Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The worst day followed by the best day... and now I'm grumpy again.

I was WAY off on my game today at work. Yesterday, A promised me room 1, which means that I get the first table of the day and stay open til the end of the day. If you're in room 3 or 4 (like I was yesterday), you close early and "get" to go home early. Normally, this is welcome. This week, not so much. You see, in the last fourteen days, as of Friday, I will have had 6 of them off, and of those 8 days worked, I will have spent 2 days in room 3, one day in room 4, one day at the ice cream parlour, and one day on a TOUR (today).

Tours are crappy. We only had about nine customers each and they rarely tip well because they're saving their money for later or have already spent it all as they're on a bus tour of All-Over-Creation. Aside from tipping very little, you don't get to keep the tips laid down on your tables, you have to share them with not only the other waitress who may have served less or more or gotten less or more tips on their tables, but also the cook staff who helped you. I understand that it's nice for them to get tips, too, but this means my total take home in tips today was less than 8 dollars... and frankly, I can't afford to work like this.

I can't have an $8/hr job and not be making at least $12/day in tips... but K needed training and A wanted me to do it instead of J because I'm a better waitress, I guess. Yes, please punish me for being good at my job.

I also had to drive the truck to work which puts me in an automatic bad mood, and to make things worse, it was on EMPTY when I got in. I had no money to put gas in so I prayed and stressed all the way to work hoping I would get there without running out. I did, and was relieved that, working in room 1, I would make enough to pay my gas home... then I found out I had to do a tour... I was quite upset. In the end, I still had to borrow $7 from the other waitress to make sure I could get home gaswise. Like, $7 doesn't even pay my gas, grr! Also, laundry sidetracked me and yelled at me immediately when I came in the door for turning my daycap in every time I turn in my dress (which I did not know I wasn't supposed to do), then cookstaff yelled at me for something stupid, and then J got all huffy with me for some stupid reason... then the same cookstaff who yelled at me earlier snapped him in the face with a wet dishtowel. We're allowed to hate each other, but if someone else gets in on the fray, they're in trouble.

Yesterday, I was yelled at at least twice. In general, it doesn't bother me but when I'm already having a crappy day, I felt like crying most of the day. Then I found out that one of my favorite cooks quit... boo.

So I came home all grumpy like and decided to ride Bronwyn and proceeded to have the MOST AMAZING RIDE EVER on her. She is such a doll. She is finally starting to "get it" about riding, moving forward, leg and voice cues. After trotting her for quite a bit, deciding I definitely need better support for the... erm.. girls.. working her up to a good sweat and getting a lot accomplished, Shay came up to the ring to talk to me and I had her open the gate for me and I took Bronwyn out the pasture. She has never been ridden outside of her little ring or in the yard and she was quite forward but handled everything SO well. I rode her up the hill (when I rode Angel up the hill the first time, she backed down sideways, not a very pleasant experience) which she took well and took her time coming back down, really working her hind end to hold her back instead of glomming on her front end... then I rode her into the pond and let me tell you I have NEVER had a horse that enjoys water like she does. I didn't go in too far because I was afraid she would roll... then I took her back to the barn. What a moof. I love her and wouldn't trade her for the world.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Boo!

I had to work at the ice cream parlour today... definitely not what I was hired for, but it works. The only good part, however, about working at the ice cream parlour was that I could wear whatever I wanted. It was SO boring, even though I had J for company. I ate more stuff than I should have, too - spent too much money, because I was SO friggin' bored.

One thing that definitely made it worthwhile was seeing 4 adult Canadian Geese on our back lot along with about a dozen goslings in furry feather. They waddled down our green and into the river, and it definitely made my day. I am not cut out to be an ice cream scooper, but the sighting made things worthwhile.

While I was waiting for someone to come and unlock the parlour for me, I meandered over to chat with one of the teamsters. I inquired about the big Canadian mare that the security guard was telling me has some "personality" issues, then went over to visit her. She was not outwardly aggressive, but I found her very defensive when I reached across the fence to pet her. The smaller of the two mares was just soaking up the attention, loving on me and letting me love on her, and the bigger mare stood there, but was not interested in interaction. The teamster told me she was no good - she is okay to handle when you get your hands on her but not worth her weight in dogfood in the harness - she kicks and jigs and charges about when she's in gear. He said she was used for wagon rides before, and the site even went so far as to buy her wagon she was used with previously but she's no better.

I personally think she may have been used for pulling, based on what he describes. I think, just from the two interactions (limited as they were), that she is disrespectful and no one has taught her to be respectful, and have only used brute force to get their way, thus making her scared. She sure is defensive - I've never met a horse that I could truly say that about, but that's how I was reading her behaviour. I would sure love to get my hands on her. The teamster said he wanted to hook her with one of the big percherons that could hold her and then tire her out because he thinks she's just "too full of energy" - not the problem I suspect, but I think hooking her to someone that can hold her might be a good idea. Beyond that, I think she needs some trust.

Anyways, I kind of put my feelers out there, telling him if they got rid of her, I would like to know... I just love problematic horses. :P It's a hobby, anyways, and I just love succeeding.

Speaking of succeeding, I put Bronwyn in the pond yesterday and over a tarp and she never hesitated or blinked an eye, just blindly trusted that I was not putting her in any danger. She's so smart and levelheaded!

Friday, June 20, 2008

Back when I knew it all...

I'm not very happy with work right now. I had Tuesday and Wednesday off, and then I went in for work Thursday... they told me I had Friday and Saturday off and they didn't know if I had to come in for work on Sunday or not. That means I will have had 3 days on in this week (from Saturday to Saturday), which is... really not cool. I am pretty sure this was advertised as a "full time" job. That said, some days when it is slow, two servers shut down their rooms and go home early, giving us about 4 hours instead of 6 (which is all we get per day anyways)... so this next paycheque is not going to be pretty, I don't reckon. They cut a couple of shifts off of me because there is a girl that they hired for the summer but that can't come to work because she has to do Co Op for school but they want to give her a few shifts so she can come back to work for the Christmas dinners. So kind of ticked off, but I have been told that things will change after the Canada Day weekend and be back up to snuff hourswise plus we'll be making something like 40-50$ per day in tips.

Other than that, as a followup to my not so gracious last post about being envious of others, I should say that yes, I do actually have a very blessed life - just blessed differently - I have a great, supportive family, a steady roof over my head, a novel with some professional interest in it, horses that make me happy from day to day... do I really have room for a family in there? Maybe not?

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Envy...

The night before last, I really hoped my Australian boy would come back to my dreams, but alas, he stayed away and I dreamt about work, instead. Specifically about being laid off at the Inn and going back to the Nackawic call center for a few months, which therefore made that dream a nightmare. I even laid in bed before I fell asleep thinking about the envisionment of said blonde Australian... alas, no.

Peter called Ann at work yesterday to tell her that they had found Joe, one of the correspondants from Orlando, dead in his condo over the weekend. He was only 34, but I suspect he lived an exceptionally extravagant lifestyle and that may have been his undoing. I really enjoyed Joe and especially loved his visits - he was friendly and sweet... and once, Peter told him that donair meat was horsemeat and I was present to see his face melt into the most disgusted expression I have ever seen. He then waltzed over to me, knowing that I have horses, and asked "Is donair meat really made of horse?", and then I told him no, and he was relieved, but it took some convincing for him to settle down.

I hate the mood that I am in as a result of that stupid dream about the Australian. It makes me moody. It's no secret that my maternal instinct has been going really haywire for the last year and all I want to do is get married and make babies and be a wifey who makes boxes of cookies for the neighbors and dinner parties in her home... alas, for three years, I have been completely void of the potential man to make that instinct realize itself.

It just gets worse when I see people that I don't like getting all those things - married, having babies, etc. I have serious family envy. Don't get me wrong - someone like Tiffany, I am over the moon thrilled for - I'm not envious of her at all, but when I see people that I dislike or who treated me wrong in school getting married, having babies, getting on with their lives, I think to myself - I am a much nicer/more honest/better person than them, I deserve that way more than they do!

I am still holding out hope to meet someone at work, maybe? LOL There were a couple of cute young Irish boys in yesterday, but with their grandparents and father, and maybe a little too young, not MAN enough... Then there is a cute boy in the theatre department that I gave gingerbread to - he is cute but I've heard he's a manwhore. I just can't win!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

I'm weak in the knees for you...

I wiped out outside of the reception hall yesterday and at first I thought I hurt my ankle and turned it over (same ankle that I sprained back in November), but when I got up this morning, the muscle on the inside of my leg right above my knee felt genuinely "tweaked". Oi!

I had a strange dream last night about a blonde Australian guy. Apparently, in the dream, if I recall correctly, he was just in this boarding house we lived in that was old (like King's Landing old). Then a tornado came along and tore off part of the roof so we had to decide to move out, and decided to move to somewhere near the water. When I have dreams about a beach, it's always the same beach - there are about 40ft sheer rock cliffs framing a little bay, about twenty feet of sand and then a kind of bay area that always has killer whales in it, sometimes dolphins also - it is fed (or feeds into) a narrow river where the orcas sometimes go as well. Anyways, we decided to move into these little tents and hovels on the beach and he decided to move in with me, and the most poignant scene of the dream, where it is usually the beach and seeing the whales, was us standing and embracing for quite some time...

Which made me realize that it's been some time since someone besides my family hugged or touched me and I think that is what I feel the worst about about being single -- I don't even know if I want a relationship, but I do want that physical touch. Bah, it must just be the weddings and stuff going on lately that's got me feeling weird.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Today...

I was an official wedding photographer.



Jill of all trades, mistress of none. :(

Thursday, June 12, 2008

You got me begging you for mercy...

Submissions: 46 Rejections: 18 Requests: 1


I am not letting myself get too excited over the request for five pages of manuscript - I think my novel has to be read in it's entirety to be appreciated, but this is at least a start. The fact that this agent has requested more after my query letter means they think it's worth a read, and they're not going to be the only ones that do!

I was starting to get a little bit discouraged. It's just disheartening to send out so many and get so many flat out no's without requests for more material. It's all good, though - this email has given me the encouragement I need to push on and continue. SOMEONE out there wants this book, SOMEONE out there will think it's worth publishing, and hopefully, lots of SOMEONES will buy it. I don't expect to get rich and famous but once you've been published, it's easier to sell other books to agents.

Work is going alright - we had a tour group where I handled 21 who all sat at the same time. I worked myself into a tizzy because I wrote down the orders in the wrong order and then was having trouble reading them but things worked out fine in the end - I did the best I could and no one was upset or angry and that is what counts best. I only got $11 in tips, though, and that was all I did all day, so kind of a write off and a piss off, but I'll get over it.

Today I get a room with tables (yay) instead of the tour, so hopefully I will garner some more there. The girls were asking me yesterday if I was making more here than at my first call center job and I had to think about it - if you calculate the benefits in, no.. then they said I hadn't seen the July/August tips you garner, so I wasn't convinced yet, but I would be. (Yay!)

Anyways, off to work today and tomorrow and then I have Saturday off for Nicole's wedding where I'm taking pictures. Hopefully I don't mess that up majorly.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Finally taking a breather and musings on happiness!

I had a day off today and I really needed it. After working in the kitchen at the family restaurant on Friday (I made chowder and it was good!), we opened our restaurant (and the site) on Saturday. I went in at 10:30 to prep, then we had two groups totalling approximately 125 people in for an evening function. I left the restaurant at 10:30pm - so 12 hours and 105$ in tips later... I felt okay, but my legs felt like they were falling off. Sunday, I worked regular restaurant hours (got out by 4:30), but the damage to my feet is already done. My big toe on my left foot is quite numb and sore and I am thinking possibly permanent damage since my shoes aren't big enough for both my feet and the insoles I put in them despite buying them a size too big on purpose. Saturday, I sweated off 3lbs. Sunday I sweated off 2. I am down a total of 10lbs, putting me exactly where I was (because I had gained ten back after losing 30 total) the summer right before Angel died.

This is kind of a coincidence because the other day, I was reading an old journal/diary from that summer... and I read the report that I was, at that snapshot in time, the happiest I could remember ever being - losing weight, spending some great time with a fantastic and talented horse, and feeling good about myself. All of that crumbled in August of that year and "Wake Me Up When September Ends" became my theme song. I put on the 10lbs, I felt miserable, and I never felt "really" happy again until this spring when I felt something start coming on that I couldn't explain.

Last week, I put my finger on it. I am, once again, losing weight and working with an immensely talented horse and having a great time. My parents gave me so much grief over Bronwyn when I first got her, and mom still is tempted to. I tried to explain to her that while I love Ari and Rex, B makes me happy... like Angel used to. She didn't understand and didn't want to really hear it. I love my mom but she makes up her mind about things and it's damn near impossible to change them.

My dad on the other hand, completely "gets it". Shay told me that he said to her that he wished I would find a boyfriend. He said he'd just like to see me happy and having a good time - I have been so busy and cloistered on the farm, he wants to see me making time for myself and having fun. Then I told him that while I understood that he and mom never felt so hot about Bronwyn, she made me happy the way that Angel did. He said to me - "I knew that on that day this spring when you got on her for the first time and I could see that she trusted you and you trusted her. I haven't questioned her presence on the farm since. In fact, I'd like to have a dozen more like her." Even though I was already feeling a little bit soppy in the eyes, that sealed the deal. To think that when I was 16-17, I was planning on running away just because of this man, and to see how far we have come since then also makes me immensely happy.

I even got a rejection today from the one agency that I really really WANTED to take my book and it's not really phasing me because this realization is eclipsing everything else.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Blargh.

Submissions: 46 Rejections: 11 Requests: 0


I upped the ante a little bit this morning so it didn't seem so sad having so many rejections to so few submissions. Go me.

This sickness has come on funny - one major symptom seems to present itself each day and make a general nuisance of itself before backing off and letting another take the main stage.

For example, Saturday when I began to feel ill, it was just a small tickle in my throat - Sunday, it was a full blown, so-sore-I-only-ate-ice-cream sore throat. Monday, it backed off and I was seriously fatigued - like, absolutely no energy what-so-ever. Tuesday, the fatigue backed off and I developed a disgusting cough that wouldn't leave me alone, and finally today... the cough is mostly gone but a stuffy nose is on the menu. I am hoping this means that I will have run the gammut of the entire sickness prior to opening day on Saturday when I will likely be working a double shift. I hope.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

And then the lobster came and ate me.

I have to redo a submissions/rejections count because I have had a few more responses and am up to like 35 submissions now. It does get depressing getting rejections (I think I am up to like 10 now), but I know all it can take is one "yes" and I have it. It's just hard to keep thinking positive, and then I worry that I will run out of listings on Agent Query to query to... Ahhh! I am starting to get some stress. Someone needs to at least request a partial manuscript submission so I can get a confidence boost.

Primarily, I called in sick yesterday in the morning. I was pretty tired after stressing all night about the horses and being sick, so I called S and told her I didn't know if I would be in shape to work. She didn't seem too upset. I took some serious meds and put myself to bed for about four hours and when I woke up, had something to eat, took a shower and felt a lot better. I called the Inn back and John asked S if she could still use me - she said "Bring it on!".

In retrospect, it took a lot out of me and possibly delayed my healing, but I'm glad I got out there - if not for the experience, then for the $90 in tips I earned. :) There was a moment, when I was sitting on the porch in the courtyard in the dark, listening to our guests leaving and taking a quick breather before we started tearing things down that I thought to myself that I really enjoy the job and I think I will do fine all summer, despite having my doubts left right and center almost constantly since I got hired.

The group last night, overall, was really fun. Quite a few attractive younger men, friendly older men and some really good tippers (I got an $11 tip on a $28 bottle of wine!). This is so silly but sometimes I almost feel sexy in my floor length, chin height, elbow length sleeved dress and my daycap, lol. Though sometimes I do wish it was a 1700's style dress instead of an 1800's when Victoria made everyone modest.

I am getting a seriously runny nose now, though... it's so not good.

Monday, June 2, 2008

There are some real crazies out there!

Submissions: 22 Rejections: 7 Requests:0


I am really sick now. I feel terrible and I didn't get much sleep last night. It's "just" a cough and a sore throat but having never worked in the food service industry before, I don't know what's "too sick". I also feel bad because S really scrounged to find enough servers for this event and the tips are a guaranteed 15%.

We got a really disturbing phone call last night. Five years ago, we had a severely aggressive (dog and people) american bulldog dumped on us to "dispose of". We told the kids who used to own him that we sent him to live at a junkyard and he ran out in front of a car and got hit (when they started talking about going to visit him). We did away with the dog because we weren't going to put our name on a dog like that out in public. I guess my cousin (17), one of the kids, overheard another cousin talking about disposing of the dog with my dad. His sister (19 or so) called here and politely asked what had happened to the dog. We stuck with the junkyard story until the 17 year old called back about five minutes later, screaming and swearing and making threats against the horses ("Maybe you'd like to have some of your horses's throats slashed!", etc), calling names, etc.

We haven't seen this kid in three or four years and as a younger child, he had absolutely no regard for animal life so we don't know what he could or would do... we called the RCMP and filed an official report of the threat - just in case. I didn't sleep well last night and probably won't all week, but I doubt anything will happen - and if it does, the RCMP knows the first place to look. We also clarified what, exactly, someone is allowed to do to protect their personal property.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Getting caught up... and sick!

Submissions: 22 Rejections: 6 Requests: 0


We served our second group on Friday, also a group of UK tourists. They were sweet and very understanding. Things don't feel as forced and difficult as they did on Wednesday, in fact I was a whiz with taking orders and getting the main course and beverages out, but when it came to clearing tables, getting desserts out and getting the bill out, things slowed down and gummed up a little bit for me. I did learn not to write my order out side to side because when I start writing the bill, things get confused, so from now on I'll just write it up and down. The end. Things will be easier next time.

Speaking of next time, our next planned dinner is a 120 seat lobster dinner on Monday night. I am starting to come down with an icky cold, I hope I can serve at it because the tips will be killer as everything has already had a 15% tip billed into it. Yippee!

After that, I am not sure what we'll be doing all next week. We've got all the cleaning done and on Thursday, there was so little for us to do that we all took turns running the power floor buffer thing and watching each other slip and slide around the degreased floor and hoping someone would fall and laughing our butts off (note, our supervisor commenced this activity!). They sent us home right after the dinner on Friday... so yeah, I have no idea if I'll be working next week or not, but I probably need to rest up for opening day when I will probably have to do a 14 hour shift. Joy.

Last night, I went to Tiffany and Jamie's for her little housewarming party. For a while, it was just Katrina and Dusty and I there, then they left to go and watch a game, and Tiffany and I went back to Fredericton to pick up Kyle, who had already started drinking. He was the only one really drinking (though Jamie had a few), but it was so nice to visit with these people, some of whom I haven't seen in like two years (I think Kyle and I decided we hadn't seen each other since I had Becca and Kylie here, and it's definitely been longer than that since I saw Tiffany!). Anyways, we all fell back in and chatted like nothing had ever left off and I can definitely see myself coming to visit Tiffany more often - it's a shame gas is so expensive or I would be there all the friggin' time! She has a nice little place and it's in a nice spot - not TOO far from everything, but far enough away that you're not raising a kid on the sidewalks.

I just hope this stupid sickness doesn't knock me out for the dinner Monday!