Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

After celebrating Dad's 65th birthday with him, we drove back the next day to the Philadelphia area.

In the morning, after having breakfast with Dad, I walked our doggie, Una, around town.

They'd had a light snow the night before, so I had fun taking pictures. Una, as always was game, allowing me to pose her in a couple places for shots I wanted. She always gets a treat afterwards, of course.

Here are some of the photos I took during our journey.

While we did that, The Gryphon had to troubleshoot a problem for work. One of his employees was having trouble logging on from home, and The Gryphon managed to help him out long-distance.

Then we had lunch, which in my case was leftovers from the night before and in The Gryphon's was a convenience store sandwich, and headed home. We ran into a little bit of snow on the way home but nothing bad.

The only real trouble was that the rest area near Allentown is still closed. They have been completely rebuilding it since last Fall, and it's due to reopen in May. Thank goodness. It's hard to make the last leg of the journey home without that stop.

The Gryphon had plans to go to PAGE (Philadelphia Area Gaming Enthusiasts) that evening, so we talked about where to eat. We wanted something that was a bit like comfort food but not too terribly rich. We settled on Charlie Brown's Steakhouse.

We should have known when we walked in the door and saw all the people waiting that it might be a problem, but it was only 5 p.m. when we arrived. They assured us it would be a 30-minute wait. So we took the beeper and went to the bar to have a glass of wine while we waited.

Since we were having a good time talking, we didn't really notice how late it was getting. When The Gryphon finally checked, it was already quarter of 6. Now, this was beginning to be a problem for The Gryphon, who'd planned on arriving at his meeting by about 6:30. That no longer seemed feasible.

He went up front to ask how much longer, and they said it would be any minute now. I felt like I was in that Seinfeld episode where the maitre d' keeps telling them it will be "five, ten minutes." They wait for half an hour and then leave. But we didn't feel like we had many options, unless The Gryphon wanted to just grab another convenience store sandwich.

So we stuck it out. They seated us about 6 p.m., but we didn't get our food until 6:25. When they did seat us, The Gryphon told them they should reevaluate how they estimate their times, because it had been a factor for us in our decision to eat there. They were very apologetic; in fact, near the end of our meal, the manager came by and told us she was going to comp it for us. She said she valued our business and wanted to make sure the customers were happy. This was quite a surprise. The Gryphon made sure to still tip the waitress a decent amount.

Meanwhile, The Gryphon had to make some phone calls to figure out what to do. First, he called a fellow PAGE member who was at the meeting place, to see how many of the gamers participating in his game had arrived. None had. When he called The Dormouse, he hadn't left his house yet, and he told him to hang tight. So after we finished eating, he called the fellow PAGE member again and learned the other gamers in his campaign still hadn't arrived. At this point, he told him that if they did show to tell them it was canceled, and he also called The Dormouse again to inform him of the cancellation.

The Gryphon helped me do my typical Sunday evening grocery shop. Everything went smoothly until the checkout. Two baggers were helping us, which resulted in some confusion. We didn't realize until we got home and unpacked everything that we were missing a bag containing oranges, celery and carrots. I might not have cared, except I needed the celery and carrots for a recipe I was cooking Monday.

We drove back to the store and asked the cashier about the missing bag. She said she'd given it to the manager. When we spoke to the manager, she said she'd had everything reshelved but that we were free to replace them. So we selected five oranges, a bag of celery and a bag of carrots and showed the manger, who gave us a bag to take them home.

I was irritated about the incident, but when we got home, The Gryphon and I spent a nice, relaxed evening together, which we haven't had the chance to do lately. So that made up for the frustration.

Copyright 2008 by Alyce Wilson

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