Excruciatingly Detailed Regurgitation

Do you ever have a day where everything feels a little off? 

It started off OK.  Spouse and I drove in separate cars to Valle Canyon to leave my car there and then he gave me a ride up to FR181/American Springs Road.  He wasn't going to do the whole hike because it involved some rough, stony downhill and his sprained ankle is still slightly swollen at the end of each day.

Here is my biased regurgitation of my day - a litany of minor grievances:

Why did the tall, heavy hiker who picked up trash along the way, only bring a small, flimsy, plastic produce bag which we quickly filled up?  He then let a hiker who's well into his 80's carry it which may have caused the octogenarian to slip on the descent into Valle Canyon and spill all the trash.  The elderly hiker seemed uninjured but the bag was toast and the rest of us had to carry the mashed cans down to the trash-picker-upper waiting below who put it all in the other flimsy produce bag he had.  He and his wife have no full-size plastic grocery sacks at home because they use cloth grocery sacks exclusively. Perhaps bringing a cloth grocery bag and lining it with plastic produce bags would be advisable.  The cloth bag's handles allow free use of hands for balance and the produce bags would keep the cloth bag clean. 

On the hike, after spouse turned around, they asked questions about his ankle  sprain. I said it would probably get better if he would walk a little every day and do his physical therapist prescribed exercises. I pointedly intimated that "Mommy" (me) wasn't going to tell him to do this.  Felt a bit like a bitch but it's true.  I've been nagging my husband all his life to take better care of himself - mainly lose weight and exercise - but to no avail.  He's retiring to half-time at work and maybe it's time I retire as his "Mommy"!

I was able to correctly show the group where to turn off FR181 onto the Perimeter Trail but I screwed up mildly where the Perimeter Trail descends after its intersection with the fireline that travels around the northwest and north edge of the Water Canyon area.  When I came to the first intersection of the Perimeter Trail and fireline, I saw a small cairn and fruitlessly looked around several times for the downhill continuation of the Perimeter Trail.  Someone decided to take a group photo just then but I declined, so intense was I in making sure I wasn't missing the turnoff.

The group managed to find the downhill turn off themselves and proceeded on without me.  The correct turn off was just ahead and marked by more cairns - some most likely built by me the last time I was confused here.  When I caught up with the group, I told the leader that she needn't worry about losing her job anytime soon - ha, ha!  I hadn't been on this part of the trail for over a year - it's a beautiful trail and it's high time I used it again.  I need to remember that when the Perimeter Trail, coming from FR181, first crosses the fireline that it then continues parallel to the fireline and downhill soon after.

After the hike, we went to Santa Fe, ostensibly to eat at a new restaurant on Alameda, near the La Montanita Co-op called Pho-Kim. We had read a review of the restaurant in the Santa Fe Reporter.  (We were surprised to discover that the Annapurna Restaurant, also in the Solana Center, has been closed since a fire April 21, 2010.)

One of the waiters seemed all that you would desire in a waiter.  I overheard him carefully explaining the menu items to a table while taking their orders.  Instead, we got a young man who acted semi-sullen.  He took spouse's order first. I missed hearing that spouse had finished ordering and only knew it was my turn when I saw the waiter staring at me from across the table while kneeling next to spouse.  I tried to ask a question but it was hard for him to hear me so I asked if he'd come closer and thanked him.  I wanted to know if the restaurant served brown rice - the answer was no, not traditional, only white.  I asked if I could have extra vegetables on my stir fried cashew tofu to replace the rice. He said it depends on the cook.  I left it at that.

First my husband's order came out and nothing was said to me about my order.  I waited patiently but my heart sunk (I was starving) when I saw our waiter run outside after a couple of diners who had just left.  Resolving whatever that was took some extra minutes while I still had no food.

When my order finally came, no extra vegetables (the dish seems to only come with stir fried onions anyway) but also no cashews, an integral part of the dish.  I waited until I could get his attention and politely requested that  when he wasn't busy, I had some questions.  When he came over to our table, I asked for a garnish of cilantro and lime wedges and the missing cashews.  Even though cilantro and lime wedges are not traditional, something he felt compelled to tell me, he did bring some, first having to hash out with the cook (we could overhear) if my cashew tofu dish truly included cashews.  My tofu tasted very delicious with the non-traditional additions.  It would have been too plain otherwise. 

Then we went to Sunflower Farmer's Market. I'm now declaring myself amicably separated from that store.  I've noticed recently that the produce, albeit cheap, is sometimes in poor condition with fruit flies swirling around.  I've tried to buy their 3/$1 grapefruit for the last month but each time it's in poor condition - soft and bruised, not fresh.  The produce department is the heart and soul of any grocery store and if it goes downhill, I'm out of there.

At the checkout, the cashier had to call the supervisor over to approve a $13.29 credit for olive oil she had accidentally scanned twice.  The cashier said any credit over $10 had to be approved by the supervisor.  She told us  this was to keep employees from stealing.  Then she regaled us by demonstrating how if she wanted to steal a product, she would just pass it through unscanned - class act.

After checking out, I examined my receipt and noticed that the bag of Lundberg brown long grain rice (did I tell you that I like brown rice?) had rung up for $3.19 instead of $2.50 on sale.  I had the cashier re-scan it and we discovered that it wasn't included in the sale, which is dumb since the white long grain rice was.  So, I went back and got the store's last bag of jasmine brown rice which the shelf tag listed as being on sale.

The cashier acted as though it would be a complicated process to get my 69 cents refund (yes, I'm cheap!), that would involve re-running our credit card and that it would be far less complicated if I would simply pick something from the store shelves for 69 cents.  I didn't want to because there was nothing more I wanted except to get out of the store and go home.

Then the supervisor came over again but at first she too acted like giving me my refund for such a piddling sum was beneath them but ultimately she deigned to give me 69 cents saying it would cost them more to run the credit card again.  I was polite during all this - no shouting or angry words but I wasn't impressed.

The class act cashier further entertained us during all this by explaining, when I asked, why her terminal was not available - the cashiers are timed so she had turned her terminal off so, as she put it, the manager wouldn't think she was taking 4 days to help one customer.  The girl would make a good comedienne but is a lousy cashier.

On the drive home, I was still P/O-ed about the whole refund business (and probably the whole day).  They wouldn't treat me like that at Whole Foods, I sniffed.  I'll take Sunflower off our Santa Fe rotation, kvetch, whine, quibble, etc.  But just then, there was a sound like a gunshot when a pebble hit our car's windshield and an ugly starburst instantly bloomed.  So much for my 69 cents refund!!  Arghhh...