The Beef Stroganoff Situation

Vince called me on his way home from work the other night and asked me if I’d eaten dinner yet. Since his schedule is so varied these days, there is never one correct answer to the question. It depends on what time it is when he asks. It depends on what time I get home from work. And it mostly depends on how hungry I am when I get home from work.

But, since I had just returned home from my weekly loop around the library, grocery store and gas station and hadn’t yet had a chance to forage for food in our fridge, the answer – on this particular evening, anyway – was “No.”

He said he had a craving for beef stroganoff, which is the Wednesday special at The Rusty Bucket. Not being a big fan of mushrooms, I didn’t have the same craving, but I was happy to accompany Vince while he indulged. Okay, mostly I was happy that I didn’t have to cook.

So Vince picked me up and we headed to the joint. All the while he’s practically rubbing his hands in anticipation, which was a little tough since he also had to shift while he was driving.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to get clear in my mind the difference between The Rusty Bucket and the Old Bag of Nails restaurants. What’s with these weird restaurant names in Columbus, I’m thinking. And why can’t I ever remember which is which? Usually I combine the two and it becomes The Rusty Nail. This makes me remember the time when I was a kid and stepped on a rusty nail and had to go to the hospital to get a tetanus shot, which was pretty traumatizing. This memory does not exactly evoke happy thoughts of food, so then I muse that it's a good thing neither restaurant called themselves The Rusty Nail.

Yeah, I know – what can I say? I have a pretty fertile imagination and my mind takes weird detours from time to time.

Anyway, we get to the restaurant and what happens? We sit down and Vince, not even cracking open the menu, tells the server he wants the daily special. But oblivious to the impact her answer will have on my husband, the waitress breezily chirps, “Oh, we’re completely out of the Beef Stroganoff!”

The silence at our table was deafening.

Vince was so let down he very nearly stood up and walked right out of the restaurant. I believe he only restrained himself because I was with him.

He ended up ordering something else that he said wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t beef stroganoff. The poor guy was so disappointed. Even worse, he had had lunch that day from the same restaurant chain at the location nearer to his office. And he specifically didn’t order the beef stroganoff just so he could have it later that evening at dinner with me.

Yeah, I’m thinkin’ he won’t make that mistake again.

Meanwhile I was still happy I didn’t have to cook. Or clear the table. Or do the dishes. So basically I would’ve been happy sitting there drinking a glass of water and munching on a carrot stick or maybe even a piece of cardboard.

Um…on second thought…maybe not. There really aren’t a whole lot of pots, pans, dishes or silverware to wash with either a carrot stick or a piece of cardboard, so what would be the point? Plus, I don’t think cardboard would be very tasty – not that I’ve actually ever tried it. No, not even when I was a stupid kid doing stupid things like stepping on rusty nails.

So the impulse to learn how to cook beef stroganoff for Vince is kind of strong right now. But I’m trying to tamp down the impulse since I really don’t know the difference between button and morel mushrooms – and I’m not sure I want to find out.

Besides, I’m not sure I could take the disappointed look on Vince’s face when my version of beef stroganoff can’t compare to The Rusty Bucket’s version.

So instead I think I’ll just drive over to The Rusty Bucket next Wednesday and get a Take Out order of beef stroganoff for my dear husband.

(Better get there early, though.)

The Long Arm of the Law...

I had dinner with one of my oldest and dearest friends last night. (Well, she’s not technically my “oldest” friend – but you get the idea.) It was so good to get together and catch up on each other’s lives, but we realized that it had been nearly a year since just the two of us got together. How do I know this? Well, because the last text message I sent her was almost exactly a year ago.

With my amazing ability to string words together into pearls of wisdom I had texted: “I am here.” And, no, I am not usually so succinct when texting, calling, writing, or smoke signaling people as I tend to think messages are better when the reader knows what color socks I’m wearing and what I had for breakfast a week ago.

However, I was simply letting her know last October that I was parked in the alley behind her office building waiting to pick her up so we could go to dinner and talk until the server gave us seriously dirty looks indicating that we should probably leave.

My succinctness was due to the fact that I had my eyes peeled for cops as there were big signs all over the alley that read “NO STOPPING EITHER SIDE OF THE ALLEY.” I think they were serious. Yet there I was breaking the law – along with a half dozen other people who were also stopped in the alley awaiting their party.

Last night I left her – word for word – the exact same text message. Wow. And here I thought that with all these blogs I’ve written in the past year that I’d improved my writing skills. Guess not.

Nevertheless, those three little words were clear enough to let her know that she should leave her desk on the second-to-highest floor of her skyscraper office building, get on the two elevators, escalator and set of stairs needed to reach the ground floor and hustle on out to my car before a cop decided to turn an eagle eye down the alley and zero in on my license plate.

This is unlike my office, where I spy my ride out the window, walk three steps to the door, and then walk 10 steps to their car. By the time someone has had the chance to text “I am…” I’d be at their car door ready to hop in. Cops usually don’t patrol the street near my office anyway. What’s the point? There is a 2-hour parking limit and no sticker is required, so they’re not liable to catch anyone loitering.

Anyway, my friend reached my car, hopped in and we sped away like Thelma and Louise before any Boys in Blue decided to exercise their ticket-writing authority.

Even though the cops would’ve had to write an awful lot of tickets to drivers besides just me, I was relieved to move along as I’m just not comfortable breaking the law whether it’s of the minor variety or not. This wouldn’t bother Vince as one of his many mottos is: “I’d rather ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.” He obviously did not grow up Catholic.

I, on the other hand, grew up asking for forgiveness before I even did anything bad. Oh, c’mon. I never did anything bad – I was just funnin’ you! If I ever even thought about doing anything bad, I’d break out in hives and then the heart palpitations would begin. I’d have a guilty look on my face – just for thinking about misbehaving. Probably I wasn’t too much fun to be around.

I’d be the ‘narc’ without ever opening my mouth. A parent or a teacher would take one look at the guilt written all over my face and start searching for the real perpetrators. Man, it’s a miracle I grew up with any friends at all, isn’t it?!

Anyway, once my heart rate returned to normal last night and we were well beyond the alley, we headed toward our destination and then had a lovely meal together. We talked in code only familiar to long-time friends and laughed about silly things we did in our (relative) youth. We asked each other about our families and mutual friends and just had a grand old time.

Well, at least until the bill had been paid and our water glasses were sucked completely dry and the waitress (who pointedly did not come back to refill our water glasses) shot us a dirty look for the umpteenth time. We sort of took that as a hint that we should probably be moving on.

Wow. Someone thought I was doing something wrong – and there wasn’t a single hive or a heart palpitation to be had. Maybe I'm finally getting over the guilt thing, eh? Hey, maybe I should do something reckless - like jaywalk or something?

Nah. Baby steps… I wouldn't want to get all crazy and somehow end up on America's Most Wanted. I wouldn't want to get that John Walsh after me - he is one scary dude!