A nice and productive Friday

After some delays thanks to IKEA's shit customer service, yesterday was the day we could change out the display shelves at our shop in San Ángel.

We have had these shelves along our long wall for maybe 3 years now.

And they were okay. Solid, clean, well-lit. But earlier this year one of our neighbors in the Bazar put up a huge table in the middle of our room and having to navigate around that has impacted people's sightlines toward our display. With our old display you couldn't really see down or off to the periphery as everything was blocked by wooden shelves or the sides of each unit. So the idea was to get something more open. Glass shelves. No solid sides.

Step one was ordering them from IKEA. Step two was having to drive out to IKEA to clean up the 40% of the order they couldn't manage to properly deliver. Step three was getting a day sorted with Daniel to transport them over to the shop and set everything up. (Side note on Daniel: We met him as the handyman who managed the house we rented here 2015-2017. Ever since then he's been our go-to guy for a variety of projects. Lucha and Mia, our dogs, have known him since they were puppies and still get very excited when he comes to work on something at the apartment).

So things lined up for Friday, August 15th. Daniel got the shelves secured to his car and we were off into Friday traffic in la CDMX.

(Side note about this Burger King. I remember many times driving home on the upper level in this part of the city. You cruise through an aroma wave of french fries and whoppers.)

After getting everything off the old shevles and cleaning up a few years of dust balls, we got the new shelves set up.

In that middle section that has an opening the idea is to custom order a typical Michoacán shelving unit like the one we have in out kitchen:

But we will have it painted yellow to complement the end pieces of the shelving unit.

I thought the lights we had in the old shelves could be re-purposed. But I didn't realize they were actually too long to install in the new shelves. So we have a temporary situation where the new shelves will be a bit dim until I can track down an appropriate lighting solution. But I'm happy with the new direction.

All that done by about 2pm or so, I enjoyed a Friday afternoon nap with the hounds followed by a quick visit to the gym before meeting some friends for dinner. Coincidentally, we met these friends when they were shopping in San Ángel a few years ago and stopped in our shop.

We picked Sapore d'Italia, which I have passed by and wondered about a number of times.

It is down the street from La Parillita, which we've had a couple of nice meals at. Down the street in the other direction is Ocehntaocho Cemitas, which we have enjoyed more than others apparently, given its 3.9 rating (won't stop us from another visit when we want a cemita).

The restaurant was bigger than I expected, with a split dining room. It felt charming. We all agreed it felt a bit like a neighborhood place you could find in the US. They had a full house. And the service was friendly, as noted repeatedly among the nearly 3000 reviews they have (impressive given its lowish-profile neighborhood location). Our collective verdict was it was okay. A nice setting for a meal and to catch up with friends we hadn't seen in a few months. But I don't think anyone was overly impressed with their meal. Judy and I would go back and try a pizza another time. Glad we went, but it is not being added to our must-go list or regular rotation.