I am a reasonable customer to serve at a restaurant. I rarely ask for dishes to be specified to my liking with the exception of no hard boiled eggs in my Cobb salad and no nuri in my ramen. If I don’t like ingredients used in a dish, I tend to order something else. I don’t send food back to the kitchen unless it’s completely raw (medium rare should be halfway between rare and medium) or they’ve given me the wrong item.

I don’t make stupid jokes like saying that I’m LA and I’ll be there customer today. I don’t clean the plate and say I hated it. I don’t get mad if they forget something for a moment, or if it takes five minutes longer to get something. I am polite and respectful and try to make their job as easy as possible because food services is a really tough industry.

But then there was one particular experience…

My friend and I share a theater subscription and we always choose matinee performances. We always do brunch beforehand.

We went to a restaurant that I’ve been to before. Burgers and salads and yummy stuff. I like this place and have always had good service.

Until this one time…

So we sit down and are brought water. Fine. My friend asked if she could get lemon for her water. It took three times asking and eventually the waitress brought lime. I can totally excuse this.

I had asked what the hot tea selection was, and the waitress recited the tea types that they had. I asked for English Breakfast with milk and sugar. After bringing my friend her coffee, it took her two asks to get me my tea. Of course, when she did bring tea it was iced… not hot. But I can forgive this and I’m not going to get mad.

My friend has a food allergy. When she ordered her dish she asked if it was made with the ingredient, and if it was, she would order something else. I ordered my meal, as it appears on the menu. We asked to split an order of sweet potato fries.

The waitress came back and told my friend that the kitchen couldn’t accommodate her request on dish X. That’s great, but my friend had ordered dish y assuming it didn’t contain allergen.

Ten minutes later waitress came back and said that dish Y didn’t contain allergen. All was right with the world.

We get served an order of onion rings. Of course we ordered sweet potato fries.

Ten minutes later my friend gets her meal delivered by the busser. We tell him we didn’t order onion rings but sweet potato fries. I was served nothing. When I asked the busser shook his head.

Five minutes go by. I still don’t have a meal.

I tell my friend to start eating.

Sweet potato fries served. I ask about my meal and busser says nothing. I ask to see the waitress.

Five minutes go by.

I spot the waitress and flag her down and tell her I haven’t received my meal.

Five minutes go by. Nothing from waitress.

Another few minutes I spot the waitress. I tell her I still don’t have my meal.

Five minutes.

No meal.

As stated, I’m easy in a restaurant. I get that stuff happens…but really…my patience is tested…

I go to the woman who appears to be somewhat in charge of things. I tell her that my friend was served twenty minutes earlier, I’ve asked the waitress twice, and I still don’t have a meal…

Manager type is visibly upset about this and runs to kitchen. I finally get my meal about five minutes later.

What I assume was the general manager comes to the table to profusely apologize for the issue with my meal. I am appreciative of this, but at this point I tell him every single mistake the waitress made. I don’t like doing this, but really, it was probably the worst service I have ever received in a restaurant.

I admit we left an incredibly small tip, and I seriously thought about leaving nothing at all…

As I saw the waitress vaping outside the restaurant, I did wonder why exactly we thought making pot legal was such a good idea. But that’s a whole other blog…

I often get inspired by the posts of others. They write a great post and I either want to add on to it, or take the style, or whatever. When I see one of these posts I jot down the date and a three word summary of what it’s about.

So for todays post, my planner said “Deb- True Confessions- 11/29”

So there’s my note.

Then I went to “save” in my reader…

I love SAVE- someone writes a great post that I want to refer back to- and you open up SAVE and there it is…

Well, until it isn’t…

Because apparently when we migrated from WordPress to Jetpack, all saves were lost…

Never fear, I know it was Deb…

So I go to Deb’s posts, and I find 11/29 which indeed had a post, but the post had nothing to do with true confessions…

And then I thought about all the Deb’s I know who are bloggers…and there are a lot…

But I assumed I knew who it was…

And I went to my blogs I follow page to find her link…

Which of course isn’t there for some reason…

So I type in the name of her site…and it doesn’t come up…

and…

true confession…

I gave up.

I just didn’t have it in me to find the post and figure out what angle I loved, and write my own spin on it…

But I’m totally blaming Jetpack. Which sucks because I know I have a handful of posts in the pipeline that are based on the blogs of others, that are now lost somewhere…(because you know SAVE is device specific so the things I save on my ipad would not show up on my computer)

Footnote: I was a little peeved that I gave up…so I went back and found the post- which I will write for Friday

Last week I wrote about my daughter debating spending her gap years in the Peace Corp.https://wakinguponthewrongsideof50.com/2023/03/14/togo-or-not-togo/

Last fall, as she debated this choice, she spoke to different people to try to get different perspectives. After discussing the issue, she found there were four distinct types of responses:

On the plus side:

1. Wow- How awesome. You go abroad to help people
2. Wow- How awesome. What an experience and opportunity you will have.

On the not so plus side:

1. Why would you want to do that? It’s so foreign.
2. What makes you think you should go to another country and try to “fix” them. Do you think you are better than them? Do you think they are incapable of taking care of themselves? Why do you know better than them?

If you were talking to my daughter about this situation, which side would you be on, plus or minus? What would be your reasoning?

I’m going to swing it around a little bit. My daughter decided to work with an organization that teaches children in typically underserved and lower income neighborhoods. She will be a classroom teacher.

She has gotten some not so nice comments about this choice as well. My daughter is not an education major- so she has gotten comments about why she thinks she will be able to teach a classroom of children.

She has gotten grief because the commitment is for two years- can she really make an impact knowing there is a deadline to her commitment?

She has also gotten grief because as a middle class, white woman, what does she know about teaching children that are probably not going to be like her. How can she possibly teach children of a different background.

Where do you fall in this discussion? What do you think about organizations that partner with schools to bring in people to teach for a short period of time?

Pick any or all of this and discuss:

Have we made helping others a negative?

Are we supposed to only help those who are exactly like us?

Discuss

Thierry Mugler- Brooklyn Museum- I love a fashion exhibit and this was spectacular!!

Brooklyn Museum- They always have thought provoking and amazing works on display.

The Met- Galleries 765,766,767,768- Gallery 768 became one of my favorite galleries- I love women as subjects, and I like this art because it is soothing. Love.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden- I had a blah week and I almost didn’t go to the garden this week. Boy, am I glad I changed my mind. I love seeing spring start to form right in front of my eyes…

Central Park is starting to blossom up…

1. Shepherd’s Pie at Molly’s- my pre St. Patrick’s day treat
2. Whipped ricotta at Misi in Brooklyn- SO GOOD
3. Pizza- Serafina to Go
4. Fresh- seminar on their line of Black Tea infused skin care products
5. Drunk Shakespeare- Where one cast member has a few shots before the show…
6. Tea at Patisserie Fouet

Every evening I write down ten things that defined my day. I try to capture the good and the bad, things that I am grateful for, things that I am looking forward to, and what I do that day just for me, I really just write the little details that made that day different from others. I enjoy it and it works for me. Here’s some things pulled from various days over the past week:

1. This was a tough week for me- I was very blase about writing- lots on my mind
2. Does anyone deserve to be ghosted?
3. Got into a stupid fight with my husband, and honestly I think he picked a fight about A, because he didn’t want to discuss B. Sometimes it’s hard to process our feelings/emotions
4. I overbooked myself this week, for the first time in three years, and I need to start blocking off time to make sure I’m not running on fumes
5. Allergies (the downside of spring)
6. My new friends from writing group are awesome
7. One of my writing friends was quoted in Time Out NY. I was oddly thrilled to think that I know that person!!
8. I had a really great week with my daughter
9. My daughter and I bingewatched a really stupid reality dating show and I just kept shaking my head
10. There is some really awesome theater out right now

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. Albert Einstein

Last week my daughter and I went to see the Broadway musical Parade.

Parade was written in 1998 by Alfred Uhry and music by Jason Robert Brown. Parade is based on a true story, the 1913 trial, imprisonment and lynching of Leo Frank (who was Jewish) in Georgia. This event was one the events that spurred the creation of the Anti-Defamation League.

Of course, with this production brings some off stage drama:

The night of the first preview, the show was greeted by members of white supremacist group The National Socialist Movement. You know- neo nazis.

My daughter and I were aware of the controversy regarding the show, so this made us a bit hyper aware of our surroundings. Our seats were in the last row of the side mezzanine- there were three seats in the row. My daughter had gone up before me, so as I approached the row, I saw my daughter in the seat against the wall, my empty seat, and someone occupying the aisle seat. I go past him and sit down.

About three minutes after I sat down, the guy got up and sat in an empty seat across the aisle.

Whatever.

But now this guy, who I thought looked a little odd, has come to my attention.

The show begins a few moments later. About ten minutes into the show, the guy gets up and exits the mezzanine.

Of course I look back at his seat to see if he’s left anything, because this is just a strange scenario

I shake myself out of it and decide I’m being crazy and building up conspiracy theories in my head.

At intermission I mention my crazy reaction to the guy and my daughter said she felt the same way. And she had noticed that he had a large backpack.

We did look over both the seat next to us and the seat he moved to…just to make sure we didn’t see any wires or hear any ticking…which, luckily, there wasn’t.

Look at all that paranoia and angst and there wasn’t even a drag queen on the stage…

I don’t know, but if we can ban adult cabaret performances in public or in the presence of children, can’t we do the same for antisemitism and the groups that administer it?

I was at book club a few months ago. I don’t remember what book we had read, but it was something about relationships. One of the members ended the discussion with:

Women should find their spouses/partners while they are in college, because if they don’t they’ll never meet anyone. You have to meet people when you’re young.

What do you think I did when I heard that?

If you answered:

1. Mouth dropped open
2. was shockingly speechless for a moment
3. stared in disbelief for a good two minutes
4. Just said No No No a few times
5. said that love or relationships just don’t work like that

You would be pretty close to correct…

That’s how I responded.

How would you respond to that statement?

Do you agree?

Disagree?

Tell me how you feel about that statement…

Do you think you should partner up when you’re young?

Discuss:

Here’s another installment of the Rob Walker – The Art of Noticing. This chapter is about Looking Up-

What do you see when you take a moment to LOOK UP?

Here’s what my list looked like:

1. slowly moving clouds
2. some sheer some thick
3. deep blue sky
4. clouds that look like parenthesis
5. clouds that look like skeletons (too much halloween)
6. tree branches with only a few leaves hanging on them
7. the sun bleaching out the sky with its brightness
8. pine cones
9. yellow leaves on some trees
10. weblike pattern the bare branches make
11. airplanes
12. birds
13. what look like antennas on top of building
14. pointed glass dome of conservatory

What would your list look like?

For about five minutes last fall, my daughter debated joining the Peace Corps. She started the whole process, the application and so forth, and got up to the final interview. Before you go on the final interview, they tell you what your placement will be. My daughter would be assigned Togo.

Togo is a sliver of a country in Africa, on the western portion of the continent, east of Ghana, west of Benin and south of Burkina Faso. A small portion of the country is on the Gulf of Guinea.

Geography lesson over.

My daughter decided not to join the Peace Corps because it was really not for her. Nothing against Togo, but this was not how she wanted to spend her gap years between college and law school.

But she agonized a bit about this decision…

Did not wanting to go to Togo mean that she was scared?

My daughter is not one to back away from an intellectual challenge- in fact- she relishes it. She does have fear, but she is not really afraid of most things…

But for some reason she felt like a quitter by not joining up…

I asked her:

Is joining the peace corp something you really want to do, or was it just a very pretty marketing brochure that caught your eye when you were trying to come up with something unique to do before you went to law school?

And she said that yes, the on campus recruitment was very seductive to someone in her position, who didn’t want to be a paralegal or join the company that she interned with over the summer. The peace corps promised experiences that she would never receive in another way. But no, in theory, she did not want to spend two years that far away from NYC.

Did that make her a wimp? Not wanting to do it because she wanted to be around her dog and cat?

We had a whole conversation about how it’s ok to NOT do something. Just because it sounded appealing doesn’t mean she had to jump in with both feet. She explored it, thought about it, and decided that NO, this wasn’t for her.

There’s nothing wrong with making a decision based on how you feel about a situation.

She wasn’t a bad person because she said that Togo was a no go…

Sometimes we get caught up in overthinking things- for attaching too many thoughts to one thing. While thinking about something is important, the listing of the pros and the cons…when it comes down to it, a con is a con if your mind says it is. No further explanation necessary…

The whole peace corps thing brought up a lot of other things…so look towards another Peace Corp blog in the next week or so…