Monday night was slower. It wasn’t slow, just it wasn’t busy. Bill and Jimmy G did their setup gingerly. They were getting used to each other and were starting to move in complementary ways. Bill was beginning to sense what Jimmy was going to do and went around him doing what needed to be done while Jimmy was doing what he was doing.
They found, and it was no big surprise, if they put their minds to it they could do the entire setup, soup to nuts, in less than an hour. They found they could start late and be done early or start early and be done really early. Or they could start on time and work quickly and efficiently and still be done early.
Today, Bill’s second Monday, the beginning of his second week, they started a bit late and ended a bit early. By quarter-past-four, their work all done, they found themselves sitting with Kalista sipping espresso and just plain resting doing nothing. Jimmy was quite pleased with the whole deal. This meant he didn’t have to do anything for at least an hour, maybe two. They would have an easy and leisurely dinner. The banquet chef would bring it over and Kalista, as she did every day, would provide the salad, always a wonderful, genuine Greek salad.
They sat, Bill, Jimmy G and Kalista. Kalista was all set up. She was always set up and ready on time. Jimmy G and Bill smoked a cigarette. Bill closed his eyes and rested.
Sometimes, in idle times, Bill relived the days that changed his life. He did not mean to, did not want to. Sometimes, when he was busy doing nothing, he drifted there and while he did not always linger there, he went through the two main ones. He did not like being there and did not like going there. But sometimes he simply couldn’t help himself.
The first one was wholly out of his control. In some regard he was merely a spectator. But in reality he was a participant. He was not an actor, and if he was, he was only a minor actor, one of the characters who react to things happening to them. He was not a causal actor in the slightest. So there was nothing he could have done. There was, actually and altogether, nothing to have been done except maybe by the doctor who dropped the ball, made an error that turned out to be a fatal error.
And so it goes.
The second, if only he’d said no, if only he’d insisted that he and his professor go as planned over to the student union where they could sit in a café and discusses his poetry.
There were so many if-onlys, but then what good did what-if thinking do anyway?
What if he’d fought it through? Didn’t plead guilty?
What if that first change-his-life day hadn’t happened?
He could go on forever this way.
He preferred, when he drifted here, to get to the here-and-now. In the here-and-now he was something he’d never dreamed he would be, doing something he never wanted to do, something that until the day Robert showed up in Bailey’s office, he’d never, ever conceptualized he’d be doing. He would have been, could have been, should have been…
For punctuation, while he sat there, just after he lit a second cigarette, up the ramp came Rosie and Edelgarde in their uniforms, red today with white lace and white leggings. Jo Ann walked ahead. Rosie and Edelgarde walked together, side-by-side, behind her. Rosie and Edelgarde both winked at Bill as they passed him by.
By Peter Weiss
A long, long time ago I asked a dear your friend to help me pick a stereo system. Back then, a system consisted of a tuner, amp, tape deck, speakers and turntable. If you were not an aficionado you could get the tuner and amp in one piece, which is what we did.
We got really great stuff, no question about it, and I had a primo stereo system that lasted a very long time. Problem was we exceeded my budget by about 50%. Let me say that again. We exceeded my budget by about 50%.
My friend was very happy. He knew he got me a great system and since he was really into sound and music and gadgets, well, from his standpoint he’d done me a great service and really helped me out. This was all true.
Me, I was happy. I liked the system. It made good sound, for sure. But it had cost too much and it was a bit too complicated for me. I had to learn how to use it. I wasn’t all that interested in learning and ended up never using it to its full capacity. It was too complicated and too much for me. And it had cost 50% more than I could afford.
I love my friend. We’ve been friends for more than sixty years. It was easy for him back then to spend my money. It was easy because it wasn’t his money. I could have spoken up and told him not to exceed my budget, and he would have listened to me because he was my friend. So it’s not about blame or anything of that nature.
The point here is very simple: it’s really easy to spend other people’s money. He’s a great friend. He was excited to help me out and exuberant in fulfilling his task. He really wanted to do me a solid and of course he did.
But…
He exceeded/we exceeded my budget by 50%.
Exceeding my budget meant that somewhere, somehow I had to skimp on some things.
Last time I looked, I’m not like the government. I can’t print money to cover my expenditures, and working for myself, if I don’t have a product to sell or customers to buy my product, I can’t generate wealth. If I spend more money in one area, I have to cut in a different area. If I exceed my income and deplete my savings, I go broke.
Also unlike the government I can’t print money to cover debt. If I can’t pay my mortgage, I’ll lose my house. If I can’t pay for food, I’ll have to go without eating. Needless to say, if I can’t make my car payment, you guessed it, they’ll repossess my car.
Once a regular person like me gets into that, it’s a snowball effect. If I lose my car, I can’t go to work. Then I can’t pay my credit cards, so those banks that the wonderful Barack Obama reformed will charge me more than 25% interest. My debt now continually increases more and more rapidly, interest on interest and I end up destitute.
But that’s what they want, isn’t it? For everyone to owe them? They want us to be enslaved yet to not think so.
Bottom line: you can’t give up the store. So let’s be nice. Let’s give the Despicable Democrats the benefit of the doubt and say they really want to help us, the American people. (I don’t believe that for a second, but let’s say…) Even so, they can’t do it by giving up the store. They can’t in and of themselves generate money/income/wealth and so they use ours to pay for all the welfare/support programs they want to continue. Now they want to initiate new ones too.
It simply doesn’t work and it can never work. For, as Margaret Thatcher intimated, sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.
The Democrats, and it’s only for their own power, will give up the store. Think it’s a coincidence that the majority of the states needing bailouts are Democrat-run? If we let them, they will squander everything the American people have worked for simply for their own power and self-enrichment.
It’s time we looked at the books and admitted some facts. Government does not generate wealth. It spends other people’s money. If it keeps giving up the store, sooner or later it will implode.
By Peter Weiss
Millie was waiting for Bill and the moment he got there she quickly checked to see that no one was around and whisked him away. She led him into her back room, that room off to the side and whose door was hidden by the racks of laundered clothes.
Soon as she shut the door she reached for him, took him in her arms and kissed him. As they kissed, Bill noted that one of her feet left the floor, or, more precisely, in her exuberance she bent that leg at the knee. Her tongue found his no problem and danced with it happily.
“I like that,” she said when they stopped. “I like you.”
“I like you too,” Bill said, “but…”
“I know,” Millie said, “you’re married and I shouldn’t forget that.”
“Well, that would be a good thing.”
“You’re not available.”
“No,” Bill said. “I’m not available.”
“I’m not looking for a boyfriend, Billy-boy. Really. But I can still like you can’t I?”
“And I can like you too. And I do.”
“But… When you say that you always make it sound like there’s a but, but you’re always too polite to go on and say it.”
Bill didn’t say anything to this. He just looked at her and then in a what-the-hell moment he took her back in his arms and kissed her. But he stopped after a brief moment.
“Wait,” she said. “I want you to do something for me.”
Bill said, “Okay,” and he waited for her to tell him what.
It was easy, it was very intimate, they kissed all the way through it. And when she was done, she gave him a last peck-on-the-lips kiss and straightened herself up.
“A dollar an hour,” she said.
“What?” Bill said.
“That’s your raise, Mr. First Cook.”
Bill stepped back a touch and looked at her as she finished settling herself.
“They haven’t told you yet, have they?”
“No,” Bill said. “They haven’t. And I want to know how you know these things.”
“I told you. My boss is a boss. This is a big, a very big hotel, and the person running the laundry operation is a very important person, equally important as the executive chef, and right up there on the management level with the Food and Beverage Director who your chef reports to. So…”
“Yeah, so…”
“So you think only the people on our level fool around?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we’re not the only ones using this room. I’m saying that if you don’t get caught stealing anything or raping anyone, you could tell Caesar to kiss your ass if you want to and even though you’re technically on probation for another eleven weeks, nothing will happen to you.”
“Well that’s good to know.”
“It’s real too.”
“You gonna tell me who else uses this room?”
“All in good time, Billy-boy. For now, my break’s almost over and I’m willing to bet your partner isn’t too happy. He’s a lazy one. Be nice to Caesar as much as you can. Being second fiddle has to be hard for him.”
Millie opened the door to the room slowly and went out first. She peeked through the rack of clothes closest to the door to see that no one was there and then led Bill out and around the counter so that he was back on the outside of her laundry room.
“You don’t need a uniform do you?”
“Nope. I’m fine. I only came by because I said I would and I’m not sorry I did.”
“I’m not sorry either, Bill Wynn. And I’m glad you’re working here. I’m also glad they gave you a position and a raise and are making it worth your while.”
“See you tomorrow,” Bill said.
Since no one was around, Millie winked at him and threw him a kiss.
By Peter Weiss
I say it over and over and take no credit for it. I credit my father in law who said to me in the early 1970s “Man is by nature selfish and greedy.”
And here we are. Now some 50 years later we are ruled by a class of politicians many of whom are career politicians. The large majority of them are millionaires, many of them multi-millionaires. They stay in their political positions for many, many terms and then pass them on to family members. Or, quite simply, we are now ruled by a political class very similar to if not the same as the Politburo in Communist Russia.
We deserve better.
We are told by these people what to do, yet they do what they please.
We deserve better.
Examples? Do I really have to? Al Gore: he flies in a private plane and uses more electricity in a month than his whole town. Yet he tells us to conserve. We must sacrifice so he can live like a king.
Our media today is no better than Pravda is in Russia. It is biased and dishonest. Some of the print media is owned by the billionaire-owners of large corporations with strong left-wing ties. So, like the Bloomberg paradigm, they leave the lefties alone while they concentrate on destroying the Republicans, especially President Trump. They are so corrupt, dishonest and brazen that they don’t hide their bias anymore and aren’t afraid to admit it or say it openly.
We deserve better.
Our government, particularly Congress, stays home during this pandemic and gets paid while they tell people who literally need their paycheck to survive on a day-to-day basis to stay home and stay out of work and thus not get paid.
They deserve better. We deserve better.
If you look back to what now seems so long ago, the impeachment, we see it was plotted before Trump was inaugurated and the the biased media’s not investigating it truly has allowed it to go where it has.
We deserve better. Trump deserves better.
General Flynn and Brett Kavanaugh are some good examples and metaphors for what happens if you go counter to the Darling Democrat politics. What the Democrats and their media lapdogs did to Flynn and Kavanaugh show how ruthless and destructive the Democrats are as a political party and as our media who are supposed to present unbiased truth. What happened to Flynn and Kavanaugh shows how power hungry that party is and how little they care for the people they are supposed to represent.
We all deserve better.
When the president of a country is criticized for saying that his job is to take care of the people of his country first, something is drastically wrong.
We deserve better than the politics we’ve seen from the left for the last three years. We deserve better than the government we have.
For all the taxes we pay and how rich we let our leaders get on our dime, we deserve a lot better.
By Peter Weiss
Girls. Girls, girls, girls. You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them.
They really didn’t have much work and Jimmy Banquet Chef wasn’t into working very much. He and Bill spent two hours doing prep for Tuesday’s parties, but it was easy work. All the parties were prime rib, Duchess potatoes and broccoli. It couldn’t get any easier.
At a leisurely pace, they worked first downstairs in the butcher area taking the prime ribs out of the cryovac, trimming them, setting them into roasting pans and seasoning them. They covered the seasoned meat in mirepoix, roughly cut seasoned carrots, celery and onions that were sautéed in oil to get somewhat soft. Then they covered the roasting pans with film and set them in the walk-in ready to go for the next day.
The second part of the prep was making the Duchess potatoes. This was made easier because vegetable men peeled, cut and cooked the potatoes. All Jimmy Banquet Chef and Bill had to do was mash the cooked potatoes. This was done by machine in an industrial mixer. They added in, by the banquet chefs guidance, all the other ingredients, and once done and seasoned, the banquet Chef taught Bill how to use a piping bag and lay out the servings. All that would have to be done was “butter” them and bake them.
They didn’t work hard. They didn’t have to. They worked steady and easy and they left everything ready for the next day.
At nearly two-thirty Bill started setting up for The Falstaff Room. Jimmy G was in. He had gotten the truck but had not started any work. He waited for his cousin and his partner to finish what they were doing and he walked with them when they went out to where Kalista worked. There, before Bill and Jimmy G started the setup routine, they sat quietly, smoked a cigarette and drank espresso that Kalista made for them.
The three Greeks spoke among themselves in their native tongue. Jo Ann was in and Caesar was around. Jo Ann was setting up, making sure everything was in place for the service. They had left everything ready Saturday night, and now Bill saw her taking last-minute things to the different tables and straightening some things too. She also spent some time folding linens.
Jo Ann was wearing tight jeans and a blouse and she was still in street shoes which had heels. For her age, she did not look bad. For any age she did not look bad, Bill thought.
Bill had gone out into the dining room to see what was happening and he found himself looking at her ass. Of course he did not want her to know and he turned away from where he was looking at her and went back to where the Greeks were busy chatting.
“Like what you saw?” Jo Ann asked Bill when she came out to the pantry area to get some silver.
“What do you mean?” Bill asked.
“Don’t play stupid,” Jo Ann said.
“You want a real answer or an apology?” Bill said.
Jo Ann faced Bill and put a hand on her hip. “Real answer.”
“You look good,” Bill said. “I’m not flirting and I’m not making time. I’m just saying. It was natural for me to be looking.”
“Well thanks for saying I look good. I know you see a lot more in the uniform.”
“What color today?”
“Red with white lace.”
“Yummy,” Bill said.
“What I live for,” Jo Ann said.
Bill was happy that at least Caesar made himself scarce while they were hanging out by Kalista. It might have been different if the banquet chef were not there, maybe not. He wondered if Caesar had been told that he was the new first cook. He wondered if it would matter at all, thought probably not.
Finished chatting and drinking the coffee, they went back to work. The banquet chef told Jimmy G and Bill he’d see them later. Bill and Jimmy G went to start setting up for dinner. On the way, Bill told Jimmy G he was heading over to the laundry for a minute.
By Peter Weiss
The other day I wrote a Monday Morning Rant called I Wonder. In it I mentioned that I wouldn’t be on the social media outlets if it weren’t for publishing my blog and keeping in touch with distant family members. I went on to say that some of my family has stopped communicating with me because of some of my opinions and I said I found this funny, which I do.
But that’s only on one level.
When I wrote that, it felt a bit “funny” meaning strange/awkward, and it still feels a bit unsettling as I’ve been thinking about it.
On another and totally different level, having a family member (family members) stop communicating due to politics or other opinions (to be clear not actions) is tragic and sad. In particular, in my case, because I’m older and one family member “not communicating” is much older than me, I fear we may never speak again, ever. That’s tragic and sad.
So I think about connections. Somewhere, somehow, things are connected. My family disconnect connects to the nature of the Democratic dogma/doctrine/diatribe. Metaphorically, it goes back to one of their paragons of leadership, Maxine Waters. Remember her call for her “people” to bother them, Trump-supporters, when they see them in gas stations, in restaurants and even at their homes such that they are disturbed in their sleep? Those people, the Trump supporters, according to Waters and the Democratic dogma, are immoral for working for Trump, for following Trump, for (and this is really it) not ascribing to the Democratic doctrine. Hillary called, well you know this well, the entirety of the Trump supporters “deplorables” and of course it goes on and on.
Action-wise, remember when Trump’s Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was driven from the restaurant where she was eating with her family? That is metaphoric for the Democratic dogma and representative of their disdain for more than half of the people of this country.
It gets worse.
A good juxtaposition as I sit here writing this is Kavanaugh/Biden, what was done to Kavanaugh in accordance with that self-determined, self-judged moral superiority the Democrats profess to have and what is being hidden/denied by those very people when it applies to their presidential candidate. Those same people willing to destroy a man and his family for their own political interests are willing to not even look at the actions of their own candidate.
And on and on.
Antifa is just in their violence. Trump supporters are KKK members just for speaking their opinions, and according to the Democrats violence done to them is violence deserved, violence justified.
There are some bottom lines and some consequences.
The mainstream media Pravda USA are complicit in the division of the people of this country. It is purposeful. They are dishonest, biased and hell-bent on advancing the Democratic agenda. Why?
The results of their goal of division is purposely aimed at divide and conquer. One result is that, like for me, families sometimes don’t talk to one another anymore. This is tragic and sad.
I would say it’s about political power, which of course it is, but more than that it’s simply about money, for our new American Politburo to get richer and richer while the people they are supposed to represent become like the zombies in the zombie movies.
This is worse than tragic and sad. It’s absolutely diabolical.
