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Monday, December 7, 2009

When wrong is right

It was the sweetest thing. Last night, Rey asked me if I had plans for today. Nope. He said, "What about if we go to the capital... eat at an Italian restaurant? I already got your Aunt to take care of Noah for the day..." What? How cool of a plan is that!

I was stoked. We looked up "italian restaurants Zacatecas" online. Found about 5 options. The first one we went to had been closed. The next one... well, it wasn't as advertized. Let's just say that. The place smelled like the dusty, mismatched tablecloths on the tables. Instead of the little white lights I was imagining-- big, guady silver star balloons hung from the ceiling. While I'd hoped for some Frank Sinatra music over the speakers, a TV blared mariachi music interrupted only by the occasional beer commercial. Rather than an extensive menu of pastas and delicious soups, the menu's most Italian fare was pizza. The table we sat at had one short leg, so it "danced" (Rey's wording). But, we were hungry. Really hungry. And the traffic in the city made it so we didn't really want to go look more. And Rey really wanted me to have my Italian restaurant. So, we stayed.

There was that 5 minutes of time that decided how this day would go. Would I let all my unfulfilled expectations cause me to turn into a blubbering pile of mush? Would Rey feel super awful about something neither of us can control--namely: it appears my "American definition" of an Italian restaurant is muuuch different from the Mexican definition. Rey ordered steak tacos and I a ham sandwich. I frankly was afraid to try one of their 3 pasta dishes.

We switched tables so as not to have to deal with the "dancing" the whole meal. It was to a quieter corner of the restaurant. And then. We decided. We chose to thoroughly enjoy the moment. It was so ironic how completely wrong this place was.

We decided the host of "Hell's Kitchen" would have a fit here, so we had a good time figuring out what his critique would be. We laughed as we heard the microwave being used during the preperation of our food (Was my sandwich really last week's sandwich being nuked??). We marvelled at the complete lack of coordination in decor (How many owners has this place had?). We wondered just how old the plastic rose on each table could have been. (See picture above). You get the idea.



(I love how those shelves in the background are loaded with

stuff that somehow equals Italy. Ah, yesss.)



In the end, the food wasn't that bad. We had a lot of fun. Maybe the bathrooms had no light bulbs, but--hey: there was a bar of soap on the sink. Maybe mariachi doesn't make me smile as much as some mellow jazz, but... ok. I did miss the music. ;)

But, in our family--we like stories to have happy endings. And this one did. Oh, yes it did.








And... we even topped that!! Rey is awesome enough to have found some cocker spaniel pups--which I've been hoping to find. We went and picked one out of the litter with Noah this evening. So cute!



Meet... hmm. Not sure on the name yet. But, he's around 2 weeks old. He's gonna stay with momma until he's bigger.






It was the perfect day.


3 comments:

  1. LOVE the new blog format!!!! And I had a lot of episodes to catch up on. Great writing! Love you, Liz!
    Rachel

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  2. :) Love this. Hope you are well.

    ReplyDelete