Making friends isn't so hard.

Recently, I went on a "last chance" trip to Niagara Falls, Canada with my brother and a few friends. We quickly ran low on money, but high on open bottles of alcohol. Since we were under the assumption (most likely correctly) that we couldn't take open bottles over the border, we needed a quick way to drink large amounts of alcohol.

We knew there was no way that we could drink all that wine, whiskey, and vodka by ourselves, so my brother and I decided to call a few friends over and make a party out of it.

First, at my brother's suggestion, I phoned room 110 to come down the hall for "wine, whiskey, and vodka drinks." They said they couldn't come down, even though they'd love to, but they're "going out."

So, my brother called room 124, our neighbors. No answer, sadly. Then I made the suggestion to call our upstairs neighbors, room 223, and see if they wanted to come down.

"Hi! Room 223?" My brother began, "This is 123. We were wondering if you'd like to join us for a few drinks. We have wine, whiskey, and vodka for screwdrivers." He paused for a few moments while the other line responded. "We're just four friends up here for vacation and we'd like to make new friends." Pause again, "Yeah, okay."

I had the video camera on him at this point. He turned to the camera to explain, "So, he sounds kind of interested, but he has to confer with his girlfriend. We may or may not being having guests over." He turned back to the phone, "Good. Wonderful! We'll see you then." A big grin on his face, he spoke to the camera again, "He said, and I quote, 'Despite my girlfriend's hesitations, we're just going to finish dinner and then we'll be down in about ten minutes.' Score!"

Twenty minutes later, we thought they had skipped out on coming to visit us. My brother and I ended up leaving the room with four glasses of wine and the video camera (no one else wanted to come with us). Out in the hallway we ran into a family who got the floors mixed up after leaving the pool area. As we were waiting for the elevator and chatting with the family about trying to make friends, a man and a woman walked through the hall, coming from the stairwell, "One Two Three?"

I turned, as did my brother, "Yes."

"We're two two three!"

About two and a half hours and two or three mad libs later, Ellie and Damien, from room 223, joyfully left our hotel room to get some sleep before the wedding they had to go to the next afternoon. They were full of booze, as were we, and they had a story to tell at the wedding the next day. And probably one to tell at home, in the Bronx, too.

See? Making friends isn't that hard, you just have to be willing to put yourself out there enough to face rejection. Try it next time you're stuck at the hotel on a rainy night. Who knows? You might just meet your own version of Ellie and Damien!

The sun didn't melt me!

The river near our pavilion.

Wednesday was the day of our "First Hopefully-Annual SAC People Picnic" at State Park.  I spent the morning cooking pies (two of which didn't melt), then I spent the afternoon outside..in the sun.  (I would add "with normal people," but these were SAC people, and they're not normal.)  

Timmy making a spork, because I told him to use the open silverware first.

(I didn't know there weren't any forks left!!)

Chef Hippie showing even hippies can double fist.

Brother making Gram's PBR Kielbasa.

The sun stayed out most of the afternoon and it was actually a semi-pleasant day filled with food and fun.  The park was quiet, except for us, and the sights were beautiful.

Our "SAC Height" badmitton net (we were missing a pole).

Mmmm...beer kielbasa.

Believe it or not, I took this while in a moving vehicle.

What do I do after spending a day outside?  I spent that evening, and most of the next two days in bed, alternating between napping and catching up on television shows.  Once, the curtains blew open and I was bathed in bright, bright sunlight.  I screamed so loud my neighbor yelled to the window to see what was wrong.  I replied, "The sun.. it burns!" He laughed and continued his yard work.

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And can you believe, while I was outside, a waitress was arrested for shooting a customer that threw a waffle at her? What is the world coming to where wait staff can't let off some steam on their less-desierable customers?

Happy Birthday, Ma!

I have quite a few people that I call "mom."  First, there is my real mom, who currently lives in a different time zone and I haven't seen in over a year.  We talk on the phone once or twice a month, when I get bored.  She gave birth to me and I love her, but I need a mom close to home.  That's where Noreen and Laurie come in.  Noreen is my newest mom-type person.  She's a busser at the SAC, like Laurie, and she became my mother one day when she kissed my boo-boo and made it all better.  She's a lot of fun because she acts just like one of us drunken kids.

Laurie, as I mentioned earlier, is my close-to-home mom.  When I first started at the SAC in September '07, I got real close to her daughter, Lis (a hostess at the time), and there were a lot of jokes that when her son, D.J., came home I should date him.   Thus, she became my mother-in-law turned mother/friend.  (I never did date her son, by the way.)  Her whole family refers to me as "Laurie's step-daughter" and her youngest, Brooke, always tells people that she has three sisters, Lis, Erin (whom I've never met), and me.  She's been there when I needed a mom-figure and I love her for it.

Last year, Lis and I started a tradition of taking Ma and Brooke to Friendly's around Mother's Day/Ma's birthday.  This year, we pulled Brooke out of school and continued the tradition - with pictures. (You can click to make 'em near-lifesize!)

Lis and me, you can't tell, but I'm being kicked under 

the table by Brooke in this picture.

Brooke and Ma.  The picture was supposed to be just

 Ma, but then Brooke snuck in right before I took it.

Brooke wanted to take a picture of Lis.

It still amazes me that Brooke's kid's 

sundae is bigger than our adult sundaes.

Stalking a stalker.

While I was waiting for the plumber to arrive early Wednesday morning, I decided it was time I put some actual work into the look of my blog.  Because I'm very lazy, I was looking for an old layout I used for my brother's old fan club, TOSJFC, where I could use the code and just replace the picture.  Looking through old files and emails led me to a very amusing picture and a very sad feeling.

The amusing picture:

The sad feeling:

I used to love rushing home from school to turn on 1490 WESB just to listen to my brother.  It was cool to have someone I know on the radio, especially AM's most popular area DJ.  My brother used the name Stalker Jay during his time at WESB.  He was only there for just over a year, nearly three years ago, and was fired for some reason that I never bothered to ask about.  

I have a sneaking feeling that the radio station was Jay's favorite job.  Not just because he had his very own fan club, but because it let him do something he is very good at, entertaining people.  The radio station let him entertain the masses, while still sitting around doing just about nothing.  It was enough of a real job to be proud of it, but there was enough messing around to make it a fun thing that you got paid to do.

It's not like Jay did nothing but slack off.  He had a fan club to please, for crying out loud!  While he was there he made Employee of the Month twice and even scored himself a ticket to go see OAR with his little sister. 

 (That was the first concert I ever went to, and I'm so glad it was them with my brother.  The St. Bonaventure gym wasn't very crowded, but the band was awesome.  This was OAR before "Shattered", back in the days of "Hey Girl" and "Crazy Game of Poker".  Jay was so excite about getting the free ticket that I remember he squeed like a little girl.)

I wish I could find the audio samples I recorded off the radio way back when.  They hold such awesome memories that no one really cares about, except my brother and me.  The one I really want to find is titled "prom problems."  Apparently, some girl (Sarah?) danced with her grandma's cousin's husband's cousin's grandson (Ryan?) and wanted to know if it was incest.  Stalker Jay broke it down and let her know that it was okay if they kissed, because there was marriage in there somewhere and we were from such a small town that accidental incest was bound to happen sometime.  (Okay, maybe I added the accidental incest bit, but I'm sure he was thinking it.)

Then there's the time we made him try Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.. Or the time he took an on air poll to see if we could guess if he was wearing boxers or briefs (I guessed pink thong).. There was also the radio promo of our grandmother babbling on Jay's voicemail.. And we can't forget the Stalker Jay photoshop contest!

Every once in awhile, TOSJFC comes up in our conversation.  We chat about how much fun he had, how idiotic his listeners were, and the one guy who still yells "STALKER JAY!! I LOVE YOU!!" every time he walks in a bar, even though he's been off the air for three years now.

(Sorry, the TOSJFC site has gone to the wayside, so all the links are archive.com versions.)

(Double sorry for the post length, I didn't realise that it'd be this long when I started writing.  But once I got digging for old Stalker Jay stuff, I couldn't stop.  I even began to clean out my closet looking for the old audio files.  I know they're around here somewhere.)

Ketchup.

Sorry, have nothing to post about really.  Words don't seem to form correctly in my mind recently. In the meantime, here's a picture of me just before my friends and I were politely asked to remove ourselves from the Dollar Tree.

The so-called "art dealer"...

"Fifth Element" was on in the break room last night.  I stated, "I fucking love this movie," which summarily caused everyone else in hearing range start discussing their favorite scenese.  

I couldn't pick just one, but this one is up there.  So, here, enjoy!

(And I'll have you know, the only reason I watched this movie in the first place was because Gary Oldman was in it.  I had never heard of it before that day almost three years ago.  Damn, am I glad I had the disposable income for this wonderful film.)

Required Work Post

For those that don't know, I work as a waitress in a Native-operated Casino/Hotel.  There are only two girls on my shift, myself and pregger-Jess.  Because pregger-Jess can't work in smoking, she has the earlier shift and I take the late shift.  We tend to work really well together and generally there are no problems on our shift, regarding shitty service, because we help each other out as needed.

Last night, was concert night.  Buddy Guy, whom I had never heard of before, was playing.  Also, there were three buses, the last of which left around three.   Overnight buses suck by themselves.  Concerts suck by themselves.  Put the two together, especially when the buses are from Cleveland, and the night is going to be full of suck.

Sorry, you just suck.

Because of my lack of car, and my ride's starting work time, I arrived at the SAC an hour and a half before my scheduled shift.  Joy for my managers!  "JessAnn is here anyways, lets put her to work!"  Yeah, I tried to ignore them and read my book, but it didn't work.  (Not that I cared, it was just the point.)  Between 10pm and 11.30pm I did nearly $300 dollars in sales.  I think my twitter said it all:

"Ahhhhhh!"

My favorite part of the night?  When all the printers in the kitchen decided they were on strike.  Yes, that's correct, pregger-Jess and I thought we were putting orders back to the kitchen to be cooked, but instead, we were feeding the same monster that eats the socks from your dryer.

"Gimmie your socks and orders!!"

One table took great advantage of the sock monster's craving for order tickets, 103.  103 had been transferred to me, as the original waitress wanted to head home, standard procedure.  I go back to check on the food some five minutes after the table was transferred (she said she just put the order in, it was two orders of wings, that takes around nine minutes).  Oh joy, she put the order in fifteen minutes before it was transferred to me, add my five minutes of dicking around, the wings have been in for a total of twenty minutes.

But, where are my wings?  "We don't have a ticket for wings," one of the cooks says to me.  Oh joy.  I pick up the expo ticket on my side of the line and hand it to him.  He reads it, looks at the time on it, "Oh shit.  I never got this!"  Luckily, Chef Pretty was walking by and he heard the ruckus.

What do I tell my table, Chef?  "Tell them.. tell them we ran out of wings and had to get fresh.  Yeah, tell them that and that we need five minutes."

Wonderful.  I go to the dining room, fake smile in place, head held high, and explain the situation.

"This happened to us last time too!"  Ah, fuck.

Chef Pretty gave them each an extra half order of wings, to apologize for the wait.  He even left the comforts of the kitchen to explain to the table himself what had "happened," not something most chefs are willing to do.

But, sadly, 103 was still unhappy.  They were standing around looking for me when I delivered the food.  "We were about to leave," the man says, "this is ridiculous." 

 Whatever, we gave you extra food, shut it.  "I'm sorry for the wait sir, but Chef did give you each an extra half order of wings for your paitence."

"Is it half off day at this table?" the lady quips, "Tell your manager it's buy one get one free on chicken wings today."

Aw, shit.  "Will do m'am"

Needless to say, they ate every fucking bite of the three orders of wings we gave them and payed for only one, with comp points.  Luckily for me, Chef Pretty was already in a bad mood before my lovely table, so now I can fear his wrath that much more.

Pet Peeve #1

Recently, I've been playing Kingdom Hearts again.  (I saw Chain of Memories for the PS2 and couldn't resist!) It's made me realise one of my biggest pet peeves: Disney.

Not Disney, as a whole, but actually, more Disney characters.  Well, no, not really.  I don't know what to call my pet peeve, exactly.  Maybe Disney animators?  The people in charge of Disney characters?  I'll give you an example (or two) of what I'm trying to say:

The Genie - Even after good ol' Al sets him free from the droll life of servitude he still has the wrist shackles on.

Maybe they're a fashion statement?

This wouldn't bother me so much, if they wouldn't have made his bling so strongly tied to his being free from the masters of the lamp.  (Although, I do have to admit, when I was GISing Genie, I did see a few pictures of him without the shackles-o-gold, so I could have misplaced anger here.)

The Beast - This is a big one for me, as this is my absolute favorite movie/ story/ play/ musical/ kink.  If you go Disney World (or Land) and you get the chance to see Belle and her prince (I like to think his name is Christopher), he is always in beastie form.  Now, I get that he's more reconizable as a horrible looking, yet sweet, monster as opposed to a hot slab-o-hunk human.

This would be so much easier on the eye.

Plus, maybe, finally, Belle's loveable prince would get a name.  A real name, not just whatever the directors decided to call him three quarters of the way through the commentary on the DVD.  (Hopefully they won't call him "Adam," like some fans claim that "The Disney Encyclopedia" calls him.)

Toasters (And the girl who catches them on fire.)

Last night, during an extremely boring shift at work, I found myself contemplating what I should write about in here.  As with anything, I had many ideas in mind for this space up until it was actually created.  My mind was blank, until I was in the car this morning, on my way home.

My bestest friend, Kara, and I stopped at Mac Daddy D's (McDonald's for all you not in the know) and got breakfast.  Halfway through her McMuffin, she turns to me and asks, "How do you burn an english muffin?"

"Well," I began, giving her the look I often do when she asks stupid questions like that.

Thus, inspiration hit me smack in the head, much like a V8 commercial.

We have an industrial toaster where I work.  You know, the kind that the toast kind of rolls through, instead of just sitting in one spot warming up.  It's nice in one respect (and one only), you can fit nearly a whole loaf of bread in this thing at once.  But, this stupid toaster has a mind of it's own.  You can put two pieces of white bread in at the same time and on the same setting, and you'll get out two pieces of toast - one of which is burnt to a crisp.

Also, the toaster has it out for me.  Seriously.

When I first started working at the Seneca Cafe, a year and a half ago, the toaster and I got along.  Sure, every once in a great while, I'd get a piece of raisin toast stuck in the back and burn my hand pulling it out.  Well, after cussing the toaster out for the third time, it's decided that I'm public enemy number one and I must  be destroyed.

Example 1: I was minding my own business, making white toast for a customer, when the toaster started to crackle.  Toasters aren't supposed to crackle.  I run over to see what the hell is going on, and sure enough, the stupid thing is on fire, again.  I tried to pull the crumb tray out, hoping that'll cause the toaster to get it's act together.

Normally, this works.  

Not today though, no.  The actual heating element of the toaster had decided it was sick of just sitting there, burning my toast all day.  No, it wanted to go on the same fun ride that the toast went on.  Then, the heating element managed to get stuck in the conveyer belt.

I had no idea what the hell to do.  So I did what I do best.  I yelled "fire" a few times.  We work in a kitchen, this should have people running.  The cooks stood there and stared at me like I had three heads.  After the fourth time of yelling it, the sous chef, Chanin, came running from the other end of the kitchen.  

She tried turning it off, but the thing kept crackling.  So, she ended up unplugging the toaster.  With an amused look on her face, she asks me, "How do you manage to break things without even really touching them?"

The fire caused the toaster to be taken away for a whole week.  To make up for the missing toaster, maintenance brought us two normal, push down toasters.  It was the best week of my life.

Stay tuned for Example 2.

I've caved.

For the past few months, I've been noticing things happening around me.  Well, I've noticed things before, but lately I've been retelling these things as little snippet stories in my head.  I've always wanted a place just for my random thought-stories, but never really had the gumption to create a special place just for those little darlings of ramble.

Well, this morning, while purchasing way-too-much chocolate, I finally decided to create a home for the strange, yet normal, things that happen around me.  Who knows if I'll ever update this space ever again, but the fact that it's here is a start.

Welcome, to the start of something still unkown.