Day 2? Yes! The road trip continues...

Celebrating Teta Mary's Birthday

We celebrated Teta Mary’s 88^th birthday at Wildfire, downtown. (She is the lovely, spunky lady who is second on the left in the photo.)

At one point in the evening, for reasons that are still somewhat vague, Mary whipped a steak knife at me. (Now do you understand why I’m always stressing the importance of cat-like, ninja reflexes?)

But other than that, it was a fun, delicious, celebratory and peaceful evening.

We’re already planning a special workout at the dojo for Mary’s 89^th birthday.

The Steak Was Good... So Was The Ketchup

We went out to eat on Sunday evening at a nice restaurant downtown called Wildfire which is known for preparing a pretty good steak. Nadia’s aunt, Mary, takes us there several times a year because she loves going out and because she enjoys seeing my Taco Bell etiquette on display at something other than a fast food joint.

As I ordered my steak, I requested French fries and I looked across the table and noticed a wry grin on Mary’s face. She saw me looking at her and shook her head as if to say, “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”

You see, Mary knows what I’m up to. She knows that I intentionally order French fries rather than any other type of potato because the restaurant will provide ketchup for the fries. This prevents me from making an embarrassing request for ketchup to go along with my steak.

I know. I know. I can hear the horrified gasps even though our computers do not have an audio connection. (My ears are very good at picking up horrified gasps.) Yes, I put ketchup on my steak. I’m sorry for being broken in such a troubling and barbaric way.

Mary is more cultured and refined than I am, however, she is still entertained by my uncivilized ways. Believe it or not, it can be sort of fun for a classy person to watch a primitive guy in action.

She said, “So, you’re getting fries, huh?”

I smiled and said, “Yes. They have really good fries here.”

With amusement she said, “You’ll have some ketchup then, I suppose.”

Acting surprised I said, “Oh yeah. That’s right. Now that you mention it, I guess they will bring some ketchup with my fries.”

Mary and the rest of my family then caused a slight distraction and when I turned to see what was happening they moved to another table.

The steak was terrific.

...And the ketchup was pretty good, too.