littlelotte

I am now a certified FSP (Food Safety Professional ha) through the National Registry of Food Certified Professionals. I got a 93 on the exam, too :-D The stupid 15 hour study program could have been condensed into about 2-5, though :-P

Also, I'm finally taking advantage of my restaurant manager status to get free subscriptions to industry magazines :-D In my search I found a USA Today article from yesterday...

Dining Out as Art?
Who moved my cheese? And my soup?;
'Dark dining' deprives one sense to feed the others
Jerry Shriver

If candlelit dinners no longer spark your senses, then consider upping the ante by attending one of the "dark dining" events that are catching on at U.S. restaurants.

Eating a multi-course meal while blindfolded or in a blacked-out room has become one of the most popular offshoots of the European-based experimental cuisine movement, in which basic elements of cooking and dining are deconstructed and tweaked to create new sensory experiences. And with the arrival of the lights-out concept here, entrepreneurs have given it a distinctive spin by adding American comfort food and performing artists to the mix.

"The idea is to offer a unique dining experience that touches people and opens their understanding of a universe that we often neglect," says Benjamin Uphues, head of Opaque-Dining in the Dark (darkdining.com), which stages dinners for 50 customers on Fridays and Saturdays at California's Hyatt West Hollywood hotel.

Wild.

Tonight was my last night at the Kalamazoo CiP. I report for work in Sterling on Monday afternoon.

I'm going to be smelling whipped cream and wiping it out of my ear for the next week.

Apparently, this is how it went down...
Nick to Derrick: So, tonight's Lindsay's last night. We should get her.
Derrick: I think CJ and I can arrange that.
Some point later: *CJ onstage giving Lindsay a farewell from the restaurant*
Nick: *sneaking up on bar behind Lindsay with a salad togo container filled with whipped cream*

He was silly enough to leave it stuck to my face, and as Derrick put it to me later, "The best part was that you had the presence of mind to pull it off and get him after he got you."

I really wish I had a picture.

Reference for me...

http://columbus.craigslist.org/sub/291061378.html
http://columbus.craigslist.org/sub/294543347.html
http://columbus.craigslist.org/sub/293246539.html
http://columbus.craigslist.org/sub/290181348.html
http://columbus.craigslist.org/sub/288228564.html

Also, now that he's made the announcement public...

Congratulations clearmind on your new job with Telltale Games! I'm indescribably proud of you :-)

Because I swear that half my f'list has one of these counters...


Crush this person!
Get your own ThisCrush.com CrushTag!

Got to see amneria with madbillyblack yesterday! This weather can't pick anything, and yesterday it was terrible and snowy and so freaking cold. Will and I spun out on 31 at about 12:45am on our way home. Thankfully, there were no cars in the road. I love how incidents like this don't even affect me. I'm just kind of "hm...okay." about it all. (now this will prove if Dan even bothers reading my LJ anymore...lol I haven't said anything to him about it yet)

Also, the JVP emailed me. He'll be in town next M-W. He said we'll "talk about the plan in detail" then. One week and I know what's going to become of me. Three weeks and I'll be done with my training. I'm scared and excited.

Okay...I have a very busy day ahead, so I should probably jump into the shower. I already paid bills, I have to get my oil changed this morning, I want to get lunch at Sushiya, I want to finish my Legal Issues training book and start my other one, and I would like to maybe do a bit of shopping.

LOREENA MCKENNITT IS COMING TO KALAMAZOO!!!

http://community.livejournal.com/quinlan_road/31185.html?view=115153#t115153

This just made my day from hell wonderful.

Not so much a day from hell, but when your kitchen manager passes out and gets carted away in an ambulance at roughly six-thirty in the morning and you're the closest thing to a manager left to create the prep lists (when you've never even worked in a kitchen before and you've seen her do it all of about twice, especially) and open the restaurant...it makes for an interesting day--and you know that wasn't the only thing that went wrong today that involved me. The past two weeks, in fact, have been terribly crazy and surreal. Next, a chunk of the moon is going to crash into the middle of our restaurant...and you think I'm joking. Just you wait and see...

I finished about a third of my first BYTE book last night ("Better Yourself Through Education"--a series created for OSI management to familiarize themselves with various things...topics include running meetings, legal issues important to restaurants (which is the one I have now), financial management, and other various business related things), and according to one of the other managers it's the longest/hardest to get through. I got through that much in two hours sitting at the coffee shop, so I'm not terribly concerned about finishing it before I'm out of MIT--in fact, at this rate I'll finish before I even start my training.

Dan's still asleep (he worked the overnight last night), and I'm kinda hungry, but he'll probably be up within an hour or two, so maybe I should just get a shower. We got about four inches of snow between 1am and 7am last night, and it still hasn't stopped. I haven't seen outside since 7:30 this morning, but I can see the snow still coming down outside my blinds. I told Dan when I picked him up that we should go for a walk and take some pictures of it today after he gets up. I really need to empty my camera...I really need to get my laptop fixed so I can use my own computer again, actually.


A "style" survey from entwined_in_ivy:

1. What *Era* Or *Period* Of Clothing Do You Feel Best Suits Your Looks And Personality? Why?
I really don't know. I've always loved the 50s poodle skirts and sweaters and always thought they'd look exceptionally good on me given my figure. I also really enjoy the lovely simplicity of the 40s-era dresses.

2. Have You Ever {Or Would You Ever} Worn Fantasy Or Historical Garb As Casual *Every Day* Clothing? Why Or Why Not?
No, but I wouldn't necessarily not, so long as it was tasteful and wasn't overbearing and matched what I felt like wearing. I more like modern fusion of historical pieces. For example, I have a lovely white collared top that is vaguely a corset top.

3. How Would You Describe Your Personal Style?
Classic. I'm big on tailored looks. I love pretty, but I also love professional. I love my collared and fitted more professional shirts, but I also adore my princess sleeves and frills--I especially love when the two can be combined. When I was in high school I told my mom that I wished I had the money to dress like Stevie Nicks. I love trailing sleeves and sheer overshirts and long, flowing skirts. Really, this post has pictures that rather perfectly describe what I love to wear most: http://littlelotte.livejournal.com/188166.html --minus the picture from work...lol

( the rest of the survey... )

The compliments I treasure most are those unintended...

I've been working very hard this past week at work to tie up loose ends: make sure all the invoices listed as unpaid on the statements actually have or have not been paid and get copies of those that I don't show as having been paid on my end, make sure all the folders I've cluttered with random papers over the past year are organized or tossed as appropriate, make sure that the messes others have made are fixed or cleaned up or appropriately organized, make sure terminations and addresses are up-to-date in the portal and the phone list is as up-to-date and correct as possible--basically, make sure everything is reasonably organized for the next person to take my place. I won't be around to answer questions like "What goes in this folder?" or "Is this form important?" about something momentarily unneccesary that still did eventually need to be done.

Nick was looking for paperwork regarding a large piece of equipment that we no longer needed and was sent on to the Tulsa, Oklahoma Carrabba's in November. The paperwork had nil to do with me, so I never touched it, but we thought that perhaps it may have been put in one of the boxes we fill with various paperwork each month (our way of loose-paper keeping). We dragged the boxes out of our back storage space and he was going through them trying to find them. They weren't in there, as I knew they wouldn't be (I personally organize and put everything from the previous month into those boxes on the first of every month), but then he called the company responsible for the move to try to find some information. When they were throwing names his way to try to identify as the person who organized the move I remembered that I'd written the person's name in a note in the manager's redbook, and I searched it out.

Now (as a preface of sorts, as if the above paragraph wasn't already one), completely opposite to how I am in my personal life, I'm really rather organized when it comes to work--or at least the part of things that I know other people will have to deal with. I have my own personal form of organization, but I know it's nothing that anybody else would ever understand, and so I'm able to organize those other things so other people can easily find what they need. I bunch up all of the DSR bundles and line check sets in big rubber bands so that they're not just loose, I binder clip all of the tipshare sheets and the labor reports and the Bar drawer/server tracking sheets seperately, I have the invoices separated into approriate categories, etc.

Well, Nick was going through the boxes and--almost under his breath and with a tinge of sadness or regret--said, "God but you're thorough! You're going to make somebody a great manager. I only wish it were me."

It's these things that nearly break my heart and make me wish I had a place right here. People find out that I'm going to become a manager and their face lights up for me and they're full of really genuinely nice and congragulatory things for me. I've never seen people so genuinely happy for me. People say things to the managers when I'm keying--both within and outside of my earshot--about how helpful I am and how good I am and thanking me profusely for simple things that I take it as my job to do (but too many others in charge, I realize, don't bother with) like greeting a table or taking a drink order and sometimes even half waiting on the table myself if the server really needs it. Somebody, a day or two after I found out about my test, had some really nice compliment for me while I was in the server alley and Nick was expoing. He made some comment about teaching me nearly everything he knows and not being able to teach me everything because--of course--then he'd have to kill me; and then, as an aside and with the knowledge that only himself, our JVP and me had, said, "Don't forget where you came from." I replied with a catch in my throat, "How could I ever forget?"

From the beginning he's painted himself as like our father--and the staff as a family of sorts--which of course it is. He really is like a father to me. Without this job and without his guidance and mentoring I'm not sure I'd ever have come to where I have--especially so quickly. I see it and hear it in these unguarded comments and the devastated look on his face when he found out I probably wouldn't be there much longer. He's really happy that I've grown into what I have with the company, but he's truly upset to see me go--someone he knows really and truly cares for the restaurant and everything that happens within it. I've sacrificed a fair amount for that restaurant, and he knows it. There are few places where a server can find a relationship with a restaurant like that. What does it say that we have multiple servers who were here at the very beginning who have since graduated and gotten salaried jobs and still make it a point to work there because they just love it that much?

I've babbled far more than I intended to, and kudos to any who actually made it to the end. I'm just feeling thoughtful and a touch melancholy tonight, and I've been thinking a lot about this stuff.

In completely other things, Loreena McKennitt's new album is really breathtaking. Certainly my favorite...

Here is my heart and I give it to you
Take me with you across this land
These are my dreams, so simple and few
Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands

--

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet
I see him walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should
A creature made of clay
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose
His wings at the dawning of the day.

I think this is the most passionate CD I've ever heard. It's heartbreaking and upbeat and just breathtaking.

Terribly introspective today, and wanting to spend the entirety of it reading and writing, and not wanting to go to work at all. Unfortunately, I have to work both places today. Damn. I actually did well downtown last night, though. I'm not used to making that much on a weeknight anywhere I've worked (save CiP the first couple of months we were open, and weekday volumes at the Brewery). I miss the Brewery. I look back and realize just how much money I made there--somewhere roundabout $400+ a week (though I did work ~42-45 hours a week there, and it was during the summer tourist season). I went back to school that year with an actual bank account...over $800 saved up (and I bought a LOT of stuff that summer--a three-in-one printer, a digital camera, clothes, ridiculous amounts of food from work and fast food joints, etc.). They closed for a couple of months recently. I imagine they're going through a shifting. Probably a new menu and some remodelling. I hope it picks back up for them once they reopen because it's really a fantastic restaurant with some fantastic microbrews. Dan and I were extremely depressed when we visited my parents when I picked my new car up and it was closed. I was very happy to hear it was only temporary.

Well, off I go to get ready for work now. Bah.

Somebody posted this in anthropologist and it still cracks me up even though I know better, especially because I remember when I first read the name in an article...

What kind of jeans do anthropologists wear?

Levi-Strauss!

My head is still pounding after three or four days. I hate being sick, especially when I'm working so much. I really don't want to work tonight. Also, itty-bitty slight developments on the work front (CiP side), but nothing that I really want to talk about as of now. We'll see. Fate leads us and works in curious ways...let's hope that I've got this leg of the path figured out correctly :-)

This photo deserved its own post. I was at work Thursday morning and saw this hanging on our communication board. The colors are rather off, as I edited it to make it as legible as possible. A ticket actually rung in at work on a lazy Sunday afternoon by a server I actually remember serving within our first couple months of being open (before she worked there), and who actually has always reminded me a bit of velvatier...