judyonthenet

Well, technically, not necessarily mentally. Kelvin and I went to the county clerk-recorder office (located near SJ Japantown) to pick up our marriage license, something I’ve been told is kinda important for getting married. To get a marriage license, you need to bring yourself, your future spouse, a filled-out application, IDs, and $79 and go wait in line. If you’ve got another $80 to blow and are in a rush, you can get actually get married while you’re at it. Rings and cameras just an additional $10 each!

It wasn’t very busy at 1:30 on a Friday afternoon. I saw a two or three people go up to windows alone, which was curious since I thought you needed two people to get anything done. There were also two lesbian couples in front of us, probably moving things along with the upcoming vote on Proposition 8. (Interestingly enough, there was also a sticker against prop 8 stuck under the “Line begins here” sign. I wonder if the clerk knew about that. btw, PLEASE VOTE! Especially NO on prop 8.) The wait wasn’t too long, especially since some people in the line didn’t have their applications ready and had to go to the back of the line and fill it out. I don’t really get why they put the applications in the front of the line and not towards the back, but whatever.

When it got to our turn, we gave the clerk lady at the window our application, which she typed onto the marriage license. She gave us some information sheets, including a fun health pamphlet called “Your Future Together” which talks about all the possible ways your new life together can bring you misery (i.e. domestic violence, STDs, genetic disorders). We paid the $79 fee and got a receipt (you know, for returns or exchanges :P ). We had to raise our right hand and confirm the application information was correct. Then we were told to sign the marriage license, at which point she recommended that we take pictures since it’s the only time we’d sign anything.

Kelvin signs…

And then I sign. I broke their “stay-inside-the-box” rule…
hopefully my marriage will still be valid :P

And we were done! I was surprised at how easy it is to get a marriage license; you don’t even need to give your social security number. Now we just need to find a witness and somebody who’s ordained, and then we’re REALLY done.

New thing I learned today: You can pay an extra $4 to get a confidential marriage license, where the record is not public and only the people getting married can get copy of the marriage certificate (except by court order). For a confidential license, you can only get married at the clerk recorder’s office, and both parties must already be living together.

Kelvin and I took a break from the recent craziness of our lives to have dinner out with friends. Kind of a triple date, we went with Kelvin’s coworker Chris and his fiancee Yoko, plus Ravi (who happens to know Chris from… WoW and Pomona) and Jess (who’d recently come back from China and returned bearing gifts). The destination for dinner was Buca di Beppo, one of our favorite places to go with friends to get food. Unfortunately, it must have been homecoming at a nearby high school, as there were ton of teenage boys in tuxedos and teenage girls in slutty cocktail dresses and stripper shoes I think in an attempt to look formal/semi-formal. Chris got there at 7PM to get in the queue, and the estimated time we’d get a table was 8:20PM. There weren’t much better options, so we waited it out by getting drinks and chatting.

Jessica and I sat and chatted near the lady that stands at the podium and decides who gets what table. After sitting there for quite some time, the lady came to us and asked if we wanted the kitchen booth since it wasn’t reserved. Hungry and tired of waiting, we of course accepted. I was really excited, as I’d seen the table many times passing through the kitchen and always wanted to sit there, and now we were!

Yoko & Chris

The booth in the kitchen just fits 6 people, so it was perfect for us. It’s physically located in the kitchen and faces the area where the dishes come out, so you get to observe all the servers running around and retrieving food. Since it was a Saturday night (with freaking 90+ minute waits), it was pretty busy and entertaining to watch. We saw four different birthday cakes, including some disgusting-looking Halloween cake that had plastic spiders (very small and not-detailed toys, so didn’t freak me out to bad) all over on top of… I don’t know what they were on top of. The cake was totally unrecognizable. Regardless, it was fun to sit there and judge the different cakes.

Servers huddling around some cakes

Most of our entertainment was from listening to the guy who stands by the area where the food comes out and screams at the chefs nonstop. It was easy to figure out what the most popular dish was tonight after hearing him shout “CHICKEN SALTIMBOCCA!” at least twenty times. We also heard him shout some of the same words over and over again, like “Fire!” and “All day!”. Curious, we asked out servers what they meant. Our waitress didn’t know, realizing she heard it so many times but never thought to ask. So she asked for us, and we found it sorta meant “in process”. Like “Penne Arrabiatta all day!” means “There’s an order of Penne Arrabiatta, but you should already be making it or you better hurry the heck up and start making it!”

The guy who shouts at the chefs

Towards the end of our meal, the shouting guy, named Curtis, actually came over to our table (and by came over, I mean he turned around) and spoke with us since he knew we were curious about the lingo he was using, which was super cool. After re-explaining “all day”, he told us that “fire” means to start a dish. We also learned his role in the kitchen is called the “expediter” (sounds like a superhero) and that expediters control the flow of the food orders and are usually people who already have a lot of responsibilities, like managers. He also explained the kitchen booth, which is a regular table but can be reserved. For reservations, he recommended calling in several days ahead of time for the table, as there’s only two evening time slots available for it (5:30PM and 8:30PM). If there’s no reservation, any walk-in can get the table, which is what happened with us.

Jess & Ravi. Above them, it says “Se non sopporta il
calore, vattene dalla cucina!” which, based on babelfish,
seems to mean “if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen”?

Because of our seating and our yummy food (Caesar salad, Penne Arrabiatta, Chicken Parmigiana, and Cheese Manicotta), we had an excellent dinner. I had a good time observing the staff and learning a lot about the kitchen and the Bucca di Beppo kitchen booth. The info is certainly good to know if I ever want to sit there again.

Note to self: Next time, remember to take a picture of the food and get a group picture :P

New thing I learned today: “All day” actually means “in total” in restaurant lingo. So if multiple tables have the same order, yelling “spaghetti & meatballs 6 all day” means six orders have spaghetti and meatballs have been ordered or should be in the process of being made.

You people know who you are :P Whether or not you’re actually coming, please RSVP ASAP. Or at least let me know when you will know for sure. It’ll make our lives a lot easier.

In case you can’t tell from my complete lack of posting, we’re majorly busy. Bleh, tired.