I am become bees, destroyer of not-bees

I went over to Carrie's, and after her sister moved out of the house they've had various different people stay with them, and their latest roommates are an older married couple, and long-time friends of her dad.

While we were sitting there watching TV, Carrie's dad Mike told her he's going over to the Gerber family's place, and she explained to me that they're borrowing camera equipment on a trip to Europe. Meanwhile, I'm just sitting there trying to make a crack about baby food or something because it's just too easy!

One of their roommates comes out and asks, "Where's Mr. Mike?" and Carrie's like, "He went over to the Gerber's." And he's like, "Is he watching their baby?" And I started snickering because come on, I'm sure we all wanted to make the easy joke. And he says he wants to make a show called Cheap Laughs featuring the world's most obvious punchlines, and every episode would end with a pie thrown in someone's face. Seven minutes of the classics. I'd watch it.

I decided to get some quarters for laundry and try out my ski boots because they were hurting my feet last time i put them on, and wouldn't you know it I ended up helping Parker with the day's tasks, I can't just not. I didn't do anything I didn't feel like, it's barely work. Sorting receipts, bundling things, talking to people: not work. Touching cash: work. I got super distracted when handing over the deposit that I forgot to give him the drop for Main Lodge. He turned around and was like "don't you have receipts for Main?" And I was just thinking "god fucking dammit get it together, Judy, don't lose your shit just cuz you have a giant ugly crush on him". I felt like I see Tim every sodding day or something but I think he just has the same days off as I do. I'd say the same thing about Mike except he actually just is there every sodding day.

Annie was in town with her friends, we tied one on. I made the wise choice not to drink anything harder than beer, so while I got super drunk, I felt fine the next day. I recall putting on a husky hood and dancing like a moron. She got me a heart-shaped pendant that has the letters "F U" engraved on it, I was insanely delighted. She knows me so well, because that's the most "me" thing ever.

I'm super happy working only one job. I have regular sleep hours, make money, have time for myself. I never really realized how unhappy work could make me, or how happy an 8-hour work day would make me. Right now I have one day off because I'm working parking, but if that became a problem I think Parker would be able to take one more day because Mary cut him one day too, so he only has 4 days a week, same as me. He says his shifts at the brewery have really cut down. I dunno if he'd want to work more or not, but I think I want to try and get as many hours as I can right now because who knows what else will happen? I'm sure it will snow some more but I can't just assume it will.

Mike had to get rid of another guy so now he needs two people. He was like, "I'll make it easy for you, all you have to do is wear a jacket and hang around the place. I won't make you bring in all the stuff on snowy days." He pretty much just needs a warm body so people can have a day off. Mary will probably cut my hours at this rate, she wants to get rid of one of us for Monday. And I won't have to worry about whether I'll make 40 hours or not.

Freddy was going to do a private party on Tuesday and Dave Fucktard Morriss was going to do sushi but he dropped out on him with less than a week until the party, and Freddy was dreading that he'd have to tell them that he couldn't do sushi anymore but he decided to ask me if I could come in and do the sushi for his party and I was like "hell yeah". So I'm putting together (already did) a little selection of a few easy rolls, not stealing anything from Fernando of course but just the classic simple rolls that many sushi restaurants have. I haven't gone over it with him yet but I'm thinking a California roll, a salmon & avocado roll, spicy tuna roll with sriracha, and a hamachi roll with jalapenos and ponzu sauce. Plus salmon skin, spicy tuna, and spicy scallop handrolls. Maybe some nigiri too. The hamachi ponzu roll is similar to something I had in LA that I really liked, though the one I had used yuzu juice and soy sauce instead of ponzu. It's a simple, easy menu that nonetheless covers most of the bases, most people should be able to find something they like with those choices.

I'm actually pretty excited about this, I've never had the opportunity to plan any kind of menu before. Freddy is a wonderful chef but he's not particularly versed in sushi, it's a specialization he didn't go into. I'm going to meet with him tomorrow so we can get this dashed out.

It's past 5:30 and nobody has tried to call me so I think I'm in the clear about Max covering me tonight. What I said to Kate was that, I told Cortney about it and Cortney is the one ultimately in charge, and she gave me the OK on it so I'm good here, and Kate said "yeah, that sounds about right." I might go see a movie, tonight is the last showing of the Hobbit movie so I think I want to catch that after all.

The past couple days have been painful, to say the least. It was Fernando's days off, so I pretty much had to play at doing what he does. Christmas season is in full swing, but we still don't have any people so Danny and Russ are up at the bar helping us all night. I'm sure I spent about 85% of my time doing nigiri and sashimi. It's painful because Mariah, Danny and Russ are all horribly slow. Also Mariah has a burst cyst so she's in pain so she can't work fast even if she wanted to. And I'm the only other person besides Fernando who can make proper sashimi and nigiri. I don't care what Russ thinks about himself, he can't cut fish properly and I don't think they should be if they're going to cut it in the wrong direction every single fucking time. I'm doing the hardest orders, dealing with Erick on expo telling me he's missing this and that, expoing my OWN tickets among the sushi bar, it's a pain. I'm going to talk to Fernando about half-tipping everyone else. I had Erick come back with some handrolls Danny made and tell me the guy refused to pay for them because they were just rice rolls, with only a couple scraps of fish, and I was almost embarrassed because the guest had every right to refuse them (but I wasn't actually, because it wasn't like I'd made them myself). It was 90% rice and a couple nigiri-sized strips of salmon. It was chaotic and I have a giant headache today (the literal kind).

If it turns out I didn't get as much of a raise as I asked for, I'm quitting. Nothing around it, that's a concrete decision I've made. We'll find out later this week.

The sushi bar is also a little high for me to work at comfortably for long hours, so after a while I develop a lot of shoulder strain and they're incredibly tense now. I get a little cramp as soon as I get there. I was talking to Tyler and he was like "Cheer up Judy" and squeezed my shoulder and I was like "WOW THAT FEELS SO GOOD DO IT AGAIN PLZ." He gave me the best 10-second shoulder kneading ever, and I felt much more limber from it. He has some of the biggest hands in the restaurant.

Today I went to Bishop with Kate, we basically ran errands and got smoothies and stuff. It was one of the more productive days off I've had. Tomorrow I'm going to do laundry and stuff. I hate Christmas.

We got a new executive chef, Russ. The only thing that I don't like about him is, he's really big so it's hard to get past him on our little sushi bar. He has an appreciation for simple but well-executed flavors, resolved to get rid of anything that comes in a bottle, and he wants to get rid of those lazy hacks in the kitchen, Edgar and Pedro. The other day he said to me, with Edgar standing right there, kind of more announcing it, that Edgar wanted to learn sushi, and I just blurted, "No." without even thinking about it. It was a knee-jerk reaction, completely from the heart.

Okay, to be honest, I'm an elitist. You can't just learn sushi just because you want to, because you think it'll be fun or interesting. It's an intensely cost-prohibitive skill to learn. Some talentless fuck like Edgar, who has no knife skills whatsoever, no interest in sushi or fish or even food, doesn't speak English (can't serve/interact with customers), absolutely no finesse to speak of, he has no business learning sushi. He only wants to make more money, and that's the wrong motivation. We were hired within days of each other, same general amount of experience when we started, but I have people offer to teach me sushi, because I showed interest in it, worked hard, was helpful, and have knife skills.

Anyway, that Pedro guy put in his two weeks but Russ said, "I appreciate it, but I'm not going to bother, if he doesn't want to be here, I don't want to use him." And I was like, "Well." Because that guy gets on my last nerve, to the point that I don't want to be there when he's around. He's weird and creepy. But Russ doesn't much like him, and this solves my problem, at least. Russ wants to get rid of Edgar too, I think him telling me Edgar wanted to roll sushi was more to see what I thought because when I mentioned that I wasn't joking about my Big No, he grimaced and was like, "No, he lacks finesse." He feels bad for his guy Danny that he brought with him from Palm Springs, cuz Danny's at 10.50 right now and then he heard how much the other fuckers make, aka a lot more. The only cook he likes is Dario, and everyone likes Dario because even if he does lack a bit of natural finesse, he's a hard worker, doesn't have a shitty attitude, and he's solid. He's always working when the other fucks are just standing around like asses.

Speaking of Danny, I like this guy too. He's a real cook. Honestly I might be a little more wary of Russ if not for Danny, because it's one thing for one guy to come in, but you don't have a protege for many years by being a total jerk. It's been nice having someone to help with prep, because I still have that mindset of fending for ourselves and depending on nobody else, so that keeps me on my toes and then I realize Danny can help us.

Mariah's out of town so Russ has been helping us on the sushi bar, and his rolls were pretty awful on Friday but they looked better today. Fernando gave him a couple pointers. The best part is that Russ is a little faster than Mariah, but he doesn't take tips. So me and Fernando made $120 each from tips alone this weekend, which wasn't bad. We weren't even especially busy, both of us were still in good moods at the end of service. Last weekend was extremely horrible, I was talking to Tyler (server) and he said that he thought about never coming back, and coincidentally I'd thought about putting in my two weeks too. What a coincidence...

Fernando had initially worried about his job security, but after he saw Russ's rolls he laughed and said he wasn't worried anymore. I told him, Russ is generally a better chef, but there's absolutely no way he could catch up to Fernando in something he's specialized in for almost 20 years now. I try not to puff up Fernando's ego because it's already too huge, but he's actually a really skilled sushi chef, IMO. He's very detailed and meticulous, and he just has "the eye" for it. That's really what I mean when I say not everyone can learn sushi, some people are just not suited for it no matter how much they train. I think that I am not as suited for it as Fernando might be, but I have more general skills to make up for it.

I was worried that Fernando would absolutely hate Russ and want to quit, cuz I won't be able to stay on if Fernando leaves, but he seems a little more receptive to the idea of someone else taking over. Still not happy, but a tiny bit better. I think he's thinking of putting Max and Mariah on half tips until they can work as fast as us, he was like, "Sometimes you have to push, that's how people learn." I think that's a good idea, because if they're not going to work at the same pace, it's not fair to tip them at the same pace. Me and F get shafted more or less. But I'm really happy this weekend because we split the weekend tips just between us, instead of 3 or maybe even 4.

So today was our mock opening at Sushi Rei. Fernando's being kind of pissy as usual. He needs to chill out a little, but he does have some valid points as well. He hired this Korean guy named Jun but as per the course, Fernando doesn't like him at all. He doesn't like anybody but Mariah, out of the people he's hired himself. Mariah picks things up surprisingly well, like yesterday I was showing her how to do katsura-muki (shaving a cylindrical vegetable circularly) and she picked it up faster than anybody else I had to train.

Anyway, Fernando wasn't there yet when I arrived, and that guy Jun literally sat around waiting for a good half hour before Billy (the new executive chef of the mountain) mentioned to me to give him something to do. I'm not saying the guy should've known what to do, but that he doesn't even ask anybody to give him something to do for that long a time. And like after he finished doing something he'd just stand there instead of saying like, "ok I'm done, do you need anything else?" Literally leaning against the cutting board. That got on my nerves too. I don't always agree with Fernando's impatience but he's right today.

I looked out the window and saw Kris coming toward the restaurant with a box of chopsticks and I was like "what the hell? Is that Kris Nanson??" Courtney asked him to come and help with our opening weekend, because he used to be her GM at Z Ranch before he was at Sushi Rei. He was only really supposed to expo but soon he was taking charge of shit and sorting things out pre-service anyway. I was like "are they paying you to work?" and he was like "10 bucks an hour" and I was like "MINIMUM WAGE??" (jokingly) and he was like "yeah I don't need it." I'm sure he wouldn't mind working for free if it was legal, seeing as he makes 80k a year at his actual job, and the perk he's actually after is the snowboarding pass. We're not supposed to make food for other employees, and I usually don't and they usually don't ask, but I'm pretty sure I made Kris an entire sushi meal, and he got someone to sneak him a pint of beer too. It was good to have him back even though he won't be around that much. He said he'll come around every month or so, probably for events, pretty much just often enough to keep his pass. Too bad there's no time to hang around taking smoke breaks, those were good times.

Jack Carter and Dave Benge forced Marc Mora to resign at the beginning of summer and his replacement, the aforementioned Billy, came up around August and especially compared to Marc Mora, he's a really legit chef. He's been around to take care of our reopening and he's doing a lot of work, brought his own knife kit, sweating with everyone else. Not just strutting around doing nothing but looming over people's shoulders and watching them work. A guy named Brad redid the hot menu and tbh it looks really good. Our old menu was more or less only appetizers in the hot kitchen, and when Fernando redid it in the summer he put in a couple entrees as well as ramen, but our hot menu has never been much good. Tonight the hot kitchen was busier than we were, I don't know about them but on our side, we hardly had ticket times longer than 10 minutes.

Tomorrow we have an opening party where basically we're just going to make food and servers will walk around with trays, instead of people putting in orders of what they want. They already moved all the tables outside. There's gonna be a photobooth in 27, and a DJ. This is the most effort the mountain has put into our place since I've been there, and I think it's because Billy has much more enthusiasm than Marc Mora ever did.

Adriana's going to work tomorrow, so that'll be nice too, I haven't worked with her since last year. One by one the old crew is coming back, haha.

Kinda TMI warning for this paragraph. So yesterday I was working with Fernando and we were drinking frappucinos as we worked, I got a small one because I'm lactose intolerant and milk is the only thing that really sets me off, and I still really wanted one. Fernando had a large one, and I was like thinking, 'isn't he lactose intolerant too?' So I asked him, and he was like "It's just coffee. Oh wait no the whipped cream!" and I was like "Dude you're drinking a frappucino, those things are blended ice and milk." And he looked at the drink in his hand and just shrugged. A couple hours later we were working on some tickets and he was like, "Man I really gotta go to the bathroom." And I was like, "Is it a number 1 or a number 2?" (quietly of course) A couple more tickets were coming in. And he was like, "You know that coffee I was drinking earlier?" And I was like, "Oh, okay, a 2 then. Just go."

Uzziel is bizarrely sensitive about getting older, like his back was hurting today and I was making mad fun of him and he's like "Dude shut up :(" I told him about the time I went to the Getty and saw the tiny model of the museum and ran up to it and was like "What is this? A museum for ANTS? How can the people see the paintings... if they can't even fit inside the museum?" I recall Carrie was like smh when I did it, but Uzziel thought it was funny. But of course he would, this is the man who yells "FLAMING DRAGON" every day.

Also I was practicing nigiri because it seemed like I was getting worse for some reason, and I suppose I was too fixated on keeping it from falling apart without caring about how delicate the fish is. I practiced a bit today, they looked okay and all, and Uzziel threw it and it kept its shape so that was a success I guess. That makes me feel a bit better, I was getting annoyed that I was somehow getting worse.

Whoever runs the bakery department at our Von's needs to be shot... The pastries and cakes are just awful. The nappage on the fruit tarts are just globbed on like they just smeared straight apricot jelly on top. The cheesecake is gummy. They come up with extremely awful creations like an eclair-shaped cream puff (chocolate-less eclair?) with kiwi. Who comes up with this shit?? I have never seen these kinds of atrocities at any Von's in Los Angeles.

So I've decided I'm going to quit the Bistro. Dave for some reason made a point of telling me that I will be working separate shifts from Eloy, dunno if there was a reason for that, but all the same I don't need to be anywhere near him right now. I'm really trying to get over him, and I can't do that if we work for the same company. And if I quit the Bistro, Fernando will give me more hours anyway so it's not going to make a huge difference in how much money I make.

I'm not super selfish and I've given up and done a lot for my employers in the past, which includes Dave, so I think I deserve to be cut a break when I need it, like I do now. I'm not happy to do this, because I do realize it's shitty to quit so soon, but honestly Dave didn't waste too much time on me because I already knew how he works, so it's not the biggest loss. He's bringing in more people too and he has Eloy anyway so he won't die.

I have to talk to Fernando first before I talk to Dave, but unless extraneous factors change, I've pretty much made up my mind.

Talked to Fernando this morning because Dave wants to borrow ginger and he wants to always use me as an intermediary which kind of gets on my nerves. Fernando doesn't really want to lend him any, and he doesn't have enough anyway but Dave just assumes he's sitting on a ton and refuses to lend him any. I'm getting tired of his hating. Honestly if Fernando offered me more money and guaranteed me at least 40 hours a week I would just go with one over the other. Uzzi is moving away in August.

Been sleeping too much lately, it's not natural to sleep like 10 hours a night. But it's really hard for me to wake up before noon (if downright impossible).

Meh.

I got tired of waiting for Fernando to call me about work but I finally lost patience and gave him a ring yesterday because he doesn't have kids and his dad is in Argentina so I figured he wasn't doing anything important, and he didn't pick up at the time. Dario got a text from him like an hour later so I was mentally side-eyeing him, but then he called me back at like 10 pm, turned out he'd been waiting for me to call him. Thanks Jack.

He seemed pretty bummed out in general, because him and Heather have just been so on and off, and she quit working at Sushi Rei apparently because of him. Her and Craig work at Red Lantern right now. But Fernando is the head chef at Sushi Rei now, he has hiring and firing powers so that's good. Part of the reason he didn't ask me to come back to work was partly because the mountain wants to change Sushi Rei's reputation and they said they didn't want any of the old people coming back. None of the old FOH are coming back far as I know, and Courtney Green is going to be the manager for the summer while training a guy called Eric who will take over in the winter. So far it's Fernando, Uzziel and me doing sushi? Jack mentioned Fernando was going to train another guy, but apparently Courtney shut him down because that guy was like a friend of her ex's or something like that and she didn't like him. Fernando doesn't personally like Courtney either because she's a friend of his ex but it seems like it's reciprocal and he said he just wants to get along with her professionally. He said she's the only Levy manager who has never been fired from a job. I don't know her well at all, I've only spoken to her a few times at Canyon but she seems kind of severe.

They had Fernando redo the menu, he didn't change the hot menu much but he got rid of a couple things, put back some other things. Most of the rolls he added are just popular variants of cali rolls, so even though it sounds like a lot it isn't really. I think as long as the types of ingredients doesn't increase it doesn't make a difference to me.

But wow, Dave Morriss told all the suppliers that Sushi Rei was permanently closed, so BP didn't tell Fernando that they wouldn't be shipping this week, and MTC didn't tell Fernando that they were having their knife sales this month. Wow, what a douchebag. That's... not a surprise coming from him. It's not like I don't like working for him and all, but I'm getting tired of how much shit he talks.

Eh, whatever. I just need to make money is all.