Z'Tejas

It is Saturday (4/14/07) , my first day back at home after working last week in SF. Right after waking up I have 3 worries on my mind: Taxes, taking John to the airport, and a report to do for work. There is really a longer list but I would only amaze you with what I can worry about.

Before I go into those three, I slept in some contorted feet-over-the-arm position in "my chair" until about 1am this morning unsuccessfully fighting off a headache. I was watching TV, some of my favorite Tivo taped shows, and fell asleep then progressed into the sleep-and-watch-TV mode I even tried watching with one eye. John was out like a light on the couch. He is going to England today and the best thing we could come up with was having dinner out and watching TV. Finding dinner was not so bad because we got to use his new GPS toy to find a restaurant. I am beginning to warm up to the thing because we would never have eaten at this place if "Maude" had not guided us there.

By the way, Maude is the name we gave the GPS we used in England last November so we thought we should name our resident GPS Maude also as a pleasant reminder of our crazy driving times in that country. We also gave Maude a British woman's voice which tickles us to no end because she pronounces some of the streets very differently than the American way. We are planing to explore the area fully with Maude -- now we can be adventurous.

Back to dinner, well, we went to Z'Tejas in Irvine which just on the outside of one of the largest malls in this area called South Coast Plaza. The wait was supposed to be 30 - 35 minutes and the hostess (one of 3) gave us this heavy coaster thing which is round and the size of a 1/2 inch thick demi-tasse saucers and supposed to flash red lights and buzz when they are ready for us. It is a mall after all so we decided to go eye shopping. After a little debate on how far we could go before the thing would give us a perimeter warning we went in to the closest store to the restaurant: Brookstone. Brookstone is like a lower key Sharper Image all kinds of interesting little technologies that you never really thought you needed but after seeing them looked like pretty good additions to your growing mass of junk.

No perimeter warning and we started eye shopping at leisure: the foot massager, the mixed drink electronic recipe thingy, the incredibly small outdoor lanterns, stop snoring nose implements, wind up short wave radios, extremely cudly teddy bear ... We were in there for no more than 10 - 13 minutes (we checked our watches) and the thing went off. Wow, that was quick! Bright-eyed with anticipation of the no-labor feast we were about to eat we headed into the restaurant.

Bad news, so sorry (add a beautiful brunette face twisted in slight distress) the table was not ready (and bright smile all teeth) but it would be a few minutes. John and I watched 2 couples and a 3-some seated before us. Then we began to wonder about the wisdom of choosing a table outside. Then the brunette hostess with the interesting long strappy baby-doll dress stood across the room, waved a huge come hither and we were off to our table. On the way, she breathlessly explained that she had to clean the table herself because the busser was not attending to it fast enough. With smiles all around, all was forgiven and we were seated at a table next to a couple of guys speaking what sounded like Russian and a three-some at another table where one of the ladies was most likely drunk because you could hear her startinngly high pitched laughter across the parking lot.

To speed through dinner, I ordered steak and John ordered pork loin wrapped chorizo for entrees and for starters I had catfish beignets and he got seared ahi. The starters were yum yum and disaster struck with the entrees. I chewed on a piece of steak and all I tasted was was burn and nothing. I tried again and same thing. Beside me John was doing something weird with his face as he tasted his food. Mimicking his sister Jane's voice and a heavier Brit accent he said "my god that most awful thing I have ever tasted!" which send me into giggles. I must have looked folorn because he asked for us to switch and I said no. The waitress came over for the customary "how is your meal this evening..." chat. I looked at her, poker face gone, and said "it's ok" . Seeing I was doing a bad job of masking my disappointment with the food, she offered we should order something new -- I declined. She said we could work something out with desert ... hmmm interesting thought.

We ate a few more bites and when John offered to switch again and it was done in lightening speed. He liked my steak and he could not believe I really liked his creole inspired dish. Well, I did He called it mush I called it devine as compared to the steak. Waitress seemed relieved when she saw we switched and once again offered the dessert and listed what they were. As strong willed as we have been we could not resist that coconut cake. When it came it was by far the best part of the meal. To top it off it was delivered by the manager who was apologetic about our experience and said he would take the steak off the check. I said there was no need because we ate it in the end but he insisted. When the bill came it was sans steak and cake so we gave the waitress a biggish tip.

http://www.ztejas.com/location_ca_costamesa.php?section=costamesa

That dinner was the reason for us snoring in our respective seats when we got home. Food, sleep, then work. I realize worrying about the report for work is pathetic but it was due Friday and I could not get it finished because the numbers looked incorrect. The strange thing is it was not a hard report to do. But then, I have other reasons why it was not done, more plausible reasons like my mouse was on the fritz! It really was! Two to Three weeks ago I realized that I was twirling the trackball on my mouse a little too hard to get it to move. I got a screw driver, opened it up, and cleaned it as best I could. It was still a bit sluggish and I thought I could live with it but this week I was at my wits end so I asked Diane, our lovely admin for another mouse. Well, I got a mouse but it had the wrong connector so it was useless to me. Also, there was some suspicious looking crud on the left clicker. Ewww! Whoever used it before was not great about keeping edibles off the thing.

Since I had opened it up before I understood how the rollers worked so I knocked out the trackball and manipulated the cursor key on my screen with my index finger in the well the trackball had vacated. By the end of the week I got pretty good at it. It only works well in straight lines up, down, and sideways across the screen so you lose all the diagonal and circular action you are used to -- all wild and crazy mouse action is out.

All that to say in slow fashion I finished the report and compared it to the report done in 2001 and the numbers were well off. Bums! After all the painstaking straight cursor lines it did not look right and figured I did not know the denominator for the 2001 report. Ugh, should have asked that earlier. It was friday afterneed and I had a plane to catch so will just have to deliver on Saturday. Ick!

As for taxes they are due on the 17th and I started 3 weeks ago -- enough said. Next, John is going to Oxford to chaperone a yearly class for Pepperdine. I can't go this year because the fares are $1000. Can you believe it? So the base price is something like $600 - 700 which is manageable and after adding all kinds of fees and taxes you wind up with a ticket worth $1000 - $1100. Highway robbery! My outrage is complete I am not going!

Anyway, I have to watch him take off which is not pleasant (because I want to go too) and day dream of how I could overhaul the house in the 7 days he is gone. Most likely not going to happen but it is fun to dream about it. Maybe next time I'll write about my failed 7-day attempt at being a domestic queen and goddess.