When the weather is fabulous - and it is fabulous - everyone wants to move their parties outside. And who can blame them? With the onset of summer, and actual summer weather in the Pacific Northwest, it's best to get outside while the getting is good.

We love outdoor Tricks. There's something about cooking and serving in the open air that makes it all seem - easy.

The meal for this particular Trick was all about Mexican, complete with BBQ'd chicken fajitas. (Which were fabulous, if I do say so myself...)

As the sun went down and the tiki torches were lit, we were able to quietly make our way out to the van at the back of the property to load up and head home. But there was a lot of fluttering overhead. And we began to be swooped upon to the point where it became an annoyance. An annoyance until I realized we were being swooped by bats.

And then I screamed like a baby.

I don't know anyone who likes bats, really. But I have a fear of anything rodent-like, so when you add boney wings and pointy ears and sharp teeth, it creates a hysteria in me only solved by either slapping me in the face or shooting me with a taser. And while neither seemed like an option at that moment, I did have to crouch in the fetal position by the back tire until I was able to regain my composure. Only it wasn't so much 'composure' as it was getting up and running around with my arms flailing in hopes to scare them off.

The Partner was no better, really. She once had a bat crawl through her hair while on a family camping trip. So the both of us were trying to be quiet in our complete hystera, and she actually dove into the van and would have locked the doors had she not been frozen by the fear of my retalliation.

The outdoor Trick, it seems, is terribly overrated. And wickedly hard on my nerves.

Last night, after yet another night of madness at The Restaurant, a few of us sat down to cool off from the heat, talk about the night and make sense of why the man in Table 3 ordered three entrees, paid, and then walked out without eating.

High Season for the Crazies strikes again.

And as I got up to get myself something to drink, I accidentally hit the orange pop button, when what I wanted was Coke. But rather than dump it out, I added Coke. And then Sprite. And then Root Beer.

I haven't had a Swamp Water in years.

And it brought me back to my youth when my weekends were spent at the Skating Rink with my gang of friends. It was the place to see, and be seen. Complete with Star Jeans and comb in the back pocket. And in my day, skating was done on four wheels instead of two. I stood on a pair of roller blades, once. And with my sence of balance and grace, I fell right over, took them off, and put them back in the box.

But back in the day? I was a mean skater. I could do the Hokey Pokey like no one's business. And skate backwards? Please. I was like Dorothy Hamil, just without the pretty hair and grace. But the skating rink was the place I had my first Swamp Water. That was the thing - skate a few rounds, and then slam into the snack shop to get a Swamp Water and hot dog from that heated case with all the spikes.

And I say slammed into the snack shop because that's what I had to do - skating I was good at, stopping not so much. Those eraser things on the tip of the skates were nothing more than a bumper for me. I used to watch in wonder as people would tip their feet forward and come to a graceful stop. I would tip my foot forward, catch the floor, and go tumbling into the padded seats on the far side of the rink. So I opted, instead, to just skate and then coast to wherever I wanted to go, and pray no one would be in my way.

The bathroom was my greatest challenge. I would round the corner, slam into the wall, grab the sink, roll my way into the stall, and pray I had good enough balance to be able to sit without rolling off the toilet. Washing my hands was a feat in and of itself - grab the sink, run the water, wash as fast as I could, and grab on to the paper towell holder, and then push myself out the door into oncoming traffic.

Those were the days.

You know it's going to be a long night when The Customer at Table 5 digs in his brief case, pulls out a newspaper and heads into the bathroom.

I should have listened to my high school counselor who, when reading an aptitude test, told me I would make a great mechanic.

So this is the kind of thing that can make a somewhat sane person sit in the corner and rock back and forth.

There's been a man - Cranky Man - coming in The Restaurant for the past couple of months. And he is always cranky. Always. But tolerable, you know? You get these people, but you deal with them because it's what you do.

It's just always a complaint - he doesn't like the coffee. "I only drink Starbucks!". He doesn't like our chairs. "Too Hard!" He doesn't like the fact that we have baby spinach mixed into our house salad. "I hate spinach!" But he does like our fish and chips. "Can you tell me the secret to the batter?" He just doesn't like the fact that we line our fish plates with brown paper. "Take that shit off!"

I don't know if Joan Crawford was his mother, and he has some childhood drama involving brown paper on a wire hanger, but the mere sight of it can make him even more angry and disagreeable than his normal disposition.

And the first time he was tolerable. The second time we rolled our eyes and laughed it off. But the third... fourth... he has become increasinly agitated and difficult to deal with. So this time?

He came in last night, and he barely sat down and barked for ice water. A few of the other customers shifted uncomfortably in their seats. When the waitress approached his table he waived her off. "You know what I want. I want fish. And no God-Damned brown paper!" And he actually pounded his fist on the table.

*sigh*

So I did that thing I hate to do, but that thing you have to do sometimes - I stepped on to the floor to speak to him. It was time for him to go and never come back.

I was quite, and kind. But told him he needed to leave. That his anger and aggitation had gone too far, and we couldn't have him behaving that way disturbing the other customers. I told him his dinner would be on the house, but he needed to take it to go - and he must never come back.

He actually shrugged his shoulders and said, "Ok, not the first time this has happend...", and before I had a chance to say anything else, his food was brought to the table in it's take-out container and he smiled and was on his merry way.

Just like that.

And people wonder why I drink.

So, I've had this thing that I do - this thing that I have done since, well, since as long as I can remember.

I like to take the occasional swig of pickle juice. Yes, I said pickle juice. I love the briney goodness - the spices - the smell - the... pickleness.

The Husband hates pickles. Hates them. Hates the texture. Hates the smell. Hates all of it. When he told me that little tidbit we were still in the dating stage of our relationship, and I told him his dislike of pickles was a trait I would have to really consider before making peace with it. The toilet seat I could handle, but no pickles? Between you and me I am pretty sure he was dropped her by aliens.

Later on in our relationship I was making dinner one evening and he happened to catch me taking a swig of the juice. And just to be clear - when I say swig - I mean swig. I open the jar, take a sip, and put it back in the fridge. I don't pour a glass of pickle juice over ice - although that thought has occurred to me - but I would bloat like and entry for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I do, however, like a splash in a bloody caesar.

Anyway - I took a swig. And The Husband happened to catch me doing it, and before I could explain I could see the look on his face - that look of the man who's just discovered his girlfriend is pregnant with his baby. Because pickle juice, it seems, is the universal symbol for pregnancy. My friend Damomma drank pickle juice in both of her pregnancies, even.

So the look of fear on The Husband's face was mixed with joy, mixed with more fear, mixed with a little more fear for good measure. And as I started to explain he said, "It's ok. This is fabulous. No, it wasn't planned. But it's totally ok..." and before he could finish I put my hand on his arm and said, "No. I am not pregnant. I just like pickle juice", to which he replied with a face filled with a different kind of fear.

The fear that he was dating a freak.

But as I have grown to accept the fact that he likes Cool Ranch Doritos, he has grown to accept that I am a pickle freak, and like to take the occasional swig of the juice.

So the other day as The Jamaican was over I was in the kitchen and took a nice swig of the pickle juice - and The Jamaican saw me. And his eyes got big, and he smiled, and then he pointed and started to do a little dance. The Husband waived his hand and said, "No no... no dancing."

Poor Husband. He spends the majority of his life explaining his wife's behavior to people confused by the mere sight of me.

One of the many hazards of being so busy - too busy, in fact - is that things start to fall by the way side. Things like free time, evenings out, memory... sanity.

My day started out with a late start. The Husband left at 6:00 a.m., and I sat down to "catch a little mental time" and woke up in a start of panic at 8:00 a.m. And I had a meeting at 8:30 a.m.

What ensued after that was a lot of running, a lot of clothes being tossed in the air, a fair amount of swearing, and a lot of convincing myself that frizzy tangled hair is all the rage these days.

And then it sort of went downhill from there as I went to get my keys. They weren't on my desk, the place I always put them when I walk in the door. They weren't in my purse. They weren't on the dresser. The nightstand. The bathroom counter. The bathroom drawer. The kitchen counter. Any of the kitchen drawers, cupboards or canisters. They weren't in the freezer. The shower. The washing machine. They weren't even in the pair of shoes I wore the night before. They weren't in the couch. They DVD player. Under the living room rug. The blanket chest. The coat closet.

They were - nowhere. And as I am watching the clock and racing all over like a small child in the Tilt-a-whirl, I kept telling myself to remain calm. Be calm.

So I stood in the middle of my kitchen and tried to retrace my steps from the night before. I had gone grocery shopping and upon arriving home piled the bags in the middle of my island. I must have had my keys in my hand at the time. And then I unpacked, scooped up the bags, threw them in the garbage...

...threw them in the garbage.

The Husband had taken the garbage to the dumpster in the alley after I was all done, and I had heard the garbage truck come in the morning. My heart sank, but I didn't think I had anything to lose. So I grabbed the keys to the dumpster and headed out to see if luck was on my side, or like normal, against it.

I opened up the dumpster and there was the bag. They hadn't dumped our dumpster, but the next one over, instead. Fortunately I was able to reach it without getting inside the dumpster, and when I removed the top layer of junk, there were my keys shining brightly in the sun. But laying in that two-week old potato salad I scraped from that bowl in the back of the refrigerator. But muck or no muck, I had my keys.

The moral to this story is simple - I need to stop going to the grocery store.

Hm.

So this is what my house looks like. Look - my own kitchen. The place where bad pie crusts are made. And apparently by the looks of my stove, someone's been frying... something. There's enough oil there to grease up the entire Nascar Circuit.

It's been a crazy mad busy time. Plenty of stories to share, plenty of griping to do, and then after the griping many complaining e-mails to read.

So, anyway.

The Restaurant has been having a stellar couple of months. Which is fabulous. But at the same time - exhausting. And - strange. The onset of spring and summer has brough about the familiar feeling in the air of, well, the roaming of The Crazies.

The other night I was in the kitchen and I hear moaning coming from the table in the corner. And it's not moaning like someone is sick or in pain, it's moaning like, well, how do I say this... like Meg Ryan's 'Deli Moan' in When Harry Met Sally, only without the screaming and banging on the table.

I was afraid to look, honestly. The last week has been filled with the most bizarre customer behaviors. I've decided that it is the approaching Summer Solstice, or our drinking water has been tainted with the kind of drugs that make people behave like college students at their first keggar on campus.

So The Waitress came into the kitchen with a look of exhasperation. "Did you hear that? DID YOU HEAR THAT?"

"No. Lucky for him. But seriously, I start each shift in fear of The Crazies."

The Crazies are what we lovingly call that rogue sect of people who travel in large groups, and at lease one member of the group seems to find The Restaurant every day. And the sect is growing exponentially.

Ok, so. I don't bake.

I mean, I can crank out something if I have to. But it's got to be non-constricting, and it's helpful if it falls in the chocolate chip cookie category.

Baking, for me, is all too restricting. All the rules and exact measurements cause me to rebel like that time I was in the 6th grade when I defiantly took a flat iron to my curly hair, only to have it rain and turn my head into a giant ball of frizzy tumbleweed.

As a teenager I spent a lot of time in my Aunt's kitchen (a fabulous baker) trying to learn the craft, only to be chastized every time I refused to level off the flour in the measuring cup.

I am just a 'toss it in' kind of girl. (Hence the lack of posting in the recipes blog...) Taste, season, stir, flip, taste season, chop a little, swirl a little - and viola! Dinner! But baking - all the reading and measuring and being precise - can't do it.

And maybe that's why I don't do it. I just can't ever seem to make it all come out ok. I shouldn't say that. I can make a decent chocolate chip cookie, and there's an herbed pan bread I've been baking for years that everyone loves. And I can do cobblers. But see cobblers don't require exactments. (Yes, that's a word) But cakes? Pastries? Pies? Oh, the pies. My pie crust could be classified by the US Military as a weapon of mass destruction.

As a treat for The Husband I decided to whip up a raspberry rhubarb pie - one of his favorites. I was determined that I would overcome the Battle of the Crust and it would be no problem. I called The Mother - the pie crust master of the universe - to walk me through it. And I did everything she said. I used chilled ingredients. I handled the dough with light, swift hands.

The pie smelled fabulous. And it looked divine. And the crust? Well, the crust would have been great if I was planning on going boating and needed a big, fat, non-flaky, tough anchor.

I give up.