Monday, June 30, 2008

The purpose of this blog is to be a sort of chronicle of the summer N, C, and I (that would be me, J, not a new person with the initial "I") get to live together. In October or whenever it snows C is leaving us to pursue her dream of being an Olympic snowboarder and in December, I am graduating and moving to Portland so this summer is, to say the least, special. Blogging about breakfasts at Frank's, be they for breakfast or dinner, is an attempt to preserve our time together so that, when we scatter to the four corners, we have something to look back on and a way to remember the inside jokes and adventures we share.

For that reason it was decided that all three of us should take turns blogging. C has yet to step up to the plate so it has been left up to N and me but really, I don't know why I even bother. N's blogs are so complete, so well-worded; her phrases so exquisitely turned that I feel my blogging is more than unnecessary.

Be that as it may, here I am again anyway. This past Saturday I started a new job as an RA for a camp at Gonzaga bright and early at eight am (which turned out to be pointless because there was a miscommunication between the camp organizers and housing so I was there at eight and couldn't help anyone with anything until noon. I was glad I brought a book. C was scheduled to leave Saturday for a trip to California scheduled and paid for before she broke up with Dildo Baggins (he looks like a hobbit and he had the nerve to break up with C, so is obviously a bit of a douchebag). Given that we love each other, and we love breakfast at Frank's we all dragged ourselves out of bed at six in the morning and trundled to Frank's. Since I am one to wallow in self-pity allow me to point out that this expedition was worst on me because I actually had to be ready to go to work after this ridiculously early breakfast. Harumph.

Well, I finally got to see the new dishwasher who pretended not to know C and N even though, as N mentioned, he was introduced to them in no uncertain terms. Maybe it was the hour but I honestly can't remember much distinctive about Saturday's breakfast. Coming to Frank's at 6:30 am on a Saturday is similar to going at 7 pm on a Tuesday in that the counter is empty and we were seated right away. The good thing about Saturday morning versus Tuesday night is that the regular crew was there. I got an extra piece of bacon which was delicious and fantastic and all the things that bacon usually is, but it had that delicious after taste of free! Woot.

Sunday was, on the whole, more lively which I feel somewhat traitorous in saying because C was absent but, in all honesty, I think the liveliness proceeded more from the hour (10:30 am) rather than the company. We again saw the awkward new dishwasher [henceforth to be known as ADB: awkward dish boy] who, personally, reminds me a bit of the Beattles; not one in particular just the Beattles in general. I think it's the haircut. The new dishwasher has now becoming a running joke because every time we see him we smile and say "hi" and he looks at us like we have three heads. Maybe that's the problem, maybe his vision isn't very good and he things we actually are one woman with three heads, each of which prefers a different breakfast. I wouldn't say "hi" to that no matter how many times we were introduced.

Speaking of breakfast preferences. N and I deviated from routine and decided to split an omelet. This was so unusual that our order actually got handed to someone else which was satisfying in a way. It's always good to break up routine and remind people that you are not utterly predictable.

Lastly, ADB isn't the only new staff member at Frank's. There is a beautiful new waiter [henceforth dubbed GS: gorgeous server]. Unfortunately on Sunday GS was working as far away from the counter as he could get so we only saw him when he came to the counter for food pick-up. Sigh. However, the waiters at Frank's rotate sections rather than settling into one set section so all we have to do is keep going back (at this point not really an option) and he's sure to wait on us sometime. If only that was a euphemism. Sigh.

Well, I really think that's all the news that's fit to print. For yet another week the jam remains on the shelf largely because there's no good way to incorporate the concept of jam lactation or bacon erotica into a blog. Although we do manage to incorporate into conversation with alarming frequency.

J

Jeez O Pete it's getting hot!

I think this blog is forever going to be one week behind. I'll do my best to catch us up...

The weekend before last was spent in the Tri Cities! J was going home for her 5 year high school reunion, so she offered to drag C and I along with her. Obviously, we never pass up a chance for a weekend adventure, so we worked it out. J wanted to stay longer at home, so she took C with her on the trip there and I had her on the trip back. I'm sure wonderful things happened on the 'there' trip for them, but mine was uneventful.

I detoured through my parents' place for a little organization and relaxing alone time before the weekend. That was nice. My brother had a girl over from Lynden, WA. [Lynden is approximately 5 miles south of the Canada border. When people turn 19 they have a 19-run, thus when they get to college and all of their friends are stoked for 21 runs, it's sort of old hat for them.] They didn't get back from sightseeing until pretty late and that meant that mum and I had a lot of time just the two of us, which was really good. My mom and I are pretty darn close. She poured herself some wine, I make up some daiquiris and we talked about romance novels and work and puppies and life. It was a good night.

The next morning, I left for the TC via the long way. It was really nice to see all of the people camped at the fishing/hunting spots as well as the weekenders at the dunes. It wasn't very nice to be stopped at the top of the hill past Vernita Bridge while we watched a truck go up in flames. It made me late getting to our pedicure appointments. The pedicure was fun, though, and we all got fun/outrageous things done to our nails. Afterwards we walked around the Pasco farmer's market for some asparagus, apple juice and pastries from the local panaderia. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around J's mom's house reading romance novels and playing Blokus. We took a walk around the neighborhood, lamented the lack of swings on J's niece's playground and returned to home base so that J could get her primp on.

J looked stunning for her reunion. C and I were extremely under-dressed, so we walked her into the restaurant then took off to find a bar and some food. After about an hour of aimless wandering and disappointment at cover charges, we ended up at Red Robin. We enjoyed ourselves immensely chatting with the waiters, making fun of the bartender and laughing at other patrons. (As I was washing my hands in the restroom, on of the guys from the bar walked in, realized he was in the women's and quickly ran out.) We might have also ogled a lot since we were sitting next to the door. It was a good time and our waiter gave us his myspace address. (He definitely wrote a song about his love for his...banana.) We picked J up and went home, deciding that none of us were up for a night on the town.

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast with J's dad, stepmom and stepbrother. We went to Andy's, which is a nice little diner, reminiscent of Frank's, but in different ways. The food was good, the conversation was interesting, and we got to meet/sass yet another member of J's family. Jam was involved, as was Barack Obama.

We then went to J's grandfather's house where we sat on the porch reading more trashy romance novels, drinking coffee and occasionally picking raspberries. The porch with the reading and the berries is pretty much my ideal lifestyle. If someone could pay me to do that, I'd be a happy camper. Sadly, this was the end of our trip. We said our goodbyes to J's grandfather (who is a nifty old guy, reminiscent of my grandfathers when they were in their early 70's) and the rest of the family, and C and I drove home. The drive was pretty uneventful (we listened to the radio, talked about life and things, and I forced her to listen to the Ray Stevens cd my brother had made for me) until I decided to take the long way home. Detouring off the freeway toward Airway Heights is in no way, shape or form a shortcut. It never has been, never will be. After driving generally north/northeast down back country roads and wooded areas, we finally found Seven Mile and made our way home.

All in all, I think it was a pretty nifty weekend. Then again, with those two, how could it possibly be anything but fun?

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Like the Twilight Zone on a train...

C and I just went to Frank's for dinner (J wasn't there since she's home right now) and it was definitely...enlightening?

Frank's at 7 on a Tuesday night is much different than Frank's on the weekend mornings. Last weekend was off because there was no sun and little humor. Tonight was weird because it was dead. We didn't need to worry about clearing the counter, because it was already empty. There was only one server, one cook and two guys in the back doing dishes. (One of whom had just started in an obvious way.) The music was turned down and the customers were sedate. It was...surreal. C and I were instantly thrown off kilter. We literally had to sit down and take a moment to collect ourselves. Thankfully, we knew the server, so she settled us in. C wanted huckleberry pancakes like mad, but I had to actually think about what to get. There were no hashbrowns on the grill, tantalizing me with their starch. The bacon wasn't wafting about from under the counter. All three grills were completely empty. Thus, I ordered a chocolate Sunday (with sprinkles and whipped cream, because I like my sundaes like I like my cocoa. (Hot, strong and with a spoon in it?) And they know damn well how I like my cocoa).

It was interesting watching the cook. You can tell who the breakfast people are and who the dinner people are. Besides the obvious that if he were a breakfast guy, we'd know him, he also wasn't as rapid-fire with the pancake flipping as the rest of the crew is. (Give him a steak, though, and he's a pro.) He also brilliantly upped the huckleberry to pancake ratio. If J likes her bacon and I like my whipped cream, C goes huffy for huckleberries. The best part of the whole waiting for food process was that we glimpsed the new dish washer. Now, seeing the behind the scenes crew is much like a rare animal sighting on the savanna- You probably only catch one or two distinguishable features, but boy it can be ridiculously thrilling. What I saw was a brown-haired person in a black ball cap with giant bling in one ear. What C saw was a blue and neon yellow diagonally striped bit of shorts. We were definitely thrilled. Nothing beats away the boring like a wildly dressed new kid!

So yeah, we got our food and eventually the new kid came out to the counter to have dinner (the shorts were just as wild as anticipated, and the bling was still...wow). Basically what followed was a series of me dropping something or saying something dumb to which C, the new kid and everyone else laughed or pretended not to. It was fantastic. Suffice it to say that we've scared even more of the staff. The funny thing was that C and I were actually introduced to the new kid. Our server explicitly said that we should meet him and sort of made sure we did. Once we'd gotten to the car we realized that not only is our weekend excursion like the obligatory Sunday dinner at moms, but now we have to meet the in-laws. C pointed out that if we showed up in the evenings we'd end up spending all of our (non-existent) income with familial obligation.

Damn, kids. At least it's fun and they still like us! Even when we ditch them to have fun weekends with nifty people (more on that later?).

Until next time...

Friday, June 20, 2008

That J, she's a crafty one.

Were I to have let her have more time and let her blog when she had sufficient inspiration, I fear that we'd be left with little more than that we went to P-burg and a stray reference to jam lactation. As it stands, the jam was left completely on the shelf (counter, maybe?). For shame, J. For shame. [Er. Please don't kill me in my sleep. I tease because I love!]

At any rate, she's forced me to my current state of authorship. First off: quotes from the weekend in P-burg! I said something about hitting the he-way, just before C was Hitler for squirrels, as J said. The other amazing one was from J: "I'm sorry. I didn't know what it was. Had to touch it. Turned out badly." Hee!

So, yeah. Two weekends ago, we went to the tiny town of Philipsburg, Montana ("The Heart of Sapphire Country"). It's a neat little ghost town in the Rocky Mountains, once popular during the later days of the 19th century Montana gold rush. It's part of the Rock Creek region for sapphire mining and contains some of the richest, most distinct sapphires the world over. Philipsburg was named for the man who helped map out roads to easily navigate the rocky terrain. Though P-burg was a huge sapphire hot spot, there was also a huge rush of silver in the area that helped P-burg thrive. Isn't history nifty?

We went to P-burg to meet up with one of C's friends who's renovating the Doe house, which is a gorgeous white Victorian once belonging to P-burg's most talked about businessmen. It was loads of fun. We arrived pretty late, so Friday was fairly uneventful. Saturday we walked downtown with C's friends for lunch at a sort of so-so diner. The homemade cheesecake was divine. The rest of the place was sort of smoky and quaint, but not as endearing as it could have been. We spent the rest of the afternoon poking around the shops that were open (two of the more touristy places are owned by Seventh Day Adventists and thus closed). We tried on ridiculous outfits at the thrift store and found all sorts of nifty things. We also went to a newer shop with all sorts of neat glasses and hats and slogans and witty repartee on t-shirts. (Also, there were flip books of people making mad crazy sex. It was brilliant. I need to find those.)

The highlight of the afternoon, for me, was the soda shop. The Doe Brothers Soda Shop was incredible. The place was originally built as a restaurant and pharmacy run by one of the brothers who built the place we were staying. All of the soda equipment is original and kept in working order with a little love and care (J: "Just like my grandfather.") and everything is made from scratch. If you've never had a true cherry vanilla Coke, you're missing out. Ruby's in Seattle makes them and I've been hooked ever since. It's a guilty pleasure for sure.

That night we went out to dinner at the restaurant off the highway. The food was good and the conversation was fun. It has a bar attached to it that we went to afterwards. I must say, the guys that were playing pool may have been the only ones in town close-ish to our age range, but I was not impressed. The music was schizophrenic to say the least, no one even tried to serve us, and once they shot the cue ball off the table to where we were sitting and one of them quipped along the lines of "yeah, that's a good way to meet 'em," we were out. We then hit up more bars, obviously, because that's what you do in a small town. The atmosphere of the next one was a billion times better. We got drinks and were told jokes by one of the locals. One about photography, one about dog walking, one about puberty and lunch, and one about bears being lost in the woods. Ask me someday and I'll tell them to you. The old man entertained to say the least. We went to another bar after that, where we helped to DJ and were made sufficiently tipsy on half price booze. It was a good night. And when we got home, C's friend's brother showed us his really wicked laser, which reflected the rain and could blind someone a half mile away. Uh, then everyone kind of passed out.

Sunday morning we went to the places that had been closed before. The first one was The Sweet Palace. Oh man. Candy store of candy story. I wish we had remembered the camera, because I could not possibly tell you how fantastic it was. Jaime wasn't lying when she said we spent a lot of money. We definitely did. I can't wait to go back.

The other neat place was The Sapphire Gallery. I'm a sucker for sapphires, so we knew I'd like it. It had a lot of really fantastic things. Some were ornately carved. Some were intricately patterned. Some were gaudy and fantastic. But everything, everything was lovely. I'm terrified to think about how much that place would be worth. Maybe next time we'll get to harvest our own stones? We'll see if any of us ever have the money. It was neat, at any rate.

Um. Then we came home. It was a quick trip and the drive to/from included lots of crack, but I don't remember anything explicit. C and I subjected J to our random DJ skillz and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely.



If I hadn't ever warned you, be warned now. I like to write novels. A blog just isn't a blog without substance. A blog without lots of rambly exposition and story is like fat-free, sugar-free cheesecake. Why bother?

I'll put off writing about last weekend for another day, though, as I've got to head out. We're spending this weekend in Tri Cities for J's high school reunion. Fun and adventures will be had. Guaranteed.

I guess the jam is still on the shelf.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

N literally just shamed me into blogging which, I think, is slightly unfair because I'm blogging about two weeks of breakfasts instead of one. Clearly I should be allowed more time.

I've been putting off blogging hoping that I will think of something brilliant to say but that doesn't seem to be the case so here I go anyway with an amazing lack of luminosity.

Two weeks ago we went for a weekend trip to Montanna which meant no diner but lots of other good things including but not limited too: real cherry vanilla coke at a real soda shoppe, cheesecake, buffalo meatloaf, a pound of fudge, and fifty some dollars worth of hard candy.

Of course, there was lots of good conversation, especially during the four hour drive. Two good quotes that came from that were: "But Carebears don't have genitals!" from J and, "Apparently I am Hitler for squirrels," from C. Those are in no way related but apart from that I can honestly say that context wouldn't help.

So, fast forward a week from that trip and rewind almost a week from today and we are back at The Diner. Our diner. To be frank, Saturday was an off day. Everything from the lighting to the conversation was off and it just wasn't as fun as it should have been. Sunday made up for it though because we reached an important milestone: we no longer have to give our name to the greeter--they just write it down. In the interest of fairness I should note that this might have less to do with our constant eating there and more to do with the fact that the greeter is best friends with the cook who asked C out, but a milestone is a milestone.

I do wish that N had given herself the trouble of writing this blog because her social observations are more acute than mine. Be that as it may I have faithfully laid down all the events I can remember from the past two weeks of breakfasting, bitching, and the mornings when the intersect so I bid you adieu!

J

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Wow, it's June. How did that happen?

Today marks the end of another memorable Frank's weekend. Our usual barrage of awkward comments was followed by a fantastic interaction of middle school proportions. Thus, we'll start with yesterday...

Yesterday was interesting. I like to observe the people who go to Frank's. Sometimes we see older versions of our friends, or strange families, or people that we know. Sometimes we see creepy people. Yesterday, there was a creepy couple. They were already seated at the counter when we walked in, and as we were walking past them to our seats (next to them, joy of joys), the man gave us the creeeepiest open stare I have ever seen. Apparently the woman was staring similarly. J's description of the look was "...threesome?" Creeptastic.

Today, as we were waiting to be seated, I overheard this gem: "If I want to sleep with a woman, I'm gonna sleep with her." Apparently she doesn't have a say. Thank you man. Go light your cave on fire.

Here's a random side note that people should know about our need to visit Frank's every weekend: Visiting Frank's is much like visiting mom's for Sunday dinner. Unless we let them know that we'll be gone well in advance, we get in trouble. If we don't sit where we ought or behave accordingly, we get scorned and pouted at. It's familial obligation really. You don't say no to family.

Interestingly enough, I think we've started scaring people away from the counter sometimes. I highly doubt that Frank's is hurting for customers, but it never fails that at some point while we're there the entire counter will have cleared out. It's like we're almost too well known and too comfortable there, and thus other people feel uncomfortable for us. Sucks to be them? We could be too bawdy or too raucous, but really, we wouldn't have nearly as much fun if we were 'toned down'.

Anywho, back to today. Today's adventure had little to do with the normal fare. No Ron Jeremy jokes were made; your mom, the amorphous bubble mom that we all know and love, would have been greatly offended; and I am apparently hung up on someone I nearly dated. None of this is new. (Though I did sink to a new low by checking out the name on the ticket of the guy that sat next to us. D'Mitri, I believe. Rowr? Also, we decided that we needed to make some sort of a food tribute calendar. Biscuits and Gravy one month, Alton Brown another. The guys from Frank's of course. Oh, and Bobby Flay and Jamie Oliver and bacon (not erotica). Yum.) No, today's adventure arrived as we were leaving. One of the newer members of the team pulled C aside to deliver the phone number for one of the other staffers. C was speechless. We (J & I) were more vocal. Probably the best way to deal with the situation would be to send him a polite message stating her unavailability and letting it lie at that. But wouldn't it be more fun to let him think he'd spooked away Frank's favorite weekenders? I certainly think so.

Ciao!

N