Author Archives: metamegan

>The Day it All Fell Apart

>Just need to record this conversation in case I ever wonder, “Where did I go wrong?”

I am working, and I am burned out, and Jack is home with me, and he doesn’t want to nap. An hour after I put him down, I heard the garage door open, and I though it was Dave. Then I heard the sound of little feet running from room to room. Contrary to the to implications of the High School Varsity Cross Country Jacket that I can see from where I am sitting right now, Dave is not a runner, so I got up to investigate.

It was Jack, and we had the following conversation:

Jack: I don’t want to nap.
Me: You have to
Jack: I promise I won’t be grouchy
Me: You said that last time.
Jack: If I am grouchy, you can just get me a class of water and I will not be grouchy.
Me: OK, You don’t have to nap, but you have to go to your room for quiet time.
Jack: OK.
Jack: Can I be loud?
Me: Sure.

And scene.

>Ladies Who Lunch: Dish

>Today was scheduled to be the much anticipated Cafe Aion, but the forces of darkness worked against me. The first problem was that I only blocked an hour off my calendar and ended up with meetings scheduled right up to noon and starting again at 1:00. Not enough time to speed across town, park, order, eat and get back. The second force of darkness was what we in the IT field call a TOTAL NIGHTMARE. That’s the technical term for when you finally get a bunch of users in your new system and everything crashes, and 50 people send you a message about it, and 49 of those messages say, “I am seeing the same problem, can you email me when it’s fixed?” If Bill Gates were to do one thing for humanity, it would be do remove the Reply All button from Microsoft Outlook.

Fortunately, I used my mad troubleshooting skillz to determine that the DATA disk group wasn’t mounted on RAC02, and it was operator error (not mine) and it was fixed around 12:15 (as my 11-12 meeting ended) at which point I sent an email that all was well and was shortly seen fleeing from the building.

What to do, what to do, when you have Cafe Aion on the brain and 30 minutes for lunch? Well, we just went to the next place on the illustrious list of places where Ladies want to Lunch.

Dish.

Of course, we didn’t decide that on the spot, I had plan B in my back pocket all along, and I instructed Laura to study the menu and plan ahead so as not to waste time in line. But I couldn’t decide what I wanted. The Piglet? Cute/horrifying name. BLAT? So predictable/delicious? Salad? Too diet friendly. I was a little amped up on caffeine and Laura suggested that maybe I needed a trip to the ladies room, but I insisted it was just stress and coffee that was making me so annoyingly jittery. I decided to get half an Italian sandwich, and made a spur of the moment decision to upgrade from chips to a side salad.

My sandwich was really good, especially the mozz and pepperoni part. The ambiance, on the other hand, was terrible. But that was probably because we went back to work and ate in the break room. Dish has a few places to sit, but we didn’t have time to linger, and if we did, people waiting for their to-go lunch would have been standing right by our table talking about RAC02, and being jittery. But we enjoyed eating together even when Randy Randoms walked through the break room and bugged us. I was a little worried because with 2 bites of my half sandwich to go, I was still starving. But by the time I finished my salad, I felt like I might live. Then I ate a random muffin from the break room leftover table, so I can’t say for sure if the lunch was filling enough.

Laura had the Bloody Good Salad, which looked good, if you are the type of person who likes hard boiled eggs, and an M&M cookie, which she said was gooey and had lots of sugar and almond extract, and was sooo good. I have to admit, I am sort of fantasizing about that cookie right now.

>Ladies Who Lunch

>A looong time ago, Dave and I went out to lunch at The Kitchen and it was fantastic. I was observing two old biddies at lunch a few tables away and imagining that it would be me and my friend Laura in five 30 years. Then a light bulb went off. Start going out to lunch now!

Of course at the time, Laura was busy eating a bag of microwaved frozen veggies for lunch every day and she couldn’t be persuaded to go out. Not even the frequent and repeated gagging sounds I made every time she described her lunch could change her mind. She says, “Who doesn’t like something hot for lunch?” I was almost won over by microwaved frozen veggies, when suddenly, Laura had a change of heart. Cue tears of joy.

I’ve been trying to think of some regular features to have here at MetaMegan since I haven’t been able to write about iworkallthetimepottytrainingistheworstseriouslytheywantmetocancelmyvacationsoIcanwork-moremydogisagrumpygrowlerwahwahwah or “poop” for short.

All I had come up with prior to my restaurant reviews, was a weekly picture from my phone, so WOAH! all of a sudden I have a couple ideas for a few posts per week. YEA!

The best part is that my idea for the lunch reviews is two fold. The first part is where I am ecstatic that I left work, and I had a glass of wine and delightful conversation at lunch. All the praise is glowing, I am full and happy. The second part will be called, In retrospect, and that’s when I will eat leftovers and think about what was wrong with my meal.

Nutshell version to get caught up…
Ladies Who Lunch:
The dough/crust at Pizzeria Basta is amazing. The prix fixe lunch ($10.00 for soup or salad, pizza or calzone) was a good amount of food for the price. Half glass of wine for $3.00! I had the soup (roasted red pepper/tomato) and the margarita pizza. I had so much fun, and I forgot all my troubles.
In Retrospect:
I’m on a diet, so I could drink a jar of tomato sauce and think it was delicious. And that is sort of how I felt about the soup. And by jar, I mean can, because it tasted a little metallic. It was really good though. But a little metallic. And I really want to be the type of person who thinks cheese is not that important on a pizza, and for my diet, the small circle of cheese on each slice was probably the best for my calorie count, but I was surprised at how little cheese there was on my pizza. I felt myself looking longingly at Laura’s calzone, which looked like it had more to it. Also, the menu used colons in very bizarre ways that made it really hard to read. They need a proofreader for their menu for sure. (The online menu does not seem as confusing.)

Lastly, this is not the fault of Pizzeria Basta, but I was telling Laura about a facebook friend who seems to rarely be at work, and spends all his/her time at the beach or on vacation. I was speculating that he/she made it big in the dot com era or something and she said, maybe he/she is just someone who rarely works. Or someone who has days off, like a waiter. And I said, “Yes! That explains everything! He/She is just a waiter!!!” And of course I said that just as the waiter came to our table, and then I felt like an ass.

In short – I would go back for the wine, and to try a different pizza to see it was cheesier, because it was a nice lunch and 1000 times better than being at work, and I have heard great reviews from other people, but not before I cross a bunch of other places off my list.

Coming soon… Cafe Aion!

P.S. Ladies Who Lunch is a work in progress title. When Dave found out this was going to be a weekly thing he wasn’t pleased. And he wanted in on some of the lunch action. So sometimes it might be Ladies Who Lunch + Dave. Or something. I thought he was objecting on grounds that it was too expensive a habit, but then I told him if he comes with us, it’s just that much more expensive.

>Sleepover

>There is always going to be someone who gets upset at a sleepover, but this was a new one. Jack came upstairs after everyone had been in bed for a while, and he was so sad. He put on his tragic face and said, pitifully, “I want to giggle with Stella, but Stella isn’t giggling.”

>Dog Interpreter

>When I was little, I once told my parents that I knew what my grandparent’s dog was thinking. It wasn’t earth shattering, I just told them the dog wanted to go out. They asked how I knew that and I said, “He said, ruff ruff, I want to go out.”

They laughed and they laughed. And laughed. Still a funny story, 36 years later.

Yesterday I was wondering what I was thinking when I said that. Was I incredibly bored at my grandparents house and looking for something interesting to do? Could I actually read the dog’s mind? Was I very precocious and adorable? A big fat liar?

And why was I contemplating this? Oh, just a little something Jack said,

“Mommy. Lucy says she wants to watch the Empire Stripes* Back. Right Lucy? Yeah, she says she does.”

* Not a typo.

>Ralphie, I Can’t Get Up

>This is how I have been feeling lately:

From Blog pix

In place of layers and layers of clothes, it’s piles and piles of work. Then I was going to turn this debbie downer blog post around and end with a glorious sledding video, but I can’t get the size right on the video. Very Frustrating!! Argh!!!

OK – I should at least be able to come up with a funny Jack story. OK, so tonight I was reading to Luke while Dave was sitting in the bathroom for hours and hours with Jack helping him figure out how to use the leap pad while he (he=Jack, hope that’s obvious) tried to poop on the potty. Luke and I had finished an entire Magic Treehouse book before they even made it downstairs to brush teeth. Jack was refusing to submit to the toothbrush, and I heard the dreaded Count To Three. At three, Jack lost his bedtime story privileges. Jack’s response:

“No stories? Just cuddling?”

>File Under: Neglectful Parenting

>This is one of those stories I shouldn’t share because it makes me look like a bad parent, but here goes.

Today, Jack decided to go to the bathroom all on his own and told us about it afterwords. I was so proud (and surprised)! And when I asked for details about how he did it, he said, “Oh, I just left the door open and just listened to the TV for a minute.”

What a problem solver!

>Self Esteem, Check!

>Today Jack pooped on the potty. I don’t know why but I just said, “Great!” instead of singing the song and doing the dance. I was running around with the dog in the back yard yesterday and I tripped over the sprinkler line, flew through the air and landed far away on my side. That might explain my forgetfulness regarding the poop song, and my lack of desire to do the death defying poop dance celebration. No worries, Jack had his own congratulatory session.

“I pooped on the potty and that’s impressive. It’s incredible. And awesome. It’s incredibly awesome.”

This is going to sound sort of petty and mean, but I couldn’t help but think, “He sure has an impressive vocabulary for someone who frequently craps in his pants.”

>Lessons, Learned

>When you come home from daycare with a plastic bagged filled with a pair of underwear filled with a big turd, your first instinct might be to deal with it immediately, have a drink and forget it ever happened for 24 hours until the same thing happens again.

Word to the wise: Take off your coat and scarf first. Never lean over the toilet to deal with turd filled underwear (henceforth referred to as The Situation) while wearing a beautiful scarf. I can’t stress this enough people. While you are taking off your hat and scarf, pour yourself a drink and savor it for 15 minutes and then deal with The Situation. Just don’t wait so long that your spouse says, “Did you leave The Situation in the bathroom for me to deal with?” Relax everyone, there will be enough to go around.