Things overheard at The Restaurant:

"Oh no. Please take this way. There is so much food on this plate that I am starting to shake. Please hurry!"

And 1/2 hour later...

"We would actually like dessert. I want the pumpkin bread pudding. I am starving."

Overheard in The Clients Kitchen:

"Oh no... no no no shoes. Sorry. No shoes in the house."

"No no no... no shoes in the house. And be careful. We just had the floors polished. They are a little slick."

That is the big sigh of fabulous relaxation I've been given the last week. Yes I've had a nasty cold, but whatever. I was trick free for 6 days and I went to battle with the cob webs living high above me.

Seriously - what is with those? 12 foot cielings are conducive to 'out of sight, out of mind' but there just comes a time when you can't get your guests to believe those are Halloween decorations.

I need a housekeeper. Pronto.

I only went to The Restaurant one day last week, and the rest of my days have been spent deep cleaning and getting ready for the coming holidays. The deep clean thing was oh so needed. Besides the aforementioned cieling dwellers I found a block of what I thought was a gorgeous bleu cheese - turns out it was originally Fontina.

Penicillin, anyone?

I cannot believe I am going to say this outloud, but we are one short month away from The Most Adored Food Holiday In All The Land, aka The Great Turkey Violation; and two short months away from... Christmas. Sadly I won't be in New York City this year, or coming up close and personal with The Green Monster. But it does mean I will get to watch Charlie Brown in the comforts of my own home. And not violate the bathroom on a Delta flight with whatever intestional disorder I picked up as a nice parting gift from friends.

It also means Holiday weddings and the irrational brides that come with it. I just sat with one last week who was shaking and teary-eyed when she said to me, 'Do you have any idea how stressful it is to have a wedding during the holidays?'. My response to her was, 'Then why pick December 27?', to which she responded, 'Because it has always been my dreaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmm..." and then she started to bawl.

Can't wait for that one.

But for now I have my cobweb-less high cielings, my mold free refrigerator, and a few glorious days before it all starts again.

Care to join me for a lemon drop(s)?

As I am always want to say I love a good Wedding Planner. (*WP)

There's no fuss, no confusion, no random guest coming into The Kitchen to ask where the bathroom is. A good Wedding Planner can have a function run like a well-oiled machine.

Although as I found out - there is such a thing as 'too good'.

This Wedding Planner was - and this is something My Friends in California, Wisconsin, Baltimore, North Carolina and Boston will appreciate - a Master Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. I have no idea how she transitioned from that job to this one, but nothing she learned from The Mighty Corps was lost in translation.

The first meeting we took with her was laden with shooting looks across the table from The Partner. The WP wore a sensible grey suit and spoke in very clear and concise sentences. "You will arrive at 18:00. You will be announced at 18:05. Your guest will arise at your annoucement. There will be a toast, no more than 100 words in length. Your guest will then be seated. First course on the table at 18:30..." She was never rude. Just not - warm and gushy. Very professional. Methodic. Very exact and firm.

When she left The Client said, "I apologize for The WP. I know she seems stern. But she has been fantastic. She recently retired from The Marine Corps." "Ah Ha!", I said. And then I started laughing, it all made sense to me then. I know the type, all too well.

So the day of The Event we were in The Kitchen doing what we do, and The WP was out on the floor doing what she does when all of a sudden The Florist came runnin the kitchen gasping for breath.

"Can you... *gasp*... help... *gasp*... for a second...*gasp*..."

We came out to see what was going on and The WP was not at all happy with the layout of some of the tables. She wanted them moved - pronto - and started pointing and using her Big Girl Voice. Not shouting - just - deep and commanding. And she was moving them right along with the rest of ut. We weren't offended in the least, she was just doing her job.

But I am not going to lie, we moved a table in the wrong direction and her cadence changed to get our attention...And I think I peed a little.

I hate Saturday weddings.

Friday nights are perfect. The wedding happens and then the reception happens in a time frame that coincides with dinner. People have a reasonable expectation about the time they eat since they probably had breakfast and lunch. But Saturdays bring about this meal time mayhem that is hard to explain. It seems that weddings on Saturdays either happen mid-afternoon or too early in the evening. So people get all messed up on their feeding cycle. They either forget to eat, out of their Monday through Friday routine, or they eat breakfast and skip lunch because they are busy running errands or doing things around the house. Or they just skip all of it knowing they have a big affair to attend and surely the food there will be enough.

This last Saturday was no exception. 3:00 wedding, 4:30 reception. Appetizers at 4:45, dinner at 5:45. The idea, of course, being that people would arrive, mill about, nosh a little, sip a little, and slowly make their way to their assigned seating. And in this situation each table had their own array of sweet pastry tarts, a little sweet treat for dessert in addition to a cake the size of the Empire State Building. (Yes, I still miss New York...)

At about 5:00 the servers started streaming back into the kitchen with empty platters. It literally took 15 minutes for people to plow through the appetizers - a ridiculously hearty assortment of goods that should have kept them sated for at least the hour set aside. I almost did not believe the first server who came in, thinking maybe she did not want the job and decided to dump her platter in the garbage. But her wide-eyed stare told me otherwise.

And then at about 5:15 the servers started slamming into the kitchen, all gasping for air, all demanding more tarts. The Crowd, it seems, had also plowed through the pastries and were clanging their glasses for more. And when I walked out into the ballroom I was aghast at the carnage around me. There were oyster shells and shrimp tails and bread crumbs and pastry remnants strewn about the tables like an Ogre Smorgasbord. People were actually playing 'rock, paper, scissors' over a bacon-wrapped scallop on a plate belonging to some poor sucker who had the sad misfortune of getting up to go to the bar.

And the bar - the poor bartenders came back for more mixed nuts - a last minute addition they put out for those who wanted to linger and not fill up before the main course. But an addition that was soon gone when rumor got around there were a pack-o-nuts to be had by the gin. I think they realized they had to hide the olives and limes and pearl onions for fear of a revolution.

And the buffet stations - I can't even talk about it. Those people raped and pillaged like I have never seen before, and one guy offered me $100 bill if I sliced him a 3-inch slab of prime rib. I laughed, and said something witty back to him in an effort to keep things light. But the man was serious, and was willing to go up $20 since he thought I was playing hardball.

No deal, of course. Though I did consider offering him $120 to take over my job so I could run all the way home screaming like a crazed lunatic.

I have got to get a new job.

I love getting up early on Sunday Mornings. Everything is so quiet and I feel like I have the entire place to myself. A nice change from a normally very chaotic life. This morning was no different, except for the fact that my head did not hit the pillow until 2:12 a.m. It was a long and exhausting night of Tricking for The Masses, but even so I was wide awake at 5:45.

I needed a few things for my pantry at home so I pulled on whatever I could find without making too much noise as not to wake The Husband. Turned out to be an ensemble of should-be-thrown-out 20 year old track pants (Saying track pants makes me giggle. like they've ever seen a track...), a very faded and torn sweatshirt with some sort of paint and/or grease stain, and a pair of men's slippers that look like something Dick VanDyke wore when he came home for a cocktail. When I caught a glimpse of myself I considered changing, but I reasoned that people would forgive such an outfit at 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

The Grocery Store is a gift from God so early on a Sunday. There were maybe 6 cars in the parking lot and The Checkers are cheerful just having arrived to start their days. Everything is stocked and refreshed, and without 500 crazy folk running around I was even able to catch a little Girl from Ipanema on the sound system. It was lovely to be left alone, and not to have to jockey for a space in front of the lettuce.

As I was scanning out The Checker and I were talking about how nice the store is at that time of the morning, and she was giving me a hard time for The Mystery Stain on my sweatshirt. Much laughter was had, until Coco Chanel came on line behind me resplendant in her Sunday best, pearls and all.

I was in the middle of a giggle when I leaned back to put that little bar separater on the belt so she could put down her items when I happened to notice her looking me up and down. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Forgive the fashion statement. I dressed in the dark."

She scoffed and said, "Dark? It looks like you dressed in a cave." No smile, no chuckle. Just an eye roll and a head shake.

I was so taken aback by her lack of good humor that I gasped a little. And I started to turn away when I changed my mind and said, "Sweetheart, I had less than four hours of sleep after carving 300 pieces of prime rib for a group of vultures. You should be grateful I remembered to wear pants."

I probably should start spending my Sunday mornings in church.