A Night on the Avenue

Captain’s Log   5,874

Feeling the crush of being too busy.  This message is for me – and anyone else who is a self-absorbed shit today.

This is what I get when I long for a day off.  Just 28 more work days and I get a holiday!  I have a few weekend days I have to put in at the museum.  Our annual volunteer picnic is August 2nd, and that one really doesn’t feel like work.  It’s fun!  YAY!  Fun!  We work our butts off, but it’s fun!  One year, someone forgot to check the boxes of food we brought in from Costco.  It appeared that one box was full of buns.  Nobody checked to see if there was anything UNDER the buns.  Indeed.  Half of the hamburgers were in that box.  Needless to say, when we set things up to cook, we had spoiled meat.  So it was off to Smart & Final (called Fart & Smile in my world) to get fresh meat.  Ugh.

Being around cooking meat at picnics is not the most pleasant experience for me, but I do it.  The veggie burgers are cooked on a separate grill.  I insist on that.  And I cook them myself to make sure it’s all uncontaminated.   Separate utensils.  My own plate of cheese to work with.  We do have vegetarians who come to the party, and I want them to feel confident that their food is handled the way they would handle it at home.

Speaking of clean food……  I went out last night with my grant writing friend.  We started at a vegetarian restaurant that is one of my favorites.

Best veggie burger in town served with real mashed taters and mushroom gravy.  

The service here is terrible because the workers tend to walk around in a constant state of meditation.  It’s an odd cult.  Part of their spiritual training includes running marathons while they go Zen.  And yes, they are a cult.  A nice cult but still a cult.  It’s easy to forgive the bad service when you see how blissed out they are.  They are not as scary as Scientologists because they are very up front about their cultish-ness.  When you are served by staffer bees wearing gauze-draped clothing, it’s a big tip-off that you are in the sanctum of a cult.  Or in this case, the restaurant of a cult.  The place is usually packed with “civilians” who really enjoy the food.  My friend was impressed and said she will bring her vegan brothers there for dinner next time they visit.  Their founder is dead but they still adore him.  Large pictures of him festoon the walls.  There are 13 vegetarian restaurants around the world owned and managed by this cult.  The workers get shipped to different countries to work in the restaurants.  Our waitress last night was from Russia and did not understand the concept of “baked potato” because they are called “bakers” on the menu.  Asking for a refill on my raspberry tea was even more of a challenge.  But we got through it.

And then we moved right next door to a raucous Irish pub.  Someone we know was supposed to show up and play his flute with the pick-up band.  Alas, he never showed.  So we just drank some delicious hard cider and pretended were were across the sea.  It was really easy to do.

Packed quite a punch!  I drank half and stopped because I was driving and didn’t want to tip myself into the no-fly zone.

Nobody goes Zen here.  It might look like Zen but I think they are just passing out in the corner.

I don’t really go to bars very often.  I cannot even remember the last time.  But last night was fun!  I might do it again in another few years.