I mentioned to you recently that I had lunch downtown at an ever-so-hip restaurant. What I didn’t mention is that it was one of a couple of unpleasant dining experiences I have had recently – all resulting from bad service.

I have waited tables before, and my guess is many of my readers have also. The percentage of people who have waited tables at some point in their life is astounding, though apparently not astounding enough for me to remember what it is.

I say that so that you will know that I appreciate the difficulties involved in being a server. Hard work. A lot of smiling. Putting up with a lot of unpleasant people. I get it.

Many of my nieces and nephews have been or are currently food servers. By the way, apparently that’s the politically correct term for what we used to call waiters and waitresses. Personally, I’m not crazy about the term since I think those whatever-you-call-thems do more than just serve you food. But no one asked me.

So, at the risk of offending them and thereby losing the opportunity of receiving a Christmas present from them, I will tell you that I have very mixed feelings about tipping. On the one hand, it annoys me greatly that their financial security is dependent on me – me, who is not their employer.

On the other hand, I recognize that if I didn’t pay their salary via my tip, their employer would have to and since they are in the business to make money, they would pass that cost on to me anyhow.

So, do I want to tip or pay more for food?

In Europe, food servers (man, I really hate that term) make a solid living wage, paid for by their employer. Tipping, therefore, is much different. You leave a small amount on the table – enough for them to buy a beer after work, according to our son Allen who waited tables in Switzerland for a few years — but nothing even coming close to 20 percent.

But here’s my real point (you didn’t think I had one, did you?). For about a million years, I tipped 15 percent for good service. Over the course of the past few years, I’ve noticed that I now tend to tip 20 percent, no matter the service. Now, I recognize that waiters, er, food servers, experience inflation as do we all. However, the cost of food reflects that inflation, so their tips are higher anyway.

I have to tell you a story about a recent restaurant experience. We were at a very nice Italian restaurant last weekend. Our server introduced himself. “Buona sera,” he said in a heavily Italian accented voice. “I will be your server this evening.”

We ordered our food, and a lot of it. We ordered a bottle of wine, a couple of appetizers, a beet salad and a Caesar salad, a pasta dish to share, and each of the four of us ordered an entrée.

Our wine was nicely delivered. Our appetizers came promptly. And then we waited. And waited and waited. Probably 45 minutes. At first Georgio would come over and say, “Your tagliatelli will be up very soon.” Pretty soon he stopped coming by, or when he did, he would hurry past with his head down.

Finally it came. Now, in the meantime, we were having a lovely time, and were not in a hurry. We joked that it was kind of like eating in Italy, where food is served and eaten in an unhurried manner. So we didn’t complain despite the fact that we weren’t in Italy.

Now let me explain something else. This is a very genuinely Italian restaurant. Bill and I have dined extensively in Italy, where salads aren’t terribly common. They are often served at the end of the meal prior to dessert as sort of a finisher. So I wasn’t entirely sure at what point our salad would be served.

Back to my story. So after finishing our pasta, we waited a bit longer (though not 45 minutes), and he served us our entrées. Everything was absolutely delicious.

It wasn’t until he asked us about dessert that I fully realized our salads were not going to be served. That really was fine because we were all quite full. The problem presented itself when we got our bill, which included the two salads. I called the waiter over and told him, “Sir, you charged us for the salads that we never got.”

With genuine surprise, he said, “I didn’t serve you your salads?”

Seriously? He simply forgot to bring an entire COURSE?

But here’s what really gets to me. I tipped him 20 percent. In hindsight, I should not have done so. Should I have? It was his fault, not the kitchen’s, I expect. That probably accounted for the 45-minute wait between appetizers and our pasta. The kitchen presumed we were happily munching on our salads.

My experience at lunch wasn’t quite that bad. Our waiter just seemed disinterested in us. So disinterested, in fact, that as he took our order, he didn’t even look at us. He spent the entire time looking over at the table next to us.  Rude, no? But, between that experience and the Italian restaurant experience, I had had a firm talk with myself. NO MORE TIPPING 20 PERCENT FOR INFERIOR SERVICE. I promise Nieces and Nephews, I won’t punish a server for a bad kitchen. But it wasn’t the kitchen’s fault that my waiter, er, food server, forgot an ENTIRE COURSE. Mr. Disinterested only got 15 percent.

Twenty percent for exceptional service, 15 percent for average service, 10 percent for forgetting an entire course.

So much for Christmas this year.

On Monday I put on my big girl pants and took light rail downtown to have lunch with a friend. I always feel grown-up when I am downtown. The restaurants are all so, well, hip. And – for the record – I am so NOT. Still, it’s fun to see how the other much-more-hip crowd lives.

But one of my favorite parts of the whole downtown experience is light rail. I love our light rail system. The station is a mere three-quarters of a mile from my house, and the train lets me off in the new uber-cool (and uber-hip) Union Station area.

The best part of the light rail experience, of course, is the people-watching. During a recent short-lived jury duty experience (I was dismissed about two hours after I arrived at the courthouse and dang, I would have been such a great juror), I took light rail to the courthouse during the morning commute. I am quite a savvy mid-day light rail traveler, and I was struck at how different morning commuters are from mid-day passengers. During the day, it seems the train travelers are mostly families or groups of friends – all in jolly moods and talking and laughing freely.

During rush hour, the trains are quiet. Commuters travel alone. A full-third of them, I’ll bet, are catching a quick nap during the trip. Some are quietly reading. Others merely gaze out the window in a daze. No one talks. Most carry brief cases or large commuter bags.  Some have lunch boxes.

Anyhoo, as I took the light rail back to my house following my oh-so-hip lunch, I couldn’t help but notice two young women – maybe early 20s – traveling together. One of the women carried her daughter – or at least I presume it was her daughter – around 3 years old or so. The woman-with-the-daughter was very pretty, and also very tattooed. She was wearing a tank top and shorts, and I saw that she had a fairly large tattoo on her neck. The tattoo said MIGUEL, with lots of loop-de-doos and curly cues and hearts.

Now I, of course, begin immediately to write her story, as I’m so prone to do. Seeing no wedding ring, I presume she is not married to Miguel. However, they are a devoted couple, and have a daughter. She is so in love and so committed to him (though not committed enough to be married; what can I say?), she has his name tattooed prominently on her neck.

But here’s the thing. According to an arguably-unreliable-but- nevertheless-often-tossed-around statistic, 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. I would guess the rate of unsuccessful partnerships that don’t include marriage would be 50 percent or higher. So, there is a good chance that this young woman and Miguel won’t end up together. In 8.8 years, they will be history.

What does she do about her neck? (Yes, folks, this is the kind of thing that keeps my brain occupied throughout my light rail trip.)

Does she pay to have the tattoo removed? I would think that would be so very painful. Of course, I would think getting a tattoo on one’s neck would be painful, so clearly I’m a wimp and a non-tattoo getter.

The alternative, of course, is to only date men named Miguel. That way you could avoid the whole getting-the-tattoo-removed scenario (though it might be difficult to explain on the first date).

Her match.com profile would be very short. No concerns about long walks on beaches or religious beliefs.

Must be named Miguel.

There’s a chance I’m overthinking the whole thing.

I will admit it. I am a sucker for the new fall season.

I’m not talking about the season of fall, though I am somewhat a fan of the cooler weather, the apple desserts, and the changing colors.

I mean I am a sucker for the new fall season of television.

Again, I must explain that I don’t mean I am necessarily a fan of the 2014 fall season (that remains to be seen). I mean that I have always eagerly anticipated the new fall season.

When I was a little girl, my mother had a subscription to Good Housekeeping, McCalls, Readers Digest, the Columbus Daily Telegram, and TV Guide. I LOVED reading TV Guide all of the time, but I especially loved it in the late summer when they would begin talking about the upcoming television programs.

I would pore over the magazine, deciding which of the new programs would interest me and what would be happening on the programs that I was already watching. Would Jeannie and Captain Nelson get married? Would Tabitha be a witch or a mortal? Which program would I like better – The Munsters or The Addams Family? Would Hoss Cartwright find a love interest or was he gay? (Actually, I never wondered about that because at that point in my life, that was beyond my wildest imagination. I couldn’t even handle my mother and father having sex. Didn’t happen.)

By the way, as I think back, it makes me laugh that I contemplated this so seriously because it wasn’t like we had more than one television. So whatever was watched, we all watched together. And there were only three channels – NBC, CBS, and ABC – so our choices were limited. And, of course, no recording of programs. You watched what you watched, and if another interesting program was on the other channel, well, that was just tough unless you could lobby effectively enough. And let’s face it – the decision always rested with Mom and Dad.

Over the years, my love for the new television season hasn’t changed, except for the fact that I don’t subscribe to TV Guide. But I always eagerly await the new programs. This year is no exception.

Some have already begun, and some will premier this week.

I have no interest in any programs that involve super heroes, time travel, fairy tales, living in a post-apocalyptic world, or reliance upon laugh tracks.

I AM interested in political shows, police procedurals, and comedies that make me laugh out loud (i.e. Modern Family and The Mindy Project). I shamefully admit my addiction to Dancing With the Stars and American Idol.

I am willing to give things on the cusp of my requirements the ol’ college try, but I don’t want to have to work too hard. Shows like Nashville are predictable with generally silly plots, but I can sit back after a long day and follow that silly plot without having to work my brain too hard. Pretty characters, pretty scenery, pretty music. It’s a go (at least until it gets too silly, as it tried to do last season).

I love the family dynamics on Blue Bloods. I particularly like the weekly ending when the extended family is gathered at the table for dinner. I appreciate the mostly positive presentation of the family’s Catholic faith. And I think I would watch Tom Sellick clean up his back yard if that was televised. He is such a compelling actor.

Glee is the only way I’m able to keep up with contemporary music. The teenage angst is sometimes hard to take, but Jane Lynch makes it all worthwhile. It’s my only link to new music – that, and American Idol. Sad, I know.

This season, here are the programs I intend to give a try: Madame Secretary, The Mysteries of Laura, State of Affairs, and, of course, How to Get Away With Murder. There may be others. I’m open to suggestions.

I will admit, however, that How to Get Away With Murder is already causing me angst. Why, I wonder, are those kids lugging around that body in the rug? Why didn’t they just decide what to do with whoever it is, and then lug it to that location? It reminded me of Weekend with Bernie. No one seemed to be particularly concerned about these kids hauling around this giant rolled-up rug. Plus, the whole program is so dark that Bill and I, with our elderly eyes, are mostly saying to one another, “Who was that? I couldn’t see who it was.”

So, I’ll give it a try, but am not willing to give a long-term commitment at this time. Annalise is going to have to become a lot more likeable before I’ll do that.

What programs will you be recording this season? Am I missing out on something wonderful?

I don’t usually post blogs that are religious in nature. But yesterday’s Gospel and the priest’s homily that followed hit me like a ton of bricks. I guess it’s supposed to.

I consider myself to be a good person. No, let me rephrase that. I am a good person. I’m honest. I think I’m mostly considerate of others. I try to be generous. I attend weekly Mass, and pray every day. Despite all of this, yesterday’s gospel reading made me sit up straighter and take a big gulp.

The gospel was from Matthew. In it, Jesus told those high-falutin know-it-all Pharisees a story.

A man had two sons. (Don’t a lot of Jesus’ parables start this way? Kind of like the jokes that begin “There was a priest, a minister, and a rabbi…..”) Anyhoo, this man asked his first son if he would go out and work in his vineyard. The son told his father, “No way, Jose. I’ve got better things to do.” Later he felt guilty about his response, and went and worked in the fields. In the meantime, the man asked his second son – the suck-up son; every family has one – if he would work in the vineyard. Mr. Suck Up assured his father he would indeed be delighted to do so. In fact, he never even stepped foot in the field.

Jesus asked the Pharisees who was the better man?

The Pharisees, of course, answered correctly, as they always did. The better man was the first son because he actually helped out his father in the end.

Of course, when Jesus was asking the Pharisees that question, he was also asking me the same question. And just like the Pharisees, I know the right answer. But just like the Pharisees, I promptly forget to do what’s right in my everyday life activities just as soon as I leave the church.

Every morning when I say my prayers, I am just like the second son. I offer my prayers for my special intentions, and then promise God that I will be a blessing to those I encounter that day. I sincerely mean it every morning when I offer that prayer. I will be happy to work in the vineyard, Lord.

Unfortunately, I almost never do.

Don’t get me wrong. I open doors for people. I let people into a line of traffic. If a little old lady fell down in front of me, I would help her up. But those obvious instances don’t very often present themselves to me. Thankfully, no little old ladies plop down in my path. Mostly I go through my day in my own little world, oblivious to the needs of others.

What I should be doing is working at food banks or taking Communion to nursing homes or driving someone without a car to the grocery store. Those opportunities are out there. I just don’t seek them out. I wait for someone to ask me to do it.

I’m just like the son who said he would work in the field but didn’t. Lord, help me make opportunities to help others.

Wholly unrelated to my above rant, I am enjoying the end-of-the-summer floral and foliage show. Pretty autumn flowers and foliage…..

Having all of these grandkids, I can’t help but be exposed to some of the funniest conversations. I love witnessing the world from their perspectives.

Being 4, and simply being a funny, funny little girl, Mylee’s take on situations often makes me laugh..

She and I were returning from Panda Express last Saturday with lunch. I was in a hurry to get the food home while it was still reasonably hot. So when we got stuck at a stoplight with a no-turn-on-red-arrow, I was frustrated that the green arrow only lasted a few seconds. We sat at the light for a good while.

In my frustration, I finally said aloud, “Why is that arrow so short?”

The rest of the trip home, Mylee kept saying, “Nana, why is that arrow so small? That arrow needs to be bigger.”

It took me a bit to understand what she meant. Apparently in Mylee’s eyes, short equals small.

Have a great weekend.

Readers Warning: Following is the longest (and arguably least interesting) blog I’ve ever posted. Nana’s Whimsies suggests a cup of coffee before diving in.

Jen came down to Denver last Saturday so that we could belatedly celebrate her birthday. Saturday was an unusually busy day for me. At the end of the day, she told me, “You need to write a blog about a day in the life of Nana’s Whimsies.

I do?

For the most part, my life is the predictable life of a retired woman with a husband and children and grandchildren. If my life was hooked to a heart rate monitor, there would be a series of blips – all the same size.

It’s true, however, that Saturday would have caused the nurses and doctors to come running with the paddles.

Saturday was bound to be a busy day. Kaiya and Mylee were spending the day with me and Jen was coming mid-morning to spend the day and night so we could celebrate her birthday. I planned to prepare a yummy dinner and bake a special birthday cake. You know how you have these dreams of having a life like you see on Barefoot Contessa? Minus the big Hamptons house and the multitude of gay friends to bring spectacular bouquets of flowers and expensive wines.

Sometime in the middle of Friday night, I had a sit-up-suddenly-in-bed moment when I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to make the fancy, delicious, but complicated Braised Beef Shortribs in a Marsala Cream Sauce. Ina Garten would have been able to because she has staff. I had no staff coming that day, only a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old who I knew would want to help me cook – a practice I love, but I simply couldn’t imagine them working on a Marsala cream sauce.

So in the middle of the night, I came up with Plan B, a simple meal that could be prepared in its entirety after the girls went home.

To this end, I was at Whole Foods bright and early to purchase mussels and rib-eye steaks. A simple but delicious substitute for my elaborate Plan A.

It was at Whole Foods that my phone rang. Eleven-year-old Addie was looking for a way to get out of going to her brother’s flag football game. “Can I come over and hang out with you, Nana?”

Sure. Why not? The more, the merrier.

But my day was about to get a bit more complicated. When I went to pick up the two little girls, they opened the door, and the first words out of Kaiya’s mouth, quite literally, were, “Mom says you will help us make ice cream today. I want to make strawberry and Mylee wants to make chocolate.”

Now, I could, of course, say ice cream was a no-go due to scheduling conflicts, but honestly? After all, I’m the nana.

So we went to the grocery store to get strawberries, a chocolate bar, whole milk, and cream. They insisted on pushing the cart, and I, sadly, allowed it to happen. Sorry to the person with the little tiny dink in their side door. It was really, really little. Barely noticeable.

Addie was there when we got home and Jen arrived shortly after. Lunch was looming, and I hadn’t a thing to eat. Again, see above. No staff.

What do you want for lunch, I asked the girls. The predictable answer: Panda Express. I don’t know why I ask because they will always choose “Panda.”

So Mylee and I picked up five orders of Orange Chicken and we five girls sat at my kitchen table and ate our food as Addie told us the ins and outs of being a new middle schooler.

“You should all come to the carnival we’re having at school this afternoon,” Addie said. “I’m the face painter and I could paint Kaiya and Mylee’s faces.”

Kaiya and Mylee looked at me, and we were sooooo going to the Carnival. Jen – bless her heart — just went with the flow.

But before we went to any carnival, we were going to make the ice cream. I wasn’t going to have dinked that person’s car for nothing.

Enjoying ice cream clean-up.

By time we got to the carnival, it was almost 3:30. The face painting line was long. And slow. And disorganized because, you see, it wasn’t run by the Disney Corporation. It was run by 11-year-old girls who didn’t know how to do crowd control. But Kaiya could not be dissuaded from getting her face painted. Addie was the painter, you see.

Finally, after standing in line for 45 minutes or more, Addie spotted us and came out and pulled us ahead of everyone else in line. In front of mothers who had been waiting with their darlings for longer than we. I made a half-hearted attempt to defer to others, but by this time our son was sending me texts saying “have you kidnapped our daughters and taken them to another country?”

In the meantime, Jen was walking around with Mylee, who had no interest whatsoever in getting her face painted. She chose the Cake Walk, but unfortunately never quite grasped the concept and emerged cakeless, but happily unpainted. Kaiya chose the Indian princess design….

We finally got home around 5 (after finally handing the girls off to their parents), and I had yet to make Jen’s birthday cake. She had chosen – randomly, I thought – a peach upside down cake. It involved making a caramel sauce, slicing fresh peaches, and grinding up pecans, but I did it quite happily because I love my sister and the cake looked delicious.

I had time for a glass of wine on our patio before beginning preparations for my easily-prepared dinner. Mussels, I have learned, are simple, simple, simple to make – especially once they are cleaned. So dinner took less than a half-hour to prepare. Plus, we are grown-ups, and we could eat sometime past 6 o’clock. We in fact didn’t sit down to eat until 7:30 or so. Grown-ups, remember?

We enjoyed our dinner, and the dessert was divine. Being grown-ups (see above), I put a little Grand Marnier into the whipped cream.

When I finally crawled into bed somewhere around 10, I told my husband it was the most tired I’ve ever been. Hyperbole, but good for dramatic effect.

This is the longest post I’ve ever written, and I probably lost you all somewhere between Panda Express and the Cake Walk. Still, it gives you a sense of what my life can be like on the days when I’m not sitting on my behind reading or watching Masterpiece Mysteries. I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, except for the dink in the door.

Oh give me the land, lots of land
Under starry skies above
Don’t fence me in. – Robert Fletcher and Cole Porter

In the spring of 2013, Bill decided it was time to make some sort of decision regarding our fence.

As you know, when you own a single-family home, you are apt to share a fence on as many as three sides. We do. We, along with our neighbors to the south, put up a new south fence a few years ago. The fence dividing our yard from the neighbors to the east is still in pretty good shape. Well, it might not be in such good shape, but at least we can’t really see it because it’s blocked by trees and bushes. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

But the fence dividing our yard from our neighbor to the north was, in the manner of London Bridge, falling down.

So he contacted our neighbor and asked if she was interested in sharing the expense of a new fence. She was.

But as I have mentioned before, Bill likes projects. So there was no way that I was going to convince him that we should just turn this whole “new fence thing” over to a company that builds fences. So before I could say Bob the Builder, he was out there tearing down the old dilapidated fence.

Within a few days, he had torn down the entire fence and removed any posts that were crumbling. He reluctantly agreed to let a fencing company do the rest.

That was just a stone’s throw from a year-and-a-half ago, and we still have no fence. And, what’s more, that’s ok with us. Our neighbor and we mutually agreed that we would take our time about rebuilding the fence.

The thing is, we find we like the openness. She keeps her yard nice; we keep our yard nice. It’s like a big and beautiful park.

No fence!

But what I like even better is that we can see each other from our back porches. She will wave to me when she’s mowing her yard. She will come by if she sees us out on our back porch in the evening. I can pull my garden hose over to her yard to water her plants when she’s out of town.

In fact, last week, Bill finally cleared a designated path between our yards so that we can

Fence!

easily go back and forth. We had been sort of stepping over miscellaneous garden paraphernalia. Since the fence was removed, we have become quite friendly.

When we came back to Denver this spring from Arizona, we asked our neighbor if she was still okay with not having a fence.

“Oh my yes,” was her immediate reply. “I love hearing your grandkids play in your yard. It makes me happy.”

It reminded me of growing up in Columbus when my mom and our neighbor would get together for coffee klatshes. Back in those days there were no big, wooden fences blocking the view to your neighbors. There might be a hedge, but you could wave to your neighbors over the hedge. And you could walk through the hedge to have a cup of coffee.

Before Bill and I married, Court and I lived in a little house in an older urban neighborhood. There was a fence, but it was a chain link fence. I knew my neighbors. We shared a clothes line. We could (and would) talk over the fence.

The neighborhood in which we now live is much different. Big wooden privacy fences do their privacy job well, but keep us from knowing our neighbors. I literally drive my car into the garage, close the door, and never see the neighbors unless I happen to be unloading some groceries and someone walks by.

So for the time being, we are bucking the trend (and likely breaking a homeowners’ association covenant) and enjoying sharing life – at least to a certain extent – with our neighbor. We all know that at some point we will have to put up a fence, but in the meantime, it’s nice to be able to say “Howdy Neighbor!”

What’s your situation? Fence or no fence? Which would you prefer?

We have been lucky enough to enjoy food from different places around the world, primarily western Europe. I have waxed eloquently (or at least nauseatingly at length) at how astoundingly delicious the food is in Italy and France. I enjoyed me some yummy bratwurst in Germany and Austria as well.

But as you may already know, while the food in these countries is divine, the portions are CONSIDERABLY smaller than you would get in the United States. In particular, in France, you are liable to get a portion of chicken or veal or fish with a delicious sauce and a beautiful presentation, but it will be a noticeably small amount.

It’s always enough, however.

Now I am not here to play the snotty American and bash our food. I love traditional American cooking. But I am regularly astounded at the sheer amount of food we are served at restaurants.

Anyhoo, all this is to lead up to a confession. Bill and I went to the Golden Corral last Friday. We and several hundred others. It’s a popular place.

I’m not sure I have ever seen so much food offered in one spot in my life. For a mere $10.99, you can get almost any kind of traditional American cooking (and by American, I include wannabe Italian and Mexican), and LOTS OF IT.

Fried chicken, meatloaf, pot roast, roasted turkey, rigatoni, tamales, meatballs, steak, turnip greens, refried beans, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, cherry pie, pecan pie, carrot cake, ice cream, a chocolate fountain and a caramel fountain. Oh, and sugar-free gelatin. (How did THAT make the cut?) I’m not even coming close to telling you everything from which we had to choose.

Our son Court went to Golden Corral’s first cousin Country Buffet a few months ago. I asked him how it was. “Lots of fairly average food,” was his response.

I, on the other hand, thought it to be lots of better-than-average food, and I didn’t have to prepare it myself. Honestly, some of the food choices were quite good. I liked, for example, the fried chicken.

On the other hand, some of the food choices were quite bad. So I guess that averages out to meet Court’s assessment.

There’s something insidious about all-you-can eat buffets. Let’s face it. $10.99 for a couple of pieces of fried chicken, some green beans, a helping of mashed potatoes and gravy, and a dinner roll would be a good buy. But for some reason, when you have put out, well, really ANY amount of money for a buffet, you feel compelled to eat a ridiculous amount.

And we did. Why-oh-why did I think I needed a second plate? Well, actually, that’s easy to answer. Because I could.  I think we can safely say we have officially crossed over to “elderly.”

As we left the restaurant – so miserably full – Bill noticed that the entrance consisted of one door but the exit consisted of two doors.

“That’s because you’re twice the size when you leave,” Bill wryly pointed out.

Nana’s Notes: At Sunday’s Mass, our entrance hymn was “Table of Plenty.” It has been running through my brain ever since. I wake up at night to that song. I’m hoping by using it in my title, somehow that will give the tune permission to leave my head. Please God.