Olive Garden Difficulties

Now that we are on vacation, Momoko wanted to go to lunch at Olive Garden. I agree that their food is tasty. And if you don't order crazy stuff, the price is right. My beef is that the local restaurant has terrible service. I don't like giving my business to places with bad service. The only way to get a chance at decent service is to arrive early before the lunch rush.

Yesterday Little Kat and I had to take his car to our trusty mechanic. At a minimum, we needed his front driver's side tire replaced. The tire store said they could not find a problem with it. However the thing deflates to 10 or 15 pounds after a day. It is supposed to hold 33 pounds of air pressure. My mechanic said he could do that work and the rest of the stuff we needed. However his suppliers were closed yesterday for the extended Christmas holiday. It would just take a while.

Since we were out later during the lunch hour dealing with this car business, there was no way we could go to Olive Garden and get decent service. So the lunch was postponed until today. For some reason, we both slept late today. We missed the opportunity to get to the restaurant early. But we got there before the rush. Momoko got fettuccine Alfredo and I got ziti. It tasted good. We shared a salad and lots of bread sticks with butter.

Late Christmas Shopping at BAM

Momoko needed to do some last minute Christmas shopping. She needed a buddy to go to Books a Million in our local strip mall. I volunteered as tribute. I cautioned that the store may no longer be in business. We drove to the mall. I was right. The store got replaced by a Korean BBQ and HotPot.

Momoko searched for another Books a Million. It was located in the next town north of us. She did not want to drive there. So instead she said we should go to Target. I said Target would not have the best selection. Plus it would be very crowded, it being one week before Christmas.

I talked her into heading north to the next closest Books a Million. She told me I should drive her there. Nope. This was her party. So she had to drive. I put the store in my Google Maps. Momoko complained that she could not drive and listen to the directions. So I put my phone on silent, and told her where to go.

It turns out Books a Million is in a big mall. We parking on the third level of a parking garage. We took the elevator down, and headed into a big store. Then we came out into the mall. The directory said that Books a Million was close to us, one level above.

The store had a bunch of people in it. But it was not too crowded. The magazine selection was substandard compared to other Books a Million stores. Momoko did find some gifts. I saw a couple magazines of interest. But they cost $16 to $17. So I left them there. Even pamphlet sized magazines were $7. Too expensive.

Season for Boxes

My Amazon Alexa alerted me that I had two deliveries made. So I went outside to find a mountain of boxes in front of the house. I presume some of these were people in our house ordering Christmas gifts.

The boxes for me were not gifts. I had recently ordered Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels. So that accounted for two pretty large boxes.

Not everything was from Amazon. Kit Kat is part of some meal ingredients delivery service called Every Plate. So she had a box with food that was being cooled by some ice packs inside. I left her box outside by the side door so the contents would not melt.

Shelving Trouble

After dinner, I put my trash in the kitchen trash can. Behind it one of our shelves was awry. The mat on one of the shelves was crumpled. So I started taking off the pot covers that were on that shelf. Then the whole shelf fell down. I inspected and found a missing peg on the front left corner.

I looked around and could not find the peg. So I stole a peg from the shelf one level below that held the trash bags. Then I measured the height of the trash bag shelf. I went outside and cut a piece of wood to be that exact height. I attached tape to one side of the wood, and mounted it under the shelf. Works for now.

Later Momoko said she purchased extra pegs. Wish I would have know that earlier. This was a tough job since it was really hot in the kitchen due to multiple dinners being cooked.