Sore feet.

My feet are sore today because I've been working full day shifts at Slips (and because of a new pair of heels I had to buy because my old brown ones, bless them, wore themselves out because I loved them so much, and so I found a pair of brown grown-up looking heels that were on the sale rack for 6 pounds to replace them -- and they most definitely are not of equal value or comfort) the past couple days. And dancing in the evenings.

The weather lately has been inconsistent and irritable -- it has been drizzly and sunny and white-cloudy and gray-cloudy off and on. It's mellowed out a little tonight, so now it's just crisp-feeling and bright (as bright as night can get, I guess), with a cloud or two here and there. During the day today I kept getting too warm in Slips (with the grill and the stove going at all times, it sometimes feels like a greenhouse in there), but I couldn't open the door or windows to circulate cool air because the wind would blow through too hard and either knock stuff off the tables or blow the ceiling tiles out of place. But there's something really nice about finally opening the door to let in the air and washing the dishes with water hot enough to steam up my glasses but getting cool wind from behind to de-steam them.

On the way to Slips, though, I saw some things that'll fit into a poem later, two fat pigeons bathing in one of the puddles that's collected from the drizzles. I don't think I've talked much about Slips, though, and since it's now a little more than a major part of my life, it should be described. It's really tiny, with 4 tables and a kitchen space with a clear counter with all the vegetables and meats in it, and a sautee-ing thing on the side, where we keep the barbecue sauce and warm the mushrooms and other things like that. Imagine a massive window store-front, facing the direction the sun sets (west, right?), with windows big enough to collect all the mid-day sun, and tall enough to catch the 4pm sun-shadows that hit the mayo pot and make it sweat. The downstairs is chilly, where we keep the refrigerators and shelves of things like massive tubs of things floating in juice (pickles, olives, jalapenos, peppers). The upstairs is painted red with some graffiti art done by some boys about a million years ago, with the menu-boards and sandwiches written in curlicued writing on the walls above them.

Depending on the time of day of my shift, I'll either make sandwiches, clean things, or cut and chop things or make the salads (tuna, egg, chicken) -- which is my favorite because we get to go get fresh basil and cilantro and I love the smell of fresh basil and cilantro. The only time I ever crave meat, the absolute only time, is when I've just finished making the tuna salad, because it smells so good.

We have regulars, Henry, Jackie, and Pandora. They're all mid-60s, and they've all had some history together. They have interesting lives, and they're all lonely in their own ways, and I like to listen to them, though sometimes I have to strain to understand them because they have thick thick thick Yorkshire accents. That is something of a problem, I've found. The accents here are so varied, but the most local and home-grown people have the hardest ones. You get phrases like "ham and cheese twice" and "pickles on't" and "extra tommy k" and "think they're right nice, them, I do" and "what's wi' 'at, luv?" -- and surely more and more than that. They're all extremely nice to me, though, asking about America and my family and general curiosities that are more sweet than anything else, wanting to know how it's different and if it's different. The people here are nice.