Check, please!

Our children and friends sometimes comment about "our waiters" - meaning the waitstaff that we know and even ask for when we dine out. And, as you know, we dine out a lot. For most families, dining out is a treat, and the exception. For us, dining in is the exception.

So if we dine out a lot, we become acquainted with a lot of waitstaff. At least those who stick around a place long enough for us to get acquainted. We have seen a lot of waitstaff pass by in our 20-plus years of dining at Chuy's! And it was at Chuy's that we we first began asking for Courtney. "Courtney the colorful, please," to differentiate her from the non-tattooed Courtney who also worked there at the time. Our Courtney was vividly tattooed - really! - and she finally left Chuy's to return to San Antonio, ostensibly to attend Mortuary Sciences school. I suppose if she always wore long sleeves and high collars she could become head-waiter in a mortuary.

Since then we have befriended  others, most recently Tim and Erin. Tim was a pony-tailed middle-aged man of indeterminate sexual persuasions who worried about his mother's failing health, We talked about his weight loss and the dishes he enjoyed preparing at home. And his mother moving to Hospice. Evidently, it became too much for him and one evening he had a melt-down at the restaurant and no longer works there. Erin is our waitress now. More about her later.

And then there's Dee and Beha at Frans - and Freddy, the manager. We hear about kids and family and think enough of them to leave small gifts at Christmas. Of course, when you eat at the same place several times a week, you not only grt to know the waitstaff, you also become acquainted with the other regulars - Mary and Daniel, Dot and Bill, and Coach.

But it's not always because we eat at a given place all the time. There is another Erin working at Suzi's who picked up on the fact that we liked certain dishes after just a few visits. We eat at Suzie's perhaps once every 6 weeks, but this Erin is skillful at her job and remembers our likes. Jorge at Tres Amigos is in the same category; it only took a few visits for him to know our drink is always iced tea with lime and Barb doesn't like spicy dishes. Of course, in both these establishments there is low turnover and a small number of staff. That makes a big difference.


I mentioned poor Julian at Red Lobster and his battle with hiccups. We ask for Julian because he is by far the best waiter we have come across. We have on a couple of occasions sought out his manager to tell her what great service we get. And it is not just us - the manager says three women come in each Sunday, always arriving before Julian's shift starts - and wait for him!

So back to Chuy's Erin. We ask for her because she (usually) gets our preferences for table sauce and drinks (limes, por favor) without being told. She's not as professional as her counterpart at Suzy's but over time we have gotten to know her. She shows us pictures of a wedding she was in, and we show show pictures of  our grand kids (and introduce her to family members when possible. Right Jason?). We know that her soldier husband has been in Afghanistan, and that after he came back he was not the same person he was, and that they separated. Last week she was giddy to tell us that they were trying again with the help of counseling.

I don't think her manager would have been pleased if we gathered around her and prayed for that marriage during the evening rush, so we didn't do that, but we do pray for that couple. And we'll ask how she's doing, and really want to know.

Monday Meanderings - June 28

And US interest in soccer fades into the sunset for another 4 years.

The other day my reverie was interrupted (retired speak for something woke me from my nap) by a "bong" from my nearby iTouch. It caused me to think how suddenly our lives have been filled with a plethora of little electronic beeps, bongs, dings and bings. Of course we have always endured the ringing phone and the chiming doorbell; more recently cell phones added ringtones, message notification chimes and text message trills. Even spookier is to be up late at night and hear a cell phone plead for a battery recharge with a series of plaintive bongs.

iPhone and iTouch and the ilk have added all these plus whatever method your apps use to notify you. E-mail has a distinctive tone. So does Facebook.  Words with Friends has a multi-tone chime. TextNow lets you choose your alert, including such favorites as belching and other bodily noises. I draw the line, there. Use the timer? Choose a barking dog, cricket, siren or a multitude of other signals. Dare I mention my Vuvuzela app? Intentional electronic disharmony!

Even my coffee pot beeps at me when it is through brewing and again when it turns off. No wonder I am growing deaf.

For some reason we have had snails in the garden and yard this year. Not the little slug-like snails, but big, colorful suckers. And I guess that's what they do because I keep finding them up in the Anacacho bush, gnawing on leaves. How they crawled through the tall grass to get there is a mystery yo me.

And on the subject of garden animals, we have been entertained by a little Tufted Titmouse that evidently wants to come in the house. The feeders are hung in front of the bonus room window so we can watch the birds while walking on the treadmill. Well, I watch them while walking; Barb walks in the mall. I don't know if they have birds there or not. But I digress. The Titmouse will come to the window ledge and peck on the glass - or fly up and down, fluttering its wings against the window pane. It doesn't seem to be a case of trying to fly through the window (the Redbirds try that every so often, and go away with terrible headaches). The Titmouse simply wants to come in, I think.

And I leave you with the greatest headline ever written.

Saturday Special

In honor of the World Cup games, here are three brass players from the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra rendering the chorale from Brahms's First Symphony and a bit of Ravel's Boléro on vuvuzelas.

Wait for Ravel's Boléro.

Stalking the Wild Artichoke

I have Sarah to thank for setting me off on a nostalgia kick; and Marybeth McCown for providing tonight's  memory.

We had artichokes for dinner this evening; not an unusual occurrence. Steam them, dip the ends of the leaves in melted butter and after finally working your way down to the thistle, spooning out the heart and dunking it in the butter, A bit of work, but the reward is grand and worth it.

We didn't always know about artichokes, and might not to this day if Marybeth had not had Roger stop the Land Rover on a roadside in Guatemala where she purchased some fresh artichokes from a local woman selling fruit and vegetables. She took them home and prepared them for us and introduced us to the art of pulling one leaf at a time off, dipping it and scraping off the meaty portion. Fond memories of that evening in Sacapulas.

We've enjoyed them often since then, and served them to others. A while back, I ran across an old suitor of Julie's who had been in our home years ago when we served artichokes. Mike told me that he had never seen the vegetable prepared before and confessed that he had to watch out of the corner of his eye to see what one did with this strange new dish, and was rather startled at what he saw.

He didn't say whether he still enjoyed a good fresh artichoke now and then, however.

But we do.

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