An organization we belong to known as the Association of Retired Foreign Service Officers has periodic lunch meetings. The speakers are usually very good and the company splendid; if we're in town we go. Last meeting was in San Clemente at El , a lovely old Spanish restaurant with many famous clients.
A delightful and very well-organized woman volunteers her time to coordinate these events, selecting the venue, aranging the menus and coordinating payment from everyone. This is a thankless job as anyone who has attempted it will verify. It takes plenty of time and patience plus an eye for detail. For this particular event everyone had selected from the menu ahead of time, in some cases, a month or so ahead of time.
Unfortunately for all of us, Phoebe had an accident the morning of the event. She fell down hard in front of her house and wasn't at the restaurant when we all arrived; as time went on, she still didn't show. Another woman helps from time to time and she stepped into the breach. Lunch time came and dishes started to arrive in the dining room; the challenge now was to determine who ordered what. Many of these people are over 80 and couldn't remember what they'd ordered. Waiters were wandering around, yelling (many of the retired officers can't hear either), "Whose got the President's Choice?"
Happily Phoebe dragged herself in just as confusion had really set in, with plates being passed around and more befuddled waiters crowding in to try to help. Couples were yelling at each other about what they had or hadn't ordered. Oh my.
Phoebe after some shuffling around produced post-it notes for each person with what they had ordered written on it - and they were color coded! Order ruled and we all sat there with our sticky notes, waiting to be served.
Prez Choice is what Richard had. He leaned over and asked me what it was. He'd forgotten that it was the favorite dish of President Nixon...one of the reasons we attended this meeting in the first place. Ha!
No comments:
Post a Comment