Feeling Special

[susandennis]

After my swim this morning, I headed over to Arthur's for breakfast. It's my new goto and there is at least one menu item I haven't tried yet and several more I'd like to repeat. And it's just a lovely, stress free place to enjoy good food.

There's a waiter (owner/partial owner) there who has an odd accent. Half of his vowels sound Kiwi and half sound Aussie and today he sounded half Kiwi and half Southern US. So after he got my order I said "Your accent seems half New Zealand and half Southern US and is very disconcerting." He said he was from North Carolina and I said I had grown up in Winston-Salem which is exactly where he is from. Albeit 35-40 years apart. But his accent turned pure North Carolina and we had a lovely chat. He told me about a burger place (one I'd had on my list to try) where you can get Cheerwine* and that he found Texas Pete hot sauce in the grocery the other day.

When I was done, he brought the check but avoided taking my credit card. And then avoided it again and again. Finally, I looked at the bill and it said "Fun to meet a Tar Heel, breakfast is on me. See you next Saturday." How about that?!! Very sweet.

*In the 50's in the South, we used the word Coke to mean soda or pop. If you went out to get a Coke (which you did because having it in your ice box was just too frivolous), you really went out to get a soft drink of some kid. An Orangeade or a Yahoo or a Cheerwine or maybe even a Coke which, when you ordered it you called it a Coca-Cola. You went out for a coke. You ordered a Coca-Cola. Got it? Anyway Cheerwine was one of those soft drinks and like RC Cola and Dr. Pepper, it was mostly regional.

I had a bitch of a time getting home. Between a run and roadwork, the detours nearly had me going around the horn to get home. But I'm home.

I've got the Front Door on the TV, the package camera on the tablet, the chickens on another tab on this chromebook. And thinking about what other hardware I have around the house that I could use to monitor things. I think I have a problem.

There was no one at the pool today but me. It was lonesome plus I miss my new pool boyfriend. He better not be ghosting me.

Today is sewing. I think I might make a new purse. I want to make that New Zealand sheep tea towel shirt, too. And it's already 11 am. The baseball game is at 4. I think I'd better get crackin'!

Comments

[rejectomorph]

We always used Coke as a generic term for soft drinks in Los Angeles, too. We also used Kleenex as a generic name for all brands of tissue, and my dad and quite a few other people of his generation called all cameras Kodaks and all refrigerators Frigidaires, though I never picked up those two habits. I do, however, still tend to think of all photocopying as Xeroxing. Funny how some brand names become generic terms and others don't.

[susandennis]

Interesting! We used all those generic names, too. I'm surprised to hear that especially the coke one worked in Lost Angeles.

In the early 70's I worked for IBM selling office equipment and one of the products we sold was an IBM copier. You can imagine how well the Xerox noun and verb went over. My boss had a vein that popped out whenever hear the word.

[rejectomorph]

Coke worked as a generic name in northern California, too. I recall Tom Hanks on one of the nighttime talk shows telling about using it when he was growing up in Oakland.

[susandennis]

wow

[lifeinroseland.livejournal.com]

I love reading about how simple-things were back in the day. And in different parts of the country.

I don't think he's ghosting you. He's probably, you know, just.. busy lol!

[susandennis]

Too busy for me???!!! Hard to believe.

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

I've known people to say "What kind of Coke do you want?"

[spiral-meter.livejournal.com]

free food?? you win at life! did you leave a tip?

i grew up in the Midwest calling it "pop". but then i moved to Brooklyn and they actually get mad at you for saying "pop". so i was forced to assimilate and ever since i have been calling it "soda".

b

[susandennis]

Oh yeah. $10 tip.

Yeah I went to college near Pittsburgh where the soda/pop wars were brutal. I just 'coke'd my way through em.

[howeird]

Had never heard of Cheerwine. Apparently it is their centennial this year. https://cheerwine.com/

[christopher575.livejournal.com]

My friend Shannon is originally from North Carolina and one time when she was visiting Seattle, they had Cheerwine at Victrola. She was so excited, we bought an extra to take with us and had the bartender at Manray make cocktails with it later on.

I had to google "capitol hill coffee shops closed" because I couldn't remember Victrola's name!

[gneu.livejournal.com]

Now that's a fun day I'd like to live.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

what a nice thing to do