Tag Archives: East Coast

I’m On A Boat!

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My family, living twenty minutes from the Chesapeake Bay, have never really been water people. People assume when I tell them that I am from Maryland that I have great sailing skills, or at least played water polo once or twice or something.

We don’t really do that here in Columbia…

I take that back. My family has owned a boat as long as I can remember. But it’s a canoe. And it’s been upside down in our backyard, probably the home to many squirrels and small animals, ever since I was about ten.

My dad used to take me fishing a lot in our canoe. I’d go digging for worms in our backyard and then we would go down to the reservoir with my Disney fishing rod. According to my father’s speech at my wedding, I always caught some pretty big fish. Insert joke about brad being a big fish here. Nice work, dad.

Anyway, so last year our super close family friends decided to get a really sweet boat and named it the Live, Love, Laugh in honor of their wonderful daughter who passed away a few years ago and how she lived her life.

 

It was absolutely the best idea ever for a couple reasons. First, because it is so peaceful out there and really just gives them (and whoever they invite to ride) a great place to relax and find peace. And second, as Brad said today, the only thing better than owning a boat is having friends who own a boat.

Since Brad and I live so far away and have managed to be away most of the past two summers, we insisted on testing out our sea legs today. We left my parents house armed with sweaters, jackets, hats… It was 61 degrees and we were going boating, dammit.

 

Captain Mike even took the day off of work to indulge us (thanks Mr. Mike). Everyone was put to work, especially brad who grew up on a lake and loves boating life.

Somehow I lucked out and just curled up under the only blanket on board and just took pictures. What can I say?  I am a wimp.

 

Oh, and my brother and sister in law got us a ukulele today for our wedding present.  Of course, Brad brought it along and serenaded us while we shivered.


 

We took the boat across the river to a cute little restaurant that was absolutely empty and whose servers seemed kind of horrified that we braved the chilly weather for them. And while we ate our crab soup and crab cake sandwiches, the sun came out and warmed things up a little.

 

The sky was blue, the leaves were turning… it turned out to be a fantastic autumn day.

 

Days like this make me miss being close to home and the people I love. Thanks, Susan and Mike for loving and indulging us. Next time we come out for a ride though, I’m going to insist on having to wear less than four layers…

On Becoming A Vampire

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In the food industry, there are a few things you just have to get used to.  When the world is celebrating holidays, you’re working.  When the 9-5ers are enjoying a martini at Happy Hour, you’re working.  When it’s a three day weekend and everyone’s at the beach, you’re probably working.

There is, however, a HUGE flipside.

When those same 9-5ers are waking up at the crack of dawn, we’re sleeping.  And when they’re sitting on 405, bumper to bumper in rush hour traffic, we’re not.  While they are all at work and the malls and grocery stores are empty and quiet and put together, that’s when we’re shopping.  Bad grocery store Muzak and organized, full shelves.  Ah…. Heaven.

It’s addicting, really.

There was a time not long ago that neither Brad or I hardly ever had to be at work before 4PM.  We would get home sometime between one and three in the morning from whichever restaurant and then we would make ourselves some dinner.

Yep.  Dinner.  At two o’clock in the morning.

And you know that we don’t ever skimp on dinner.  Not even at 2AM.  Oh no, it’d be Roasted Chicken or Pork Chops or Pasta or some other crazy invention.  It goes against everything any diet has ever told you, I know, but that was our nighttime routine.  Sometimes I felt sorry for our upstairs neighbors.  I’m sure they were having dreams of lavish feasts most nights, waking up to their bowl of cereal in the morning. One time, Brad made chocolate chip cookies after I’d fallen asleep early on the couch.  I dreamed of bakeries and sweets.  At least I got to wake up to the real thing.

Along with our eating schedules being out of the norm, we got onto a ridiculous sleeping schedule.  I mean, you can’t just come home from slinging drinks all night long and immediately fall asleep.  The brain is in smily, happy, customer service mode and it takes some time to unwind.  I would usually fall asleep around 4am.  Brad?  He would typically see the sunrise.

At one point, we were setting our alarms for two o’clock in the afternoon to make sure we’d wake up to make it to work on time.  And in Upstate New York in the winter, getting up at two only guarantees you about an hour and a half of daylight before the sun sets.  Not that there was ever a chance to get any sun whatsoever, but my Rollins girl, 365 days a year tan skin got freakishly pale.  And I wore all black to work every night.

I started feeling like a vampire.

Now when you’re in the restaurant industry, it feels semi-normal.  Most of your friends are also in that same routine so there isn’t much reason to change.  I tried to tell myself many times that we were just on “West Coast time” because we could usually catch our friends in San Francisco as we were getting out of work and they were getting ready for bed.

Now that we really ARE on West Coast time, its even worse.  If I don’t get up until noon on a morning after closing down the bar late, its already 3PM back home.  I’ve almost missed an entire day!  So much could have happened in the world that I just slept right through.  I often think about some crazy major event happening that the East Coast finds out about right when they wake up and then people have to wait to tell me until three that afternoon.  Torture!!  Being a vampire on the West Coast makes you DOUBLE behind!

Thankfully, things have changed a lot recently.  For a while I had the closest thing to a 9-5 job that I would let happen, and it was kind of strange.  My love of grocery shopping was quickly eliminated by the insane amount of people who all did their shopping on Saturday mornings.  I never went to the mall because on the weekends you have to park SO far away and the racks are just a freaking mess.  And I was on the exact opposite schedule from a lot of my friends and, worst of all, of Brad.  I never saw anyone unless I went to their restaurant to eat.

That obviously wasn’t the only reason I left the job, but now I’m back to my night-crawling, drink slinging ways.  Except I make myself get up at a reasonable hour (for a bartender, I think 10 is a very reasonable hour) and see a good amount of sunlight before heading into the dark bar.

Because even vampires in California have to be tan and blonde.  Duh.

3 oz Liquids

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I consider myself a professional traveler. I gained this title in my college years, being a Rapid Rewards member with Southwest and flying back and forth between Orlando and BWI for every break.  I know to wear shoes that are easy to slip out of at security, I can get my laptop out and in its own bin in 30 seconds flat, I check in before I get to the airport and I usually take all sharp objects out of my carry on bags.  Get behind me in a security line and I promise you will not be disappointed.

Even the new metal detector virtual strip search doesn’t really bother me. I do feel like I have to do it an unusually high percentage of the time, but whatever. Maybe one time I will write something really great on my butt in xray proof pen (does that exist?) or draw a smily face on my stomach so they can be entertained in that back room of faceless naked people xrays. It really can’t be the most interesting job in the world.

But until I get that creative, I just like to get through and get to my gate. And on the way to Miami this weekend, the guy in front of me looked pretty normal so I wasn’t too concerned.  I went through the xray thingy, raised my hands over my head, stood still, and then waited for my bag to get through. My heart dropped a little when security came around to get a bag, but they ask that guy in front of me if they can look through his carry on. Of course I’m nosy while I’m putting my flip flops back on because I have to get a look at what he got caught for.

No lie, there was a giant, unopened bottle of water in his suitcase. Like a 2 liter bottle of water.  Packed perfectly. And his come back to the security guard was “its just water”.

Duh, its just water. Where have you been the past ten years?? And where were you the last ten minutes when we waited in line next to ten BILLION signs that say no liquids over 3 ounces? Did you see all the pictures of water bottles then? With the big red circle with a slash through it? No?

Anyway, I’m sure I rolled my eyes, because that’s just what I do, and then I told everyone I was with in Miami about how this stupid guy thought he would get away with all that water. So dumb.

So now I’m back at Miami International and I used my awesome boarding pass that was just a QR code on my phone and I’m going through security, feeling all cocky, when they bring out MY bag and ask if they can go through it.

I had a freaking water bottle.

The only excuse I can give is that I have a super Miami hangover and I must be out of practice. It really isn’t like me. Really.

I’d also like to personally apologize to the guy in LAX who I made so much fun of.  What karma.

See you in L.A….

Bienvenido a Miami

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And now, after about an hour and a half of sleep and about 2600 miles, I am sitting on South Beach watching the sun rise.  Its 7:23 am (I’m on eastern time again! Woo!) And its 82 degrees and sooo humid.

Not only am I not tired at all anymore, but I forgot how good a little bit of humidity feels. And how less scary the Atlantic is than the Pacific.

Taking deep breaths of east coast sea air. This is where you’ll find me all day….

Party Like Its FL 2004

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So I move to California and begin getting nervous every time I have to stop under a bridge while driving around LA.  What if there’s an earthquake?  I don’t want to be under a bridge in an earthquake!  As an east-coaster suddenly faced with news about fault lines and earthquake awareness, I started living in constant fear that the earth would start to shake under me and horrible things would happen.  But I’ve been on earthquake watch for a year and a half now with absolutely nothing to legitimately worry about, and the ENTIRE east coast gets shaken up this week by a 5.9.

Let me just add here that however this confuses/annoys me (as well as adds to my constant fear), I am very glad everyone is alright and that there was relatively small amounts of damage.  But really?  I live in an earthquake mecca and my east coast friends all now know how it feels?

Sigh.

And now there is this Irene.  I probably shouldn’t say anything until the storm has passed and I know that everyone and every thing is fine, but I’m taken back to this time of year in 2004.  The beginning of my junior year at Rollins, when four hurricanes rolled through Central Florida over the course of two months. Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne delayed the start of school, closed down campus a few times, and caused dorms to be evacuated.

We also had some killer Hurricane Parties.

We prepared for the storm the best way any college kids could.  We stocked up on beer and liquor.  Frat boys handed out flyers with addresses of off campus houses where the beer pong and flip cup would be going until the power went out and the beer got warm.  And even then, we would drink warm beer.  In the dark.

Six girls from my sorority stayed in a landlord’s apartment and we raised our own hurricane hell.  We watched Disney movies (that was all she had) and made our own video documentary of the storm complete with interviews and live news coverage.  I think the highlight of the amateur video was someone dropping a Police Maglight Flashlight on my little toe during a sing-a-long of some kind just before the power went out.  We replayed that footage about a million times.  My face was priceless.  And I think my toe was broken.

See, in Florida we never had snow days.  We never had that random day off because Mother Nature dumped 5 feet off snow on us overnight.  We never had icy conditions or slush or sleet.  We never had a weather related excuse for classes to be canceled.  We had Hurricane Season and we made it count.

Fall semester of 2004 was one of my favorite times in college.  A few unplanned days off together to hunker down and let Mother Nature do her thing was the best way to spend some real quality time with your friends.  And nothing brings you closer than losing power (and therefore air conditioning) in August in Orlando, FL.  And thankfully, everything always turned out ok.  Mostly because there was always at least one gas station open on Colonial when we ran out of beer.  (We ran out of food even faster, but we were never as concerned about eating a balanced meal as we were about risking curfew for another case of Bud Light)

Be safe, East Coast.  I hope you are all plenty stocked up on booze, bread, and toilet paper.  We are thinking about you out here in LA and sending all of our blue-sky love your way!!

Toast

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World, meet Johnny Toast.

Turns out this character – who is in fact, a real person – came along with the package when I started dating Brad.  He hides in the Sig Ep composites between 1988 and 1992 that hang on the walls of a bar in Ithaca called ‘The Chapter House”.

And now he is a huge part of my life.

I learned early on in my relationship with Brad that he had a friend he called Johnny Toast.  I knew his real name was Steven, but he was in Brad’s phone as Johnny Toast and he was usually just called “Toast”.  And before I had been to Ithaca, Brad couldn’t explain the nickname to me.  He just swore he would just show me one day.

Doesn’t that picture just explain why you have to see it in person?

Maybe this one will give you some more information…

All of the other 1988 SigEps are completely normal 1988 Cornell University students.  Nice suits, nice ties, neat hair and a pleasant frat-boy smile.

Not Toast.

First of all, his real name is John Santos, but doesn’t go by that.  He is the only one on the composite with his nickname included and the only one rocking a mullet and those fly 1988 sunglasses.  He is just so FRESH!

Steven and Brad were immediately drawn to this fly mentor-from-another-generation and started using “Toast” not just as a nickname, but as a real way of life.  Words like “Toast-mostest” were added to their vocabulary.  I have Toast coasters (Toasters.  Serious.) in my apartment.  Toast became an icon among all who knew them.  How did he come to be so fly??

Believe me, we have done many a late-night intoxicated Google search to try and find out more about this man of mystery. You know, just to see where all that freshness got him.  And to see how much more fly he could have possibly gotten after graduation.  I bet he wears Louboutin slippers and a velvet robe and just smokes cigars all day.  And I bet he NEVER takes off his sunglasses.  I mean, just LOOK at him!

I wish they had Facebook back in 1988, because no one can find Toast.

My little sister, Nicki, has been to the Chapter House and knows all about Toast.  She can find anything online.  Stuff that I wouldn’t even know could be online, she finds it online.

Nicki couldn’t find Toast.

But one day she was at a coffee shop in Delaware where they happened to have a few old Cornell yearbooks laying around.  There he was – Mr. Toast – in the black and white pictures with his other Sig Ep brothers in a Delaware coffee shop.

My faith in Nicki’s searching abilities were restored with that picture message.

Sadly, I am lead to believe Johnny’s freshness didn’t last too much longer after his freshman year.  We don’t really like to admit it, but this picture of Toast hangs at the Chapter Room also.  It’s from 1991.

Still rocking that party-in-the-back hair cut, but maybe he was over the shades by ’91.  And what happened to the “Toast”?  Is this the more mature Toast?  More undercover?  Was it just cloudier that day?

We will never know.

We pretty much gave up our search when Steven’s mom, who works at Cornell, couldn’t even find him through alumni records.  And after Nicki’s failed Googling, we put our search for John “Toast” Santos on the back burner.

I think at one point we were looking to send him an invitation to our wedding.  I had probably been drinking when that decision had been made.  He never got his invite, but don’t worry, he was definitely there in spirit.  The boys made sure of that.  No mullets (or pants, apparently) required.