Cake for Nancy

For the following account, we owe Rehana a note of gratitude for turning 29, for if it hadn't been her bday yesterday, then we wouldn't have taken her out for dinner, and we wouldn't have been at Jackson Fillmore restaurant for some classic Italian east on the eve of Sun March 29, graced by the presence of Nancy Pelosi.

From the beginning... Whilst waiting for our table, a rather large gentleman wearing a little wire doohickey running up his neck. Hearing aid? Or wire... A second gentleman, this one even larger, walked past, also wired... So at this point it was safe to conclude they were wires, indeed. I announced my sighting and we did a quick scan of the restaurant until we located Nancy Pelosi seated at a table in the back. A quick burst excitement by us until Katie joined us, who had her own burst of excitement (shock-er).

Dinner ended, and was naturally preceded by a chocolately confection topped w/ candles (of the twisted variety, which we don't actually recommend after three uses of them this past weekend, as they are given to 1) extreme leaning, and 2) heavy drippage). We ate our 6 slices (well one us ate 2 as I'm not a cake-eater, myself) and were left with a hefty chunk unfinished. I declared that it'd only be proper to offer Nancy a slice. The idea wasn't as quickly glommed onto as one might've thought, so I took the initiative, and when the waiter came to take our check, and nabbed him and informed him we wanted to send a slice of birthday goodness over to the guest of the hour.

His response was a squinted-eye "really??" followed by my wide-eyed "Yes!" followed by a squintier-eyed "Are you sure?" followed by an enthusiastic "definitely!" He returned with a plate, fork, and cutting knife. So much for accommodating service staff. So I sliced a slab myself, which was ensued by a moment of silence at the table, with gazes fixed dubiously on the cake slice. Rehana informed Katie that it was her job to do the deed. Katied asked why, but really, the response of "b/c you're the only one who will do it" was not a surprise to anyone. I wasn't going to leave her alone, mostly b/c I couldn't pass up the option of having the story to relay. We gently interrupted Nancy's conversation and explained that we wanted to offer her a slice of our friend's bday cake.

Her answer was at first speechlessness followed by a very rapid succession of facial expressions that moved from annoyance to disbelief to skepticism and finally to something that neared friendless, although "near" might be the operative word. Her friends giggled and she responded with the blatant lie that they had just eaten dessert. I bet you they totally didn't eat dessert. I am not really a dessert eater and I like to think I can spot other non-dessert eaters. She instead invited us to give the slice to the Secret Service gentleman seated behind her table. He accepted enthusiastically, but I wondered if before he dug in, he wondered if he was plunging to his death via chocolate turtle cake. Because that was what that was all about: a protectionary measure, right?

Funny to think that this could be your job... eating cake for your manager and whatnot.
Anyway, overall, I'm fairly certain we irritated Nancy at least a little bit, but the way I see it, we are her constituents, so she owes us, right? And at the end of the day, which is really more important: respecting your congress members? Or, finding good story material?