Exciting things are happening here as we are having a breakfast party to celebrate Schuyler's retirement (and by extension, Lochlan's! third! job!), which I'm not sure I believe for a second, having been made to wait eight minutes outside his office door last evening while Schuy considered heading out to help put out a professional fire of some sort with a RAS far from home. He can be there in four hours if he can grab a plane. He can send someone faster who is local. He can check in with the office here. Maybe Lochlan can do something from here? I stood there and shook with laughter. This isn't going to work, though Daniel is so excited to have Schuyler join him as a fellow lady of leisure, he's practically vibrating with glee.
But Schuyler hasn't noticed and obviously never changed the contact info of who people are supposed to call in these emergencies. When he's finished his call he swears to me that the email is going out tonight, bc'd all the way to infinity and beyond as his final fuck you to an overreaching industry that has eaten up everyone in its path, a mortal engine we've come to despise.
Okay, Buzz.
Buzzkill?
Buzz Lightyear. You said 'to infinity and bey-
Oh, right.
But he isn't focused on me, just work difficulties and this will be a transition for the record books. It will be like Ben's retirement, though I think Ben's rethinking that as we speak and maybe will actually retire once he gets through this new season of challenges.
But first, a party to celebrate Schuyler and all of his successes, all of his hats in different areas of the same industry going wildly from art to technical and back again but skewing tech because it was easier, he said, to keep the machine well-oiled than to feed things into it. It's a descriptor that usually horrifies me, that's for sure and I wonder what the fuck he's going to do with all of his free time when his phone stops buzzing and Daniel becomes a tangible event instead of a hazy mirage.
We made savory (rosemary and brown butter) waffles with our own syrup, end of season blackberries and clotted cream, poached eggs with cheese and big thick slices of smoked ham, with coffee and sparkling champagne-free champagne, as Schuyler has been in recovery longer than anyone and does not drink but suffers all of us fools so gladly he's a gift from God.
Maybe he'll have more time for me or Ben now too but I don't think I'll let my brain go there.
Even Lochlan, who made the first speech outside as the sun rose over the hills to illuminate the sea, noting Schuyler's inability to stop calling him every time something went wrong, wondered aloud if anything is actually going to change here.
(The newish tradition for retirement parties is to get up at the normal work-time but instead of work we have a huge formal breakfast and make speeches building up the future leisure all the while verbally burning the bridges of employment that isn't truly self-employment ever, but by others, as always.)
A good laugh and we raised our glasses, sparkling in the morning light. To Schuy. May he figure out how to sleep late or go to bed early! He is the fourth one to retire, but none of them stayed that way for long so we'll see.
Also, I'm hoping this isn't just a ruse to get some of the waffles I never make because of the effort involved. Trying to work my ancient cast iron waffle pan for twenty people at five-thirty in the morning is a fucking joke. I'm retiring.
(People want me to do a food blog. Yeah, no.)