Lunch at The Flame Broiler

Yesterday was payday, and since we were waiting for payday there was, of course, not much in the house to fix lunch with. Keith had a long night at work, not getting home until 9:30 or so, and right after he got home he went over to the auto parts store because the car had been hard to start and he thought the battery might be going dead. Which as it turn out, most definitely was. He also needed to get a belt for something on the car and it was a good thing that it was payday because between the belt and the battery, there went $175.00. The bearings around the air conditioner something or other are also going out and if they go out the whole car does too, don't ask me why, he tried to explain it to me but I still don't know what he was talking about. Just that the bearings are making a loud racket when you drive, so next payday that will need to get fixed which will be about $500.00. However, if he can keep going on this job, his paychecks are way better than they used to be.

But, he is still having a very hard time and may not make it through his probationary period. His memory is (and always has been) so bad and he just can't seem to keep what he is supposed to be doing in his head.

Anyway, long story short, nothing for lunch in the house so we decided to go get some and I remembered the new The Flame Broiler that opened up a few months ago not too far from the house. We had to go put some gas in the car anyway and it's conveniently located down the street from the gas station that we go to, so...lunch it is.

I was pleasantly surprised, the menu is just chicken and beef, rice, vegetables if you want, and it either comes in a bowl or on a plate with cabbage salad. We got the plates, me white meat chicken, which you have to ask for and pay extra for or you'll automatically get (gag) dark meat chicken. Gag again. Keith got the beef. The food is brought to your table and it looked really good right from the start, very fresh looking and lots of it. However, if you think your plate will be as big as the pictures of the plates in the windows and on the walls THINK AGAIN! Each picture has a disclaimer that says NOT ACTUAL SIZE because someone must have complained when they got their plate and it wasn't two feet across like the giant sized plate in the pictures.

And, what's really surprising is that our plates looked exactly like the pictures, except for the not actual size part and they weren't giant plates, but the food looked every bit as good as pictured, and we all know how often that happens in a fast food place.

And, it was good! They have sauce to put on your food, hot sauce which I didn't try, and then magic sauce, which I did try and is basically a sweet teriyaki type sauce and very tasty. The lunch including drinks cost us $20.60, not cheap cheap but since it wasn't a soggy hamburger (that always looks nothing like the pictures on the menu board) and halfway healthy and even came with a veg and a fruit, still a good value for the money.

I'm ready to go back again.

Car Fixing

Last week when Keith was down in LA the passenger side window broke to where it wouldn't go up or down. So I called the dealership where we bought it and they couldn't fix it on a Saturday but seemed really eager to help and very nice on the phone. For some reason Keith wanted to go to a different dealership so we drove over there on Saturday to talk to them and were told that they would have to order the part and it would take a couple of days and Keith said I would bring it in on Wednesday since he said that was their least busy day.

So, I call them yesterday morning to make sure the part is in, the guy tells me he will call me back because he is busy with a customer, so I wait 30 minutes and no call, so I call him back and he says they will need the car for 3 days because they have to take the door panel off first and then order the part. What?

I call the first dealership where we bought the car, the dealership that was my first instinct to go with, and they say bring it on over we carry most parts and it shouldn't be a problem. So, screw you, second dealership (Haddad Dodge). I did call them back and say I am not bringing the car in after all because I'm nice like that.

I take it down to Bakersfield Chrysler Jeep and am pleasantly surprised to find out that the window is under a recall because apparently it's been happening a lot and the repair will be covered and WE DON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT! A fact that was conveniently not told to us by Haddad, where we were told that it would cost upwards of $500.00 for the repair. So, since we don't have to pay for the window, might as well get the much needed tune up and oil change and transmission service and all that which will cost about the same as the window that we don't have to pay for now.

While we are doing the paperwork, the service coordinator is telling me that another woman has her same model jeep in for a window repair and they've stocked up on the parts in anticipation of lots of other jeep windows suddenly breaking. I told her about my experience with Haddad and apparently they've heard quite a few not so flattering stories about them.

But, one other snag, she called me after a few hours and said everything was done except that they have every window in stock BUT the right front passenger and they would have it in the morning and did I want to pick up the car and then bring it back again or just leave it overnight. Well, just leave it overnight of course since I can't really drive it anywhere while the window is stuck open.

So, hopefully today the car will be done and the window will go up and down and we don't have to worry about driving around with an open invitation to steal the car or anything that's inside it.

We do need new brakes, too, but that will have to wait since we have spent so much already on the much needed maintenance and maybe Keith can do the brakes himself or we can find somebody closer to the house to do them on a Saturday. It would have been another $500 for the brakes, so no, not today.

Still Hungry

I just rode over to Foods Co to get some eggs because there was nothing to eat for breakfast here. And I woke up hungry. After eating my eggs and low carb yogurt I'm still hungry.

I was looking through the frozen food section looking for something, anything that doesn't have a pasta base but it seems like every Lean Cuisine or Stouffers entrees are all high carb. So...

I'm sick of salads and don't much care for canned soup. A big steak sounds pretty good but I'm not real good at cooking steak and what's a steak without a baked potato on the side anyway?

Oh well. I'll eat my turkey burger patties and cottage cheese which I'm getting pretty sick of, too.

Keith is on his last day of training this week and will be home late tonight. He called this morning because the window roller up thing broke and now the window is duct taped shut on the passenger side and of course none of the car dealership repair places do repairs like that on Saturdays, so he's going to ride down with one of his co-workers to work next week and I'll take the car over and get it fixed. It figures, his first week on the new out of town job and the car needs fixing.

It looks like he won't be home during the week for a long long time, his supervisor already has plans to send him all over the state so he can work in all the different places, then he has to pass his test to keep the job, then eventually go to Kansas for the welding school, then probably working all over the state each week again. I don't really mind being here by myself but it is a little strange at night. I thought I'd sleep better without him in the bed but so far that's not happening. I keep waking up 2 or 3 times a night having weird disturbing dreams and being hot and throwing off the covers, laying there for a while and then getting cold and pulling the covers back up. He's had a hard time sleeping in a strange bed, too. Hopefully he will get used to all of this and pass his test and all.

Fresh and Easy and Broke Down Car Blues

First, the car. It's really really broken and needs major major work. We are waiting for a complete estimate and then will decide if the work will get done or not. My car is one of those cheap throwaway cars that when it starts falling apart means that it will keep falling apart until all that is left is a trail of auto parts strewn across the road. Do we pay $2000.00 to fix a car that isn't even worth $2000.00 or take that money and put it on a new car? If we fix the old car, do we have any confidence at all that something else won't break down next week? It was probably good that the weather kept us from traveling on Christmas Eve because the car would definitely have broken down somewhere on the trip over the mountain and then we would have been spending our Christmas on the side of the road. We had to go put $470.00 in tires on the truck yesterday so that Keith would have something to drive to work today. Regardless of what we decide, this will be the last year that we drive old beat up cars, a new car is in the future. (unless the economy finishes totally melting down and nobody has a job, of course)

Second, we were excited to see a new chain of grocery stores being built here in town. They are called Fresh and Easy neighborhood markets and originate in the UK. The concept is great, a smaller market for those times when you just need a few things or just want the basics with no frills and no aisles full of fishing and camping gear and garden furniture in your grocery store. Just your plain old groceries in a small store where you don't need a map to find the milk. And, they were handing out $5.00 off your purchase (of 25.00 or more) coupons. The UK version of Trader Joe's. Sounds good, right?

Wrong. The stores are really really no frills with a very small selection in a warehousey type setting. I hate grocery shopping period but really hate warehouse type grocery stores the most. We did buy a few of their house brand (fresh&easy) products to try out. Lunch sized fresh pizzas for $1.50? Sounds good! Not! They were good if you like your pizza with absolutely no flavor whatsoever. Frozen dinners? The prices were good, under $5.00 for a complete frozen dinner, so we got a few to try out. The first one was shepherds pie, which was almost tasteless but we ate it anyway because we were hungry. The second one we tried was tamale bake. The picture on the box looks appetizing enough, right?



Wrong again. I'm sorry, but this dish just totally reminded me of VOMIT! Yes, vomit! I couldn't eat it, it just looked too too nasty. Keith tried it and said it not only looked like vomit, but kind of tasted like it, too.



And, like so many frozen dinners, once again the actual product looks NOTHING LIKE THE PICTURE ON THE BOX!

Oh, and they have no cashiers. All of the checkouts are self checkouts. And if you buy beer the whole checkout stops and you have to find a well hidden button to push to call somebody over to get the whole thing going again because they have to make sure you are old enough to self checkout that beer.

Sorry, fresh and easy, I don't think I'll be stepping into your store again anytime soon, I just wasn't impressed and the food we tried was a total waste of money.

Well Feck!

Keith has been driving my car to work to try and save money on gas, since his car is a big blue monster truck and his commute is about 30 miles or so up to the big city of Wasco. Wasco is famous for the Rose Festival each Labor Day weekend-they grow a lot of roses in Wasco.

Last December we had to put a new timing belt on my car after we were left stranded in Castaic. See here:
http://geelizzie.blogspot.com/2007/12/really-bad-horrible-weekend.html
I don't know how to make those highlighted words that take you right to a post and I've looked in the help section on blogger to try and figure it out, so for now I just have to do the link thing, which took me long enough to figure out how to do the first time I tried to put a link in something. Sorry, I'm just a little computer challenged-remember I grew up when transistor radios were the big thing, so cut me some slack.

Anyway, so Keith just called on his way home from work and said the car broke down on him a few blocks from home, just plain old died in the street, and he was waiting for the tow truck. He took a look under the hood, and guess what? It's the timing belt. That is only 9 months old. The timing belt that should last for another 50000 miles, and I KNOW we haven't driven any 50000 miles in 9 months. What the hell?

It figures, it's payday today so the car must have known that our checking account just got a fresh transfusion of money in it today.

Feck!!