How is it so easy to drink a whole bottle of wine alone?

So, it was a good weekend at the restaurant. On a night when I expected to be sent home the moment I walked through the door, I ended up selling almost $1,000 worth of food and drinks. Somehow, the off-season isn’t nearly as mind-numbing and boring as I remember.

The extra padding in my wallet has left me feeling spendy. I bought a bottle of wine Monday night. I like Penguin cabernet because it tastes good and costs $6.99 at the liquor store next to my favorite grocery.

But I’ve always got an eye out for a deal. I bought something different Monday in celebration of my roommate’s homecoming. She’s been gone for a month. It’s just been me and the mice, who I serenaded once or twice in hopes they would feel compelled to help me clean the condo and maybe make a gown for the ball.

I splurged Monday and spent and extra $2 on a pinot noir that normally costs $10.99.

The wine was great. My roommate drank her share and we had a nice night of cooking and listening to “This American Life” together.

The next day, I went back to the liquor store. I took another bottle of the pinot noir off the shelf and walked toward the counter. Then I remembered that the people who work at this liquor store seemed to be recognizing me lately. The Russian girl behind the counter asked me, “what was your birthday, again?” the last two times I bought bottles here instead of, “can I see your ID?”

I contend this is because she recognizes me and not because I’ve suddenly started looking old.

There are some places where you like to be known – the cafe where you get eggs Benedict, the post office, the bakery, even the deli counter at the grocery – nice wholesome places where you long for a friendly face and where it feels warm and comforting for everyone to know your name.

And then there’s the liquor store.

So, I went back and picked up a bottle of the old standby Penguin. Two bottles. That should hold me over for a while, I thought, at least long enough for the Russian girl to forget my birthday again.

I got home and poured myself a glass, took a shower and started watching a movie on the Internet. I worship the Internet and it’s magic powers to bring absolutely anything I want to see to my little 8” by 10” screen, even if the words don’t always match the lip movements of the characters. No one is perfect, not even the Internet.

After watching a 30-minute TV show, with pauses for buffering, and a feature-length film, with pauses for buffering, and surfing the Argentine classifieds on Craigslist.org, I looked over and noticed my wine glass was empty. I went back downstairs to get some more. I tipped the bottle and a finger-nail’s worth of my $8 pinot noir poured into the glass.

A few minutes later, my friend Cara texted me.

“How is it so easy to drink a bottle of wine alone?”

I was just wondering that.

Oh well, at least I had the Penguin for tonight.

No more macaroni

Thanks everyone for your kind suggestions. I've received a lot of tips recently on how to eat cheaply without boring myself into the bathroom.

I threw away the last of the macaroni and tuna Monday, putting one last portion into a Tupperware container for that day's lunch. I couldn't bring myself to eat it and spent $4.50 on soup and pita chips at the Whole Grocer instead.

I left the Glad container of macaroni on the passenger seat of my car until today when I went to lunch with co-workers. Then I moved it to the back of my Subaru wagon. It's still there tonight. I forgot about it. I'm reluctant to waste it. Maybe I'll eat it tomorrow.

Unlikely, though. I made a giant batch of spicy tofu and bell peppers with rice noodles the other night. It's cheap, healthy and exciting. Also, there's just no way it will take me more than a week to eat it.

I seem to be rebelling from my cheap eating promise, going to lunch and drinking a beer, buying wine at night and goat cheese for a snack.

My expensive taste is costing me. Tips are shrinking. People are coming more slowly to the restaurant, ordering less and leaving little.

I left last Sunday angry because I ended up paying to wait on my last table of the night. They left me 7 percent after sitting two hours as my only table and drinking. I had to pay the bartender, busers and government. In the end, it cost me about $1.50 to serve them.

Please note. No matter how much fun you are for your server, he or she never wants to pay for the experience of being at your beck and call.

Please tip your servant ... er, server.

Macaroni and tuna

Gregorio, my Spanish teacher in Chiapas, Mexico, told me in April that he had a student who ate nothing but tuna and macaroni salad for a whole year in order to save up money for a year of travel. That sounded like a pretty simple equation: One year of boring tuna and macaroni equals one year of blissful work-free travel around the world.

“Yuk,” was my response. I don’t have anything against tuna and macaroni. But to eat the same thing every day, three meals a day, for a whole year? Water boarding sounds like more fun.

* * *

It’s snowing in Jackson Hole. It started snowing last weekend and it’s been cold and dreary for a few weeks now. People, crazy people, are even skiing on the sparsely covered Tetons.

With this sprinkle of winter has come low reservations in area hotels – about 35 percent of capacity. The only tourists are the ones from warm places who didn’t know any better and the bargain shoppers.

There are usually 10 servers at my restaurant. As we slip into the off-season, we cut back to nine, then eight, then seven and sometimes just six. I was number eight of eight last Sunday. The hostess seated a nice couple in my section who ordered a bottle of wine and an appetizer. The night started off well, but the front door was quiet.

The owner’s son, who manages on Sundays, came to me 20 minutes after we opened and sheepishly said I was cut, server vernacular for “not getting any more tables.” I asked my fellow servers if they wanted to trade places with me and go home to their couches. No one was interested. Everyone is looking down the barrel of the financial gun with tips trickling down to nothing before we close for a month starting the day after Halloween.

My nice couple wanted a leisurely meal. They took their time, ordered dessert, sipped their wine. I folded napkins and folded napkins and folded napkins. They had a pretty good meal and a pretty good bill. If they left within two hours of sitting down and tipped properly, it wouldn’t be a total wash. Plus the manager offered me a free dinner as a consolation.

After they paid, I noticed the man following my moves across the restaurant.

“Are we your only table?”

I explained that it was a slow night and gave them directions to the grocery store and plucked the little black bill book from the table.

They tipped 20 percent – $22. I gave $2 to the bussers and $1 to the bartender and collected my free dinner, my coat and my $19 and went straight to the grocery store, where I purchased a bag of macaroni and two tins of tuna.

I made a massive bowl of delicious, spicy macaroni and tuna salad with lots of olive oil, capers, left-over gorgonzola cheese and crushed red pepper. I filled a Tupperware container with the dish for lunch each day this week.

I swear my macaroni and tuna salad procreates in the bowl. There's enough left for another week of lunches.

My "brave" decision

My name is Amanda H. Miller. And I am a waitress.

I have created this blog as a tribute to the work that has brought me so much freedom and happiness. It only recently occurred to me that I’ve slighted this profession all of my adult life, leaving it off resumes, out of casual conversations and neglecting to post it on my Facebook page.

While I’ve waitressed and cooked and hosted at restaurants from New York to Alaska since I was a teenager, I’ve also been a newspaper reporter all these years. That’s the profession I list on loan applications and the one I would have put on dating Web sites if I’d ever lived in a city with more than 5,000 men.

Some friends and family members may not have even known I am a closet service worker.

But this work has brought me such solace and balance. I always look forward to leaving the newspaper for my waitressing shifts where it’s almost always so busy there’s no room in my head for anything but elk chops and tenderloins, sweet potatoes, French fries, Bud Lights and margaritas.

If there is a moment, it’s nice to talk to people about where they’re from and if they’re enjoying their vacations instead of how many DUI arrests the police made or how the school kids did on their standardized tests.

And it’s so fulfilling to open that little black book left on the table to find $12, $20, $110 just for me (and the bussers, bartenders and stewards). I like the suspense leading up to it and I like guessing at what people will leave. I like being right and sometimes I love being wrong.

This work has filled my pockets with green bills and my bank account with enough digits to allow me a freedom few have these days.

The freedom to quit.

I’ve given notice at both my jobs in the midst of the worst economy since the Great Depression.

“Congratulations,” the guy who works at Blue Cross said to me today when I told him I was quitting my job, the one with health insurance benefits. “ You don’t hear that much these days. A lot of people are getting laid off. But I don’t know of anyone quitting.”

The plan was to spend the holidays with my family and then four months bumming around South America – purposely unemployed. Then, tentatively, to wait tables and try to write something other than newspaper articles.

The plan has gotten mixed reactions. Jackson Hole is a pretty amazing place, full of more natural beauty than any other place in the continental United States. A lot of people wonder why I would leave, especially when my job (the newspaper gig) is so good. I can drink beer at lunch some days, ski in the backcountry before work and hike in the Tetons on my lunch break.

Most people, though, think my plan is brilliant. They smile and call me brave.

I am grateful to live in a time when the line between brave and crazy is so fuzzy.

To add an extra dash of “brave” to this plan, I’ve decided to attempt to be a waitress in every country I visit in South America.

This extra “brave” addition to my travel plans is perfect for a few reasons.

1. I’m wildly interested in immigration and illegal workers. What better way to dig deep into the issue than to BE an illegal worker?
2. Working in a fast-paced restaurant environment will force me to amp up my Spanish. Even if no one ever hires me, the interviews will be good practice.
3. It will help me pay for some of this “brave” adventure.
4. I will have something relevant to blog about on this site I insisted on naming “Excuse me, waitress.”