Oh, Thank Heaven It’s Monday

I’m getting too old for this “weekend” stuff.

It’s exhausting! I either need to have more days off in a row or I need to just work straight through and not kid myself with pretending that Saturday and Sunday are going to be a break in the action.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Is it just me? Am I the only one finding myself running from errand to chore to drinks to odd jobs only to sit down Sunday evening and wonder what the hell just happened?

One doesn’t notice, of course, until one is home and sits down. That’s when one notices the bones in one's feet. That’s when you notice that despite the folding and the putting-away, despite being dirty-dish-free for perhaps the first time in weeks, there are odd bits of lint, string, and what appears to be a Crunchberry on the carpet...

I worked a church “mixer” brunch banquet on Sunday at Nye’s Polanaise. Nye’s was voted Best Bar in America by Esquire in 2006. It’s a fabulous place, an old-world style place, labyrinthine kitchens, full bars in the myriad rooms, linen tablecloths and a piano bar circled by upholstered stools: dreadlocked college student with corks in their earlobes sit next to an out-of-town sales executive sitting next to a 68-year-old ex-boxer sitting next to a couple on their first date, all of them singing a John Denver tune.

There’s a polka band that plays in a room off the front door.

Saying that the place has "ambiance" would not do it justice.

But the place's layout demands a lot of you. The building has stairs and layers and passageways designed in an era when I suspect people were smaller. Nye’s is a good-sized place; but yesterday, in the hours around lunch, the routes between the tables and the coffee, the kitchen, and the dishwasher were clogged with Easter-Sunday-dressed pre-schoolers and the older brothers and sisters charged with watching them. It was treacherous going for a while, but the serving staff was both speedy and cautious - no toddlers were harmed during the Palm Sunday Mixer.

The adults pushed the tables together, plates of food were consumed, the coffee flowed, and, surprisingly, so did the drinks.

I was not expecting the busy bar.

Who’d a thunk?

Anyway, thank heaven it’s Monday.

Frankly, I need the rest.