Survival of the Fittest

I've only killed 1 of the 5 vegetables I tried growing this year! Okay, two if you count my wilty brown cilantro, but it's still in the ground so I say it lives. My lemon cucumbers, however, were not so fortunate. Lemon cucumbers, you say?! That's why I bought them. Outrageous stuff those plant engineers can do these days.

Because of my history of leafy green homicide, Roan always puts his foot down when I say, "I'm growing tomatoes this year!" He always breaks it to me easy, saying something like, "I think you should try something easier first. When you get good at growing those, then you can try tomatoes. We don't eat tomatoes that often anyway. You're good at jalapenos. Get some of those!"

But, Roooooooooan! We make salsa ALL THE TIME. Think how much better it would taste if we made it with our own tomatoes!

Isn't your mom growing tomatoes in her garden? We can just get some from her.

It's not the saaaaaaame. I'll get a topsy turvy thing that grows them upside down! Those are, like, guaranteed to grow them. Even I can't screw that up.

Uhhh...you still need to water them, even in a topsy tuvry. We're not getting tomatoes this year. Let's see how your peppers do and maybe next year- when we have more room- you can grow your tomatoes. Wanna go look at the toys?

YAAAAYYYY TOYS!

Ok, I get it. My mom and gramma have bright green thumbs and I have the black thumb of death. I'm the opposite of King Midas (and can apparently still be distracted with toys, dammit.) Only the strongest plants can survive in my garden. It's cool, though, cuz I totally only want the strong ones. They make you stronger when you eat them. My muscles are gonna be HUGE.

I have a message for you tomatoes: my jalapenos look great. I'll see you next year. Prepare for battle.

Rest In Peace
Lemon Cucumbers
June 2011-June 2011

The Magic Words

If there is one piece of advice I can offer you that will save you a whole lot of heartache, it is this: be kind to the people who are helping you.

Patience and manners really do go a loooooooooooong way. If you're out of coffee and can clearly see I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off because I've got 15 other tables who need me just as urgently as you do, RELAX! I'll get there. Don't wave your empty cup around and point inside it. I can tell it's empty. I can't pull the coffee pot out of my ass when I've got a tray full of food, an arm full of menus and my shoe is untied. I'm not superwoman, you know. If you wait patiently until I have half a second to pick up the order that's been sitting in the window for 5 minutes, drop off the drinks for the 6-top that just walked in the door and take the orders of the three tables that sat down while I was taking your complicated order or returning your wife's eggs because "they're not scrambled enough," I PROMISE you, you will get your coffee.

Saying please and thank you will get you a long way, not only when it comes to your waitress or bartender, but in life in general. I always appreciate a heartfelt thank you. Just because I'm serving you some sunny side up eggs and bacon today doesn't mean that someday I won't be signing your paychecks. (No Christmas bonus for you, cup waver!) I don't care if your silk underpants cost more than I make in a week of double shifts, you can say please and thank you just as easily as the little old man who comes in just for the company and the conversation. Please and thank you will get you better service with a real smile (not the I'm-smiling-through-my-teeth-because-if-I-don't-pretend-to-be-nice-I'm-going-to-end-up-telling-you-where-you-can-go smile). It's easy and it takes no more than half a second. Keep that in mind next time you're ordering a double dry martini with bleu cheese stuffed olives even though the olives are already stuffed with pimentos and your bartender has to pop out the red stuff and fill them with the cheese every time you order a drink because you're the only one who orders them and you don't come in nearly often enough to pre-stuff them. She might be putting herself through law school with that job, and you might need her services one day.

There's a reason I love my job, and it's because of people like I had yesterday. A group of 5 young men came in, said please and thank you and were patient and kind and funny, even though they'd been on the road for a couple days and were very tired. They made my day. (In a strange turn of events, they were traveling from Boston, where I once resided, and we ended up having some mutual friends from the bar I worked at out there. Small world.) If they found it in themselves to be polite to a total stranger after long days of being cooped up in the car together and having to travel in 98 degree weather through crazy heat lightning and flash torrential downpours, then surely you can.

Or karma will bite you in the ass.

Nora Jane

Look at this little girl! She had such a great time in the water, despite how absolutely freezing it still is. My sister sure does make pretty babies!

An Unfortunate Doppelganger

Despite popular belief, I actually love my job. Food makes people happy. I make people happy because I bring them food. It's pretty simple. A lot of interesting people come through our doors and there are many I hope to see again. Unfortunately, there are a few (ok, fine, a bunch) that could take a long walk off a short pier. Or a cliff. Or to Timbuktu. Or to Big Boy. Whatever, just don't come back here. Especially if you're going to tell me I look like...


CASEY ANTHONY?!

Are you kidding me? Listen here, Old Man- it's 95 degrees, our AC is busted, I'm sweating my ass off at 7am to get you your half regular-half-decaf-with-one-cream-two-sugars-and-two-ice-cubes-because-it's-too-hot-to-drink-and-I-can't-wait-5-minutes-for-it-to-cool-off coffee, and I have raging PMS, so if you're going to compare me to someone it had better be Elizabeth Freaking Taylor or I don't wanna hear it.

"Haha, young lady," he says to me, "if you go out of town, you should watch out! You look just like that Casey Anthony. People are trying to kill her, you know."

Thank you, sir. Really. As if my anxiety isn't misplaced already (the mere thought of anything remotely apocalyptic gives me panic attacks), now I'm going to worry about being assassinated by a blue hair that had nothing better to do than follow her entire trial and was outraged (outraged!) by the jury's decision. What was my reaction, you ask? Nothing. I just stared at him.

"Uhhh...how do you want your eggs?"

"No! You really look like her! Holy cow! Hey, listen, if you wanna kill any more kids, I got two grown ones that I'd like to get rid of. I like the grandkids though."

"Scrambled then? Okay, I'll have those right out."

Oof.

I don't look anything like her, by the way. We both have dark hair. That's about it.