One of the areas that I have struggled with during our transition to California life has been around martial arts for the lils.  We were spoiled in Ottawa to have found fantastic Dojos where our lils were treated really well.  They were minutes from our house, located on the same street, and the classes were at the same time.  It was perfect. Replacing perfect is hard.  I have not found anything for Woo, and, after a few false starts, Goose has only recently found her stride and really embraced her new Dojo.

She is happy there, and that is all that really matters. There are some logistical challenges for me, though  It’s much farther from our house, and many of the classes are over our dinner time.  It’s made me become a lot more creative in my meal planning. Sometimes that creativity means that their meals are KD, hastily thrown together sandwiches,  or  take out. Tonight was to be one of those nights where we took out. There is a pizza place that I’ve been wanting to try three doors down from Goose’s Dojo. As we pulled arrived for her class tonight, I called in our order, to be picked up just as her class ended. Miraculously I remembered to pick up the pizzas after her class and we wandered down to the restaurant.  When I told the guy at the counter my name and what I was therefore he said “but she’s already picked up her pizzas!”

I tried to explain that they were my pizzas and I was standing right in front of him waiting for them, but he just said the pizzas had been picked up. There was no effort made to apologize and there is no offer of making new pizzas, so Goose and I walked out and started driving home.  I knew we needed a quick meal and I had nothing in the fridge, so I called Willy and send him to the local Taqueria to pick up some burritos for us. He tried to suggest that I order and wait for new pizzas, but I was steaming mad at this point, and refused.

When Goose and I were moments from our house, my phone rang.  It was the pizza place calling, so I answered to see what they would say. They apologized for selling my dinner to someone else and offered to remake the pizzas at fifty per cent off. I was ticked and wanted none of it. I told them that I was 15 minutes away from them and I wasn’t interested.

We continued home and arrived to the front door locked, as Willy and Woo were still out saving dinner.  I figured that Willy had not locked the patio doors, he never does.  I wandered into the backyard, but sure enough, he was thorough – this time.  By the time I return to the front step, Goose was sitting down reading her book. I grabbed mine and said “Thank goodness we have our books, eh?”  When I open my book, I realized I was two pages from the end.

The boys arrived about 10 minutes later, and we hurried inside to eat. Woo was performing in a school play tonight so time was a bit of an issue. We all dove into our burritos, but quickly noticed that they were bland, that the tortillas were not very fresh, and the toppings not very good.  Realizing that our second dinner choice was actually worse than having our pizzas sold out from under us, we agreed that the Taqueria was officially off the list.  As is the never tried, never will try pizza place.

I think that is the first time we have ever banned two restaurants over one meal.  I hope it’s the last.