Spring Garden Family Restaurant

Good Morning, Nancy Harp!!  Thanks for the heads-up yesterday about NO BLOG WITH COFFEE...I was strangely delighted that you missed me...lol...

And you'll never guess what happened to me last week....

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So, now that I have admitted that I am back to eating INSIDE restaurants...here's the rest of the story...

Last Thursday, I went to lunch with the MDF (My Drinking Friends). Sandy is recently returned from Florida...Evie lives in Camanche (a small town in our neighboring county), and Sue was EAGER to be with people after three months of isolation.  You should know that my friends are all older than me (76, 83 and 81, respectively).   That's what I love about the MDF -- they think of me as the YOUNG ONE..

The four of us were sitting at a large table tucked back in an alcove of the tiny family restaurant (Spring Garden) in Camanche.  We haven't been together since last fall...and we had a lot to catch up on.

It's just a quiet little joint -- and we were about their only customers...

I ordered a steak sandwich....our food looked terrific.  HOT FRENCH FRIES!!  SERVED ON A REAL PLATE!!  Hallelujah!!

Suddenly -- in the middle of all this joy -- I choked on a piece of my steak.  In my GLEE at being inside a real restaurant, I guess I didn't chew properly.  Ugh.  My first instinct was to just swallow HARDER...I thought I could gag it down.  But that only made it worse. Initially, I was just embarrassed...and I didn't want to interrupt the conversation...

But I soon realized I could not talk...and I could not breathe....I stood up and put my hand at my throat, the international sign for I AM CHOKING....

Unfortunately, my OLDER FRIENDS never got that memo...

Damn.

I mean -- DAMN....

I stumbled into the main area of the restaurant, thinking the waitress would know how to do the Heimlich maneuver...I was turning blue...but the waitress had her back turned, (sanitizing menus).

This is an old internet picture of the inside -- BEFORE they removed half their tables...

Holy Shit.

I was banging myself on my chest, and I was in real trouble.... I needed to do something QUICK..

Just as I was about to pass out, I leaned over the half-wall of an empty booth and forced my body into it as hard as I could bouncing it under my boobs, trying to force the air...

...and the piece of steak popped out.

By this time, my three friends were out of their chairs, screaming...

Wow. How fragile life is, eh?

At the moment I was choking,  strange things flashed through my brain.  Like, isn't this what killed Mama Cass?  It's  Thursday...so my funeral will be in the middle of the week...and who cares?

Nobody can come anyway...

Which reminds me --  I never did get to have my wonderful birthday party!!

DAMN


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That day, when I got home, John had spray-painted a brilliant blue stripe around the kitchen door.

He thinks it looks great.

At first, I was dismayed. Then, I remembered -- just an hour ago, I almost died.

So maybe a new blue stripe doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things..