tip your servers and bartenders people!

I truly believe everyone should be required to take an ettiquite course on how to dine out and how to properly treat and tip your server or bartender. It is mind boggling to me how many people treat servers like slaves and how many people are under the impression that we get paid a decent hourly wage. WRONG. We make roughly 4 dollars an hour. Do I need to repeat that? FOUR DOLLARS PER HOUR! We literally live off of tips. That's our livlihood. You know your big house and nice car you have to pay for? Oh and your whole foods stocked pantry? and perhaps your wine cellar? We have to pay for all of those things with the small amount of tips that you give us after we've allowed you to have a lovely and memorable evening. I bet you didn't know that we have to tip out bartenders, bar backs and kitchen staff. So hypothetically If our tip percentage for the night is low we can actually end up making NEGATIVE money once we do our tip outs. Another bone I have to pick with you fine dining douche bags (now, not all of you are DB's. Some of you are great, polite and interesting people who know how to treat servers and who tip 20% or more and it's you fine people that keep me in the industry). Some of you on the other hand act as though a server or bartender is somehow below you. Which makes no sense whatsoever. A large percentage of servers are college educated and very intelligent individuals. Just because we don't feel like throwing on a monkey suit every morning and answering to some big bad boss after a long day in the office doesn't make us any less of a person. tip your servers and bartenders! anything less than 20% is unacceptable! we LIVE off of tips! that's our livlihood! Trust me, we don't bust our asses and treat you like gold because we want to! And if you treat us with respect we'll do the same for you. Come see me at Eola Wine Company and if you treat me like the human that I am maybe I'll buy you a drink! Cheers!

RIP Wood Family

May the Wood family rest in peace.

Urban Survivalists Unite

Recently I've found myself in a bit of a conundrum. and no, I'm not referring to the delicious white wine that goes by that name. Lately I've made some life changing moves and though they are for the better they are still pretty difficult to deal with. As I mentioned in my previous blog I broke up with my boyfriend and moved out of the house we lived in. Where did I move to? no where really. Technically...I'm homeless. However, I prefer a more cheerful term that I've been using: "Urban Survivalist". Sounds a little less dismal I think.Now, being homeless or an "urban survivalist" if you will (and yes, I'll use those unnecessary quotes all day long so be quiet, this ain't your blog) might sound terrible but it really isn't all that bad. To avoid actually dealing with the reality of not having a home you can partake in a number of fun and liver destroying activities. Liiiiike drinking....or you could drink? or maybe you could sit and drink? Isn't that what all homeless people do? I've gained a new respect for people who are actually on the streets and homeless...at one time they were probably really fantastic people who had a series of unfortunate events occur in their lives causing them to submit to a life of poverty and loneliness. Or maybe they were drug dealing crack heads...who knows?! I won't drag on in this blog but if you're in the same or a similar position keep your head up! you might find that there are actually amazing people out there willing to help you out. Sometimes life can be quite surprising even in it's darker moments.

peace and love to all my fellow urban survivalists...