Out and About: The Last Weekend of Summer - Project 365: Days 5 and 6

Friday night, I got a call from my mother-in-law. She was back from Philly a night early (after dropping off the middle son at the airport for his trip back to Hawaii) and wanted to know if we still wanted to bring Spawn up so we could go out for a civilized meal the next night. Woohoo! YES! - on the inside. On the outside, I was playin' it cool. ;) "Let me to talk to the man who thinks he's in charge when he gets home and I'll let you know." 'cause I'm cagey like that. ;)

So of course we decide to take Spawn up for an overnight at Grammy and Paw-paw's house. They go to bed much earlier than we do, so it means getting up extra early the day we drop him off and administering his ADHD meds early so he'll go to bed at a decent hour for them. So I got up at 6 AM. I swear to you - I have not gotten up that early on a Saturday since that day in 11th grade when I went to Liberty High School to take the SATs. He had his pill and his vitamin and came over to my bed to cuddle and watch cartoons until it was time to shower and go.

We convinced Grammy to let us bring him up early so he could burn off some energy and go to bed on time for them. ;) We live just off of 33, so a trip to the Summit isn't so far, but hilarity can and does ensue on the drive - almost every time. We passed this trailer once and CS Dad and I both read it and looked at each other like, "No, it can't have said what I thought it said. It must have said McNally." We actually argued over it for a minute and sped up so we could pass it again and I snapped these pix to share with all of you. Judge for yourself what you think it says:

Yeah, so um...I have no words to explain how someone chooses that for their racing team name. I'm just sayin'. ;)

Moving on...we dropped the boy off with little fuss and while we were there, my brother-in-law and his girlfriend dropped off their little guy - Tiny Shawn Spawn. Grammy invited him to stay the night, too, because they get along so well and Spawn CANNOT get enough of his baby cousin's giggling and cuteness. =D

Not known for hanging about, we hugged, kissed, and made a break for it. ;) We debated lots of options for lunch or an early dinner, finally settling on Chili's. Mistake #1. ;) Ugh. We parked, walked in, and were seated immediately in the world's most poorly constructed booth after being led through a pile of trash that had been swept before we arrived and left in the middle of the floor. One side of this awful booth had a seat that was 2 feet deep. The other side was barely 8 inches deep. And I had to pee. I had CS Dad take the deeper side to accomodate his...er...excess manliness ;) and I took the shallow side - thinking I'd only be there a minute anyway because we were going to place our drink order and let our waitress know we were going to have to move to another table that hadn't been made for Santa Claus and Kate Moss. :p We looked over the menus and, as I sat there, I realized there was a very distinct odor coming from the bar/drinks menu. Vomit. Yeah, so um...I just wanted to order my drink and get rid of this offensive-smelling menu at this point and we sat and waited and waited and waited. More than 10 minutes passed, I still had to pee, my menu reeked of vomit, my booth seat was about a foot too shallow, and I couldn't get a single server among the dozen who passed us to so much as make eye contact. And there was no way I was going to risk using the bathroom in this place at this point, so CS Dad and I got up and left rather than risk catching Typhoid or somesuch.

We berated ourselves for not going to our usual Saturday night hangout, Cafe Del Mar, and went there anyway. When we arrived...the door was open, but the place was completely empty. Literally, it was us standing in the foyer and there was no one in any of the rooms I looked into. No servers, no bartenders, no one. It was like something out of a zombie movie. I didn't care. I had to pee! I made a beeline for the ladies' room, checked for zombies, and finally found a clean restroom! Woohoo!!!

When I came back out, the bartender (who was filling in this Saturday for our beloved Kurt) who'd been smoking out on the side porch finally spotted me from the window and came in as another customer was walking in behind us. He said hi, asked us where we'd like to sit, we grabbed a seat, and he waited on the people behind us. WHAT THE SWEET EFFING HELL?!?! Was I wearing a sign that said "I'm thirsty and I love bad service, please make me wait to be handed a menu and asked what I'd like to drink"?!?! The lady behind us was every bit as observant as I was and while she was being waited on and waiting for her take-out she said to the substitute bartender..."Um, young man, if you care about your tip, you should get them some drinks and menus before they leave." LOL!

The service improved slightly, but we didn't go out of our way to be easy on the kid at that point either. ;) CS Dad got a Coke/No Ice, I got a Med. white wine spritzer, and we both ordered the Seafood Marinara - seafood to eat now and pasta to eat later. Dinner was awesome - if not expedient. ;) But, we enjoyed our meal very much and opted to take home the leftovers and have an early night. CS Dad was exhausted from working the night before and really needed a nap. We left the restaurant at 5:00PM! :o Wow. Good thing we had all those movies from Netflix at home because I was going to have a LONG night while CS Dad napped! We did have to make a quick run to the pharmacy for some allergy meds and Halloween magazines - my weakness ;) - but we were still home by 6:00 and CS Dad sacked right out in his ugly chair. (Sorry, no pictures of that. ;))

I flicked around through the channels and fiddled with the blog here until 10:00PM when he woke up. We watched the 1st disc of the Elizabeth I miniseries with Helen Mirren. I'll admit to having been spoiled by The Tudors and Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in the movie Elizabeth several years ago. I was not thrilled with the Helen Mirren miniseries. Jeremy Irons was the only bright spot in the series, but not worth watching the second disc. :(

We went to bed way too late after watching Elizabeth for hours and consequently got up late. CS Dad had his crabby pants on about how he was going to miss the start of the Eagles game if he had to wait for me to shower and dress before going to pick up the boy. Whatever. He waited. ;)

We ran up to the Summit and discovered from the in-laws that Spawn had actually GONE TO BED AT 10:00PM the night before! Woohoo!!! He had had his Nighty Night Tea and read some books and when Grammy told him to go to bed, he went. Now, why doesn't it go that smoothly at home? :p When we arrived, he and Tiny Shawn Spawn were watching some ancient cartoons on the dog's couch. You read that right. My mother-in-law has a couch for her 110 lb. chocolate lab, Nikki. It's also the closest seat to the tv in their massive living room, so all the kids climb up on it and end up smelling like the dog. Blech. :p

Anyway, Spawn gathered up his books while I chatted with Grammy about my concerns about Spawn's spelling and writing and she showed me an elementary writing sample from one of CS Dad's younger brothers who had what they believed was a learning disorder, but was never diagnosed. The letters he dropped from common words are the same ones Spawn is dropping, so I'm thinking genetics plays a bigger role in passing this on than I've been lead to believe. 2 of my mother-in-law's 3 sons failed a grade at the elementary level. That seems unusual to me, but she claims it's not uncommon in their family. Wow. I can't even fathom accepting that as normal much less living it... :(

After the books and such were rounded up, we bid the grand-rents good-bye and made our way back down the mountain. I don't know if it's seasonal allergies or what, but the closer we got to home, the worse I felt. I was hot, I was cold, I was nauseous, I was hot again...Ugh. I asked CS Dad to stop on the way to pick up some take-out so I wouldn't have to fuss with lunch or dinner. We opted for hoagies from the pizza place down the street. Ultimately, I wasn't thrilled with the hoagies. They left a lot to be desired, but I did get this great shot of an outbuilding from the little farm next door to the pizza place. ;) The wasp nest is what caught my attention from the parking lot. So pretty!

We made it home, ate lunch, and CS Dad got his Eagles game on while I went upstairs to read. I read for like 10 minutes in bed and fell asleep. I napped for 4 HOURS! :o Sheesh! I did not realize how wiped out I was! Thank goodness I'd emailed our Cub Scout Pack committee chairman to let him know I was just too under the weather to make it to the meeting tonight - because I slept right through the whole meeting! CS Dad was sick all last week, sleeping around the clock for days and we just found out that another friend was recently diagnosed with an adult version of Mono, so needless to say, I'm a bit worried. If this need to sleep continues, I'll be checking in with my doctor this week. I could lay down and take a nap right now - after my 4 hour nap! Ri-frickin-diculous!!!

So, how did you spend your last day of summer? ;)

Chrissi, Cyber School Mom