corporate america comes to call

Recently I found myself in a morally frustrating dilemma.

Like all restaurants, we have our regulars. We have as detailed notes as possible on each guest:

• names of boyfriends
  
• preferred drink
  
• who they know
  
• how fast the like their food
• their favorite childhood toy

We print those notes out for Front of House and Back of house staff. Because God forbid we should forget to put salt on their table the moment they are seated OR forget to notify important people in the back that there are important people in the front they have to dilly dally with.

This particular guest comes in only at lunch. We all know him by name and most of us, he knows by name. I won't tell you what he does exactly. But let's just say he gets to come get a free meal while different "potentials" pitch their deal to him, pay for his salmon or steak and two glasses of wine... and in return, he decides what to do with their pitch.
Very nice man.
We would talk to him after his "potentials" left as he moved to the bar for an after lunch drink.
AFTER LUNCH DRINK? working....?
Anyway. So fine- he's a lush. But he's super congenial and polite and we all like him.
Because anyone who looks you in the eye and says please and thank you in this business is an absolute gem in a world of dumb rocks.
yes. I just made up that analogy. thank you.

Anyway, the economy hasn't been doing it's best (THAT'S why your resumes are getting ripped up) and at some point our lovely little patron started requesting copies of the check. At first we just shrugged out shoulders.

SO WHAT if he pretends he doesn't eat here 3 times a week on someone else's tab and always get's the most expensive item on the lunch menu.
SO WHAT if he always orders 2 glasses of wine and pretends to be modest about it.
He's nice.

But a copy of the check.... why?
First we were in Denial. Well....at least I was. Ever the positive thinker that believes the world is incapable of anything but puppy dogs and red balloons I say
"Maybe he just wants to keep track of which days he is eating salmon and which day he is eating steak?"
"No. Jenny. He is getting reimbursed."
"But how could he? He didn't pay for it!"
*crushed*
I walk away. It can't be. So I ignore it.
But then I come in and get him again a month later. I am told by my co-workers that he now asks for a check without the alcohol listed. They start telling me the different ways they hand him the check discreetly. But still that silence sits over the table where everyone knows he got a copy, and everyone knows why.

Sure enough, he orders his salmon and quietly says "and I'll need a copy without the alcohol on it"
I shove that "whatever you say but you're an asshole" smile on my face and say "sure" and go get his wine.
He's not cute now. He isn't nice. He's tricky. He's underhanded, and he's cheating.
But what can I do? He brings business to our restaurant several times a month and usually runs a large tab.
What can they do? he brings business to those people if they keep their mouths shut and pitch it right.

So I bring the host her check. And I slide his check in his hand. And she notices.
She pauses as I walk away. I can't hear what she says but she is clearly confused why he is getting a check. He says something about "records" and "work" and she nods her head. We all see that look. We all know what's going on. But we nod our heads like we believe him.

I was pretty upset leaving work. I considered putting in the notes. DO NOT EVER SEAT WITH JC! But I didn't. Because someone will hand him that check. And I may as well get paid $20-40 to hand it to him....Because it's a hard economy and a lunch shift with an extra $20 to $40 a week is an extra $80 to $160 a month.

So have I just placed my hand on corporate America's hand and helped them in the honeypot? Will I refuse to serve him next time he comes in or will I take him "one last time"?
Guess we'll see.

Vitamin D

FINALLY.

You'll notice the green grass behind the chair. Months of melting snow and and chilled rain make spring a short hop into summer. I sat outside today and soaked in some much needed Vitamin D.

Though I have been trying to buy seasonal as well as local fruit- there is a lag I am not prepared to deal with in the late winter and early spring (NO MORE SQUASH!). Most of those veggies on my plate are "seasonal" for winter in general but not exactly locational -good enough.

Meanwhile... Apples seem to not mix with my stomach acid (alongside of oranges) so I've passed by apples and instead of only eating grapefruit after grapefruit I have stretched far beyond local and have been stuffing myself with Bananas and Pineapples for now.

Looking forward to when the Farmer's Market sells out of last years squash and apples and the sun's warmth brings fresh greens and lots of peaches and nectarines!

"Let the wild rumpus start!"

I hope everyone of you reading this has read and cherished the book Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.If you have not... please proceed to do so. I love this book so much that in fact when I DID have checks I got an extra line after my address that read: "let the wild rumpus begin" because...who DOESN'T want to say that anytime they get a check!

As many of you may know the majority of fictional books I read -I'd say 82%- are children and young adult literature. Should you ever need a recommendation...pick me, pick me!




Here is a preview of the movie "Where the Wild Things Are" and I just got goose bumps watching it. I wouldn't normally be SUPER excited about a book being put on screen due to my numerous disappointments in the past. Also, I hadn't considered this book being themed with "Hope". However, I have high hopes because the book uses little words and leaves much room for imagination. So the movie can take liberties with the storyline, I think, without damaging the integrity of it. I imagine there is much argument about this so...we shall see...

Meanwhile, please... enjoy the magic.

Subscription

Well as some of you may know I haven't had a computer since the fateful day of the inauguration when my brand new year old lap top caked out on me with the "blue Screen of Death".


or something like that...
So yes- I still haven't seen President Obama take that first step.
But I'm so far behind on my TV shows I doubt that's the first video I'll be jumping to... I'm more concerned about Orson's stealing problem on Desperate Housewives.

And no...I STILL don't have my computer back. Don't ask.

The Laptop I am on is from a generous loan from my father and mother. Who got tired of hearing how utterly STRESSFUL, backed-up, uncreative, and backward my life became without a laptop. The scary trips to the library and sneaking up to the hostess desk to check my mail at work. The thought of ONLY checking my email and MAYBE facebook once a day.
It is a horror my friend. it is.

Anyway....I gave up myspace long ago but keep it "just in case". That "just in case" being a perfect bearded man finds me on there and wants to drink some coffee with me...OR someone happens to be on myspace and not facebook.

So I've done some of you a favor and transferred your subscription from my myspace blog- to here. yes- that is the long-winded point to my post. And I call it a favor to you. so pretend it isn't so that I feel better knowing that quite possible TEN people read some of my most precious thoughts.
If you didn't subscribe to my blog previously and i subscribed you- it's cause you hound and hound me about how I need to write so you deserve to subscribe and suffer with everyone else.

You have to confirm it first for it to be official. And if you hate me for doing it please...leave me a comment of facebook so I get a happy red notification telling me I am loved when I log on.

Things I want to do in Life

Rewind several years...

I sit in my kitchen chair sipping soup and as my friend Mari sits on the couch sipping soup. We pull out our lists and start read...

"Learn Spanish"
"Take an IQ test"

and the list goes on. We read to each other the list of things we want to do sometime, anytime, in our lifetime. We steal from each other, and add things we HAVE done to our list just to cross them off.

It's been about 6 years since we discovered be both had similar lists. With the start of a new year of course we all do something that makes us feel like there might be something different ahead. We take stalk, we look back. Some of us make resolutions, some of us make broad promises to ourselves that Something is going to change, or that we'll eat more fruits and veggies...

Whatever the case to start out my new year, I took down my 2008 work of art. No one has seen it. It was hidden behind a large piece of fabric so it looked like I had a wall hanging. Behind the fabric was a large piece of paper from ceiling to floor painted, pasted, drawn on, and written on with a summery of my 2008 started back in July. Every so often I would take down the fabric, spend a few hours detailing some of my life, and then staring at it for awhile.

It is not finished.
But I guess that is what life is like. Something else always comes along before we are ready for it. We tend to cling to what we had rather than embrace what is before us. So with that in mind....I took down my collage. I think it helped me heal what needed to be healed, it helped me grasp hope and express magic. So even if it isn't quite finished...maybe it is? But in any case it's a new year and I'm tired already of 2008.

So now I have started Sticky Tac-ing new pictures, items, and words to my now bare wall. A new year with the bold words I once doodledin American History class during a lecture:

MAKE IT COUNT

I have shuffled this phrase from place to place over the years.
And among my papers I also ran across my life list...
So Cheers to 2009 and something NEW and BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL and full of GRACE...


Here are the first 41 from my list (I have 105) any new suggestions...? I'll publish the rest later.

1.Pierce my nose (I changed my mind I want my eyebrow done)----Check!
2.Teach Drivers Ed
3. have a Garden
4.learn how to run a soundboard
5.learn clarinet
6.learn car basics
7. visit every continent
8.teach high school
9.teach college
10. Write a children's book
11. Get a shutter Camera----check!
12. Read War and Peace
13.take a picture that's published somewhere
14.read all the books I own
15.read utopia
16.Learn Italian
17. Get my masters
18.Use a potters wheel
19. Go rock Climbing---check!
20. Explore a cave----Check!
21. Drive a mercedes 240 DL
22.Ride in a hot air balloon
23. Find my family roots in Italy
24. See a tornado (does a wind funnel count?)
25. Go to mass at St. Perters in Italy ----Check!
26 Drive on the Autoban
27. read 100 classics
28. take a REAL IQ test
29. Visit Aushwitz
30. Visit Holocaust Museum in DC
31. Go to NYC
34. visit Nantucket island (blah...I no longer care about this)
35. Milk a goat ----Check!
36. Memorize Hebrews 11-12 and psalm 18
37. Go in a lighthouse and smell the sea air from the top -----Check!
38. Hug a redwood tree
39. Visit PE island
40. Go to Peru
41.Go horseback riding through an open field and into the woods.

Power of Sharpies

Here is something you don't see everyday...forget the design shows with a budget of $500.... Try $10 and a Sharpie
See Room Here

Virginia "Pepper" Potts

Those are the Finest Stilettos I have seen in a long time. The whole time Mizz Pepper was wearing them through the movie Iron Man I couldn't stop staring at her feet.

She makes Stilettos look SEXY.

And let me tell you, for ME that is quite the feat.

In fact, it was kinda inspiring. Something about the way those shoes wrap up behind her ankle and around the top made me want a pair of mine own. Made me WANT to wear heels.

???
I know right?

Well considering all the sadness in the world- I'm not going to lie- it seems a bit shallow to write about how I drooled over a pair of shoes. Finding a pair of heels that make me "feel" like Pepper Potts won't get me any closer to a super hero.
I realize I need to be wearing the shoes AND be in distress for a hero to appear.
Just wanted you to know I have a grip on reality here.

But seriously...

"If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies.... It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it." ~Albert Einstein

"As long as there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long can there be no question at all but that splendor of dress is a crime." ~John Ruskin

Despite the quotes...I think all of us sometimes can feel a little boost of confidence when we feel we look good.
I'd like to think that for SOME of us- it's because we already see God's beauty that is inside of us and it makes us happy to see a little of that reflected on our body.
You wouldn't believe how giddy it makes me to wear my red shoes or how relaxed I feel in my gray sweater (which is NOT sexy I promise you). I guess it's nice to wear cloths that seem to fit our mood because it makes us feel in sync?
Is that Necessary?
No, not at all. But it's nice.
And sometimes when we lose sight of the beauty that is inside- I think that throwing on a pair of stilettos may help us remember that.

CAN YOU BELIEVE I JUST MADE STILETTOS MEANINGFUL????
I am bewitched.

but still...I might just wear heels one of these days just for the fun of it. Just last week I actually dressed all nice to go get some groceries.
Try not to fall over from shock.

Becoming Monsters

I started re-reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller today. And there was a short portion where he spoke about something very…fundamental.

“I am the problem.”

I'm not what you would call a picketer or a social activists that you know....provides roadkill for tractors tearing down historical buildings. BUT like the best of them I can spew out altruistic and political comments that make me sound like I have convictions and I know where the problem lies. But really….do any of us?

Do we look in the mirror and explore

our habits,

our public speaking skill,

our ideas,

and our time management as scrupulously as we explore those in the spotlight?

Granted…most of us aren’t running for president or anything. But does that negate responsibility? If we spend more time judging the actions and movements of others than we do taking stock of our own motives and actions are we really politically or socially concerned or are we just selfish and ignorant?

“I think every conscious person, every person who is awake to the functioning principles within his reality, has a moment where he stops blaming the problems in the world on group thing, on humanity and authority, and starts to face himself. I hate this more than anything... The problem is not out there; the problem is the need beast of a thing that lives in my chest”

Not to say that every problem that exists is our fault. That’s pretty ridiculous. But I’m just saying…we sure do spend a lot of time pointing fingers. We need not live in a mirrored house to see how many problems are caused but us as individuals that make up the collective.

We may scoff at the altruist motto “be the change” but well…maybe we don’t think about it often enough. That is after all the only control we have. I cannot control what others do, but I can control me (usually, unless I’m extra ornery).

I can control what I give that others come into contact with. And if I start paying attention to what I put out there….well maybe that’s the only way I can really affect what others do and propel change.

I think if we watch others do stupid things and point our fingers instead taking a cue

-we’ll find we’ve all become the monster we scoff at:

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you” Friedrich Nietzsche

Awakenings

If you’ve never see the movie Awakenings it’s a beautiful story based on true events about a doctor who comes across a group of basically catatonic patients who respond to a drug that “wakes” them up for a period of time. I wrote the following excerpt after I watched the movie some time ago when I was going through a bit of a rough patch (not like that’s new!). It gave me just the perspective I needed to latch on to some color and dance around in it:

"I cried through much of the end. It was just what I needed I think to pull me out of my self-centered misery. Not that grieving is bad in my case...
But for someone who believes so much in the beauty of pain- I often forget to live what I write and speak about.

This story reminded me that it is possible to take my pain, and instead of hiding inside myself, I can use it as a way to touch beauty, life, and people.
I have that option.

How can I speak courage to those of a worse fate
when I cannot employ courage at the inklings of pain?

Sometimes it's good to just tell myself to snap out of it.

Stop replaying picture and words and longings. Sometimes I get lost ...and I sit down and weep like a lost little girl. Sometimes I forget to keep moving.
Grieving is not wrong or bad but at some point the tears are no longer an expression of grief but an expression of surrender to things as they are. A hopeless surrender. That is not the way of God, of his love, of his beauty. Pain can be like the silver lining in a blue sky filled with clouds. It highlights the wonder. It sharpens the picture.

The moment a red balloon, a rainstorm, or a star ceases to leave me in a childlike, speechless wonder...
someone please slap me out of it. I am not catatonic. I have a chance.
I don't want to miss it.

The brain takes charge

Gray, boring, dull, yawing, blasé, undeveloped, unintentional, melancholy, haphazard, flippant,

casual, overcast, inactive

Inspiring isn’t?

I have spent the last few months floating along in a sort of limbo (not exactly the edge of hell type though) with the only intentional actions being:

- I make sure I have clean clothes for work

- I clean once a week

- I check out more books that I could possibly read from the library

Somewhere I lost some of my fervor for life and the magic of the little things has slowly been hazed over. I think about writing, I think about art, I think about sitting with a cup of tea and staring out the window or sending a card to my friend

…but so much of that is just like a bird that jumps out of the field and flutters in front of you and then vanishes.

Certainly I am not depressed. I am active, social, do plenty of stuff, I'm happy (though not content). It’s kinda like I’m on selective Jenny auto pilot. My brain knows I like incense so it has me light it at night. But it keeps me from writing under the influence of the smell. It knows I like chocolate pudding when I am pmsing so it has me go buy it- but I don’t pay attention to its chocolate-ness like I normally would.

Perhaps I put myself through too steep a gauntlet earlier this year in trying to figure out the answer to questions that I don’t know yet. I do that. Sometimes I say to myself when I am crying about something

“tsk- you are too intense. Stop the drama”

“But I like the intensity- it’s colorful”

“well sometimes it’s too much color”

“Impossible !” I say to myself. And I go on crying and reading and asking questions.

“This is ridiculous. GET OVER IT” because some part of me realizes that a good slap in the face is more effective than writing writing writing about something over and over again sometimes. Sometimes you just need to take a break from intensity to ENJOY the color it produces. Sometimes you just need a red balloon and a peaceful mind.

So maybe my few months of induced melancholy and a numbed mind was like my brain saying

“hello? Shut up- what you’re doing is impossible. Quite trying to be like a 70 year old sage with a 27 year old brain! It’s like trying to figure out how to do quantum physics when you can barely remember how to do long division.”

And then my brain slapped me.

And I was like

“ok”

Only I didn’t know my brain was having a conversation with me and I didn’t really know I agreed with it like a little kid nodding his head in agreement because all he wanted was to get to the end of the lecture and get a red balloon.

Only I think technically- I didn’t get a red balloon cause the last few months have been a little colorless. I think my brain thought that was necessary for my mind and I should do without.

What does it know? It’s only 27?

So there you have it. Last night I went to a coffee shop and sat and read for a bit and people watched and all of a sudden my fervor returned and I thought “HEY! Where's my RED BALLOON?!”

and my mind was like "you agreed to give it up moron- your brain told you how tired it was"

and i was like "I WANT MY RED BALLOON BACK!!!" and right there in the coffee shop I slammed my book down and yelled and started pounding the table till someone brought me a red balloon and licorice tea and played some really good jazz music.

and I remembered how much I love people, and God, and reading, and learning. REALLY LOVE it.

And my brain just sighed….and was like “whatever. At least I got you to sit down for a bit.”

That’s when I concocted the whole story above -with my renewed creativity.