More from the Ritz

Chef said, "This ticket is confusing! Please tell the server I'd like a word!" which is a rough translation of, "What the F? This ticket is F'ed up! Get me the F'er who wrote it!"
I was running from the room service kitchen, which makes our breakfasts, and missing the restaurant's main kitchen, which is open to the dining room and not conducive to Chef vernacular.
The order in question was for "Egg Benedict SUB BACON FOR SAMOLN."
Our number two cook was working with one of the main kitchen's leads, who was on his first day, so even though he had the chops to burn through the line, he was fighting an unfamiliar menu and woefully underprepared mise en place. Patience was no longer a significant commodity.
"Easy, Chef," I said. "He's South African, and in their vernacular, the subject and object are switched. He means to say that bacon is substituted out, salmon is in. The verb is flipped relative to American English."
Blink, blink, blink. Shake. "GET ME THE FUCKING WAITER!"
Sometimes I miss being in a college town.

After ten days of operation, our serving capacity has increased 300%. Dinner has been a steady accumulation and margin-pushing venture. Lunch went from more staff than diners to 160 covers over the course of yesterday. Evidently, it was ugly, with three cooks and three servers. No mention of putting the top capacity staff on evening shifts and leaving for breakfast and lunch those who are perfectly content to stand around polishing silverware and chatting through a service.
I'd be embarrassed were I to wait on myself: I'd be bullshitting through a third of the core ingredients: what sort of flour is in the burger bun? In what wine are the shortribs braised? What's the difference between the braising fluid and demiglace? Where does the goat cheese come from? Would the herbal profile of that (the baby gem lettuce with roasted beets, goat cheese, and a winter citrus vinaigrette) better compliment the truffle-onion jus of the seabass or the escabeche on the rotisserie chicken? What's the house olive oil? From what dairy is the creme fraiche sourced?
Not that I really care, not that it would greatly alter y choice, but if I was trying to decide between, say, the burger with fries and house-pickled fixins and the French dip with onion rings and jus, here's what I would want to know:
What's the size (8 vs 6 oz)
What's the bun (Old World Mills sesame bun and molasses baguette)
Tell me about the fries vs onion rings (fries are house pressed russets, onions are [bsing] cippolini in a light breading and hot fry)
The toppings (applewood smoked bacon with gruyere and caramelized onion with gruyere)
The sources (beef comes from the Five Dot Ranch, which raises grass-fed and hormone-free beef outside of Susanville, and the veg, like the meats, come from the balance of highest quality and greatest locality, hence Maine diver scallops, salsify from Holland, and beef from just up the road, but there isn't as much draw for name-brand farms that grow arugula during the California winter).
In this case, the molasses baguette would sell me, but were it a sesame baguette I would go for the ingredients I'd like to support--if the russets come from twin falls and the caramelized onion comes from Walla Walla, it's the dip all the way.
And if I'm paying for a Ritz Carlton dining experience, I want that information.

Anyway, I like that I don't have to face myself on the floor, I like that I get to drop off food, point out the highlights, and bolt. I like that I don't have to talk myself out of the constant intimidation of not absolutely owning the menu.
And then I take a pizza to a table, "the pizza du jour with pancetta Americana, endive, basil, and five cheeses" (and I can list them), and the person looks sick.
"I ordered the pizza with mozzarella and cheddar."
"The mushroom soup with ruby port reduction and croquette."
"He told me I could have chicken noodle soup!"
"So?" is not an acceptable answer. Nor is, "Well, here's what we got."
And day after day, it happens with the same servers. Always the same. And as soon as one customer gets unhappy, the server melts down. Always the same. And then in steps a manager who excels at verbally creating a panicked "crisis" [clusterfuck] almost as adroitly as he creates stupidly confused "crises" through his actions--rather than just schmoozing, he gets proactive and mis-labels seats and tables.
Nothin like walking all over the floor wondering, "where to?" after a table says, "we didn't order that...."
I'm sure they're learning something, but sometimes I wonder what.
Whatever.
Evening service has direction and momentum and runs like a muscle car in need of a tune up.
Lunch and breakfast run like a muscle car that's been sitting in a field and has a rabbit nest in the hood.
But how fascinating to be part of the team responsible for establishing the preliminary practices and procedures. How great to play a part in polishing the restaurant into a showpiece.

Ritz stories: waterfall

I arrived at 5:40 amid a flurry of brownshirts--security agents running all over. The main kitchen is closed down--nobody could make it in through the foot-plus of snow. But between my supervisor saying "86 buffet" and actually striking it, I checked in the dark kitchen, in the dark walk-in, and found the speed rack laden with organic berries, smoked salmon, shaved meats, house-blended fruit yogurts, and freshly baked pastries. (Talk about bliss: imagine staggering around at 6:00 AM, bleary and groggy, and somehow making it into a room where a team of professionals has been baking bagels, muffins, and croissants for hours. Oh, to wrap up in warmth with almond croissants, apple turnovers, banana-walnut-raisin-carrot muffins, chocolate croissants, and donuts.)

We have an all-hands rally call: the takeout area of the hotel flooded; we should expect double business.
While awaiting the throngs, I walked over: imagine walking up to an indoor waterfall while it's snowing outside. A water main blew.

Thrice, from three disparate individuals, I heard: "They said it will take two to three days. I walked over, and it'll take two to three weeks."

Amazing what you learn when the plaster is in place.

Ritz stories

1:
A trainer zooms in and stares at my chin.
"You didn't shave this morning, did you?"
I do not say that it's been a week or more.
"I can't let you on the floor like that. You have to be clean shaven. You'll have to housekeeping to get a razor."
Ten minutes later, I've found housekeeping, and they don't have either a razor or a manager.
"I know you think I'm being a dick," says the trainer, "but I can't let you on the floor until you're clean shaven."
Track down the head of housekeeping and receive an official nix: no razors. So I dig through my bag and find a pocket knife.

Picture: I have three score hairs on my face, a third of which are white (the fuzz just doesn't count). All the rest are dark. So I'm sitting in one of the stalls of the employee bathroom--we are only permitted to use one in the millions of square feet of hotel space--scraping at the hairs until the blade gives up and I use it as half of a set of tweezers.
As I'm doing touch up, my supervisor walks in.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Shaving." Don't talk to me.
"Why?"
"X."
"X? The trainer?"
Nod.
"Dude."
"Am I good?"
"Get the sideburns again."
So I scrape and grind, scrape and rip, and catch an open-mouthed, "DUDE!"

"No shaving cream?" asks the trainer.
"No." I'm not pursuing this.
"Looks like the razor was a little dull."
"No razors,"
I can't sidestep the questioning look.
"Pocketknife."
"Damn."

2. I'll just say that there was some excitement and a pinky toe now looks like blood sausage. Mom said, "yeah, looks like you might want to look up how to treat a broken toe. But I think all they do is tape it and give you ibuprofin."
We do sympathy and emotional blowups over physical injuries damn well in this family.
My following shift began with leaving just after 4 AM and working until almost 6. On my feet. Except for the half hour lunch.
My limping attempts to avoid placing weight on the toe hurt the muscles in the leg worse than the break.
"Boss, do you know where I can find any Advil?"
"No, why?"
"Nothing, really; broke a toe the day before yesterday and forgot drugs. It's okay, though."
"Really?"
"Yes."
Damn, said the eyes.
Funny that my supervisor still left early to go snowboarding.

3. We were released after 11:00, and I turned off the highway just after 1. Plows had not hit the backstreets, and I was quickly plowing through waist deep snow. WRX did nobly until the grade hit about 10% and the snow pile was up over the hood.
I parked and walked and called some friends who were kind enough to drive me in their higher-clearance, heavier weight vehicle. I called my supervisor (as is company policy) in a panic (not policy). It took eight or ten tries to get through. "I won't be able to get out until the plow comes through! What should I do?"
"Stop calling me. Call Loss Prevention like you're supposed to."

I made it in under two hours late, thanks to the phenomenal generosity of the friend who had given me a ride a few hours before.
ds"You should have know better. Never let this happen again."

A couple of days later, my boss burned out a pair of chains and tires trying to get out of the employee parking lot. My supervisor went to pick him up and slid off the road in the process.

"Sucks, don't it?" I said. Neither held eye contact.

And I wonder why I always draw the early shift.

Ritz Doctrine

For three days, we were subjected to Ritz Carlton Philosophy Training. We met in large parking lots, were bussed to the property, and stood outside in our respective areas--Housekeeping, Food and Beverage, Culinary and Stewarding, Culinary, Finance &c.--and cheered. Human Resources folks worked up waves. Chants of "RITZ" "CARLTON" back and forth, back and forth, listening to Culinary bang on pots and baking sheets, then parading up the sweeping staircase, along past the restaurant, and to the main banquet hall through a gauntlet the Ritz is proud to call the Wall of Applause.
For the opening, the Ritz flew in the biggest Ritz Carlton cheerleaders from around the world, an army of maybe a hundred and fifty that dominated the property with the critical weight of a maximum capacity crowd. And each and every one of them lined up from the entryway to the banquet hall to applaud the three hundred new hires entering their tutelage.
I'm a musician, remember, and accustomed to standing during applause for other people's work. At least then it's not a bunch of creepy people staring at me and lauding me for walking past en masse, it's a bunch of people who have listened to the symphonic productions to which I have contributed. But okay, the Ritz Carlton appreciates me. Cool.

Day One was a happy, feel-good time, centering on the Credo Card. Suffice to say, it's the company's form of eugenics; live the credo--the Motto, the Three Steps of Service, the twelve Service Values, the Employee Promise, all wrapped up in a business card sized accordion fold that encapsulates the Ritz Carlton's mission and execution.
Day One was, "Welcome to the Ritz Carlton. You are joining the top one percent of hospitality providers in the world. You are ladies and gentlemen, unanimously and without question, and you are serving ladies and gentlemen. You are not servants; at the Ritz Carlton, you are ladies and gentlemen above all else. You are internal guests. You are empowered. We will give you up to two thousand dollars to create lasting emotional experiences, memories, and Ritz Carlton customers for life. Get to know your customers, and surprise them with thoughtfulness--go buy a teddy bear for a kid who lost one, replace a cracked window in a monthly customer's car, bring a fresh box of Kleenex to someone with a fistful of tissues, bring roses to a couple who announces an anniversary. Write everything down so we can remember for next time. Write down birthdays and anniversaries, food and drink allergies and preferences, stock the fridge with the case of Diet Coke the person brought last time, remember that they are ladies and gentlemen, just like you, and they want to be treated well, just like you. So welcome to the Ritz Carlton family! Go team!"
"RITZ!"
"CARLTON!"
"RITZ"
"CARLTON!"
Until the exiting ovation seems an honor, not a superfluous cordiality.

Day Two brought what I will call demerits, or the "or else" clauses of employment: "Okay, you know what we're about, but really, you have to keep our clients in mind: Francis Ford Coppola, Michael J Fox, Britney; they have expectations, and you'd better accommodate. So, no smoking, no drinking, no eating, no cell phones, no congenial gestures, no love pats, no slang, no familiarity in public unless it's with a guest's kid. No scraggly hair, no ponytailed gentlemen, no spike-haired women, no dyed hair, no extreme makeup, no extreme jewelry, no wild socks, no untucked shirts, no baggy eyes, no caffeine jitters. You are ladies and gentlemen and will act it, because if you remember Service Value #10, you are proud of your professional appearance, language, and behavior.
"If you are out of line, you will receive demerits on a subjective basis. Miss a shift, show up late, out of uniform, mentally disengaged, physically compromised, and you might just tip the scales to canned.
"You will swipe at Loss Prevention [security] the moment you step on premises. You will swipe in for your shift. You will swipe out for lunch, which must come before the fifth hour of your shift or you will receive demerits. You will swipe back in after exactly thirty minutes--any more or less and you will receive demerits. You will swipe out before the eighth hour of your shift or you will receive demerits. Here, sign this form to waive the right to a lunch before the sixth hour of your shift. While you're at it, sign this form to waive treatment from a non Ritz doctor.
"Had enough? Okay, go get lunch."

"Welcome back. Remember: you cannot be on the premises outside of your shift unless you have prior approval. You cannot clock in before your half hour lunch is up. You cannot clock in for less than four hours. If you are on premises, you have to clock in, so you have to be here for reason enough to justify four hours of pay, okay?
"When you leave, either your shift or the premises, you must clock out. When you arrive, you must clock in. Failure to do so will result in demerits.
"When you leave, you will return your uniform. Loss, damage, or alteration will be grounds for discharge. As you exit, your bags will be subject to search."

"Every morning, you will have a lineup, during which your manager will read the Commitment to quality, which is a story about 'the genuine care and comfort of our guests' or 'the finest personal service and facilities' which ensured that 'the Ritz Carlton experience enlivens the senses, instills well0being, and fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.' [really] You will be inspected for conformity and uniformity and any transgressions will be noted. Each day, we will highlight one of the Service Values. You will be expected to know them."

All of it interspersed with anecdotes and rambling designed to make it sound fun and happy.
And the Wall of Applause.

Day Three: I was ready to scream. Don't ask me to delve in. It was another intense session of go team, sandwiched between the Wall of Applause. The only thing I can say is that it was somewhat relieving to hear that most of the speakers--many of whom were way high up in the company--started work as part time servers or banquet attendants.

Day Four-Seven: trial runs. Serving the trainers, with more trainers hovering around, and everyone offering contradictory assurances about the proper conduct of the restaurant. Day Eight-Twelve: working the early bird shift. Every day.
Twelve days straight.
What was that about overtime?
About getting in trouble for working too much?

To the Ritz

Saying, "I work at the Ritz Carlton" is like saying, "I"m from California." Everyone knows something about it and is happy to pigeonhole you, especially if it means you're one of them.
An Italian conversation:
"Where are you from?"
"Idaho."
"No, no. Where you come from?"
"Idaho."
"Where are you from?"
"Idaho."
"No, no, I no say right. I am Italian. You are?"
"American."
"But where?"
"Idaho."
Exasperated sigh.
"I'm from a small place near Venice. You?"
I debated saying, "the state of Idaho," but sighed into a meek, "California."
"CALIFORNIA? Hollywood!"
Well, no.

Same thing.
"I work at the Ritz."
Response A comes in a whisper: "OHHHHhhhh, the RITZ!"
Response B replaces "I" with "you;" "awe" with "awe, I just stepped in THAT?"

Here's what recent experience and reflection on long experience has unearthed: the egotism of the underdog.
If I say that I burn up all my energy at an independent bookstore in the morning, a Chinese restaurant in the afternoon, and a fine dining restaurant in the evening, people have a universal 'whoa' factor.
If I burn up equal amounts of energy in a 9, as opposed to 13, hour shift at the Ritz, it is assumed that I am a pampered and privileged individual who lives in sheer physical luxury.
Reality: in my position at the Ritz, I am always on point. I am always visible and accountable. I do not have a back counter around which I slouch and vent and commiserate. I do not have heart of house sanctuary. I live in the front, always under scrutiny, always running.
And I love it.
But saying "I work at the Ritz" is like saying, "My zip code is 90210," and it is automatically assumed that I am incapable of sustaining myself.

I find the same bias in myself: a bank exec complains about a rough day of work, a loan shark, any other sort of paperwork-based job, and I think, "yeah, so? I spent the day running--physically running--around a mouse cage, pandering to the whims of the uber wealthy." No matter that my mouse cage is physically beautiful, and I love each twist and turn, it's a mouse cage. I'm running. And my running is at the whims of the uppermost class. Therefore I am superior to someone who wracks his/her brain for the best option for someone who has based his/her future on the decision.
And yes, in this case, I am reading myself into the equation. Nevermind that 100% of the calls I've heard from bankers have been about how easy it was to fleece a customer who fit the description of "another [demographic]."

Here's the weird thing: working full time at the Ritz is harder than working full-and-a-half time in independent businesses. I've been through manual labor, and it is exponentially easier than the scrutiny surrounding half the time in the Ritz. But a lumberjack, a member of the great American demographic that keeps diners thriving at the expense of salaries, would look down on such a scornfully luxurious employer, and that demographic would bring a good portion of the American public.
What matters is that the Ritz and its customers constitute a soft demographic unaccustomed to nobility past the accident of birth.
Yet here I am, the guy who went to the college with the best loan package, the guy who's always held an entry-level job, the guy without half the security of a cattle ranch, and I am scorned for I've figured out how to work my mind more than my body, to think through a ballet of unchoreographed moves, and I am soft because I gyrate at the whims of those wealthy enough to have the privilege of tipping those of us who have ground our teeth down enough to earn entry into a livable situation.

I'm still disquieted by the hypocrisy. I look down at people whose living depends on others investing, or maybe entrusting, blindly. A lawyer is one thing--a matter of individual inclination. But someone on Wall Street or a bank office seems much more morally ambiguous; an individual has no control over the use (or misuse) of funds, and there is a darn good chance that no matter what happens to the investor's money, the manager will make some serious money. At least you can fire a lawyer.
And here I am, making my living on the expected gratuity of people who have little choice or say in falling into my section of the restaurant.
For the same reasons I resent big profits made by people wrangling electronic messages pertaining to unwitting investors' money and livelihoods, a farmer resents me for doing nothing but run a plate from the cook to the table.

But here's the thing: my job is to make sure people have a good time, and the only times they don't almost invariably have to do with their own reluctance to enjoy a given experience. The Ritz Carlton has a history, reputation, and following that draws a demographic willing to pay for a certain level of service. So when I associate with that demographic, it is assumed that I am one of them, and that assumption pigeonholes me in a disparate identity, and it completely overlooks my opinions of the overarching process.

Suby Stories

Between home and the highway, there's a nasty curve, a left hand ninety that climbs from a subtle incline to a steep uphill.

Coming down this morning, there were skid marks leading to burm busts where three people--or one person thrice--slid backwards after attempting the climb.
On the flats below, I decided to have some fun and punch the WRX.
As soon as the turbo wound up, the wheels broke loose and the world filled with a high pitched buzzing.
I started creeping down the road.
Through third, fourth, into fifth, buzzing morphing into a swarm of attacking mosquitoes, death grip on the steering wheel as I press myself back into the bucket seat.
Look down and the speedo says 120. Adrenaline ups, endorphins start cranking.
Look out and I'm moving at a walking pace.
Oh yeah.

Birthing the mongloid

And it so happened that, after barging ahead without ever looking back for any reason whatsoever, the Great Work surpassed the 50,000 word goal. And it did so by the November 30 deadline.
Go me.
Now that I have looked back, I realize that the framework of stories is a skeleton for some mangled ball of genetic mishaps, but at least it's there and ready for the plastic surgery of revision. Otherwise, it'd be another potential storm of neural activity with almost as much potential to ean something in the world around me as a bean swallowed before a meditation.

Overheard

Customer at my table:
"It's not their fault," (something that caused great expense, I'm guessing). "Really, those guys don't know to look out for that! They're minimum wage workers for God's sake, you can't expect them to think!"

Me:
"Since I make less than half of minimum wage, am I excused from breathing?"

When you gotta go...

Give me a full bladder and an escarpment of more than 18" and I'm happy.
Ask any guy, it's just a biological function.
I've also nurtured something of an ego around outdoor acuity, and like to think myself as aware of my surroundings as most anyone in the backcountry.

It so happened that I went for an outing at a somewhat popular place, and I ran into a babbling gaggle of sorostitutes at the top of the initial climb. I was happy to put on the afterburners and "run" away as fast as my panting lungs allowed (have I mentioned that I've become a sedentary lump lately?). And despite the heaving, it was quite easy to outdistance the sorostitutes, so I thought nothing of it when I got to the top of the trail and found a little pile of rocks with a perfect point to pee from; what more could a guy ask for?
About another 20 degrees, for one. I was running hard enough that I didn't notice, but there was frost on the rocks, and my fingers were two shades past frigid.
By the time I dug out and got a good stream going, I heard a noise on the trail.
Yup, it was the last sorostitute squeaking out a little gasp as she came into the clearing to stand open-mouthed and wild-eyed without a thought for the elemental pleasure they were interrupting.
So what does one do in this situation? Ignore them? Flee in embarrassment while a stain spreads? Tuck in and pretend nothing happened?
At least they were flushed with their bangs stuck to rivulets of sweat and silently panting, which would explain how they snuck up.
Best I could manage on--or out of, as it were--the fly: swallow my own slack-jawed and wild-eyed shock while turning around, hold up an accusatory "hold on for a minute, dammit!" finger while shaking off and zipping up, and then, wearing my meanest teacher face, walk slowly, cooly, pas them, holding just-shy of aloof and superior, feeling their eyes burn into the back of my head, wishing desperately for that 20 degrees, as far as the first bend in the trail. And then run like a three legged rabbit chased by a pack of greyhounds.

Yeah, go me.

symphony stories

NPR just played the last movement of Tchaik 4, "Symphony Cunnilingus."
To help his students remember the melody for this particular symphony, the lead trumpet explained the mnemonic for the nine-note melody--everybody loves eating pussy--but he did so by enunciating brazenly enough for his section to hear him over the strings and woodwinds, which were stopped during, "EATING," so he belted "EATING PUSSY!" out over a silent stage.
Classy.
So I upped the ante to "everybody loves cunnilingus," because that's just how I am.

living death

Prologue: Lunch

"What may I bring you for your dinner?" the chef asked through the glottal marbles of northern-India.
"I'll eat whatever you recommend, and I love trying anything I haven't seen before."
"Is there anything you do not eat?"
"Sometimes I have issues with Spam."
"Then I have just the thing! Bobboldigoom!"
Blank look.
"You do not know of bobboldigoom?"
Blankly shaking the head.
"You would call it a fish curry, but it is made with the fish parts your countrymen throw into the garbage."
"Great!" Fish head, fish tail, I've been there. Just, no more tapeworms. Cook the stuff to death.
"And how spicy would you like it?"
"Make me hurt."
Oops.

Scene:
After opening a satchet of kippered cow whatnots, I munched through the whole damn thing. While I could probably use the protein, it so happened that the stuff had enough non-whatnot whatnots to hit my guts like a rollerderby championship team. And while I'm prepared to weather an intestinal storm (never drink the local water) I wasn't prepared for the rollerderby to assimilate every btu from lunch and transport them to the, um, final staging area, where they sat. And burned. Roilingly. Until I got home.

Now, I'd argue that "Make me hurt, baba-chod" is a worse choice than saying, "Hey wookie! Your father was a hampster and your mother smelt of billygoat!" But at least you can see the damage a wookie leaves behind.

Characters III: Elite

Reservations for six at 8:00; good potential. But during a full moon and homecoming weekend: bodes ill.
Four arrive first: a mid-sixties couple of a leisure class, and twin girls who looked like twelve-year-old versions of Michelle Obama, each in severe skirts and double-breasted wool coats buttoned to their ears. The guy had a bulging forehead with an extra 50% of surface area ill concealed by his combover, a pencil mustache he couldn't really trim around the wrinkles, and his right eye was cocked about 30 degrees left. His... wife? consort? had dyed-blue helmet hair around round glasses with quarter-inch plastic frames from some exorbitant designer, an outfit with more sequins than I've seen since Italy, and her purse was bigger than most school backpacks and made of shiny black leather with brass studs.
As I filled water glasses, they made laps around the table and were just sitting as I set down the glasses.
"I need to trouble you for a water without ice," he said in an odd sort of nasaly Vanderbilt accent.
"And I need a chair for my handbag." I thought she was joking and smiled as I ran for the water.
Nope: she was stooping to drag a chair that looked to weigh five times as much and take up six times as much space as it should.
Yeah, there goes the tip, right?
Guest five shows up: a fleshy mid-level someone reliving his college days decked out in sweaty team shirt, brand-new team hat, and team sweatpants. And the last person is the woman's sister, equally bedecked in sparkly everything and conspicuously subtle brand names; somehow, black sequins on a black shirt make the "G" less ostentatious, or something.

Special orders get highlighted so the kitchen crew notes the alteration from standard menu items. I had the novel opportunity to highlight the entire ticket.
No surprise, of course.

I did okay through the service, all the "yessir, nosir, here you are mam, I'll be right back with that," despite the sister and alum groping each other across the table, despite the, "was that the Gucci or Prada trip?" "Remember the driver we had for the Chanel trip?" despite every trip to the table requiring three trips for repeat items--"a glass of the pinot noir, sir," "You know, I'll have one, too," "I want a vouvray"--or getting orders to do my job before I have a chance to fall down at it--as I set down salads, beginning with the little girls, the, uh, professor? leisure suit burnout? combover dude? anyway, that one is saying, "now we need fresh cracked pepper here. But they don't take it, and I only want a little." Yessir, I'll be right back with that, sir."

We have a printed policy of adding 18% gratuity to a single check for parties of 6 or more, and I elected to use it (sometimes, I can nurse things by saying, "I elected NOT to add the compulsory 18% gratuity, so I thank you for your generosity" or somesuch).
What made me really, really want to have a tray of scalding hot tomato sauce to drop was the eyeglass lady saying, "WHAT? An 18% gratuity on the CHECK?" and the little girls taking up the chorus. "Eighteen percent? For gratuity? On the check?"
And the slimy schmuck, who did pay in cash, hands me the presenter, licks his little mustache, and says, without humor in his eyes or anything but generosity in his voice, "I'm due eleven cents in change, but I'll let you keep it for such excellent service."

East meets west

After all the elk and moose in dark and spicy ginger sauces, special-cooked General's Chicken, lo mein, fish soup, duck head soup, all the fantastic employee meals, today's was off-brand processed lunch meat.
Not to be elitist--I'm a big fan of, say, Spam in bean stews, or baked in a frittata, but this was no such thing.

At the bottom of the cooker, grains of rice meld solid and turn into paddle-sized ridges on a plate. It's exciting to use the nice plates because it looks like dragons chase each other around once-rice mountains.
Now, instead of a nice, saucy wok-load of something complex and full of complementary contrasting colors and textures running through the valleys--I really dig playing god with such platescapes--picture slabs of Spam, wok-fried to golden brown, unadulterated by sauce or vegetables, flopped awkwardly over the rice valleys like the not-yet dead trying to fall off a cart.

Here's the question: if Spam is wok-fried in residual soybean oil, served on rice, and eaten with chopsticks, is it Chinese food?

Question the second: why is a salmon eyesocket an hour after wakeup easier to eat than a can of thick-sliced generic processed lunch meat? (Really: an entire can, all for me.)

And when I say that I ate the entire damn thing, is it with pride, amazement, shame, or should I invent a Chinese caligraphic figure to represent the holistic experience?

Thumping race with fate

In one view, every heartbeat brings you closer to death. I tend to agree.
Sometimes, though, a heartbeat doesn't count against you; I think of this state as Tuba Time--time spent living behind a tuba exists outside the natural allotment.
And then there's Screaming Turbo Time: when the tires and turbo are trying to outscream each other and the pulse rate--even mine--actually elevates some, but instead of being life-negative or -neutral, Screaming Turbo Time adds heartbeats--good ones, not superhuman efforts to sustain a vegetable (although, come to think of it, Screaming Turbo Time might be a direct route to vegetable time)--to the end.

So, aglow after a killer burger/shake at a well-loved and highly-recommended place, I was engaging in some Screaming Turbo Time therapy.
As I rounded out a corner, leaving four lines of rubber, I discovered a new sort of time, wherein Screaming Turbo Time counts as exponentially negative.

Back up a bit: dropping into the canyon, I dropped out of a layer of snow, but I did not drop out of gravel on the road until I crossed the state line, at which point I dropped out of any form of road maintenance. In years past, they've been good about minimizing gravel and maximizing the spray, and I had been doing fairly well not getting into trouble with ball-bearing layers of gravel. Coming out of the canyon is always faster because it's harder to slow down with the brakes than by letting off the gas. So I was pushing pretty hard on the climb out. And here's a pile of rocks that froze off the bank and rolled across the road.

Ordinarily, rocks wouldn't be a problem--just jig around them. Heh.
Not so easy in a fully loaded turn with no room to ease (or just jerk) to the outside, which would be the logical way to miss the big rock headed for the crankcase (most of the undercarriage danglers are on the passenger side, and I was making a right turn), but jigging to the outside would send me outside the road and into an aerodynamic experiment I would not expect to win. Or pass (whisper: i.e. survive).

Stand on the brakes, haul the wheel right, hope to avoid critical components, and discover the real problem: a matted layer of pine needles. Wet pine needles. Well, once-wet pine needles that froze and have a new life as WRX-calibre ice skates.
We are now moving rapidly toward the cliff with an extremely cattywhompus sort of sensation as the front end slides and momentum carries the back end through the turn for a moment, coupled with the creation of a diamond the exact size and shape of my rectum.
Let off the brakes, the front wheels correct, the rocks slide past, and I'm somehow in control again, blinking my way through a reconstruction and not coming up with much.

Here's where the fate thing comes in: two turns later, while still coasting toward "normal" speeds, I saw bears. A fat mama and cub, waddling straight toward me in the middle of the road. It would've been hard to miss, but I could have were I moving at a more characteristic pace. Rather, had I not been in the WRX, they would've had time to waddle into a turn that already just about wiped me out. And that--which is what actually gave me the stomach-sinking wilies, would have made for a very different story.

gastric acting

And it happened that while driving a stretch of intimately-familiar hairpin road, I felt an honest surge of adrenaline.
First there was the white-knuckled turn that found me trying to squeeze cheese from the steering wheel because all four wheels were screaming at the second degree of desperation (first degree: I missed a busy red light; second, I'm about to plough into that old lady; third come about the time you're saying, "The St. Peter??") when I should've been downshifting. Only problem was that my death grip was contributing considerably to the longevity of the car; removing a hand would've been about like removing a wheel as I slid sideways across the lanes.
A couple turns later, I discovered how to control the wheel with one hand and pacify the death grip with the other, conveniently placed on the shift knob. But with that gear all wound up, stepping on it after the apex of the turn just kept the car more sideways than even my judgment deemed prudent.
But once I figured all of that out (well enough), I did great up until a revalation: as I slid sideways around a turn, gripping the asphalt at four tangentially sliding points, I noticed a rather large stump--scarred by ages of abuse from doofuses like me and snow ploughs--just past the apex of the turn, where my gravitational load would be greatest. It occurred to me that if any of my tires were to break loose, I would quickly and permanently become one with the stump.
And not to say anything about it, but the realization gave me as much chemical reaction as I had when a Highway Patrol car flipped a bitch to spend 40 minutes following me through low-speed zones. Not to say anything about that, but some things make your stomach perform strange and horrible acts.

On Political Apathy

Watching "The Power of Nightmares," reading "Days of War, Nights of Love," and losing hope for social change. Not only have the powers that be come to be through self-justifying myths and outright fabrications turned canonical tenets, a book that purports to be the first shot in the final war for life on earth reads as though written by nineteen year-old cavedwellers who slunk away from the challenge of college and need to justify their adolescent anger. Yes, there are some great points, but the points are mis-representations or generalizations or simple restatements of long-standing philosophies, and, at least in the first three-quarters of the book, the authors attack alternate philosophies without recognizing that they themselves rely on the same loopholes and social movements they abhor.

Reading this book is in many ways like listening to my dad talk politics--he's quite conservative and gets himself worked most of the way to hypertesnsion at the personal injustice and criminality of governmental acts (but only when perpetrated by liberals, somehow; programs like the PATRIOT ACT are forward-looking acts from benign and intelligent conspiracy-busters looking out for our long-term well-being). What gets me is not that his arguments are so biased or his politics so separate from mine, it's that he has such personal investment in government--by the people and for the people refers directly to him. I can't fathom such investment in politics or government. And the authors are disaffected nihilists making blanket claims about the absolute evils of the forces directing our culture, and the prospect of anarchy is supposed to be hope-inducing, yet the ideas for reconstruction fill the same old grooves with fresh-colored ooze. And still, they're all worked up over this that or the other thing in the White House.

I feel heathenish saying it, like I'm undermining the social movements that protected the freedoms paved through American history, but how am I supposed to believe in the political process? Consider: when I was old enough to study American history and government, the Clinton/Lewinsky thing blew up; I didn't have the tools to filter out exactly what or why or how it was being couched, but I did understand that the President had done something bad. (Yet since then....) My first opportunity to vote (left wing) came in 2000. Then I had the Valintine's Day protests, the California gubernatorial shindig, the 2004 elections, and finally saw what seemed to be a legitimate election (based less on fear tactics or deception, at least) in 2008. The most political involvement I've ever felt was opening a bottle of wine for the mayor, then having her recognize me later and in a completely different context. But should that make me involved in the political process? In the decisions that shape the rules governing my life in culture?

Really, why get worked up? Especially over national issues when those responsible for the governmental policies I like least have entrenched themselves behind crowds of believers; rationalize, reason, fight, or harangue as much as I want, nobody who doesn't want to change his mind ever will. So the legacy of fear is here to stay.

And while I know I should keep a view of the bigger picture, the long-term impact of a political action, it's hard to do so while receiving rejections for even menial entry-level jobs and loan repayment notices for nine years of college. Great, the government is or isn't watching me, watching out for me, or ensuring taxation for all of the generations to follow; I still can't find a full-time job or compile enough part-time jobs to pay the bills. Yeah, health care would be nice, but not when I'm concerned about affording groceries.

Given that I've seen how much my individual voice matters, even when I'm joined with a seeming majority of the country/world, when my insurance policy is to not get sick because even if I had insurance I would not be able to make the deductible, am I really expected to drop my immediate concerns over keeping food in the fridge and light in the house?

Yeah! Go health care reform! Maybe, after it passes, I'll have enough money to buy ink and print off more resumes. What's that? I have to pay a premium? Well, in that case, break out the cutback dice--do I skip turning on the lights, the oven, drying clothes, or buying produce? Right, what's that new policy? Why are we getting all worked up about it?

Joining the heathens

Back around the turn of the century, when a lady named Helga terrified me into learning to work in a restaurant at the forefront of the dot-com bubble, when a $60 bottle was a social cop-out and waiters fought with Albert, the old Swiss chef/owner, for the chance to suck droplets from empty wine bottles stashed on top of the ancient latch-door cooler, one of the waiters gave me some of the best advice I've ever heard.

After opening a $300 bottle of wine, he came back to the hallway. Typically, he'd be elated at the sale and presumed tip, but he looked disgusted.
"Fuck that, man. A $300 bottle of wine? Fuckin' give me three bucks and I'll get just as drunk and piss just as hard, and maybe I can use the money for something that matters, or something that I'll remember. But fuck, man, $300? That's a shitload of rent, insurance for a year, fuckin' more cases of beer than even I can drink in a month of Sundays, and do you really think that guy knows and appreciates the difference between that wine and the swill they fuckin' cook with in the kitchen? Fuck no! Gimme a fuckin' jug of Carlo Rossi before a sip of that!" (He went on much longer, for weeks, but that's what I can remember of the primary gist.)

What stuck with me--"I'll get just as drunk and piss just as hard"--shapes my palate today. If I'm going big or showing off, I'll buy a bottle for as much as $10. Usually, though, I spend under $5 and enjoy the wine from a ceramic teacup--my vessel of choice after years and years of polishing (and shattering) stemware and sneaking other drinks from white restaurant coffee cups--without the pressure and critical dissection of expectations.

Wine tastings, consequently, destabilize me. Spit out the wine? Swirl wine for a rinse, pour it out, and refill with wine--good wine--with a useful life of two lingual swishes? BURN THE HEATHENS!

Bad decision #1 was probably showing up with an empty stomach. But that's getting ahead.

Picture an oblong oval of thirty-seven folding tables draped with white table cloths, each full of four-to-twelve varietals lined three-bottles-deep. People in jeans and tee shirts--sometimes button-down, occasionally long-sleeved--mingle around with long-stemmed Reidels in one hand and scribbled-upon programs/price lists in the other. Nothing easier, in other words, than starting at table one and staggering toward thirty-seven. But I learned at last year's tradeshow: flip through the program to find the most expensive wines and try them FIRST, when you'll not only taste but remember tasting the subtlety and nuance.

And oh, the challenge to watch someone take my glass, swill a swallow around in it, and dump it out to "cleanse" the crystal. And oh, the pain to listen to a winemaker's explanation of the nuance and blooming grace of a particular vintage, to feel it open and blossom into fruity depths as it rolls around and creeps down my throat, then watch some guy swish it through his teeth and spit foamily into a vat of regurgitated wine.

I had to be careful, of course, because even tasting just the top wines meant two or three wines per table, two or three ounces per pour, for a solid ten tables. By the time I worked to the wines with which I am most familiar--the $32-48 bottles I recommend and regularly waft while opening--I was floating on goodwill and opulence. Not only was the world aglow along the edges of my wine-dark consciousness, somewhere around table four, the tenth or fifteenth glass of hundred-plus wine, I got it. I got what makes wine great--the balance, nuance, subtlety of shading as it rolls around the palate, arc of the mouth experience from first waft to lingering aftertaste--and I wallowed in it.
So when I got to the wines closer to my world, as my tongue riled up against an unbalanced note like an oboe in a Gabrieli brass choir--not necessarily a wrong note just a bad location, incomplete mix or somesuch (okay, the wine I keep at home hits the tongue like a shred guitar in a shawm consort)--I had no qualms about spitting. Having tasted excellence, having excellence freely poured with the story behind it--where the grapes come from, the label, the bottles, what it took to get here, when it started &c--why jeopardize the remaining tastebuds or strings holding the ground level?

None of which helped the shock of shots in a dive bar, followed by beers, followed by pool, followed by beers and encore performances in every dive bar we passed.
And think about the setup: a Brit, a long-haired hippy, an Oriental chick, and two guys walk into a biker bar in a remote Idaho town at midnight. What good can come of this?

Devilish hiking

I usually keep my hiking packs loaded with a Plan B pack: a headlamp, band aids, duct tape, and a canned espresso drink with either dog treats or dried beef (depends on my hiking company, although it's a rare treat to discover both, especially before the exploratory mouthful).
Saturday night was a doozy at work--I had the largest single ticket ever sold, and they were already seated when I showed up to do my prep--so instead of driving to the trailhead in a dank rainstorm that dumped snow on the trailhead, I accepted the offered shift drink (which had a talent for self-replication either direct from the Bible or science fiction) and woke up on my carpet in a pool of sweat. Yet I had the foresight to throw my all-weather parka, a sweater, hat, and gloves into my bag before I left, and I had half a bottle of pseudo-water in the car, so I was set when I hit the trail.

Despite direct sun, it was chilly enough that my tee shirt--which has been with me for a decade of living and hiking from California to Alaska to the Alps and back (okay, it's an exoskeleton of sweat and terror crystallized over what was once a shirt).
By the end of the second hour, most of which had been on shadowed ridges with wind racing against my course, I had to pee and was thinking that it was maybe not a good idea to skip breakfast. And I was somewhat concerned by the absence of water: any creeks still running had been decimated by pack strings and horseback hunters, so replenishing water or tricking the belly into satiation might be tricky. But at least it was cold enough that I probably wouldn't end up loopy from dehydration.

I was doing okay up through the ten mile mark, when I sat at the crest of a ridge to nurse the few mouthfuls of fluid I was willing to ration until I found a creek not fouled by horses, even when it started to snow. Hat, gloves, parka, exertion: I'm in good shape, and the Roman gods aren't trying to lightning-bolt me in the Alps.

Really, a quarter of the way through, I was in good shape, and the coyotes yipping on the ridge didn't get to me: I've been around enough to know that I'm not good coyote food. Maybe a starving pack would worry me, but not when hunters camped in every basin have at least one game bag hung.

Really, it was okay: feeling was coming back to my fingers, no blisters or hot spots, hat and gloves enough for car camping, I still had energy to burn, and I had a novel sort of serenade. Who cares about a little snow, coyotes yipping and singing on the ridge above you?

I was even doing okay when the coyotes started chasing something. Actually, the yipping chase calls flash me directly back to midnight hot chocolate with Mom while spooked by coyotes. Go figure: something's about to face a grisly death while being eaten by coyotes, and I'm feeling all the comforts of a safe childhood.

I started to be not so okay when the pack dropped down the ridge, and I was definitely getting spooked as the thing the coyotes were chasing--a cow elk--hit the trail a few hundred feet ahead of me.

But what tipped me off the camel's back--not the encroaching darkness, incoming storm, frosty extremities, slathering pack of predators, grinding stomach or eight hours of remaining trail time--was the elk's right foreleg, which had been shot and pinwheeled gyroscopically fast as she ran me down, too panicked to see me until I started spinning my arms.

And that was enough to send me the few hours back to my car, the screaming yellow bubble keeping the world at bay as it passes at orbital velocity.

Prayoffs

Every red-blooded American has the occasional craving for Chinese(ish) food, just like we all have a soft spot for apple pie--just the idea, if not the actual execution, makes us feel somehow more complete. No matter if it's microwaved from the freezer aisle, whether Dutch Apple or General's Chicken, some part of that particular consumption fills a soulful part of our American identities.
So it's not unusual to have a handful of whack-left college kids (Mongolian beef, cashew chicken, shrimp lo mein, and hot and sour soup), whack-right fundamentalists (chop suey, sweet and sour, almond fried, and egg drop soup), gun-totin' bible-thumpers from the hinter regions (sweet and sour or almond fried with steamed rice and egg drop), stuffy/batty professorial types (mu shu chicken/pork or a sizzling platter with potstickers), and the sporadic spiritual seekers from town (bean curd vegetables without egg, salt, or msg) all in the same room, frequently at the same time.
We attract a disproportionate number of the local fundamentalists because we are 1) right next to the church, 2) the food is good, fresh, diverse, and cheap, and 3) the owner is socially conservative beyond most fundamentals, although he is not really that into religion (despite going to a rotating roster of churches every Sunday). Not going there, but suffice to say, if I walked down the street saying some of the things he does about racial and ethnic groups, I would be justifiably incarcerated.
We also attract a disproportionate number of missionaries because we are 1) right on the border of town and neighborhood, 2) the food is good, fresh, diverse, and cheap, and 3) the owner's wife loves talking with the missionaries. Not going there, but one of the regular rotational visits is the LDS church, despite his distaste.

Two large groups walked in simultaneously: one group involved in the administration of the fundamentalist church and school, the other a group of elders (that right there is enough to cool me toward LDS missionaries. Who thought of giving an 18 year-old boy the title "Elder So and So" and enough church clout to support the elder ego?). Our two large tables run parallel and just slightly offset from each other, so the groups were sitting back to back/face to face.
My boss made the unprecedented move of holding plates until every entree was ready. He had the wickedly impish smile on and said "wait to take out, they all bow and say something and go 'AMEN!'"
Heh.
We ran the plates out in two trips. As soon as the fundamentalists got a couple of plates, the preacher bowed his head and started saying a blessing. Mormon forks paused midair. By the second trip, someone was thanking Jesus for something or other, someone else was praising God for the privileges, and by the time the preacher finished, he was half-yelling. Someone else took over, and the missionaries took up another round of Christing. By the time they worked each other into group chants, the fundamentalists sounded like troops in a chow hall, and the missionaries had the wild edge of a bonfire.
And the three of us stood there watching. A couple of times, I reminded myself to reel up my jaw.
It took Li, in an unprecedentedly disruptive role, to move things along. Usually, her voice is about as brazen as a baby rabbit poking from behind a crayon-colored flower, but she stood up and trumpeted out, "Alrightenoughalready! Say you "AMENS!" and eat you food!"
It stopped everything: the regulars had never heard such force or volume (nor had I), and the newcomers were justifiably embarrassed at the religious penis waving.
Go team God! er, um, hmmm....

On cultures

Walking around remote native villages in the Alaskan bush always creeped me out: you're as likely to have a member of the tribal council cruise by to evaluate your disruption quotient as have a scraggletoothed punk kid try to splash you with his quad as have a scraggletoothed old wire-bearded lady offer you a ride, and if there's a pack of sled dogs loose, it's a given that you'll pull out your heat and shoot until either they're dead or you run out of ammo and scream until someone pulls the dogs off or you die. As long as you're not an active disruption or threat, you're okay; prove yourself congenial, and you can walk in any door.

I was surprised by small towns in the Palouse: same impoverished desperation kept alive by subsistence harvests, welfare, and poaching, but the bar was out of burgers and beer when I walked in, and the store sold me a pop without a monosyllable.
Okay, yes, I'm a guy with a ponytail and screaming yellow car, and the only friendly looks I received were from men too old to decipher that they were not waving at a sweet young girl. Be that as it may, I pay in cash, and not many of the places in Dayton, Pomeroy, or Lacrosse--living ghost towns without blips on any map drawn within the past four-score and seven years--seemed to be in good stead to turn down clients.

Not to mention Albion, Endicott, Hay, or Starbuck. Each offered one or six engagingly dilapidated buildings with "FOR SALE BY OWNER" spray painted on boarded-over windows, but as I slowed down and reached for my camera, I heard twelve gauges chambering shells and could imagine the "what'chew fixin' to do?" rasped around a wad of chaw and cheek full of shotgun stock.

Question: when held at gunpoint for representing a stereotype, is it good bad or neutral to rev up the turbo and leave town in a sideways spray of gravel?

In my experience, only one place on earth is more inhospitable to life: Virgil's resting place, the great city of Napoli.
I kept driving through Starbuck because I didn't want to push the people into feeling more uncomfortable and waving guns more threateningly (didn't expect substantive damage with both me and my car together; hiking is a different story, especially during hunting season, when outsiders can very easily be made to disappear). Neapolitans have no such compunctions. Within an evening, I was ready to shoulder-check a kamikaze scooter for the same reasons I shake my fist at the sky, although diving into a tour bus was tempting because the bus drivers might be under non-mob and conscientiously-oriented unions. Or so I told myself.

I'm tempted to draw inverse relationships been the age and cultivation of a development, but then I consider that native villages are generation-old constructs enforced upon nomadic tribes, wherein traditional cultures still thrive as much as possible in the communal centers. Which is to say: Virgil may be entombed in Naples, but the elders in Togiak can tell me where the world came from; Naples may have millenia of art history, but Starbuck has the self-respect not to actively spite me for evolving past its cultural epoch; and what the hell am I thinking to mistake town square for a dirt lot just perfect for high-speed maneuverings?

On Doctors

Not eating or drinking for ten hours is bad news for me, especially when it means missing my morning coffee: the diabetic hummingbird running my metabolism starts fizzling, and my mental capacity is reduced to that of a retarded mountain ogre. And here I am twelve hours after eating, hearing the siren song of my coffee cup while studying a framed page from an archaic Bible (the 'f' looking 's' and 'B' looking 'ss' &c.) while waiting for the doc to show up and draw blood so I can have my coffee.
But no, she walks in, an extremely tall lady who's been fighting the extra pounds brought on by midlife and an office job. She didn't introduce herself, didn't say hello, hadn't read my chart, and was oblivious to my jokes (desperate pleas) about drawing blood so I could have my coffee.
But no, we had to do the full physical. The most thorough I have ever encountered. And I must admit, the Bible page lost some of its novelty when she first asked me to bend and spread 'em, then did the cough and squeeze with her eyes conspicuously averted, and checked off the genital inspection without actually looking at--or touching (the cough and squeeze has evolved to some sort of pressure point contact that eliminates interaction between doc and nuts)--my genitals.

Lady, on the other hand, a forty-something native of Chihuahua who had lived in LA and Chicago, worked miracles. Not only did she find a vein twelve and a half hours after eating and drinking, she hit it on the first shot, withdrew five vials of blood, and, in the time it took to administer an EKG, tetanus shot, and TB test, nursed up enough fluid to fill two separate batteries of pee cups.

And back for a final consultation: vital signs are stellar. All systems are running near optimum, although I should try to exercise more regularly (evidently, the 8-20 miles I walk during one shift [I put on a pedometer for a week and those were the averages for slow and busy shifts] do not count for exercise). The only problem is that I'm underweight. She pulls out a little hand-held geegaw and starts navigating through screens: "see, right now, you weigh this, and it's typical for someone who's this height, average for someone who's that height, but you, at your height, need to weigh three pounds more."
Nevermind that my morning pot of coffee and bowl of oatmeal would compensate. I look at her and nod, "okay, so I have your prescription to eat more Big Macs?"
Oops.
We go to a chart and look at the food pyramid. We flip that chart and look at all the dangers of obesity (huh?). We look at a chart about exercising to maintain a healthy weight (I thought I was supposed to exercise more, which this chart says will make me weigh less). We talk about my diet--eat anything I can, whenever I can, most critically with my coffee, and I can drink NO MORE than ONE shift drink.
Ummmmm, okay. Thank you, Doctor Deb. Can I go now?

Characters II: Sam

Before he opened his mouth, I thought, "Colonel Sanders went batty in his potbellied old age and grew delusions of Buffalo Bill grandeur."
Shiny pearl buttons in a starched white shirt with black trim, a silver-tipped bolo tie with an ivory elk tooth at his throat, a gleaming gem at the center of the arcs his arms and belly swing with each click of a snakeskin bootheel, eyes squinting from behind weather-beaten crowfeet as the tip of his brilliant white goatee scrapes across his paunch. But his persona serves as mere accompaniment to the true piece: his mustache. His big, bushy, glowing mustache combed and teased and waxed into a delicate upturn on the left side, but the right side had something bad happen; at some point, the curl collapsed and now hung inverted, cattywompus as his eyebrows.
I was doing okay swallowing my reaction until I heard his voice: the peagravel on blackboard rasp of five decades of two-pack smoking, and my face just about exploded as he spoke.
"I'm Sam, Crazy Sam, have a reservation for us two."
Two? There was someone with this character? Of course. Wow, but of course.
I turned and walked off to seat them while getting my face under control, then ran to the kitchen to explain and recuperate.
I came back for a drink order:
"Bring-uh me one of these-uh, these, this here 'Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout!'"
Okay, Sam has killer taste in beer, so I can hold it in for a minute while I take his partner's drink order.
Okay, I lied, I saw that his partner was a female with long dark hair.
Full blooded Plains Indian: the high cheekbones, pointed chin, dark almond eyes that stare with the depths of the wild, the living stereotype Hollywood has constructed.
Is this Custer's atonement? Wild Bill's final fling? Colonel Sanders seduced by the call of the wild west?
No, she's not a relative, she's sitting bolt upright and guarded but with a completely open and engaged face. They're not a comfortable couple, but not awkward, either.
She's fine with water.
I need to get my head flexible again, so thank goodness for a run to the cooler.
"Ah, theah's Rasputin! Nevah say die, I say consume!"
What is there to do but laugh along? "Indeed, sir, few beer bottles offer a more worthy or fulfilling opponent.
"Any questions on the menu? Set to order?"
"Beef," he says, "tenderloin. The big cut. Extra rare."
"And on the salad?"
His head snaps as if slapped, making me worry for his other, upturned 'stash curl. His eyebrows creep together and scale his forehead. "Salad? Ah do not need uh salad."
"Good man, good man, I like your style.
"And for you, ma'am?"
A gentle and refined, "I'll have the bacon apple salad. I'm somewhat his opposite."
"Indeed."
"Pah! Salad!"
"Ah, but sir, though I am inclined to agree with you as a strict carnivore, if ever a salad deserved credit it would be a bacon salad."
"Pah! Salad is salad."

Every time I come out, I smile. I can't help but love this table.
"You say you know this Rasputin felluh? Send him ovuh heah."
"This cow must be standing out back swishing her tail!"

After entrees, four Rasputins (two put most people to sleep), and dessert, I catch them walking out of the restaurant. Huh?

Sam holds up a crisp fifty, snaps it a couple of times, and stuffs it in my shirt pocket. "Heah, keep the change."
It was a $4 tip, but made in such a grandiose gesture after such a bizarrely pleasant table, it was the best tip of the night.

Characters I: Paul Bunyan

He fills up the hallway, "MULE" in natty red patchwork letters appliqued across his navy hoodie. Four of my long lost identical siblings could fit in his hoodie. I'm eye level with his sternum. His lower sternum, brushed by a frizzy gray beard. Way up in the stratosphere, little eyeholes peek out from behind gin-rosy cheeks.
In the flash between 'oh shit there's a tree in the hallway!' and 'it's human!' lizard brain took over: 'he would hardly notice passing you in a juicy fart; flight. Deffily FLIGHT!'
I dodged around at bolting-waiter velocity and dove into the kitchen before he turned around.
Of course, Paul Bunyan was in my section.
Terror: scrawny little ponytailed hippy kid whose income depends on tips faces a mountain of lumberjack in Northern Idaho; Idaho lumberjacks do not take well to my kind, nor are they literary enough to feel my wrath and shudder under utter defeat.
Heh. Go me.

"Whuzzup, Bra?" he bellowed.
My eyes, if not my entire body, must've flinched.
"Hey, I need a beer, dude, whatcha got dark on draft?
"Coool, bring me one of them. Keep it full, 'kay dude?"

Every time I came to the table, he chuckled out a rumbling "coool, more food!" paid cash, and left a 30% tip.

Exceptionally relieving to feel bad about misreading someone.

Obama's Nobel

Gut reaction: it's preemptive; here, Mr. President, we like where you're going, so please stay the course because we believe in the potential for change you represent.
Because really, what all has Obama done? US troops are fighting in Iraq. US troops are fighting in Afghanistan. US troops are fighting or preparing to fight in an untold number of locations.
Call it a right wing to the gut.
Naturally, the right has attacked Obama for the abovementioned inconsistencies.
Which still leaves the question: why? No matter the arguments of entitlement, the Nobel committee thought Obama deserving, so the challenge is to parse why he received the Nobel.
People still fight. People still die. Just like they have since Ardi. And America, thus Obama, is still in the middle of a great many conflicts.
We see him in another summit, at another conference, weaving his way through hotspots and combat zones from behind the greatest possible portable defenses. We see the same engagements, the same indistinct faces with incomprehensible names, reflect on our friends and loved ones (even if familiar only through human interest stories), and think, "Peace? What peace? My _________ is over there!"
But our viewpoint is considerably stilted: we sent our _________s over there, whether for combat, occupation, reconciliation, disaster relief or whatever else. And what a limited perspective that ascribes to us and our assumptions. We will be happy when our _________s are no longer in hot spots, and Obama hasn't made that happen.
But then there's another perspective: for the past few years, America has been in hot spots of its own aggressive creation. America walked around brandishing the cudgel of capitalism and the whip of democracy and striking freely until sparks ignited.
Now, America is still in the hot spots, but not in an aggressively causal role. America is in hotspots to foment peace, to preemptively strike aggression, to remove itself from combat.
From that other perspective, America is not the great aggressor. It might still represent the great wrong, the great evil, but it is not aggressively affirming those assumptions.
And what changed? Obama.
Obama, in the few months he has had in office, has made considerable strides toward undoing the damage of the past eight years, and the proof is in the prize.
Maybe we're not where we'd like to be, but at least we're moving in that direction.

What's worse?

Mr reflexes caught the glass just after it shattered. Mr Reflexes, of course, used his right hand.
Which is worse: a waiter with a huge mass of liquid skin and gauze, or a waiter rolling his hand around to keep from dripping on the plates or table?
The answer is whether the guest notices, of course, but drips are harder to manage.
Come to think of it, the first time I opened a bottle of wine with my very own opener, I sliced my thumb open and left rusty prints all over the bottle.
Yeah, go me.
Anyway, I've learned since then. And given that I can keep just about anything out of sight in plain view, which is worse?

On translation

*After losing my lunch shifts to a lack of business, I redoubled my Craigslist efforts. Despite being pretty much open to anything, this one concerns me:

need a part time person, for subway sandwich, Immediatly. ( can be converted to full time)

Not so busy sandwich shop....looking for full time salaried employee....
6 days a week (4 hours a day) one day off.

Lot of cleaning involve, the pay is OK to be honest, but tahts all I can afford.

Preffered subway experience or port of sub experience, should start with less or no training ASAP help needed. please reply with :
1)last job
2)referal phone number

Please reply to this post via E mail, do put your contatc number in tha too.
Thank you for looking have a nice day.
E mail the post, with phone number at your experinece.


*And from a box of cookies:

MOON CAKE
Series high foodestuff choiceness raw material produced meticuous Best enjoyment Give first choose treasure

Getting what I paid for?

As part of the pre-deployment screening, the US Antarctic Program wants extensive physical and dental screening to be sure you won't be having a physical meltdown while on the ice, so I went to the dentist for the first time in a couple of years.
Everything in order, clean bill of x-rayed health, one spot to deal with once I have insurance, but good to go. And waive the consultation fee.
Very, very cool.
Right?
Except, when I look at the chart, where it says "note any fillings, decay, or missing teeth," he failed to note two fillings and two missing incisors.
Hmm.
At least I wasn't paying, right?

A server's manifesto

It happened that I worked a catering event for my former professors and classmates.
"Oh, hi! I din't know you were still in town! What have you been up to?"
My reply is some variation of, "working here, the Chinese place, some at the bookstore. Looking for a fulltime job." (To me, this means an established four-star in an affluent area--Aspen, Tahoe, &c.)
"Oh, well, yeah, it's a tough market. Not many schools are hiring." (Naturally, to my former colleagues, this means tenure-track college composition.)

Here's the thing: I've been in the composition arena. I've been in college for just shy of a decade. I've watched tenure packets assemble and fail, watched temporary positions leave families stranded, I've taught introductory courses and met with sobbing students and glowering deans. Teaching invades my sleep with nightmares of what I should've done, rules my weekends with research and planning for the upcoming lessons, erodes my stomach lining with cup after cup of coffee pounded in hopes of finishing just one of the stacks of papers. And still, when faced with 30 students, I'm damn lucky if I can reach one. No matter what, no matter how I couch my lesson, it will fail to engross at least half of them. A great teacher will reach one or two students every few years, and the rest slough away into dusty memory cabinets.

Consider the flip side: as a waiter, I evaluate what preliminary tone a table expects based on their posture--am I the happy and silly one who puts them at ease, the formal one who validates their expense, the nonexistent one who accommodates their desires unnoticed? Any given night brings all of the above; as a server, I can address any need individually, including disparate components of a couple (she wants a fun time, he wants pomp and ceremony, and my body language acts appropriate to the expectations of whomever I'm facing). And if I miscalculate and change tactics, I don't lose anyone who might have been climbing on board.
When confronted with a wine list, I shuffle through 200+ bottles based on, "hmm, well, I like sweet and kinda juicy wines, but they can't be, like, the sweet wines because he doesn't like people who drink those."
"Ah," I say, "you'd love the ______."
I negotiate through "I'm strict vegetarian so no butter, but I'm allergic to wheat and soy. So could I have [a list of items not available on any restaurant menu outside of a vegan mecca in a hip metropolis]?"
"Let me see what I can do." And I have to accommodate that person as completely as the farm boy who wants a tenderloin cooked to charcoal and served with Heinz Ketchup.
As a server, every table offers an individual interaction and expectations, and I can negotiate through my performance deck to accommodate just about anything (no matter what, despite the ponytail, my tip percentage will never be as high as the curvaceous bubbly one who snuggles into farm boys and bats contact-altered baby blues).

It is the difference between teaching a classroom and private tutoring: everyone loves the lightbulbs that come on after a student hears an idea catered to an individual learning style. A classroom, especially in an introductory class, is a cluster of disparate needs, abilities, and expectations. Teaching is a matter of appealing to the unremarkable mass in the middle while alienating the fore and aft of the curve. In a restaurant, not only do my tables want to be there, I can cater to the each unique set of assumptions and expectations.

And here's the rub: as a teacher, I make a flat salary. It might not be large, but unless I do something egregiously stupid, it's there. I may be eating ramen, but at least it's cooked.
As a server, I rake in $3.50 an hour. If I don't get tips, I'm crunching through dry ramen (better dry than soaked in cold water--trust me) or pillaging bread baskets and bus tubs for chow. Generally, as long as I am able to figure out what a table, or the person buying dinner for the table, expects, I'm golden. But if the person didn't get the right parking spot, didn't get a warm enough greeting, didn't get prompt coat hanging, didn't see the right wine or menu item, ordered something we were out of, didn't like the conversation in the next booth, didn't get the right booth, wasn't comfortable at a table, was too fat to fit in a chair, too fat to fit in a booth, couldn't get something we've never offered (Salisbury steak with Dutch apple pie? Seriously?), got what they wanted but at too great a price, got what they wanted but couldn't hack the tip, could hack the price but was born before 1949 or has lived in rural areas, if the person brushed askance of ANY of those confounding factors, my tip tanks.
Funny thing: If a person's every expectation is met to the fullest possible extent, he or she might mention having a nice time. If one thing is slightly amiss, every single casual acquaintance or passing encounter knows about it.

My job is to navigate every customer through the myriad offerings as smoothly as possible; of course nothing is perfect, but as long as I make gestures to indicate that it is so, everyone leaves happy.
Had to wait too long on the drinks? Apps on me. Entree didn't meet expectations? Dessert's on me.
Of course, there are exceptional cases: I forgot the table I took on outside of my already full section was going from app to salad, not salad to entree, and I didn't check in for too long. They were angry. Justifiably. I groveled and comped dessert: strawberry ice cream. He was allergic to strawberry. I offered to comp apps next time they came in. They were from out of state and in town for one night only.
And there's the rub: every year, there's one table you just can't reach. Or one student you can.

Not to lessen the import of teaching or the rewards therein. One day, I hope to return to the classroom. But after I'm mature enough or callous enough or oblivious enough to accept that no matter what I do or how I couch my lessons, I will never be able to reach everyone in a given class, and there may be nothing in the world I can possibly do to reach some students. But for now, at least when I know I can't reach a table, I only have to deal with them for an hour or two, not a semester or four.

At this point, I know enough to understand what happened if my service didn't meet standards (not to be confused with expectations), and even if I can't fix it, I can identify and anticipate the problem. I can keep hold of drinks, apps, entrees, and desserts for tables up to six without writing anything down. Don't ask me how it happens, but when I have two fours, a six, and a deuce, my brain usually files each table's orders in an immediately-available location; I can remember who ordered first--the grande dame--and the order each entree appears on the ticket--clockwise from near left corner. And when I have return customers I don't immediately recognize, once they point out where they sat and what they drank, I can reconstruct their entire meal, plus those that happened before and/or after them on that particular night.
This is my job. This is what I do. Don't ask how or why.
What counts is that I not only make a good server, I love doing it.

As a server, I experience success by meeting all of my prep goals--setting up bread, salad, dessert, napkin, and silverware service--by meeting all of my tables' needs, by meeting unspoken hopes or expectations (her mouth is saying, "uhhhmmmm" negatively, but her posture and face is saying "GIMME THE FUCKING CHEESECAKE!" so I push her into having a bite and sharing the rest with the table). For most every table, I accommodate the expected experience and nudge it just one step up whenever possible. Aside from failed dates and business meetings, people leave the restaurant sated with an outlook filtered through the satisfaction of the dinner I helped actualize.

As a server, I actively make people's lives more enjoyable, table after table, night after night. And I love it.

Napoli

Visit Napoli for long enough to stretch your legs enroute to Pompeii, or if you have a helicopter pick you up from your private yacht and transport you to your villa overlooking the distant city. Otherwise, if you’re like me, you end up staggering into the stazione exhausted and beaten down from an overnight trip spent in uncomfortable seats that were first stiflingly hot and then air conditioned enough to stifle circulation in the limbs. You’ll hobble toward the sign indicating bus, and emerge in a piazza that looks like the worst you’ve ever heard about traffic in India: there are no apparent lane markings or right of way guidelines; scooters are exempt from traffic laws; autos are exempt until they end up head-to-head with a bus; busses suffer no traffic constrictions, and bus drivers are untouchable (scooters don’t count because they’re the equivalent of flies buzzing at a rampaging wildebeest).
Don’t worry about finding a map: most maps don’t have names, but it’s okay because neither do most streets. You can buy an absurdly expensive edition with street names, but why bother since the streets themselves are generally unmarred by such conformity?
Asking a local for directions isn’t much better: if you can communicate your destination—say, “university square”—they’ll say something like, “take the castle bus and get off at the university stop.” And you’ll get no more. But since you’ve consulted your absurdly expensively useless map, you know that the castle bus is the 86 line.
Don’t be afraid to walk into the traffic. It’s a completely fluid system: if you walk into the middle of the road, all oncoming drivers will note your trajectory and adjust accordingly. As long as you keep moving resolutely forward, you’ll be okay (except in the case of scooters, but we’ll get there). Once you’re through the perimeter of the piazza, you’ll be in a jumble of city busses somehow queued for their routes. Hop on your bus and sit. It won’t move until it’s full.
As the driver flirts with the glittery girls with tight pants and shiny shoes clustered around the front, the back (un-air conditioned) part of the bus will fill up. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up next to some twentysomething girls wiping their waddly arms and pits down with antiperspirant wet wipes that they then throw on the floor of the bus or kick out onto the pavement. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be in a crowd of men who desperately need antiperspirant while a crazy woman curses you and rants about your evil doings.
But it gets better.
Once “full,” the bus will start moving, and after five minutes it will have negotiated through the roundabout to the other side of the piazza, where it will park and double its occupancy. You won’t be able to reach a hand hold, but you won’t be able to fall down, either: too many people packed too tightly together. As an added bonus, if you’re female, some guy who looks like a sweaty version of a Godfather mafioso will try to scratch your belly by reaching through your crotch. But if the doors open, keep an eye on all handholds you might snag: the ebb and flow of the human tide lasts a second in each direction, and woe unto you if you’re not ready to anchor yourself in the frantic shoving of desperate Neapolitanos.
Need I mention that it’s important to keep your pockets zipped?

So, after three circuits, you’re off the bus at your stop. What next?
No street signs, for one, and the hostel owner said, “just get off at the university stop and take the second left all the way up to Piazza san Absurdo.”
HA!
No mention that the University stop is actually Piazza Santo Nodisembarko. No mention that the first left could be any of a dozen, and the second a dozen dozen.
If you’re lucky, it’ll only take an hour of asking where the Piazza san Absurdo is whenever you pass a store owner sitting in the shop doorway and staring at your passage. They aren’t interested, really don’t give a hoot who or what you are, but they’ll sit in the doorways and stare at you as long as they can in hopes of enticing you into the store or instigating spontaneous human combustion. Take your pick.
Let’s not think about what happens to unlucky tourists, okay?

Nearly four hours have elapsed by the time you find the effing hostel. And the proprietor, who gladly accepted your three days of credit card reservations, notes that if you will be two, he’ll have to upgrade you to the finest room for a mere doubling of the price. No, no, no matter that he mistook the reservation, it will be double the price.

Such is Napoli: if you know where you’re going and are willing to run down anything in your way of getting there, it’s golden. But if you’re not, every scooter beep is a declaration of, “jump aside asshole, or we’re both going to be hurting.” Really: one way, wrong way, no admittance, pedestrian only, toddlers playing in a square, provided you ride your scooter with your feet out to halt a sudden fall, you’re golden. As long as you toot your horn, you declare that you’ve taken the right of way; anyone who attempts to take it can expect a crotch shot from a scooter running full bore.

If you’re in Naples, take a stretch and get back on the train to Pompeii (but get a good guidebook because none of the sites are marked; few bodies and no erotic frescoes are on display).
If you have the misfortune to stay in Naples, treat yourself: take the bullet train out. Ride to Rome in an hour. An absolutely sterile, organized, quiet, smooth, fast, train will induce a relaxation unparalleled anywhere else in your trip.

Schrodinger's Fortune

I seem to get the same dozen fortunes in fortune cookies: remember three months from this day, now is the time to focus, keep it on the grindstone, you will receive something sometime soon, don't forget your friends &c.
But there is a huge variety out there, and I'm outright jealous of some: now is the time to travel; cut loose, you've earned it; you are about to receive a promotion; don't forget to relax ad nauseum.
Here's the thing: I once bought a bag of the things, and I got the same fortunes I always get except for the ones I shared with people, which happened to be the ones they always got. So I present Schrodinger's Fortune: the fortune cookie's fortune can be anything as long as it's in the shell and not claimed by an individual. As soon as the cookie is claimed by an individual, its fortune will become one of that individual's allocated flock. And at that point, once a fortune exists as one of a dozen potentialities, astrology comes into play. Which is also my exeunt.

Almost.

Another Schrodinger consideration: give me a pile of duck tongues and chopsticks, tell me to enjoy and I'll dig in and probably enjoy. But let me watch duck components go into a pot of boiling water that sits overnight on a pilot light, then, while I'm staggering around wanting coffee, say, "good morning, here, I cook breakfast, you eat" and hand me a bowl with a cloudy gray duck head floating in it, and there is no way in hell that tongue is even remotely edible.
from the pot that boiled a bit and sat overnight on the pilot light

Fading with a Technicolor Bang

Strings were pulled and I found myself--still in my getup for serving Chinese lunch specials--backstage, running a jumbotron for a Glenn Yarbrough concert that turned out to be the last of what he says will be his last tour.
Beyond simply being in the said location, I was surprised by the tour's entropic nature: the promoter, who was supposed to arrange everything concerning publicity and venue, was an utter flake, so the tour manager and his two assistants were run listlessly baggy-eyed from events along the lines of, "hey, there's a blind guy with a guitar who says he's opening. Anyone know anything about that?"
"It wasn't canceled?"
And so I met Dan Maher, a fantastic musician with a killer folk music show on NPR.
While the manager troubleshot software and hardware problems with the jumbotron, one of the stage crew tried to set the snakepit of wires, amps, guitar stands and guitars with only one clear path in--for Glenn--for a chair, two booms, and a blind man's safe passage.

By the time Glenn came on, I had the hunch that the audience would need either binoculars or a megajumbotron to read the singalong lyrics; for those lucky enough to have hair, gray and white were the only natural tones. And what a remarkable presence Glenn carries.

Consider that Glenn Yarbrough, the big guy with a Santa beard standing in the middle of the twelfth stage in as many days, is two years younger than sliced bread. His toy soldiers would've worn uniforms from the Spanish Civil War, and at an age when his peers (those still living) are fatigued by a rigorous trip to the pharmacy, he took off on a tour from southern California to northern Washington. And still crowds expect him to sign autographs; such is the myth of the performer.

Of course his voice has more texture than it used to. After the show, when I thanked him for the performance, he apologized for his gravelly voice. "I can hardly talk, now." He was truly embarrassed.

I guess it was justified. Were I to perform with comparable tone, I would be kindly escorted from stage with a hook. But as one of the few in attendance who hadn't either grown up to Glenn's crooning or spent months preparing for the tour, I was one of the few people who actually heard him. For the vast majority, the core timbre of his voice engaged Technicolor filters that overdubbed their senses with the magic of remembered youth.

The next day, the promoter was informed that unless he made a payment toward weeks of overdue pay, the band would walk. Again, he promised that the money would be in their accounts by the time they set up the stage.
And the tour never saw him--or a paycheck--again.

It's a sad situation. The promoter is well connected and sure to talk up how Glenn or the manager was really at fault. Fans will miss out on the second half of what Glenn says will be his last tour, which comes a few years after the release of what he says will be his last CD. And the musicians, professional performers who had turned down weeks of gigs for the tour, were rendered ex post facto volunteers.

But step back a moment to think about it: over two weeks, Glenn Yarbrough and the Havenstock River Band--the members of which Glenn had to recruit individually and groom into his collective acoustic vision, plus enough lackeys to keep everyone going--covered enough miles to get from France to Kiev, Rome to Denmark, performing every day on a different stage, waking up every morning in a different bed, and Glenn is just shy of 80. And beyond the years, he carries a showman's life, a performer's hours and ritual abuses, plus the added weight of a living myth so strong it overwhelms his fans with a sense of the world as it was when they fell in love.

close encounters

He looked like Carlin's estranged brother: thinning hair pulled back into a ponytail, dangling earrings swinging around a scruffy beard, face worn by weather/nicotine/controlled substances, unmarked black tee tucked into worn jeans, shoes in the comfortably worn-in middle years of remarkably well-built lives. He used to teach high school. He wants to write a book. He was adopted at birth.
Or so THEY say.
Reality: although he looks like one of us, his DNA is alien. He comes from another galaxy. Maybe another dimension (I didn't have the conversational opportunity to discern which).
What does one say?
I have to respect someone whose name is Zen, a truncated version of the title bestowed at his creation. Just like I have to respect someone who spent a career teaching in public high schools.
"Feel that tingle in your crown chakra? That's me. And if I took off my earrings [the male and female deities of an Amazonian tribe, worn left and right, respectively, to balance the energies] you'd get a spike like a sunspot. No shit."

What's odd is that this guy is a low-key persona who works his ass off at menial tasks to help shoddily-managed musical tours succeed. And he says he is not of this world as casually as someone would say, "I'm from Cleveland" or any other sort of well-known but uncharged location; Tulsa, Austin, anywhere on either seaboard, anywhere from the depth of the midwest, far west, north, carries a stigma, but "I am not of this place" carries the weight of "I tied my shoes this morning."
I couldn't help but accept it as his existential reality and move on. Really, what would Miss Manners say to such a person--"From my perspective, you are delusional"?
Besides, if he is right about THEM and their cover up, is it worth arguing with a trans-dimensional/galactic entity about his earthly entrapment?

Retribution, of sorts

Back a few phases of life, there was a pop at an inopportune time. The pop was notable both for its volume and discomfort, not to mention the inopportune timing. It turned straight scary when it shorted out the plumbing works, and I actually raced to the doctor as quickly as possible.
After the most invasive exam possible, the guy said, "nothing happened, you're probably just stressed. Take it easy for a while and, uh, Mr Happy [no kidding] will be back to normal." He cracked a joke about needing to buy me dinner, and I left before straying from what I considered the high road. Better off just not coming back.

A couple weeks later, he walked into the restaurant when it was my turn for a table. After a mutual double-take, I gave him pure maple treatment: everything he wanted, including things his wife felt guilty to ask for, and I looked away as they finger fed each other. I figured that this guy, of just about anyone in the world, would give me a decent tip.

But no, he hit 10% by a just-barely margin.

Typically, I'd think something like, 'and I didn't even sneeze on your food.' But my mind flashed to his wife sucking on his finger. That finger. Right before he turned his head and saw me trying very hard not to be disgusted.

Not to justify the mind of the non-tipper, but maybe, just maybe, this guy looked up and realized that nothing I could do to the food could possibly taint it more than allowing him to eat it, especially with the finger he was watching his wife work on.

On Chinese

The interesting thing about working in a Chinese restaurant is the utter ambivalence of the clientele. Fine dining is about the pageantry, and people bring expectations of the dining experience. People go to nice restaurants to feel catered to, to experience culinary pampering, to show off their sophistication or wealth or whatever other form of clout they want to have.
I've been in fine dining for long enough that I carry the pageantry of dining wherever I go. If I'm paying someone to prepare food for me, I better get some sort of show--or at least be made to feel significant--in the process.
And then there's the Chinese place. It's a destination for office lunches, inter-class yens, high school escapism. For the price of a McMeal, people get wonton dippers and tea, a cup of soup (from scratch), and a big-ol pile of from-scratch entree with a ladleful of steamed or fried rice. They generally don't give a damn about the pageantry. If anything, they tend to resent the waiting; when people do take time to savor, they end up having half an appetizer when the soup shows up, and half the soup when the entrees start arriving. Usually, though, the cups of soup disappear in two glugs. And even though it takes about 90 seconds to cook up and plate most of the entrees, sometimes nearly three minutes for a complicated order, people end up sitting and staring at empty cups, glaring at me for keeping them waiting.
Fine dining is the pageantry. Chinese is the food. Get the hell out of my face because I want to stuff it with General Tso ('General Tuh-so' in local vernacular) Chicken, okay?
Unfortunately, because the experience is not part of eating Chinese, the tips tank, too. People think nothing of leaving no tip on takeout--I've always at least rounded up to the next dollar, if not tipped outright. And people feel generous about leaving $6 on a tab of $5.20. Many people leave nothing. Truly bizarre.

More Suby Stories

North of town, where the road opens up in a series of wide valleys, I got an itch to open up. A mile of mild downgrade and a mile of mild upgrade held no other vehicles. Hadn't seen any animals, no cross streets or pullouts, great spot to play chicken with myself. I promised myself not to get scared.
I lost.
After about a dozen heartbeats, the turbo had wound up, fifth gear started rocketing, and I was accelerating increasingly rapidly past an even multiple of the speed limit. And it felt GREAT--rock solid grip on the road with psychically-light response to my white-knuckled death grip on the wheel.
Funny how slow 70 feels as you're decelerating back toward legal speeds.
But I have to wonder: what the heck was Subaru thinking by trapping a rocket as a gaddabout and making it available to people with potentially as little law-enforcement luck, and certainly as little judgment, as me?
People like me should be in little old rattle-trap jalopies; the early MGs come to mind, or any other British car in which the driver experiences the elements without moderation, falls at the mercy of Lucas Electronics, and feels legitimate terror when racing up to 40 or 50 MPH. And while an accident at that speed has great fatality potential (the metal edge of the dash, the wooden frame, the absence of seatbelts &c), there's more hope of surviving a top-speed accident than one has in a vehicle capable of speeds approaching two hundred.

Wolf stories

Idaho sold many thousands of wolf hunting permits for a harvest of 220. (Aren't terms like "harvest" great? We're not killing things, we're "harvesting" them; at least animals are dead when we eat them.) Within 24 hours of harvesting, the hunter must notify Fish and Game. Within five days, the hunter must give the skull and pelt to DFG. Once the allotted number of skulls have been collected from a given unit, the unit will be closed and hunters will be responsible for calling in to determine whether the unit is open.
WHAT?
Think about Idaho hunters: set up "camp," which involves either a 40' camper with cook tent, butcher tent, and lounge tent extensions or a flatbed trailer with enough wall tents to shelter a township; a week before the season opens, move in with a truck full of beer, beans, bacon, and potatoes (if you're health conscious); hunt until the supplies run low in mid-October and there's room to bring the game to a processing plant before refilling the pickup with beer and beans; break camp on the last possible day, either because snow threatens passes or the season ends. Remember that the typical Idaho hunter approaches wolf killing about like a Carolinian approaches NASCAR: it might not be a sanctioned religion, but a great many people who consider themselves devout do not have nearly the zeal.
I expected each of the thousands of tags to be filled on the first day, thereby permanently removing the state's decision-making power in terms of wolf hunting. But surprisingly, only five animals have been killed, statewide, in the two or three weeks since season opening. Five reported animals. But rifle season hasn't opened, so the big wave of hunters hasn't gone out. And I would bet quite a lot that packs lose much more than the isolated few critters.

So it's midnight and I'm in the WRX, approaching Canada just under escape velocity. At the edge of my headlights, I see a hole in the night: a nonreflective something my mind initially identifies as yearling bear, but an inky sort of coal black that absorbs light. And it's walking into the road.
For one, the anti-locks work pretty well. For two, when I get close, I see some mangy farm dog--on either side, fenced fields with periodic driveways intersect the highway--that stands about eye level. But I'm in a sports car, right? So eye level isn't that high.
Heh.
Eye level is the top of a mailbox.
Wouldn't it be funny if the ponytailed California kid (unrelated police story: they didn't cancel my CA driver's license when I got the Idaho one over a year ago) killed the first wolf in the Panhandle?