pith and vinegar

Contrary to the Express snippage yesterday, I don’t wake up every morning in my online guise of Angry Ranting Blogger. Most days go quite well, I’m a pretty patient person and it takes a lot to really get under my skin.

Last night, Jenifer and I didn’t bowl at Lucky Strike.

We went to the Zipcar sponsored party, sat in the Zipcar members section, had a few drinks and when I signed in, I showed my card and they gave me an armband and drew a little stylized “Z” on my hand. I asked if my friend, who isn’t a member, should sign in as well. They said that Jenifer would be able to get an armband for the free food and the drink specials, but that she wouldn’t be able to bowl. While I was confirming this, one of the Lucky Strike employees came to the Zipcar rep with that “standard DC service attitude” we all know and love, and very loudly proclaimed that he needs to tell his members that there are NO other lanes available for play aside from the 1 or 2 that were reserved for us. He put my name down on a team and said to wait until I was called. From the looks of things, they were putting the members on teams, but even so it could still be a while before people got called up to bowl. I told him thanks, but we were leaving.

I was mildly perturbed and I felt a bit bad as I had invited Jenifer to metro down from Bethesda to bowl (sure she normally drives, but she has free parking at her office), and I’d already e-mailed Zipcar when I RSVP’d to ask if it was ok to bring a friend that wasn’t a member and would she be able to participate, they e-mailed back “Thanks for your reservation, we’ll see you Wednesday!” Additionally, they said the party started at 6. We were there early and Zipcar reps were saying “Um, I think it starts at like 6:30 or 7…” and it was clear that they were neither 100% sure what was going on, nor were they prepared for the amount of people coming or they would have reserved more lanes. Still, I wasn’t pissy about it – we did talk to some interesting people, some cute, some obnoxious. If the drink prices had been more reasonable, I’d have suggested we stay for the free appe-teasers and booze and just meet new people.

We headed out to try to get dinner at Matchbox and when we got there, there was a crowd in the “foyer”, stacked up like the inside of a Red Line train at rush hour. There was no hostess to be seen and people were naturally grumbly. I started to enter my slaphappy “rational” mood, which is pretty easygoing, acknowledging that restaurants have long waits and people in DC (who usually don’t live in DC) are apt to be pissy about it and that restaurant employees can only deal with so many pissy people before they themselves get pissy. So I was content to stand and wait.. and wait.. and WAIT. Eventually the hostess DID show up and tell us what the problem was (big party upstairs, and servers weren’t checking in with her to say tables were free and cleaned, so she had to keep checking herself) and once a reasonable explanation is given, I’m pretty ok with it. Jenifer and I did have a nice meal (we love the sliders) and I probably racked up a few more sinner points glancing/cruising (what had to be) a barely-legal boy at the table next to us as well as other cuties in the crowd.

I was a little amazed looking at the layout of the restaurant, realizing that a lot of places in DC are laid out similarly. You have to pass the bar to get to the main restaurant, it’s old rowhouse style, so it’s a slim and deep building. So you’ve got a huge blockage right where people come in (one reason we were so packed in the entrance) and there’s very little room to “enjoy” yourself at the bar as people squeeze past you trying to get to their tables. Still, the food was good, the service was excellent and we didn’t really spend all that much time waiting. Time spent waiting always seems less when you talk about things OTHER than how long you’ve been waiting. 🙂

So, back to the angry ranting thing. Since Jenifer and I didn’t bowl last night, we were planning to maybe play hooky and do a 1/2 day work then Lucky Strike bowling and movie outing to see Brokeback Mountain. Well S.O.L. on that idea as online searching shows that, in the lovely “liberal and cultured” Washington DC Metro Area, there are TWO theaters playing it tomorrow. Just two. Thankfully they are two metro accessible theaters, but come on, this movie’s getting Oscar buzz, 7 Golden Globe noms, it’s clearly being received as a GOOD film, but here in DC the big name corporate theaters can’t be bothered to play to the queers. It’s only playing at the “art house” theaters, which is good as they need the support, but I was really hoping that the bigger guys would give it a chance, too. And I’m wondering what the threshhold of gayness is… RENT is clearly ok for mass appeal, so we can handle bohemian queer hiv+ junkie love but not cowboy love. Gotcha.

Ok, rant over. No wait, Starbucks. I have to say that the service at the one near my office has improved. They still get overwhelmed at busy times and mess up an order or two, but the worst offenders now seem to be the customers. When you order something that has to be made, not normal coffee, you know it’s going to be a while, and probably there are people ahead of you also waiting. So then DON’T step ahead of all of them up to the area where the drinks are served and hang out there like young kids at a candy shop counter, putting your hands on every cup brought up before even listening to what they are. I know that it’s inside the cup, but no one wants you putting your hands on their peppermint mocha before realizing that you ordered something else and thereby annoying everyone else behind you. Entitled much?