The Last breeze of Summer

It’s finally raining in Austin. After an entire dry month of August, in triple digits and the heat index frying my outside, like I was walking in the desert, the temperatures are lowering down to a normal weather. Summer is coming to an end, at least at the calendar, and it was possibly the worst one yet, for everyone. On the planet. So much for a year that it looked so promising, so many plans were made, goals to be reached, life accomplishments, so everything could change in March. Just like when you just put shampoo in your hair and someone cut off the water. Now what?  From March on, we were all left with shampoo sticking in our head, not know when the water would come back if it ever would, I will dare to say. 

In January, we took a short trip to LA, it was my longest dream to visit the city be able to see the Hollywood sign, and walk around as I belong there. It was great and I’m thankful I took this trip when we did because if we had tried to book to March or April that trip would have never happened. At least I made some memories for this horrible year. From January to March, the Corona Virus was still a novelty, a mystery. One case in China, then Italy and Spain, and them boom, America. We rushed to close everything down, the borders, the businesses, all the entertainment industry got cut off, students were sent back home, visas cancelled and we were led to believe that if we stayed home for a month, we would be able to get out of it sooner. We are in September already and we don’t see the end near. 

This year I had some important goals I’d liked to achieve, I had in mind to go back to LA to get screenwriting classes, meet people from the film industry, and network. I wanted to take film classes here in Austin, to learn how to make movies. I planned to take improv classes. I planned to see my friend at DisneyWorld. 

“Be thankful you are healthy, you didn’t get the virus” 

Yes, I’m thankful, but that doesn’t diminishes the fact that I’m an active person, who likes to have dreams and work for it. Instead of that, I spent a lot of time at home, in my own head, hoping and praying that my family in Brazil will be safe and that I eventually would be able to go see them. I also filled my days with self with little projects, such as improve the traffic on my blog, learn how to market it, I finally made an Instagram account for it. I soak up the sun. 

I went to the apartment complex pool a couple of times and I also got the chance to visit a swimming hole in Wimberley, Texas. It is a beautiful place, but because of the Corona, we had a time frame we could stay, so we booked, went in the morning, and stay for a couple of hours.

During quarantine, I also managed to work with my friend. 

My friend is a Chef and she is the owner of a catering company, Starving Gypsy. She knows how much I love photography and invited me to take some photos of her dinner parties, I got super hyped, forgot we were in the middle of the Corona Crisis, mask up, and went to work.   Working on those parties kept me sane. I’m used to dealing with different kinds of people and clientele because of my years in the service industry, so I didn’t even blink, I’m used to be thrown at the lions, and only get out with psychological scratches. 

During the past 3 months, we had all kinds of clientele to serve and all surreal stories to tell. We had a couple of bachelorette parties, The One with the White Claws, filthy AirBnB pool, and starving ladies. When Chef Demeatrie started cooking one of them came to the kitchen, excited “It smells great!”. Chef looks at her “We haven’t started cooking yet”, we looked at each other like what food is she smelling?  The number of White Claws in the garbage could answer the question. We had to cook and serve dinner in the dark. Definitely, the most stressful one. 

On our way to the client’s house, Chef received a text, saying the client’s house ran out of power. She stops to read and replied to the text, that it’s followed by another one, saying the power was back. As we got there, unload the car, started to get everything ready, the lights start to flick. Not surprising, the stove was electric too. Chef rushed to get whatever was possible ready and the lights went off. And this time, it didn’t come back. The only source of light was my Rory Lights, a mega-powerful flashlight, that can illuminate a stadium, at least for a couple of hours. We could barely see what was the outcome. They sat down to eat, in the dark, the dim lights were coming from the window. There was no air circulation and to add, the house smelled like weed. Not a big deal to get hot and high by contact while working. When we were ready to serve dessert, the power came back. Just like magic.

It all worked in the end, but the stress caused by all the circumstances will be the one for the books. It was all good, except that there were a weird vibe in the air. Probably the cloud of weed. 

Everyone got a little break in the quarantine to rebuild or work from home, we worked outside. Hard. Like I wrote in the previous post, if you work with food, you will have a job, either cooking or serving the food. We prayed to be protected against the virus, got all the required safety gear, and kept moving. All my memories from the 2020 summer will be the ones laughing on the way back from the dinner parties the beautiful houses, the unleashed dogs, and cooking in the dark. 

For all the people that are used to have a summer filled with adventures, this one seems useless. It was the worst for all of us because what they call the “New Normal” is not normal, trying to convince me to accept a horrible situation by giving a different name, won’t erase the fact that someone is to blame for this chaos. I wanted my summer to be patio season, barbecue eating, travel, music festivals, food trucks, and all the great things life has to offer. 

Life is still great and we are going to get over this. Hopefully soon. Let me know your plans for fall and if you are thinking about Halloween costumes!

Be safe out there! Enjoy the Labor day weekend with care!

J.G.Snelly