(Un)Forgettable

Chris and I have a history of being forgotten in restaurants and other service establishments. We've nearly walked out of a Baker's Square because they forgot us in an empty dining room and never brought us our check. When I go out to lunch with coworkers my meal has come ten to fifteen minutes after everyone else's, on many occasions, and its often wrong or cold when it does arrive. No wonder I'm such a critic of service in restaurants.

The worst case has probably been our first trip to Maui, at the car rental booth. We waited for more than an hour and watched car after car of people leave who had arrived and checked in far after we did. We'd ask about our car, wait some more, ask again, wait some more. Finally a supervisor noticed we'd been hanging around a long time and got a car for us. It all worked out quite well though, since he waived a lot of the fees (and the extra charge for renting a car when you're not 25 or whatever the age limit was) and comped a few of the days, so we ended up paying next to nothing for our rental.

Getting to my point, last night Chris and I went out to dinner at Marie Calendar's since we wanted to pick up Chris' birthday lemon meringue pie there anyway. They told us the wait was 20 minutes so we put our names on the list and took a seat in the waiting area. After a while we noticed that people (specifically, parties of two) who were arriving after us were being seated. I gave the host a quizzical look, he asked for our name, and then said they must have erased us. As we were being lead to our table Chris and I were joking about always being forgotten, but we weren't upset - at this point we mostly expect it and laugh. We had our dinner (its slim pickin's for vegetarians, y'all) and then waited for what must have been fifteen or twenty minutes for our waiter to bring us the check, with our plates on the edge of the table and obviously done with our meal, and him passing by us every minute or so on his way to another table but not noticing us. Finally he comes by and we order our whole pie to go. The manager who seated us must have overheard us joking before because he came over and smilingly told us that though other places may forget us, Marie Calendar's doesn't and dessert was on him. He didn't know that we were still forgotten in his restaurant, but it was awfully nice of him to give us a free pie!

Now, those of you who know I love to bake might be wondering why we were buying a pie. Simply, my lemon meringue pies are terrible. Really, they are inedible. I made two or three great ones the first few times, and after that they always taste like metal. I have no idea why, but its better if I buy them now. Unfortunately its Chris' favorite dessert and what he always wants for his birthday, which makes me sad that I cannot make it for him.

By the way, HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY CHRISTOPHER!!!

He took the entire week off for vacation and has had a lovely time. He and Ayla have done something fun every day, he and Ayla and Gretel have napped in the sunshine every afternoon, and he's generally just enjoyed relaxing without going anywhere and doing whatever he wants. He's requested my Bechamel Lasagne tonight (I'll post the recipe this weekend; its very rich and sooooo tasty) and the Marie Calendar's pie we picked up yesterday.

Here's a picture he sent to me this week on one of his outings with the pup:


I can't wait to get off work and get home today!