Category: backstory

the latest fallout from the fall (not the original fall, just last fall) was the breakup of our small group.  We had ebbed and flowed with these folks for a year or two, surviving the cross-country move of the original leaders, the finish of an internship, a work transfer, a baby and strangely, more than that even.  But, this time we decided to call it quits.  It isn’t you, it’s me and all that.  It’s funny how something like this makes you wonder, did I talk too much?  Not enough?  It was amicable enough that we felt like we should all go out for an evening on the town.  Something easy, like bowling.  No, bowling isn’t easy.  You’d think it would be, but it isn’t.  Too expensive, too hard to get a reservation, too many people wearing the same shoes.  So, in the end we went out for dinner, and to a new place.  New to me and Z anyway.  Benihana.  Have you been there?  It’s cook-driven entertainment eating where the cook chats you up while you sit waiting for food that I felt was actually cooked a bit too long but was tasty in that I-drive kinda way.   I ordered the teriyaki steak, maybe a little safe but I don’t care.  I wanted the comfort of the familiar in the end moments.  Z had the chicken.  They over deliver with side dishes-funny fried onion soup, sauteed shrimp, salad with house dressing, fried rice.  I could have done without all those sides and just had the beef with some rice.  It was good to see everyone and enjoy the time together, which is really what good relationships are all about.

there isn’t a great deal of variety in our local supermarket shopping scene.  Within 20 minutes of our house I think there are only two and both are Publix.  Publix is a local market that promotes from within and the service is excellent.  I always feel funny about being able bodied and the bagger loading my groceries in the car and often decline.  The problem is that there is nothing else near so everyone goes there.  If you stretch the driving time and dollars there are others but this is it so EVERYONE goes there.  We live in a strange part of town that encompasses both the Lake Nona Country Club as well as a decidedly more down home Osceola county line with it’s country roads and citrus groves so the mix of people is astounding and they all converge on one store.  The thing about it is that Publix feels behind the times, like they are too busy to update. They wrap produce in plastic and styrofoam which kills me and the environment.  I can’t choose my own items and have twice as much trash.  They are behind trend on prepared foods offering mostly Southern staples of macaroni and at many varieties of mayonaise based salad pre-packs.   You can forget about whatever new item being flogged on tv or the internet – they will not have it.  I drove 40 minutes with a cooler in the trunk to buy Johnsonville Chicken Sausage.   One thing they do have?  British food.  I have no idea why but the selection of British chocolates is divine and there is no shortage of cans of beans for toast and bottles of HP brown sauce.  Recently I saw that they had added steamed puddings in flavors of Golden Syrup, Spotted Dick and Sticky Toffee by Aunty’s to the lineup.  I couldn’t pass that up and variously brought home all three.  Thirty seconds in the microwave and you will be transported to the cool rainswept byways of the British isles.  They are crazy sweet and Golden Syrup and Sticky Toffee are positively oozing with golden syrup.  Z calls them puddingses and we have to split one lest we be overwhelmed by caramelly sweetness.  The spotted dick is studded with currants and a bit more ginger which lends an exotic note to dessert.