Utah is weird

• Utah governor declares he will continue his campaign to eminent domain all up in the feds:        About a year ago, Utah legislators passed a bill basically allowing them to reclaim federal land for the state, essentially through eminent domain powers. This may sound pretty ridiculous to both lawyers and non-lawyers, largely because it is, but Governor Herbert, in his state of the state address this month, ramped up the 5th amendment rhetoric, as though there were a chance in Zion...

• Utah <3's guns. The Utah Legislature names an official state gun... a semi-automatic, Browning M1911. This is only made less weird by the fact that the gun's inventor, John M. Browning, was from Utah. 

• The largest bridal show in Utah is held annually at Provo High School, a city 43 miles south of Salt Lake where the population is about 98% LDS. The Wedding catalogs available at the High School hosted show conveniently allow brides-to-be to order both their prom and wedding dresses at the same time.  

• Guns and pets: "... and who better to decide what's reasonable than someone willing to club a collarless cat to death..."

• Utah Rep. Chaffetz & his love for concealed weapons, gets a shout out two days in a row in Doonesbury:

So, Whaddya Want?

So I started a part time waitressing job at Elizabeth's English Bakery & Tea House. It's just a few blocks from the house & not quite a full-on waitressing job. It's more like a cafe, it has a limited menu of bakery items, some other lunch type foods and basically just tea. The servers have to prepare the food- make the little cucumber sandwiches or heat the meat pies, as well as prepare the drinks and bring them to customers.

Now that I've finished my second week there, averaging about 14 hours a week, I think my table-side manner has improved a bit.

Because it's more of cafe than restaurant, people come in, look in the pastry cases and we greet them as they browse the treats and look at the chalkboard menus. It's a little ambiguous if we're waitresses, there's no one seating them, no official paper menus and people don't leave us good tips as though we were true waitresses, so my first day was kind of feeling out what is expected of me in that respect. It was pretty busy, it was a bit of a trial by fire. I noticed one girl had been sitting at a table for a few minutes & it didn't look like anyone had taken her order. The servers don't have sections really either, it's a team effort and the staff just divides and conquers based on where help is needed. So I went up to this girl, and as I'm walking there, a friend she apparently was waiting for arrived. The girl that was waiting sees me, and sees that I'm coming to take her order, so I can't turn around at this point! We made eye contact, she knows I'm coming, but at the same time she stands up to hug her friend and before they can even sit back down, I'm standing next to then and I just blurt,

"So do you know what you want?"

Obviously not, the girl hasn't sat down yet.

Idiot.

And how about a, "Hello" first? Geeze.

Anyways, I think I've improved my approach since, I at least haven't done that again!