Happy Hour

Well, happy hour is definitely changing for Greg and I with the closing of Merenda's. After more than 30 years together (us not Merenda's and us) we adjust to changes around us without even recognizing initially we are making the change. In the past when one or both of us has had work hours cut, we adjusted our spending automatically. We didn't have to sit down and draft a new budget. We took the cut in hours as a bonus of time and just kept on...keeping on. With the economic change across the nation we also without making a concrete plan started saving, eating out less, and over all adjusted to the economy as the rest of the nation has done. No big budget meeting, no pie charts of spending...just adjusting quietly as we have always done....BUT...

our favorite happy hour place closed...now that has taken us by the short hairs. We, due to physical issues (burping and farting), both of us losing our hearing (all those concerts we went to in our youth) and a more sophisticated palate, have limited ourselves to 2 places in town after much trial and error. El Cap East (cause they know our name and we can hear) and Merenda's (cause they know our name and we like the food and it likes us). We have decreased substantially the times we go out for the obvious money reasons, and we are beginning to like my cooking. So, what to do? Do we cut out our date nights to a rare trip to El Cap or try to find an addition to replace Merenda's so we can alternate? Being picky, hard of hearing and not wanting to ruin a romantic evening with bodily functions has presented our first joint conscious decision since choosing the name of our youngest son...(not really, we have made choices about movies I want to see). We have consulted The Source...the paper of all things Bend. We might give the Happy Hour at the Blacksmith's a try and depending on if we can hear each other, the price and how the rest of the evening smells...it might be the one.

PS. Not to think we are total loons, there is no way to make it 30+ years without a lot of joint decisions...at least that is what Greg thinks....I mean me....