June 22, 2005 (IJ)

It is another beautiful day in Boston. Perfect weather lately. We've only had those three awful days of heat (when Stephen was here -- poor devil) and it's been great before and after that. I love not having to suffer through another terrible Arizona summer. I don't mean to rub it in to those of you that are dealing with it, but this is a nice change. My first "nice" summer.

Well, a lot happened today. It rained in the morning so we were pretty sure we wouldn't have any customers. Surprisingly, we were wrong. We didn't have a ton of people in the Grille Room, but we had some problems. Nicoletta took an order from a table of old ladies and then took a really long time putting it in the computer. (FYI: after the servers enter the order in the computer, a receipt prints off in the kitchen and that's what we work off of.) It wasn't Nicoletta's fault because the computers weren't working and the old ladies had about 5 or 6 special requests on each of their meals. It was ridiculous. Anyway, it took 10 whole minutes to get the order out to them. HEAVEN FORBID! And, everyone was yelling at Nicoletta because these ladies were asking every minute or so where their food was. The annoying thing is, they weren't in any rush. They stayed an hour after we were closed, just talking. Oi!

Chad was walking around the restaurant today laughing and joking around more than usual. I said to him, "Hey, you're in an unusually good mood today." He smiled and said, "Well, I'm actually trying to occupy my mind with good thoughts because my dad had a heart attack last night and I will be gone the next few days in Michigan." Boy, I felt like a prize idiot. He came into the kitchen at about 2:00 to tell me that he was leaving and to give me instructions for the next few days while he's gone. I cannot believe the things he goes through and the attitude he maintains. It's very admirable.

I invited the sister missionaries over for dinner tonight and also invited a girl from my work to come over. Her name is Ramona (Nicoletta's roommate -- both from Romania) and I really hope she doesn't bail at the last minute. The missionaries are pretty excited and she's a good friend. I've been very nervous all day, but hopefully things will go well. I just pray that she'll come.

On the way home from work, I had the windows down and the sunroof open. I was singing loudly to Lisa Loeb and enjoying the gorgeous weather when I heard someone honk their horn. I look over and saw a girl trying to get my attention in the next car over. I look closer and she's blowing kisses to me. I was utterly disgusted, but not entirely surprised because this would not be the first (or last) time a girl would hit on me. After traffic passed, I moved past her car and she kept honking at me and kissing her hand. It was disgusting and I was laughing pretty hard. Then, I got really freaked out when I realized that this girl was actually a man and that he was now following me home. Anyway, I lost him . . . her.

In regards to Alice's comment: you can be proud of your sister once again. Today, I was lifting the same cutting boards and instead of waiting for Alan to offer help, I just said, "Hey! Can you take these?" He did and I silently laughed to myself in anticipation of writing about it on my blog.