on a summer night, everything is alright

motel

mother

As I grow older I can see her in my movements, my hands and my restlessness.

My mother is always moving. She has to be doing something and staying stimulated. She enjoys change, adventure and anything that pleases the senses.

I owe a lot of who I am to her. At a young age my mother took me travelling, dragged me through museums, had me taste mussels and learn to prepare artichokes. She put me in French immersion and had me learn French. She packed up our family and moved to France for a year, where my love affair with the culture first began.

Without her I wouldn't know Virginia Woolf from Hemmingway. I wouldn't know what it was to see live in theatre in London or eat creme brulee in Paris. I wouldn't know how to appreciate a good stinky blue Roquefort cheese. Without her I might even think that it was inappropriate to dance on restaurant tables and howl along to country music, but she taught me otherwise.

My mother taught me to save money where you can so that you can enjoy life's greater pleasures. To stay in a hostel instead of a hotel and go out for an expensive dinner. She taught me that shopping sprees aren't worth it, but splurging on expensive underwear and shoes is.

I want to thank her for teaching me that I don't have to be good, to be the best, or to act like everyone else. She brought me up with care but gave me room to grow and be myself. Over the years she's become my best friend as much as my mother.

Happy Mother's Day mom, I love you.



Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

small town

What does a city girl do when she gets two days off from shaking martinis and seating and greeting the hungry crowds of a restaurant?

She goes to a small town, visits her grandparents, frequents antique shops, eats her grandmother's scones and drinks whiskey with her grandfather.

A breath of fresh small town air does this girl a lot of good.

soleil all over you

The sun is painting the city beautiful again, and every day it gets harder to stay inside.

the devil's martini

The sun is shining, my legs are bare, and life is being good to me. These days the theme is to work hard but play harder. And when the sun sets, the best way to celebrate is to get together with a friend and catch up over martinis.

When the bartender offers you drinks called Wild Sex or Guilty Pleasure, you smile and take both.

a side order of experience

I slide to the left of a man in a suit, seated at the round table, and set a fresh piece of fish with steamed soy sauce.

“Spasiba,” he says to me in a thick Russian accent, and I set the next plate in front of his severe looking wife.

In between courses, the four round tables are left as the Russians take to the dance floor to move to some heavy European beats.

In one interval, a woman with heavy eye shadow and cleavage pushing out of her skin tight dress moves around the dance floor with a microphone. She’s a guest, but she’s more than happy to show off her singing and seductions kills as she approaches different men belting out “Kiss me my daaarliinngg…” Every word coated in her thick accent.

In the back room I join the other servers and cooks. A young Mexican girl teaches me to gyrate my hips, making the other young Russian girls laugh.

“This is why Mexican girls have boyfriends. In Russia, we dance like strippers,” says Natasha, a brown haired beauty, as she mimics a Russian girl getting dirty on the dance floor.

With another catering job for wealthy Russians under my belt, I left with new friends, dance moves, and Russian vocabulary. Once everything was cleaned up and done, shots were poured, the city was ours, and a pounding vodka headache awoke me the next morning.

Nevertheless, I popped a Tylenol, slipped on a blouse and skirt, walked down to work, and seated the morning brunch crowd at my restaurant. My head stopped hurting, the customers were polite, and my roommate stopped by for some French toast with caramelized pears on the patio.

After work we lay in the park, before returning home for a vegetable feast of artichokes, sweet fried mushrooms, asparagus and cherry tomato salad, couscous and Gouda cheese. I fell asleep feeling like a queen, ready for my double shift as bartender the next day.

Back at the restaurant I whipped up blended coffee drinks for the staff, and shook up some martinis for customers. I even moved over to the pizza section, where the pizza cook taught me to put together a proscuitto pizza and use the giant pizza oven. Next I got my hands dirty hammering olives to be diced up.

I am finding enjoyment in my work. I crave travel and a vacation, but I have yet to earn one, so I’m seeking experience and excitement wherever I can find it.