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Heat, Smoke
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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Mondaty, Tuesday, the restaurant, slammed. 2 hours of madness and not keeping up before it's over. An American woman, loudly complaining she can't get servers, telling me to "send someone over", completely oblivious, she's the center of her own show, it only takes one such ambassador to ruin the reputation of an entire country...
Anyways, Wednesday, today off, and now it's smoke, settled in, the slow rain of ash and dust, blotting out the mountain across the lake, the sky, a sooty, sullen sort of heat, 33, 34 degrees, the smoke is stopping it from getting to the 39 and 40 forecast, but it's still plenty hot enough.
Some photos of the sunset...
And, to add to the misery...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
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An apartment entirely bereft of furniture, trips to the locker, slowly emptying it of 5(!! So Far) big boxes of Stormy Scrolls, boxes of irrelevant art supplies - including 8 egg beaters, (I needed one, and eventually ended up with 8, and the locker is still half full), 2 rolling pins (I'll probably use a dozen), clock parts, candlesticks, paints, sort and organize, time only to go through the groceries I never got time to eat and throw out what's old and mouldering, go to the store and buy more, one day I'll have time to cook a meal, really I will...
Monday, September 4 2023
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 163
Beginning a slow recovery from the summer.
To catch you up - last week, friend wants to go to Creston to help me search for basic furniture. The flat is still empty.
So we go and search, nada, although we hit the bookstore and I pick up a few books - 2 volumes of Stanley's "Out of Darkest Africa", old, marbled edging and front plates, and 2 volumes of the Lewis and Clarke expedition. So I count it a success, these are big books and I'll be the armchair adventurer all winter long.
Following that she talks me into going to the locker, which has to be emptied that day.
We succeed.
The locker, I have a huge resistance to going to, it's filled with art supplies, trifles, bits and bobs but nothing of any practical day to day value. And it's full of rocks. It takes two trips - for her, no sweat, for me, well....
The physical baggage, it's too much, the psychic baggage, well...it's overwhelming, but it's done, the apartment is filled now with shit to be categorized, thrown away, or packed away into a very small cupboard. My work is cut out for me.
Friday, work, I close. I show up to work on time, there's a paranoia there that I'm not coming, so often - always in fact - I've been there a few hours early "just in case", but - well, my time now is my own, I have a place to live, and enough is enough.
The night, busy with JR working, he's taken the afternoon off, takes a few tables in the evening, then books off. I have no tables, he has two, but he's on the split so I can close.
Saturday I've switched my shifts around, working the day, and I've swapped Sunday around so I'm off, got T*** to cover my night shift, there's a rave, "Summer's End", out by Salmo, and - fuck it, I'm going.
JR is a little concerned, the day - it passes, busy enough, too busy for 1, not busy enough for 2, but he's worried about the night.
Not my problem. For the first time this summer it's not my problem. He's working with his mother in law, afraid that it might get busy, He wishes me well, hopes I have a great time, I've a pocket full of cash and I'm giving him a rundown of all the drugs I intend to take, I'll be in to work Monday, he doesn't need to worry....
***
Fucking off work and to Nelson, too slow, 80 KM per hour and the engine's revving high. Stop, get food, toy with the idea of getting more liquor, but - no, this is a different sort of party, pack my tent, sleeping bag, and I'm off...
****
Arrive, set up camp, the party's in full swing. Talk to a vendor, tip well, give him a list, I'm on a Scavenger hunt, looking for MDMA, Mushrooms, Cocaine...
Work has me exhausted but this will help my recovery...
***
the night goes, and in time I'm approached by all the little helpers, a surprising number I know from the restaurant - or, more accurately, they know me, "You're Rod from ..."...
there's Dean, who looks like a host to a dating game show, and his gorgeous girlfriend, there's others, the usual suspects and pickups full of rednecks from Alberta who keep to themselves, I'm partying with some teenagers who are telling me I'll outlive Ozzy Osbourne, chatting to people in that sociable way, nothing too deep for the most part.
The pantry is stocked, the night goes, meet people, old faces, new faces, loads of people, it is after all the best way to meet people even if by morning most of their names and faces will be a blur, dance until 6:00 AM, try and sleep until 9:00, there will be no sleeping, somebody has taken too much and is hollering in a hilarious accent that "where's the music? What kind of music festival is this? I want to party..." and you can hear the groaning in all the tents, it's funny, only, maybe not so funny when you've been up 24 hours and are trying to get some sleep...
9:00 AM give up on the idea of sleep, outside, a gentle rain.
I'm done. I'll need all of Sunday to recover, pack my sleeping bag, tent up and am off.
***
Into cell range and my phone goes off, messages, JR - "We'll be closed Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday, see you on Thursday". This is good news, but what's up?
The other staff fill me in. It was crazy on Saturday night, as predicted, and JR refused to call C**** in, a car went off the road, accident on the highway, closed for 4 hours, and the restaurant was a madhouse. Not a madhouse if it were, say, me and JR or Me and C****, but for JR and his mother in law, nuts, and JR was rude to his mom who was just trying to help and so she punched his father and went upstairs and tore apart his bedroom and ....
...well, the drama.
And T***, well, she couldn't find childcare for the three days she was scheduled.
Hence we're closed.
***
C**** wants to quit. The Mother in Law, she's done, back to Cranbrook, she was "doing us a favour" and wants out. Can't blame her. C**** worked with JR all day Sunday, got tired of his dog-fucking, enough is enough, which leaves me.
Bullshit.
***
Sunday, otherwise, recovery. It takes a bottle of Vodka to put me down and out, but I manage it. In the evening they close off Baker, bring in a DJ, there's a mini-rave, dance for Pride, everyone's invited. But I've partied enough.
***
This morning, thank god for the day off. I'm lower than I've been for a while - well, maybe not, the summer's been long and I'm done. Town is deserted but slowly you see the Zombies from the night before; everyone found a party....
My life's a shitshow and it's time to get it together. The restaurant, well, damn, it's been a gold mine, but JR's an entitled sociopath, his parents both clueless enablers, and I'm done carrying them all on my back.
Out for coffee, the town is quiet, then busy, and all the voices in my head are silenced. Sort out the demons, the projects, time to get some groceries and eat them and get back to the gym and start writing again on things that interest me...
No Questions Asked...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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Yesterday I give my notice. I'm on another 12 hour double as JR has a job interview. Day is slow, night is busy, a "late busy", the kind that pisses you off when you're getting ready to go home and tables start arriving, the piss-off of a late close.
Tickles, of course, is crashing, and SR and his wife are in the kitchen helping, SR washing dishes, his wife cooking, Tickles on cold side making salads.
It passes and Tickles is left to clean up.
The shift, probably the biggest single ring out of the summer, yet it ran smoother than any of the shifts where I rang out half as much with the "help" that I was given.
They ask no questions about my resignation. It was expected, overdue, they don't want the answers they know will come. Like "Am I a fucking Donkey?" and "How did you think this was sustainable" and "WTF???". They're strangely, solemnly quiet.
Out loud they voiced a plan to work towards closing, then, my departure is the nail in the coffin.
It isn't, there are servers that would happily work in reasonable circumstance, reasonable hours, but these are things they can't provide. They need donkeys, a whole new team, they've killed the old team...
Today, up early, another day in fucking hell. Drive out, because I don't fucking know my schedule, it's perpetually being upended by JR's antics, find JR mopping, he arrived late last night, no, I'm on the split today...
Sure. 2 weeks 2 more days of this.
SO now, on the Balfour Beach, bottle of tequila in one hand, laptop in the other, a scour of the beach found me a well-worked flint with all of the divots from pressure flaking, but no good shape, a scraper, or discard. A beautiful day made lousy by the prospect of work, but 12 shifts left and I'm free, and there's no telling that I won't be free before then...
***
I start at 12:30, JR retires, his day is done. He's upstairs pouting. He told me they'd be closing on October 9th, I held firm on my departure Sept 30th. The opportunity to negotiate a graceful exit is long past.
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