There's a man who comes in for lunch every so often, who really gets to me.

His wife will drop him off around noon, settle him at a table with a view of the dining room, then rush out the door while assuring us, "I'll be back. "

In her wake, we store his walker so it's out of his way, then bring him his extra hot coffee and a lunch menu.

None of us are sure how old he is, but it hardly matters. His speech is slurred, barely comprehensible. He repeats his order three times before I finally understand what he wants.

"Crab cakes."

He points at the listing on the menu. I feel foolish, even stupid, for not understanding; he doesn't seem to mind. When his lunch comes out, he decides he wants to sit in the other chair at the table; the move takes 10 minutes. The foodrunner brings his lunch back to the kitchen to be reheated.

The gentleman doesn't seem to mind, almost as if he's used to all this fuss by now. He eats his once-again-hot lunch and drinks his coffee.

Around 1:30 one of our managers offers him a newspaper, and he gladly requests the New York Times. By 2:30 he's done with it; I drop the check on the table.

At about 3:15, his wife shows up with a credit card to pay the bill. She signs the itemized check before I can remind her I need to run the credit card, a rather frequent occurrence in a hotel restaurant. In the time it takes to run the credit card and return with the check to the table, his wife is gone again, who knows where. Not that it matters.

It's 3:45 or so when I check on him with a manager. He's signed the check; his wife still hasn't come back.

He's been looking at his watch for two hours now.

We close the check in the back and I gather glassware to reset the tables. When I go back onto the floor I see his table is empty, nearly four hours after he was seated.

I wonder what kind of person would leave their spouse alone in a restaurant for four hours. He's such a sweet man, yet his wife has no compunctions whatsoever about taking off without him.

It enfuriates me.

I hope, if I ever marry, that in my old age my husband doesn't take me out to lunch -- and leave me there.

The frustrating part of writing a book is when real life intrudes.

I'd love to be able to write all day today, but I can't -- I'll be spending the next 10 hours at work. Which means I'll be jotting down ideas in my little black notebook, which I'll have to sort through later.

There's one more frustrating part -- I write in longhand (and not so well without my glasses.). I have a better connection to the work, as it were, with pen and paper than with keyboard and laughable typing skills. The term "skills" used very loosely here. Which makes for much fun when the inevitable time comes to have to send the work to someone, or post a few paragraphs here. Maybe I should seriously consider spending a day working on learning typing skills. Wouldn't that be fun!!

A friend of mine is a former trial attorney who can type well over 100 words per minute. Thankfully, he doesn't hit me over the head with it. It's a skill I wouldn't mind learning though, because this "advanced hunt-and-peck" of mine is becoming rather irksome.

Off to work. Bleh.

It's amazing, the atrocities committed on this planet. To see children with scars from machetes; a child barely old enough to walk with fingers missing; a three year old girl with her arms cut off; tens of thousands of women and girls brutally raped.

The things people do to each other is a constant source of amazement. I think Angelina Jolie was right to ask why nothing is being done about this lunacy. Why do we tolerate these monsters? Why is there continued tolerance for people like Joseph Kony? This person, I will not stoop so far as to call him human, goes from village to village, kidnapping children and brainwashing them to fight for his Lord's Resistance Army. How telling that he thinks he's doing what god told him to do. Why has this monster been allowed to continue for decades? Why is there no international outcry to put a stop to this, immediately?

I wish I knew. Perhaps, now that this has been aired again on CNN, the resultant scrutiny will bring about much needed changes.

We can all hope.

I met Anderson Cooper the other day.

I like watching his show because he's smart, funny, and engaging, not to mention has zero tolerance for bullshit and posturing. The fact that he's also quite handsome is a lovely fringe benefit.

I bought his book, Dispatches From the Edge, due to the reasons above and because I like his writing in Details magazine.

The book is very well written; at once thought provoking and heartbreaking.

He came to Los Angeles for a signing at Book Soup, and I went with a friend from work. Not only is Anderson all of the things I stated above, in person, he is exquisitely beautiful. How one person got to be so blessed as to be that beautiful on the outside as well as the inside, I've no idea. But he is. I dream of one day finding someone like him, since my chances of actually catching him are next to zero. So I will continue to enjoy his work, and talk about it here from time to time.

Go check out his book. You'll be glad you did.

Well kids, I've started a new business. I have finally admitted to myself that my continuing presence in the restaurant world is sucking my soul away. So, I've decided to give someting else a try.

No, I haven't quit my serving job -- yet.

The new business is a music-movie-game rental company called E3Flix. It's similar to Netflix in that you rent movies or whatever from them, they send it in the mail with a postage paid envelope to return the thing and all that. But they pay people like me commissions based on how many subscriptions I sell.

So if you would be so kind, take a gander at my website and if you're interested, sign up. If you think you'll be able to refer people, do yourself a favor and sign up under the "become an affiliate" link. That way, you get paid. :)

I have a lot of other things to write about, I just have to whittle it all down from my journals. :)

After I go to the gym.