One of my crosses to bear is a life-long lack of sleep. It’s a by-product of working in restaurants for nearly three decades, mostly night shifts, and one I’m not happy that’s followed me into my retirement veuve clicquot.
 
One of my first jobs was a place where my hours were 10pm to 6am, which was really screwy because it was weird going home to bed and passing everyone else on the way home who was just waking up.(If you want to experience the real meaning of the term “parallel universe”, work an all-night restaurant shift.) In subsequent years, my hours became a little tamer and when people say “You’re a baker, you’re used to getting up early!” I would shake my head, because after that one summer of hitting the sack at 7am, I decided that I would only work at night. Which meant that I would usually get home at 2am and watch back to back re-runs of The Love Boat or Charlie’s Angels property agent hk.

(I don’t know how many diners at the restaurant realized that in the kitchen, we were often talking about how Sabrina Duncan got out of a harrowing situation involving a Columbian drug lord, or what the heck the producers were thinking by introducing a sudden niece to Captain Stubing,rather than if the vinaigrette needed more salt or the strawberry ice cream could use another shot of lemon juice.) Once home, the late-night dinner on my couch was often a bag of tortilla chips accompanied by a jar of Mrs Renfro’s salsa, and glass or two of Sauvignon blanc, then nodding off at around 3 or 4 am orders flowers.