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.