ergh

I am tired.

Two days of cooking in a row. Today was the super marathon. I just don't know what we can do to make it go faster for people. 45 minutes is too long to wait for food, but we're cooking as fast as we can. Not enough space, not enough griddle space.

I counted 50 order sheets. Some sheets had more than one item on them... Of course people don't come in an even flow, but saying they did, that's approximately 10 orders per hour, which means to fit them all in we only get 6 minutes per order. Which is not enough time to cook any of the things we make. And of course we get huge onslaughts all at once. There were less people today than last week. Probably because we were too slow and they don't want to come back.

My brain just keep spinning, trying to figure out the answer to the problem. The thing is, we are very nearly maxed out on cooking space, so to me it keeps coming down to expectation. We only have so much capacity. In a big restaurant, they have X # of tables, and if they are full, they won't even seat you until they are ready to take your order. And of course they spread things out, giving you drinks first, appetizers and then food... We're not a ready to go buffet, we cook each thing to order. But somehow we have more tables than we can cook for at once. So they get their coffee and expect to eat within 20 minutes, but if we're backed up, we have to get through the orders first. If we were able to tell them accurately, "Look, it's going to be 45 minutes, if you feel like waiting." Maybe if we also had more ready-to-go stuff, like the quiche and just more scones, we didn't have enough of those today.

I don't know. I'm kind of depressed. I need to not take it personally. I really am doing everything I can to go as fast as I can! The problem is when people get hungry they get cranky too. geesh. Anyway. It's over for a week. We'll see what happens next time.

I just took a break and looked up some omelet recipes and videos. I think I'm doing it wrong because all the recipes seem to say they should only take a few minutes and mine take much longer. I think it's because I'm not letting the egg run under to cook up faster... that's probably it. dammit. It's a bit harder to control in the big griddle thingy though... Need to figure that out.

I'm wiped out physically and emotionally and mentally. I have some music homework to do but I just don't have any juice. I think it'll be better to go to sleep now and get up and do it in the morning. drats.

Oh, and they announced the winners of the script contest. Not me. Both the 2 winners and the 2 runners up were all guys. 16 people entered. Anyway, I'm glad I did it. Hope I will do more. Though at the moment between that, trying to do my music homework and feeling stupid, and feeling like I failed brunch, I really could use a pep talk. I have the "what's the point of even trying if you're just going to fail?" tape playing at loud volume in my head right now.

Fired Up and Freaked Out

Thought I was going to get to Cafe Paradiso too late today, but of course it happened exactly as it should have!

Hung out most of the morning online, T called and was super glad to catch up with her finally, one of the people on my list to call for a while now! Always good to catch up. Then I got dressed and went to Cafe P and ran into E and T who said that Ellis and Terri (oh, that's funny, they both have the same initials!) were coming over shortly and I could sit with them. J was there waiting for J (doh!) and got to catch up with him for a bit - he'd just had Thanksgiving with his fam in Disneyworld. Awesome. Then Terri and Ellis showed up and it was fun to just be part of the conversation with them.

I feel pretty at ease with them, I think they both do a good job of asking questions, they are genuinely interested in what you think about things or what your experiences are. It's not necessarily that I'd expect them to keep in touch with me all the time or something, but that in the times that I DO ever hang out with them, they are going to be really present and interested in that moment, which is pretty cool.

Sometimes when I hang out with the musicians who just performed I feel so much in awe that I'm kind of dumbstruck and just end up saying next to nothing. And when I think about it - from a skill level I normally would be dumbstruck by someone like Ellis, and I am a little, but it's so so much less than with most others. Nice.

Heard that Terri REALLY likes caramel, and Steve was trying to figure out how we could get some to her, but they were running low on theirs at the cafe. I dashed home before the workshop and got some I had from one time that I'd made a little extra. Unfortunately it had a few little crystalized bits, but it still tasted good, so I just told her that it wasn't at it's idea state but she could get the idea. Hope she likes it. :-S eeps. It really is tasty, and I made a bunch more tonight, but I didn't have any to give them before they left.

Workshop was really good. I thought I wasn't really ready for their stuff at Song School, and I'm not totally, but some of the stuff like goal setting is really useful for RIGHT NOW, so yay.

HL was at the workshop too and she was asking if I'd eaten yet and I said she was welcome to come to my house because I had all this food that I wasn't likely to cook unless it was for someone else. On our way out S was driving by, they had to go look at a keyboard for the band, so they did that and then came over, which was great because it gave me a chance to give the kitchen a once over. It had been super disaster from Thanksgiving, and I'd been hoping to have my brother and his GF over sometime this week to get my rear in gear, but now I'll just be able start from a good place already! It was also really good because I needed to make the caramel, so I was able to get everything cleaned up for that and get it going right after they left. Made a stir fry with my hacked ginger soy type sauce and rice noodles and we ate it all up. Felt good to feed some friends and get to talk and hang out and review some of what we'd learned in the workshop.

Actually played some songs tonight after they left, that felt good too. Had been hit by a big wave of loneliness and acute awareness that G was NOT home and VERY far away and had the thought that maybe playing some would make me feel better and it did! Yay! Now I just need to get more specific on some of those goals!

Well, look at that, I made it through NaBloPoMo! Something for every day. Honestly it was more like I wrote something very early, in the first hours of every day, but I back-dated most of them so it would be to the day I experienced before going to bed. But either way it turns out that I wrote something every single day. That feels really good. Feels like it sped by too! Not sure how much I'll keep it up for the next months. I have a new class starting in January for Lyric Writing and part of that will be writing something everyday for class, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have for blogging here. But I hope it'll be more frequent than lately (as in before November) because this had been very productive in terms of taking time to think things out FOR ME. So easy to get caught up in doing things for other people, or just going through life on auto pilot. It's good to stop and reflect more often.

Happy Nutloaf (plus a lot of other food) Day!

I don't eat turkey, so calling it turkey day is kind of weird for me. Though I guess a bunch of other people DO eat turkey, so it's still a turkey day or something.

Had a nice big meal with the L family as we quite often do. B & R were back from Scotland and it was super nice to see them. Had a bit of a strange while where I felt like I was just sitting on the edge of the room and G was kind of napping next to me and it was all full of people talking and I wasn't part of any of it. But shortly after that I got up and moved a tray so I could sit next to B & A and then got to talk to them for a bit and felt more like I was part of things.

I made roasted veggies which went over really well. Seems funny to me because they are SO easy, just chop up the veggies and drizzle lots of olive oil, herbs, and some onions and garlic. But people liked 'em lots! I also made vegetarian stuffing that was barely touched since there was tons more, and some cranberry sauce that wasn't even opened since there was LOTS of that. Anyway, I like both those things so I'm sure they'll be eaten soon.

The other thing people liked that I brought were these little coconut cookies, that are also super easy to make - just sweetened flaked coconut, sugar, egg whites and chopped pistachios. I think that may have been the only dessert that was completely eaten! T didn't even get any because she was too full and by the time she wasn't, they were all gone! I made them last night because I wanted to offer something to G's soccer friends who were over and I figured I could bring the rest to Thanksgiving. :) Luckily I happened to have just the right amount of pistachios on hand to make them.

It was strange to see B & R and realize we really haven't been in touch much for the whole year and a 1/2 since we visited them and how much has happened since then! It's been nearly a year since I lost my job at AS and it's still such a big part of my story. Might be time to let it go? It WAS a rather life changing event though, and it's part of the explanation of how I got to where I am now. Interesting though, to really notice, that it was almost a year ago.

Right before Christmas, when we cleaned out the whole office, and it looked so sterile and bare. Granted, I stayed on to train people, but only for 1/2 days and only from home. I still have boxes full of crap that I brought home, sitting in my little home office, taking up space. I threw out a bunch of old notebooks last month as it was infinitely clear that I would no longer need them. Some of the stuff from the office was the little knick-knacks I'd collected over the 3 years working there, little things that brightened my day or helped me get through it. I really was pretty miserable at the end...

The worst part is when you have to sit there, when there's nothing to do. I mean, there's ALWAYS something to do I suppose, but you definitely don't have the freedom to say "ok, I've done enough for today, I'm going home." And then being so tired and drained that I couldn't do any of the things I wanted to. Such a waste.

G is heading to Dubai tomorrow, and Colombia directly after that. He'll be gone for 20 days! eeps! That's pretty long. Hopefully I'll be able to keep myself busy. It'll give me plenty of time to get used to the Prius. So strange not to need to use a key, just press a button and it's on, press a button to park it. Hard to TELL if it's on because it doesn't make any noise starting up!!

Anyhoo, I'm thankful for a year of transformation, growth and figuring out boundaries and desires, many adventures and getting to see lots of friends and make some new ones. Grateful to be building relationships with people in the music world and to recognize that it's a real and valid lifestyle, not something that's shameful or crazy. Thankful for the President Elect and all he seems to be doing already in preparation for taking office. (I read something the other day about how he's going to "green" the White House, loved that! Very thankful for my amazing and supportive G who has stood by and helped me up during all my crazy figuring out of things this year. I don't think it's quite over, but getting closer!

Five Big Things I Learned in 2007

Priscilla Ahn recently posted a MySpace blog announcing her new album coming out in 2008, and also listing her top 5 things she learned this year. She asked her readers to post their things as well, and I decided to take her up on it. Here was my comment:

Yay! New album! Yay! Cheese! Yay! Personal insights!

Wow, I don't know if I can come up with the top 5 things I've learned this year on the spot like this...

5) Thinking too much about individual notes makes them harder to play

4) Sometimes it's more important to stick up for myself than to stick with a crummy job for the money

3) Fancy lighting and special effects go a long way in making people look good

2) Creative stuff doesn't have to be perfect before you share it - people like it anyway

1) You never know who is looking up to you for inspiration


Hey, that was kind of cool! Thanks for making me think about that.

Happy New Year!

I was actually pretty happy I took the time to think that over. I'm not sure if that's really the TOP 5 things I learned this year, or if it's even in order of most important, but those were definitely things that stood out in my mind in the amount of time I spent thinking it over.

In other news I made a tasty curry tonight. I did not have many of the ingredients the recipe called for, the one among them I was most uncertain of was coconut milk, but I mixed milk with shredded coconut to make, well, coconut milk... I don't know what it was supposed to taste like, but It was yummy anyway!