My weekend started Wednesday, how about yours?

Sorry I haven’t posted much. I’ve had a busy week. On Wednesday I went to happy hour, which turned into much more. We all met up at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. It’s been here for a little while. Besides the hotel and casino, there is an outdoor part with shops, restaurants, and clubs. That’s where we usually go. When I got to the restaurant that we had agreed on, my ex-boss was there with a guy visiting that I didn’t know. He proceeded to tell me how he missed me around the office and tried to guilt me yet again, but I didn’t let it phase me. Soon some other people arrived. For the first 10 minutes after each person arrived, I heard “so, what are you doing with your time? Are you happy? How is everything?” After everyone got that out of their systems, we were fine. We had drinks at the first place, then went to another restaurant to have dinner. After dinner, most people left. A few of us met up with another friend at another bar there. It was kind of interesting because they had this speed dating set up. Ummm, yeah, I’m never doing that, so don’t even ask! We had a few drinks there and I was so tired. I was really ready to go. To get back to the parking garage, you have to walk back through the casino. So we headed that way. There were 3 of us, one guy, a girl and myself. Well, as we walked from the bar to the casino, the girl started acting strangely. She was fine at the bar. All of a sudden, she was silly and a slurring her words a little. Even thought I was tired, we decided to stick around for a while because we knew that she couldn’t drive. She wanted to gamble and drink more. We cut off the drinking and gambled a little bit to try to waste some time. Then we suggested coffee, but she wasn’t having any of that. To distract her, the guy suggested we head out to the pool area. The pool at the hard rock is set up like a beach/Laguna type area. There are sand and fake rocks, and waterfalls. There is also a bar out there, but luckily it was closing when we got out there. So, we went around to the opposite side of the pool, where there were less people and chilled on the lounge chairs for a while. Now the girl was still talking a bit crazy. She got the brilliant idea that we should all get in the pool. Ummm, no. She tried to convince us for a while. So, I took off my shoes and stood in the shallow area to shut her up. Well, that was a BAD idea. In fact, the guy blames me for what happened next. After instructing him to cover his eyes, the girl proceeded to take off ALL of her cloths and get in the pool! Did I mention that randomly, people were walking by the pool! I couldn’t believe it. I have been out with her before when she is drunk and she has never done anything like this. That and the fact that she was fine one second and crazy the next made me think she had taken something or someone slipped something in her drink. So I texted the guy we left at the bar. He just gave her 2 rum and cokes. She should have been fine. So, I managed to get her out of the pool and get her cloths on her (even though I had to fight her to put her pants on!) We got her shoes on her and were getting ready to go when she decided to run back into the pool. She was sopping wet when she came out again. Our friend from the bar came and met us by the pool. He wanted to make sure we were all ok. So, my girlfriend tried to get all of us to get in the pool. No one would go in with her. She got in about up to the knee and wouldn’t come out. Our friend from the bar was like “Don’t make me tackle you in the pool.” So she started in on him “What? Whatcha gonna do, huh? Nothing! You aren’t gonna do a damn thing!” He quietly emptied his pockets and tackled her. It was so funny. Of course then they discovered the water slide. So they are drunk, sopping wet in their cloths, and coming down a water slide. That is when security came by to tell us that the pool was closed. He was walking around the other side of the pool when my girlfriend ran after him and grabbed his arm. We were too far away to hear what she said but the guy who had been observing all of this with me just said “Oh my god, she is accosting him! Can I be deported for this?” LOL! After one more ride down the slide, we sat her down and got her shoes back on her. Did I mention that they were gold strappy heals with that stupid ankle buckle that is had to do when you are sober? So, we got them on her, she had one arm around my shoulders and the other sopping wet guy was holding her up on the other side. As we walked back through the casino, people were staring at us like we were green with red spots. She kept slipping and almost falling. We got her outside and into my car. I drove the boys to their cars and took her home. On the way she was like “Are we going to my car? I can drive.” Only it was more like “Are we go-wing too my caaaar? I can dwive.” No you can’t! I got her home and inside. On my drive home she called me because she didn’t know where her car was and wanted to go get it. I told her to go to bed and call me in the morning. At about 2:30/3am, I get another phone call. She had a fight with her boyfriend and was like “I don’t even have my car to go for a drive.” I told her she shouldn’t be driving upset anyway and to try to get some rest. Needless to say she didn’t make it to work the next day and didn’t remember what had happened the night before. I went and picked her up at about 2:30/3pm and we went to get her car and have some breakfast. By the time we finished eating, I had to head off to work.

Work was good Thursday. We did food tastings. Now I NEVER eat before going to work. I’m usually starving. How come the one day I ate, we have food tastings? I ate so much that I thought I was going to die! We had salads and quesadillas. They were really good! The steak on the salad and in the quesadilla was soooo good. We also had more wine. I left my wine list at work, so I can’t tell you which ones we had right now. I’ll tell you later.

Friday we got in the wine shipments. There were somewhere between 250 and 300 cases of wine delivered. So, I went into work early to help unpack. I figured it would help me become familiar with their names, categories, and locations in the retail side. From 2pm to 2am, minus a short 2 hour break for training which included food tastings again, I carried boxes and stacked bottles. It was like doing squats for 8 hours because I was putting most of the ones on the bottom shelves away. I was so sore yesterday that it hurt to move. The advantage of staying late is that a) we were getting paid for it and b) to thank us they cracked open a couple of the 10 grapes for us to have. Those are the expensive red wines. There was a malbec that was soooo good. I’ll have to remember the name of it to tell ya’ll about it later. We had some of the spreads and the pisas. The smoked salmon pisa was my favorite. I didn’t really think I’d like it that much, but it was excellent. The hummus and spinach and bacon dips were both good too.


Yesterday, we had to add medallions to all of the wines (little labels with a description and price on one bottle) and unpack some more boxes. We did some more training and ate some more food too. It was the appetizers. The lamb chops, crab cakes and chicken & Portobello quiche were all very good. We also had deserts! The Le Chocolate was so good! It’s a chocolate shell with flourless chocolate cake and chocolate moose in it, with butter toffee, caramel, and strawberry sauce. They also have a really good blackberry jasmine green ice tea. Yummy!

Today we are supposed to have the day off, but they need some people to help set up the restaurant for friends and family day on Monday. I have had the hardest time trying to find friends and family to come in! I am working lunch and most people I know are too far to come for lunch. Anyone in the area want to come in for some wine and food? One of the bartenders and servers are roommates and they are having a cookout today. I’ll probably stop by work for a bit then head on over there for a while. Hey, a girl’s gotta eat…