Yesterday morning I became acquainted with a tool known as a
mattock. I was volunteering at the Jr. high school in the nature preserve. I lead the blackberry team that was taking out... well you guessed it non-native black berries. We trim them then we rake them then I come in with the mattock and hack and dig up the root ball. This was better than trying to create new wetlands. The other teams were making small ponds at the bottom of the hill. The leader of the kids was the ASB president and we'll call him "not tucker." I don't want to give the impression that he was anything other than a typical good kids. He did, however, declare it to be, "that's what she said" day. Can I just say starting out the day with a bunch of early teens, both boys and girls, saying "that's what she said" back and forth to each other for a couple of hours is nerve racking? What makes it worse? It's not appropriate to join in because they are kids. Even worse? they missed some of the best ones. I could have nailed it, but no. I'm a parent so we have to be boring. I got my exercise in though swinging the axe. It feels good to win against the black berries when I lose against them at home all the time.
Jen and I went out running errands. I was going to work, but what I needed didn't come through as early as I had hoped so I ended up going in for just a little while today instead. Whatever. Our errands turned into play pool. Ya know like it does as I bought her a nice pool cue of her own. Having bought her cue then well it's not right not to use it right away so we crossed the street to uncle Jack's. (I'm not sure if Jack is fictional or real.) To play a few games. After that we went home and got ready for dinnah.
Yes this is one of those blogs where I just mundanely tell you what I ate... Jen M took us out for combined Christmas, and both Birthdays in one. We went to the Icon Grill in Seattle. I know of no others but what the fuck, I thought I'd specify. Our waiter who reminded us on several occasions that was in fact the senior waiter was a bit quirky. I don't want to rip on him because he treated us right but he kinda blew the drink orders with me getting diet etc. Not only is this one of those blogs where I tell you what I ate, I'm going to tell you what other people ate near me so stop reading now. K? So we started off with the fried macaroni and cheese. That is what I said. Um yum. Fried. Seriously fried. Dipping sauces. Oh my god. I could have just stopped there. So next up the Jens had salads. I punted on the salad 'cause I was aiming at dessert so why spoil that with lettuce? Next time you're in a fancy ass restaurant imagine what would happen if a nearby volcano (I mean really near by not like Rainier as it poses no threat to us what-so-ever) just blasted and preserved just your fancy ass restaurant and the peeps eating. Now fast forward like 6000 years when some advanced scientists come along and dig it up. What would they think when they used some carbon/radon process to figure out exactly what we were eating? How embarrassing. Fried macaroni? Fried.
So quirky waiter gave us the list of specials and JenM ordered the steak on special medium rare just like nutty waiter suggests. On comes the salad and yes my coke was still diet but I was all whatever no need to mention it again. Jen got the meat loaf and I got the stuffed hill billy chicken. OK my word hill billy there it was some fancy ass provincial or some such. It was covered with sauce and pine nuts. What is not to love? I guess they could have fried it, but no it was kind of light and tasty. Jen's meatloaf was awesome, but JenM's steak was like one shade past medium well. Hardly pink. So she sent it back. She was worried about it and said to eccentric waiter that it seemed just a bit over done. He took one look at it and became decisive waiter. No Ma'am that isnt' what you ordered and I typed it in right because it's the way I like it so that's going back. So Jen M is all go ahead and eat it'll be a few mins. So Jen and I ate. And we ate. The steak came back pretty quick and Jen thanked them and cut into it. Didn't get very far because this one looked from my point of view, blue. So I said, "Stick your finger in it." and the table erupted with, "That's what she said."
Cold colder coldest. So JenM did not wish to send this one back. Instead the plan was to take it home and cook it. Now the waiter really wanted to get them to make it right and JenM expressed concern, and rightly so, "I don't want them to spit on my dessert." The waiter replies without even blinking, "Oh no. That's a totally different guy." The table erupted with laughter.
They gave us free dessert, free steak (although it came with some assembly required at home, just add heat.) and yet another free dessert because it was, sorta, Jen and My birthday. My dessert was a hot fudge sundae. Um yeah it came in a cookie bowl with a hot fudge filled horn, also made of cookie. When it arrived he lifted the horn out of the ice cream, thus unplugging it, and drained the chocolate goodness pretty much everywhere. Then he sweetened (I didn't think it was possible) the whole shebang with candied almonds (um I ate those nuts and yes it sweetened it.). We wrapped up the extra free dessert, parts of the actual free dessert and rolled home. The icon grill didn't charge JenM for her meal or any of the 5 (yes 5) desserts for our party of 3. Seriously 5.
J.R. Hughson
