I adore my friend Twanda. She and I have a lot in common. One thing in particular is our openness to try new or different things. Now I do realize that Sushi has probably been around for thousands of years, but for us it is a bit of a new experience. I've had a little bit of sushi here and there, but mostly California rolls. I believe that Twanda had just tried Sushi once before. So the two of us sat down in this nice Sushi restaurant, a little dumbfounded. We were looking at the menu unsure of what any of the terms, or ingredients were. Because of this, our young patient waiter explained the answer to our obviously "newbie" questions. Twanda and I take this all in stride. We ordered three rolls the "Benbe, Philly and the Spicy Crab." Despite our desire to order sushi that had the fish rolled up in it, we missed the fact the Philly had salmon laid on top. So we inadvertently were a little more adventurous than planned. I'll have to admit it wasn't horrible, but I think this was a "baby-step" or two ahead of our adventure game plan. In addition to the Sushi, I tried warm Saki. And I will have to tell you, it tasted like a bottle of Chardonnay left in the car and got hot. That was not my favorite part of the evening. What was my favorite part was sitting down with a good friend and laughing my tail off. Can't wait to do it again!Sunday, February 20, 2011
What's a little Sushi between friends....
I adore my friend Twanda. She and I have a lot in common. One thing in particular is our openness to try new or different things. Now I do realize that Sushi has probably been around for thousands of years, but for us it is a bit of a new experience. I've had a little bit of sushi here and there, but mostly California rolls. I believe that Twanda had just tried Sushi once before. So the two of us sat down in this nice Sushi restaurant, a little dumbfounded. We were looking at the menu unsure of what any of the terms, or ingredients were. Because of this, our young patient waiter explained the answer to our obviously "newbie" questions. Twanda and I take this all in stride. We ordered three rolls the "Benbe, Philly and the Spicy Crab." Despite our desire to order sushi that had the fish rolled up in it, we missed the fact the Philly had salmon laid on top. So we inadvertently were a little more adventurous than planned. I'll have to admit it wasn't horrible, but I think this was a "baby-step" or two ahead of our adventure game plan. In addition to the Sushi, I tried warm Saki. And I will have to tell you, it tasted like a bottle of Chardonnay left in the car and got hot. That was not my favorite part of the evening. What was my favorite part was sitting down with a good friend and laughing my tail off. Can't wait to do it again!
Friday, February 18, 2011
3 girls, 3 heads of hair, 1 mom in tears
For any of you who have met my beautiful girls, you know that they all have very thick long hair. Its this hair that drives me to the brink every weekend. Of my three girls, two are extremely tender headed. This makes all involved absolutely miserable. Washing hair usually means tears. LOTS of them. I'm exhausted once I finished what inevitably takes 3-5 hours by time I finish. And that is just my middle child's head. I can usually finish the other two within thee hours each. You may ask - How can it possibly take that long? Glad you asked - Depending on the style it can take me an hour just unravel all of the braids. Then comes washing and conditioning their natural hair. This can take a while just because of how thick their hair is. And over the years I realized that I can't just scrub their hair when I'm washing it. I have to "rake" through it to keep the tangles down to a minimum. Once I washed and conditioned, then most of the time I cornrow their hair so that I don't have to do it again immediately. But this only really works if you manage to complete a head every weekend with out fail. When a head gets missed, the hair styles can get fuzzy and look bad.
My Bright idea: I'll take the girls to a salon to get their hair done and make my life a little easier. The way this salon works is similar to an assembly line. The place is huge. It has 3 large rooms with stylists working on hair. The main room is full of hair dryers - like twenty of them, maybe more. Their idea is to cram in as many people in for a cheap price. My niece had visited the shop a couple of months ago. It took them a while, but she left with a cute style and happy. My girls on the other hand were dealing with a group of young ladies who have no concept of customer service. The salon has no style books in it, so my girls were unsure of what styles they offered. The stylist didn't offer any suggestions. I tried to throw out some ideas, all they told me was what they couldn't do for their Natural hair. One told me with a slight neck roll, that "I have kids and I know that wont work." I see. This experience is going to be needlessly more complicated than it needs to be. I tell her fine - just put the 4 year old in ponytails and call it a day. The older two went off with directions to just blow dry the hair I would manage to "do the impossible" on my own. I sit back a bit annoyed, but I take a deep breath, pull out my appendage (my iphone) and start to unwind a bit.
Crying: Within two minutes I'm summoned into the other room where my 4 year old is screaming and crying while the "neck-roller" continues to roll her neck and try to do my child's head. Bad combination. ( I want to note here that although tender headed, I have had my 4 yr old's her hair professionally braided by a woman who specializes in working with kids with NO problems, not one tear). We tried everything to get my now exhausted child to sit still while the neck-roller combs through her STILL DIRTY hair. Unbelievable. Dirty hair or not, I just wanted to have the neck-roller put my child hair in bows so that I could leave. My child is screaming bloody murder. I'm sweating, and feeling allllllll of the eyes on me from the 30 or so other patrons in the salon. Finally I say enough, cry "uncle" and waive the white flag. In spite of the fact that my child's hair is in a lop-sided afro, I limp up to the front (I'm still on crutches), I pay my bill and wait in the car for the other girls to finish. Now that we are in the car. My child starts crying for a new reason - she wants her hair done. This is the point where I start crying. Now both of us are in the car whimpering like 4 year olds - at least she has an excuse.
My Bright idea: I'll take the girls to a salon to get their hair done and make my life a little easier. The way this salon works is similar to an assembly line. The place is huge. It has 3 large rooms with stylists working on hair. The main room is full of hair dryers - like twenty of them, maybe more. Their idea is to cram in as many people in for a cheap price. My niece had visited the shop a couple of months ago. It took them a while, but she left with a cute style and happy. My girls on the other hand were dealing with a group of young ladies who have no concept of customer service. The salon has no style books in it, so my girls were unsure of what styles they offered. The stylist didn't offer any suggestions. I tried to throw out some ideas, all they told me was what they couldn't do for their Natural hair. One told me with a slight neck roll, that "I have kids and I know that wont work." I see. This experience is going to be needlessly more complicated than it needs to be. I tell her fine - just put the 4 year old in ponytails and call it a day. The older two went off with directions to just blow dry the hair I would manage to "do the impossible" on my own. I sit back a bit annoyed, but I take a deep breath, pull out my appendage (my iphone) and start to unwind a bit.
Crying: Within two minutes I'm summoned into the other room where my 4 year old is screaming and crying while the "neck-roller" continues to roll her neck and try to do my child's head. Bad combination. ( I want to note here that although tender headed, I have had my 4 yr old's her hair professionally braided by a woman who specializes in working with kids with NO problems, not one tear). We tried everything to get my now exhausted child to sit still while the neck-roller combs through her STILL DIRTY hair. Unbelievable. Dirty hair or not, I just wanted to have the neck-roller put my child hair in bows so that I could leave. My child is screaming bloody murder. I'm sweating, and feeling allllllll of the eyes on me from the 30 or so other patrons in the salon. Finally I say enough, cry "uncle" and waive the white flag. In spite of the fact that my child's hair is in a lop-sided afro, I limp up to the front (I'm still on crutches), I pay my bill and wait in the car for the other girls to finish. Now that we are in the car. My child starts crying for a new reason - she wants her hair done. This is the point where I start crying. Now both of us are in the car whimpering like 4 year olds - at least she has an excuse.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Birthdays, Laundry miss-haps, Romantic get-a-ways and Crutches
My friend Twanda politely suggested that it was time to get back to blogging. And considering it has been a solid month, I would have to agree with her. So much for a "daily" blog. Hopefully I can still redeem myself.
So what has happened in a month? Well - I had my second fortieth birthday. Unlike my first "Forty and Fabulous party" we spent a quiet night at home with little or no excitement. Maybe a little excitement. My husband comes in with my oldest daughter bearing gifts - a dancing Monkey, and chocolate. Yes its what every 40+ woman wants for her birthday. Seeing that my daughter picked out the monkey I was happy. Later my husband surprised me with a weekend romance package at one of our local hotels. Just some quality time for the hubby and me.
Laundry - the unthinkable happens, the knob on my washer breaks completely off. I can't turn the thing on. For me, this is a serious emergency. And my husband knows I'm about to freak out. He called a repair-man out the next day to look at it. The news is not good. This stupid knob will cost almost half of the cost of a new machine!! The repair-man tells us that its usually not worth fixing this kind of machine (that's repair-man speak for - you have a cheap ass machine). I go into washer buying mode. I know I only have a couple of days before the clothes will take over the 2nd floor. But then a solution comes to me. If you are old enough you will recognize the trick. Remember "back in the day" when TVs knobs would break (kids probably don't even know that TVs had knobs at one point)? We didn't through the TV out, we pulled out good old trusty pliers. So yes, I found a pair of pliers and it works. Its not fancy or new, but it works and I don't have to spend money on an otherwise working machine. So there -Mr Repair-guy! A small victory in my world of constant washing.
This past weekend we decided to use our romantic get-a-way. It was nice, we were both pretty tired from a full day running around with the kids. My cousin (thank you Cassandra) volunteered to watch the girls overnight. Our plan was to go to dinner, then head back to the room for chocolate covered strawberries and champagne. The only problem is that we choose the Saturday before Valentines day to go out - without reservations. Not really a good idea. One hour wait minimum. So for our romantic meal, I ended up with a Jimmy Johns sandwich, and for him General Goa's Chicken. Fabulous! It was fun still. Just a little different than what I planned in my head.
So now on to Crutches - My husband and I decided to extend our Romantic get-a-way fun by having breakfast and then cleaning out the Mini-van. (I know we are an exciting pair). All I can say about our mini-van is that I'm always amazed at all the "treasure" you find when you take all the seats out - yuk! Once we made it home, we started bringing in all the nick-knacks that belong in the house. And I have to admit I was the one who ruined our fantastic weekend by starting to fuss at my husband. But Karma is a B**** as they say. As if on cue, I'm fussing and then my foot slips, my ankle turns and next thing I know I'm staring at the sky and screaming. My ankle is badly sprained. I thought it was broken, but thankfully its just a sprain. The lesson that I learned instantly - don't ruin a good day over simple S***. Its not worth it.
That is my month in fast forward.
Laundry - the unthinkable happens, the knob on my washer breaks completely off. I can't turn the thing on. For me, this is a serious emergency. And my husband knows I'm about to freak out. He called a repair-man out the next day to look at it. The news is not good. This stupid knob will cost almost half of the cost of a new machine!! The repair-man tells us that its usually not worth fixing this kind of machine (that's repair-man speak for - you have a cheap ass machine). I go into washer buying mode. I know I only have a couple of days before the clothes will take over the 2nd floor. But then a solution comes to me. If you are old enough you will recognize the trick. Remember "back in the day" when TVs knobs would break (kids probably don't even know that TVs had knobs at one point)? We didn't through the TV out, we pulled out good old trusty pliers. So yes, I found a pair of pliers and it works. Its not fancy or new, but it works and I don't have to spend money on an otherwise working machine. So there -Mr Repair-guy! A small victory in my world of constant washing.
This past weekend we decided to use our romantic get-a-way. It was nice, we were both pretty tired from a full day running around with the kids. My cousin (thank you Cassandra) volunteered to watch the girls overnight. Our plan was to go to dinner, then head back to the room for chocolate covered strawberries and champagne. The only problem is that we choose the Saturday before Valentines day to go out - without reservations. Not really a good idea. One hour wait minimum. So for our romantic meal, I ended up with a Jimmy Johns sandwich, and for him General Goa's Chicken. Fabulous! It was fun still. Just a little different than what I planned in my head.
So now on to Crutches - My husband and I decided to extend our Romantic get-a-way fun by having breakfast and then cleaning out the Mini-van. (I know we are an exciting pair). All I can say about our mini-van is that I'm always amazed at all the "treasure" you find when you take all the seats out - yuk! Once we made it home, we started bringing in all the nick-knacks that belong in the house. And I have to admit I was the one who ruined our fantastic weekend by starting to fuss at my husband. But Karma is a B**** as they say. As if on cue, I'm fussing and then my foot slips, my ankle turns and next thing I know I'm staring at the sky and screaming. My ankle is badly sprained. I thought it was broken, but thankfully its just a sprain. The lesson that I learned instantly - don't ruin a good day over simple S***. Its not worth it.
That is my month in fast forward.
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