All Hallow's Eve

Happy Halloween!!

things about school that make me feel old.

1) the immunization forms ask about when i recieved the chicken pox vaccine. as if.


B) one of my teachers just offered to meet with me via video iChat.


III) i am the only one in the class who remembers dittos.

the mama was here!

chris didn't get to see much of her, because he's silly busy with work and rehearsals. she, however, saw a lot of me.








notes: none of these are actual contenders, although we found a couple. we're keeping the field under wraps for now. also, some of those are bridesmaid dresses i thought would work--so, that's why they're green and pink and black. not because i think it would be awesome to be wearing pink satin of any kind.

Take me out

We occasionally get stars in the restaurant. Today I waited on a baseball player who I won't name, but let's just say that he plays for one of the teams here, and they were just eliminated from the playoffs. And his last name rhymes with "Cheater."

Very nice man, very polite, tipped 40% on the check.

I have a standing rule that whenever I wait on celebrities I treat them like any other customer. I pretend they're regulars, and that's why I know their face. I don't use their names and I don't fawn over them. I assume they just want to eat their crab cakes in peace like a normal person.

Well today I had to ask Mr. Cheater for his autograph, because the owner wanted it for his son. I felt like a tool. Why couldn't the owner walk up and introduce himself? He is owner of a multi-million dollar business, and head of a multi-billion dollar real estate enterprise, after all, you'd think he could do the deed for himself. But no, he must send in the $4.35/hour peon to do his groveling for hm. I felt like I had been asked to detail his SUV.

But I nabbed an autograph for one of my buddies, since I had to go there anyway.

guess who's coming to town?

not santa. the mama.

oh, yes. she'll be here a week from tomorrow. look out, new york bridal salons. (that word kind of makes me gack, salon. but whatever! we'll be there!) sweet anni is coming with us. a ladies' day. we may even have martinis at lunch.



it definitely will not look like that one. more booze, fewer frills.

At a loss

When I arrived at work today, the giant Colombian food runner told me that one of my co-workers had died. Which I thought was a sick bit of kidding, but kidding none the less.

No. He died in his sleep, no one knows why. He was 34 years old.

He'd worked at the restaurant for eight years, was one of the "core" waiters. He was one of two people allowed to have a shift drink at the end of the night. He was 34 years old. He'd survived being hit by a cab a few years ago. The only things that saved him were his level of intoxication (he was very relaxed) and the fact that his face absorbed the shock of the windshield instead of his brain.

He was one of the people that I looked forward to seeing when I went to work. We'd have long conversations about all sorts of lofty topics. We'd have to stop mid-sentence with a "Hold that thought," while we went to check on our tables. He told me about his girlfriend troubles, I'd talk about Lindsay. He'd get me to listen to segments of 40 minute long three-note-songs. I got him to try a martini made with scotch instead of vermouth. We would order in from Zen Palate if the family meal was too much to bear. He's just the kind of guy who would call in sick by faking his own death. But if that were the case, he would have placed the call himself.

I didn't hang out with him outside of work save the occasional after work drinking session. But I liked him, and gravitated toward him. I thought about him today, long before I'd heard the news, as something I was doing reminded me of conversations we'd had. I was listening to NPR at the time; a story about the spread of Catholicism in the Global South. "Africans relate to the Bible because it is full of stories about the transience of life," the correspondent read, "How you never know for sure that you will be here tomorrow."

I'm aghast, dismayed, sad, and nothing that I've written is adequate to describe it.