Travels with The Rayman

Okay. So this is my version. I decided to make a roasted potato salad for dinner tonight. Before I did that, I started a bread sponge to make foccacia tomorrow. And then I went to the kitchen (my favorite room in the house when it is clean) to start my salad.

Now, dear reader, you know that I have some reputation for being a good cook. And I suppose I am. Oh, I’m not good enough to ply my skills on TV, heaven’s sake. And I lack the self confidence to compete…say for the best this-or-that at the county fair. And for good reason, really.
The other thing to know is that there is a new cook in town…Larry aka Lorenzo who also just happens to have the best hair in town too. But I digress.

One night when having too much wine to drink with friends or maybe we were wine tasting with our wine club. Or maybe we were at martini Monday at the local joint. The point here being…a gantlet was thrown down as to who had the best cioppino. Now for you in the rest of the world, cioppino was reportedly discovered in CA. Do not fact check this because no matter what kind of evidence you present…I will not give up on the truism that cioppino is a California fish dish with Italian roots. I have heard it said that the Eye-talians came up with this stew to use whatever fish they had on hand (in San Francisco…quite possibly at Fisherman’s Wharf). Anyway…so I was saying that everyone present thought THEIR cioppino was superior to everyone else’s cioppino. A date was sent and the contest was on.

Now, I fancy myself as one of the best cioppino makers around. I use the freshest fish which usually includes clams, mussels(sometimes), halibut, Dungeness crab (particularly fresh, as in cooked that day), shrimp, bay shrimp (little tiny things that are pre-cooked. That’s a minimum. And my secret secret is that I use a recipe from Tadich’s Grill in San Francisco that i got from Saveau Magazine years ago. A real keeper, if you know what I mean. I mean, this was going to be a slam dunk.

So. Back to Larry. He was the new cook in town, a recent transplant from Texas which garners him extra credit for having the brains to get the hell out of that horrible state and join the west coast(completely European) California. Well. What the heck would a guy from Texas know about making good cioppino. But I humored him.

And so did his wife. She bought a trophy to bestow upon the winner. “Cioppino Cook-off Champion” was inscribed on the base of the trophy. Like, “where am I going to put that trophy, when I win?” was a thought I kept having.

The other competitor was a guy named Jeff. I know Jeff and he is a very good cook. Perhaps a hint of competition there. But he was from Wasington, D.C. and what would he know about cioppino?

So. Larry, the hair, won. What? How could that be? Well…not only was my plan for the trophy squashed, so was my ego. OMG. I may never be the same. So, I cannot complete at the fair, on TV, or quite possibly anywhere else. People don’t enjoy my food, my technique, my know-how. I’m toast.

 
But, I digress.

The fingerlings were cut in half lengthwise. They were thrown into a 425 oven to roast after they were tossed in some olive oil, chopped garlic, salt and pepper. And while they cooked, I started cooking the bacon. Not just any bacon. This bacon is from the eastern Sierra, Bishop, CA precisely. The bacon is smoked there and treated so tenderly that they can command $10/pound for the stuff. it is to die for. Rayman bought it when he went skiing at Mammoth. So, I sliced about 1/4 of pound and put it in the pan to render the fat and crisp up the meat. It smelled so good. When it looked done, I turned off the burner and checked it by tasting. Oh, perhaps a few minutes more of cooking.

As I am sure most cooks do, i let my mind wander. How it wandered to setting a friend of ours with men is not anything I can explain even if I cared to but that’s where I wandered. This lead me to wondering how I could find her. I had seen her at golf yesterday but hadn’t thought at the time to ask her for her email or tel number. So, at this moment of cooking bacon I decided I’d look up her number. She was listed in phone book but it was her old number. She had moved. So, I went into the computer room and googled “white pages”. This is when I discovered that you can’t get a phone number on the internet. For free and with just a name you can find the person, the address, relatives…but no phone number. So that got me to thinking…I’ll email someone who knows here and get her number. About the time that I was half through the email…that’s when i smelled it. The burning bacon. OMG.

I dashed out of the den and saw Ray in his chair on his iPad. “DIDN’T YOU SMELL THE BACON BURNING?”, I shouted. “What?”, he said. I wasn’t sure if he was even looking at me…the smoke was so thick he looked like an apparition. Dark smoke and deep burned bacon smell…OMG. Well, this necessitated opening all the window and doors, turning on the fan…and when I got to the pan…the $10 bacon was charred beyond all recognition. The pan was really looking hopeless. OMG. Not another pan?

So, what’s with that? A couple of learning moments. First, do not leave the kitchen without setting a timer. Secondly, stay off the damn computer when cooking unless looking up a recipe that you are CURRENTLY using.

It’s now 6:20 p.m. I burned the bacon at 10 a.m. The house still smells like burnt bacon. The pan is still soaking in the sink as we assessed the damage and think it will be okay. But my goodness. Where is my mind?

When I expressed my misgiving about my mind to Rayman, he scoffed. He says it happens to anyone…wandering into a closet and then wondering, “Why am I here?
I remain unconvinced.

However, the salad was superb. Served it with barbecued lamb chops and marinated roasted mini-peppers (yellow, orange, red baby bells). Yummy. Especially the newly cooked bacon that was not burnt because I chained myself to the stove until it was done. Oh, there was one other slight mishap which caused me to wonder aloud, “what’s it with me and this BACON?” The bacon, once cooked, needed to be “drained” on paper towels. So I put the bacon in a paper towel and scrunched up the towel and placed the bacon on the countertop.

Then I rinsed and chopped the capers, mixed up the mayo and mustard and vinegar. And I iced the sllced red onion to tone down the acid. As I was putting things away, the cooked bacon got thrown into the sink because I forgot that it was in the paper towel.. EEEEEEEKKKKKKK. (I recovered it and into the bowl it went.) But…again, what the heck is going on here?

There are other considerations for the cook in this regard. Why didn’t I just microwave that bacon? Duh. The bacon would be timed. it would be drained. It wouldn’t catch on fire, wouldl it? The pan wouldn’t be soaking. The house would only smell of bacon (yummy). What a duffis.

But that is the nature of cooking. It is never perfect, often riddled with risks, and nothing is guaranteed.

I’m just glad cioppino didn’t use bacon!!!

It occurred to me that I should write a book.  So, this is my beginning entry.  I’ll just write as I go and let my friends and fans follow me.  So, I decided after an absolutely silly day screwing up a dish…that i would write about cooking and life.  Hope you enjoy.

First things first. Happy Leap Year Day dear readers!! Hope you made the most of this odd calendar event. As we age, we need more, not less, leap year days, don’t we?

But I digress.
Today, I was leafing through the New York Magazine (not to be confused with The New Yorker mag). It is a very hip mag that I subscribed to when I heard that Frank Rich, a favorite columnist of mine, moved from the NYTimes to NY mag. Anyway, when I was looking at the pictures, I couldn’t help but notice the anorexic, smile- less (dour) models that were all outfitted in the latest couture outfits. Why in the world do those models look so dour? Unhappy? I think their unhappy look does nothing to help sell those clothes they are wearing. I would expect to see looks like that, say, if a person was standing in front of the judge just before sentencing. Or I might expect to see this pained looked on the face of a patient that was being told they have only a few months to live and they better get their affairs in order. In one of the ads, two women side-by-side have these really high heels on their feet and they are caught in the middle of a very wide stride (as opposed to a wide stance as the Senator from Minnesota testified to when accused of lurking in a stall in the men’s bathroom at the airport purported for the purpose of attracting another male for the purpose of…well, you know the story).

But I digress. So here is this ad with two women who together probably weigh about 78 pounds total, both looking as thought they are about 7 feet fall because of the high heels (can I even call them high heels? perhaps we should describe them as decorative platforms that are designed to contort the foot of young women). Really, toe shoes are probably less damaging to the foot because they are designed for, well, standing on ones’ toes. These decorative platforms are designed to elongate the leg so that the bottom half of the wearer’s body appears to make up about 2/3 of the total body mass. The other 1/3 is comprised of sticks for arms, knobby shoulders and a small head crowned off by overly chemical-treated long, stringy hair. And their toes are overhanging the front of the platform…what’s that all about? Probably gravity forcing the foot toward the floor…really, the toes have nowhere to be but over the edge. And the funniest thing about these models is that they both have one leg going forward in a pose that is reminiscent of Angelina Jolie at the Oscars flashing her skin and bones leg out of the slit of her dress. For what? Does anyone know why she would do that?

So, it occurred to me that those shoes are not made for walking. Balancing perhaps. Modeling perhaps. Walking, not so much. Then when discussing this with the Rayman who returned early from skiing at Mammoth because 60 mph winds were forecasted and with our friend, Nancy, at whose house we were staying in Ridgecrest…I decided that some shoes were only appropriate for sitting in…that is, when sitting these shoes could be safely strapped to one’s foot. And Nancy, up-to-the-minute Nancy, thought her Ed Hardy shoes would be fine for sitting in because it was hard to stand in them. With Rayman agreeing, we had a consensus. And that’s where Don Draper, and Penny too, come in. We had fallen into the most brilliant market strategy ever…sort of a Penny thing with Don, beautiful Don, selling the concept to the client (Armani perhaps, or Louis Vuitton). “We make shoes for fabulous sitting.” “Be the prettiest sitter at the party in your Armani shoes.” Or perhaps, “Our shoes never go out of style and they last forever.” (that’s because the owner of the shoes would carry the shoes to the party and slip them on when they sat down). And maybe they could devise a tie-in with a furniture manufacturer because more chairs would be needed for all these sitters and wearer of these extraordinary shoes.) And think of the snob appeal…not just anyone could afford a pair of shoes for sitting…truly only the most discerning and high-class women of this world. This could also lead to a special shoe carrying bag that could retail from $450 to $1800 and could be designed to hold your sitting shoes and your iPhone….perhaps a special pocket for fresh undies or whatnot. Really, I think we lit on something here in Ridgecrest. And the madmen of Madison Ave. would be proud.

POST SCRIPT

Rayman was sick last night. He was up every hour doing things no one wants to do. I had to sleep in another room. It wasn’t pretty. So, I had ample time to try to get back to sleep every time he got up. So…this lead me to wonder further about sitting shoes. And get this…I came up with more good ideas. For instance, shoes with those platforms have plenty of ‘wasted space’. So what if the designer of the shoe built in a wi-fi receiver and then an app designer developed code so that the owner of the iPhone could bring up the app and select a message that could flash onto the shoe ‘screen” that would be located between the sole and the bottom of the foot ‘bed’. Then thenshoe owner could choose messages to flash on her shoes…like, well, “Don’t even think about it”, or “Not interested”, of “For a hot time, call 555-5555” or whatever. The owner could also flash messages like, “I love my shoes!”, or “I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice”. I mean the sky is the limit. Or maybe the shoes could play music through the miracle of wi-fi. Think of the fun that could be had by the shoe owner while she sat at a cocktail party, in the restaurant, in the restroom while powdering her nose…the applications could offer enormous potential…as long as shoe wearer is seated because, really, walking and choosing apps for the shoes could be dangerous. Playing with your shoes while walking might become against the law because of the inherent danger. But, as a marketer, you should only dwell on the positives and the positives in this case are enormous…size 10 enormous!!

We’ve been so busy that there has been scant time to blog so I’m rolling up a few stories into the blog today, our last day of relaxation in Mexico.

Many people are afraid to travel to Mexico…there is plenty of violence. However, about the most violent thing I’ve seen or heard this week came from behind closed doors. Night before last (actually, around 3 a.m. in the morning), I heard a woman scream. OMG. Was she being brutalized? Was anyone coming to her rescue? Believing that the Rayman was asleep, I just lay in the bed frozen with dastardly thoughts. When we got up later, Rayman said, “Man, some woman had a hell of an orgasm last night.” Really.

On another note, one of the most violent shots (golf shots) witnessed this week was Richard of Arroyo Grande. When he teed off with his driver, his ball swerved dramatically and hit a big tree on his right which was clearly out of bounds and then it sailed across the fairway (left) onto the road which was clearly out of bounds and it hit the curb of the road and bounced dramatically to the right and came to rest in the middle of the fairway. No penalties there. Just wish I could have seen it. What a hoot.

Our caddie the first day was a man called Pancho. At first he wouldn’t look me in the eye. By the end of the round, he was telling me that he wanted to caddie for us again. A very sweet guy, quiet and unassuming and a great reader of the putting green. The second and third day I had a caddie named Florenzio (?). Because I was a bit unsure of the pronunciation, I resorted to calling him FloSenor. He pretended to like this. Another very good caddie. These caddies work their asses off. They chase after the carts (in which we are ensconced) with assorted weapons (read 6 irons, putters, etc.) in warm weather. They don’t carry anything so are beholden to the kindness of man to give them water and food. They ask for nothing. We ask for everything. It’s not a comfortable situation, really. So we over tip them and hope it helps.

The sunrises here are fabulous. Pink and orange and the sun arises over the Sierra Madre mountains to our east to lighten the sky so that we can view the lagoon off the Pacific where our hotel is located. It is worth the price of the airfare just to see the sun come up every morning.

But I digress.

Yesterday was our third golf day. We got up and donned our golf attire. And then the Rayman asked, “Dianna, did you see this big squished bug on the bathroom floor?”. No, I had not. So, Ray reported that he had not stepped on it…suggesting that perhaps I had. So, I looked on the bottom of my nude feet. Eeeeeekkkkkkk. There was a big brown spot on my right sole. I had stepped on la cucaracha…the cockroach which was by now about the the size of dollar bill (it gets bigger with each rendition of the story). OMG. Then we noticed bug parts on the sheet on my side of the bed. OMG. Well, what could be done? Nothing. So we went to breakfast. Fast forward to the room after breakfast. We did our biz and left the room. I had forgotten my golf shoes so I ran back to put them on. Well, this necessitated washing my foot. As I was getting ready to leave the room, I felt water on my foot, dripping water. I opened up my purse and it was full of water which had leaked from the bottle I was transporting. This was not a good thing. The camera was in the purse. So, besides squishing a bug with my bare feet (which I don’t even remember doing, thank god)…I drowned my camera. This is camera number three that has met it’s doom and this one is only new since November. The other two cameras were dropped. I think I need to buy stock in Canon. So, I don’t know if I have any pictures that can be salvaged because the camera won’t even turn on anymore. And it is a such a lovely color…bright orange.

But I digress. I poured the water out of my purse (thank goodness I left my wallet at home), dried the purse with a towel (thank goodness I brought my nylon purse), and headed for the elevator and from there to the golf course.

It was day 3 for golf and the Rayman and I have been doing great…winning money each day. But what will happen to me-of-the-drowned-camera? Well, I shot my best round of the week. Go figure. An out of body experience. Oh, Mexico, will all your charms. I love you. Between the weather, the caddies, the fabulous courses, the great friends and the Rayman…Mexico was a charmer I will return to again.

The Rayman is ready to return home. He misses Beau. He misses his bed. But alas, we don’t leave until tomorrow. The funniest thing he’s done this week is that he followed through on a golf swing yesterday so violently, that he lost his balance, hit the deck, rolled over a couple of times and when he stood up the caddie ran over and started picking blades of grass off his shirt. Great shot though!!!

Let me now digress by expressing our appreciation to the Smiths of King City who had the foresight to bring Pepto-Bismal with them. Thank you so much. And while on the subject…I love the bidet in our bathroom. Admittedly, it was a bit un-user friendly at first in that I got my hair and blouse wet trying to tame the beast. Not to be discouraged, I googled ‘How to use a bidet’ and then read the instructions on this uncommon convenience. So…the next time out it worked like a charm. Really, I don’t know why more bathrooms don’t have bidets. They are fabulous. Enough said? And they can be used by both sexes (this is not understood by everyone, I have found). Okay, enough said.

Perhaps the last story worthy of your time is the margarita day. After returning from golf, we all swarmed the outdoor cafe for lunch and getting into the spirit of Mexico…we all ordered margaritas…which I shall now refer to as ‘jet fuel margaritas’. By the end of that one drink, I was a bit delirious. And then some of our group ordered a second round. Well. After lunch we all went to our rooms to rest or pass out, depending on tolerance and ounces of margaritas consumed…and it was reported at dinner that night by those still standing (2 of the ladies never made it to dinner)…that some of those that took naps, woke up a few hours later thinking it was the next day. So that is what I mean by ‘jet fuel margaritas’. I was most impressed with Michel. She had two and made it to dinner…perhaps looking a bit piqued but she made it!! That woman has spunk. In her defense, she probably needed two. The golf gods were unkind to her…does drowning your sorrows have meaning to any of you?

So…Mexico is dangerous. It’s margaritas are dangerous. The golf had the potential of being dangerous…Rayman having almost broken his crown. The food is dangerous…delicious but dangerous as evidenced by the fact that there has been a run on Pepto and Imodium. The sex may or may not be dangerous depending on who is telling the story. And so all in all we had a dangerously good time.

Yesterday morning we awoke to a wake up call at 5:20 a.m. We met in the parking lot at 6:00 a.m. for a shuttle to the airport. The first day of the trip is a hassle. You have to schlep your golf bag, your luggage, your carry-on to the terminal location. Then you get to stand in line for an hour…No, I don’t why it takes them such a long time to check us in…it’s very annoying. Oh, I know. Nothing is self-check. The computers are slow. There are 5 clerks and 2 of them are designed to check in first class (all 8 passengers) and 3 to check in the other 114 passengers.

Really…this is one of the reasons I hate flying. Then when you get on the airplane, they announce that there is a bathroom just for first class and 2 bathrooms for all the rest. Grrrrr. Does that make one bit of sense? It falls under the classification of inhumane. What other species does this to themselves on purpose? And it is a friggin charter flight. GGGRRRRR. And then they stuff in the 114 people into teeny tiny seats with just enough leg room for you to easily eat your knees. You can barely breath. And of course, we were on the hotel-airport shuttle that had to pick up 3 passengers from another hotel and then drop them off at Hawaiian Airlines, which left us toward to the back of line so that the only thing left was middle/window seats by the time we reached the counter. Dorothy, the lady in the aisle seat paid dearly for that aisle. I was up to bathroom twice in a 3 1/2 hour flight.

But I digress. We got to Mexico in one piece. Then we had to claim our bags, our clubs…and go thru customs. Once that was done, they hurdled us on a big bus and drove us to the resort. Yippee. The hard part was done.

We ate dinner and everyone turned in early…it had a been a very long day. And we’re old. So, when we walked thru the door, it was like really noisy in our room. We were on the 2nd floor above the hot tub and pool. OMG. We knew we were in trouble when we noticed the earplugs sitting on the tables by or bed. It was really noisy…but I was too tired to complain. I’d deal with that tomorrow, I mentioned to the Rayman. And then I jumped into bed.

This morning the phone was ringing and ringing. The room was pretty dark. Where was the phone? Oh, right next to me. “Are you guys going to play golf today?”, Tom inquired. “Yes.”, I replied. “Well, it’s 7:40 and we’ve had breakfast and we’re heading to the course. See you there.”, Tom intoned. OMG. How did we oversleep like this? Oh, I know. We didn’t set a clock and we didn’t ask for a wake-up call. I staggered to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. It tasted strange. “Oh, my, god, Ray. I just brushed my teeth with Vagisil”. Ray said, “Well, your mouth probably won’t itch the rest of the day.” OMG. It was awful. My mouth tingled. I put some Colgate TOOTHPASTE on the brush and scrubbed. We threw on some clothes and headed out the door. Ran to the buffet, stuffed down some food and ran to the shuttle. Got there in time to putt a few balls and spit. I really wanted to spit.

So…I think I have stumbled on a new advertising campaign. You know how baking powder has one than more use? Perhaps Vagisil does too. I shot a great round of golf today. Must have been the Vsgisil. Sore tooth? Try Vagisil. On second thought.

The golf course was terrific. Lots of sand, water, and more water. Part of it ran right along the ocean and we did not see one person on the beach. Pancho was our caddie. He and I did quite a few high 5s. Fun in the sun. And dare I say…it was fun to play on a course where the grass was like carpet…a far cry from what we are use to at home.

But I digress.

When we returned it was time to make the dinner reservations for 14 people. These hotels have several (in this case, 2) restaurants that are fancy. You must reserve. So after watching the woman behind the desk flip pages in a book, call up someone on her walkie-talkie, print out a seating chart, then flip more pages in that same book (about 40 minutes), I walked away with reservations and headed for the elevator. Pushed L and the door closed and the elevator went nowhere. Got out, got back in and tried it all again to no avail. Got out and about that time a couple came up and I informed them that I thought the elevator was broken. “Well, let’s try it again.”, the man chirped. So we did. I explained that when pressed L and the elevator went nowhere. “We are on L.”, these people blurted out in unison. OMG. They were right. What a ding-a-ling. Our group thought that story was worthy of the blog. I’ll report. You decide.

So, that was our first full day in Mexico. I won’t even go into trying to get another room because ours is located above the hot tub. There wasn’t anything fun about that…other than we learned that one room was unavailable until housekeeping took it upon themselves to “fumigate” it thereby rendering it unusable for 2 days. Uhmmmmmmmm.

So, the four of us had a date for dinner in San Francisco. The plan was to meet my cousin, Susie and her hubby Larry, for dinner…at 6 p.m. The four of us included the Rayman and moi and Ruth and Tom Donnolly.

To preface my remarks, may I please offer you the following information. Ruth and I fancy ourselves fairly techie types for our ages…not the ages, but our ages. And we also have a wonderful array of marvelous gadgets designed to make life easier. So, what did we do? We left the hotel in Millbrae to head to San Francisco with absolutely no plan on the best way to get there. Now, I fully admit that this was my fault. I assured all that I knew where I was going. For those of you that read my blog regularly, you know this is the kiss of death, metaphorically speaking. And the Donnolly’s should have know better…but

I digresss.

We turned right out of the El Rancho Hotel and headed up the street. The Rayman was driving. It was 5:36 p.m. We had intended to leave at 5:30 but I couldn’t find my driver’s license. And I never did. But at 5:30 I didn’t know the search was futile so I spent 6 precious minutes looking in vain for the darn thing. Giving up, we all jumped in the car and off we went.

So, we took surface streets while we looked for a street that I’d recognize as a freeway off ramp street. Light after light we wiled awayed our precious minutes. Finally, Ruthie turned on her iPhone and I turned on the Garmin and we started receiving outside help. Finally we reached Grand in San Bruno. The we turned on Airport. And then we merged onto the freeway and joined the traffic already in motion…going about 5 miles an hour. In the meantime, Ray was having a hissy fit. G D traffic. “We should have left earlier…oh, jesus christ, look at the driver. Why isn’t he moving? Shit there is another light on this street. The cross traffic is just sitting there…G.D. traffic.” And I cleaned this up I want you to know.

“Well, I should just slit my wrists”, I remarked ever so subtly. “No, just go for the jugular. It’s quicker.” Now i do want to remind the reader that this was VALENTINE’S DAY. OMG. It just kept getting worse. And the more we carried on, the quieter it got in the backseat until finally Tom said, “I just finished both bottles of wine and I am more relaxed now.”

In the meantime, we managed to merge onto 280 which was moving…until we hit the City. Then everything came to a screeching halt. We, Ruth and I, kept looking at our mechanical devices for instruction. But I kept overruling the mechanical devices because the devices did not know how screwed up the traffic was. By this time, we were about 2.7 miles away and it was 6:15. Oh, and I forgot. Ruth called the restaurant to beg their forgiveness for our tardiness after my cousin Susie failed to answer her cell phone. All the while Ray had figured out that Susie was probably already eating and in a bad mood. Ray does have a way of always expecting the worse. And I kept overruling our devices. “Ray, get in the right lane.” “But it’s a bus lane”, he replied. “Okay, don’t get in the bus lane.” “yes, but look…those cars are getting in the bus lane”, he exclaimed. “Okay, well, go ahead and get int he bus lane”, I suggested. “No, Ray, you don’t want to get a ticket”, Tom advised. “Go ahead, Ray. Get in the bus lane”, I urged. “I can’t”, Ray said. “There’s a G.D. bus there.” And so it went. So we finally turned off that street (from the bus lane) and got onto another choked-off street (Mission) and at one point, a limo driver in the right lane abruptly opened his driver side door and we almost hit it. Then Ray almost rear ended a car (thank goodness for good breaks, he said) and the ride continued. Only, we were mostly not going anywhere fast.

Ruth, determined to have a good time in the City, said things like, “Oh, look. We’re in San Francisco.” And, “If they give our reservation away, look at all the fun we’ll have trying to find another place to eat.” I mean, really. She really did say things like that.

Finally we hit the Embarcadero and turned left. We were looking for Battery St. Before we got there, Ray spotted Green St. and got in the left turn lane. He said the restaurant was “right up there”. The Garmin said to turn right and then left. No. Why would it tell us to do that? Then we hit Green and it was one-way so we had our answer to that question. Well, I was totally beside myself by now because it was 6:30 and I figured we had lost our reservation and Susie was probably really upset with me…and so I said, “Ruth, let’s get out. You guys go find a place to park.” With that I leaped out of the car and opened Ruthie’s door. Well, Ruthie didn’t have any idea this was about to happened. She had her camera out, her phone out and god knows what else out and she had to button it all up and jump out of the car as I was beginning to walk down the street. And low and behold, the restaurant sat there in front of us like a beacon in the night. WE HAD ARRIVED.

So, when I jolted thru the door, I saw my cousin and Larry sitting there and I said, “OMG. The traffic was horrible”. She was so relieved because i said exactly what she told Larry I would say. So, that made everything okay. But I was a little displeased to think that I was that predictable. She assured me that I was. And we were off and running and had a great meal with lots of laughs and wonderful wine which, I might add, really made us feel better too!

Frosting on the cake was when we were leaving the restaurant, Ray backed into the car behind us. Tom (the retired LAPD policeman) yelled, “Hurry, get the hell out of here.” You can’t make this stuff up.