“I don’t know if you remember me,” began her recent her email. Not remember her? I had never forgotten her and often wondered how she was doing. Now, five years later, she wanted to share the news about the recent birth of her beautiful baby girl, and how her life has moved forward.

I was stunned and touched.

Suddenly, other readers were emailing me as well. “Are you okay?” “I am slightly worried, but hope all is well.” “Just want to know that you’re still there. We readers will wait patiently for you.”

Again, I was surprised and touched. I am indeed fine. Busy with my event planning work and three mutts, for sure, but that’s not really a reason for not writing. The truth is, every time I start a post about a bride gone bad or a groom gone good, I inwardly groan. “Nothing new to see here! Move along.”

And so RG silently languishes in a noisy arena that is over-populated by so much more media than ever existed when I started writing this blog. Now and then, however, that silence taps me on the shoulder and asks, “You’re not done with this, are you?”

Am I?

I was clearing a random spam comment on the RG site today, then decided to have a good laugh and check my stats over the past few months, when I noticed a spike in readership on various dates. One of my favorite blogs, and one that gave RG some lovely recognition, is no more. South Florida Daily Blog, it appears, has closed up shop–back in March, no less.

SFDB’s last post starts:

“One of my pet peeves about blogging was bloggers who closed up shop without any explanation, leaving their readers wondering what happened.

This post is about not being one of those bloggers.”

Hmm.

Which makes this a post about realizing that I must seem like “one of those bloggers.” About letting my readers know that although I’m still here, I am unsure about what to do with RG. It is about wanting to write, but not knowing how to write anything remotely fresh above the online din.

It is also about my sincere appreciation for each and every reader who has ever glanced at RG. Thank you.

No goodbyes, okay?

Early in 2012, my great guy and I left Victoria Park and moved to the beach. We loved the two-block walk to a quiet beach. We couldn’t believe our good fortune to have a beautiful manicured and fenced yard for the Boston pups. We made a tentative peace with our duplex neighbors who parked in our spots and routinely woke us up at 5 a.m. with their drunken idiocy, and we only called the police three times on the back-door neighbors who only know how to communicate by screaming and throwing household objects at each other.

Just goes to show, no matter how nice the neighborhood, there goes the neighborhood when it’s SoFla and you can’t afford $3000 a month in rent to live a block away on the Intracoastal.

Today our beach is closed, thanks to hurricane Sandy who didn’t come within 300 miles of us. At least I don’t own a million-dollar home on that now virtually nonexistent strip of sand.

On May 1, I was promoted to private event manager, promptly took 4 days off to enjoy the experience-of-a-lifetime Kentucky Derby, and then became buried in weddings, retirement parties, baby showers, and any number of surprise birthday celebrations. Mine is not a store with banquet captains, linen service, or high-end events. It is, however, an incredible learning experience every weekend based on usually great and sometimes horrible clientele. Mostly, I have learned that when reasonable and decent people host events, the events hardly feel like work; and when a bride vomits on the dance floor, a four-hour reception feels never-ending and never ends well.

This October, I was determined that my beloved Bostons would win a costume contest at their vet’s office. They did, as portrayed in my last post, dressed up as “Boston Baked Beans.” The prize included treats, a shout-out online, and a free office visit. In an incredible and incomprehensibly sad turn of events, our younger Boston Angel fell ill mere days after the photo was taken and the prizes won. On November 3, we made the surreal and so difficult decision to allow her to rest in peace.

One day your dog is seemingly fine, and the next you’re shown an X-ray riddled with splotches that mean inoperable cancer. The vet’s office applied the office visit prize to her last visit. Her ashes now rest on a shelf in the dining room, surrounded by photos of her in happier and healthier days.

Rouletta seemed dazed and aloof after Angel’s passing. My great guy perused every pet rescue Web site in Broward County, trying to find an angel to make us feel better. I worked hard to forget Angel’s last visit to the vet, which resulted only in my constantly reliving it. Our little family was, in a word, a mess.

Then a funky Pug/Boston/Beagle/Corgie and everything-else mix named Mr. Bow came to our home for a trial visit. Rouletta perked up, my great guy stopped his online searches, and I could finally let Angel rest. Once-abandoned Mr. Bow, with his turned-out paws and meat-loaf body, was all too happy to call our house his home.

And that would be the end of the story, except for a call I received while my great guy and I were watching the ponies race at Gulfstream a couple of weeks ago. “You’re on a list for a Boston Terrier and we have one. Can you come by today to see him?”

“We’re on a list?” I asked my great guy.

“We were on every list, before Mr. Bow,” he answered.

“Well, one of those lists still has us on it and they have a Boston for us to see.”

You don’t just go “see” a dog at a shelter. You kid yourself if you think you won’t walk out with a wriggling, too-skinny bundle of long legs and a slobbery face.

And now there are three.

Mr. Bow

Rouletta celebrating her 10th birthday.

Rufus, the skinny Boston, who we hope to fatten up in no time.

I saw both my kids on Christmas, the Redskins beat Dallas to win the division, and I am off tonight, New Year’s Eve. In my world, that’s a pretty nice way to say goodbye to 2012 and welcome 2013.

Happy new year to all.

A young man is in a checkout line behind a woman with a small dog quietly sitting in her grocery cart. The woman is behind me. I am paying for my purchases.

“Wow, they let you bring a dog in here?” he asks.

“Yeah, as long as he’s in the cart,” she replies, smiling.

“He’s really cute. Can I pet him?”

“Sure, he’s friendly.”

Same scenario yesterday in a SoFla Dollar Store:

“Wow, they let you bring that dog in here?” he asks.

No reply.

“He’s really cute. Can I pet him?”

“Yeah, if you give me a cigarette.”

“What? I just want to pet your dog.”

“And I said only if you give me a cigarette! No one pets my dog for free.”

“Oh yeah? Well then f— you, bitch!”

I have absolutely nothing intelligent to say about this except I wish I was making it up.

Happy Halloween!

Mountains of sand don’t keep high tide from breaching the lowly sea wall.

No beach. Just a flooded A1A.

My son and his friends swam at this beach a week ago. Look to the far left, in the middle of the roiling water. That used to be the beach.

My steps to the beach.

Look closely. Look again. Yep, that’s right. Only the handle bars of someone’s locked up bike peek out of the sand.

The sand and surf might lap at your home, but you might as well mow what’s left of your ocean-front lawn.

At this minute, I am watching the news unfold about the havoc this alpha gal is wreaking up north. My continuing inconvenient commute to work pales in comparison. And it begs the question, just how is it that we are embracing a glorious Fall cold front while the mid Atlantic and northeast are battling a tropical hurricane?

Good luck and safe wishes to my DC, coastal Delaware and NJ, and NYC friends. You are experiencing more of a hurricane’s wrath than I ever have.

I don’t know the last time in the past five years that I’ve gotten away, away–really far away from SoFla to someplace entirely new. As much as I used to travel in the olden days of my life prior to living here, I had never been to Lake Tahoe.

Now I know why Rick over at South Florida Daily Blog is so enamored with his yearly vacation to Colorado and a dream to one day permanently live there.

Truth is, I am not a mountain person. I am a beach girl through and through. Mountains, if you must know, kind of scare me. They are so tall, the roads to drive through them so narrow and winding, the weather in them so mysteriously unrelated to that anywhere else–”Blizzard warning for elevations above 4000 feet; 75 and sunny in the valley.”

In an even odder way, mountains make me feel confined, almost trapped, in those beautiful valleys–hemmed in and surrounded by snow-capped beauty that is so many miles away from the wide-open waters of either coastline.

You see, for me, it’s not about loving a beach vs. a mountain vista. It’s all about living in a geographic aisle seat.

And then I saw this:

And this:

And rode up a chairlift to see this:

And stopped as much as I could to smell the summertime flowers we can’t grow in SoFla:

And savored the feel of a soft-as-velvet-grass under my toes, so different from the heat-tolerent spikey stuff on which my dogs despise to walk:

And marveled at the drivers who didn’t honk–ever, and who did stop for a pedestrian.

And was surprised by checkout ladies and front-desk clerks who smiled and chatted with us.

And embraced an elusive something called “Tahoe Time.”

And wondered what life might be like living where you sometimes leave your house via a second-floor deck to step out onto three feet of snow.

Hey, no place is perfect.

Then there was the dog food, the endless bottles of water, and the rum and wine so we wouldn’t have to trade toilet paper for either. We were set for Isaac.

Back in the day in D.C., we replaced tropical-weather shopping for snow-storm hoarding: milk you never drank, bread I couldn’t eat, eggs whether you needed them or not, and toilet paper because you’ll use it at some point anyway, topped everyone’s list, along with bags of ice-melting chemicals–who cares if the stuff eats away your sidewalk–and yet another snow shovel whose handle will break. Then the waiting began, peppered with days of dire snowfall-potential predictions that always ranged from a dusting to a foot or more.

Those were the days, when just the threat of a flake closed schools and offices (I always loved working for those whose policy was to “follow the Federal Goverment”–they always seemed to close, at least early if not for good for a day or so), and a certain anticipatory thrill filled the air that maybe the icy white stuff would accumulate just enough to give workaholic D.C. an excuse to give itself a guiltless day off.

I have not experienced a hurricane. I had not experienced a true tropical storm until yesterday. I was, however, very familiar with the shopping-spree syndrome during which you tell every checkout person, “I’m not shopping for the storm–I really was out of these things!” Uh huh. Whatever. Or, really, who cares? I didn’t. I wanted to be prepared. Because from what I’ve heard from the SoFla lifers, the aftermath of a real storm is real ugly. Ask anyone–Wilma is their never-again gauge.

I cannot imagine lack of electricity for weeks. And not because of the lack of lighting–I have plenty of Coleman lanterns and 2,034 packs of D batteries with which to keep them lit. Nor because of the lack of hot water–SoFla tap water is perennially luke warm and never refreshing; I could deal with that. No, it is the unimaginable prospect of life in this swampy, so-humid-you-can’t-see-out-your-apartment-windows-every-morning-from-April-through-October atmospheric miasma without AC for even a day or two that gives me great, great pause.

Isaac was no Wilma. Isaac was hardly anything, so they say. But if you ask me, it was plenty enough. And the bands just keep on playing, tossing palm fronds, flooding intersections, smearing multiple lanes of A1A with muddy sand that has to be plowed, and closing only this while making the rest of us wish they’d close that, too.

Seriously, how long does one storm nowhere near that strong and now nowhere near us have to hang around? Bands, please break up. Have an artistic disagreement. Sleep with each others’ girlfriends. Just go.

And no, my musician pal in Nashville, Tennessee, I was not tweeting about wanting Chris Isaak’s band to break up! But thanks for asking a serious question that made me laugh.

I hope stupid Isaac lets the Gulf Coast off as easily as he did us. Would that we could call that a wrap on the 2012 storm season.

I know. It’s been more than a month since I’ve written. I should have written! I meant to, but…but I didn’t. Guess I’ve been away far longer than I realized. But I wrote postcards! I know, I didn’t send them. Well, here they are as one, all those postcards that I really did mean to send each week since I’ve been away.

Postcard #1 With this Ring

Weddings, weddings, weddings and a bunch of rehearsal dinners, baby showers, anniversary dinners and corporate meetings thrown in for good measure. I love and loathe the weddings the most. I try not to, but I become attached to each and every bride I work with. As the toasts are made and the cake is cut, I try with little success not to tear up. When a recent mother of the bride hugged me to thank me for pulling together her seemingly endless decorations, countless flowers and way-too-many candles, saying, “You made it so beautiful, so much more than I thought it could be,” we were both straddling the fine line of shedding happy tears and sobbing in a way that makes one’s face blotchy.

They are so much work and stress, these weddings, and they wear me out for days afterward. But as I remind my staff and myself almost every weekend: It is just another day at work for us, but let’s try not to forget what a privilege it is to be entrusted with one of the most the most important days in a person’s life.

Postcard #2 Winner, Winner!

I might have won a few dollars here and there, just when it came in really handy. My great guy eventually got tired of hearing about my jackpot winnings and my lament, “If I’d only bet the max!” Apparently, the Seminoles tired of me, too. My sure-thing machines turned cold weeks later.

Postcard #4 A Token of Our Appreciation

Thanks to my ridiculous proclivity to play a slot machine now and then, Hard Rock thanks me by bombarding me with monthly “freebies,” each worth about 1/10,0000 of what I’ve won and lost there.

But the weekly free concert tickets have provided some of the best nights out I’ve had in a long time. Dancing on stage with Sister Sledge as she belted out “We Are Family,” dancing in the aisles with RG Son (who came to town for a last-minute visit) to Earth, Wind and Fire one night and Al Green the next–all the while laughing with the ladies sitting next to us on both occasions who demanded to know, “How does that young boy knows all the words to all these songs–he’s too young!” To which I replied, “I raised him right.”

Postcard #3 Birthday Girl

Happy birthday to Angel, my newly turned 9-year-old Boston Terrier. We found the doggy birthday cake at Fresh Market nestled between dozens of mustard varieties on a random aisle. Rouletta and Angel pretty much viewed the thing as crack, and we are stilling doling the cake out in small pieces. Apologies for the awkward photo that includes my great guy’s foot–snapping pics of birthday-crazed pups is no easy task.

Postcard #5 Sometimes You Just Have to Rant

I may be off the floor as a server, but my former co-workers can’t help but share their share of “Are you kidding me? stories. Best one all summer: Party of 14 comes in with no reservation on a busy Friday evening to celebrate a birthday. The staff scrambles, but gets them seated, hides the cake, finds candles forgotten by the organizer, and generally makes sure they get top-notch service. Everyone has two happy-hour-priced drinks. Everyone shares seven appetizers. Everyone is happy. At the end of this perfect evening, everyone wants a separate check. The server explains that he needed to know that at the beginning of the party in order to set it up properly in the computer, and adds, “But you all got pretty much the same things, within 25 cents of each other. Let me split it evenly.”

“No, no!,” says the host, “We’ll figure it out. Give us a minute.” A full 45 minutes later, this is what they handed the server:

At which point, the server walked back to my office to show me this table’s handiwork, saying, “I’m killing time to make it look like I’m following this dumb-ass worksheet. I’ve already split the check in 14 equal pieces. But here, you keep it–you know, in case you ever miss your nights working with us.”

Postcard #6 The End as a Court’s Mere Afterthought

“RG?”

“Here, Judge.”

“Do you have your ID?”

“Right here, Judge.”

“Do you own any property together?”

“No, Judge.”

“Do you have any minor children together?”

“No, Judge.”

“Is everything over, finished, the end?”

“Yes, Judge,” I said, so softly I barely heard my own voice.

“Yes?” asked the judge.

“Yes,” I repeated, as loud as the others before me had spoken, so all in the tiny courtroom could hear.

“You are divorced. Good luck.”

And just like that, multiple decades of marriage and five years of separation ended with a shuffle of paperwork and a nod toward the door to send me on my way.

“How do you do this every day?” I whispered to the bailiff as I walked toward the courtroom’s door. “That’s it? That’s it???”

She smiled at me, her eyes reflecting a tinge of sadness laced with jaded irony. “Every day, sweetie, every day we do this. That’s it.”

“But I thought I’d get a chance to say something, you know, that Mr. RG and I are on good terms, that he’s a great dad and a good person, how sorry I am that I had to leave and move on. How I will always have love in my heart for him, you know, in my way.”

“Good luck,” came the judge’s voice as she pronounced the next person divorced.

“Shhh. You go on now,” said the bailiff, pointing me toward the door.

“But…” I started.

“Go on now,” she smiled. “Go on. It’s okay.”

Postcard # 7 Calling All Muses

Postcards are snippets, aren’t they? Easily scrawled, abbreviated snapshots of so many days filled with so much unwritten rich detail. Why, I wonder, have I found it so difficult to write about any of them? Am I out of words? Is my writing finished, over, the end? I hope not. I want to reconnect with my old friend RG and allow her to give me back my voice to laugh, wonder, and tell it all. Here’s to hoping it’s soon.

Meanwhile, I’ll tackle my summer reading list.

Best wishes. Wish you were here!

Oh. Okay.

Okay?

I have enjoyed the past three years working as a bartender and server. No work worries except making customers happy, making money and making rent. Time off was time off without a thought about work except being on time for my next shift.

Yet, in the back of my mind a peculiar restlessness was beginning to shake me awake at 2 a.m. And when I am shaken awake at 2 a.m., I’ve learned I need to listen to the thoughts nagging at me.

How long, really, could I keep doing this? How long before off-season income uncertainty and working alongside 20-somethings made me uncertain about all of this Restaurant Gal fodder? In my way, I knew it had been long enough.

On a quiet evening, just before I left for the Derby, I snuck a smoke outside the entrance to our beautiful private dining venue. I’d worked several events back there, both as a server and a bartender. I’d watched the revolving door of event planners spin one, then another, then another out of that door.

I’d liked all of them. I’d worked for each one of them. But I’d wondered at their few at-work hours, missed appointments and seemingly carefree attitudes about menus and staffing and just about everything else about private dining that drove me to endless hours and much after-work worry to make sure all went just right, when I tackled that same job in D.C. and again when I moved to SoFla.

As I stubbed out my cigarette, I saw my gravely stern GM round the corner, camera in hand, and watched as he furiously snapped pictures of our quaint courtyard, our lush foliage and our colorful water views, mumbling to himself, “I’m doing this, why?”

My first thought was: Shit, I shouldn’t be out here smoking. My second thought I spoke aloud: “You know, if you need some help with anything back here, I have a little experience in event planning.” My third thought was: Shit, I shouldn’t be smoking back here, and now I’ve opened my big, fat mouth.

“Really?” he growled, seemingly unconcerned about my smoking. “Because you might just be doing it all.”

“Ha ha ha,” I laughed quietly aloud. “Oh no, I didn’t mean THAT,” I nervously laughed some more. “I just meant, if you need a little help…”

“And I meant you might just be taking it all on,” he barked.

Well, shit. Why had I said a word? Why would I rock my carefree world?

When I cashed out later that night, he said nothing more about my taking on event planning. He reviewed my credit card receipts, palmed my cash out for the bartenders and bussers, and said goodnight.

Good. He’d forgotten all about my inane comment.

At 9:30 a.m. the next morning, I groggily answered his call. “Can you come in at 11 this morning and talk more about private events?”

Crap.

But was it really? Because I had been awake since 2 a.m., once again, wondering what to do with my carefree life.

“Uh, sure,” I said, trying to sound awake.

I showered, dressed in something casually cool yet professional, cranked my real resume out of my computer–one he’d never seen when I’d applied for a serving position–and decided to just go for it. For real.

It is not easy to surprise my GM. But my resume surprised him. “You really have done this,” he said as he scanned it.

“Yep,” I smiled. “And I brought you some menus and pricing information from my previous jobs and those I think might be close competitors in our realm.”

He looked down at the stack of paper I shoved toward him. “Thank you,” he said, and I think he meant it, because I’ve had the feeling all along that this guy doesn’t thank many people.

“You start tomorrow, but I need you on the floor, too, until I can get people trained to replace you.”

“Uh, you remember that I’m going out of town for five days,” I said, not a little surprised. “I can start when I get back?”

He kind of glared at me, caught himself, then said, “Yes, of course. And we’ll ease you into this part time.”

Except the events held while I was away were a disaster, not to the customers, but behind the scenes. Thus, when I returned from my experience of a lifetime, there was nothing part-time or easing into anything.

“Here are the files, there’s the phone, use that computer, and you have two rehearsal dinners and two weddings over the next four days.”

Great.

That was almost a month ago. That is why I haven’t written a word since my experience of a lifetime at the Derby. I have been working 60-hour-plus weeks and triple shifts, placating worried brides to accept me as their new coordinator, trying to book as much new business as I can, and picking up the pieces of a revolving door that I hope not to pass through myself. It is a tall order. My carefree work life is over and done.

And everyday I have wondered, what the hell was I thinking to do this again?

Then today’s mail call brought me this note: “I want to thank you so much for making my rehearsal dinner and wedding as wonderful as I’d hoped. I know I only met you a few days before, and you were kind of assigned to me at the last minute, but I feel like you were my coordinator for the past year. Thank you for everything. It was perfect.”

As I left for the day today, I placed that note alongside my brochures and new business cards that I have carefully displayed for those who wander through our private event space when I am not there. I smiled at the shameless display of all me, touched the raised silver letters that spelled “THANK YOU” on the face of the notecard, and marveled that a bride would hand write a note to me so quickly, when surely she had a 150 other thank yous to share with those who’d given her actual gifts.

But here’s what I do know: I did a pretty good job stepping up for her wedding, and I am fortunate that she was incredibly understanding and the antithesis of Bridezilla when I introduced myself as her third coordinator three days before the most important day of her life.

Coming on the heels of my experience of a lifetime, I am humbled that I could ensure one day could come close to being the same for her.

Deep breath. The rest shall be revealed, right?

I’d love to have another chance to spend more time exploring The Bourbon Trail, to learn more about the history of the area and the spirit, and to personally dip a few more Maker’s Mark bottles.

I’d love to have another hour upon hour to spend on the backside of Churchill Downs watching the superstar ponies get their sudsy baths and see Derby contender Hansen roll around in the sandy soil looking for all the world like a giant, white, happy puppy. As it was, I snapped my Oaks Derby favorite Oaks Lily during her exercise run on Thursday. Sadly, she was scratched by Friday.

I’d love to talk more with Graham Motion, trainer of last year’s Derby winner, Animal Kingdom, who could not have been more gracious when he allowed us to snap a photo with him during a quiet Thursday moment on the backside of Churchill Downs. When we saw him post Derby in the Owner’s Lounge, a spot in which we became regulars thanks to our fantastic hosts, we nodded to each other and he waved as I said, “Nice to see you again.” That I was in that lounge for even a second is but one tiny aspect of how special this time was.

I’d love to have another minute or 20 to chat with Louisville sports legend Coach Denny Crum, but I’m happy enough with his labeling me “the rose between us” as we posed for a backside photo seconds before he was interviewed by local TV news reporters.

I’d love to have another look at the Kroger grocery store ladies working on the blanket of roses worn by the winning Derby horse. Who knew they set up shop at a local Louisville supermarket and sewed the roses–one by one by hand–for anyone and everyone to watch?

I’d love to have another time and place to wear the pretty pink hat my great guy bought me at the Taste of the Oaks fundraiser on Thursday night. Pink is the color all wear for the Oaks races on Friday to honor all cancer survivors of all ages.

I’d so much like to have another chance to not feel so shy about wearing a hat and to have bought something bigger and more festive than my cobalt-blue fascinator that I wore on Derby Day itself. Still, it was British-made (a bargain on Ebay), so at least I fit in quite well.

I’d give a lot to have another opportunity to actually talk to Secretariat jockey Ron Turcotte. While killing time between Friday races, we happened upon him near the Kentucky Derby Museum. He was sitting behind a table surrounded by memorabilia of the Triple Crown winner’s made-for-the-movies fame, but we were the only ones standing in front of the table.

“Is this the last one, Ron?” asked someone.

“Yes,” he said.

“Last what?” we asked.

“Last chance for him to sign something,” someone replied.

We bought a photograph, paid 20 additional dollars, and watched as a racing legend signed a personal autograph to my great guy and me, adding “With love.”

I’d love to have another few hours to people and celebrity watch in the owner’s lounge at Churchill Downs, and I am so grateful to our hosts for giving us carte blanche passes there for both Friday and Saturday. By the end of the Derby events, I felt quite attached to the fantasy of owning a racehorse, and thus latched on to my favorite Derby pony Daddy Long Legs, because what’s not to love about that name. I know, he came in last, if he even crossed the finish line at all. As I took this photo, I noted he was shiny with sweat and walking the biggest walk of his life without his pony pal alongside him–the only horse to walk that long walk alone.

I’d gladly welcome another do-over chance to visit our favorite betting window located next to the crudely labeled and largely and forever empty I.R.S. window that we could only dream of having to visit, to make sure my great guy put “I’ll Have Another” on our long list of bets for race 11.

We’d won much on the races leading up to the Derby race, and we placed all of those winnings on a dozen or so horses that somehow–let’s blame the juleps–excluded number 19. And we call ourselves bartenders…even if the “another” referred to a cookie.

I’d give just about anything to have another five days to spend with restaurant guests who became friends, who opened their homes and hearts to my great guy and me and treated us as family, who also welcomed RG Son and his girlfriend, and who gave each of us a truly unmatchable experience of a lifetime.