Explanations and deliberations

My blogging mojo, as you may have noticed, has been severely lacking. I put this down to a couple of reasons:
a) my creative writing course is keeping me so occupied that it's difficult to find a moment to blog, and when I do, I feel like I've used up most of whatever creative juices I might have had.
b) I have been otherwise occupied by a crapload of admin, mainly for church and my freelancing business, as well as by the fact that our neighbourhood is up in arms about this big warehouse store that wants to open on our doorstep, so we've been attending, photocopying notices and generally running around like headless chickens.
c) a lot of stuff that's going on in my little world is unmentionable on this-here public space, just in case the wrong people happen to be reading it.

But here I am anyway, so let me give you a little update on happenings:

• We saw Up in the Air on Friday. It was good. George Clooney is as gorgeous as ever and the movie was well made. But I don't quite see what all the fuss was about.
• On Saturday we visited Kitty Haven and signed up to volunteer. When asked about which area I'd like to help with, I ticked "Cat cuddler". Isn't that a dream job?
• We went for brunch at Melrose Arch on the way back at Grand Central. It's the first time I've been to Melrose Arch just for the sake of being there - I've only ever been there to the offices before for work meetings. I must say, we had a divine time at Grand Central. It is the first place we've found in the almost three years we've been in Joburg where the Eggs Benedict matches up to that perfect creation from The Gardener's Cottage in Newlands, Cape Town. TSC had that, while I enjoyed a homemade lemonade (yum!) with my brerakfast of polenta toast with sweet corn, avocado sala, sauteed cherry tomatoes, wilted rocket, pesto, Napolitana sauce and grated pecorino cheese. It was heavenly.
• I got seriously stuck into my garden on Saturday afternoon. I have the scrapes and bruises to prove it.
• TSC went to the rugby with friends and I enjoyed the opportunity to go out gift shopping for Roo and finish up TSC's Valentine's Day card.
• Yesterday we overslept. And it was bliss. Since I started this writing course I haven't been able to sleep properly with all the ideas running through my head (and not all of them are useful. Sometime early this morning, my dreams were telling me that there should be a giraffe as one of the central characters and that I should name her Abigail. Weird). Anyhoo, we spent our day having a picnic on our lawn with sparkling wine and chocolate mousse. It was the best way to spend the day - away from te madding crowds!
• Last night we met my folks for dinner at Primi Piatti in Midrand. It was nice to catch-up, although I did almost all the talking. I couldn't stop myself... I just needed a vent about this stupid warehouse store (noise, traffic, security and aesthetical issues, nevermind the fact that the value of our property will plummet if it goes ahead) and work stuff. The good news was that this Primi still had gnocchi bolognese on their menu. All the other branches have stopped making it and that dish was pretty much the only reason I ever went to Primi.
• Today was the deadline for the submission of our first writing assignment. I had great fun doing mine, but I'm terrified of the feedback! I posted my synopsis on the course forum and the course teacher gave me a great response. He loved my writing, although he reckons I'm giving myself way too much work. I agree with his poitn of using my granddad's life story as background and writing the last bit I'd planned - the relationship this old man has with his second love, and how he deals with the situation. Having a clear focus has helped me more than I can say. I may post the revised synopsis sometime for your thoughts.
• Have a great week. I promise I'll be back soon this time ;-)

Sucky service rant and word verification

Thanks again to everyone who helped make my birthday awesome.

I had a great facial at Dischem, despite the therapist being unfriendly to the point of it actually being rude. It's the first time I've had a laser facial (hell, it's the seocnd time I've ever had any sort of facial) and it was quite pleasant. I may just have to do it again sometime.

You'll see I've turned the word verification on in my comments. I'm sorry, I know it's a pain. But I have a spammer, Ric, leaving messages on all my posts, so I'm trying to deter him. I've also turned on the comment moderation on all posts older than 14 days.

Right, now for the part where I rant... (I so love having a blog to vent on!)...

I chose Primi Extreme for my birthday supper because I was craving pasta and a cosy fire, and Design Quarter is a mere 5min from our place, so it seemed like the obvious choice. Hah!

We enjoyed our food. Pity the service was so rubbish.

Bad service frustrates me enormously. As far as I'm concerned, if I'm paying good money for something, it needs to be what I'm expecting. And at restaurants that means good food in a pleasant atmosphere served by a polite waitron.

I have mixed feelings about the Primi Piatti chain of restaurants. The first Primi I ever visited was the one in Menlyn in Pretoria, which was lovely. Set in a quiet part of the shopping centre, it had a great atmosphere, good food and the service was perfect.

I also enjoyed eating (and drinking cocktails) at the one in the Waterfront in Cape Town when we lived there. But I've had bad food or poor service at one or two other branches and gone off Primi a bit. Especially since they stopped serving gnocchi, which was one of the main reasons I visited.

Last night's experience left me with a particularly bad taste in my mouth, not because of the food (which was lovely), but because of the non-existent service. See, according to its website, Primi motivates staff through a rank system with a performance-based structure. Really? You could have fooled me.

We barely saw our waiter the whole night. He seated us and asked how we were. I said I was well - it was my birthday. But he wasn't listening to our answer at all and replied with an "uh huh" before rushing off to watch one of the athletics events that was showing on the TV. That's what he did most of the night, actually. He must be an avid athletics fan, because he was glued to that screen for 95% of the time we were there.

He took our order and served us our bread, but didn't bother bringing us olive oil or balsamic vinegar to eat it with. We tried to catch his eye to request it, but he was engrossed with the athletics.

A different waiter brought our drinks, and later our food. Nobody cleared our bread basket and side plates from the table, so there was hardly any room to eat comfortably. Nobody asked if the food was ok. Nobody asked if we'd like another drink. Nobody came near. One would have sworn we were lepers.

I waited 10 minutes to get our waiter's attention to ask for some parmesan cheese for my pasta. When he brought it, the cheese tasted awful (like it had been moulding in its plastic wrapper). When a different waiter took our plates, I told him the cheese tasted funny. He said he'd look into it. We never saw him again either.

After our meal, we sat for 20 minutes waiting for our waiter or someone else to remember we existed. Nobody offered the dessert menu. No-one asked if there was anything else we'd like.

Finally, after watching the manager laughing and chatting on his mobile phone for about 10 minutes and our waiter watching the athletics, we'd had enough. We managed to catch the manager as he walked past us.

"Seeing we haven't seen our waiter all night, would you mind finding someone to bring us our bill?" I asked.

"Oh... Ok," he said, and shouted for our waiter. No apology, please note.

When the waiter arrived, TSC and I calmly told him that we were unimpressed with his service. It wasn't a busy night (he only had our table and one other), so I said I wondered why he wasn't trying his darndest to make a decent tip by giving us proper attention (I waitressed for years and that's what I would do). He made excuses, saying he had checked on us and that we'd seemed fine. Bull! We paid and left.

On our way out, we spoke to the manager, who was lounging around at the front door again. I mentioned that it might be an idea to get his waiters to wait on tables instead of watching TV. All I got in response was another, "Oh... Ok." Once again, no apology.

Thankfully, I have a lovely husband who didn't let our bad experience spoil my birthday. He took me home and cuddled me and offered me chocolate (smart man). But I really wish I had chosen somewhere else to eat on my special day. And I really don't care if Design Quarter is walking distance from my house, I'm NOT eating at Primi there again.

Right. Rant done. Have a great weekend! I plan to ;-)