Friday Fragments: Episode 4.17.15
17 April 2015
I haven't fragmented in a dog's age, but I felt like a brain dump was necessary, so here I am! These posts are for the purpose of shaking out all that loose change rattling around in our brains that isn't big enough for a whole post. Link up here with Mrs. 4444 if you're fragmentin' today!
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First and most importantly, I'd like to give some birthday shout-outs to some very important people in the lives of Team Odette! Above are Hubs' twin brother and sister, Mike and Gail, who turned the big 5-0 on Thursday (yesterday). Happy half-century, you two!
Also, my big sister Stacey Jean is turning the big 4-0 tomorrow, April 18th! WOW, huge milestone years for all of the siblings! Happy fourth decade, Sis; I ♥ you so much!
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When Rob (Hubs) was in the hospital for eight days, I did my best to give the kids a decent passing time for that period. I had free tickets to go to the movies, so we went to see Home, which they had been talking about for a while.
All three of them agreed that it was better than Big Hero 6, but I greatly disagreed with that assessment, since I loved the Disney flick. I could have waited easily for it to come out on DVD, and the only thing that tickled me were the running gags about "My Mom..." and "going Number Three." Other than that, big fat "MEH" from me!
Have you seen it, and if so, with whom do you agree?
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This was the afternoon I sprung Rob from "The Clink," a.k.a. the hospital where he was staying through the beginning of April. I had brought plenty of treats to the hospital ward for the other patients, including four dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, dozens of magazines of all kinds of genres, and a huge batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies, and this pleased me greatly to do. However, nothing made me happier than this moment, when he was released to me to come home. I lurve this guy!
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Partially to celebrate Rob's homecoming, we went to the Miami Youth Fair that evening. Ohmagosh, it was hot!! I rented him a wheelchair, since he was feeling pretty dizzy (and, secret? that helps carry the bags we collect along the way, too). Here are the girls in our ticket redemption line. I do have to say, I think they look so cute in their glasses!
Of course, when you visit the fair, you are required to eat fair food, right? My obligatory fair food is cheesy fries with excessive amounts of vinegar and, I must confess, among the five of us we shared about three large orders that day! Jack, however, is our carnivorous kid (the girls have all but sworn off the meat-eating through no attempt of mine to have them do so), so he was all about getting a turkey leg.
We laughed so hard at the enormosity (that's a word, right?) of the turkey legs at the fair compared to his diminutive size. He put quite a pretty good dent in it, too, before Daddy had to take over!
Soft-serve ice cream... yet another food from the fair in which one must indulge. I mean, c'mon. It's the fair. You're not getting a salad, people.
We mostly walked around and looked at exhibits, ate, rode rides and... played games. Wait, that's kind of a 'duh,' because that is what the fair is, after all.
Anyway, I spent entirely too much money on games, because Sophie decided she had to win this "hippocorn," as Rob calls it, for her dad. She's a sweet kid, that girl.
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Poor Jack has had a time of it lately. Between an awful dentist visit (we have known for years he has bad teeth, so this was not a surprise) and a subsequent visit to the Miami Children's Hospital Emergency Department, plenty of work was determined to be needing done. But none has been done. Our dental bills, for the five of us, are going to be astronomical. And we are triple-insured for this. SUCKAGE, y'all.
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Speaking of Jack emergencies, he tripped over a rope his younger sister had tied to the bucket he wanted to use for making bubble wand mix the other day, and he landed smack on his cheekbone on the edge of the bucket.
His cheek swelled up enormously and turned black in seconds. This was on Sophie's 10th birthday, this past Monday, so quite an unfortunate accident indeed. I delivered him and his dad to the local ED for X-rays and Ibuprofen, and it was determined that nothing was broken. Phew! That poor cheek has turned 57 shades of ugly since then, though!
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Rob and I went out to downtown Miami and South Beach for a fun date night a couple nights later, and that was a much needed reprieve from the stresses of previous weeks. At the one restaurant we visited, our bartendress was quite moronical. She did not know how to make anything normal. Holy cow. I'm glad Rob didn't decide to blow her mind by ordering his usual favorite stumper, a Colorado Bulldog!
In the end, I ordered this, a "No. 8," which was quite good with its raspberry-mint essence. I liked it, though I'm not a fan of mojitos or any other minty beverage. Seriously, though... as Rob pointed out, she wasn't there for her brains (quite a hottie, she was)!
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At that same restaurant, our food and table service were exquisite. We had this Bufala Mozzarella deliciousness that included pine nuts, pomegranate arils, and some kind of sweet hazelnut mashy thing that we quite liked.
My scallop dinner was delectable, but unreasonably priced: I paid $36 for this plate and received three not-even-that-large scallops. Do the math. If I wasn't being reimbursed for this meal, I would have passed out!
On the other hand, our dessert was quite creative and simply amazing: a creamy topped Monkeybread concoction. What? Monkeybread?! How unusual. I loved the idea of that being on the menu at a fancy restaurant nearly as much as the dish itself. Would you order it?
After all that food, it was such a tragedy that we still had to get some FroYo for another shop, but we went through with the horrible disaster. I didn't eat any and gave the whole thing to my bottomless pit husband. Apparently this brand, which we were experiencing for the first time compared to Menchie's and Sweet Frog, tasted a lot more like actual yogurt than, you know, ice cream? I can't say personally, though I think I might actually have liked that.
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And last but definitely not least, I came up with idea for instituting a Swear Jar all on my own, since I have a HA-rrible (as I pronounce it, being from New York) potty mouth. No one forced me; I brought this upon myself. I bought a set of large mason jars - because I couldn't seem to get just one - and we hot-glued the lid shut so I couldn't break into it for emergency gas/Diet Coke/what-have-you funds.
Um. Yeah. Bad idea. The kids are making bank off me. That jar is now full to capacity after a mere three or four days, and we have to start a new one. Most of that money is from me. The kids also have to throw in a quarter (it's 25¢ per swearing offense, as well) for saying "Shut up!" or calling each other "stupid," "idiot," or such things, but unlike me, they seem to have learned their lessons quite quickly.
At this rate, we'll have the down payment for a live-aboard boat in no time. Oy vey...
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Welp, I think that's enough of a brain-dump for me this week. Thanks for stopping by!
Fin.
P.S. Here's a gratuitous cute picture of Spike, Rob's new kitten, having a nosh: