« Manky’s Agenda: October 16th, 1999 | Manky’s Agenda: October 19th, 1999 »

(age: 21 years, 10 months, 23 days, 10 hours, 57 minutes)
[history: 2006... 2002... 1990... ]

Monday October 18, 1999

Manky's Agenda: October 18th, 1999

Oh where to begin... My mental state went fluctuating up and down all weekend! Saturday I stopped by the Siefert's to see Mandy and this Kevin guy (no worries, he seems cool.) However, when I go to his supposed URL (the one he dictated and Mandolin wrote down for me) all I get is a 404... grrr! They were about to eat dinner so I made my exit as gracefully as possible.

Later that evening we went to the church to play some volleyball. It was Joel, Ed, Rachel (I dragged her with me), and I vs. the Siefert's: Ryan, Heidi, Cadee (a.k.a. "Cassy" to some), and Ashley (Ryan's girl). For the most part, none of us are super major players, so it was actually fun for me to play. Sure, Heidi, Joel, and Ed are pretty dang good. But with the rest of us around, it kinda makes it hard to shine as such. Amazingly enough, by some sort of gracious miracle, I actually got the ball over the net on a couple serves... and even scored some points that way! In the end, we won. It took us quite a while, but we won! Woo Hoo! Suddenly after the game ended, a high school bickerment broke out... a cheerleader got all flustered about the band maybe, or even just possibly pulling a "psyche!" at the homecoming game [translation to all those not involved: starting up the fight song, getting the cheerleaders to start dancing, then just stopping the music]. Even thought the subject's been hashed out numerous times, apologies for past episodes have been made, and no one present at the moment has ultimate control over the situation... this cheerleader persisted in her complaining and annoyance. Needless to say, the fun of the gathering was ruined, and we all dispersed. I know, how lame! Right? That's cheerleaders for you... sorry girls, but I've yet to see a shining light cheerleader in my life... go ahead and prove me wrong, I'd love to not feel as poorly as I do about you all! Moving on... Rachel was more shocked than anything, I think. So I invited her to my house to watch Thursday's ER. I was kind of hungry, so we thought of maybe getting something to eat. She told me what she really wanted was something from Holstein's (it was too late, and they were closed!) But I convinced her that Sara could make her something just as good, if not better, at the Texaco Java Jive. I called Ed to invite him to watch ER with us, and to offer him a vanilla smoothie. Of course he accepted. We chatted a bit with Sara while she made our drinks, then we were off to see ER. Back at my house, Ed was playing a demo version of Drive he had downloaded onto my computer. It's cool, you are a car trying to get away from a cop! You can drive against the flow of traffic, crash into things, it's wild! I sucked at it royally, but I still was thrilled with it! I'm thinking of actually getting the full game! We did finally get to watching ER after tons of setbacks. As always it was good. But I'm still puzzled about the scenes from next week. Ed seems to think he sees a whole freakin' story line hidden in there somehow, but I really don't see it. Oh well, only Thursday will prove either of us wrong. After we finished, we played the game some more. Then I tried to show Rachel how to shop for something on-line. She knew the brand she was looking at was Merrell, but she doesn't know what style they were. Even after looking at all the different styles found anywhere on-line, she still hadn't found it... so we gave it up by printing out a list of local dealers (that sounds kinda drug-linked, doesn't it!?) Somehow in all that surfing, she realized I keep a journal here on-line, and anyone who wants to can actually read it. This of course is a totally and completely foreign idea to her. She's one of those people who might use the internet to find a job listing, or information for school work... but that's about the extent of it. I'm not sure if she was appalled at the thought, or just shocked. In an effort to broaden her internet perspective, and at the same time convince her that it really is okay what I am doing, I took her to the burbs to check out some other journals. At one point we were browsing through the funny pages and ended up at Weighty Matters. This woman noted any and everything that she consumed. We were shocked at how early her eating began (about 5:30am) and what she would start out with (major breakfast meals). Not necessarily what we were looking for, but interesting none-the-less. All that logging reminded me of when I was seeing a doctor in Argentina "about my weight". This lady had me writing it all down: what time I ate, exactly what and how much of it I ate, how I ate it (standing up, laying down, at the table, etc.), what else I did meanwhile (watch TV, talk with friends or family, read, etc), and how I felt about myself or just in general at the time I ate (happy, sad, bored, etc). I think it was all in efforts to find some kind of pattern, and work on it from there. I guess maybe at the time, it was helpful. But since then I have had some interesting revelations on my life and that's affected how I feel about myself, my eating habits, and my weight. It's all good with me. Food's good, eating is good. Just like everything though: in moderation. Too much of anything can be bad. I'm happy with who I am, and eating or not is not going to effect that. It is no longer a controlling factor in my life. Woah there horsey, I went off on a way bigger tangent then I had expected! Sorry! The best thing about Saturday night was that I got my hug! Yea! I had been needing a real hug for a real long time... and I got one. You know what I mean don't you!? The strong, yet effortless hugs, with just the right timing. Where no one let's go until the other is done basking in the moment. Encouraging and uplifting feeling are created in that brief moment of embrace. It's all good. Let's just say that I really needed it. In fact I was all ready to go off on hugs, their value, their major necessity, etc. here in my journal. I was even trying to find sites about hugs. I was desperate! Lucky for me, he somehow recognized that and took some initiative! Sunday, somehow went downhill. I woke up at 10:24 with a dire need to shower and church starting at 10:30. After church Jason, Debbie, Joel, Brian, Chris Barbour, and I went to the Crazy Pepper for lunch (Oh, Delaney was there too, she's such a cutie!) We had a major wait before being seated. My mom and Colin were there waiting when we arrived. They were seated, and had already finished eating by the time we sat down. But that's not all... I wanted to get something other than my typical flautas or guacamole tostada. So I specifically asked the waitress (dumb blonde/gringa if you ask me) exactly what was in the shrimp quesadilla. Aside from being baffled at my question, she never full answered me. I explained that when you order an appetizer quesadilla it is just plain cheese, or you can also get it with tomatoes, black olives, and green onions. I wanted that with the shrimp, but no onions. How confusing is that??? She seemed to be sure that that was what I'd be getting (that should have been my first clue to go with the regular order...) I specified refried beans, and my order was complete. We chowed through like three baskets of chips and two big bowls of salsa at our end of the table alone. It took forever for the food to even come and we were all very hungry. Problema n�mero uno: my food comes with a side of what is obviously (to absolutely anyone with half a brain) black beans, not refried. Now, I have nothing against black beans, I'm not a prejudiced bean eater. But, on the other hand I do expect to get what I've ordered and fully intend upon paying for. What really ruined the whole event for me was not just the mess-up but the reaction of one of my lunch companions when it happened. Noting my disaprroval Brian said, "Oh here we go!" in an extremely disconserting tone that really chapped my hide. I immediately pointed out the error to the poor guy who handed me my plate. Understanding he didn't take the order and had no way of knowing it was wrong. Also taking into consideration the obvious wait I was going to have if they took my plate to switch the beans I said, "Pueden traerme, un plato separado no mas, porque esto, no lo voy a comer..." He was fine with that, and continued his duties. Problema n�mero dos: by pure intuition I peeled back the tortilla to see exactly wht they had put in it. Guess what! It wasn't what I'd asked for. There were no olives, and there were tons of green peppers. Completely frustrated, I actually picked up my plate and began to walk over to the kitchen myself. I burnt the heck out of my fingers! Just as I was getting to the kitchen, the waitress finally said, "Is there something I can help you with?" (can I get a, "Duh!") I explained the predicament and my dislike for peppers in my quesadillas. She took my plate back, and I sat back down. I ate a couple more chips with salsa, but they were cold and hard by then, so I stopped. Everyone was at least � done with their meals when my plate came back. Appalled does not decribe how I felt (and continue to feel) about how my meal was "fixed". The beans were just plopped there, no tortillas with cheese melted on top like normal. The quesadilla was the same one; the sour cream scoop had melted off of it leaving a puddle of white cream on my quesadilla leading to what was left of the scoop, now located in my rice. I again peeled back the tortilla to see what had been done. Granted there were no more peppers in it, and there were olives (very few, only on the outer rim, and they were cold... not tepid cold, but refridgerator cold!) it was still the original quesadilla. I took one bite and was overwhelmed by the lukewarm temperature and the still present flavor of the peppers. Any culinary of sorts knows that the act of cooking something with peppers in it will leave their juices and distinct flavor behind, whether or not you pick all the said peppers out. It took everything in me to not get furios at the waitress. I stopped her again, told her that I'd rather not eat, explaining how the situation had been handled. What I should have done, was talk to the owner. He would have been upset I can assure you that. But I didn't think of it at the time. To make a long story short (yeah right, too late for that!) I didn't get to eat anything! Yet I spent aproximately 2 hours there! Maybe I should still call the owner. That's not right! One thing I've realized lately is that that must be my pet peeve: bad customer service. You've picked the wrong lady to mess with if you think you can get away with treating me like crap as a customer. Don't get me wrong, if you do show qualities of good customer service, I'm sure to praise you for it. I usually spread the word, let everyone know what I great experince I've had, etc. I tend to leave good tips, just ask the girls at Shari's. I just do not understand how someone can claim to work with customer service, yet not act like it!

  scribbled by manky @ 12:42:00
*

this has been a friends, school days, soapbox rant, sports, telly entry

Copyright � 2002 Amancay, All Rights Reserved.