Of Coffee and Breakfast Burritos and Spaghetti and Meatballs

Expectation:  The prospect of the future; grounds upon which something excellent is expected to occur; prospect of anything good to come, especially of property or rank. 

I get myself into trouble when I try to change something or someone into something else.  This is not acceptance - this is an expectation run amok.  Whenever I have problems in my life I can usually trace it back to me trying to remake the world to my own liking.

We walk down to the morning meeting - it's a nice combination of exercise and recovery before the day gets too hot or the commotion gets to intense.  Afterwards we decide "we'll wear ourselves out and make the walk back rather than jumping into a tuk-tuk.  Coffee on the way sounds like a good idea.  We walk some back alleys and some main streets, avoiding a few options because the hygiene looks dubious and a few more that are on busy streets, opting out of a dust and diesel coating on our caffeine.

Eventually we pass a nice looking hotel restaurant with signs advertising breakfast.  We sit down and wait a bit for a server.

"Yes, coffee please?" I say.

"Oh, I'm sorry," says the young woman, bowing.  "We don't serve coffee - only food."

Off we go.  Kind of strange that there's no coffee for breakfast but what the hell.

At our next stop we get coffee ordered and also some food.  There are eight food selections.  The one SuperK orders isn't available.  No problem - she gets something else although this strikes us as a little strange, too, running out of breakfast selections during . . . you know . . . breakfast. My burrito - I know, I know, maybe not the best choice for someone from a heavily Hispanic area who is in Northern Thailand - is salsa and potatoes.  It was good but I'm still hungry.  One cup of coffee, two glasses of juice, two breakfast selections - they come out one at a time.

We eat some lunch in our room, too exhausted by the restaurant selection, ordering, and paying processes which dominate.

Our stomachs are rebelling a little from all of the exotic foods so we choose an Italian restaurant off the main drag for dinner.  Here, I order spaghetti and meatballs, probably the most stereotypical Italian food other than pizza although I do substitute penne for the spaghetti. At 7PM.  On New Year's Eve.  No meatballs.  No meatballs left.  I default to SuperK's selection, figuring that since she was successful in her ordering that I would be, too, not discounting the possibility that she snagged the very last portion in that category.

The meals come out.  Spaghetti, not penne.

I LOVE all of this.