White Lightning Axiom: Redux

What a day! When I picked up the kids, the Day Care Professional filled me in on some interesting events for the day. Since it was photo-day, the kids were all dressed up for their yearly pics. The photographer that they bring in is familiar with the whole 'bust your back to get the kid to smile' routine. This was apparently too much for Jacob the Jovial Joker to handle. The minute the photog started up with his routine, Jacob started cracking up and giggling. It wasn't his turn yet. He laughed and hammed it up the whole time that the photographer was there. Its always nice to hear that your kid had a good time at school. On the way home, I think about what we are going to do for the evening. I give the Mrs a ring on the cellphone and ask if she would like to go to Barttuchi's, our favorite restaurant, this evening. I figure that I would bring the kids to the Manor first, feed them some nutritious food first, then head over for a night out. My thinking is that I would spend the whole damn night searching the tv and internet for news on the election and pretty much ignore the family. That would be wrong and I can be pretty week willed about these things ... sometimes. When we park the Super Saturn, it is totally dark, but Jacob stands at the back gate to the Twin Towers. He gives me a sad look as he peers into the darkness. I'll have to see if I can get home early sometime this week so they can play outside for a while. His little pouty sad face and complete silence breaks my heart. Once inside, Jacob eats a few fish sticks and Alexis woofs down an entire side of beef. Hungry little lady, isn't she?

Flash forward to the arrival at the restaurant. The parking lot does not look too full, but when we make the reservation, we learn otherwise. Some of the tables are not being waited on due to a reduced waitstaff count. We are told that there will be a 20 minute wait. After lugging in 2 kids, 2 booster seats and a back-pack full of 'emergency child supplies'. I am not the type of person who gets halfway through a swamp only to turn back because it was too difficult. So we wait it out. The kids ... behaved well. No squirming, no running about. They just sat in the chairs and read the books we brought along. For 20 minutes. We did give them some raw bread dough that the restaurant provides as play things. They mushed it and did kid type stuff with it. Some of it stuck to their fingers which we obligingly helped removed. Better on Daddy's pants than in your siblings hair. We let them know not to eat it ... and they listened. Our children have been replaced by androids! Pod People even! We were eventually seated and our waitperson was EXTREMELY well suited to dealing with children. Nice to know that someone understands the angst of parenthood. We ordered 2 children's cheese pizzas and she immediately asked if we would like those ASAP. Why yes, thanks for asking. She brings out the children's menus with crayons. Jacob thinks that crayons are the cat's meow and taste better than candy. We asked them not to eat the crayons ... and they did what we asked. Clones I tell you! Alexis did feel that it was necessary to remove the paper from the crayons, but hey, whatever floats your boat. I got a glass of wine to start off the evening. Alexis demanded to have a drink of my 'Apple Juice' since I was drinking it. That required me to finish if off quickly. Normally I would let her have a taste so she would decide that it was not all that good. We are in a public place and I don't need any SS workers trying to snatch away my kids because I was 'Corrupting' them. Could this explain why all of Europe and Canada is 'Corrupt'? Because their children drink wine? Is Alexis going to be a Democrat. Nonsense. Once the pizza arrives, it is a bit too hot to eat, so we all blow on it to cool it down. Alexis proceeds to eat the outer crust and the cheese off one piece. I look over to see Jacob with nearly a whole piece in his mouth. DAMN! He likes his junk food. If it is deep fried or oily, its all good to him. He ate well. Doppelgangers! Since things are going so well and I look up to see CNN on the tube, I order 2 Vodka martinis (Grey Goose, of course) and settle in for a pleasant evening. I give my olives to Alexis and Jacob who immediately identify them as 'relatively unpalatable' and pulverize them into mush. All said, the kids got a 9.625 on the Cherub scale. Back at the manor, we bathe the kids and put them down. They are pooped since we were out so late. They nearly pass out immediately. I do some minor tasks about the household along with the Matronly Mrs (who got my tipsy ass home) and then crawl into bed and surf the TV for poll projections. Interesting enough, all the states with large cities became blue states (NY,Mass,PA,Ill,CA). No big surprise, but the margin for PA was stunning. Philly and Pittsburgh carried the state. I thought that the Republicans got crushed, but in actuality, we only were shy about 120K out of 6.5M. That's about 1.85%. Would it had made a difference if Nader was on the ballot? The other 3 parties were there and it did not seem to hurt the Democratic ticket much. If this were not such a contentious election year, it may have gone the other way. I'm not complaining, Montgomery county is pretty much a Strong Democrat region. My primary disappointment Allison Schwartz got elected over Dr Melissa Brown. This is a NIMBY issue for me. AS is going to push a road project that will condemn part of my property to build a dead-end road expansion. This has a big impact on my quality of living and way of life. My Democrat neighbors will be displeased as well when they find out that their 'Straight Ticket' vote is going to come back and bite them in the ass.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 12:58 PM