Dinner at the Olive Garden

Tonight, we did NOT have dinner at the Olive Garden. We ate here in our home sweet home and celebrated Family Night in honor of David. At his request, the menu included hotdogs--plain ones for the three boys, but I added gussied-up BBQ ones for the adults--and the entertainment was watching the movie Dumbo. His original desire was to go bowling, but we gently steered him towards an evening at home instead...and a pleasant evening, it was!

However, last Friday evening, we did eat dinner at the Olive Garden; and just thinking about it makes me happy all over in a "how soon can we go there again?" kind of way.Dinner at the Olive Garden was a big surprise to me because, until that very afternoon, I didn't know we even had an Olive Garden within driving distance...well, closer than the 2 hours south of us location that we've eaten at previously. In the barbershop that day, Jeff found out from one of his customers that there is an Olive Garden in Winchester; and when he called me to ask if I was interested in us taking the family and going that night, he was slightly shocked, first of all, that I said yes so quickly. Being spontaneous is not my strong point; but when it's the Olive Garden, all other agendas must be dropped! I checked online to see how far away it was and discovered it was a mere hour and 20 minutes from here--no problem at all. :)

If pressed for a single answer to the "what is your favorite restaurant?" question, I'd have to say the Olive Garden. True to human nature, when we lived in San Diego with an Olive Garden only a few miles from us, I would have said that Cracker Barrel was my favorite restaurant...because there wasn't one closer than Yuma, Arizona! Now that I'm here in Harrisonburg, with a Cracker Barrel conveniently located in town, I've decided that the Olive Garden is really my favorite one. Is the grass always greener on the other side of the fence? Is the food in the far-away restaurant truly better? Apparently so! :)

Besides my obvious delight about the Olive Garden food, I had another reason for being thrilled to eat out that evening. My dad was out of town, and I really don't like having dinner at our house with one of my parents or Jeff missing. If both of my parents are gone, it's fine because I know they're off having fun doing whatever they're doing; and I like the time with just my little family of five. But if either Dad or Mother or Jeff are gone, just one of them, that empty place at the table disturbs me. It's a reminder of what is to come when, in some fashion, our table will become less crowded. Rather than needing to add a leaf to the table like I'll need to do when Tobin graduates from highchair to table and The New Baby takes over the highchair, at some point in time, I'll need to take a leaf out...and set one fewer place at the table...and then another one will be gone...until...who knows? Maybe just one will be left, like my grandmother and great-grandmother experienced in their final years. It all makes me a little melancholy; and when I see a missing spot at the table, it seems so BIG and the void left by one missing person seems so HUGE.

And so, I was very glad to not eat at home on Friday evening when Dad was on his trip...and not eat at home on Saturday evening (because Jeff and I had a date and weren't here for supper)...and not eat at home for Sunday dinner (because my mother fixed dinner for us and we ate at her house). And then, on Monday, Dad returned! Because his flight was delayed and we got home so late, we didn't have a regular, sit-down meal together that night; but Tuesday's supper was especially joyful when every spot around the table was full!