When Papa called me at work asking what I wanted for dinner, I thought about what we’d had the night before (curried squid) and the night before (crunchy beans*) and the night before (TOFU!!!)… and then I had a brilliant idea, something I hadn’t thought of in a long time—going out for dinner. And Papa, who is usually contrary about spending money, was actually agreeable.
It was settled—we would go out for Mexican. A place called Consuela Garfinkel’s.
The first stop was Mimi’s house. Mimi is housebound again. She broke a toe and had to go under the knife again, so she’s dependent on us for entertainment and transportation. Some grandmothers break hips—this one breaks toes.
Somehow I managed to scarf down a few nachos and two Corona Lights. I wanted a third but I was driving. Jax wasn’t happy with his meal. And then Moose got bored, and a bored Moose is mischief in the making, so we walked up and down the steps to the second floor of the restaurant and up and down and up and down and up and down. (Moose should be an aerobics instructor.)
Meanwhile, Papa was trying to get the waitress to turn off the TV because on it were two barbarians in a chain link cage beating each other to a pulp, and Jax, whose television time is censored, was fascinated. (Honestly, don’t these people watch the news? Don’t they know what happened to Muhamed Ali?)
So we went to Mimi’s for dessert. Mimi had made chocolate cookies that were out of this orbit, and Moose was on cloud nine, and he didn’t want to leave, so that when we finally left, he pitched a royal Moose fit.
It wasn’t pretty.
There are seven miles, a lot of traffic and two rivers between Mimi’s condo and Maison Bean, and it was by the grace of God and those two Corona Lights that I managed to not come unglued.**
Two miles from home, Papa did come unglued. He got out of the car to walk home. Turns out that he caught a ride home with a couple of hippies in a beat-up VW van and arrived home an hour later with a big grin on his face smelling curiously like incense.
“I love everybody,” he gushed.
Later, after I’d finally gotten Jax and Moose to sleep and scarfed down a glass of wine, I remembered why it is that we don’t go out to eat anymore…. I guess it will be another year before I forget and we give it a shot again.
Notes:
* About Papa’s beans: I feel like I’m a cannibal or something when I eat beans, and it doesn’t help that he cooks them al dente.
**Yes, I know this is a double negative. It’s the second one I’ve written this week.
***Below is last Saturday at the beach before I lost Moose and almost got arrested….. It’s probably going to be a year before we go to the beach again.
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