Starbucks, Here We Come

PAPARAZZI?
I don’t mean to brag, but we’ve become rather famous in certain circles. When we step into line at the Chipotle, the servers say “We know you!”. When we get ready to order at Starbucks, the cashier yells, “The soy family is here! Load up on soy!” When we go to P.F. Changs, the waiter says, “Don’t I know you? I used to work at Starbucks and see you there all the time.” We just say, "No photographs please." That's what happens when you eat at restaurants every single meal, day after day, week after week... well, you get the picture.

CLOSING EARLY
The boys want to eat dinner with their friends at a pizza place, so David and I go out to P.F. Changs for a date. David and the waiter remember one another from the last time we ate here. He’s the one who’s still trying to get his scuba diving certification and is into spear fishing. They exchange photos on their iPhones of the fish they’ve seen and the places they’ve been to. Okay now, let’s break this love-fest up and get me some dinner! After dinner, we go to Starbucks. As usual, they’re about to close. I miss Chicago at times like this when there is no nightlife. A police officer comes in for a coffee and jokes around with an employee and us. I ask him if I can ask him a question outside. He obliges; he just finished telling us it is unusually slow for this time of night. (This is around the time of the Arizona upheaval with the federal vs. state immigration law.) My question is about immigration – not about drivers, but if he is allowed to ask pedestrians suspicious of a crime if they are in the U.S. legally even if he suspects they aren’t. He replies, “No, even though the federal law says he is”. The only way he can take someone through the illegal immigration process, is if he arrests them for a criminal action, and suspects them of being an illegal alien because they had no U.S. address, for example, and turns them over to I.N.S.. The police officer goes on to talk about what officers have to deal with just to be in acceptance of the public’s image of them: 1) The police can only use single shot revolvers. This puts them in grave danger at times. 2) Their B & W cars make them sitting ducks. Their opposition knows when they’re coming. Word gets around the community like wildfire before they get anywhere close. 3) They even have to wear polyester uniforms. He says to me. “You as a woman can understand how I feel.” I laugh. “It’s hot!” he says. The officer was dismayed how the world has been heading in the past 20 years since he’s been an officer. He’s just doing his part to slow down the process. The officer had been listening to his earpiece while we were talking and needed to go. He ends by telling us not to be afraid to call 911 if we think we should. “If you’re on the highway, 911 will transfer you to the sheriff from the highway patrol.” I think that officer really needed to be heard, and I’m glad I am there to listen.

GRANITE CHASE
David picks out this gray, marble-looking granite at Bedrosians months ago. We weren’t necessarily looking for gray, but it was the only one we found in our price range that looked like marble and didn’t stain like marble. Bedrosians granite is too thick, so I take a long time finding the same granite by email at other granite yards. I find “Super White” at MSI. It’s not leather finished, but it’s 2cc. When it comes time to choose our slabs, our family goes to Anaheim and is amazed on how large MSI is. David is now open for different slabs. I have my heart set on Super White. Now we have 4 slabs to consider. We don’t know if they are in our price range because MSI won’t tell us the prices. We get a hold of our project manager’s manager. He tells MSI to give us the contractor prices so we can make our decision. I somehow convince David to be open to “Super White” and “Via Appia”. They may even look good together if we decide to use two granite slabs. That is what happens in the end. Hey now — David likes them more than I do!

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Some Sauce!

OUTSIDE ROOM
On Friday we go to Sarducci’s in San Juan Capistrano. Beautiful setting…it’s outdoors, there’s a fountain, live music... David and I order rack of lamb and a grilled selection of seafood. The boys order pasta and salmon. Their meal is swimming in oil. Ours, sad to say, is covered with a heavy dose of balsamic “sweet gravy”. David is reminded of when his mom used to put ketchup on his lamb chops when he was a boy. No offense to his mom. She was a wonderful cook aside from the ketchup.

PRIVATE ROOM
On Saturday we drive to Laguna Beach. I don’t know which restaurant we’re going to. I just want to take our chances. We park around Glenneyre. David finds us a restaurant. It looks really nice. There’s a table right at the crowded door that’s open, or as luck will have it, they have a PRIVATE ROOM for us if we can be out by 8:00 pm. It’s 6:45 pm. We have never been in a private room at a restaurant, and we gladly accept. It’s a table for 6. There’s a wine cabinet on one wall, a mermaid statue in a niche... This looks good! We order a bottle of wine. The waitress and the bus service are perfect. We order squash soup and spicy meatball appetizers. We all decide on the same entree – a fillet with polenta. The “3” boys order their mushroom sauce on the side. They hate mushrooms. It is soooo good, they end up straining the mushrooms, pouring the sauce on their steaks and asking for more! My youngest sips the leftover wine in my glass and remarks “this tastes a lot more expensive than the wine we have at home.” David laughs and explains to him, this isn’t your mother’s Manischewitz! The dining experience in our private room was wonderful. As we leave, the people sitting at the table by the door tell me “Your sons are so polite — they thanked the hostesses when they left.” That’s my boys!

STAIN COLOR CHOSEN
The office manager at our contractor’s says if we choose the stain color by Oct. 7th, we will have our cabinets delivered by Oct. 15th. In order to choose our stain color, we must first see our wood floor sample so we can see everything together. This is a long process, going to different flooring stores ourselves, and having our project manager bring us a lot of walnut samples. We finally decide. We go to the contractor’s operations in Anaheim on Oct. 7th and watch them stain and varnish a sample door for us. It’s beautiful. The 15th comes and goes. We are told it’s slower because it rained. Well, it rained one day. In fact, we don’t get our cabinets until the 27th! Seems like someone’s calculations are way off! We are then told the installer is coming the day the cabinets arrive. The installation is supposed to take about 3 days. No installer shows that day. No installer until the 10:45 am. the next morning. He was coming from Riverside and stuck in traffic. He has now moved to OC, so we don’t have any more problems. Installation has taken over 6 days, but what we see so far are beautifully crafted cabinets. The stain color is spot on. The installer has assured us we will be completely satisfied when they are done.

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Check back next Monday for more restaurant stories and our kitchen remodel progression! Scroll down for the photos.

Fillet Fillet

B-DAY CHOICE
Our youngest chooses The Chart House for his birthday. David calls ahead so they have menus ready with our son’s name printed at the top. We have a beautiful view of the Dana Point harbor. The salad bar is great. Everyone is very happy with his meal, except me. My fillet mignon has this bad taste. I can see it is cooked perfectly, but I can’t eat it, so I send it back. The second piece comes back with the manager and the same bad taste. Even David agrees. It must be a bad piece of meat. It shouldn't be so difficult to cook this. When the check comes, they accidentally billed us twice for it! We rush out to our neighbor’s house to have cake with them since we don’t have a kitchen table. The cake is from a French bakery called Savoire Faire. Awesome – with a lot of fudge frosting! He picked it out himself. We give the leftovers to our plumber. The plumber gushes over the cake the next day understanding why we wanted it out of the house!

GOODBYE DITCH
We have problems with the ditch for the island from the beginning. The plumber says most homes have 4 to 6 inches of cement and ours has 12 inches. They try to get us to pay for a pneumatic drill after they already quote us a price for a regular jackhammer. We stick to our ground; they should have the correct equipment for a tract home. Electrical and plumbing is complete. Our electrician is, but our plumber is not, at our home during inspection (I find out you should have most service professionals present so they can change things and answer questions right away), the regular inspector is sick, and the replacement needs a specific water test. We pass everything except plumbing. Our plumbing company sends 3 plumbers for the next inspection to get it right. Men in stilts come in. Drywall is up in about 3 seconds and we have a white room. We pass! Plumbers fill in the ditch with sand and cement.

NEXT POST
Check back next Monday for more restaurant stories and our kitchen remodel progression! Scroll down for the photos.