|
|
|
fancy Coranado dinner
Wednesday, December 16 1998
The day was positively hot, showcasing the incredible potential of the bright San Diego sun. For me, it was the hottest day since I first arrived in Southern California. Winds blew calmly from the desert east, indicating a Santa Ana condition.
At work, I found myself doing the somewhat dreary job of replicating the look and feel of Yahoo. Lunch is the only escape; I usually grab a couple 99 cent burgers and go sit on the edge of the San Diego River.
California has completely changed my fast food habits. In the East, one patronizes Taco Bell for cheap Mexican food and McDonalds for cheap burgers. Here in San Diego, you never go to McDonalds; there are far too many superior burger joints. And for Mexican food, the best places in San Diego contain "'berto" somewhere in the name, have video games in their dining rooms, and employ a kitchen full of speed-demon illegal aliens.
I snuck out of work a little on the early side and pedalled extra-fast through the darkness all the way home. I was in a hurry because Kim was taking me to dinner tonight. Her employer, the Victor!a Rose house of therapeutic massage, was treating all the employees and their significant others to a fancy dinner party at a restaurant on Coronado.
But when I first encountered Kim, she met me in cold silence. I knew immediately what the problem was: for the first time in weeks, she'd been reading this journal. I haven't been saying anything too bad about her, but I've been brutally direct, increasingly taking for granted her not reading.
As usual, Kim had written me a long, emotional note. I read it and then went and sat on the couch feeling not much in particular. This sort of event has become almost routine in our lives, so I knew it would eventually blow over. I was actually half-hoping my punishment would be not getting to go to the dinner party tonight, but of course the only one who'd be punished by my staying home would be Kim. What would her colleagues say if she came to the dinner party alone? That left Kim in a vulnerable state, so we made up very quickly. It happened wordlessly at first, with her kneeling beside me as I lay on the couch, she touching me affectionately. She was still upset, of course, but it was unfocused and confused. The first words she said were accompanied by tears, "My grandmother is very sick." It was a surreal scene straight out of the movies, and I wasn't even on drugs.
We dressed up in our fanciest clothes. Kim wore a beautiful long green velvet dress and I wore my typical Mr. Rogers formal attire. After smoking some pot, we headed down the "the 5" and then over the long curving Coronado Bridge into the 26,000 person enclave-city of Coronado.
The restaurant was called Peohle's, and it sat hard against the San Diego Harbor with a commanding view of the sparkling downtown San Diego skyline, decorated spectacularly at this time of year for Christmas. We milled around in the front with a few of the other early-coming Victor!a Rose massage therapists and after a critical mass of us had arrived, we were led through the restaurant to our assigned table. It was the best table in the whole house, in the corner nearest the harbor, with only a single huge pane of glass between us and the best scenery in all of Coronado. The gentle waves in the harbor, reflecting the lights of the city and framed in the subtle little white lights that provided the dining room's only illumination, seemed to be made of electricity or (perhaps) the stuff of a vast nurturing womb. The muffled sounds and murky visions of distant airplanes and container vessels intensified this weird ambience.
Overall, the decor and furnishings of Peohle's was more about comfort than it was about opulence, and that was fine with me.
Kim's seven massage co-workers are all attractive women. A plurality of them are youthful and innocent-looking. They provide a tasteful combination of sexual allure and therapeutic massage, earning for themselves and their boss, Vivian, a healthy bounty of dollars. Vivian is appreciative, of course, and this Christmas dinner is one of the many perks of working for her. For us "significant others," this dinner might have also been intended to reward us for indulging the vaguely sexual aspects of our lovers' employment. Occasional discussion of this sexual aspect cropped up increasingly as the therapists became more and more intoxicated, but I never quite caught what anyone was saying about this subject, and since the subject was somewhat taboo, I thought it prudent not to pry.
At a certain point, after secret Santa gifts were exchanged and Vivian handed out music boxes to her employees, Vivian's boyfriend became very pro-social, encouraging accelerated wine drinking and telling a number of jokes. He singled me out particularly, giving me an unusually large amount of eye contact and mentioning my name frequently. Finally he asked me to tell a joke, so I told this one:
There was a woman in an Elkins, West Virginia, Kentucky Fried Chicken and she was choking on a bone. No one in the restaurant knew what to do, and everyone was in a panic. Finally a dirty old West Virginia coal miner rushed forth, whipped up the woman's skirt, yanked down her panties, and licked her solidly in the ass. The woman coughed out the bone and gradually caught her breath. She turned to the coal miner and gave thanks, asking what his unique method was called.
"Oh, it ain't nothin'," said the coal miner, "It's just the 'Hind Lick Maneuver!"
The food portions were rather small but, for the most part, it was very good. My Satay Chicken was a large slab of scorched chicken breast without much else; I thought it could have benefited from better presentation. I'm not much of a dessert person, but, as Kim was quick to note, the desserts were definitely the restaurant's strong point.
After establishing our ages, the waitresses were diligent about ensuring that our wine and champagne glasses stayed completely full.
Overall, I'd have to conceded that I had an unexpectedly good time. When we made it back home, the discovery I'd made - that Kim is the cutest of the Victor!a Rose massage therapists - did wonders for my libido.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?981216 feedback
previous | next |
