It was 42 degrees when I woke up this morning. I should
clarify that it was 70 in my house, but much cooler outside. Fall is my
favorite season, and I am eager to feel the weather, see the colors, and taste
the hard work of the summer sun in the vegetables and fruits that come around
this time of year.
I worked hard this summer, and Labor Day weekend was the
official end of the busy season, although golfers will assuredly golf until the
snow flies, and people do eat without their children, so we will still have
work throughout the fall and winter months.
Recently, I started cross-training on the garde manger
station. I have been working sauté for the past few months and I love it, but
it is good to know all of the stations in a restaurant so you are more useful,
and it will look good on a resume someday. I had a combined eight hours on the station
before I was given the spot to work on the Sunday before Labor Day, and I wasn’t
a fan. Garde mange (French for “keeper of the food”) consists of salads,
sandwiches, and desserts. Few of them are easy to assemble, and most of them
have a complex assortment of ingredients that seem to have only one particular
function, so the station has 1,000 ingredients for 20 items. Now, that is an exaggeration,
but when it gets busy it would seem that way. I don’t really like that station,
but it sort of grew on me the other day, so I will go back and forth from sauté
to garmo over the winter months.
Now, by contrast the first part of this post was probably
boring compared to the previous four posts about my love life. I received a lot
of (mostly positive) feedback regarding those posts, and I have plenty more to
write about. She (yes, the She from those posts) has started writing her own series
of posts entitled cleverly “He” that I may share with you someday.
I’ve been seriously considering starting an anonymous blog; A
new blog with an entirely different concept through which anybody can share
their dirtiest, most honest and revealing stories. I have an idea for the first
post which would shock most people, and nobody I know—past or present—has ever
heard the story. Although my life is an open book, there are just certain parts of my
past that are better left untouched. They don’t harm me, and there is no
resentment held, and no amend necessary associated with these stories, they are
just things that are too dirty to share on a blog associated with a message of
recovery from addiction and criminality. So, stay tuned on that, as I may share
a link someday.
It’s a little early, but I thought I would mention that in
two days, I will have been free from prison for two years. It has literally
flown by. I have changed from the guy wearing maternity pants, standing
confused and afraid in the aisles of a Walmart then heading to his mother’s
house to live, to a confident, strong man living on his own again, ready to
face life as it comes, and willing to do whatever it takes to stay sober and
carry the message of sobriety to those who still suffer. It’s been a hell of a
ride, and I regret nothing. I am grateful for every day I have had, and I am
hopeful for my future. I know that if I keep working on myself, I will be
useful to others.
For the past year or so I have been able to say something
that I hadn’t for over 30 years, I love myself. I love who I am and what I have
become because of everything I have ever done.
Thanks for reading.
