New clothes

Sometimes you just have to give up and spend money, you know?

Last year we both needed new clothes, but what with my husband being newly unemployed, I couldn't justify the expense. Plus, we knew we were going to move at some point--why not just wait and buy new clothes on the other side?

Well, here we are on the other side. Once we got settled and money started coming in on a regular basis, it became fairly imperative to replace the stained/old/shabby clothes we'd been coasting on for two years.

Step One: work clothes. A sale at Old Navy provided several new pairs of jeans and black pants for me. A trip to the Goodwill provided several t-shirts and a new belt. I laid out real money for new, properly-fitting bras, a new pair of Danskos, and a new pair of tennis shoes for walking to work, plus some fancy marathon-runner socks. Now I can work all week without having to worry about laundry (if I have to). New shoes and support garments were expensive, but necessary.

Step Two: non-work clothes. Another Old Navy sale provided some new threads for my husband: a new pair of jeans, some shorts, some polos, some summer shirts. I got myself a couple pairs of shorts and a few summer blouses.

Step Three: new shoes. New loafers, tennis shoes, and summer shoes for my husband; some casual slip-ons and one sparkly pair of sandals for me. Comfort was key.

It's not a wardrobe overhaul or anything; I didn't buy any dressy clothes or cute summer outfits. (Where would I wear them? I work all the time.) But it feels good to finally cross that off the to-do list, and it also feels good to be able to open my closet and find something I want to wear on my days off.

Besides, we're going on a road trip next month. That calls for new shorts and sandals, right?

As a concession to pretty new things, I bought a few pairs of earrings at Target. Those at least I can wear to work.

Living in the eternal present

It's been a long week.

It started with my cat being sick. He didn't eat anything for two days. I took him to the vet and got bloodwork done (inconclusive) and some appetite stimulants. I suspect he had a giant hairball clogging up the works. After a couple more days of moping around the house and picking at his wet cat food (which I don't normally give him), he finally pooped and is now finally starting to seem like his old self.   There were a couple of days of intense worrying on my part.

Then, there were the usual work shenanigans. Doubles four days in a row. My day job restaurant is now a hot ticket, thanks to a recent review, so lunches have been getting busier and busier. We were short a server at my night job, so the entire week there was busy and understaffed. The last two nights were nothing short of frantic; I had so many tables last night that at one point I very nearly lost control of everything. I got double-sat, on top of an already full section, which meant one of those tables didn't see me for at least fifteen minutes. I had to ask my manager to greet them and get them a cocktail. In the end, everyone got what they needed (eventually); I bought desserts for all the tables with the longest waits and so I think everyone left happy.

But goddamn, that was poorly organized. Friday night was slightly better because I was consumed with a party in the private dining room; a lot of Eurotrash with money to burn, they blew through $250 worth of cocktails (complicated ones, that I had to make) before they ever sat down. I made a lot of money off them. Last night was worse because I had a bunch of tables, not just one big one, and the reservations weren't spread out the way they should have been.

It sucked. It sucked ass. But I got through, somehow, and now I have two whole days off to rest.

The hard part about all this working is that I'm living in this sort of eternal present. Waiting tables is like that--your brain is filled with the tasks at hand, so it's hard to get outside of that and think about other things (bills, the future, your sick cat, etc.). When you're doing that all the time--well, I can't think beyond the next table, and then getting home and going to bed. The days all wash together. That's not necessarily a bad thing--time moves quickly when you're mentally and physically consumed--but it does mean there's not much quality time with my hubs. He only gets to see me for a few minutes at the end of the day, when I'm exhausted and cranky more often than not.

But hey, the bills are getting paid. I got myself a new pair of tennis shoes, so my feet can be cushy and supported even when I'm not working. I discovered a new cocktail, and also discovered that cold frozen golf balls make an excellent foot massager. My stepson is visiting for the weekend, and in a month we'll leave for our National Parks of the West road trip. When I do get a chance to think outside of what's in front of me, I think about that--about hitting the open road for ten days, and getting back to a part of the country that I love. Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota--fantastic scenery, wide-open prairie highways, and ten days of nothing to do but drive.

Another wine geek moment

On Monday, I went to a wine tasting with a few people from work. We ended up on my roof deck, drinking two bottles of wine and enjoying the views. That turned into dinner, more wine, a convertible ride, and various shenanigans. I'm usually pretty good at not crossing the line into fully drunk--I'll sometimes push right up against it, but it's rare that I'm drunk. Well, by the time we finished dinner, I was good and drunk.

In a fun, giggly way of course, and then I promptly went to bed. The hangover on Tuesday was worth it. And the wine was delicious.

The rest of the week has been fairly uneventful. A lot of work. I booked my ticket to Virginia for September, for my high school reunion and best friend's wedding, complete with an overnight connection in Boston so that I can see my friends there too. I saw my first geoduck demonstration, and I have to say that is the most phallic thing I have ever seen. Above some actual phalluses, even.

Also, check out the Seattle Times' review of Bar Sajor. I work there!

An ode to the Charlies of the world

My mom's dog had to be put down this weekend.

He was a golden retriever, only seven years old, but with a mysterious case of advanced kidney failure. He was the second Charlie--the first Charlie was a golden retriever/lab mix belonging to my sister many years ago. When he died, my mom decided she liked him so much she would get herself another Charlie, only this time, he would be a full-blooded golden retriever. With papers and everything. Thus Charlie (the Second) is the only pet my family has ever paid for.

He was a good dog--he loved everyone, even loved the cats. I'd like to have a dog of my own, one day, and the two Charlies are why. Happy, gregarious, loving dogs who make it a point to be kind to cats and smaller dogs. I don't have enough space, or a yard, for such a big dog, which is why I've never gotten one. But thinking back, my family has always had good luck with dogs. The myriad stray cats over the years were a mixed lot--some good, some bad, one epileptic. Our dogs, however, were a steadfast bunch of mutts.

I'll miss Charlie, and even though I haven't lived at home for twenty years, in a small way he felt like he was my dog a little bit too. I hugged my cats a little closer.

A wine geek moment

I don't normally feel like I know something about wine--I mean, I do, some, but I'm still learning the wine list at work and so usually I defer to the sommelier when someone has a wine question. However, I got to stump the sommelier this weekend.

When I got to Seattle, I got on the mailing list for Garagiste. They import small-batch wines, available to those on the email list. Typically I'll get 1-2 emails a day from them, with new wines for sale. I've bought a couple of things, here and there. The first of the orders arrived this weekend, so I made an appointment to go pick it up.

Oh. My. God.

The warehouse--which is utterly nondescript and in a weird part of town--also had a retail showroom. Meaning I could browse the shelves and buy more wine. And it was the most eclectic, most heart-warming wine collection I've seen in a while. Half the stuff on the shelves was stuff I recognized from the Craigie on Main wine list, stuff I thought I'd left behind forever because most of it doesn't get imported to the West Coast.

Naturally I had to buy some. I stopped myself at two bottles, because otherwise it could have gotten ridiculous, but I may have to go back next weekend and get some more.

One of the bottles I got was Susucaru 2. I won't go into the details, you can look that up for yourself if you're interested, but it's a funky, hard-to-find rose from Sicily. It's completely unfiltered, no sulfites or preservatives added, and it's incredibly lean. Super-acidic, lots of gunk floating it it, made from native Sicilian grapes no one's ever heard of.

I took it into work to crack open after service, and the sommelier and I had a good time geeking out over the bottle. It started off almost all acid, but the fruit opened up nicely after a few minutes and by the end of the bottle I found myself wanting more. The warehouse had more wines by that same producer (red wines); I want to go back and try those next week.