Alison turns 8.
Alison is eight years old today. We didn’t have a party, as I said, just simple celebrations – a dinner last night with my parents, and dinner today with K’s side of the family plus her cousins. Alison had a good time. In fact, she happily told me, “Everyone’s treating me like a princess!”. I pointed out to her that she didn’t need a big bash to have a good time, and she agreed. I think she also relished being able to pick out most of her birthday gifts herself. We took her to Toys “R” Us to pick something out, and so did my parents and K’s parents as well.
I have to say that the service at Earle Swensen’s in VivoCity is sadly lacking. I had called in the morning to ask if I could make a reservation for dinner and was told, “We don’t take reservations for dinner on weekends.” Fair enough. We got there and joined the queue even though we were told that there would be a 45 minute wait. Then I noticed that there was a huge table for something like 12 people set and unoccupied. When I asked the waitress why, she said that the table was reserved. That annoyed me, since I was told earlier that they did not entertain reservations on the weekend, right? So she called her manager over and he proceeded to give me a series of sorry excuses, one of which included “We take reservations from Monday to Thursday for Friday to Sunday, but not on those weekend days itself” which makes no sense whatsoever. It got me more and more riled. And when Jean is riled, an earful is sure to follow. After my tirade, the manager hastily excused himself and hey presto! Within 15 of the 45 minutes I had been told to wait, I had a table. In a section of the restaurant that was practically empty. Which had me more pissed off since the waitress at the entrance was telling everyone that “we are full house and you will have to wait”. If not for the fact that Alison had asked to dine there, I’d have taken my business elsewhere just for the vexation I experienced in trying to get a table! The food itself wasn’t much to write home about. The calamari made me think I was eating rubber bands, my parents’ steak was bloodily undercooked yet tough which must be some sort of culinary feat and the soup du jour was too thin. Having said that, I did enjoy my first taste of lobster (K and I shared the baked lobster rice) in a long time.
Anyway, I was quite happy to not have to plan a big shindig like in previous years. We didn’t even go out today, her actual birthday. Instead, the kids and K watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs while I went on a decluttering jag in the girls’ room. We were so laidback about it, we even forgot to bring the camera along to take photos of Alison cutting her Winx Club cake tonight! Oh well. K took this one on his iPhone.
Eight regular candles plus an extra musical candle courtesy of Po Po.
All birthday celebrations should be this easy.
June 13, 2010
One response to Alison turns 8.
Yikes, Happy belated birthday wishes to Alison!
Throwing a mild hissy fit generally works well except that it’s really draining to do so and there are just some days that you just wanna get past without yelling at someone. Still I am easily rankled by horrendous service as you are and 45mins for a table at a barely occupied Swensen’s due to sheer laziness (ignorance? retardation?) is unacceptable. Glad it turned out well anyway, she looks happy in the pic!