To All My friends, family and followers: A good fast.
Peace, joy, health and prosperity to you all.
First, one more time: Ruth Bader Ginsburg: may she rest in peace.
Those peaceful, festival-like demonstrations that have ruined countless businesses and destroyed multiple cities’ properties have wreaked close to two billion dollars in damages. Mostly, those anarchists have destroyed things like, you know, buses, local mom and pop stores that the inner-city neighborhood residents depend upon, pharmacies and groceries. And they have cost many, many jobs that those same inner-city residents depended upon. Many of them will not be revived.
Those demonstrations have moved to restaurants where innocent people are dining outside due to COVID restrictions and there have been the incidents we’ve seen on TV where demonstrators come up to (many times older) people’s tables and abuse the people and their food.
They’ve moved into the suburbs where they’ve told residents that they don’t belong in their own houses because they are privileged, that other people belong there and are coming for the houses.
These are those peaceful protests according to CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC and others as well as the majority of the print media. The mainstream media in America is one of the most dangerous forces out there, if not the most dangerous force in America now. It is Pravda USA on steroids, an unabashed arm of the Democratic party. Like Pravda and any of the media in totalitarian countries, it presents a narrative to its viewers that is biased, untrue, not faithful to real facts and meant to tell its viewers to do what the party says or else.
Rule by threat.
Worse, here in America it is owned by a few mega-billionaires all of whom do multi-billion dollar business yearly with our “enemies.” Thus they have personal interests in holding to a bias. Never before has such public information power been concentrated into the hands of so few people whose business interests run contrary to the interests of the United States. Furthermore, all of these people have personal animus toward Donald Trump the person and Donald Trump the president.
So they advance a false narrative that allows Nancy Pelosi and her party to rule by mob threat and political mob threat.
The Democrats say they will forcibly remove the president from the White House if he loses and won’t leave. How preposterous to even bring it up. Fear-mongering and threat.
They say they will stack the Supreme Court.
They say they will add new states certain to be Democrat so the Republicans can never win an election again.
They say they will make sure the violence we are seeing in the streets continues if President Trump is re-elected.
Or, you can have no peace, no security and no safety anywhere in America unless you vote Democrat.
Well, pretty much, that’s what it is and that’s what they are saying.
Rule by threat: give the Democrats what they want and put them in power or all you have worked for your entire life will be destroyed like those little mom and pop stores were in the inner-cities.
A government’s first responsibility is to protect its people. That’s not my opinion. Look it up.
That what the Democrats are doing? Is that what they’ve done in the cities they’ve controlled for about 60 years? The cities they have let perpetrate anarchy and abuse of their tax-paying and other populations?
That what you want for your future and the future of you children and grandchildren?
By Peter Weiss
It didn’t take Millie long to spill the beans. Within several days of her boss telling her to cool it with Bill, she told Bill about what her boss said.
“Guess I’m gonna have to wait ‘til I’m really horny and then hit on you,” she said.
Bill noted that she was acting like a school girl. He knew it was an act because every so often she stepped out of the role and let herself be herself. She was wearing dark red this day, dark red lips, fingers and toes, and she made sure to put her knees together and set them apart, same for her feet which, despite it getting colder and colder outside, she still showed—at least for Bill—by wearing flat, open-toe slippers. She stood pigeon-toed every now and then too and looked at him with a little pout.
“I’ll wait for you to tell me when,” Bill said.
“Gonna take care of me?”
“Haven’t I been doing that?”
“No hard feelings?”
“Why should there be?”
“None on my end,” Millie said. She gave him the shy schoolgirl pose one last time. Then she said something that surprised Bill. “I think my boss is jealous,” she said.
“I think she’s smart,” said Bill. “She’s protecting you and me.”
“Maybe,” Millie said. “Anyway, I’m jumping your bones soon as I can.”
“I can’t wait,” Bill said.
As time passed everyone wondered when Caesar would play his hand, if he would play his hand. The longer Caesar was quiet, the more people wondered if he had a hand to play. One thing was sure, Caesar was not stupid and he knew the executive chef and banquet chef liked Bill. More, he knew they knew how good Bill’s work was. Then there was the whole of the Greek mafia there, and they all had taken Bill as one of theirs.
Bill wondered when he was going to meet Millie’s boss. He wondered about her and wondered what she was like. He wondered if Millie was at all near right when she said maybe her boss was jealous.
Then Bill started thinking about himself and first thought was what was there to be jealous about because as it was he still could not picture himself as handsome or desirable. Of interest, maybe he was that because he was a writer, but no one there actually knew much about him and certainly they didn’t know anything about him as a writer.
He wondered. He wondered about what Kalista had told him about the girl Caesar had whatever-he’d-done-to-her, abused, mistreated, only-Kalista-knew-what, and now he wanted to know too. Inquiring minds wanted to know. Kalista had brought it up and he decided to ask her straight out. He did so, but Kalista was standoffish at first.
One Thursday night not long after they’d had the initial conversation, Bill was standing out by Kalista drinking espresso. They’d had a very decent dinner play, a decent night business wise. All nights now were very decent as November marched quickly through to Thanksgiving. Not only were all nights decent, but the dinner service constantly went well such that Bill had proven himself to be a great hire.
Banquets were beyond busy, fully booked with no spaces and little room for the banquet crew to rest. Jimmy Banquet Chef had told his aunt that Bill was a lifesaver. Bill knew this because Kalista told him. She told him everything there was for her to tell, and continually thanked him profusely for taking care of Jimmy G.
“So tell me,” Bill said. “I want to know what kind of man he is.”
“I tell you another time,” Kalista said. “It’s long story. Not pretty one.”
Bill didn’t want to press it, but he couldn’t help himself. “When?” he asked.
“Soon,” Kalista said. “Only so you can protect yourself.”
By Peter Weiss
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: may she rest in peace.
She died on the eve of the first night of Rosh Hashanah. This in itself has a significance, a special meaning for a special person, a special woman.
But that’s not what this is about. Short and sweet, this is about us as a species that now occupies the earth, about what we are.
Not even an hour into her death on one of the holiest of holy days for the Jewish people, the politicians were talking about its political implications and ramifications and of course they were already beginning the twisting of the language to support, whether correctly or not, the point of view they wish to push forward. The pundits were already speculating and the networks were making their money on her death.
All this before her family could begin to come to terms with it, before they could even start to make funeral arrangements.
Why would the politicians and networks not let her rest in peace and let things be at least until she could be settled into the earth?
And so we get a good look at what we are as a species. We are selfish and greedy and those in power are only interested in power, not even in our well-being.
Look at what we’ve done. Look hard at what we’ve done on this earth and to it.
This is about us. We surely aren’t pretty. We surely aren’t nice. We surely haven’t lived up to what we could be given all the tools we have.
By Peter Weiss
To All My Friends, Family and Followers:
Wishing you a peaceful, joyous and prosperous new year. My you have health and happiness.
Kalista could tell stories. Kalista knew all about the men in her family. Kalista knew about some of the men in the hotel. She knew about the chef, the executive chef, and she knew about the F&B Director. They were two key people for her to know about. Not that it mattered for her job security, because it didn’t, but Jimmy G (and she knew about him too)needed protection because he was lazy and did the least amount of work possible. Worse, he didn’t care about his work.
“I know things,” she said to Bill that time she’d made the comment about men, when they were talking about the girls liking Bill and his playing around on his wife. “I know about the men and the women. Most what I know,” she said, “I’m taking to my grave.”
They were hanging out on her station. She was sitting where she always sat, in the chair she’d long ago set up on her station where she could sit when she had no orders and no work and stand to work without moving the chair when she needed to be standing. Bill was standing against the wall near the soda dispenser. He was smoking a cigarette and leaning against the wall. Jimmy G had disappeared a while ago and there were no orders mostly because it was pouring outside and no one was out in the street. They’d had a decent dinner play and had fed, as Bill figured it, the hotel guests who were dining-in due to the rain.
“You’re the matriarch,” Bill said.
“My family,” Kalista said. “Most good, some bad. Jimmy G very bad. He hates it here, wants to go home to his farm. His father is my brother and he never want to come to America. But he send his boy with me because they needed money and he wanted his boy to have a better life.”
“Does he have a better life?” Bill asked.
“Yes. But he doesn’t think so. He has a wife and two kids. I think he’s not happy at home. If he was in Greece he’d be on the farm all day. Better for him.”
“He get married here?”
“Big Greek wedding. His whole family came. That was good for me. I saw my whole family.”
“So what do you know?” Bill asked. He moved a bit closer so she didn’t have to speak out too loudly.
“I’ll never tell unless I have to. I know about my little Jimmy, but he’s good now. Victor was a bad man all the time over there. Here he is quiet. I know something about Caesar, something from before. I’m saving it until I really need it. The executive chef and F&B Director, they used to use the chef’s room for messing around. Sometimes they still do. Most of the women are gone now, but I know who they were.”
“Who knows you know?”
“They can only guess. I spend plenty of time talking to the girls. I got times and dates and phone numbers. I no let my family have a problem.”
“You’re a good woman,” Bill said.
“I protect my family. And you are becoming part of it. So I tell you, I saw Caesar do something to someone. She didn’t want it done but he did it anyway. It was very not nice, made her cry. She cried almost every time she came to work and saw him after he did it. He strut like a rooster afterward.”
Bill did not say anything. He looked at Kalista. Kalista looked back at him.
“Is enough for now. We talk again. That girl quit soon after Caesar bothered her. She needed this job. Is good job. At least,” Kalista said, “you don’t bother girls. They bother you.”
By Peter Weiss
We’re below the 50 day mark to the election now.
Honestly it’s all been said.
So what’s to say?
It’s mostly reiteration and simply pointing things out.
So…
When you look at TV and see riots that are going on and the mainstream media reports it as peaceful demonstrations…
When the Democratic VP candidate says she doesn’t trust and wouldn’t take a vaccine developed by President Trump yet we all know that if the Democrats win in November they will simply continue with the same vaccine development already done…
When 96% of Pravda USA mainstream media coverage of President Trump is negative…
When the Democratic VP candidate funnels money into bail funds and advocates for no bail and few arrests for anarchist lawbreakers yet says with a straight face that she’s for law and order…
When Joe Biden says he won’t raise taxes for anyone making less than 400K and then when asked later says less than 125K, and then examination of his plan shows that his wealthy west coast donors will get a tax cut…
When the Democrat response to the two sheriff’s deputies that were ambushed and shot in the head in their patrol car is a call for gun control…
How many legal guns have been used by legal gun owners in all the gun deaths we’ve been seeing? Altogether every year? (It’s about 95% illegal guns vs. 5% legal.)
When the leftist response to what we all know is overwhelmingly illegal guns used by illegal gun-users is to take away legal guns…
Need anyone say more?
When did up become down and wrong become right and criminals get free passes while law abiding citizens get persecuted and prosecuted?
Biden-Harris, or Harris-Biden as she says it and now him too, will make sure America gets destroyed.
Need I say more?
By Peter Weiss
Maybe, despite the business being very busy, the hotel running at full capacity or close to it at all times, The Falstaff Room setting new volume records repeatedly and banquets running at full booking, it was a calm before the storm for Bill. Caesar was too quiet. He wasn’t acquiescent or accommodating, but he was quiet and kept his distance.
The girls were all tired. Toward the end of the evenings in The Falstaff Room Bill could see it in their demeanors and in their faces. Jo Ann carried herself differently toward the end of the nights, showing her age perhaps although Bill thought of it as her showing her excess weight, which was not terribly excess. Rosie and Edelgarde lost the pep in their step so to speak.
Jimmy G was cantankerous. He did not have as much time to sit and read the Greek newspaper or magazine he brought with him. He did not have much time to disappear. He could only get away late at night when the orders were still coming in but it was just the stragglers. Then he would first stop out by Kalista and get espressos for him and Bill before he was off somewhere, who knew where, mostly into the main kitchen where the Jimmy Banquet Chef and his uncle Victor were closing up whatever was happening with the banquets.
Rosie and Edelgarde sweated. Bill could see it sometimes. They ran orders faster than Jo Ann. Jo Ann had one pace, steady, and she kept to it no matter what. Even when Caesar got on their cases, Jo Ann remained unflustered and steady-paced.
When Jimmy G came back from where he went it was Bill’s turn. Bill was working full days every day and he wasn’t about gallivanting. He went off the men’s room, smoked a cigarette on the way, and when he got back, if there were nothing much going on, he would stay out in the hall slightly down the ramp or off to the side up by Kalista. He would smoke a cigarette, drink coffee or espresso or even a soda. They called it pop in Ohio. The first time Bill had heard soda called pop, he didn’t know what it was.
Bill and Kalista were getting close. She was like his own grandmother, Fannie, his mother’s mother who stopped being his grandmother, kind of, somewhere along the line after his mother died. Fannie was fat and happy and round and round-faced. Kalista was kind of the same way, kind of like Grandma at Suburban too.
Kalista treated Bill like family. She took care of him no more and no less than she did her own family which was all over the kitchen in all different positions. She thanked him often for taking care of her lazy nephew Jimmy G who would always, as she said it, do the least he had to do to get by. She also thanked him for taking care of Jimmy Banquet Chef, but every time she did this Bill reminded her that it was the banquet chef taking care of him.
“No,” she said once. “Yes and no. You smart and you work hard and you help him. He rely on you and he need someone to rely on.”
True or not, it was nice to hear and Bill appreciated that Kalista was honest with him, that she shared some of the family stuffs that were going on, particularly about her young great-niece who worked banquet pantry sometimes and how she was sometimes a bit wild.
“I’ve known a few wild ones in my short time in kitchens,” Bill told Kalista.
“The girls like you,” Kalista said. “One thing I don’t like, you married. You should be shamed of yourself.”
When Kalista said this, Bill was cowed and looked to his feet.
“Men,” she said.
By Peter Weiss
A while ago I ran a series of blogs about which shoes you wear, the thrust of which was that we all have different experiences and different points of view and have been brought up in different circumstances causing us to have different needs, wants and opinions.
All true. And this is one of the things that makes America great. It is also one of the things that makes Democracy so difficult.
That said, a simple question: why do so many people of color want to come to this country if it is so systemically racist as the cultist-lefties would have you believe it is? Conversely, why is no one of color fleeing?
Remember all those celebrities who said they’d leave the country if Trump was elected? Why are they still here?
Look at all those black athletes talking about oppression. They are all multi-millionaires, as are those rappers and hip-hop artists who exploit their audience in their music then cry oppression to sell their wares.
Interesting!
So if we look at it, we are in two worlds.
There’s the world of the cultist-lefties, those zombie-like, brainwashed non-thinkers who accept all that is thrown to them by the Pravda USA mainstream media owned by several gazillionaires who hate Donald Trump for whatever reason they hate him on any given day and who will destroy our country to destroy him.
Then there’s the world of what’s really going on, a world that you can actually comprehend and negotiate if you think for yourself and consider multiple points of view, a world where actual facts and honest discourse are presented for you to examine and decide upon for yourself.
That first world will destroy the other one if it is allowed to.
Be careful. If you put your head in the sand you may not see what’s really coming in that left-wing anarchist-endorsed world.
By Peter Weiss
Things moved along. Time is always time. Time never stops.
In the next days, they all worked hard. Rosie and Edelgarde made sure to have fun when no one else was around. They teased Bill endlessly, sometimes so much so that Bill took one of them to the employee rest room. That was their goal and it worked. They knew it would work, planned on it, took turns.
Maybe, if Bill had chosen one over the other it might have made a riff. But he didn’t choose, they didn’t choose, they were one happy work family.
Bill would learn about work families. Later, when he became a teacher, he would find that some teachers where he worked had work-wives.
Work-wife, what a concept. A work-wife, he’d discover, was a female teacher who was virtually the same as a wife, the same as a spouse. Only difference was that at the end of the day the work-couple went home to their respective legal spouses.
Bill always wondered. He wondered who knew what. Beverly knew her husband was cheating. She did not know exactly how serious the affair was, but she knew she was being played. Bill didn’t think his own wife knew anything, but of course as these things went he could never be sure. All he knew was that his life and the way things were going were so far from what he’d dreamed he couldn’t remember what he’d dreamed anymore, or, if that were not wholly accurate, he could not imagine how far his train on the switched track had taken him from where he’d thought he was heading.
And that was the blessing of being busy. That was the blessing of having a job, working lots of hours and having the hours filled with good, hard work. There was something to be said for not having to think about life, about your own life.
The girls at work were only a distraction. If it were up to Bill, maybe he wouldn’t ever have fooled around. But then he’d been stricken by Mary and actually loved her, still loved her. Maybe, he thought sometimes, he’d always love her. When he closed his eyes and tried, he could remember the day she was bending over reaching into that oven and he’d slipped his hand under her dress from behind and helped himself to his first feel of her.
Woman that she was, Mother Mary, sweet Mother Mary. She didn’t jump. She didn’t get flustered. She didn’t move. She let him have his feel while she finished what she was doing in the oven. Only then did she stand up.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” was all she said.
Bill could finish it. Bill knew right away once she’d said that that he would finish it. What he didn’t know was how much he’d enjoy finishing it and finishing it over and over again.
Mother Mary. What Bill didn’t know was how much he would come to feel for her and how deep his feeling would go for her. She’d told him he’d always love his first crew, he’d always remember his first crew. Later in his life Bill would understand that those were true words, real words. Just as he could always close his eyes and recall the smell of the meat sauce his mother made every Sunday, later in his life he would discover he could close his eyes and see the faces of everyone in that first crew, from the special needs dishwasher with the crew cut, Paulie, on up. When he thought about it, he would discover he could recall these people all his life throughout his life.
Ain’t it funny how the night moves.
Ain’t it funny how things connect. This was the very memory chain he would teach in literature and composition courses later on.
