If I hadn’t wandered into a dive bar across the street from my Fort Lauderdale apartment a year ago, I wouldn’t know the very cool owner of that dive bar. I also would not have met the day-at-a-time boy who would break my heart a few months later.
If my life in Fort Lauderdale had not [...]
I woke up this past Saturday morning with itchy eyes and a stuffy nose. Allergies, of course. No more Claritin in the house, of course.
My guy and I decided there was no better way to spend a rainy Saturday morning in paradise than to shop every aisle at CVS. I needed the allergy meds. [...]
At first, you have no clue who the person is who is standing in front of you with his hand extended.
“Hey, Bruce Carlton. We had so many classes together in 7th grade.”
You smile the dumb smile of one who has no clue, one that conveys that you pretend to have a clue, but not [...]
“The money is good there,” said Upset Waitress a few weeks ago as we sat smoking cigarettes on my front porch. “As long as it’s good, use it. When the money stops being good, leave.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “But every day the new owners change something major, then the idiot manager doesn’t tell us, then chaos. [...]
I left for Colorado a week ago. My local bar manager told me he wanted me on the schedule full time when I returned. With that good news in hand, I turned down another job that had just been offered, and I reduced my shifts to one at the dive. Oh, and I booked a [...]
She wandered in at 8 a.m., wide-eyed and only a little nervous. Her crisp apron was tied nicely around her khaki pants, her makeup was just so.
Who the hell are you? I thought as I buttered toast and kept half an eye on the line, where my order was starting to pile up. I had [...]
“The orange juice in a mimosa is not considered a serving of fruit! You need to eat something!” said my girlfriend with whom I was drinking what was supposed to be my first meal in two days.
“I have some soup I just made, no gluten at all in it,” said the cook from behind [...]
“Rum and diet, splash of cran, tall, lighter on the cran, no ice. But you know that, RG.”
And I do, even though I toss in a few ice cubes because I know she likes just a few.
“Try this, I love the bouquet. I think you will, too,” says the manager to the girls in [...]
“I could never be a waitress in a busy place,” I told Upset Waitress before I moved from Fort Lauderdale to become a waitress in a busy place. In fact, I could. I did. I do.
“I could never be a bartender, even in a quiet locals’ place. It’s been too long ago since I was,” [...]
“How’s the book coming along?” asks a Fort Lauderdale friend in an email.
“Fine,” I lie in an email response.
In truth, I have to re-write every chapter of my book every day. Just when I think I have the story line that works, everything changes–again and again.
I moved here to work in a dive restaurant and [...]