Cheesecakes and Bikinis

Who goes to The Cheesecake Factory and doesn't eat dessert?

So I joined hubby in Phoenix this past week while he was there in training. I flew out Tuesday after a hurried "clean up the house for the cat sitter who is a 19 years old boy that doesn't care and is only house/cat sitting to get free satellite, food and freedom" frenzy. I seriously slept for like 3 hours and then began to clean the house so I could drive 2 hours and sit in an airport for another 2 hours for an hour long flight. I probably could have driven to Phoenix faster...

Anyway, because hubby was in class all day long, I was left to amuse myself. I swam in the pool at the hotel and slept forever and a day. I spent way too much money (great to have shopping choices!). Of course, no shopping trip is complete without a trip to Build-A-Bear, so my bear, Greggory, now has clothing from Arizona--and I bought him a fireman outfit.

When we travel, we have a rule that we have to eat somewhere that we can't get in Los Alamos or Santa Fe...so when I told our friends K&A that we'd met them for dinner any place that abides by those rules, A told me that she knew that ruled out McDonalds and Sonic, but everywhere else was fine :) So we ate at a Mexican restaurant with K&A...again, we generally avoid Mexican because it's not New MEXICAN, and that can lead to disappointment. However, we really liked the food! We ate at P.F. Changs (which we can now get in Albuquerque), Cold Stone Creamery (they closed the one in Santa Fe...grr!), and then we ate at The Cheesecake Factory.

I think we disappointed the waiter when we didn't really want a big meal. Of course, we were eating at 4:30 because I had to catch the flight home. I was disappointed when I didn't have room for dessert...who goes to this restaurant and doesn't eat dessert?!?! And it's not like there weren't a million choices of cheesecake. It's not like I don't love cheesecake. I've never met a dessert that I don't like--and if I hadn't wanted cheesecake, I could have had one of the many other choices. Instead, we left the restaurant, bought some more books at the book store, and then I went to the airport where I got hungry and had to settle for nasty airport food.

Which reminds me...when did the airlines stop giving out peanuts? When I went to Georgia, we were given stale trail mix. Going to Phoenix I got the standard small cup of flat Diet Coke, but I didn't get peanuts or stale trail mix. You'd think for the bazillion dollars it costs to fly anywhere there would be peanuts.

Final travel thoughts were that I had the pleasure of sitting behind a woman coming from Seattle to Albuquerque. She was sitting next to a man that was visiting New Mexico (I don't know where) for the weekend. I guess he's been here before, because he felt comfortable answering this woman's questions even though he answered incorrectly ("where's Santa Domingo? Isn't that north of Santa Fe?" and he answered "yes" or "aren't there like 4 feast days for the state" and again, he made up an answer). They seemed to become bosom buddies along the way, and I couldn't figure it out until I saw them deplaning...he with his sandals and white socks and straw hat, her with her bikini top blatant under a shell that had fallen off her right shoulder. He met the stereotypical description of most scientists here in my town, and she was the stereotypical free spirit hippie of Santa Fe. It's interesting that when a stranger shows interest in us, we gain confidence and begin to lose the confines of "our" type and just become part of the human race...I doubt he even noticed her bikini top.