Sue works on Thursdays, so Mark was up with her, and to walk the dogs, and I slept in. It was planned to be a lazy day, as we were really just waiting until evening for Sue to get out of work, at which point we were all going to dinner at Las Iguanas, a “Latin American” restaurant in city centre.
When I woke up Mark made us some breakfast, which, I do believe, was what he called Gypsy Toast: slices of bread dipped in egg and pan fried, and then served with cheddar(?) cheese sandwiched between two slices of the egg-fried bread, and covered with HP brown sauce. It was very savory tasty goodness. The English — or at least mark and Sue — don’t care for sweet things in/on their bread. As Mark dipped the bread in the egg goo, I asked him it he was making what we Americans call French toast. He said that he was not, that he knows what French toast is, and that it’s not very popular in the UK. And I don’t know if there is an abundance of maple syrup in the UK, for that matter...though most of what we call maple syrup here is actually high fructose corn syrup with maple flavoring and artificial color. But I digress.
After breakfast it was my turn to teach Mark about an American pastime. We sat in front of the telly, and he maneuvered through his DVR's on-screen menus to get to the World Series game he had recorded a couple nights earlier on one of the sports channels he gets through his cable service...only, when he started it up, there was no game. Instead, the channel that listed the game in the schedule had run a highlights program about the 2006(?) World Series. Poor instructional value, that, so we fell back and punted to the American football game he had also recorded earlier in the week! To my surprise, it was an edited version of the game, where most of the stopped clock activity, and even some of the kickoffs(!), were omitted in order, it seems, to keep the action moving.
It was a challenging, fun experience trying to teach someone the game; the concept of “the downs” is really tough to one who hasn’t grown up playing and watching the game, and I think I clarified it for Mark. He seemed to enjoy the play once he understood a few of the whys, and what some of the penalties meant. Also of interest to him were the technical aspects about passes caught at the sidelines and the goal lines. His DVR’s pause function, and the video’s slo-mo replays were extremely helpful in demonstrating to Mark how the pass receiver’s feet both need to be in contact with the ground before he goes out of bounds, and how only the ball in the carrier’s possession need cross the goal line in order for a touchdown to be scored. I also learned how exhausting it can be to teach someone the game of American football! But it was fun indeed!
I think this was the day Mark made chili for lunch. It was from a can, which he had heated and poured over rice. I mention this not as a criticism, but for the surprise when I looked at the can. I don’t remember the brand name on the label, but the labeling itself looked suspiciously familiar. And then I found the Hormel logo! I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. It’s as though they own chili.
After lunch, Mark helped me with my lines for the play I’m in at Northeastern Illinois University, Around the World in Eighty Days. He helped in two ways: first in helping me with memorization, by reading my cue lines and helping when I got stuck; second, by identifying and tutoring me on certain accents I’m capable of doing. My English newspaperman is from the south country! We ran through my lines a few times and then called it quits.
I can’t remember, now, but I think this was also the day that Mark, due to the late night previous and his early wake-up with Sue, felt a pressing need for a nap. I left him to his rendezvous with his sofa, and I retired upstairs, ostensibly for a nap, but I wound up catching up on e-mail and Facebooking for about an hour.
Then we got ourselves ready to head into city centre to meet Sue at the movie theater where she works. One of Sue’s bosses is pretty cool, and he happened to be working this evening, so he let Mark park the Defender in the theater’s employee car park. Sue had just come out the door as we pulled in, so we were immediately on our way to the restaurant.
It was a new experience for me, as I had not been to city centre at night. The air was a bit crisp, but it was nice. I had on my heavy brown coat, but I had to leave it unzipped. We arrived at the restaurant court. It wasn’t a “food court” like we have at malls in the U.S.; this was an area with three or four (or five?) nice, elegant, semi-fine dining establishments. Las Iguanas sits on the second level atop the stairway. Mark and Sue had been talking all week about Las Iguanas, and on the ride over, Mark spoke of his eagerly awaited indulgence of a drink called the “mojito.” I told him that it was pretty popular in the States, but that I don’t care for minty drinks.
The exterior of Las Iguanas struck a very familiar chord with me, as it reflects the same Latin American themes as similar restaurants in the U.S. do. I was very interested in sampling Mexican food as interpreted through the English culinary palate! We stepped inside and were met with yet another very familiar American-style setting, with a hostess at a kiosk bedecked with a telephone, a computerized seating chart, and stacks of menus.
And, unfortunately, we were greeted with yet another all-too-familiar American theme: a 90-minute wait to be seated. On a Thursday?! SHEESH!
So, on a day where he had learned about the source of the American phrase “drop back and punt,” Mark looked at Sue and said, “Zorba’s?”
The Greek restaurant was a mere thirty steps away from Las Iguanas, and was almost empty. Zorba’s has a very nice, calm atmosphere, with Greek music softly seeping in through speakers all over the dining room. It was interesting to see most of the same items on the menu as in Greek restaurants at home, though the saganaki doesn’t seem to be as popular in the UK; nobody in the place ordered the flaming spectacle while we were there.
I don’t remember what Mark and Sue ordered, but I did sample what they had, and it was very good. I think Sue ordered the veggie lasagna. I ordered a very traditional Greek-style pork dish. There were lots of vegetables piled on top of the generous portion of meat. I didn’t miss Las Iguanas one bit.
We ended the evening at Zorba’s with drinks. Even though it wasn’t listed on the drinks menu, Sue and I convinced Mark to ask the bartender if he knew how to — and would — make a mojito. He knew how to, but couldn’t. He didn’t have all the ingredients. Sue ordered a big, pink, sweet, fruity concoction; Mark ordered a whisky drink, I think; and they both marveled at the number of different liquors that combine to create my Long Island iced tea. Despite all of them, I really didn’t feel anything from the drink. I had gotten fuzzier from the wine we had had on the other nights earlier in the week.
Back at home we settled in with some more wine, some more telly, and my favorite part, the conversation. Sue went to bed, leaving Mark and me to ourselves to watch No Country For Old Men. What a disturbing, unfulfilling movie. It was intense and suspenseful, but I didn’t care at all for how it ended. It really felt like they forgot to tack on an ending.
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