We are still here

Sorry for the lapse in blogging, but with all the holiday craziness it seemed people had enough to do without reading the drivel of my life.

There was a period of time where I wrenched my knee and was unable walk without pain and a pronounced limp, much less play pickleball.  But after some TLC, rest, icing and hot tub therapy I'm back on the courts again, but playing more slowly.  This actually seems to have been a good thing for me since I'm placing my shots better to prevent their return since I'm not as keen on running and lunging for the ball.

We are waiting on the arrival of the family from Minneapolis this evening, so to pass the time we went out to lunch.  Any excuse I can come up with folks, I'll use it.  I wanted to try out their pizza since I've not found a good pizza in this area.

We arrived and it looked pretty quiet, but the sign said OPEN, so we found our way in and were soon greeted by the owner of the restaurant, a feisty Italian lady named Maria.

I had just decided which gourmet pizza I wanted when she announced "No pizza today...my oven is full of bread."  Okay.  Then we looked at the lunch menu and she declared that nothing on the lunch menu was available today....that they never offer the lunch menu on Saturdays.  We reminded her that today was Friday and she waved it away with her hand and added "or the day after Christmas".  It was like she was reading my mind and added as she walked away to give us time to decide... "Don't leave!"  Did I mention we were the only ones in the place?

Finally we asked what we could order and she showed us the last couple of pages with the dinner entrees and she said - "anything from here...whatever you want...knock yourselves out".  Well, okay.  So we placed our order and she shuffled off to the kitchen.

We got our salads and some fresh garlic toast and, rolled in on a kitchen cart.  Then our entrees were rolled in later on this cart from circa 1962.  Our meals were prepared fresh to order and served piping hot, except that she chose to stand at the table and tell us about what she watched on TV last night.  I was polite for a while, but the tantalizing aroma was too much and I started to eat.  She could pull up a chair and join us as far as I was concerned, but I couldn't wait any more.

After we finished I could hear the creak and rattle of the cart and she had two loaves of bread on the table.  A Christmas gift for us perhaps?  We were then asked if we wanted to buy a loaf of banana nut bread or zucchini bread....$5.00 each.  Or we could buy both of them for $10.00.  Such a deal.  We went with the banana nut bread to share with the family later.

During the presentation of our bill we listened to her story about the car in front (a 1961 Rolls Royce).  Left Brain asked if it still drove and she said yes, she drives it every day.  I can actually picture this diminutive lady behind the wheel of this huge car, hands gripped tightly with only the top of her head showing over the dashboard.

We enjoyed our time with Maria a lot and heard more stories about her husband (Joseph, a tailor from Rome) and his dream of having a restaurant in what had previously been their clothing store.  Turns out he can't boil water, so she's the one doing all the cooking.  What a fun lady and crazy experience.  I'd come back just to see her again...and the food is amazing.

Then we stopped at Stater Brothers (a grocery store) on the way home and as I'm in line a very large black man pushes in front of me with two items.  I was okay with letting it go, in fact would have probably offered since he had so little to check out, but the lady ahead of me was clearly cruising for a battle.

She pulled all 5 feet of her up tall, stabbed his chest with her finger and said he had to get behind me, that he had cut me off.  Oh Lordy....we're going to have a race riot in the check out aisle.  I could hear the announcement now for "clean up in checkout five" after the blood bath ended.

He stared down at her hard for a second and then all 6 feet or maybe 7, who knows...he was BIG...informed her that he was just getting two other items for his order that was ahead of hers.  Oh well then...alrighty.

After that incident we bonded while we waited our turn and she told me two very funny jokes that I cannot repeat here.  It's amazing what you can hear from total strangers.

When we got home and put things away, it was time to play Nurse Rachet and remove Left Brain's stitches from his hand.  I got out my best applique scissors and a hemostat (yes we have these on hand...don't ask) and after cleaning them with rubbing alcohol, removed all 13 stitches.  It's so soothing to do a little kitchen table surgery at the end of the day.

Now we're just catching up on some things and relaxing before our life as we know it ends and the family descends tonight about 8:00 pm.  So if you don't hear from us again for a while....you'll know why.

Long Live the Queen of Kitchen Table Surgery