Choices

The seven months that we spent apart was a whirlwind. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders and my mind. I moved closer to the restaurant I was cooking at and rented a room from a guy I found on Craigslist. I cooked at a restaurant that I really enjoyed with co-workers that I still keep in touch with. I went running on the beach, right past the apartment I used to live in and I admit to stopping the first few times and just staring at the patio where I used to sit and I'd just cry. I would think about all those happy feelings I had living there and all of the terrible ones I felt as well. I dated the guy I rented the room from which was a huge mistake...shocking, I know but I guess it just felt good to be with someone nice again. That only lasted a few months and I began looking for my own place. I found a cute little basement apartment, still nearby where I was cooking. The landlady was the sweetest old woman and I was happy once again. I had my own place in the Bronx and I loved that little apartment. I had butterfly stickers on the wall that my sister sent me and my clothes hangers were pink and black velvet. My ex moved in sometime in 2013, by calling me one night and telling me he had nowhere to go. Should've been a red flag that his parents wouldn't even take him in at this point and he had obviously burned all of his bridges. My girly apartment quickly turned into our space as he shoved his concert tees into the closet and began to redecorate while I was at work. So, this basement apartment was an opportunity for me to have my own space again. I decorated it, bought some furniture, kept it nice and tidy. Life was beginning to feel normal again. I felt like I was on the right path again, living the life I had wanted to live when I moved to New York. I began dating a regular from the restaurant. He was quite a bit older then me, I think about 16 years older, which was not my usual dating preference but he was youthful and loved good food and wine. I think we lasted about three or four months. In that timespan we went to Paris, took multiple trips to Florida where he owned a home, flew to Chicago to dance the night away to the blues, ate at top restaurants in the city and saw some of the best jazz concerts I've ever seen at the Lincoln Center. The heart wants what it wants and it doesn't what it doesn't. I found myself feeling really rushed in the relationship. He had the pressure on me to move in with him, getting into the habit of mentioning it almost every night as we said goodbye at my car or in front of my apartment. A friend of mine said "what's the worse that could happen?" so I took that sage advice and ran with it. I moved all of my items out of the basement apartment and into a rental home with him. It didn't take me very long to feel like I had majorly fucked up. And here I was, eyeball deep in this relationship, living with the guy, and how was I going to get out of this one? My sister came to visit in January 2015 and while she was visiting, I received an email from my ex. He was at a halfway house in the city and wanted to meet up to speak with me. I had always felt that the relationship ended with no satisfactory finality, so I agreed to meet him at a diner to get some closure. I took my sister to JFK and met up with him at the diner. Of course before I got to the diner, I stopped at CVS to buy him things he had requested, like a little travel bag, razor, toothpaste. You know, things a convict doesn't have when he's just been released. Stupid me, I was already wrapped around his finger and I hadn't even seen or spoken to him in seven months. We met at the diner and he did all of the talking. I should've given him hell. I should've made him accountable for all of the shitty things that he said to me and shitty way he made me feel but I didn't. I just sat there and listened to all of his bullshit stories. I drove him back to the halfway house and he kissed me before he got out of the car, and I kissed him back although it felt weird and wrong. Driving back home I knew I had to end the relationship I was currently in. He was waiting for me an pissed. He had read the email my ex wrote me and suspected that I had met up with him. He was right and had every right to be angry. Well he wasn't angry, he was pissed and his temper slowly began creeping up more and more. He kept coming into the bedroom and then leaving to pace the house, only to come barge in again and repeat this process for a while. He told me I had to leave, which I was fine with and I actually left that same night. I was already mentally done with the relationship and my ex was an easy way out. Well not an easy way out, more of an unhealthy, familiar road that I had traveled. So off I went and got back into the process of finding an apartment, moving my ex and myself into it and figuring out this part 2 of the relationship. This time alcohol was not allowed since that's what destroyed the relationship in part 1. Onward we continued that way, managing hotels together, moving to different cities, bickering here and there with only a mean outburst from him a few times a month. We married in November of 2016 and he got on one knee while gazing up into my eyes so lovingly. I was moved and felt more in love with him in that moment than I had ever felt. The years went on and we stuck with the sobriety until May of 2020. At this point we were living on the West Coast and I remember we were listing to Stick Figure and I said "this makes me want to smoke weed and it is legal here...." that's all it took. He was onboard and within the next few minutes we were googling where and how to purchase weed. We placed an order and he made a pipe with a screen for us to smoke out of. Eight months later, the bottom would fall out of our relationship in one terrifying night. Everything we worked for, all the dreams we had, all of it gone in one night.

Cunt

Well, here I am...ten years later. When I began this I was getting divorced, moving to NYC and starting my career to cook professionally. Now, ten years later, I'm getting divorced again, moving back to Florida and hoping to revive my cooking career. I seriously can't make this shit up! I've been in a relationship with my current, soon to be ex husband since meeting in 2012. We dated until May 2014 and broke up until Jan 2015. He had an alcohol monitoring bracelet around his ankle when I met him, charming, I know. Honestly, he was so different than my first ex-husband. This guy was a loud New Yorker with a I don't give a fuck attitude. I liked that he had been in trouble because I always felt that if I wouldn't have been married from the age of 23-30, I probably would've gotten myself in trouble too! He was facing some charges and always managed to get out of doing jail time by going to rehab. Needless to say, I spent Thanksgiving of 2013 taking a train from Penn Station all the way to Port Jefferson in Long Island to vist him at one of the rehab locations he would stay during our relationship. Once visiting him, arriving back at Penn Station, I proceeded to go to TGIFridays, sat at the bar, ordered a tall cold beer and a dozen chicken wings. I guess it felt exciting to be with someone that had so many issues and so much baggage. Wow, it seems weird to admit that but I think that's what it was really all about. Oh and the sex, well that was really what hooked me if I'm being completely honest. So onward our relationship went until he began to get blackout drunk everyday and pass out at night. Sometimes he'd pass out in our (my) queen sized bed, laying diagonally and I wouldn't be able to move him, so I'd fall asleep in a chair. Seems so pathetic now that I think about it. Was the sex really that good? At that point, it was non-existent, so no, it was not good anymore and why I put up with him I'm not sure. My last cooking job in 2013 was a well known restaurant in the Lower East Side and the hours were intense. I was living far North in the Bronx and would need to be there by 10am. I actually took the job as a prep cook, although by that point I was more than capable to cook on the line as I had done in so many restaurants around the city. It was just one of those opportunities that I felt like I had to take a step back in order to possibly move forward. The shift would end after dinner shift and even after the kitchen upstairs was cleaned. The cooks were in the habit of having a beer and making sausage after dinner and cleaning, so I'd often still be there at 12 or 12:30 at night. He insisted on picking me up from work, since he was cooking at a restaurant in Long Island and would drive into Manhatten on the LES and he got into the habit of yelling at me if he had to wait a couple of minutes. He berated me almost every night all the way up to the Bronx. And yet, I still stayed. In 2014 we moved to Long Beach, Long Island and we had an apartment right across the street from the beach! I could hear and see the ocean from the front patio. It was glorious. All my life living in suburbia Florida and I finally had an apartment on the beach in NY. The blackouts didn't end and by May he was in his own world. I didn't even feel like we were in a relationship anymore. One night while blackout drunk, he called me a cunt. This was actually the second time he did it. The first time he did it, we were in the Bronx and I cried all night. I wrote him a note telling him that I couldn't be with someone that called me that and disrepected me so badly. He laid on top of me when he found the note and cried, assuring me that he'd never do that again. Well, here we were a few months later and I felt like I had to stay true to my word. So, I left in the middle of the night. He was so wasted, I packed to huge suitcases in the same room he was sleeping and he never even woke up. I wrote a note this time too. I wrote something along the lines of "I'm leaving and now you don't have to worry about hurting my feelings anymore". How naive for me to think that he actually cared in the first place but I'm an eternal optomist and see good in people even when it doesn't exist. That was May 2014.

Pissing on the Parade

Alright! So, we're planning a trip to Mexico for January vacation. Apartment is booked, car rental and flight all booked. My guy was talking about getting machetes and hiking through the jungle; he was only half kidding. So hiking became a topic of discussion and his attitude was "yeah, cool, we'll go hike in a jungle somewhere. We'll figure it out." And my first thought was "lets do some research to see where to hike. Some where that might end with a cool view based on where other people have hiked instead of just stopping on the side of the road and walking through a jungle, only to come back two hours later half eaten from mosquitos and miserable." So, apparently I'm always negative. It's like I have to be extra realistic for the both of us. I'm waiting to look in the mirror and have the resting bitch face that some women have. I used to think it was their fault but now I'm wondering if it's a product of their environment from their relationship. Sometimes you have to piss on their parade. Of course, all of this discussion and these thoughts took place while we're running breakfast for a full hotel. That's another reason I don't recommend working with your significant other. You have these super personal, emotionally charged conversations and then a second later a guest is asking is for a scone recipe and I have to grit my teeth and smile. I'm straddling the line of my personal and professional life every minute of every day. I'll be expecting a trophy once this job is over. At least there weren't any guest complaints today! We got every extra set of keys back from the guests and there were only two late check-out requests. Woo Hoo!! So I was thinking that I should add some sort of food knowledge, since I have a lot of info in my head about food. I've been making popovers for the breakfast and did a couple hours of research on how to successfully make popovers. I've made about 200 at this point and here are some tips: 1) heat pans in the oven while making the batter 2) can use cooking spray on light metal pans but if used in a dark metal pan they won't rise 3) warm the milk before adding to the frothy eggs 4) they collapse because they are still raw inside. So cook at 400, once they've risen and begin to get good color, lower to 350 to finish cooking. 5) Prepare to feel victorious!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

Here we are, Memorial Day weekend!It's bringing back so many memories of summer 2012 when I cooked in Montauk. It's reminding me of how it felt to work in a beach town, conversations all focus on the beaches and where to eat in town. It has a vibrancy about it all. We've been having a lot of discussions about running the hotel after our contract is up next year. It's not easy 1) working with your significant other 2) living in an apt located at your place of work. We went through some tough months of a lot of bickering with one another, every answer had an attitude behind it, almost every conversation was pertaining to work. It's been a huge lesson to learn how to separate work and our personal lives. We had decided that it would be best to have separate jobs next year and have two full days off together because as of now, we don't have a day off. We work seven days a week and sleep with an emergency phone next to our bed in case a guest needs something. Now my guy is weighing the pros and cons of the job. We keep going back and forth about it. I think we're getting brave because now we have a full time employee to help relieve us from our 15 hour days. We're thinking "Hey, we could do this for a few more years" But I still very clearly remember how it felt to argue all the time and sometimes not be able to separate work from our personal lives because we were the only two people working at the hotel! Yuck. Guest complaint yesterday: "the water in the shower is not getting cold enough." I would never have thought, in a million years, that I would ever hear that as a complaint!! Also watched this guest's mom drink her coffee from a cereal bowl during breakfast. I couldn't make this stuff up.

Three years later.....Hi 2016!

Wow, so it's been three years since I've blogged! I'm sitting in my apartment, frustrated because I was venting about work to my boyfriend, who surprisingly, doesn't want to hear it! As I found myself wishing that I come back as a lesbian in my next life so that I can date women and have real conversations with my partner, I said to myself "Fuck it, I'll blog about it". Who cares if no one reads it, at least I'll be able to get some things out. So, I'll pretend that someone read my first posts and is dying to know what's happened in the past three years since I last blogged. Well, A LOT has happened!! I ended up living in NY for a total of four years. I cooked in eight restaurants, lived in Astoria, the Bronx, Long Beach, New Hyde Park and Mineola. Got my heart broken and found out what it's like to be in a relationship with an alcoholic. Got two more tattoos. Saw Snoop Lion in concert, dated someone with a child (which I swore I'd never do), dated someone else that took me to California, Chicago, Paris and Florida all in the span of two months, reconciled with my ex, now a recovering alcoholic and am currently living in Newport, RI managing a hotel! What a whirlwind it's all been. Wow, this blogging thing does make me feel better! It's like an online diary that's open to the public, what a concept! Had a couple of bloggers that stayed at the hotel for a few days and she said "you should start a food blog!" Which although I really appreciated it, I feel like there are so many food blogs currently online. I'm going to keep with the idea of just blogging about life and maybe one day, I'll turn it into a book! I'm going to try to include ridiculous stories about the guests that stay at the hotel because it's been so entertaining and I think it should be shared to bring joy to all. We've been managing the hotel since September 2015, we live on-site and have no kitchen in our apt, so we cook in the hotel kitchen and have zero privacy. We've got a dog and although I often want to give him a karate chop to the neck sometimes, he's been a ray of sunshine. We cook bfast every morning for guests and that's been my cooking outlet since taking this job. The guests love the food, take pictures and ask if we use caterers here. Some I tell that we cooked professionally in NY and others I just say thank you and keep it as our little secret. Let's see, guests are mainly pleasant and really awesome! We had one guest a couple of weeks ago bring us black and white cookies from NY! She asked on the phone if I wanted anything from NY and I said Hell Yes, Black and White Cookies and she came through! Brought 5 black and whites straight from the bakery in Commack, NY. We got a couple of free tickets to the Food and Wine festival and we ate our way through in two hours no drinking of course! Haven't drank since January 2014 and as long as we're together, I'll never drink again as a show of support for his sobriety. Guest stories: - A few weeks ago we delivered a breakfast basket to a room, which is what this hotel does when it has five or less rooms booked. They called the emergency after hours phone at 8:30am "appalled" at the bfast we brought them. They wanted jam, salt & pepper and milk brought up. Said something about breaking the law and false advertisement regarding breakfast. It's amazing how worked-up people get over something that's included in the price of their room. Their eyeballs were popping out of their heads from anger as they complained to me the next morning about the breakfast basket, the guy vacuuming the stairs the afternoon they checked in three hours early, they wanted "tea service" in the afternoon, I can't even remember all of the things they complained about. - Had a guest call the other day and get the rate for a room for a family of four. When I quoted him the rate, he began to barter with me. Saying "what if I leave one of my kids at home?!!?" "what if you only charge me for three?!?!" "Come on, give me a discount, work with me! What's your name??" And I just kept repeating "I'm sorry sir, I can't break the rules for you. If you show up with four people, I'm charging you for four people." He promised to call back at 8am the next morning. - Received a call from a guest complaining about the new website. "There used to be a calendar on the website and I could punch in my dates and search all of the prices and availability. Where is it??!!" All I could say was "I'm sorry ma'am we redesigned the website and it's no longer there" She says "Well that's stupid! I guess I'll have to call back and keep someone on the phone for 30 minutes when I have more time to call back." Yep, we'll be here give us a call. I think the phone is my current nemesis here at the hotel. People call all day and night. The phone doesn't stop ringing and it's half people just asking for rates and availability (they don't book) and the other half of the calls are people asking random questions that pop into their heads. Do you have a pool? (No) Room with a view? (We're in a residential area) How far are you from all of the shops? Beach? Mansions? What restaurants should we eat at? What restaurant can accommodate a dinner for 150? Pet friendly? How far are you from the Naval academy? Brown University? Should we visit Brown while there? Do people not research vacations anymore? Isn't it supposed to be fun to pick a spot to go and research all the things you could do? I'm planning a nine day vacation to Mexico right now and I've already got lists of restaurants, beaches and shopping to do while there. I'm reading Fodor's, Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor reviews plus the other HUNDREDS of websites of other travel info. WTF people. In other news, I received a letter from the IRS yesterday about my taxes not being filed correctly. I finally hired an accountant to do my taxes after doing my own for the past ten years and BAM, the IRS is trying to be a penpal. Also, haven't been on Facebook for about two months and I'm not sure I'm going back anytime soon. I've read so many articles about how social media like FB can make you unhappy, so suck it FB.

Back to blogging

Well, almost 8 months have passed since the last time I blogged. Life really got hectic over the summer last year. I ended up working near Montauk during the second half of July and all of August. It was a great surprise to see the beach; definitely something I didn't think I was going to get to experience here in New York after moving from Florida. I broke up with my boyfriend in the beginning of August. Distance and too much work made all the uncertainties I had about dating him real. It seems pointless to work at something you don't really want. I continued back at the same restaurant that I was working at before I moved over the summer. I also kept my apt in the Bronx, so the transition was easy once summer ended. I did start dating someone new in October and we're still dating but don't live in the same town but this time, the distance actually works. We spend a few days together and then he goes back to his town and I stay here, work and couch surf several nights a week at friends' apartments. I think the arrangement is ideal right now because we're both trying to find a footing in the culinary world. I'm at a new restaurant now, in Chinatown. The area is so great. I love all of the markets with their dehydrated....everything! Oysters, scallops, mushrooms...everything dehydrated. I put my two weeks in at my other job and the chef fired me the next day. Money is as tight right now as it was when I first moved to New York. My sister sent me money, my boyfriend gave me money. My credit card balance is increasing every week as I need to put money on my Metro card. I let myself go crazy over it for a couple of weeks and now that I've began working again, I'm starting to feel better and a little more at ease. I get my first paycheck in two days and hopefully in a month, I'll be in a better financial state. I feel like everything that is happening to me here is still teaching me lessons that I never learned. The pure lack of control of money is proving to be a massive lesson that I'm learning. I was brought up in a household to be proud of money earned because both of my parents came from Brazil and valued every penny they earned but for some reason I put a lot of focus on money. After graduating from college, I had so many thoughts of earning $50,000...$60,000...etc etc and I did reach a point where I did well and I felt so proud and confident and then I went to culinary school and became a cook. Now I'm back at the bottom financially but I'm trying to learn that money can't be tied to my happiness. I need to be happy and feel fulfilled without money in my bank account. That has been the hardest lesson for me to learn but its one that is being forced upon me every day and I'm determined to learn this lesson.

Happy 4th of July....8 months in NY

8 months in NY and things are looking up! I found a little apartment today in the Bronx. Its far North in the Bronx but I don't think its too far from where I work. It's a commute from Astoria, where my friends are and my boyfriend is but at least I have my own place. I move at the end of July in a couple of weeks. Its a small apartment that has a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. Its located on the second floor of a house. I like the area; I thought it looked like Astoria which I thought was funny. I'm excited to have my own place. Its still not ideal but I'm slowly getting closer to how I want to live in this great city.

One if my main thoughts that helped lead me to getting a divorce was the fantasy of having my own place, which I've never had. I went from having roommates in my early twenties to being married at 23 and living together for eight years. So, eight months of living in NY and I'm achieving an enormous goal that I secretly set for myself last year. I think that's pretty damn good!

My relationship with my boyfriend is nicely progressing. The more time we spend together the better it gets. I think we'll figure out the distance issue with me moving to the Bronx, but I guess time will tell. I'm trying to go with the flow and take things as they happen instead of worrying too much.

Happy independence day to the USA and also to me!