Not the Best way to Start 2014

I wasn’t sure what to expect on New Years Eve.  I knew it was going to be a long ass day.  What I didn’t know was that my day job was letting out early at 2:00.  I had to be at the restaurant at 4:30.  If I drove 40 minutes home, I’d only be home like 30 minutes before having to drive another 45 minutes to the restaurant.

So I worked out!  I really wanted to swim, but the pool was closed because there wasn’t a lifeguard on duty.  So I just did an easy 5 minute walk, 5 minute jog, and alternated for 45 minutes to do just over a 5k.

Just as I was leaving they gym, it started to snow.  It was predicted that the Chicagoland area would be getting a couple of inches of snow overnight NYE, and then up to six inches during New Years day.  I was hoping that the weather would hold off until the wee hours of the morning, but that wasn’t the case.  Within the first hour of working we already had at least 10 cancellations.  I already knew I was going to be in the bar area, and thought I could eat least get a couple decent four tops of couples wanting to splurge on dinner and drinks and stay to ring in the new year.

Instead, I had tables who ordered pop and water before heading to dinner.  When they got back from dinner, they wanted coffee.  I am the QUEEN of upselling.  Since I am a foodie I am really good at describing specials.  One special I’ve talked about is the “Bowl of Heaven.”  It’s slow cooked meats – braciole – flank steak that’s been rolled in Italian bread crumbs and asiago cheese, Italian sausage, meatballs and beef necks – all simmered in an amazing marinara sauce.  The meat is so tender you can eat it with a fork.  I’ve sold that dish at least 10 times, and I think its based on my passionate description of this dish.  But with only two tables who actually ate dinner in the bar area, there wasn’t a lot I could do in the upsell department.

In fact, when it hit 10:00 I pretty much knew that this was going to be the crowd at midnight – and interestingly enough, there were two groups of women, six women at the bar and another four ladies at a table that dominated the dance floor all night – at least they were having fun!  I sent this picture to Tony a few minutes before midnight!

But I have to admit that without advertising, the crowd wasn’t bad.  I know the restaurant has a 90 day game plan and I know it will eventually be packed.  I was happy that both the Chef and the GM gave me the bar area because they thought that it would be the most lucrative.  But I have to admit when I saw the other servers leaving at 10:30 I was a bit envious!   I did end up making good money, although I was on my feet for nearly 9 hours.  I got home around 2:00 a.m.  Tony was waiting up for me, and we had a cheers drink, he taped a bit of the Kathy Griffin/Anderson Cooper NYE show and we finally went to bed around 2:45. 

Tony woke me up around 3:30 because he was having problems.  I’ve talked about how his colonoscopy went on Christmas Eve – no new cancer, but he has polyps that have to be removed before they do turn into cancer.  We had plans to go back mid-January to take care of that.  But Tony isn’t typical.  He has an artificial heart valve which requires him to be on blood thinners for the rest of his life.  The premise is that they have to keep his blood levels thin enough so that he doesn’t get a blood clot in his valve, but thick enough so that if he cuts himself shaving, etc., he won’t bleed too fast.

The only way to do this before removal of the polyps is to hospitalize him, put him on something called heparin while weaning himself off his blood thinner medication, and when the “magic number” hits, they feel comfortable doing the surgery. 

But yesterday he started bleeding a lot when going to the bathroom.  Like a lot.  Like a really lot.  Like enough that it was spooking us!  A lot.  Our only solution on New Years Day was to go to the Emergency room.  We actually were anticipating lots of people there, but we lucked out.  We got through triage quickly, had blood drawn, the doctor on call talk to us.  From the time we walked in until they actually decided to admit us was about 4 hours – not bad!

By the time I left before 9:00 p.m. last night, the nurse was going to touch base with all his doctors – GP, heart doctor and GI doctor to get a plan of action.  My guess is that starting tomorrow they will start him on heparin and do the surgery to remove the polyps now, which is probably the cause of the excessive bleeding.  The best news is that we know it isn’t cancer!  But staying in the hospital is not a place that you get much rest.  When Tony had hernia surgery after his colon cancer surgery, he got an infection called c-diff.   C-diff is a bad mofo.  Tony contracted it during his surgery for the hernia.  Because of that, Tony cannot be in a shared hospital room for the rest of his life!  That’s about the only positive outcome of having c-diff!

So they put him in a pediatric unit because that was one of the only single rooms available.  It is actually a secured unit and you have to get buzzed in to enter the unit.  Tony immediately noticed that he had a DVD player in his room and said “I’ve never gotten that in a room at this hospital before!”  Well, kids who are in hospitals liked to be entertained with movies.   The nurse said that they had a “media” library in the hallway if he wanted to take a look.  When Tony asked “do you have Despicable Me” she laughed and said “no, all the DVD’s are donated so we don’t really have any new release DVDs – they are all older movies.”

So I almost immediately thought that I wanted to pay it forward and buy some new DVDs for the pediatric ward.  While we are struggling financially with Tony being out of work, I did just win $5,000 for my chili recipe and thought that I could afford to buy $100 dollars worth of DVDs to donate to the ward.  And I thought “I wonder if my blog friends could help?!”  If you are so inclined, I would love it if you could mail me just one recent kids DVD to me to donate to our local hospital.   I will put a sticker on the back of the DVD stating “donated by your name and state.”  If you don’t have time to shop and mail me an actual DVD, you can send a letter with cash and I will do the shopping for you.  Tony and I have been so lucky that our kids have had such a healthy childhood, we can’t even fathom having our kids being hospitalized.   If you’d like to help, just send me an email at mybizzykitchen@gmail.com.  I’d be thrilled if we could donate 20 DVDs!   I promise if you send me cash I will send you a receipt and give you full props on the blog!

Alright, time to shovel some snow off my car to head to the hospital before going to work.  I need to hold my husband’s hand, tell him everything is going to be okay and give him lots of kisses!  Oh, and bring his phone charger too.