In the days of my youth Saturday morning meant waking up later than I usually did for school, but early enough to catch cartoons galore.  I watched everything from Bugs Bunny and The Smurfs, to M.A.S.K. and Jem (y’know, she’s truly outrageous).  I even would sometimes what the “Poor Man’s Smurfs” known as The Snorks.

It never occurred to me that there was “evil” in Bugs Bunny dressing as a sexy woman to escape from Elmer Fudd and saying “Come up and see me sometime.”  So what if there was “violence” in Wile E. Coyote always trying to catch the Roadrunner?  We all knew it was fake.  First off, no phone order would come as quickly as those from ACME.  You know that when you ordered sea monkeys, or even better, your Roller Racer, you needed to allow anywhere between 4-6 or 6-8 weeks for delivery.  Apparently, they didn’t actually make anything until you ordered it.  Anyway, it would not just show up 3 seconds after you ordered it.  Second, no one can really walk off a cliff and not fall until you look down.  You know you tried to do it at least once off the porch steps or the side of the pool.  It wouldn’t work.  Your head then figured that maybe it was just coyotes, either way, you didn’t think that you could do it.

The Flintstones or The Jetsons were chauvinistic?  So what?  By the time we were watching them our moms were working too.  Well, not my mom, but my dad stayed home too so what I saw on the Flintstones wouldn’t make me think that’s the way “we as women” should be treated.  My cousin once told me I needed to “go inside and make him a sandwich,” in return he got a punch in the face.  I think I just managed to survive the things I saw on Saturday mornings.  Ooooh.

So what is there to see now?  Nothing.  It’s true.  Many stations don’t even show cartoons anymore.  Or should we call them animated series now?  In general, we usually stick with stuff we have DVRed but this morning I wanted to see what was beyond the Disney Channel and past the Chuggington/Mickey Mouse Clubhouse/ Jungle Junction we have recorded.  I aso wanted to try and steer clear of the Dinosaur Train and Thomas and Friends on PBS.  I turned to NBC to find the Saturday edition of The Today Show.  What every kid wants to see- news.  Uh huh.  CBS had the Early Show.  After the Early Show came the Doodlebops cartoon.  The Doodlebops live action show was mildly unirritating at best.  The cartoon made me want to rip my eyelashes off one by one.   Quick!  PBS to the rescue!  Eventually I tried NBC again and found Turbo Dogs and Shelldon.  These weren’t actually too bad except that they are, like most animated shows nowadays, computer generated.  I appreciate the mastery that goes behind making these and that it’s complicated and cool to make them look all “real” 0r whatever, but I miss the actually drawn stuff.  I also miss that not everything has to have a huge moral at the end.  I don’t always want to learn, not even as a kid… or maybe especially as a kid ater I’ve spent a whole week learning my booty off at school.  I want a mental break.  I want He-Man and She-Ra and Popeye and Fat Albert (although that used to be on our Channel 33- like today’s CW- and not on the “mainstream” channels).

We were all ready for a great Father’s Day dinner.  The five of us piled in C’s car and off we went to the Sagebrush Steakhouse in Morganton, NC.  C and I had eaten there about a year and a half ago and the food had been good.  The In-Laws had eaten there a few times since, but they had not been in the past few months.

I know that Father’s Day is nowhere near as celebrated as Mother’s Day when it comes to restaurants, but people still go out to eat with their dads.  The parking lot wasn’t very crowded.  Okay, well it was around 8 so maybe that’s late for dinner in this part of the world.  There was no host/hostess so we had to wait to eventually get seated by some of the waitstaff.  No biggie.

We get seated.  There is a family at the table behind us.  I don’t know how long they have been there, but it looks like it they are nearly done.  We watch the table across the aisle from us get bussed.  The busboy literally wipes the food from the table onto the floor.  I watch a half eaten carrot roll under the table.  He walks away.  I’m hoping that he will come back with a broom to finish cleaning, but he’s never seen again.

Here are the scenes from underneath our table and from the table across the aisle:

Under our table

More under our table

The rear of our seats at Sagebrush

Under the table across the aisle at Sagebrush

Yes, under our table those things are lettuce, what may be either a carrot or a crayon, some half eaten bread, and chewed up globs of meat.  In the seat are peanuts and french fries that have hardened.  Under the other table is another myriad of filth.

The busboy saw us taking these pictures and was unfazed.

According to a report from the Burke County Health Department linked here, Sagebrush apparently got a 96 rating in February of this year.  How this happened, I just don’t understand if what we saw today is any indication of how things were back then.  If this is the kind of things patrons see, imagine what goes on behind the scenes.

We really should have left right there and then, because things just went downhill from there.  We ordered our food.  Cheese fries for an appetizer, steaks all around for the rest of us with various add-ons, and some spaghetti and french fries for Enzi.  I ask the waitress to put in the request for Enzi’s food with the app so that he can start eating.  We went through an average of 2.5 drinks per person before the cheese fries came out.  The cheese had previously been melted, and was hardened, and the fries were not very hot.  It looked as if it had been sitting on the pass for several minutes.  It tasted okay, but would have been better if it had been brought out correctly.  No sight of Enzi’s food.

A long while after we were finished eating the appetizer, the entrees come out.  Mom-in-law’s prime rib had a sheen to it.  That meat had either been previously frozen for so long a time that it now was full of freezer burn, or it was old and should not have been passed onto a consumer.  Either way, not edible.  She had ordered mushrooms to go along with it, these were delivered about 10 minutes after the dish was served..and tasted dirty and gritty as if they had not been cleaned.  Dad-in-law’s steak and potato was in  similar state.  Both C’s and Dad-in-law’s shrimp didn’t look quite cooked through.  Both my and C’s steaks were put on the wrong plate, and were tough and cold, and my baked potato was also cold and dried out.  I had ordered onions rings as a side and these came after Mom-in-law’s mushrooms and only after a reminder about their request and the request of Enzi’s fries which also didn’t show up.

Worst of all, though, may have been Enzi’s spaghetti.  When it came out, it looked like it had been sitting on a plate for over half an hour.  The noodles were cold, stuck together, and were beginning to harden.  The sauce was cold and congealed.  I couldn’t let my kid eat that.  In the middle of this “meal” C got up and took Enzi to McDonald’s- and he ended up with the best meal of the night!  Fast food better than a steakhouse…. who would have guessed!  We then overheard the family in the booth behind us that they had been waiting for over an hour for some of their food, including a baked potato.

I wish I had taken pictures of the food to show, but I was so disgusted that I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t.  Only about 15% of the food had even been eaten and most of it was just in tasting and grimacing.

When the waitress came with the checks, she automatically came with boxes.  When she asked if we wanted said boxes, she was met with a resounding “NO!” and we told her that this was possibly the worst meal we have ever had.  Honestly, the meal was in such bad shape that it should have been comped.  It wasn’t, and only a 10% discount was granted.  The manager didn’t even come out to get our feedback.

An email is being sent to the contact us section of Sagebrush’s website.  I am not linking to it here because it is just that disgusting!  I am also just letting the health dept there know what’s up.  Maybe it’s time for a reinspection…a surprise inpection… and NOT by the same person who previously inspected them.

I had a huge revelation about myself last week.  I am no longer the fat girl in the joint.

We’ll harken back to the days of elementary school…

I was a little butterball.  That’s just a fact.  I was not the kid that happily or easily ran the mile in P.E.  In fact, I could usually be seen feigning a stitch in my side or hobbling because of a twisted ankle (sadly, this was not faked, I’ve always been a klutz).  I still can’t do a pull-up to save my life and the only “sports” I was good at were kickball, dodgeball, and oddly enough, floor gymnastics.

I was the kid that quit ballet because the original “easy” teacher left and the new one was an actual ballet teacher so she expected us to work and dance and actually try.  Looking back, I wish my parents had pushed the issue with me a little bit, maybe then I might have actually had some semblance of grace when I walk instead of being a mix between an elephant and a clydesdale.  Maybe then I would have also been slightly less accident prone because I would be awake of how to turn without falling or hitting stuff/people.

Later in life, I found a way to get out of taking real personal fitness in high school.  I took it in nightschool… at another school.  I told my parents that it was so I could have more room to take AP classes, which I was able to take more of, but it was actually because I was lazy and didn’t want to run.  At night, the field at the other school wasn’t lit up and they also don’t expect anything really from you.  I don’t know if that’s true of all night classes, but it was with night P.E.  It was great.  I actually got an A in a P.E. class.  The only A I ever got in P.E.  I was always a C1A student.  I wasn’t good at anything so they gave me a C but I was always able to make it look like I made an effort and I didn’t whine so I got the 1 and A.

Now, I know what some of you may be thinking… If I had just tried in P.E. while growing up, maybe I would not be a butterball.  Alas, that isn’t the case.  In orer to battle the amount of food constantly presented, I would have had to exercise as much as they do on The Biggest Loser every single day.  A measley P.E. class wasn’t going to cut it.

You see, my dad was Greek.  That means that you automatically get food shoved in your face the second you walk in the door.  My friends knew that they were going to eat if they came over.  And just because you might have been slightly allergic to eggs, doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t end up eating an omelet…. or two.

When you ate at my house, you automatically got a plate (that you did not fill).  Afterwards, this was the drill

If you didn’t want any more food… TOUGH

If you wanted a little bit more, just say “No, thanks.  I don’t want any more.”

If you want a whole other plate, say, “Just a little, please.”

If you want a whole new mountain of food,  say “Yes.”

I grew up with the awesome food of both Brazil and Greece.  At my house we didn’t eat macaroni and cheese (which I had never had until second grade when I started eating school lunches) or meatloaf.  We had Pastitsio and Bife Enrolado with rice and beans.  I also grew up in a condo that was one step away from the grave so my brother and I didn’t have much of an opportunity to play high action running around games.  We only got to do that in the summer when we would go to “The Ranch” and I would lose something like 20 pounds in 4 months (we would leave school early) only to gain it back once we returned.

So, that was a huge background to what I figured out last week.  I don’t know if other girls do this too or if it was just my little idiosyncrasy (aka crazyness), but when I would take a class or walk into a party or whatever, I always compared my body to all the other girls there.  Who was fatter, who was thinner, and who was the same.  Well, last week I was in the middle of a dance class when I noticed that I hadn’t bothered to do that at all (and this was day three of the class).  This is when it finally hit me that in the past year and a half I have lost about 45 lbs.  It’s not a super impressive number in the long run and only averages to 2.5 lbs lost a month, but it means a lot more than that.  I now go to the gym… for fun.  I use the ellyptical and take Zumba classes (which are way fun and remind me of our high school dances because of the music).  I still don’t run, though.  I doubt I ever will.  It’s just not my thing and I’m okay with it. But most of all, it hit me that I have actually lost this weight.

I bought pants in size 8/10 last week.  I don’t think I ever saw those numbers on the way up.  For as long as I can remember I have always been a size 14/XL girl.  Now I’m even getting some mediums.

Before you start doubting and screaming vanity sizing I will say that it’s not at any particular store that I have been able to buy smaller clothes, it’s at all of them, including Anthropologie which is one of those stores where, in the past, I would have walked by just knowing that they wouldn’t have anything that fit me.  Plus, instead of just clothing sizes, I am actually looking at my measurements.

I feel better too. 

So, big step for me here.  Yay!

A year and a half ago, I started having some pain in my foot.  It would be fine in the morning, but by the time I put Enzi down to sleep, my foot would be killing me, like I had a knife sticking through my heel.

I, of course, immediately went to Dr. Internet and after much reading decided that there was no way it could be plantar fasciitis because my pain was only at night.  Yeah, right.  A quick trip to a real podiatrist resulted in me seeing a small knife edge in my heel from the spur and bringing home shoe inserts and a night splint boot.

The night splint boot looks like this and it is okay for stretching out my foot.  My issues with it stem from the fact that the closures are neoprene and attached with velcro.  The neoprene will stretch (as neoprene does) and so I don’t feel like I’m getting as effective a toe/foot stretch as I could be.  I still wear it, though, when my foot hurts (like it is right now) but I can’t sleep in it so I only wear it at night when I’m resting but before bed.

I also had to learn a bunch of stretches which help out a lot.  Here are a couple.  I took some Voltaren too for the inflamation.

Fast forward to now.

Last week I took an intensive theater session through KCTC which was AWESOME.  I spent a lot of time moving around barefoot and dancing and just doing stuff with my feet that I don’t normally do.  So, now I’m paying the price and feel like I need to start over in taking care of my foot.  Unfortunately, this seems to not be the kind of thing that just “goes away” so I am kind of back to square one.

We’ll see how things go in the next few weeks after hiking and running around like a loon.  If it still hurts, I will be back at the podiatrist asking for more.

Photo of the opening scrim of Legally Blonde: the Musical

Last night, C and I took a much needed break and went off to Louisville to see Legally Blonde: the Musical.  I had warned C beforehand to not expect anything like Wicked, which we had seen a few weeks before.  After all, this musical is based on the Legally Blonde movie.  It’s a big piece of [pink] feel-good fluff.

Now, I will pre-empt this review with a note that I MUCH prefer darker, “serious” musicals.  My favorites are Les Miserables, Jekyll and Hyde, and Titanic.  So, basically, I like musicals where people die.  Legally Blonde does not fall into this category.  However, I had heard the music before and seen a showing of it on MTV, (Yeah, I watch MTV sometimes, so what?) and found the sounds to be really catchy (as in they WILL NOT DISAPPEAR from your head after you hear them) so when I saw it was coming to town, I plopped my money down to get seats where I like to sit (front row) and off we went.

The musical was what I expected.  It’s not a masterful piece of musical writing, but was definitely entertaining.  I would put my views on it somewhere between the review in Louisville’s Courier-Journal that the show might as well have been the greatest thing since sliced bread (and who’s reviewer was the same one who saw Wicked and yet came up with this idea- oops, is that my bias showing?) and this review by Sherry Deatrick in the blog Theater Louisville that forgets that the musical is based on the movie with the exact same ideas of “be yourself” bla bla bla.

I do agree with one particular aspect of Deatrick’s review.  The usual problems with the Whitney are in usual abundance. Sounds bounce off the walls and ceiling, making it difficult to understand what’s being sung or said.

Last night was not a good sound night.  It seemed that they were having all kinds of issues with the mics and music too.  Half the time it was fine and then a quarter of the time it was muffled while the other quarter had the sound being tinny.  It didn’t help that Elle, played by Becky Gulsiv was constantly singing through her nose.  I don’t know if maybe she wasn’t feeling well or what was up because when I looked her up and heard her doing other things and songs from the show itself, the nasalness doesn’t appear at all.  In fact, she sounds wonderfully!  I wish last night had been like that. C noted that the trumpteer (trumpeter?) was way off a lot of the time.  A quick peek at him after bows showed that he was not a happy camper with himself.  I felt a little bad for him.

The highlights for me were Natalie Joy Johnson, who plays Paulette, D.B. Bonds who portrays Emmet, Megan Lewis (Vivienne), and Rhiannon Hansen (Margot).

Natalie was amazing.  Every time she opened her mouth it was fantastic and hilarious.  D.B. was sweet and believable as Emmet.  Megan has some voice on her and Rhiannon was just cute and spunky.  I enjoyed watching her as Margot.

The biggest laughs of the night come whenever the UPS Man, Ven (yes, really) Daniel, would come in.  C wondeed how much UPS was paid to be shown.  I told it it was free advertising.  Does anyone know what it actually is?

And, for those of you wondering, I did have a boyfriend last night.  Paul Jackel, who played Elle’s dad and Mr. Winthrop was a little cutie.  I laughed whenever he opened his mouth.  A little Freudian or Oediple?  Maybe, but whatev.  There may have been a smile during Legally Blonde (the song) because it was oddly light in the audience (I looked behind me and could see pretty far back), but it could also have been a mind trick resulting from a very busy and grueling week.

Overall, it was a fun night. 

Legally Blonde will be playing in Louisville until tomorrow, June 13th.

I’m posting from a new location this week.  We’re visiting the in-laws and it’s AWESOME (totally not said sarcastically).  During this time I get to sleep in and just hang out too.  Enzi hangs with “Ah-Dah”(granddad) and I get to go back to bed, which never happens at home.  This may be a very little thing to many, but when you are not a morning person and have been getting up before dawn (aka, before 9am) for over three years now, getting to sleep in or go back to bed is the most bestest thing ever.  Yes, most bestest.

Today, for example, after my usual 4-5 hours of sleep, I got up with Enzi, walked the dog, and then got to go back to bed AND take a leisurely shower, while Granddad watches a train dvd with Enzi.  So, although it was broken sleep, I did actually get about 6 hours.  That is a banner sleep for me lately!

Love it!

Living in Miami, I had always known not to swim during dusk and dawn as well as to stay away from murky water.  These are the times that you would most likely have a run in with a shark and you would not be able to see it.

So fast forward to now that I live nowhere near the ocean, and my only water access is to various lakes and rivers, all of which are for the most part, murky.  How am I supposed to just jump into this water where I can’t see the bottom? Rather, I can’t see two feet in front of my face.

I take a deep breath, and, as I learned a long time ago, pretend to secure my mask and gauges (which I’m not wearing), and take a giant stride into the lake. I’m less buoyant than in the ocean. This takes me slightly by surprise, though it shouldn’t. I open my eyes as I’m kicking my way to the surface and all I see is a faint yellow green blur all around me. I can tell that the sun is trying to reach me, below the surface. I’m trying to reach the sun too.
My face breaks the surface. Light is all around me. The water, both warm and cool at the same time, swirls around me as I tread. The heat of the sun warms my face, I feel it beginning to turn pink. I climb back onto the deck and prepare to jump in again. I look down, one glimpse of panic that quickly fades, and I’m back in the air and quickly making another splash. All I have to do is remember that this isn’t the ocean.

And I’m a bit saddened by this thought.

To the untrained eye, I may very well be considered “WEIRD” sleep-wise.  But that isn’t so.  There are very real and precise reasons for my idiosyncrasies.

1. Burrito-Sleepingness-  I described how I sleep in my last post. I have a hatred for cold air touching me when I’m trying to sleep.  If I feel any air, I need to make sure that I am completely burrito-ed in and can no longer feel that air.

2. Light Aversion- Besides the fact that I hate to be cold when I sleep, which is the primary reason of burritoing and putting a pillow over my head, I have issues with any kind of light while I’m trying to sleep.  It keeps me awake even if it’s as tiny as the little laptop light that shines when it’s closed.  I need to cover it and also cover my eyes.  I even cover my alarm clock.

3. Sleep Position- I am a right side of the bed sleeper.  I can’t sleep on the left because I don’t deal well with having hot air breathed on my face.  (As previously mentioned, this is also why I don’t mummyfy myself in the blanket.)

4. Hair- I can’t sleep on my hair, it bothers me.  I think this may have come from reading books where the characters would fan their hair on the pillows and at some point in my young reading career I thought it was cool, or something.  I don’t know.  I’ve never studied psychology.

5. Bed Placement-  This one is of particular importance in hotel rooms with two beds.  If there is one bed, then I just need to be able to sleep on the right side.  If there are two, I need to sleep on the right side of the bed, either facing the window or the wall, but not facing the opposite bed.  So, if you have just stepped into the room (the door and window are behind you and you are facing towards the bathroom) and the headboards are on the lefthand wall, I need to sleep in the bed furthest from the door, facing the wall.  If they are on the righthand wall, I will sleep on the bed closest to the door, facing the window.  This is because I will not face anyone on the opposite bed.  It’s just the way it needs to be.

A little OCD?  Maybe.

Specific?  Sure.

A good night’s sleep?  Definitely!

I am a burrito sleeper. I need to completely wrap y blanket around me and even reach under my neck (side sleeper) to pull the blanket through so that no air gaps are present before I can comfortably get myself to sleep. If it wasn’t that I hate to have my face covered by the blanket, and in turn breathe hot air, I would mummify myself at night. Instead, I cover my head with a pillow in order to be able to cover my eyes from any light and my head from cool air, all while still being able to breathe said cool air.

Also, I need my space in order to sleep. I hate cuddling at bedtime and if I am cuddling, then it is definitely an experience where I am the cuddle-ee instead of the cuddle-er, and cannot last for too long. It all has to do with the way I sleep and the arm positions I would have to have were I the cuddle-er that would make it impossible for me to actually fall asleep.
-Yes, I have issues when I sleep. So what? This is just the tip of the iceberg there and I am not even talking about my compulsive need to sleep in a particular bed/side of bed depending on which way a hotel room faces. But that is a story for another post. Maybe even my next one if I decide to keep up with this bed-themed idea.

Anyway, C and I have a king sized bed so that we are full of neutral space, which sometimes gets invaded by either party. We also sleep with separate blankets- which is the #1 secret to a happy marriage. It’s true. There is a lot to be said about happiness being tied to a lack of air pocket that keeps you cold at night instead of feeling safe and secure in your nice warm bed with the person you love.

So, last night Enzi woke up several times with  cough.  He was having a hard time being able to sleep in general and wanted me constantly so I brought him into bed with us, sharing not only my side of the bed, but my blanket as well.  This alone keeps me from getting a good night sleep as no matter how much I try, I can’t get that air pocket to disappear.  Using a separate blanket for Enzi is futile because he will eventually worm his way under mine in oder to cuddle with me.  I can’t deny him that when he is so sweet and so sick, so I brave both the cool air and the mounds of germs being coughed on me, and he manages to sleep comfortably the rest of the night.  I don’t, and not just because of my “issues.”

There is a reason that Enzi has not slept with us since the day after we brought him home from the hospital, and it has very little to do with child safety.  That first night, the only way we got him to sleep was if he was laying on top of my chest and I was laying on C’s.  Not an ideal way to sleep at all.  Enzi is also a very active sleeper.  On vacations where I have no choice but to sleep in the same bed as him, I constantly find myself kicked,  both in the stomach and the face, used as a foot rest, pushed, and have even woken up to being a pillow and a mattress for this child.  It’s really not pleasant to find 30lbs of child on top of you, using your face as his pillow.  Alas, he had managed to get my over-the-head pillow off and decided that my cheeks were fantastically soft and inviting.  They are not.  They are boney…and they can’t be comfortable to actually sleep on.

So, today I am on my 3rd cup of coffee and have managed to stay up on no sleep since said child was up for the day at 7:15am.  Seriously, I may as well have just stayed awake all night watching the AppleTV, except for Merlin which always manages to put me to sleep at night no matter how much I like that show.

I think it’s time for coffee #4…or a Redbull, but I would have to drive to get one of those and I am not sure I should be driving today.

It has been months since I have posted around here. While I wish I could blame sheer laziness for my absence, that just hasn’t been the case.

On the morning of February 3rd, C woke up with some chest pain and difficulty breathing. He was worried enough to want to go to the hospital so we drove over there. A few hours later, it was diagnosed that he had a mild heart attack…at 33.

Mild heart attack? There may be such a thing for doctors who are trained in this kind of thing, but not to regular people. A heart attack is a heart attack no matter what. He now has a stent in one of his arteries and will have to be on meds forever, all because of a genetic issue that we had no idea he had.

So, needless to say, our world has been in a kind of upheaval ever since.

Thankfully C is doing well. He’s still adjusting, and it’s hard, but we’ll get there.