Home
Ainsworth Hotsprings
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Restaurants & Cafes
- Hits: 258
The Pools, now priced at $18 and by reservation only, prices subject again to increase in July.
Because people will pay.
The restaurant, for dinner, Bannock and Mussels to start. The Bannock is really a scone. The mussels, they've changed the sauce, now only white wine. Meh.
A half dozen servers, the place is full.
For a main we split the steak - 10 oz NY. It's OK. The vegetables are good.
They have posted signs - 20% minimum gratuity for parties over 6, tipping options on their machine run 15-20-25% - stupid. And a mandatory 12% gratuity on all to go orders.
Service is fine.
It's all fucking preposterous. H* - new hire - talks of working there - she describes it as "if people who new nothing about restaurants opened a restaurant'" and she's right, 100%, and yet still they're successful, largely due to the lack of reasonable competition.
The Daughter Visits
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 254
On a break, from working at Sun Peaks to going treeplanting in Williams Lake, 4 days in the paradise of Nelson.
Only, of course, the weather was no paradise.
So, time spent hopping from cafe to restaurant to cafe to restaurant to bookstore to bars...
We pick her up a copy of Elizabeth Smart's "By the Stairs of Grand Central Station I sat down and Wept", The Epic of Gilgamesh, "Don Quixote", Cervantes, there are many many more, Heroditus, Lolita, Pale Fire, Spekes, The Conquest of New Spain, I make my recommendations but we can't find them all, recommend podcasts, to audit university lectures, download, masterclasses, free, listen to when in the bush, keep the mind going.
I realize the lack of touchstones, her years abroad didn't broaden her education in any sort of direction I'd recognize. In conversation, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Albatross, she doesn't get it, she's unable to recognize a Monet, Klimt, Klee, Mondrian, Cezanne, Degas, in short she's never learned what is what, there is still time, university and all, we go up to the hotsprings, soak, and then that is that and she is off on the summer's adventures.
I'm stuck spooning her snowboard until I can get to the locker...
She chastises me about not having the hospitality to offer her a sofa, and I'm starting to feel it, this homeless schtick is getting old, has been old for a while already...
Ellen
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 268
One of the thrift shop volunteers, an older widow, 70's (I think....daren't ask). We've a lot of these widows volunteering.
She gets it. I only point that out because so few do. I can find an ashtray with a painting of Don Quixote by Picasso on it and she recognizes both subject and artist.
TO me this is a common thing, but - test a few people and you'll find it incredibly rare. A pair of badly painted statues, Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" and "Pink Lady" - she knows.
I like this, and she has the sniffles and so I rib her about sitting up with B* - her volunteer friend - and doing lines of Blow all night (an image I find curiously humorous) - and she laughs and says "It's been a while...eight ball". Books, she's read a few, art, and so - bored with Michael as you must get bored with anyone you work in close quarters with I find myself querying her - certainly one of the more "lived" people I've met.
I note this only because it's so rare to find people with shared touchstones, the "pre-internet" people who absorbed the common culture before the internet so thoroughly divided it.
The Circus Begins...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 246
So far in the Kitchen we've Sean - who's been here a few years. New hires include A* and J* - both younger (late teens), living at home.
But - this is not enough, especially with the other commitments the restaurant has taken on (Catering the Golf Course).
So - in order of appearance, this years players will be:
H* - a younger server (30's???) who talks incessantly about her "Partner". Ken no longer works here so I don't know what the deal is; I'm suspicious of people that forever go on about their significant other or relationship - they are not complete people.
J* - who I haven't met but has already taken to calling the restaurant far too often to check upon her schedule.
T* - an older female server (40's) - probably will be good.
Cathy - from last year.
There's L*, JR's Mother in Law - who comes down for a visit, forever coming in for hugs, she seems to have somewhere in the winter decided to "have a crush" on me, sticking her tits and whiskers in my face. This won't do. We're going to have to ship her to the Golf Course. I make the mistake of showing her my "3-fingered death punch" and she got a little too excited.
Nope, Nope, Nope.
There's C*, who just before he left to come here got mugged in Victoria, all savings, money, cards, stolen, he's piss poor, not even started and taking his meals in the restaurant, on credit, a hard-luck story, do I believe him? maybe...not, in any event this man needs Kung-Rate, He's already calling me "Sensei"...
A*, back after a 3 year hiatus, she's a kitchen nightmare, bossy, not my problem and hopefully she's learned to chill a bit from the past few years. Hopefully.
There's John, the Filipino, I'll mark him as sane a quiet, a worker bee, I'll leave him alone, sometimes you gotta leave people alone and - while it kills me, cultural differences might not translate my humor well, and - worker bees who shut up and do their job are worth their weight in Gold.
Saturday night, they're sitting around Staff Housing, the waning sun, boring Balfour Nights, another year and the circus is beginning again...
Page 84 of 1021