Photosynthesis Sensitivity
I think I've had at least 20 different employers in my short lifetime. Interesting to note, a goodly percentage which usurps the very high percentile of employers who have fired me for reasons of insubordination have accidentally lost my resumé post Comrade hire. Unless I lodged a call back to them, there was no way of getting in contact with me. Nowhere was there physical evidence remaining that an interview had taken place. It happened again.
The story I was given was the General Manager had taken all curriculum vitae home with him by reason of alleged construction that was going on at the restaurant. Somewhere between the restaurant, passage to his car, then up the steps leading to what I imagine as his sub-luxury manor located in sunny sub-urban modified farmland, my 8.5 x 11" employment calling card replete with the disappearing act of 6 work years could be listed on the back of a milk carton. Of course this is hyperbole as here in Canada the only thing on the back of milk cartons is the federal list of nutritional values. They were counting on everyone they hired, back in 1867 - the era of horsedrawn buggies and damned fine experimental beer, to call them back. Typical. After approximately 14 phone calls, my first day turned out to be on Tuesday last. Short shift. The kind I really like. A little "Come in at 5:00 to get an orientation." I left by 8:30 to have cocktails with my main dudes. Loverboy once said, "Everybody's working for the weekend." I work for the beer carrot at the end of the night. But then I learned there is no drinking at the end of the night. Strike one. Of course this adds to the mounting dubiousness I feel about the place. The word on the street is the place is mismanaged, everyone is unhappy working there and half the kitchen staff has pulled up bootstraps and walked or are on the brink of walking out because of the new Operations Manager.
OM...
OM...
OM...
Liz = Operations Manager
During the 3 1/2 hour orientation, I was given a brief tour by the poor soul assigned to show me the house ropes. I ran into about a half dozen people on staff whom I've either worked with or served before. One of them happened to be Liz, the Operations Manager.
I met Liz at my previous employ, the one where I was ousted because I write a blog that once upon a time was printed out and left in plain view of a certain person which I had written rather unflattering factoids about. Liz was a patron at the bar when I was bartending there. She is a friendly, outgoing lesbian who took quite a shine to the Comrade. Liz once left a little hand scribed note which had her name, her phone number and a little scribble which looked dangerously like "Let's paint the town." I'm not sure whether she assigned a colour scheme to the paint schedule, as I had tossed that piece of paper away as hastily as I'd read it. Currently, the Comrade gets freaked out by any advances by either sex. It's a new thing I'm trying out.
Pros: The restaurant is beautiful. And huge. Perfect for those who love running around. I fall into this category. I like space. It's not quite the final frontier for me, but it's a welcome place to do a few Wonder Woman spins. I don't spin into the perfect haired, perfect breasted Linda Carter, though. I'm more like a female version of Jerry Lewis who develops an acute sense of nausea tinged with vertigo. There are tonnes of people on staff.
Cons: They've staffed way too many people. And now I think I'm too old to bartend. I don't need 2' of wood between me and them like I used to. I don't like being the first one in and the last to leave. As much as I embrace the ideal of communism, I don't think it's right that all the bartenders throughout the entire building pool their tips. If I didn't once break a sweat, I don't think it's right that I pillage from the others who did. And to top it off there was a $76 shortage that my bar received tonight, incidentally a bar which sold only $200. How this happens, I do not know. If they expect me to pony up, I'm afraid I'll have to saddle up. Rawhide.
But enough about work. It's only designed to pay for a recently planned beer tour to Amsterdam and Belgium in the fall and a little facelift to my back deck.
Ever since I've moved into my beautiful apartment I'd made a pact with myself that I was not going to spend obscene amounts of any resource on the decor. Typically, inordinate amounts of time, effort and money have been spent (wasted) on rental units where I'd find myself packed and paying movers 2 years later. The older I get the more I've embraced minimalism. Minimalism, in this case, has turned into Barren-ism by way of scant weed plants, airborn refuse and the occasional raccoon plop found in not so secret locations throughout my second floor wooden oasis of promise. The plan is to create a Hello Sailor! nautical inspired cabana look for the deck. This involves 20 yards of white nylon fabric which I'm sewing into sails and creating a canopy overhead. This will hopefully help to curb my slight fear of the sun's rays. Fatty and I have unique sun sensitivities where the giant flaming orb treats us only a couple of degrees kinder than lepers. He's blessed with rosacea. As for me...
A few years ago Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend and I went to Cuba for a sun/ snorkeling/ drinking extravaganza. If I had all the money in the world I would take off every month to swim with the fishes. Whoops. There were some mob ramifications in that last statement. Please indulge an amendment: Swimming, with a snorkel, alongside colourful tropical fish. I say snorkel specifically because it is possible to scream with a snorkel in your mouth if one finds herself A) in the direct path of a jellyfish or B) stared down and slowly pursued by a barracuda. Both scenarios have happened to me. B) happened twice.
Historically, I've been a don't-bother-with-the-damned-SPF-I-like-to-connect-with-my-African-roots type of girl. It all pretty much changed on one fateful Cuban evening while getting ready for the all-inclusive dinner. I was dressing in front of the mirror and stepped a little closer to the reflective surface, examining my face.
The Comrade: Ack... is it me or does it look like I've got a moustache?
Ack: [barely looking] Oh, you girls!
Which reminds me of the time I was given a prescription for penicillin and discovered I was highly allergic to it. With grossly enlarged glands in my neck, Freddie Kruger clawing my gut from the inside and itchy hives all over my body that felt like a thousand flies swarming me, I asked:
The Comrade: Ack, do I look different to you?
Ack: Oh, you girls!
I walked to dinner arm in arm with Ack, a swishy summer skirt skimming my knees, a plunging neckline and Billy Dee Williams above my lip.
The Comrade: Everybody's looking at me strangely! Are you sure I don't look like I've got a moustache?
Ack: No! You're nuts!
In addition to having (to me) a darkened hyperpigmented area on the worst place on a girl's visage to have a symmetrical 2.5" marking, I had developed a weird mole-looking thing on my cheek that wasn't there hours before. It was a flat, darkened area that sent up a sort of red flag, but I didn't really react too much to it as Ack was thinking I was being a Big Crazy Girl about the whole thing and we all have a tendency to have the slightest physical variances magnified under our own scruntiny.
Back in Toronto, I returned to work the next day. Micheal Coy, Her Highness, the old queen head waiter, the one who reasoned that the distinct smell of old people came from a combination of Depends undergarments and decay, was examining the strange new mole-looking discolouration.
Michael: Hmmmm.
The Comrade: Hmmmmm?
Michael: I'd check that out if I were you.
The Comrade: Really? Does it look serious?
Michael: It doesn't look like cancer... exactly...
The Comrade: WHAT?!
He shrugged.
Michael: Just check it out.
Michael was the skin cancer specialist; he had a scare a couple of years prior.
I went to the bar to go pick up drinks. One very large one for me personally. The Venezuelan bartender Patrizia, with thick hair and thicker latina accent was tending.
Patrizia: I've jost got one question to ask chu?
The Comrade: Yes?
Patrizia: [with shaking neck] What is wit cho moustache?
For the love of God...
In my head I was cursing Ack who let me cross the border and go to work looking like Magnum P.I.
The Comrade: Oh my God! It does, doesn't it? It totally looks like I have a moustache!
Michael: Well, I didn't want to say anything after looking at that... other... thing.
My current morning ritual: wash face, brush teeth, apply 60 SPF while trying to push the image of Burt Reynolds out of the mirror.
To be a vampire. I don't have an irrational fear of stakes, crosses or garlic. If I didn't think my head would explode from hanging upside down for too long, if I actually had a taste for blood, and if I didn't get tired late at night I'd probably do it. Vanity sucks.
Billy Dee signing out. I've got a long work-week coming up. It is time to start playing the lottery.
The story I was given was the General Manager had taken all curriculum vitae home with him by reason of alleged construction that was going on at the restaurant. Somewhere between the restaurant, passage to his car, then up the steps leading to what I imagine as his sub-luxury manor located in sunny sub-urban modified farmland, my 8.5 x 11" employment calling card replete with the disappearing act of 6 work years could be listed on the back of a milk carton. Of course this is hyperbole as here in Canada the only thing on the back of milk cartons is the federal list of nutritional values. They were counting on everyone they hired, back in 1867 - the era of horsedrawn buggies and damned fine experimental beer, to call them back. Typical. After approximately 14 phone calls, my first day turned out to be on Tuesday last. Short shift. The kind I really like. A little "Come in at 5:00 to get an orientation." I left by 8:30 to have cocktails with my main dudes. Loverboy once said, "Everybody's working for the weekend." I work for the beer carrot at the end of the night. But then I learned there is no drinking at the end of the night. Strike one. Of course this adds to the mounting dubiousness I feel about the place. The word on the street is the place is mismanaged, everyone is unhappy working there and half the kitchen staff has pulled up bootstraps and walked or are on the brink of walking out because of the new Operations Manager.
OM...
OM...
OM...
Liz = Operations Manager
During the 3 1/2 hour orientation, I was given a brief tour by the poor soul assigned to show me the house ropes. I ran into about a half dozen people on staff whom I've either worked with or served before. One of them happened to be Liz, the Operations Manager.
I met Liz at my previous employ, the one where I was ousted because I write a blog that once upon a time was printed out and left in plain view of a certain person which I had written rather unflattering factoids about. Liz was a patron at the bar when I was bartending there. She is a friendly, outgoing lesbian who took quite a shine to the Comrade. Liz once left a little hand scribed note which had her name, her phone number and a little scribble which looked dangerously like "Let's paint the town." I'm not sure whether she assigned a colour scheme to the paint schedule, as I had tossed that piece of paper away as hastily as I'd read it. Currently, the Comrade gets freaked out by any advances by either sex. It's a new thing I'm trying out.
Pros: The restaurant is beautiful. And huge. Perfect for those who love running around. I fall into this category. I like space. It's not quite the final frontier for me, but it's a welcome place to do a few Wonder Woman spins. I don't spin into the perfect haired, perfect breasted Linda Carter, though. I'm more like a female version of Jerry Lewis who develops an acute sense of nausea tinged with vertigo. There are tonnes of people on staff.
Cons: They've staffed way too many people. And now I think I'm too old to bartend. I don't need 2' of wood between me and them like I used to. I don't like being the first one in and the last to leave. As much as I embrace the ideal of communism, I don't think it's right that all the bartenders throughout the entire building pool their tips. If I didn't once break a sweat, I don't think it's right that I pillage from the others who did. And to top it off there was a $76 shortage that my bar received tonight, incidentally a bar which sold only $200. How this happens, I do not know. If they expect me to pony up, I'm afraid I'll have to saddle up. Rawhide.
But enough about work. It's only designed to pay for a recently planned beer tour to Amsterdam and Belgium in the fall and a little facelift to my back deck.
Ever since I've moved into my beautiful apartment I'd made a pact with myself that I was not going to spend obscene amounts of any resource on the decor. Typically, inordinate amounts of time, effort and money have been spent (wasted) on rental units where I'd find myself packed and paying movers 2 years later. The older I get the more I've embraced minimalism. Minimalism, in this case, has turned into Barren-ism by way of scant weed plants, airborn refuse and the occasional raccoon plop found in not so secret locations throughout my second floor wooden oasis of promise. The plan is to create a Hello Sailor! nautical inspired cabana look for the deck. This involves 20 yards of white nylon fabric which I'm sewing into sails and creating a canopy overhead. This will hopefully help to curb my slight fear of the sun's rays. Fatty and I have unique sun sensitivities where the giant flaming orb treats us only a couple of degrees kinder than lepers. He's blessed with rosacea. As for me...
A few years ago Ack, the ex-husband/ best friend and I went to Cuba for a sun/ snorkeling/ drinking extravaganza. If I had all the money in the world I would take off every month to swim with the fishes. Whoops. There were some mob ramifications in that last statement. Please indulge an amendment: Swimming, with a snorkel, alongside colourful tropical fish. I say snorkel specifically because it is possible to scream with a snorkel in your mouth if one finds herself A) in the direct path of a jellyfish or B) stared down and slowly pursued by a barracuda. Both scenarios have happened to me. B) happened twice.
Historically, I've been a don't-bother-with-the-damned-SPF-I-like-to-connect-with-my-African-roots type of girl. It all pretty much changed on one fateful Cuban evening while getting ready for the all-inclusive dinner. I was dressing in front of the mirror and stepped a little closer to the reflective surface, examining my face.
The Comrade: Ack... is it me or does it look like I've got a moustache?
Ack: [barely looking] Oh, you girls!
Which reminds me of the time I was given a prescription for penicillin and discovered I was highly allergic to it. With grossly enlarged glands in my neck, Freddie Kruger clawing my gut from the inside and itchy hives all over my body that felt like a thousand flies swarming me, I asked:
The Comrade: Ack, do I look different to you?
Ack: Oh, you girls!
I walked to dinner arm in arm with Ack, a swishy summer skirt skimming my knees, a plunging neckline and Billy Dee Williams above my lip.
The Comrade: Everybody's looking at me strangely! Are you sure I don't look like I've got a moustache?
Ack: No! You're nuts!
In addition to having (to me) a darkened hyperpigmented area on the worst place on a girl's visage to have a symmetrical 2.5" marking, I had developed a weird mole-looking thing on my cheek that wasn't there hours before. It was a flat, darkened area that sent up a sort of red flag, but I didn't really react too much to it as Ack was thinking I was being a Big Crazy Girl about the whole thing and we all have a tendency to have the slightest physical variances magnified under our own scruntiny.
Back in Toronto, I returned to work the next day. Micheal Coy, Her Highness, the old queen head waiter, the one who reasoned that the distinct smell of old people came from a combination of Depends undergarments and decay, was examining the strange new mole-looking discolouration.
Michael: Hmmmm.
The Comrade: Hmmmmm?
Michael: I'd check that out if I were you.
The Comrade: Really? Does it look serious?
Michael: It doesn't look like cancer... exactly...
The Comrade: WHAT?!
He shrugged.
Michael: Just check it out.
Michael was the skin cancer specialist; he had a scare a couple of years prior.
I went to the bar to go pick up drinks. One very large one for me personally. The Venezuelan bartender Patrizia, with thick hair and thicker latina accent was tending.
Patrizia: I've jost got one question to ask chu?
The Comrade: Yes?
Patrizia: [with shaking neck] What is wit cho moustache?
For the love of God...
In my head I was cursing Ack who let me cross the border and go to work looking like Magnum P.I.
The Comrade: Oh my God! It does, doesn't it? It totally looks like I have a moustache!
Michael: Well, I didn't want to say anything after looking at that... other... thing.
My current morning ritual: wash face, brush teeth, apply 60 SPF while trying to push the image of Burt Reynolds out of the mirror.
To be a vampire. I don't have an irrational fear of stakes, crosses or garlic. If I didn't think my head would explode from hanging upside down for too long, if I actually had a taste for blood, and if I didn't get tired late at night I'd probably do it. Vanity sucks.
Billy Dee signing out. I've got a long work-week coming up. It is time to start playing the lottery.
posted by Comrade Chicken at
4:15 a.m.
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