What a weekend!

It was most definitely a movie weekend for me. I ended up watching six IMAX movies back to back on Saturday starting at 10AM and ending at 3:45PM. It was awesome! The only reason why I left at 3:45PM is because I had to work at Paradise at 4PM. The Science Center had a deal where you could watch an IMAX movie for $5 or purchase an all day pass for $20. Needless to say, I went with the all day pass. All in all they showed eight movies and I had seen two of them. The rest were new to me and talk about an experience. It was a lot of fun. Now, I know a lot of people most probably think it would have been the most boring or waste of time experience, but not me. I just loved it! I even told the people collecting the tickets the first time that they’ll be seeing a lot of me since after each movie, you had to exit the theater.

When I went to the restaurant, I was told that Friday night was very busy. Evidently there were a lot of people who decided to eat out and everyone decided to go to Paradise which is great for business. I really did not know what to expect for a Saturday night considering the past weekends it’s been really quiet and Aaron had let the servers leave early because there was no point in having them stay and not do anything. Aaron had the night off and the other team leader had the night off too which is why I was called in. The owners came to the restaurant just to make sure things were OK and boy, was I glad they were there. It started off really quiet, then at around 6PM, we had a rush of tables. There were only two of us serving was fine, but we only had a cook. One of the owners was a cook so he put on the apron and helped cook. The other owner ended up bussing/clearing the tables since both of us were busy. We ended up calling in the one server who was on call. Usually, when I’m the leader, I don’t normally take the tables unless we’re swamped. I ended up taking close to ten tables over the course of the night. The guy who was called in to serve was feeling a little under the weather so I helped him out the best I could. In many ways, it was fun but stressed because we all did the best we could, but only having on experienced cook did not help. Thank goodness the people were very understanding a nice which was great. I got a very nice note from the owner to say that I handled the floor very well with the amount of people. That was nice to know that he’s happy with my performance.

Oh, I should tell you that on Friday, Anna and I celebrated one year of dating. Yay! I took half the day off and to start off her morning, I got her another Vermont Teddy Bear and this time the bear had on a shirt to say, “Without Music, Life Would B flat (and the flat was a musical flat note!)” She loved it. I dropped her off at school and when I was done working half a day, I picked her up and we went for lunch at the restaurant where we would be having our rehearsal dinner. I had sent the owner a note and she was so happy to see us. I had a shrimp paella dish and Anna had a taboulli with scallops. Both dishes were out of this world amazing! Talk about a great way start the day. After lunch, Anna reminded me that we had to go to Josephs to pick up her engagement ring which was dropped off a week ago to be cleaned and checked. When I arrived there, Mikell, the guy who sold us the ring, greeted me and that’s when Anna sprung me a surprise by telling me that I got to pick something as my gift. Evidently, she was in cahoots with Mikell and he had picked a couple of stuff that he thought I liked. I was more than pleasantly surprised and after some thought, ended up with a glass globe that spins a little. I love it because it’s really elegant and I have the best place to put it. Both Anna and Mikell were so happy that they pulled off the surprise and I really like my gift so at the end of the day, it’s a win-win situation for all of us.

After lunch, we walked around the mall then watched the movie, the “Informant” starring Matt Damon. It was a pretty funny movie especially is you’re a Steve Soderberg fan. I liked it, but Anna did not like it too much. When the movie was over, we went to the restaurant where I proposed and sat at the booth where I went down on my knees. The host was so gracious and congratulated us. Our server was my friend, Nick who has been my server every time I’ve dined at Flemings except the one time when I proposed. He was happy to see me and I introduced him to Anna. When he found out that I proposed to her at the exact booth, he was disappointed not to be there. Dinner was marvelous and the food amazing as always. At the end of dinner, Nick presented Anna with a box of truffles as a congratulatory gift. That was really neat of him, and it says a lot for him to go out of his way a little. While chatting with Nick, I found out that he used to work at Pizza Kitchen in Ames that’s owned by the owners of Paradise! Talk about a small world. I told Nick that he should drop by when I’m working and it would be an honor to serve him. What a great way to spend an anniversary!

On Sunday, the 2nd Sunday Singers sang at John’s church in Norwalk then they had a pancake breakfast for us which was really nice. I’ve not seen John for a couple of weeks so it was good to see him again. Brunch at Paradise was really slow, but at 2:30PM, the restaurant got busy with a party of eight and another three tables. I only had one cook and he did an amazing job. Between the both of us, we managed to pull it off. I continued working alone right until 6PM when Aaron came in. The server who was supposed to work, had a family emergency so she could not come in. By 7:30PM, I was beat and I told Aaron that if it was OK with him, I was calling it a night. He let me go which was nice. He ended up serving and we had two cooks by then. It was one of those evenings that was good for the restaurant, but I was more than tired by the time I got home.

So, that was my weekend – fun, enjoyable yet a little stressed.