You Say Yamato

The Gregory and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary today!  We got hitched at twelve noon on Saturday, June 16, 1979, at the Forrest Hills Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia.  It was all very traditional.  I wore white lace and carried a large bouquet of gardenias; TG was so handsome in his black tuxedo with a cutaway morning coat.  The soloist sang The Twelfth Of Never.  We were surrounded by friends and family as Dr. Curtis Hutson officiated the ceremony.  I wish I could show you a picture of us on that day but I haven't found my wedding album since the last time we moved, nearly three years ago!  It's here somewhere.  If you want to see what we looked like in the summer of '79, go here.

And yes ... I was a ten-year-old bride!  I am 39!  Just kidding.  I was 22 and TG was 27 ... you are gonna need all your fingers and all your toes and your dog's paws (front and hind) to do that equation.  I do not think it will require a second dog.

I could not believe it when he started flinging a raw egg into space and catching it on the flat metal surface of a giant spatula without breaking it until he was good and ready.

We spent our honeymoon in Charleston, South Carolina, a city which runs on sheer perspiration eight months out of the year.  June is most definitely one of those months.  The only place I've ever been that was hotter than Charleston is (1) New Orleans, Louisiana, and (2) San Antonio, Texas. 

But it was lovely.

To my way of thinking one of the best things about staying married and producing several children is that said children grow up and get jobs and start buying you stuff.

Today Erica and Andrew, our two youngest, gave us a generous gift card for dinner at Yamato, one of our local Japanese hibachi restaurants.  We'd never eaten at a place where they try to set you on fire along with your dinner (unless you count that table right up next to the roaring hearth at Cracker Barrel).  It was as dangerously exciting as it was delicious and great fun. 

Our chef kept telling me he didn't have a green card!  I wasn't sure why he thought I cared as long as he fed me, but then I realized what the deal was ... I had brought out my camera and he played like he was convinced that if I took his picture, he'd be deported.  I took it anyway and led him to believe I was from the INS, sent there on purpose to bust him.  I think it got me a few extra bites of steak!  Smart man.

I wish I could describe his squirt bottle for putting water on the grill surface but I won't.  Use your imagination.  TG kept smirking at me, HAHA very funny.

Our illegal alien of a chef turned out to be adept at not only making fire but at cooking our rice, vegetables, steak, chicken, and seafood to perfection.  He was quite the showman with his flashing bottles of sesame oil and soy sauce and his glittering knives and skewers and scrapers and whatnot.  For example I could not believe it when he started flinging a raw egg into space and catching it on the flat metal surface of a giant spatula without breaking it until he was good and ready.  Then he added another egg and scrambled them both before integrating the cooked egg into our fried rice that was already studded with the peas of happiness.

He had some purply transparent shrimp lined up there, curved like a bunch of quotation marks just waiting for the spoken word, arranged like they were spooning, and before you knew it they had been separated from their tails and were sliced lengthwise, then into little bitty nuggets.  By that time they had cooked  to a gleaming white and each of us had several pieces that were absolutely succulent when you popped them into your mouth.  The shrimp were soon joined by tender and juicy pieces of steak and chicken that smelled so good when he plunked the sizzling morsels onto your portion of rice.

Our dinner companions turned out to be Beth and Keith from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.  We met them just tonight because you sit at a big table with six to eight folks you don't know and who don't know you.  Beth and Keith were very sociable and we enjoyed getting acquainted.  They're on a two-week vacation to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, which was back in March but Beth couldn't get off work then.  Proving once again that timing is everything because it is anybody's guess who they'd have had to eat next to three months ago when TG and I did not have an anniversary.

We did end up having to explain patiently to Beth and Keith what grits is/are, and the proper procedure for consuming them on their travels through the South.  TG tried to get all fancy with his instructions (he who is from Ohio and when he first learned to eat grits while a student at The Citadel put sugar and milk on them ... ahem) but I said, y'all, just douse 'em in butter and salt 'n pepper and mix in a few fried eggs at breakfast or shrimp if you're having lunch, add a biscuit and you are there.  Beth looked queasy when we talked about it but she promised me she'd give grits a try while she's down in Charleston.  People who live above the sweet tea line simply do not know what to make of a grit.  In my view that is tragic.

Additional tablemates included a darling young couple who had such cute smiles.  When I asked if they were celebrating a special occasion, she explained that she'd had a bad day at work so her husband had treated her to dinner at Yamato.  As if we collectively disbelieved she'd had the workday from H-E double toothpicks, she took pains to point out how red and puffy her eyes were ... presumably from crying ... but honestly through all the smoke and fire I hadn't noticed so she didn't need to feel self conscious!  For all I knew she'd been hit by a flying shrimp because a chef at a neighboring table (also no green card I fear) was lobbing crustacea at his guests, who had to catch them in their mouths.  Hi Flung Shrimp.  I'm glad TG and I did not get seated there because I am telling you right now, I will not pay to have seafood thrown at me.

In the parking lot while walking to our automobiles we had an opportunity to teach Beth and Keith all we knew about crape myrtles and confederate jasmine.  They were just full of questions about our South Carolina plants and shrubs and flowering trees, so different from what is available to them in Canada.  They said their grown daughter was home looking after their dog and their plants and they hoped to find something still living when they return. 

On that grim note we parted.

Speaking of aliens, albeit relatively legal ones, TG complains that he always looks like ET when he has his picture made, and judging from the one below I won't argue.  He's very nice looking and actually has beautiful straight teeth but for some reason he is reluctant to show them to a camera!  We were being silly when I took this pic because we couldn't wait to get to the restaurant and spend our kids' money. 

Click on the pic to see a few more! 

Fun In The Neighborhood

There are some wonderful, talented bloggers out there, and one of the most original is the awesome Kevin at Special Kind of Stupid.  The world is full of stupid ... Kev (as he is known) is just there to document it!  Being as generous and others-oriented as he is funny, Kev welcomes offerings from guest bloggers.  Today he is graciously featuring me and I'm Having A Thought Here with a post I wrote especially for SKOS entitled Let's Play Post Office.  Click on the gold words to read it and, if you have time, to enjoy many other of Kev's hilarious blog posts.

Let's Try That In The Key Of Lime

Okay, so the other day I was checking my emails when I received one from Barnes & Noble containing a passel of online and printable store coupons.  I get these because I pay an annual fee for the privilege of being a B&N "member" ... which means I and my ilk am (are?) the reason prices are at least ten percent higher at Barnes & Noble than at bookstores that do not offer memberships!  You may thank me in chocolate.  Dark.

I was scrolling through the coupons when I saw one that caught my eye.  Fifty percent off an entire Cheesecake Factory cheesecake at the Starbucks embedded in Barnes & Noble!  (This is the place where a cup of coffee two-thirds full costs four dollars ... and a ginormous slice of cheesecake can be all yours for five dollars!  If you ask them, they will even grill it!)

Like I need instructions on what to do with a Key Lime cheesecake! Fork please.

The coupon promised that for a limited time I could purchase a $35 cheesecake -- any flavor -- for $17.50.  I wasn't good at math in school but I could tell right away that they were serious about that fifty-percent-off thing.  My mouth began watering.  "We're getting ourselves your dad one of those for Father's Day," I told Erica, who promptly drooled on me.  Please send bibs.  Pink.

So a soggy Erica and I bopped over to B&N on the way home from prayer meeting on Wednesday night, because we needed last-minute Father's Day cards and gifts.  Like a noodle I had forgotten to bring my cheesecake coupon with me, so, anticipating a run on the fifty-percent-off cheesecakes, I went over to ask the Starbucks baristas if it would be necessary or advisable for me to reserve ours.  I was assured they had plenty in stock so I breathed a sigh of relief and and began reviewing their choices of cheesecake flavors. 

Of course there was Original flavor (analogous to vanilla), and one with a heavy coating of chocolate studded with nuts, but the moment I heard the words "Key Lime" I knew that was the one.  Just breathing the words "Key Lime" I could almost feel the tropical breezes on my fevered cheek and imagine a psychotically handsome pirate prancing towards me across the sand.  You will have to supply your own bridge from that visual to Father's Day.  I've burned crossed mine already.

Erica pouted because she wanted the chocolate one but she quit before I could utter my famous mantra "She who pays is she who says."  (And you have to say "says" not like "sez" but to rhyme with "pays" or it loses some of its effect.)

So it was that I sent Erica over to B&N today, armed with funds and my member card, to secure a Cheesecake Factory Key Lime cheesecake.  I waited anxiously for her to return home so that I could gaze lovingly upon the Key Lime cheesecake before putting it in the spare fridge for Sunday dinner's dessert.  After what seemed like a long time I heard the car in the garage and the kitchen door opened.  I bounded upstairs to meet my TG's Key Lime cheesecake.  The box was huge and I was amazed to learn that the Key Lime cheesecake came with instructions on how to "take care of" the cheesecake! 

Like I need instructions on what to do with a Key Lime cheesecake!  Fork please.

Only it wasn't a Key Lime cheesecake.

It was Original flavor.  You know ... like vanilla.  Like, not what we wanted.  Not what Erica had ordered.  Not what she had been required to write down on a special Starbucks cheesecake purchase order.  Not what was printed on our receipt, that being "Whole Key Lime Cheesecak." **

NOT. KEY. LIME.

Now, I know anyone can make a mistake, but I ask you: exactly how difficult is it to read the side of a box when you are filling an order for a single Key Lime cheesecake?  How can the word "Original" be taken, even if you only glancingly glance, for the words "Key Lime" ... ???

These are questions for the ages. 

So Erica hied her soggy (and now aggravated) self back to B&N where she attempted to be patient and kind while pointing out the error and exchanging the Original flavor cheesecake for one in the Key of Lime.  It occurs to me that, gas prices being what they are, with two trips to the store we've now paid $152 for a $35 cheesecake that was on sale for $17.50.

Now if you will excuse me ... the tiki torches are lit, the stars are out, and it is almost time for me to meet my pirate for celebrate Father's Day with a slice of mouthwatering twice-fetched Key Lime Cheesecake.

** (Yes, they omitted the final "e" ... I guess they thought three were enough to get the point across.  And they were correct.)

More Critter Therapy

One of the great things about being a blogger is that if you stay with it for awhile, you've built up a backlog of blog posts that not many people have read!  So then if you wish you had the energy to post, or a topic to post about, and don't, you can reach back, back, back ... being extra careful not to tip your chair over ... and offer your readers a story you wrote six or eight months ago when they probably weren't reading you because they didn't know you existed!  Today is such a day and for your reading pleasure if you have the time and are so inclined, I direct you to the archived post Glib Canines And Guilty Consciences.  Just click there on the gold words!  I hope you like it. Happy Weekend, everyone!

Critter Therapy