Customers O' the Night(s).

There have been so many recently that I couldn't possibly keep up. Here are a few examples:

#123: The Fat Mouth Breather is becoming a bit of a regular. I would normally ignore a person's weight and possibly even the fact that they were constantly walking around with their mouth hanging open if they were not the sort of person who insisted on Talking To My Tits whenever they were at the bar. Honestly, this guy has never once made eye contact with me while I was close enough to take his order. He also likes to hold on to his money for longer than is necessary, presumably to extend the amount of contact that his hand has with mine. He is vile and creepy and I do my best to avoid waiting on him whenever possible.

#486: A few weeks ago, we were closing up and a drunk chick wandered in alone at around two-thirty (We close at two, but are not required to empty the building until quarter to three) to use the bathroom. I normally try to stop people from doing this if they were not actually customers at our bar, but I was particularly tired that night so I let her go. I continued to re-stock beer and clean up. At around three, I was summoned by the door guys to the bathroom. The girl was passed out, panties around her knees and skirt around her waist, bent over completely so that her hands and her hair were on the floor in front of her. She was fast asleep. And snoring.
I started talking to her, tapping her on the shoulder and eventually shaking her to try and wake her up.
Eventually I raided her purse, found her cell phone, and dialed the last number that had called in (which was twenty minutes before). The girl who picked up the phone was confused at first, but I managed to convey to her that I was in the bathroom with her passed out friend and i needed help getting her out ASAP.
"I can't come and get her because I am at a party right now and I have been drinking and I am under age and the cops are outside. I can't leave." Great.
I found out her name (appropriately stripper-like, it was), hung up the phone, and pulled her to a sitting position, slapping both sides of her face gently while repeating her name.
"Pull your panties up sweetie, it's time to go." She didn't want to go. She didn't want to wake up, but she did have the good sense to cover herself when I sat her up, so I knew she was at least that aware of her situation.
Luckily there was another female bartender on staff that night, because this girl was BIG- Not fat, mind you, but a head taller than me and a good bit meatier. Once we got her to cover herself, it took both of us to hoist her off the toilet and onto her feet. From there she seemed to take control for the most part, and we just steered her (on her high heeles, of course) out of the loo and up to the front door, where she turned and hugged me and kissed me on the cheek and told me that i rocked and that she loved me and that I was her hero.
It was bizarre. She seemed perfectly coherent, as if she had just woken up from a nap (which I guess she had) and was a bit groggy but in total control. We watched as she crossed the street and tried to hail a cab. Two bike cops were standing on the corner and ignored her completely. Eventually I flagged down a cab and sent it over to her.

#222: Game Day is my least favorite day. Worse than New Year's Eve, Fat Tuesday, or even St. Patrick's day, Game day is Amateur Night with 85,000 performers, most of whom have been drinking for at least eight hours by the time I encounter them. Last night I got to deal with my first amateur foursome as soon as I got in the door. They were loud, they thought they were cool and funny, and they were demanding. The Jackass Group Leader kept ordering drinks and shots for himself and his three friends even though they obviously didn't want to drink more. What happened is what often happens in these situations: his friends don't have enough balls to tell the guy that they are done. Nobody wants to be the "pussy" that gives in first, so they all keep buying rounds. Jackass Group Leader decides to chat me up, since the girl who has been serving them all day has already given up on getting them to close their tabs and has moved on to the "ignore them and hope they'll go away" stage of customer service. So the guy remarks on my shirt- which, like most of my shirts, is a band t-shirt.
"Are they any good?"
"No. They suck. I try to make a habit of advertising for bands that I hate." I was smiling when I said this. The smile was an indication that I was joking, but that he knew the answer to the question before he asked me and that I was "on" to his game- trying to engage me in conversation that wasn't going to go anywhere. I am not flattering myself. I had already seen him chatting up two other chicks who had the ability to walk away from him and did.

"Ah HA!" he replied, a bit more angrily than was necessary under the circumstances. "Smart ass bartenders don't make good tips."

Okay, so what I should have said here was something like "On the contrary, sir, I make a lot of money from people who are smart enough to understand when a person is playfully kidding and confident enough not to take themselves too seriously. In fact, most people like it when you are a bit of a smartass, since they are so used to being Bullshat in their everyday exchanges with service industry people who are required to exchange specific pleasantries and pretend that they give a shit about customers."
That is not what I said. I believe I said something about having already written the day off due to the number of drunk idiots I encounter on game day. He insisted that he was a good tipper. I didn't believe him and I didn't care.
He went on to "compliment" a door guy about his hair and fashion sense (which he described as "totally rock and roll, dude"), and then try to engage said door guy in a conversation about music. "I'm a drummer, dude, so I know." What he knew I didn't quite understand. What he obviously didn't know was when to shut the fuck up and go home. I switched into uber-polite mode, encouraging them to try out the strip club or perhaps get something to eat. It worked and they left. His friends tipped me well.


#357: Dirty Diana is a regular. Until recently, her identity has not been known to us, but her prolific use of a sharpie marker in our ladies' room has made her a subject of regular discussion. "Dirty Diana Loves Teabags!" has adorned the wall of the first stall for so long that I can't remember when it got there. And of late one of my co-workers has made it her mission to remove D.D.'s scrawlings from said wall on a regular basis, since we often have an older more mature crowd during football season- including the owner's parents.
I do not, as a rule, consider graffiti "art" or even "free expression." (I make an exception here for Banksy and others who paint murals and interesting stuff to look at- they've helped me pass the time on public transportation many a time). It is, in most cases, pure and simple vandalism, and it is a big pain in the ass to remove from the walls. When the walls are clean, they usually stay that way for quite some time. Once somebody writes anything up there, though, it's game on, and within a week or two he whole thing is a mess again.
Occasionally, somebody writes something that I find particularly clever or funny ("Sodomatic for the People" and "Lester is Coming- Look Busy!") spring to mind), but for the most part people are generally ignorant and crass. In any case, The D.D situation was reaching a boiling point for my diligent co-worker, and when I finally identified D.D. my boss approached her and politely asked that she stop writing on the walls. She seemed embarrassed, but by her reaction I could tell that it was never a malicious thing- she was making a joke with her friends who are also regulars, and (I suspect she thought), with us as well.
This was about a week ago. Last night after close, one of the door guys came to get me and asked me to come with him to the ladies' room.
"Fuck! Is somebody passed out in there again?"
"No. I need you to see this."
I was expecting to find something broken, or a leaky toilet, or a pint glass in the bottom of a bowl. What I found instead was about twenty post-it notes, scattered in the first stall, each one adorned with the same message in hot pink sharpie: "Dirty Diana Loves Teabags!" Now that, my friends, is art. Or at least it is a very funny practical joke. I think I like this Diana.

Oh yeah...

I finally loaded up the dog pictures. Here they are.


This is Hope (Hamhock). She's the fat one.She snores like a drunken sailor.



And this is Ella. She has an uncanny ability to locate your most delicate parts with her pointy little paws.

Business.

As in J. Roddy Walston and the. They fucking rocked again. I only wish they had more CDs for us to buy. Everything was running late that night, so they didn't play as long as we would have liked, but they tore through most of the songs I know and were completely pro and cool about the scheduling fuckups. They also crashed with the b.h. and me that night. It was great to be able to talk a little in a non-show setting. All of the guys are funny and smart and generally seem like folks we would hang out with if we lived in the same place.

The beagles have escaped several times. The first time I hadn't shut the door all the way when I came back in from walking them, and Wyatt charged through it while I was in another room, so by the time I even realized the door was open the girls were long gone. Hope (who we have re-named Hamhock, because it amuses us) was only several yards from the door, snuffling through the tall grass next to the house. Ella (Sniglet) on the other hand, was already too far into the thicket on the other side of the driveway for us to even see her. I might add that it was the middle of the night and both the b.h. and I had already showered and were ready for bed. We wound up spending about fifteen minutes locating her and trying to coax her out, and eventually I tackled her when she got out into the parking lot in the office complex out back.
The next time they escaped was the night the band was here. This time I was actually in the shower. I stepped out and heard a loud baying coming from out in the yard. The next thing I heard was the b.h.'s voice through the bathroom window- "Honey, I need your help. The beagles got out." His voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of the dogs in the distance. It was about four a.m., and one of the band guys had gone out for a cigarette, and the girls slipped through the door and took off. I immediately threw on a t-shirt, jeans, and shoes, and ran out into the dark yard, figuring that the b.h. would have the flashlight on him. I was blindly making my way back toward the woods, and I could hear the b.h. cursing loudly above the sound of the dogs and a lot of crunching. It seems that the woods are now overgrown with briars - big, nasty, sharp ones - and although this posed no problem for the dogs the b.h. was getting torn to bits. He also didn't have the flashlight, but was using our cell phone to light his way. I was plodding along behind him, simulating a blind and drunk game of Marco, Polo. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't funny at the time, either, though now I'm cracking up at the thought.
Hamhock got out again the day before yesterday. I was out running errands and the b.h. had the girls ties up outside. He was in the kitchen with the door open so he could keep an eye on them. We still don't know how she did it, because when he found her wading in the shallow end of the pond, her collar was completely intact, as was the leash she had magically left tied to the garden post. It was a panicky half hour, but everybody came out okay.
Our friend has been moved to a jail downstate, so we haven't been able to see him. Our local county jail has become over crowded after three consecutive home football games, so they had to move some people off, and since he isn't getting out for another couple of weeks, they chose him. This is all very inconvenient, because we have no way of contacting him, and he can't call us collect unless we start ANOTHER account with this other jail. We already have money in an account with the local jail, and it doesn't transfer, so we have to go through the process again, and we have no idea when they will send him back, so it may be completely pointless. They won't tell him when he's moving, and they didn't give him any warning before he left, so he couldn't call and let us know. I do hope he's doing okay. The worst part of this is imagining what it must be like for people who don't have any money or any transportation. What does a poor mother do when they transfer her son to another county three hundred miles away? This is a big enough obstacle for people like us, and we can afford it. I realize that most people are in jail because they have done something wrong, but I don't see why inmates' families and friends get treated like criminals themselves (guilt by association anyone?) and inconvenienced to this degree. Ah well, I guess I'll just try to stay out of jail so I don't have to worry about it.
The iPod is a Godsend. We have almost five thousand songs loaded up already. So many things I haven't heard in ages, now brought back to life in a convenient new package. This will also help us get rid of about ten boxes of CDs that we no longer have any use for. Yay! One step closer to organization.
I discovered a podcast called Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips. I adore it, though it regularly reminds me that I know almost nothing about the rules of grammar. (Not really, but it does make me feel a bit ignorant).
This week was musically fabulous. Got to see The Dumps and Baroness upstairs at Tasty World on Thursday, as well as Peelander Z and two other Japanese bands on Friday night. What fun. Still can't wait for Okkervil River at the 40 Watt on October 3rd, and The Hold Steady on the 25th. Yes, Rocktober is going to live up to its name this year, I believe. It's a beautiful thing.
On the reading front, I finished the J.D. Salinger biography, which made me go back and re-visit Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. He really is a weird guy. But I dig his stories. I have just started The Idiot's Guide to the Middle East conflict. I bought it a couple years ago and haven't gotten around to it. It was written before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but what I really want to understand is the history of why everything is so screwed up over there, so I don't mind. I have also torn through about fifteen back issues of The New Yorker that my boss passed on to me, as well as a few copies of The Believer, Esquire, and Vanity Fair. Not a whole lot of book reading, though. Too busy. I did see a new Terry Pratchett on my way through the book store the other day. Guess I'd better go put that on my wish list before I forget.
Man, this is a long post. I'm going to read somebody else's blog and quit blathering now.

Oh Yeah...

I forgot to mention that the reason why I titled that last post the way I did is because despite having some silly shit happen, I ham not in jail, I didn't have to call an ambulance on Saturday the way that K did, after somebody overdosed and nearly died where she works, and unlike my boss, I do not own the place where everything is coming apart at the seams. He also had an incident with his toddler and the Emergency Room in the middle of our plumbing crisis, which really puts my whole "Wah- we don't have internet service at home!" to shame.
In general, things are pretty bloody good. And now that we have an Ipod (that's right- his gift is OUR gift), we are unearthing a whole slew of CDs I haven't heard in ages, and cleaning out a couple hundred that we no longer need. Yay! Organization is good!
Our friend A came over today and helped me take the old air conditioning unit (among a lot of other junk) to the dump. We also rented a steam cleaner for the carpet, and I finally got around to dusting our many (many, many- way too many) knick knacks. I have even gone as far as donating some to Goodwill. We brought a whole trunk load there today, and we have another load to bring tomorrow. I don't know where I got my pack rat tendencies, but I am slowly taming them.
Also, please note: Four dogs shed more than twice as much as two dogs. I don't care what anybody says. I know I'm not good at math, and the girls are half as big (if that) as our boys, but they are little fur factories. It's crazy.

Perspective.

Greetings from SEC Conference Hell. We have now survived two home games and I would really like it to be over. Here is a short list of things that have happened since I was last here:

1. Our phone line got cut again.
2. They fixed the phone line and then the internet went out.
3. They told us the internet connection would be fixed in two days.
4. The b.h. had a birthday, and I gave him a super-fly new Ipod. 80 gigs of lusciousness.
5. Three days went by and no internet. They told us that our modem was broken and we would have to order a new one. If we signed a contract with them, they would replace t for free. We signed. They put it in the mail.
6. Went back to see our friend again at the jail. Found out that his car is still in impound, and it costs per day for storage.
7. Went to Guy at Counter Number One (remember him? We like him.) at the jail and found out how to get information on the car.
8. Called the tow guy. Got Friend to sign paper giving me rights to car. Went (with K, thank god) to get car.
9. Paid friend's rent, went to his apartment, got fleas on us.
10. UPS can't find our house. We have to go pick modem up. We do. It doesn't work.
11. First game day. Girl who looks like (very attractive) stripper grinds against guy at the bar around midnight. He looks a little embarrassed, but doesn't complain. I advise him to get home while the getting is good. He laughs and tips me well.
12. We have yet another moth infestation. I still don't want to fog the house, because we have four dogs to think of.
13. Our air conditioner breaks. Daytime temperatures are still averaging in the mid-to-upper nineties.
14. Game day, part two. Mostly uneventful, but for the raw sewage that was coming up through the floor behind the bar. Luckily, I wasn't at work yet.
15. The b.h. spends another two hours on the phone with a computer tech in India, and finally our internet is working.
16. Somebody knocked our mailbox off. I don't know if it was on purpose or not, but it was rather a bummer. I had to go to fucking W@l-Mart tonight, because it was the only place open after it happened. Booooo.

Also of note, we have started watching the Showtime show called Dexter. A serial killer who stalks serial killers. Interesting and well executed (no pun intended). Starring the guy who played the gay brother on Six F33t Under. Love him.
Got to see A.J. for a minute. He was in town for a few days. It was nice to see him, but as always, I didn't really have much time to hang out. Saw the Dictatortots on Thursday night. That was pretty cool. J. Roddy Walston & the Business are playing this Friday night. Really looking forward to that. ANyway, i have lots of other people's blogs to catch up on now. Hopefully I will have the energy and inspiration to write about some of this stuff more in depth.
Oh yes- Happy belated Birthday, Z! Your CD is on the way this week. Promise.

Peaceful.

The girls have settled in nicely. They are very well-mannered and quite the little snugglers. The boys are still not exactly happy, but they seem to be getting used to having guests.
Last night we saw Southern Bitch and Centro-Matic at the bowling alley. It was a fabulous show. It is always difficult for me to go out on a Sunday, but I'm glad I did. Watching them play always makes me want to write.
We went over to A's house beforehand for dinner. He made Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches (mine was cheese fake- made with portabella mushrooms instead)and homemade banana pudding ice cream. It was unbelievable.
Today I slept for most of the day, or dozed on the couch under the dogs watching TV. Dexter just came out on DVD. It's about a serial killer that hunts serial killers. So far I love it.
I guess this is going to be a short and rather boring post. Sorry for that. I just haven't done much today.

P.S.

I also posted a link today to a blog called The Panopticon. Read that after the Army of Dude. You'll need it.

Doing What We Can.

Yesterday the b.h. and I went to pay rent for our friend who is still in jail. We also picked up his two dogs, who have been cared for by a guy who was nice enough to give a shit despite not being a dog person. They are both small, female beagles. When we got them here I immediately bathed them both. We moved the bed out of the guest bedroom, rolled out a big plastic tarp on the floor, and covered it with an oriental rug that I am not terribly attached to. We got them a new dog bed and a couple of rawhides. We all spent the evening watching TV, and then when we left we put the girls in the guest bedroom by themselves while we went to work. Our boys are not thrilled. It hasn't been easy so far, but we're working on it. The girls are house trained, but they are very small and so have very small bladders, and we often have to leave for six or eight hours at a stretch. So it isn't perfect, but we're trying.

I came across a blog today that I had never seen before. It's called Army of Dude, and I have linked to it over there on your left. You should read it. It is incredibly well written, especially considering the fact that the author is only twenty two. It is a heavy dose of unpleasant reality, but I am reading it because I feel like I owe him and the rest of the people in his position at least that much.

Centro-matic is playing a show at the local bowling alley tonight. We wanted to go see them last night in Macon, but it didn't work out. So we're taking the girls on a field trip to our friend A's house for dinner and a fenced yard, then we're gonna go rock out for awhile. I'm really looking forward to it.

In other news, I am reading a biography of J.D. Salinger. So far I love it. I still haven't gotten the b.h. a birthday present. I have another week or so. Hmm.

Back to Jail.

This time I took the b.h. We brought our friend some books. As he is only allowed religious and/or educational material, I took a bag of whatever I thought would pass and let the guy behind the desk decide. It turns out that The D'Oh! of the Simpsons does in fact count as religious. Fabulous. I also brought him Eats, Shoots, & Leaves and a couple books on writing. Turns out he's going to be there another month and a half, so he will have plenty of time to read. He will alsp apparently have quite a bit of company. Twenty five UGA freshmen were arrested for underage drinking between Monday and Wednesday last week, and nine more this Monday. I guess the cops are really trying to show that they're serious this year.
I personally think the whole drinking age thing is ridiculous. When you think about the fact that these kids are old enough, at eighteen, to go to fucking war and we don't trust them with beer? It just seems silly. Not to mention the fact that they are going to drink anyway, and that drinking in a bar downtown is much safer than say, at a frat party, or in some random apartment. I'm not saying this because I want more eighteen-year-old customers, mind you. I actually hate those. They don't know what they want or how to tip and they make a mess and start fights. But at least at a bar there is somebody monitoring their level of intoxication. When i think somebody has had too much, I put a full pint of water in front of them and tell them when they finish it they can have another drink. They never do. I am polite but firm, and manage to disarm even the most ornery frat boys- or at least their friends. That's the other thing. When I can see that somebody is headed for trouble, I locate their friends and tell them to keep an eye on the situation. This can happen on their first round of drinks. Sometimes there are just people (guys, mostly) who I can tell are going to be a problem. They're looking for a fight, or too wound up for one reason or another, and I will bring them down a notch. And I consider it part of my job. It's the same with girls who are obviously drunk and suddenly find an overly friendly guy on them. I ask them if they're okay, if they need a cab, etc. I ask their friends if they know the guy and if he is okay. I don't want somebody leaving my bar and getting date-raped. I'm not saying it never happens. I'm saying that responsible bartenders (there are a lot of us, believe it or not) try to look out for people. This isn't going to happen at somebody's house.
While we're on the subject, I am also pretty frustrated at the current proposed legislation here in town regarding bars. They want door guys to get licensed. They want to fingerprint the guys who get five bucks an hour to check IDs and clean up puke. Why? Because according to our police commissioner, national statistics show that a high percentage of guys who work security in clubs are sex offenders. Well that's very interesting sir, but in this town (and every college town, for that matter) the problem seems a lot worse in the fraternity houses, and I don't see anybody proposing we fingerprint those assholes during Rush Week. I guess that's because those kids' daddies can afford legal counsel? There is no proposed license for waiters or people who work in liquor or convenience stores, by the way, even though those places get busted for serving underage kids about ten times as often.
Anyway, enough of that.
The b.h. made awesome salsa today, using up about half of the cherry tomatoes we've picked in the last two days. It has poured rain - I mean biblical, scary, buckets of rain - for about an hour both yesterday and today. I am of course thrilled, as it is good news for the garden and the drought situation. Some of our neighbors are obviously less thrilled, though. I was driving to the store today and passed a house down the road that had a very large tree lying against it. It didn't look like it had been struck by lightning, either. I think the wind just snapped it like a twig. Yikes. I eyed our two trees a bit fearfully during today's storm after seeing that.
In other news, the Condos From Hell seem to be nearing completion. They now have windows, and obviously air-conditioning, because those windows have been closed every day all day despite the temperature, and there are a lot of people working over there. No landscape or anything yet, but I will be surprised if we don't have new neighbors by October. I'll try to post some pictures soon. They're really just stupid looking. I mean, there's nothing wrong with them structurally, but they are selling for half a million dollars, and that is just ridiculous. At that price, in this area, they are basically the equivalent of a big nut house. Can't wait to see who moves in.
Okay, Ian McShane awaits. I'm off.

Fat and Sassy.

I just finished eating a broiled peach with goat cheese, drizzled with a balsamic reduction. Man I'm glad the b.h. likes to cook. We also made a fruit salad with mint leaves and vanilla. For dinner we had home fries and some kind of egg and broccoli and other stuff mix. It was great, but honestly the peach just blew me away. I may be ruined for regular food forever.
Today I finally caught up on the laundry- all of it, which is no small feat. I also vacuumed (that never looks like a real word to me, I do not know why) upstairs, and put together three bags of stuff for a goodwill dropoff. Waited until after the sun went down to go out and water the veggies. Picked a whole bunch, too. We're going to have to make some salsa or something this week, because we can't possibly eat all of our tomatoes. Unfortunately something wormy is getting to the cucumbers before I can, so we haven't had any of those this week. I'm working on that, though.
Slept for more than eight hours two days in a row. I feel much better. The weekend took a lot out of me. Tomorrow it's back to the grind. Tonight though, it's Twin Peaks (we're re-watching season one) and Boston Legal.

Gardening At Night.

Or at least at dusk. It's the best I have been able to do. Every week I check the weather forecast - usually the ten-day - and every week it says that it will rain in the coming week. I can't remember the last time it actually did, though I think it's been more than two months. Today it is 91 degrees outside. That's ten degrees better than it has been for a week. My tomatoes don't seem enthused. The peppers are doing pretty well, though.Here's a photo of the biggest pepper I have ever grown:



You'd be surprised how difficult it is to photograph a vegetable close up. Or maybe you wouldn't. I certainly was. Anyway, you can at least get an idea of the size and color of this lovely. The b.h. is having it stuffed- er, stuffing it, that tis. With rice and cheese and such. I can't wait.

Here are a couple more veg photos:



The small yellow pear-shaped tomatoes are fantastic. I forgot what they are called, because of the labeling debacle during my seed starting phase, but I'm sure i still have some seeds, so I will continue to grow them next season. The small purple peppers in the bottom left corner are actually purple cayennes, and they are quite tasty and hot. The moles nedd roasting before they have much flavor.



I should have taken one of the Armenian cucumber that was literally as long as my leg. I failed to capture it on film, but use your imagination. I am about five and a half feet tall. It was ridiculous. And now it is pickled, and very tasty.

Here are a couple shots of this year's mantis model:



He sprang out of nowhere to get a drink just as soon as I watered the other evening. He seemed a bit annoyed but undeterred by my presence.



If only I could keep a hundred of these guys around. We start with a bunch every year, but we only seem to keep one. And about a thousand grasshoppers per square yard. They suck. I am really happy that I decided to put in a real garden (as opposed to a container garden) this year because the weather has been hell and the container plants are not well. Turns out it was worth all the work after all. This week I will be visiting Jamie and going over seed catalogs for next year. I can't wait.

How To Go To Jail.

Jeez! Has it been a whole week already? Well, I'm still here. Exhausted, but fine. We had a pretty rough week, work-wise. We're a bit short-handed at the moment.

One of our friends has managed to land himself in jail for a bit. Drinking, driving, you know- at the same time. Which is never a good idea, but it happens all the time. Not that I am making excuses for him, mind you, I just hate to see him in there. Luckily K, who is old hat at visiting friends with DUIs came along with me. It was a sobering experience.
When we first came in to the visiting area, we went through a metal detector and got in line to check in. Checking in involves telling the cop behind the counter who you're there to see. He gives you a sheet of paper to fill out with your name (which I am certain they run immediately through a computer to make sure you don't have a warrant out) and the name of the inmate you are visiting. Then you wait in another line to hand in the sheet. Asking questions of the guy behind counter one is not prohibited, necessarily, but it is not advised. He doesn't really seem to want to talk to you. This is likely because he is afraid that the Woman Behind Counter Two will hear him being nice and kill him later. The Woman Behind Counter Two will not look at you when she asks for your sheet. She will not answer any questions you might have in a way that is understandable to a person who has never been here before. In short, you will be treated like a criminal just for showing up. Guilt by association, I guess.
The waiting room is a typically institutional fluorescent nightmare, similar to a hospital waiting room but with cops. The chairs are plastic and uncomfortable, and arranged in rows in such a way that you almost have to disturb the person in the row in front of you in order to sit down. The other people that are waiting have obviously done this before. They are an array of depressing stereotypes. I wonder how K and I fit. Which one are we? You can't have anything on your person, obviously, except identification. Somehow we managed to avoid being frisked. This surprised me. When the Woman Behind Counter Two shouts the name of our inmate unnecessarily loudly (there are only eight people in this thirty by thirty by thirty foot waiting area), we stand up and head for a door that is a few feet away in the corner. Counter Two lady tells us loudly from across the room that we are to leave our belongings in a locker in the corner. "They don't lock," she says helpfully. "Put your things in a locker and close the door." I am very glad that K told me ahead of time not to bring anything. I drop my keys inside a random, beat up gray metal boxes and proceed to the door. I can see through a giant window in the waiting room into the room we are about to enter. It has a bank of small booths with phones and more plastic chairs, situated opposite another bank of booths and phones and plastic chairs, separated by plexiglass. Our friend is being escorted to a booth on his side. We go in and sit down. I pick up the phone, promising my inner germophobe that we will take a very hot shower with bleach and lye and ammonia when we get home, and speak to my friend. I have difficulty maintaining eye contact, as I am not used to speaking on the phone to somebody when I am looking directly at them. I ask what his situation is. We talk about books. I can't bring him any unless they are of a religious or educational nature. I will try to do this ASAP. He has been reading a prison copy of Chaucer. Unfortunately many pages are missing and the ones still in the book are crumbling in his hands. We make small talk. We discuss details of things that need to be taken care of until his release.
K gets on the phone and is hilarious and informed, having spent a day here herself once. There is talk of chipped beef and "The Fish Sandwich." She can't remember which is served on which day. I envy her ability to be both compassionate and comical at the same time. I am very glad that she came. Overall, our friend looks well, despite the circumstances. And he is a pragmatist, so I know he will be okay. He knows he fucked up.
When our fifteen minutes is up, the Woman Behind Counter Two opens the door, and shouts (again, despite the fact that we are only two feet in front of her and the only people in the room). Again she doesn't look at us, but shouts sort of in our general direction and slightly over our heads. I guess the only way to do her job without wanting to shoot yourself and/or everyone else is to avoid thinking about it too much. As much as I am glad that I am not my friend, I am really, really glad I am not her. At least he'll be out soon.

Apologies.

I am sorry for being so lame lately. I haven't had time or energy, and I feel like my blog has been suffering. The good news is that I work my final shift at the Popular Restaurant tomorrow, after which I will return to having some semblance of a life. I hope to get back to some important things that I have been missing. Namely, time with some of my friends that I see only rarely anyway, and haven't seen at all recently. I saw J for a split second yesterday (or was it two days ago now?) on my way to the Popular Restaurant, and I SWORE her voice sounded different. Sick? No. You sure? Not a sore throat or anything? No. Oh. Well then, I guess maybe I should be calling you once in awhile, because I have obviously forgotten the sound of your voice. Yow. I am sorry. Then I ran out the door and went to an incredibly miserable shift at an unbelievably disorganized place of business that somehow remains very busy and popular despite what can only be shitty service because it is not set up for the volume that it handles.
Anyway, no more of that.
The garden is going well. Tomorrow the b.h. plans to make pickles and gazpacho while I am at work. Our bell peppers are humongous. I will have to get some pictures.
Oh- by the way, Steven Colbert's Americone Dream is fantastic. It's a new Ben and Jerry's flavor. Go get some.
And now, I must return to Boston Legal. Good night.

Sometimes We Do Win.

So I quit my job at the Popular Restaurant. Three weeks. I can't remember the last time I ditched a job that quickly. It was just too big a clusterfuck. Ah well. I made a few extra bucks and I think I have a plan for a cool birthday gift for the b.h.

Wasting Time.

I am in between work and other work right now, sitting in front of a fan and basically killing time. I realized that I have been spending far too much time like this lately. I think the weather has a lot to do with it. If I am not on allergy medication, I walk around with a splitting headache, eyes leaking a very attractive sticky ooze, blowing my nose every three or four minutes. When I take the medication, I am basically completely useless. My headache is gone, but so is my head. I walk around in fog, unable to focus on anything or anyone, essentially asleep at the wheel. If I take medication and I am at home, then the sleep is literal. All of this leads to a lot of lost time for me, and I am getting frustrated. I want it back, dammit. Right now I should be out walking around, or sipping an iced coffee at a sidewalk cafe and reading a book. No can do. It's over a hundred degrees again. I'm quite certain that there are good reasons why i left the North, but right now they are very hard to remember. Must be the medication.

One Oh Five

Can't blog... too... hot...
Currently 96. "Feels like" 105. Really.

Getaway.

Doggie Camping kicked ass. Our cabin was like something straight out of an Ikea catalog- clean and simple, small but very efficient. There was a futon for us and one for the dogs (theirs looked cushier and I was jealous), a table and two chairs, a small fridge, coffee maker, and toaster, and a bathroom (no shower, but just down the road a piece was a block of showers that were private and very, very clean). There was also a nice little deck with a barbecue grill and patio furniture. It was perfect, and very reasonably priced. There were several off-leash areas, hiking trails, and a little pond for swimming. They even had a separate doggie bath house. We all had a great time.

This is a shot of the main office:



And this is Lucy, the hostess at 4Paws:





The town nearest camp was the rather unpronouncable Rutherfordton. It featured one ice cream shoppe and the creepiest house ever.





I can't put my finger on what it was exactly, but even on an incredibly beautiful, bright sunny day, it had Grisly Murder written all over it. I thought the single dead tree in the yard was a nice touch. If anybody needs a location for a horror movie, I'd give this place a shot.

After we checked out on Tuesday, we went to Chimney Rock State Park. We hiked on the mountain for a good bit, eager to get to the waterfall at the end of the trail. When we got there, we saw that we were preceded by about thirty kids from some day camp or other. It was a nightmare. Wyatt hated it almost as much as I did. We couldn't even get near the water, and we had hiked a mile and weren't carrying any. It was hot.
Kilgore didn't seem phased at all.



We trotted back to the car in a hurry, watered ourselves and the boys, and headed back home. We were all pretty tired, but very glad that we had gone.

Roundup.

I am in an unusual situation currently, in that I am at work early and I have my computer. That is a good thing, because we're leaving for Dog Camp tomorrow, and I may not be ready to post for a few more days.
The week has been good. I am pulling giant cucumbers from the garden daily, and passing them out to friends and co-workers. Scared the hell out of a couple people who thought they had encountered a giant snake in the cooler (yeah, I don't know either). Saw The Mooney Suzuki on Thursday night. Wow. That was a rock show. Afterward, they took about nine years to load out, and when we were finally able to leave, we heard a cell phone ringing somewhere in the dark bar. As we scrambled around trying to find it, it stopped ringing. I pushed open the back door to see if the band was still around. They were. Was that their phone? It was. Call it again. Okay.
So we get back inside, and when we are finally able to locate the phone, it is attached to one very passed out and very confused bass player. It's a good thing they called when they did, Five more minutes and he would have been there until he woke up on his own, and something tells me they wouldn't have made it to Florida on time.

We pre-ordered the new Okkervil River CD online, which allowed us to download it immediately. It's pretty fucking awesome. Looking forward to hearing it in the car tomorrow, actually. Other than that, I have nothing important to say. Desperately need a couple days off, and will hopefully have fun stories and good pictures to share.

He's Always One-Upping Me.

We were out to dinner with the b.h.'s mom, and while enjoying a bite of bruschetta, the b.h. dropped a bit of olive tapanade in his lap.
"Tapacrotch?" I asked. "Or should it be "Crotchanade?"
"I don't understand why you don't have a career in marketing," he replied casually, shoveling the last bit into his mouth and brushing off his pants.

The Popular Restaurant is okay so far. Lots to learn and quite exhausting, but I always enjoy learning new things, especially when those things involve food and wine.

I finished the new H@rry P0tter book. It was great. No spoilers or anything, just in case any of you care, but I will say that Ms. Rowling has done an excellent job of wrapping things up. I also recently read The Nasty Bits, by Anthony Bourdain. It was mostly hilarious. I skipped the first piece entirely after watching the b.h., an unafraid eater of all meats, turn green just from reading it. I am about halfway through A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which I somehow got through my entire academic career without reading. I'm enjoying it. Also a good ways into The Mulching of America by Harry Crews, but as it is not exactly uplifting I have only been reading sporadically.

Not much more to tell. Just got back from a long walk with the boys and we're all lying about panting in front of the fan.

Happy Harry Potter Day, Everybody.

I am very generously allowing the b.h. to monopolize the copy that arrived this morning via Am@zon, so I have time for a quick weekly roundup. (He's going to band practice later, so I will be catching up then).
This week I stared a new job at a Popular Restaurant. It is interesting because I am learning new things about food and wine and whatnot, but it is also incredibly frustrating because I have no idea what I am doing and the setup is not convenient. Ah well, we'll see how it goes.
My cucumbers are coming along nicely. So many, in fact, that I may be able to go back to the Farmer's Market soon. The Armenian Cuckes are especially impressive. None have fully matured yet, but it seems that we will have an abundance here pretty soon. The tomatoes seem to be in a holding pattern- they're here, but they aren't ripening very quickly. The few that have have already split by the time I found them. Last night I weeded, picked a few pickling cukes, and watered after walking the dogs at dusk. After they ate, I let the dogs out one last time before leaving for work. A few minutes later, I got that weird, spider-sense, somethings-wrong-but-I-can't-quite-put-my-finger-on-it feeling. I ran to the door to call them back in, and KG came bounding into the kitchen, all wet and smiling and reeking of Tomato Plant. I guess I should have known that the three foot garden fence wouldn't be much of a deterrent for him. Bastard. No visible damage, though, so he gets to live another day. He's lucky he's so cute.