Warning.....Whiney Post Ahead

You've been warned, I'm wallowing in self pity. Please feel free to click away and not read!








Seriously....I won't be offended if you don't read today's entry!









This is your last chance!!!







So Dave is leaving on Friday for Iraq for seven months, and I'm having trouble concentrating at work. I just can't seem to get into the customer service attitude this week.

When a guest comes in all happy and in a good mood I think "Oh just freaking rub your happiness in my face why don't you. My husband is about to leave for a combat zone!"

Or if a guest comes into the bar in a bad mood, I think "what do you have to be so grumpy about? My husband is about to leave for a combat zone!"

And God forbid if they come in with a complaint. A man was freaking out today because he couldn't have Adobe A, which is on the end and has an extra window. Because he didn't book early enough, he had to settle for Adobe D, which is exactly the same unit only it doesn't have the extra west facing window. I wanted to scream out at him "What the freaking hell are you so upset about. It's a damn window! Is someone you love about to go into a combat zone? Then you would have something to be upset about!!"

I have issues.....

Tom Cruise in Cocktail, I am not....

Since I work the day shift at the bar, I don't get to make that many fancy drinks. It's mostly beer, wine, and an occasional maragrita or white russian.

So today, I got really excited when I got an order for a green lizzard and an appletini.

I thought I was so cool, I scooped the ice in the martini shaker and poured in the vodka and sour apple pucker and put the lid on and started shaking. I was holding it off to the side and shaking and shaking. Man did I think I was a real cool bartender.

Then, in front of a packed dinning room, the lid flies off the martini shaker and appletini goes everywhere, including all over me.

I looked up to find all the tables around the bar trying to pretend to have not seen me. Except for one of my regulars at the table right in front of me.

"You looked really great up until that point."

My face is still red.

Rules For Drinking In A Bar

Since I started bartending, I found these to be extremely hilarious:

Rules for Drinking in a Bar:

Buying a strange woman a drink is still cool. Buying all her drinks is dumb

Never borrow more than one cigarette from the same person in one night.

(this is one for me when I’m on the other side of the bar)

When the bartender is slammed, resist the powerful urge to order a slightly-dirty, very-dry, in-and-out, super-chilled half-and-half martini with a lemon twist. Limit orders to beer, straight shots and two-part cocktails.

Get the bartender's attention with eye contact and a smile.

Do not make eye contact with the bartender if you do not want a drink.

If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she refuses, she does not like you.

If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she accepts, she still might not like you.

If she buys you a drink, she likes you.

If someone offers to buy you a drink, do not upgrade your liquor preference.

If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to drink in a bar. Go to the liquor store.

(OMG, this one is so important. Yes I’m talking about you Brian give me a pint of Anchor Steam, I’m so poor I can only afford the drink)

Never complain about the quality or brand of a free drink.

Never tip with coins that have touched you. If your change is $1.50, you can tell the barmaid to keep the change, but once she has handed it to you, you cannot give it back. To a bartender or cocktail waitress, small change has no value.

If you do a shot, finish it. If you don't plan to finish it, don't accept it.

If you think you might be slurring a little, then you are slurring a lot. If you think you are slurring a lot, then you are not speaking English.

Fighting an extremely drunk person when you are sober is hilarious.

If you are broke and a friend is sporting you, you must laugh at all his jokes and play wingman when he makes his move.

If you're going to hit on a member of the bar staff, make sure you tip well before and after, regardless of her response.

The people with the most money are rarely the best tippers.

(I’ll concur here, I had a famous movie star in over Thanksgiving and his tips STUNK!)

Asking a bartender what beers are on tap when the handles are right in front of you is the equivalent of saying, I'm an idiot.

(ROTFLMAO!)

Never ask a bartender what's good tonight? They do not fly in the scotch fresh from the coast every morning.

If there is a line for drinks, get your drink and step the hell away from the bar.

Never argue your tab at the end of the night. Remember, you're hammered and they’re sober. 99.9% of the time you're wrong and either way you're going to come off as a jackass.

If you hesitate more than three seconds after the bartender looks at you, you do not deserve a drink.

Never preface a conversation with a bartender with I know this is going to be a hassle, but . . .

(I hate customers like that…just say what you want in English…don’t try and use fancy bar terms)

Anyone with three or more drinks in his hands has the right of way.

The bar clock moves twice as fast from midnight to last call.

You will forget every one of these rules by your fifth drink

Pollyanna and the Glad Game

When I was a kid, I loved the Disney movie Pollyanna with Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, and Karl Malden as the crotchety old preacher. My favorite part of the movie was the Glad Game.

You see, Pollyanna was an orphan of missionary parents, and never a more upbeat, make lemon-aide out of lemons kind of character will you ever meet. Whenever something bad would happen, she would find something to be glad about it. While explaining the game to Karl Malden, she tells him about one year for Christmas, she asked for a doll, but when the missionary barrel came, there was a pair of crutches. Now for your normal, average person, this would be cause for whining and much boo-booing.

But not for Pollyanna; she and her father played the Glad Game and she decided that at least she could be glad that no one in their family needed the crutches.

I know, it sounds a little hokey, okay it sounds a lot hokey, but the Glad Game has got me through some pretty rough patches in my life.

Very soon, I’ll be coming to another Glad Game moment in my life. Instead of being all weepy and getting mad at fate for putting us in this situation, I am going to look at the bright side and find things to be Glad about.

So here is my list; Things To Be Glad About Dave Going Back To Iraq:

1. Finances – between hazardous duty pay, separation allowance, and his pay being non taxable every month that he is “in theater”, we clear a nice chunk of money and will be able to pay off some bills and be closer to being ready for retirement.
2. I will have lots of time to get caught up on my scrapbooking projects.
3. I don’t have to make up the bed every morning. Dave and I are definitely the Odd Couple with me being Oscar and him being Felix. If he’s not here, I can relax and don’t have to be so tidy.
4. I can wear socks to bed if my feet get cold. Dave has some kind of weird thing about wearing socks to bed? Don’t ask me, he’s been that way since the day we got married!
5. It’s easier to stick to my healthy eating plan when it’s just me. Mr. I Can Eat Anything I Want, high metabolism won’t be tempting me with pizza and carne asada burritos from Santana’s.
6. I can hog the television and watch all the crime shows that I have Tivo’ed that he doesn’t like, Law & Order SVU, CSI, and Without A Trace.
7. I can sleep in on my days off.
8. Less laundry.

Okay so that last one is stretching it a bit, but work with me here, the list of things that suck about Dave going back to Iraq is ten times as long.

Shut Up Cindy!

If I found a genie in a bottle today and was granted one wish, there is no doubt in my mind what it would be. I wish that my husband, Dave, would not have to go to Iraq again.

I wish we lived in a world of peace where all people respected each other despite their race or religious beliefs. I wish we didn’t live in a world where radicals with bombs threaten my safety and security.

But as Jack Nicholson put it in the movie “A Few Good Men” we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. It’s a sad fact of life that I wish I could change. But as long as this is true, then courageous men like my husband are required to leave their families and stand on those walls.

This is not a post either for or against the war in Iraq. While I support our mission there, I have many friends who do not and I respect their right to their beliefs. I respect their right to stand up and loudly proclaim their beliefs.

What I can’t stand is a hypocrite like Cindy Sheehan.

From all that I have read, Cindy Sheehan supported her son Casey’s decision to join the military and supported him as he was deployed to Iraq. She never attended an anti-war rally UNTIL her son was called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country.

It was only then, that she became against the war. So as long as it was other people’s husbands, sons, and daughters dying, it was okay. But now that her son has died, the war is evil and the President is a murder for forcing her poor baby to go over there. It’s like she’s saying to everyone else who lost a son or husband “Oh you lost someone, well it really didn’t matter until MY son died”.

Let’s get past the point that her son was an adult and made an adult decision, knowing all the ramifications that went with it.

Right now, Cindy Sheehan is nothing more than attention whoring, grief stricken woman who is wallowing in this media attention to fill the hole inside her heart. Instead of honoring her son’s memory in a way that he would be proud of, she is milking her 15 minutes of fame and making a mockery of everything her son fought and died for.

If the President were to do as Ms. Sheehan and her group requested, do you know what would happen? Iraq would fall into chaos, another dictator would rise up, and the country would be no better off than it was before. It would also mean that everyone that has died so far, their deaths would be in vain.

Let's say that again, just for Cindy. If we pull out now, Casey will have died for NOTHING!

She has seen the President how many times now? He needs to ignore her, and the Capitol Building police shouldn’t have arrested her. By doing that, they were giving her what she wanted. More air time. I say everyone just start giving her the attention that she deserves….absolutely nothing. Maybe then she will go home to her family and deal with her grief in a normal manner.

By the way, the rest of her family has come out publicly against everything she is doing now.

So in closing, I must quote my girl Jerzey “she is an ignorant, self-pitying woman who needs to build a bridge and get over it already. Or move to France.”