** Excerpted from Tsurezuregusa d'shapishapYou know what goes real good with food? Drink. That’s why the Chicken and I make such a great nest together.
My first gig as a bartender was at a martini bar and jazz club called the Good Life, where I was trained by a master named Richard. Under Richard's tutelage, I began to grasp the potential beauty and essential goodness inherent in the ethic of service. "You don't give a customer a drink," Richard taught. "You serve it to them." Some call it hospitality, and it is, but I've come to call it "the love," because it goes much further than that.
I see the love like that kid in that movie saw dead people. The love is what you're left to cultivate once you get the basics down pat. It's what puts the soul into music. It's what the Chicken puts in everything from her 1st prize meatballs to her split pea soup, and especially in those 200-word essays that win us things like month-long trips to southern France.
For me, the love has taken on a whole new meaning since I became a Dad. So you better bet I don't just give Baby Bird her sippy cup with the delicious dinner that mommy's prepared. I serve her that thing. Straight up and with so much of the love, I sometimes even cry a little.
And that's for a baby who doesn’t even tip.
1 comment:
...and for now it is fitting that she be served. You are, after all, her knight in shining armor. It doesn't last long so I hope you both enjoy it while you can.
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