Saturday, Jul. 31, 2004
Summer nights, posted at 10:56 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com It's one of hot summer nights where lightning is flashing off in the distance, and the hint of a summer storm to come just entices you to sit on the porch and read. I've been doing that ever since I was cut from work. I enjoyed tonight. I only had three tables, but all were first time visitors and all were friendly. When I have really slow days, I forgot what an excellent server I am. But, tonight, I showed my stuff. (I know three tables doesn't sound busy, but I stayed fairly active because all got multiple courses and wine.) One table was shaking my hand as they left. Nice people. I made $49 tonight, which isn't terrible, and reminded myself why waiting tables can be fun.I've decided what I'm going to do about the job. I'm going to tell them that I want three shifts a week during the school year - Wednesday nights, Saturday nights, and Sunday mornings. This will allow myself to have a social life on Friday nights, and be able to plan ahead to do things during the week and not have to wait until Sunday night for the schedule. If the restaurant cannot accomondate the schedule, then I will look for other parttime work. I've become addicted to being financially responsible, so I think I need to keep two jobs to ensure that I can keep up with everything. I'm still doing a lot of debt payoff, so it isn't about living above my means (I don't even have cable), it's about getting myself totally in the black as I begin my homebuying.
I'm getting pretty excited about next week. On Monday and Tuesday, I have softball games, and I'll be heading out afterwards both nights for cheap Miller Lite pitchers. (Actually, I might forgo Tuesday, but we'll see how Monday goes.) Thursday is the big Melissa Ferrick show in the park, which I recommend to all you Baltimore readers. And Friday I'm heading to the O's game.
I get to brag to my fellow faculty on Friday (we're meeting up as a department to head to the game) something that I'll now share with you... So, the Cal Rip*ken Foundation had this big scholarship for all city kids allowing them to go to a week-long baseball camp in Florida, Texas, or South Carolina. It was a very long application, complete with three (!) Letters of Recommendation, test scores, grades, income, etc. I pretty much made my team do it, telling them that if they didn't at least apply (they could always deny it later if they received it and couldn't go), then I would hold it against them when I made cuts next year. I wrote letters of recommendation for about ten kids.
Well, out of the five kids awarded this scholarship, three were from my baseball team. That's city-wide. I was very proud and very happy when I heard this. You should hear this message one mother left on my answering machine, thanking me for all the support I showed to her son all year, and how happy she is that he got the scholarship. She then asked, with a hint of melancholy in her voice, if I would be returning to my school this year. Parents and everyone else is expecting the worse here, and, indeed, I think we're going to be replacing 40% of our faculty or so because folks are leaving in droves because of the isntability of the system. But not me, I told her. She told me she was relieved, and I was relieved that I didn't disappoint her.