Mother's Day
11:04 p.m.
We took her and her boyfriend out for dinner tonight to a Japanese restaurant, not just a sushi bar (of which our city seems to have several), where the chef performed the whole show of preparing our dinner in front of us. It was incredibly entertaining, but I don't think for the reasons the restaurant owners intended.
The hostess/waitress seated us in a room which contained two cooking tables. We were the only customers the whole time we were there. She took our orders and brought us a bottle of sake, then returned with soup, followed by small salads. She spoke no English and her French was very heavily Japanese-accented, so it was difficult to understand her in any case. The chef, however, was absolutely hilarious. He was very tall to begin with and wore a blue chef's hat which nearly touched the ceiling (he actually had to duck to come through the doorway) and chattered away loudly in the strangest mix I have ever heard. I think it was French, but it was mostly unintelligible gibberish. Everything he put on the heat surface was "Japanes this" and "Japanese that", including the coke that he poured over the salmon and shrimps (that's how they get that nice glaze!). My salmon was delicious, and everyone else enjoyed their orders as well.
After we finally had our food, the ambience reverted to the calm from previously, beautiful Japanese music coming from the hidden speakers, and we enjoyed our meal. The waitress wanted to know if it was anyone's birthday and we confessed that Little Princess was celebrating her 20th. The serenity was suddenly exploded by the chef returning, banging on a gong, and the waitress bringing a cake with a sparkler in it. We sang "Happy Birthday" in a mixture of French, English, and I have no idea what else, the gong was banged several more times, and suddenly they were gone. The only word I could think of to describe the whole procedure was "manic".
We arrived home to find three of Little Princess' friends on the front porch. I had arranged earlier with a couple of members of her band that they come over for a little surprise party for her after dinner (I couldn't write about it earlier because she sometimes reads this diary), and eventually they all showed up. I served cake, Hubby served beer, and the keyboard player brought over alcoholic beverages for general consumption. It was a very nice evening.
And, wonder of wonders, it's raining again!
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