very different. Hugging that involves arms and hands; and leaning is whole bodies moving in like this… Leaning involves *wanting*... and *accepting*. *Leaning*...

7. I want you to get married. I want you to have nine children. And if you only spend five minutes a day with each kid, that's forty-five minutes, and I'd at least have time to go out and get a massage or something.

Miss Haynes, if you're ever under a falling building and someone offers to pick you up and carry you to safety, don't think, don't pause, don't hesitate for a moment, just spit in his eye.

8. Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?

If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?


9. It'll take me at least a week to dig up all my dolls in the cemetery.

Tootie, if you don't hit Mr. Braukoff in the face with flour and say "I hate you", the Banshee will haunt you forever!


10. Okay, first of all, it's "creetin". If you're going to threaten me, do it properly. Second of all, you're nuts if you think kidnapping ME is going to help YOU cheat yourway to the top.

         "Boo?" "Kitty!"

Tags: movie meme 2