wine and cheap perfume

Annie and I just dropped Louie off at the A.S.P.C.A. to have his nut removed. Actually, nuts plural, but the other nut is still in his abdomen. They'll get that one too. I know it's for the best, but I can't help but feel bad. I wonder if he'll still hump the living daylights out of every male bulldog he sees. It's weird, he has a thing for male bulldogs, and more specifically, he has a thing for their faces. As in, most dogs, straight or gay, will peacefully mount the rear end of whatever dog they find attractive, but Louie only mounts their heads, and then he rides their face for as long as he can. However, there was this one bulldog, Walter, at the dog park the other day who LOVED IT. I was really embarrassed, cause Louie just wouldn't stop, and I kept pulling him off. When I finally picked him up and tried to carry him to another spot in the dog run, Walter growled at me and batted his paw at my leg. He wanted his boyfriend back.
And then--I kid you not--they retreated back to the spot they had had their initial trysts, on this strange little mound of dirt near the back of the park, and resumed. It was their Brokeback Mountain. Anyway, we pick him up at five today, and when we do, he will be testes-free. Poor baby.
I gave my notice at the bar this week cause I just can't take it anymore. I can't take all the drinking I end up doing, I can't take the late hours, I can't stand to be around 99% of the people who patronize the bar.
I got a new job at this French restaurant on Ludlow that I've always loved. I trained for the first time last night. This French waiter named Mano trained me, and the first thing he said to me was, "It eez VERY important to flirt wiz all ze customers. Zat's how you make all your money. Here, watch me."
I then watched him swagger over to a table of three homely women in their mid-fifties, and move his hips in slow, sensual circles as he told them about all the daily specials. Then he began tracing his meager lips with a stubby forefinger as he started in on the wine list, and the women were looking at him as if he were a large, wet, month-old heap of sewage.
The thing is, he's not particularly attractive (think of an emaciated version of Nathan Lane with overly-plucked eyebrows and buck teeth), and so all night as he pulled these seduction antics with every woman who sat in his section, they all responded by giving him either quizzical looks ("Is he serious?") or looks of utter repulsion ("He's definitely serious."). He was totally oblivious to it all.
He also speaks roughly no English, so anytime I had a question about anthing, he would stare back at me blankly as though I was speaking Cantonese. Early on, I cleared a table and asked him where I should put the dirty linen napkins, and he replied, "Yes."
I repeated the question: "No, I was wondering if there was a laundry bag or something where I should put these napkins."
He responded, "Yes. Napkins." I was like, "Thanks for clearing that up for me."
There's a residential tarot card reader named Kyler at the restaurant, and at a slow point in the night Kyler asked me if I'd like to have my cards read. I said sure, and he asked me to ask him about something, anything, and he'd help me find answers. So I asked, in light of my oftentimes tumultuous relationship with Annie, "Will things get worked out in my relationship?"
He had me pull three cards out of a deck (which ended up being Romance, Completion, and Oppression) and then launched into the most vague interpretation of the cards you could possibly fathom. Sample quote: "You may or may not have some or many problems in the near future or future. However, there will be some joy at some point which could be with the person you're seeing. Know that there will be pain and there will be happiness. Stay true to yourself, keep your head up, have faith, and remember: everything happens for a reason."
I was like, "Wait, are you kidding?" He somehow managed, in his ludicrous ambiguiouity (sp?), to string together the cheesiest and most trite Hallmark-eqsue adages I've ever heard in a single speech. I was almost impressed. I said, "I'll definitely point my friends your way when they come by."
Without missing a beat he said, "Really? That'd be great. Actually, see that couple sitting in the back? Would you mind putting in a good word for me? They seemed on the fence about it and maybe you could help them make their minds up."
I was like, "Um, yeah, except, I don't know them personally and it's my first day on the job. I'm not so sure it would be smart for me to try to talk them into having their cards read while they're trying to enjoy a romantic dinner."
"Fine," he spat, and then sulked away like a surly teenager. Speaking of surly teenagers, he was wearing a No Fear t-shirt. Like, wow.