And Thus Ends Stampede

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

My whimper[s]. I forgot that living in Calgary for these 10 days made me hate cowboy boots, and I resent the Stampede immensely for that. Because I fucking love my cowboy boots.

I have never hated Stampede before, really. There are people who loathe it and always have; people who are convinced the whole thing is proof Calgarians were skipped on the road of evolutionary progress. Unlike these Stampede-sceptics, I like country music (I went to the Garth Brooks concert, and I knew every single word). Whether you love or hate two-stepping, however, the city is indisputably electrified with the excitement that such a massive festival can't help but engender. But how long can one be exposed to electricity before looking a little like Jack Nicholson at the conclusion of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Or the end of the Shining, really. Whichever. It takes working in the hospitality industry during Stampede to really establish that strong cowboy hat activated gag reflex. I'm tired of vulgar cut-offs, douchebags wearing Stetsons with their Ed Hardy, hungover coworkers trying to get out of their shifts, and patrons ordering noon hour shots of Honey Jack. I didn't even go down to the grounds on the centennial of the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth. But I'm tired all the same. I need a bath and 12 hours of sleep.

Oh. And I had to kick a crack addict out of the lounge today. So there's that.

Fucking Stampede.

A Fond Farewell and a Charming Adieu

I know - you're probably all thinking "it's about time she threw in the metaphorical blogging towel - this chick hasn't posted anything in monthst."

Fair enough.

But I'm not.

I am, however, relocating to an http more appropriate of the blog's grandeur (read: the actual title - kind of - of the blog), and giving myself a fresh start. All these posts promising I am coming back to blogging followed by month-long silences is too depressing to face up to. I'm starting anew.

Visit me at my new place, please. And don't mind the mess - I'm still getting settled in,

The Hunt For Brunch

The secret to blogging is having interesting things to write about. Well, life has been a bit scant with opportunities as of late, but I am changing that. And it is starting with a hunt for the perfect Calgary brunch.

Montreal is the brunch capital of Canada. I don't know that that fact has been officially recognized enough, so I would like to give our fashion capital its haute cuisine dues. I had some of the most amazing brunches, all within walking distance of my shabby bachelor apartment. Inventive omelettes, delectable fruit parfaits, the best soy lattes, croissants. Oh the croissants. Going for brunch, which often served more as a breakfast, was one of my favourite activities. Get up, go to yoga, and then sit with the girlfriends/guyfriends over coffee before starting the day.

So now, relocated to a land of slightly less culinary splendor, I am inspired to hunt for a new cafe brunch. Calgary has the greasy spoon diner breakfast down to a tea. But that is certainly not what I'm looking for. I can use too much grease for my scrambled eggs at home, thanks.

So, without further ado, raves or rants, my first venture into the world of Calgary brunch.

Bistro 2210

At her urging, I made long overdue plans with my fellow Montreal transplant, Yule (ok, for the sake of full disclosure, Yule's from the Yukon, and I am originally from Calgary, but we shared a love of French Canadian brunch that makes us feel like Montrealers in a strange strange land). So, after having read an article the listed all of Calgary's prominent brunch offerings, I chose a restaurant close to my work and her home: Bistro 2210. And as I made my way down the treacherously snowy sidewalks and through the heavy wooden doors, I liked what I saw.

High ceilings, warm woods and inviting leather; it was ideally comforting on a frigid winter day. The ambiance had me prepared for a brunch repleat with coffee options ranging beyond decaf or full leaded and inventive and palatable breakfast profferings.

I was pleased to immediately see on the menu that yes, they clearly had an espresso machine. Sadly their coffee options were nto as varied as I'd hoped, thirsting as I have been for a soy latte. Regardless, I ordered an espresso and started soaking in the menu while I waited for Yule to join me.

I was so so so tempted by that Pulled Pork Benedict - certainly the most unique item on the menu. I won't pretend that I didn't find the strictly savoury breakfast options a touch disappointing. It is clear that, while they offer brunch on the weekends, their kitchen's focus is elsewhere, so eggs pretty were pretty much it. But I thought the prices were not too bad for the amount, having settled on the Bistro breakfast with grilled tomatoes (my favourite breakfast food, not offered often, though not pulled off perfectly in my opinion).

Would I go back? Yes, definitely. It was cozy and adorable, and the ingredients were of clearly high quality. When I am being less waistline conscious, that Pulled Pork Benedict is going to be all up inside me. Like that.

But this was not quite the breakfast nirvana I thirst for. So, the search will go on.

Reason Not To Live With Your Parents: #5

In case you thought I had peacefully settled into life with my parents, making peace with my mid-twenties cliche mediocrity, think again.

Last night my dad, I shit thou not, yelled at me:
 

That's it! No TV for a week!

That's right. My dad, who, fyi, is going out of town for a week tomorrow, tried to "revoke" my tv "privileges."

My logic capacities firing at full, and my dependency on television negligible, I mustered a fairly accurate/hilarious/infuriating response.

"I'm sorry - did we fall into a hole in the fabric of time? Is this the 90s? You don't get to do that anymore."

Zing.
I.
Win.


Oh, if your curious as to what spurred such ludicrous paternal posturing, I had been taking a nap on the couch and when my dad came home from the cabin and decided to turn NFL Football on at a deafening volume. I groggily mumbled "Well that wasn't very considerate..." oh no I didn't. NO TV FOR A WEEK.

If I start making more than 1'500$ a month, be it by stroke of luck, good old fashioned hard work or satanic pact, I will totally move out.

Pet Peeve of the Day: The Cult of Marilyn

I don't mean to pick on Marilyn Monroe (I'm not the idiot Elizabeth Hurley is; "I've always thought Marilyn Monroe looked fabulous, but I'd kill myself if I was that fat"). Marilyn Monroe was a beautiful woman. I mean, look at her:

Babe.

My pet peeve is with this sudden obsession with her so-called largeness.

A couple of friends of mine recently posted this photo on various forms of social media:

 

And while this doesn't single out Marilyn Monroe, the general body nostalgia it points to is equally irritating to me. Because both are rather ill founded.

Don't get me wrong - we have some really unrealistic bodies being overly represented in mainstream media. Keira Knightly is smaller than Marilyn Monroe. But are you going to tell me Marilyn had an attainable figure? She has no where near the curves that, say, Christina Hendricks does.

What I find problematic is this illusion that media's obsession with slim, unattainable bodies is a recent problem. Marilyn Monroe was a size 8 (according to the faultless truth-keeper that is snopes.com). And, as Snopes points out, a size 8 today is much larger than a size 8 in the 50s and 60s.

And while Marilyn was more of a Catherine Zeta-Jones sized celebrity in her own time, she shared the silver screen with the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Princess Grace, Veronica Lake, Brigitte Bardot. Those were some tiny women. So yeah, you can point to Nicole Ritchie and Kirsten Dunst the same way you can point to Marilyn and Jayne Mansfield. Either way, you're not getting the full picture.

So let's stop pretending the media has actually gotten worse, and just admit that the media has always chosen the most beautiful women to grace their screens and magazine covers, women whose beauty was their job, a job which they had to attend to with such an obsessive level of detail that so-called "average women" with other jobs they have to attend to can't be expected to compete.

Resolve: Literacy is Important

I'm done bitching and moaning about my quarter life crisis. It's time to buck up and move onward and upwards. I know - I'm all about resolutions. I make them virtually every month. So, while in years past I have relished in making elaborate and overarching new year's resolutions, this year I am pacing myself. Since I have been in such a rut, I am going to slowly choose the battles which will pull myself out; a total overhaul is all too likely to end in failure.

So, my first resolution: read. Blog. But my second resolution? Read.

I've never felt the need to make myself read. I've been in university for the past 6 years - I've been reading plenty. But I was never reading all that much fiction, or much that wasn't in some way required for school. Now that I'm not in school, my bedside audiobook habit has taken the place of actual literacy.


And that, my friends, is embarrassing.

I have opted to set my aim rather low right now, and I hope I can polish off a book a month. Once I get into the habit of actually picking up a book before bed, rather than opening up my laptop or turning on my ipod, things may snowball.

Here are the first of my twelve books I hope to conquer in 2012:

The Aeneid
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Silence of the Lambs
The Hobbit
The Old Man and the Sea
The Picture of Dorian Grey
The Brothers Karamazov

Two of these are novels I have started in the past and never finished, and I refuse to give up on them. I also kind of want to pick a trendy book from the Vogue review, you know, brush up on my current literature.

If you have any wicked suggestions, please pass them along. For now, time to make my way through and epic Latin poem.

Tipping Ettiquette 101, and Everything Else You Need to Know About Dining Out: a Server's Perspective

I have been feeling an overwhelming sense of ennui lately with what is feeling like a directionless and menial waste of a year. I'm out of school, I live with my parents, I'm a full time server, and I'm so tired from that last one that I have been doing little else with my time. I chatted tonight with Chopper, and after ranting about work for 10 straight minutes I heaved a sigh and confessed; "I hate talking about my job, it makes me feel so deeply uninteresting."

Well, rather than dodge the bullet, pretend I have a lot of other deep and important thoughts racing through my mind or fabulous parties nay racy adventures to titillate you with, I'm going to meet the goliath head on with this revelatory piece on how to treat your server.

1) I work as a server, I am not a waitress
This may be a small detail, but in "the industry" - a term I disdain in its self-righteous mediocrity - we call ourselves servers. The reason I bring it up to you, dear reader, who is likely not in "the industry"? Because how many times have you heard someone call out "Oh, Server." You don't. And if you remove the words "waiter" and "waitress" from your vocabulary you will stop yourself from calling out to your server in this anonymous way. Bidding "Waitress!" is a) not helpful, as the restaurant is full of waiters/waitresses, many of whom aren't yours and can't, or don't have time to, help you; b) defines what is actually a person by their profession and tends to dehumanize and c) makes you sound like an ass. "Excuse me, waitress" is really not much better than snapping.
If you server introduces his or herself, take note. Nothing makes me feel better than when someone has actually acknowledged my name. Except, perhaps, when someone asks my name when I haven't given it. I am a person with a name who has a cat, and bills to pay, and a degree (two, in fact), who works as a server and is, at times fallable. So if you call me by my name, and not "waitress" those other things may occur to you, and you will not treat me like a servant or a second class citizen.

2) You are not the only table
Obvious, but it seems to be something everyone seems to forget. People can be rather unforgiving when a water goes unfilled or a side plate has been forgotten. Before you join those ranks think of this; while this young woman/man is taking my drink order, she also has drinks on the bar for another table, food in the kitchen that needs to be ran, a table that needs to be cleared and, heaven forbid, a party of 5 who are all paying separately. On debit. Not only is this To Do list cycling through his.her subconscious, lest something be forgotten altogether, but a route which allows for these tasks to be most efficiently achieved is being routed and mapped. So if your Diet Coke takes a little while getting to you, avoid rolling your eyes - it's hilarious, people think that if they aren't making eye contact with their server that we can't see the bitchy looks you exchange with your dining guests - and give some slack.
This unfortunately also goes to nice people who are considerately getting to know their server. This gesture does make serving feel much less like servitude and can make an evening at work rather fun. However, if it is the height of the lunch rush, and your server is looking around slightly panic stricken as you ask about their major, realize that maybe, while they love your interest and really appreciate your wanting to talk to them, they maybe forgot to ring in food for a table who is less easy going. Sometimes a simple "you look like you need to run off to do something, go ahead" is the kindest gesture.

3) Servers/People Are Fallable (subset of 1)
This was implied with 1, and 2 for that matter, but it really bears emphasis. Sometimes servers make mistakes. You said no dress on your side salad and it came out with dressing. You wanted the dry ribs before the soup. You had asked for potatoes and got potato salad. The list is endless. Before you unleash your wrath on the person responsible think two things; is my server necessarily the one responsible for this?; if so, do they deserve to be berated or punished for it? Anecdote; my first time ever serving a large party was 13 people, 8 or whom wanted the salmon. I accidentally rang in 7 salmons. I missed one. It got rang in right away, we took care of the cost of his salmon, and I apologized profusely. It came out 8 minutes after the rest. Upon presenting it to him, and apologizing to him, again, he cut me short, saying "yeah, you know, I know you're sorry and you're taking care of it, but now half my friends are done eating so it doesn't really matter." It was the most hurtful and unnecessary comment. Because here's the thing; we know when we've screwed up. And we are aware of the hyper critical ways in which little errors seem like large ones when you're out to have a good time. My restaurant teaches new recruits about "restaurant time" - it's the illusion that for every minute you actually sit in a restaurant, it feels like 3. You think you waited 5 minutes before your server came and said hi? Don't be so sure. This gentleman thought he sat there forever waiting for his salmon while everyone else ate, when in reality everyone else who had ordered the salmon was not even halfway through. And regardless, what more could I do than apologize and take care of his meal?
Furthermore, an important distinction to make here is between a mistake and bad service. Some people say that unless everything comes out perfect they wont tip 15%. But was your server solicitous? Did he or she make eye contact while speaking with you, fill up your drinks, advise you on menu items? After the problem was identified, did they check to see if everything was ok after a solution had been found? Or did they fail to write down your order, were looking around at other tables when you were ordering and avoided your table after the mistake was brought to their attention? This is a key difference that brings me to my last, and most crucial, insight.

4) T.I.P. is not a tax
 I know that I am not coming from the most objective place, talking about tipping ettiquette. But I think there are some key things people need to know.
First; in Canada, there are many provinces where the minimum wage for serving staff (specifically people who serve alcohol) is lower than minimum wage at McDonalds or Walmart or any other job.
Second; The times during which a restaurant are busy are narrow windows, which means most servers do not work 8 hour days. If you are a first cut server on the lunch rush, you may work from only 11:00-2:00. Full time employment in a restaurant is not 40 hours a week. So this is all to say, servers cannot realistically live off their wage alone. I make around 1'000$ a month in wage. So for the people, and I am ashamed to say I know some, who think that a tip is extra...no. Governments have acknowledge the practice of tipping and have scaled wages down accordingly, making those tips particularly necessary.
Third; restaurants are shady. Not the kitchens or the bathrooms (though it depends where you are I supposed) but the managements. There are a million loop holes and bullshit lies restaurants use to keep from paying their servers what they deserve. Some places pool hours and put them onto future paychecks to keep from paying overtime. Some will tell you that you are cut, and will only get paid for an additional 45 minutes, as incentive for you to stop taking tables, finish up with your existing ones, and get out of the restaurant and off the clock. So don't rely on the restaurant to be providing for their staff adequately - they often don't.
Fourth; your server does not get that tip all to him or herself. This is a point necessary for everyone, but becomes particularly clear when people ring up high bills. Most restaurants require you to tip out your kitchen, your hostesses, your busboys and your bartender. At mine and many others, the way these tips are determined are not by pooling tips and sharing them. This is, sadly, too optimistic a system; you can't really rely on all servers to be honest about how much of a tip they made off a table that paid with cash. What we do is determine your required tip out based on sales. For instance, if I sold 500$ worth of food, I tip 1.5% to floor staff (hostesses/bussers), 1.5-2% to the bartender, 2.5% to the kitchen and, at mine, 1% to the expo (the person who liaises between the front of house and the kitchen, making sure food comes out properly, gets run, and looks nice). Let's say that 500$ was all from one table. When people's bills get that high, they have a hard time leaving 75$ "extra" behind. The thought "well 50$ is a good amount of money for anyone" often arises. Well, no matter which way you slice it, that is 10%. And with 7% of that 500$ already automatically assigned to other staff, that leaves your server with 3%. Rather than slapping a generous 50 bones in their hand, your server (who probably doted on you quite a lot to get your bill so high) walks away with 15$. This is particularly crucial if you are placing an order for pick up! The same rules apply. I answered the phone, chatted with you, took your order, packed it up for you and settled up with you - all this while serving other tables. It is service. And whether or not you agree, the restaurant does not distinguish your 90$ To Go order from the rest of my sales; the kitchen still had to make it, so surely they deserve a tip, right?


Oh, and one more thing. If you're too broke to tip properly, you're too broke to go out. It's the shittiest excuse.

So send out some good karma and tip well babies. We work hard for it. Fur reelz