The tropical storm remnant didn't bring nearly as much rain as they anticipated. This far inland, at the motel in East Portland, it was a good soaking but nothing that brought to mind any time of flooding.
Nevertheless it was delicious to be lazy all day Sunday. I had planned on checking out of the Motel 6 that morning but decided to extend another night, just so Red and I could sit indoors reading, studying, and watching television.
Although I checked in on the NFL games, most of the day we watched episode after episode of Bar Rescue, which I'd previously introduced to Red (who owns no television and grew up without watching it much). She'd understood at once what I like about the show so much---a gruff expert comes into a failing bar/nightclub/tavern, and with the consent of the owner, he gives a complete makeover.
He has to kick ass like a sheriff in an old western, but the show is produced in a way that makes you see where the problem really lies---usually with bad owner/management. Sometimes he has to make the owner fire bad employees too. It's very emotional and dramatic, no doubt punched up by the production crew to create better television. But you tell a lot of the emotion and drama is genuine.
One of the common themes of the show is how resistant people are to the changes he suggests. The bad owners are often trapped in a world of delusion about their place in the world, or what they really should be doing. One club owner really wants to be comedian. Another really wants to be a rock and roller. Another wants to be the queen captain of a pirate den. A few are downright sociopaths. Others just need to be reminded of the right way thing to do, and that it's OK to do the right thing.
In (almost) every episode there is the magic moment when the owner and employees realize that the changes suggested by the expert are not just on the level of fiddling around the edges of the problem, but are in the nature of raising the place and the employees to whole new level, one that is classier and much more prosperous. The owner sees the light at the end of the tunnel of their crushing debt. The bartender who moans the loss of daytime shift hours suddenly realizes she will make five times more in tips after the bar reopen. The former pathology of the place has not just been fixed but routed, and the problems from the "old regime" suddenly seem moot.
Red and I must have watched six or seven hour-long episodes of it, in all, interrupted by a long leisurely trip to a nearby Elmer's on I-205 to have country friend steak and eggs (me) and a cheeseburger (her), complemented by hot tea. When we got back we watched all the way to one in the morning. The last episode was about a bar in a town outside Cincinnati where Red once played soccer.
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