Sunday, December 13, 2009. Football At Zea, To Which I Am Not Welcome. I ate too much yesterday, and didn't sleep well. Lying awake I tracked the rain, which came in waves--some torrential-- throughout the night. I expected to see flooding when I finally arose, but the road to the Cool Water Ranch was clear.
The Marys informed me that they would be lunching at Zea, and that I wasn't welcome unless I kept my mouth shut. This because their primary motivation was not food, but the Saints. Mary Ann goes to Zea every week to watch the game, hoping the management wouldn't ask her to leave after she tied up a table for several hours while eating minimally. But they didn't care. When the Saints are playing, restaurant dining rooms all over town are empty. Most of the dining room staff is too busy watching the game to track how long people linger.
I showed up in the middle of the second quarter, with the Saints leading by three. The Marys were on the edge of their banquette, as worried about the game as if they were waiting on news about a friend who'd just been in a serious accident.
I ordered a Philly cheese steak panini. I remembered when it came out that this is one of the few things at Zea that leaves me cold. The beef is shredded and juicy, and could be used for making a poor boy sandwich. The melted cheese complicates the eating; the interior oozes out and onto one's lap. I will say that the dipping sauce is quite good.
They girls' emotions swelled and ebbed as the Saints were penalized a couple of times, scored a touchdown, missed an extra point, and chilled to the bone when the Yankees (or whoever the opponent was) got a field goal.
"I don't know if I can stand another game like last week," Mary Ann said. "This is making my heart pound!" Mary Leigh, who wore the Scott Fujita jersey I bought her last year, agreed that this was tough on her usually calm nerves.
I remained with them into the half-time show, finished my lunch, and left them to their anxieties. Thus concluded the longest piece of a Saints game I've ever watched. I have enough other things to worry about without this.
There went our dinner at home on Sunday. I asked Mary Ann later whether she might relent on her determination not to get a satellite dish, so she wouldn't have to watch the games in restaurants. The answer was no, especially not as a Christmas present. I didn't ask who won the game. The Marys looked so frazzled that they might have been capable of emitting painful electric shocks.
