A Diner’s Dilemma

The kids are in school full time and I am home. Let me tell you, the freedom I am feeling is downright intoxicating. I am frickin’ OD-ing on the freedom. Not working, with kids at home with you 24/7 because you foolishly thought that just being together all summer would be enough: ouch. Not working, while your kids are at school all day: Hallelujah! After working for 16 years, I FINALLY have time for me. It feels a little selfish, and yet it doesn’t. Figure that one out. I finally get why the guy on the Staples ad is running around the store dancing to the song “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and it ain’t cuz of Christmas.

Brett had a golf tournament recently that got rained out early in the day, so since I suddenly have this newfound FREEDOM (did I tell you that I am FREE?) to do as I please, he called me to see if I wanted to meet him for a drink. In the middle of the afternoon. Hmm. Let me think. When was the last time I went out for a drink in the middle of the day. I CAN’T think of a time in the last sixteen years that I went for a drink in the middle. of. the. afternoon. And on a weekday. Um, yes, I would love to do that. (Because I am FREE. Did I tell you that yet?) We met at this little place on the key that is definitely a touristy place called the Daiquiri Deck. Not somewhere we usually frequent, but hey, we don’t usually meet for a drink in the middle of the day either. It’s a great place to go for atmosphere (read: DAIQUIRIS, people!). It was heaven.

So we enjoyed this place so much that we decided to go back on Labor Day weekend for dinner. Now Brett and I are pretty much what you would call “foodies”. We like us a good meal. We particularly like a YUMMY meal. Nothing is worse than spending a perfectly good evening on bad food. In fact, when we are going out for the evening one of us will say, “Where do you want to go?” and the other one will always say “I don’t know. Just somewhere yummy.” You see, we worked in the restaurant business for years, cooking and waiting tables, so you could say our expectations when it comes to food and service are um, sort of high.

We look at the menu and decide we’d like to try the Conch Fritters. “Sorry,” the waitress says, “we just ran out.” So we say we’d like the Crab Stuffed Mushrooms. And they are out of them, too. So not a good start, you might say, except then I see on the SPECIALS menu that they have Tempura Vegetables for an appetizer. SOUNDS yummy. Haven’t had those in a really long time, like ever, and they are on SPECIAL, right? So those are a go and we wait, enjoying the daiquiris atmosphere while we are waiting.

Then comes the appetizer. And they bring us this plate with about seven or eight little, tiny vegetables fried in tempura batter. And in the middle of it is a plastic cup that is less than half full of some sort of stuff to dip it in. I mean, truly, it looked as if it had come off someone else’s plate and they hadn’t finished it. And the whole thing is sitting on top of a bed of iceberg lettuce, clearly to make it look like much more than it actually was. All this for $7.95. Excuse me? Are you kidding? THIS is the special? The vegetables alone had to have cost them, oh…about fifty cents!

So being the disappointed diner, I start complaining a little, to Brett, mind you. Not to the waitress. It just doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t we complain? They should be ashamed to set this down in front of us really! And Brett agreed. But after discussing it for a minute we were both reluctant to complain and send it back. They still had the rest of our meal hostage in the kitchen. I mean, who knows WHAT they would do to it if we sent the appetizer back, right? So we ate what was there and we shut up and ordered another daiquiri. After all, we’ve seen 20/20! Who wants to worry about somebody doing something to your food?

So I’m wondering….what do you do when you get unsatisfactory food or service in a restaurant? Do you worry about what the waitstaff or cooks will think? It’s every diner’s dilemma at some point!

Remembering Pedro

On the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, I am participating in D. Challener Roe’s 2,996 Project to honor victims of the attacks. Click on the 2,996 link to see the complete list of victims and the other bloggers with tributes posted on their sites.

Pedro Francisco Checo

“He was the life of every party. His laughter would carry for blocks.”

This was how Milly Cabrera described the father of her children, Pedro Francisco Checo. They first met at a party and then met again at a wedding party, but their 11 year relationship was to be cut tragically short when he was killed as he worked at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He was 35 years old.

Pedro was born in New York and grew up in Manhattan. He attended John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx and excelled in baseball. He was American born, but his parents were of the Dominican Republic. Though he never married, Pedro lived with Milly Cabrera and they had two sons together, Jasen and Julian. He also had a son, Franklin, from an earlier relationship. Pedro had a love for cars, particularly Datsuns. He owned one that he was fixing up in the hopes of drag racing with it. He hated the name Pedro, so at home Milly called him by his nickname, Frank. At work he was known as Pete. He was working as Vice President of Investment Operations at Fiduciary Trust International in Tower 2, the South Tower, of the World Trade Center on September 11th when the second plane struck at 9:02 a.m. Fiduciary Trust International’s offices were on the 96th floor of the tower which means that Pedro was likely trapped above the floors 78 to 85 that were directly hit.

I was nine months pregnant with my second child and in my obstetrician’s exam room as the terrorists struck. I could hear the news reports over the radio station that was playing throughout the office. I remember that after waiting what seemed like an eternity, a nurse came to get me and we gathered around the television in the waiting room to witness the destruction unfolding.

I can’t help but think that as I stood in that waiting room, my baby’s birth imminent, Pedro was in that building I saw on television about to lose his life. Though I did not know him, my heart breaks for the anguish he may have had that day in that tower, and for the anguish of his loved ones as they lost a dear son, father, and friend. It is with great sadness that I think of him on this the fifth anniversary of his untimely and unjust death. I wish his family and friends peace and love as they remember him, and the love and laughter he gave to their lives.

Things I’d Like To Do Someday

Life goes kind of quick and watching some people I know be confronted with the end being imminent has gotten me thinking. Here are some things I have thought I would like to have done before I’m through here. Some of them are not realistic, but one can always dream, right? I’m sure others will come to me once I finish this post!

1. Have my palm read. I know I might not like what they tell me, but I have always thought it would be so interesting to see what a palm reader might say about me. Actually it might freak me out a little!

2. Ride in a hot air balloon. When I was in middle school I did a project on hot air balloon travel and have been intrigued ever since. It seems like it would be so awesome to float along, but it would have to be at one of those cool hot air balloon convention things where there are like 20 of them in the sky all at once!

3. Have my hair cut by Jonathan Antin. Have you SEEN him in action on Blowout? He gives good hair. I LIVE for good hair days and I don’t have many of them.

4. Walk on the red carpet at the Academy Awards or the Emmy Awards. With the celebrities. And attending the after-parties would be cool, too. Rubbing elbows with Jennifer Aniston or Patrick Dempsey? Yummy.

5. Go to the Oprah show. Just once. And if it could be one of her shows about her Favorite Things, well that would be just peachy!

6. Build a house with Extreme Home Makeover. Or Habitat for Humanity. This just sounds cool to me. I mean, what a big way to make someone’s life a better place. Everyone should have a Home Sweet Home.

7. Learn to Country Line Dance. I had the chance when I went to Nashville last summer as we walked past the Wildhorse Saloon, and I didn’t do it. Cuz no one else wanted to. I hate that peer pressure thing. I should have ditched them and done it myself. Dumb! Of course being in a saloon in Nashville alone late at night, well……maybe not such a good idea. Actually I would like to learn any kind of dance after watching Dancing with the Stars!

8. Go white water rafting. The tamer rapids would suit me fine. It just seems like it would be a thrill. It doesn’t have to be death defying or anything.

9. Breast augmentation. I know this sounds like a wierd one and probably pretty shallow, but really, I just do not have them. Boobs, I mean. I know it shouldn’t be important, but it sucks being small. Really it does. It would probably be less expensive to invest in a boob job than pay for all the Wonder Bras from Victoria’s Secret that I’ve had to invest in over time. I wouldn’t want huge breasts. Just something respectable. I’d give my right arm to look like a Pussycat Doll for just one day. Well, maybe not my right arm. Maybe the left one.

10. Shop at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Between the food, the flowers and those guys that throw the fish around, oh my gosh, it’s gotta be so neat. But then I would have to have a place out there to put the flowers and cook the food. Okay, I’ll take that, too.

It’s your turn. What is something that you would like to do someday? Come on, let’s hear it……please share!

Table Talk

Actual conversation over dinner at our house tonight:

Allison: What kind of fish is that you are eating?

Me: Tilapia.

Allison: What kind of fish is that?

Me: The kind that you eat.

Allison: Where do you fish for those?

Brett: They’re farm raised.

Allison: They grow them on a farm? And then they KILL THEM TO EAT THEM? That’s so mean!

Brett: That’s what they do with chickens and cows.

Allison: Oh. Yeah. It just seems so mean. I would hate that job. Killing fish. Being a fisherman. How do you know when they are old enough to kill?

Brett: When they get big enough.

Trent: Hey, when you turn 100, you die.

Nice, huh?

Summing Up the End of Summer

This two and a half week hiatus from blogging I’ve been on can be blamed on several things.

First, it has been an exhausting summer.  I did not sign the kids up for any camps or activities because I THOUGHT we would have moved to North Carolina before summer was over.  Turns out that is not what happened.  You know the old saying about the best laid plans?  Well, that applies here.  So the kids and I spent a boring uneventful summer at home.  A lot.  Together.  Can you say shoot me please because I cannot stand another minute of this bickering and complaining another minute longer?  I was so there.

This summer was unofficially dubbed by me The Nicktoon Summer, since that was what the kids spent most of the summer doing really…watching Nicktoons…so we made a last ditch effort to salvage what was left and went here.  Why Nicktoons you may ask?  Well, apparently this is where we can actually reach a happy TV medium in our house.  Turn on Hannah Montana, Allison is happy and Trent is not.  Turn on Power Rangers, Trent is happy and Allison is not.  But turn on Spongebob Squarepants and let me tell you, all is right with the world.  In fact, we got to know Spongebob, Timmy Turner and Jimmy Neutron quite intimately and the hours moments spent with them (Ouch, I know I have been a bad mom) were some of the few truly blissful ones we had around here all summer.

The trip was great.  We spent a day at Sea World first, which the kids loved, and then went back for another day since they enjoyed it so much. (read: they stamp your ticket and you can come back absolutely FREE for another day!  YAY!)  Sea World is very “show oriented” so it made for a good place to be on a hot day, since you are either sitting or in the shade for most performances and many activities are indoors.  Allison liked feeding the dolphins, which was way cool since they literally come right up to your hand to be fed.  And Trent liked the Shamu Express kid size rollercoaster.  Brett must have, too, because he rode on it with him every time!

The hotel was great though.  Really perfect for our age kids.  It is just like a hotel built around a waterpark and we were thoroughly entertained the whole time we were there.  Sitting poolside with a margarita (in moderation!) in hand while the kids played on the waterslides was just what we needed.  The best part was the room, though.  They are all suites and the kids have their own room fully decorated like one of the Nicktoons they love.  A little commercial, I know, but who cares?  Some of the rooms even have bunk beds!  All in all, it was a nice reprieve and we will definitely go back.

Then, just as we returned school began.  Just like that.  In the midst of getting uniforms, buying school supplies, and having parent teacher conferences there was just no time or energy to even think of writing a post.  The start of school was really good for both of them and it is the first time that they are at the same school together, which is so nice.  The really awkward part was that since I gave up my teaching post since we thought we were moving, I was no longer on the teacher side, just the mom side.  And it was wierd, sad, and yet a relief all at the same time.  Brett took a couple of days off so we could have some couple time and that was a bonus.

After that it was just me.  For the first time I can remember in a really long time I have spent time in my house with just me.  All.  By.  Myself.  After being here all summer with two kids, it was refreshing.  So I found myself soaking up the moments of quiet and independence, until the phone rang.  And now I am on the sub list at school.  So I will be subbing for a few days, but I am feeling more like writing and I am back at the keyboard.

And I can’t wait to catch up!