Happy Birthday.

We had my birthday lunch today at our favorite Greek restaurant-- Skipper's. They had been closed since Hurricane Ike stormed through here, leaving them with seven feet of water in their restaurant. When we talked to the owner today, he told us that the water stayed at seven feet for two days before slowly starting to drain away.

As a result, his wood-paneled, home-style restaurant was in tatters. All the paintings and posters of Greece were lost, as well as the photographs of some of his regular Bay Area customers. The outside of the restaurant is built of stucco, and when we drove into the parking lot we noticed the bright new coat of paint. The outside is now brown and beige, instead of the Greek blue and white. When we walked into the front door, if we didn't know where we were, we wouldn't have guessed.

Not a wood-paneled wall in sight. The old wooden bar has been replaced by granite-- I'd guess no one is going to try and carve their initials into that. All the wood tables and chairs are new, and the new ones are more modern-looking with leather padding on the seats. Track lighting is on the ceilings, all the ceiling fans are gone, and so are the old air-conditioning units that dotted the walls of each room--- Skipper's now has central air. The smoking room at the very front of the restaurant is gone as well--- actually, the room is still there, but smoking is no longer allowed. Well, three cheers for that!

The food is still as excellent as ever, and after all these months of being closed, all the cooks, dishwashers, and waitresses are all back, as if they'd never left. We sat in the back room, as we always did, but with all the bare walls in that room, it didn't feel like the old Skipper's. I told my husband that I'm going to shop around the consignment stores and find some framed posters or paintings for the owner. The local shops are filled with nautical pictures, and maybe I can even find some posters of Greece for them. It will be our gift to their "new" restaurant.

Everything is so bright and new in there, and it does look nice-- updated without looking too modern and sterile. But that wood paneling was warm to the touch, soft to the eye, and just said "home." The inside walls are now plastered with stucco, and very clean and bright-- very different. But the owners are still the same, the music is still the same, the food is as delicious as ever, and we were just happy to have them back.


This afternoon, our friend J invited me over for tea-- and she asked me to bring Gracie as well. She said she needed a "doggie fix." J is our friend who had to put her 12-yr-old Yorkie to sleep a couple of months ago. She misses her little dog terribly, and this isn't the first time I've taken Gracie to see her-- but it's the first time Gracie has been invited to tea.

When we got there, she had tea cups set out for the two of us, and dog biscuits set out for Gracie. Too cute. And Gracie was on her best behavior.... she didn't touch her biscuits till J told her she could have them, and she didn't bother us a bit while we had our tea and pastry. Gracie must have known somehow that J needed to pet her a lot, because after we had our tea, Gracie sat right by J's feet and didn't move away till way after J was finished rubbing her neck and her ears, and cooing baby-talk to that dog as if she was as little as J's dog had been.

J still doesn't think she'll get another dog any time soon. She's thinking that maybe she's too old to be starting out now with another puppy, and if she has heart problems again, who would take care of a puppy for her while she's in the hospital? When I started to tell her that I would do that for her, she stopped me in mid-sentence and reminded me that I already had one dog and three cats who needed my time and attention.

So for now, J will just call me so she can visit with Gracie, or call our neighbor S who will bring her dog Astro over for a doggie-fix.


The "pest control" guy was here this afternoon as well...... we now have mouse traps set in boxes up in the attic. The metal traps have been set with Jarlsburg cheese-- the pest guy forgot to bring his own cheese, which I bet would have been less expensive than the Jarlsburg. The pest guy didn't know what Jarlsburg was--- he said he only eats American cheese and cheddar cheese. "Ain't never had any cheese that wasn't orange." --He put the metal traps inside cardboard boxes with little mouse-hole shaped entrances on the sides. "This way, you can just pick up the cardboard box after the mouse is caught in the trap-- you don't even have to touch the trap or look at the dead mouse." -- Did he really think it would be me going into that attic to check on the traps and see if the mice had been caught? Not blessedly likely, let me tell you that.

I hate the thought of the mice getting caught in those traps, but we have no choice. And I sincerely hope the mice that do get caught aren't the same little mice that eat the birdseed out in the backyard every morning. I've stopped putting birdseed on the lower feeders in the yard, hoping that the mice won't find anything to eat out there and will find another yard to live in.

Oh well.... we'll see if anything gets caught in the traps by morning. Correction: my husband will see if anything gets caught in the traps by morning.