The storm is coming. It's all dark and rainy. I haven't taken the doggie door out yet because of the giant lizard that was out there earlier. I know, I'm a wimp.

How come I didn’t know there was a hurricane coming until this morning? I was talking to an ex-co-worker this morning and they mentioned the storm. Oops. I guess I’d better keep up on the news more often.

My friend’s new restaurant opening was delayed. We were supposed to be opened tomorrow, but it’s looking more like Thursday or even Friday. I say we because I’ll be working for her sometimes for lunch. It’s a Mexican place right on the beach. The chef made me chicken nachos the other day and they were awesome. Today she did all things shrimp, burrito, taco, quesadilla, salad, and nachos. We were going to have chicken but she didn’t want to thaw it out seeing as we may not be open for a few days. She also made a really good bean burrito and 4 different kinds of salsa. Mmmmmm! Did I mention that they make their own chips too?

Sunday I had brunch with a few girlfriends. Imagine 7 black women sitting in a room discussing politics, men, hair, food… It was a lot of fun. We had some mimosas along with a ton of food. Everyone brought something, so there was more than enough to go around. I think the menu included pancakes, cheesy hash browns, grits, smoked turkey sausage, guava pastries, pound cake, carrot cake, strawberry short cake, and banana nut muffins. I think there were a couple of other items that have slipped my mind. Needless to say, lots of doggie bags were passed around. This was before I had to go to work. I realize that mimosas make the work day go much better!

I HAVE to tell you what happened at work tonight. It was completely dead because of the possible approaching storm. In fact, I didn’t have a single table tonight and we closed 3 hours early! Before we closed, a couple came in. I was in the back when they walked in and they were asking the bartender about wines. They had been in before, but couldn’t remember what they had. As soon as the guy saw me he was like “Hi again! Do you remember what I was drinking last time?” I love it when people ask me that. Ummm, there are 160 wines and I’ve seen hundreds of people since they were last in. They should be happy that I recognize their faces! Anyway, he is looking at the retail side which is about 50% cheaper to buy a bottle than the wine bar side. I know, 2 prices, but you really pay for me to open the bottle and continuously pour it for you all night long along with the ambiance. Nice huh? Service is everything… Anyway, He sees one wine that is supposed to be really good that retails for $150, but costs $300 to drink in the restaurant. He wants to buy it, but he wants it for the retail price. When I tell him he can’t open it in the store/bar if he pays retail he tells me he’ll pour me a glass if I let him. As tempted as I was to try this wine, I said no like a good girl. The other servers says “Now, if you pour us (me, him, and bartender) all a glass, that’s a different story.” Why does dude say ok??? I asked the AM who was in the back office and he basically said no, like I knew he would. If we did it this time, this guy would want to do it every time he came in. When I told the guy again that I couldn’t let him open it, the other server went to ask AM. He came back and opened the bottle for the guy. I guess AM had a change of heart. True to his word, this guy poured 5 glasses of wine. One for him and his girlfriend and 3 for us! It was damn good wine. We actually realized that we should give some to AM since he agreed to break the rules, so we (the employees and even the guy!) poured some of our wine into another glass for him. He came out of the office to thank the guy. After talking for a while and finishing our expensive wine, this guy is talking to AM about how it can’t be that hard for the people who decide on what blends to create and how it must be a good job. FYI, lots of wines are not made with a single grape type. They actually mix certain percentages of the different grapes together to get the flavor they want. AM tells this guy, “Well, you never know unless you try it.” So this man says ok. He buys 4 bottles of wine, the cheapest one being $30 retail. He gets a cabernet, a merlot, a syrah, and a malbec. Then, he proceeds to tell me how he wants it blended together… 5% of this, 15% of that, basically doing his own thing. I just said to him “You don’t want to taste them first??” So I poured him a couple of sips and then he revised his percentages. I must admit, this was for totally selfish reasons! I had never tasted 2 of these wines because they were damn expensive and no one had ever ordered just a glass. So, when I poured him a little taste, I got a little sip in for myself too. LOL! Anyway, after blending them the way he wanted, we tried it and it wasn’t bad. This time he was pouring glasses for the 3 employees, AM, and him and his girlfriend. After drinking his batch, he asked the AM to try to create a blend of his own. You should have seen his face. “No, I don’t’ want to screw up the wines!” He eventually did it and the guy liked it better than his own blend. Then he had me mix a batch too. They like that too, but after all that wine, I think anything would be good in their eyes. After chatting for a long time and drinking a lot, they still had some wine left. I corked it and packed it up for them to take home. After all, we couldn’t drink all of the nearly $500 in wines they bought.

WHAT??

Ok, has anyone heard about the new Survivor? I am sitting on my couch watching BET News and they are doing a story on the next installment of Survivor. Now I haven't watched this in years, but I may have to tune in this season. You know how last season they did 4 teams instead of two? Well, they are doing that again, but instead of being seperated by age and sex, they are seperating them by racial groups! That's right. There is a black team, white team, asian team, and a latin team. Can you see trouble on the horizon?

Ya’ll are never going to believe what happened. So, I mentioned last post how I was getting a roommate, right? Well, I called my real estate agent and told him I wanted to take the house off the market. He was cool with it and said he would take it off the MLS right away. A few hours later he calls again. “You are never going to believe who called me. Remember last week when I brought some people by last minute? Well, they want to see your place again.” Huh? You gotta be kidding me. Why do these things happen when I finally make a decision? So, he is bringing them by tonight. They will make an offer within 24 hours if they want it. So, by tomorrow I’ll know if my house is sold, or if it’s off the market and I’ll have a roommate. If it is sold, I’ll have to call my roommate and let her know that she can be my roommate in an apartment if she still wants to.

Last night my friend and I went to this other wine place. It’s more of a retail store and tasting room. They have these machines set up that dispense one ounce portions of wine. We wandered around and recognized a bunch of wines that we carry at our wine bar and a few that we wish we carried. We tasted a bunch of different wines and met one of the owners and he kept giving us other wines to try. We really had a great time. Unfortunally they close at 8pm and don’t have any food or anything, so we went to our wine bar for something to eat and more wine.

I know I’ve been lax on my posting, but I’ve been all busy lately. I did three doubles over the last week and I’m still exhausted! This post may be a bit rambly and all over the place, but oh well.

What is it with men grabbing my butt? In the last few days there have been men grabbing me lately. What? Is there a sign on my ass that I don’t know about that says “touch me please!”? Today a guy came in who has been in once before. I instantly recognized him and said “Welcome back!” as I always do. I wasn’t worried about busting him like I did the other guy because he was soooo obviously gay… or so I though anyway. That was before he got a bit drunk and grabbed my ass! He was happily drinking and he decided grabbed me around the waist, and kissed my cheek, and laid his hand directly on my ass. Hello! Strangely enough I wasn’t thinking “What the hell is his hand doing on my ass!” Instead I was thinking “I though you were gay!” Granted he was drunk at the time. A few days ago some other guy tried to grab my ass too. I don’t know what’s up with that. Something strange happened with one of the cooks too. He asked me out. I guess that’s not so strange except for the fact that he is a Late 40’s white man that I have absolutely nothing in common with. Lovely huh? It couldn’t have been the hot Argentinean chef hitting on me. And all the butt grabbing… not by anyone I would like to be grabbed by.

Mommy and Daddy are going back to Callie! They went back home and saw the house and neighborhood. They decided that they needed to go back even if it’s only to fix up the house and then sell it right way. Either way, I’m planning a trip. Can one of ya’ll pick me up in LA?

My trip planning is going well. So far, the plan is to go to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Strangely enough, I met two guys at the wine bar today who live in Hong Kong. One is from Scotland and the other is from Spain. They both work in Hong Kong and were here for business. They were telling me all about all of the above named countries. I got some great recommendations, travel tips, and all around general information. I can’t wait to go! Plus, on the way, I’ll stop in Seattle and see my niece.

Tonight I’m supposed to meet with a friend for a few drinks. That usually ends up being out all night long. I have to try to be good because tomorrow I am supposed to go to happy hour with a few friends from my old job. It was one girl’s birthday, so we are going out for ladies night. It should be fun!

I have a roommate! Ok, my friend works for the city. They have grad student interns that come every year for about 9 months. One is moving down from Boston, so she needs a place to stay. I figure I can deal with a roommate for 9 months. I just took the house off the market, since nothing is selling anyway, and I’ll put it back on in about 9 months time. She is my age, did a major career change like me, and seems like a nice girl. Single, no kids, home owner and loves to cook and travel like me. I think this will work out nicely.

I've been found!

Did I ever tell you about the Assistant Manager from my job? He’s this really hot young Italian Guy. I mean, I can hardly contain myself at work most days… Oh, and he just found my blog the other day because he was looking up some of our wines that I happened to mention. Hi Carlo!

So the AM walks up to me today at work and says that he found my blog. The first thought in my head it “Shit! What have I been writing about lately? Anything bad?” Of course, I never write anything that I wouldn’t say to someone anyway, but still. That makes, what, 4 people that actually know me that know about this blog. That’s not too bad considering lots of people should be able to figure it out. How many mixed girls do you know that live here and work in the area I work? I’m really not trying to hide it, I’m just not telling anyone. Oh wait, I am hiding it from my Sis. She’d KILL me if she knew I a) had a blog and b) posted a picture of her daughter!

Enough about that. I’m getting my South East Asia trip all together. Lee and I have finally got the dates that we can go. Her family is all excited about it too. If her parents are there during Christmas, we are going to spend it with them. They usually go to Mexico and have invited me there a couple of times. Maybe next year I’ll spend my Christmas having margaritas with them. We have decided to fly into Manila, Philippines then take short trips to Thailand and either Cambodia or Vietnam. We still haven’t decided whether or not to go to Cambodia or Vietnam. On the way, I am going to try to visit my family. I want to see my niece while I’m on the west coast. My dad pulled a picture of me out of his wallet the other day (don’t know why he had one!) and asked my niece who it was. She said “SP Obachan (Aunt in Japanese).” Isn’t she cute?!?

I deserve my days off!

Work’s been weird lately. Today started with me being late because I was watching FOL2. My girlfriend sent me a text today telling me that we couldn't be friends anymore. When I asked why she was like "Because of you I watched FOL2 last night. And if that weren't bad enougth I couldn't even call you to talk about it since you were working!" That's when I knew I had to watch it even if it made me a little late. Shawn and HC, I thought of you two the whole time. Today I had a customer hit on me the entire time he was at the wine bar. He was with his sister and her husband. They ordered a bottle of wine and I was filling their glasses. As I was pouring, they were like “She’s cute. What about her? I like her.” Ummm, how you gonna talk about me like I’m not standing RIGHT THERE!! And a few days ago I had to go off on a co-worker. He felt the need to smack me on the ass! That may be ok with the other girls, but that is NOT cool with me. I know in the restaurant industry certain things that would normally get you fired at a job are a little bit more acceptable but I draw the line at touching me. I’m a forgive and forget kinda girl so we are cool now, but he knows better. Saturday the assistant manager was all stressed and was really in a pissy mood. So while we were closing up, we chatted for a while. So much happened that day that it all just got to him. A couple of the girls got into a little argument, some of the guys were bitching about paychecks and who got more tables than who, and some chick passed out in the door way. Ok, I don’t know what exactly happened, but I look over and this girl is knocked out lying in the door way. Her boyfriend was like “Oh, this happens all the time. She just blacks out sometimes. It’s no big deal.” I just wanted to say to him “THAT’S NOT NORMAL!” I think she was diabetic and had been drinking. Oh, and did I mention she was under aged? Don’t worry, she wasn’t drinking with us. She had been somewhere else and was trying to come into our place when she passed out. There was an ambulance and fire truck and whatnot. Did I mention that I love firemen? ;o) Oh, and I almost forgot. One of the chefs that constantly hits on me quit. He(Creepy Chef) always stares at my chest and really makes me uncomfortable. Plus, he stands right where I have to brush past him to put the dishes away in the kitchen. Another chef was asking me if I was going to miss Creepy Chef today and I just smiled and walked out of the kitchen. So, I have two days off. What shall I do? Sleep I think!

My friend called me really upset the other day. She just found out she has herpes and was freaking out. I didn’t know what to say or to do to calm her down. What can I say? Apparently it’s normal for people to go through depression, suicidal tendencies, isolation. You wonder who you got it from, do they know they have it, did you give it to anyone… I wish there was a way that I could help her. I wish I lived closer so that I could just give her a hug when she is feeling down.