If It Looks Like A Carnival, and Smells Like A Carnival.....

Tonight we had to do some more house errands, sigh, and since we have basically ignored all but our children's most physical needs these last few weeks, we let them pick where we went to eat. This is always a crap shoot.

During the day, I started planting seeds of where they might want to eat, listing off many different Mexican haunts, only to be shot down every time. Dawson was hell bent on going to the "Meatball Place." Those of you familiar with the west side, would know this as the Chinese Gourmet. It is an enormous buffet, with a misleading name. Chinese? Yes. Gourmet? Not by a long shot. I am not a fan of buffet style dining anyway, but I prefer to dine places where I am not going to recognize any of my Patients, current or future.

All the way down the canyon, I suggested different places, "How about where they cut the meat off the stick? How about where you can eat all that shrimp? How about Viet??" Dave just shook his head and smirked. He doesn't mind eating there, but tells the kids how much he loves it, just to see how much pain he can cause me. He kept reminding me as we got further and further from the good side of the tracks, that my voice was getting higher and I was sounding desperate and pathetic. Duh!

After securing all our valuables, we got out at the Chinese Gourmet, and waded through all the smokers out enjoying the after-buffet cigarette. Dawson started sniffing the air and then reported that it smelled like the carnival. I couldn't have put it better myself.

The meal wasn't a complete disaster, Dawson piled his plate high with generic white fish and a Cinnamon roll on top. Dylan ate what will probably be three months worth of diarrhea, in mandarin oranges and canned pears, and Emma just squished cherry tomato after cherry tomato out the sides of her mouth. There were three bright spots during the meal. First, the boys spotted, "THE WITCH FROM PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN! YOU KNOW MOM, THE ONE THAT LOVES DAVEY JONES!!" The woman they spotted did look a lot like that witch, but I would have preferred if they had said it only loud enough for Dave and I to hear. Secondly, both boys thanked me over and over and said I was the best mom in the whole world for taking them there.(Tell me something I don't know.) Thirdly, an old lady stopped us on the way out and commented on what well-behaved, polite children we had. She didn't think they were polite enough to take home with her, so we piled them into the truck and called it a night.