just another week in great falls
So...congrats to Sara on finishing her 50K words on time! To me that's an amazing accomplishment. It took me a month to finish my 20K word comp exam last summer.
My Thanksgiving turned out to be a good day. Bernie and I ate at my aunt Mary's and played a game of spoons with my family, sat at my mom's for an hour and took enchiladas home, and ate even more at his friend's house. Three stops on one Thanksgiving must be some sort of record for me. Kirk was even well-behaved...actually he was nice. Amazing. The only let-down was that Amy couldn't come home from Missoula. It's sad how much I miss her skank-ass. Amy, if you're reading this, we need to make plans to get together soon. I might try and plan a trip to Missoula in the near future.
Melanie's birthday is coming up! She decided that Friday is the party night and I plan on getting her appropriately drunk. Tomorrow night at Tony Roma's is dedicated to making enough money to accomplish the drunk Melanie goal.
new developments
First is my job at Tony Roma's. I'm working all kinds of shifts, sometimes even doubles, and not making the kind of money I hoped to make. Management is playing it safe and only allowing servers to have 2 table sections. Hopefully soon they'll up it to three or four. Other than that, the job is pretty much ok. We are really busy all the time. To be honest, I am just getting tired of waiting tables. I don't know how my mom did it for 16 years.
I also have a new boyfriend. It was official yesterday and we've been dating for a little over a week. The lady I live with set us up. She picked a really good guy. His name is Bernie, he's 26, he has a degree in atmospheric sciences (meteorolgy), and he works at the National Weather Service. He also has his own house. So far things are going really well (I'd hope so after only a week) and it feels good to be in a new relationship. I'm even taking him to both of my Thanksgiving dinners since all of his family is back in North Dakota. When I get a picture of him, I'll try to post it.
I just recently discovered that Itunes has a huge section of online radio stations. This is an exciting development in my world...all I do now is listen to Virgin Radio UK.
Congrats to Heather on her new smile and congrats to Kristen and for her new car!
Training at Tony Roma's
I started training yesterday, and so far things are going fairly well. Trainers have been flown in from stores all over the US...the last restaurant they opened was in London! Most of them are very nice but the leader of my group is on a bit of a (rightful) powertrip. I can handle it because I know how to play the game, but some of the others in my group are constantly being nasty and inappropriately challenging. It makes for a long and uncomfortable 5.5 hours. Today all we did was eat and we only got through 1/3 of the menu. That means we have two more days of nothing but stuffing ourselves to the point of explosion. Most of the food is pretty good, with the exception of all the fish shit. After we taste something the trainer makes us come up with an original adjective or description phrase for it. It's all a bit cheezy. Imagine me walking up to a table and saying "would you like to try our fabulous world-famous babyback ribs slathered in sweet carolina honey bar-b-que sauce?" Scary.
Melanie will have to explain her recent communication with Katie Jorgenson to all of you. It's weird, because I could hardly recognize her photos. Mel has her live journal address...I'll tell her to post it.
Amanda's election opinions!
Although I am of course very disappointed in the presidential election, I am not suprised. What bothers me most is one issue that passed in Montana. Our state constitution is now going to be amended to define marriage between a "man and a woman." Some conservative religious group got enough signatures to get it on the ballot and now it passed (by a larger margin than I would have imagined). When did legislating other people's personal lives become acceptable? My mother approaches me yesterday with this comment "I think so many republicans came to the polls last night to vote about gay marriage, not for the presidential election. They are genuinly afraind of what it would do for our moral values in America." I think she was trying to tell me that we had to draw the line somewhere. This from MY MOTHER. HELLO???? Where the hell does she draw the morality line in her own life? Since straight people (including her) have done so much to preserve the "sanctity" of marriage, it would be a disaster to let other people give it a try. She has tried to argue it from an economic standpoint (the costs of same-sex benefits etc), but I'm not interested in arguing about money when it comes to people's health and well-being. Maybe I'm wrong, and she was just making a comment. She certainly wasn't going to get a rise out of me. My mom rant counld go on for eternity. So could my rant on people's biazzare protection of marriage in general.
On a positive election note....Montana has a Democrat governer. I think Brian Schwitzer was a genius to run with a Republican on his ticket. That even convinced my dad to vote for him!
