“How serendipitous”

This weekend was going to be a busier one for us than last weekend. Unlike the previous week, we had plans with K to spend Saturday shopping, going out for dinner and then going to see Matt Damon’s new movie, Green Zone. On Friday, it was decided that we’d postpone the shopping part of the day a week to take advantage of better sales. The dinner and movie were still apart of the plan for the day.

Had we decided to stay home on Saturday, I would’ve attempted to make a chocolate cream pie; something S has been craving for a while. I’ve never made (or had) chocolate cream pie so it was going to be a new experience for me. Not wanting to disappoint, I had begun looking for recipes for pie shells and whipped cream. Our plans for dinner and a movie postponed the cream pie adventure.

Saturday was spent quietly as S organized her music library and I worked on a web site. We were going to catch the 7 o’clock showing of the movie as we figured the 10 o’clock showing would make for a long night. The earlier show meant getting an earlier dinner. K arrived shortly before five and S went online to see what time our favourite neighbourhood restaurant opened. “It opens at six,” S announced to us from behind her computer screen.

She searched for a few other places and found that they too only opened for business at six. “We can order pizza,” I suggested.

“This one is open at five,” S said finding another local place we could easily get to. “They only take cash though.”

Even though we’d never been to this particular restaurant, we figured we’d give it a try; especially since we were short on options.

We stopped in at a variety store to use their ATM and S was shocked to see that the dusty, smelly store had a food menu posted behind the cashier. “Who would eat anything that came out of there?” S asked after we exited the store.

“Remember, I told you that they had hot tables set up in the back?” I replied.

“Ugh, it’s disgusting,” S said trying to clear her mind of the vision of food being served in the dingy store.

We arrived at the restaurant and noticed it was very dark inside. “It doesn’t look open,” K said. We then saw the sign on the door announcing that they were closed for a few days and would be open again later on in the week.

“Now what?” Someone asked.

We continued to walk along the street in the hopes of finding somewhere we could have dinner. We passed a few flower shops, antique places and a few bars and restaurants, all of which were either too sketchy to eat in or were not yet open.

“There sure are a lot of bakeries around here,” S said. “I wonder if any of them sell chocolate cream pie?” And then we saw it. In the window of a bakery we were approaching, a sign:

On Sale: Chocolate Cream Pie & Boston Cream Pie.

“Oh my God! That’s totally freaky!” S said surprised at the discovery.

“Do you want to come back after the movie?” I teased.

“Yes!!” She eagerly replied.

“That was pretty random,” K chimed in.

“How serendipitous,” S answered.

We continued our walk and before we knew it, we were a few blocks from the movie theater. “There’s a Harvey’s close by; I’m fine with that,” I suggested.

“It’s also a Swiss Chalet,” S pointed out.

We got to the front door and S and I walked towards it while K walked around the side of the restaurant. “Where’s the Swiss Chalet entrance?” she asked.

“It’s all the same,” S replied.

We went up to the cashier, a young prissy gay boy in a Harvey’s uniform, and ordered our usual Swiss Chalet meals. “Do you guys use Harvey’s fries?” K asked.

The boy behind the counter looked at S, who had already ordered as if to ask, Is your friend for real?

He informed K that yes, they did use Harvey’s fries so she ordered a baked potatoe with her meal instead.

We sat down at a table and tucked into our meals. It wasn’t the dinner we thought we’d have and we found ourselves with a lot of time to kill before the start of the movie.

We chit chatted about work and K’s dating adventures. She had made impromptu plans to meet a guy for drinks after the movie. S and I wondered how safe that was, but K felt comfortable enough to meet the guy. While in the restaurant, we took in the range of customers. There were a lot of teens, boys dressed in baggie jeans and hoodies sitting around trying to out-best their friends with raunchy comments.

Then there was the girl who clung to her boyfriend as if to announce to everyone that he was hers and hers only. One look at the boyfriend showed he had a tied scarf around his neck, coiffed hair and mustard coloured shoes. I wonder if that girl realizes her boyfriend’s a ‘mo?

About half an hour before the start of the movie, we decided to head over to the theater. S bought the tickets and then K bought the snacks. We had high hopes for the movie since it was the same director who had done one of the Bourne movies.

We were sorely disappointed. About twenty minutes into it, S leaned forward in her chair and whispered, “I’m okay with leaving!” K said that we couldn’t leave, she’d be too embarrassed, so we stayed.

None of us realized just how much of a war movie it was. I thought it was only partly based on the events of Iraq with the rest of the story told elsewhere. I didn’t think the plot was that interesting and I didn’t particularly think the story was told well. It just fell flat to me.

When the credits rolled, we all looked at each other like, This has been a stellar night!

“The way this night is shaping up, you know your date is going to suck,” I teased K.

On the way out of the theater, S announced, “lets take a cab!”

K and I chuckled. “It’s not that far!” K replied.

“I have all of this cash from earlier, and I want to spend it!” S said. We flagged down a cab and were home shortly after.

“That movie requires some wine,” I said upon getting home. S and I enjoyed the rest of a bottle of wine from the previous night while K had a bottle of water. It turned out that her date wouldn’t be able to meet that night anyway so they made plans to hang out on Sunday. K hung out for a bit and then went home.

It was a pretty random day. I think the moral of the story is call ahead to the restaurant to make sure they’re open and maybe check out movie reviews before heading to the theater.

Next Saturday, we’ll be sure to treat ourselves to a nice dinner after our shopping excursion. Lord knows I’ll likely need a drink.

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