~Sunday~ I was up again around 10:30 and Ricardo came down shortly after that. We weren’t expecting Kevin home until after his last game, which started at 11:00 and ran for 90 minutes. However, at about 11:15, he surprised us at the door. Turns out there were “consolation games” in the tournament schedule that they decided to cancel today due to the rain, so he finished early. The good news was that he still got his referee fee for those games even though they weren’t played.
With this “found time,” Kevin suggested brunch at Finch’s and within minutes—after a phone call to Eric inviting him, saying we’d be there by 12:40, and if we didn’t hear from him we’d assume he didn’t get the message in time or couldn’t make it—we were off. Upon arrival we took a seat in the section we knew Ann—our favorite server there—would be covering.
Aside: Recently, Kate Gosselin was in this restaurant; see short wral.com story: Reality star Kate Gosselin works at Raleigh restaurant
Of course, I’ve never seen this show, but I wanted to egg on Ann about it, so as soon as she came to our table, I said, “I want to sit where Kate sat. Did she sit here?”
In her deep southern drawl, she said, “That woman didn’t do a damn thing here. The heifer. She just stood around here looking important. Just get out of my way. If you’re gonna be in here, then do some work. The heifer. No. I didn’t even talk to her. She didn’t sit anywhere in here.”
She cracked up Kevin and me. This being Ricardo’s first visit in these parts, Kevin asked, “Did you understand any of what she said?” to which Ricardo responded, “About half of it.” Too funny.
At about 12:40, we received word from Eric that he was going to join us at our table of four, of which we had one seat left. Kevin told him okay, but depending on what time he finally got there, the three of us may have to leave before he’s done eating. Then Eric said, “Put in one order of S.O.S. and another for an omelet for us.”
Around us now, a huge party (of about 8-10) had arrived and two tables next to us were being pulled together to accommodate them. Our (one) extra chair disappeared, as did several of the chairs at the empty table next to us. “We can just move around on this table and accommodate the 5th person,” Kevin said.
Then, in came a text message from Eric, “Put in another S.O.S. order,” at which time we weren’t sure if that was a confirmation of the previous S.O.S. order or a new one, meaning yet an additional person was joining us. It turned out to be the latter, so we ended up pulling two tables together and corralling some extra chairs.
Eric and Patrick—the same Patrick we’d met last night for dinner at Nina’s, and whom I really liked—arrived shortly after that, and Eric reported that the “other S.O.S.” was indeed another S.O.S. and it was for another Patrick—his ex who was going to join us shortly, but who was unable to find his keys at last chat.
In retrospect that may have been more mayhem then when Kate was at Finch’s Whew.
Back at my place, Kevin was in touch with Dave, whom he had planned to go over and help with his computer, but who was napping and wasn’t in the mood to do it, so Kevin and Ricardo just hung out at my place until it was time for them to head to the airport at just after 4:00.
We played an online game of Scrabble and I worked on and off on yesterday’s blog entry.
When they left, I took an hour nap, and then headed to Durham, picked up Robert, and we had dinner at Watts Grocery for his birthday. For starters, we both had:
| House Salad with slow roasted tomatoes and roasted garlic with balsamic vinaigrette. |
For his entry, Robert had:
| Pan-seared Duck Breast with sorghum, sultana raisin, and apple reduction over roasted brussels sprouts Anson Mills antebellum grits custard. |
and I had the:
| Butternut Squash Pasta layered with grilled vegetables, fresh cheese, butternut squash puree and a sage brown butter sauce, with a side order of Pimento cheese potato gratin. |
For dessert we split:
| Old School Banana Pudding with homemade vanilla wafers and Myer’s rum custard. |
I was totally pleased with my choices. Yum! Yum! Yum!
Robert liked his card, which had a picture of a woman on the outside of it that didn’t look unlike his mother, and he loved his gift certificate to the place where he gets massages. Yay!
There’s a bar in the restaurant and at one point there were four women sitting at it—eating their meals at it, actually—who were clearly “outdoorsy” women, and a little bit later two guys came in and sat at the bar, whom I thought for sure were “family,” too. They left two seats between them—not unlike the token empty seat straight guys leave between each other in a movie theater, so that it’s clear that they’re not gay—and that made me think, “Surely, they’re not trying to pull off straight.” Don’t call me Shirley!
I said to Robert, indicating the bar area, “That’s starting to look like a gay bar.”
Shortly after that, two women came in and took the two seats between the two men. Instead of feeling like I was “busted,” I thought, “Perhaps there’s something somebody ought to tell those two women.” But I have clearly digressed…
Dropping Robert off, I noticed a house a few down from his that had huge—probably four-to-five feet high—lighted letters on a landing area above their front door, which were sold to spell, “NOEL,” but the folks had reordered them to say, “LEON”! That totally cracked me up.
I met Joe at Flex at about 9:15, and was gone by 10:30, as it was truly tragic there tonight. We did play three games of free pool while I was there, so that was fun.