Dave's Birthday Brunch

This past Sunday, Dave and our friends, Jan and Alan went to a new restaurant here in town, called Mazz, to celebrate Dave's 63rd birthday. That was our actual table, right there in the front of the picture.

They offered a champagne brunch for $18 per person. We rolled in, Dave in his powerchair, Jan with her rolling walker, and me on my cane (my chair is in the shop). Alan was the only able-bodied one among us.  A lot of places don't like having to move chairs around for us, but this staff didn't bat an eye. Everywhere we turned, someone was offering to carry plates from the buffet for us. They just bent over backwards to make us comfortable.


The food....oh my goodness....the food. SIIIIIGH. Roast beef that melted in your mouth like buttah. Perfect pasta with two sauces, the alfredo was my favorite. Roasted chicken and vegetables, baked tilapia that was the best I've ever had. An omelet station, tacos, fresh fruits, mini desserts, and a mountain of peel and eat shrimp. I can embarrass myself with peel and eat shrimp. Plus, the champagne bottle was bottomless. As soon as our glass was down an inch, there was an arm with a bottle at the end of it, filling it up.


Just when we thought the day couldn't get any better, the time came to pay our bill. Our server brought over that little leather folder, and we all waited for her to ask if we wanted separate checks. Instead, she told us the most unexpected news...


"There was a man in the party at the table behind you....he's already gone...but he paid your entire bill, including taking care of me."


WHAT?!?!?!?...Who was he???....We called over the manager, but he assured us the man wanted to be anonymous. 


Why did he do this???.....did he see 4 senior citizens, 3 of us disabled and feel sorry for us??....Did he hear us toasting Dave and know we were having a special occasion that was probably a little out of our budgets?....Did he assume Dave was a veteran, with his flag on his chair and his camo hat?....Did I remind him of his MeeMaw??


Or was this just a random act of kindness....someone "paying it forward".


We'll never know who our anonymous host was, or why he chose us to treat that day...but we hope that this blessing comes back to him ten-fold.


I'm still trying to pick my chin up off the floor.

The Costco Experience

I've just come back from my second-time-ever trip to Costco. It may be called something else in your neck of the woods....Sam's Club, Acre-O-Food, etc., but you know the place. That warehouse store where you shop with a pallet jack instead of a shopping cart.

There were good things and bad things about Costco. One good thing is, I didn't have to walk all over Creation. They have scooters the size of a small Hummer for us old folks to ride. The other thing is....it was Sample Day. :-)

When you go on Sample Day, go hungry. Every aisle you turn down, in the food section, there is a retiree in an apron cooking up something tasty. I started off with a taste of steak and bean burrito, some pomegranate juice, half a tempura shrimp, and a little cup of dark chocolate covered blueberries that were absolutely so good they were sinful. I was stuffed.

Good thing they make the hot dogs to go...which is another good thing about Costco. They make the best hot dogs. Hebrew Nationals. Big ol' beef sausages about 10 inches long in a soft steamy bun. I bought 4 and brought them home for lunch, not that I was hungry anymore, but I knew Dave would be.

The bad thing about these stores is the size of the products they have for sale. Does anyone really need a gallon of Tabasco sauce? I usually buy those little 2 ounce bottles and they last a year. What would anyone DO with a gallon of Tabasco? Something evil, I suspect. Maybe even a WMD? It could happen.

Now I can see a gallon of.... say.....pancake syrup. We make a lot of frozen waffles at my house. A gallon would last a while, but only if we had the waffles to put it on. So I had no choice but to buy a box of 60 frozen waffles. The syrup came in a double pack...TWO gallons. It all matched up.

These places are supposed to save you money, and I would imagine if you had a family and a freezer, maybe they do, but for me, I can go in and by the time I've bought a bag of 200 chicken nuggets, the 5 dozen Eggos, 42 lbs of cat litter, 2 gallons of syrup, a big bag of onion rings, 3 pounds of bananas and a box of exam gloves (don't ask) I've spent $100 and I still can't make a meal.

I didn't find everything I was looking for though. They didn't have a WII. Probably just as well...I would have spent $300 and still had nothing to eat for dinner.

I Have a Heart Condition

It's a hole...and it can only be filled by these two:

Are those two of the most precious faces on the Earth??? Meet our grandsons, Jacob (7) and Adam aka Moosie (2). 

A couple of weeks ago, my son Joe and my daughter-in-law Debbie had the chance to take a vacation, so they drove down to LA from Oregon to spend some time with friends and family and then on to Las Vegas for some grownup time. I'm sure they had a great time, but WE had the best part of the whole trip...we got to keep the boys for four days!

Now what makes this so special is, it had been 3 years since we'd seen Jacob and Debbie, longer since we'd seen Joe, and we had never seen Moosie, except in pictures and on Skype. (If you don't have Skype and you have grandchildren...get it...get it NOW!) They started planning this trip a year before it happened so we had a long wait for that wonderful morning when our family finally arrived.

Dave went out to meet the car, and I waited in the lobby, here at Golden Acres. We'd decided to meet them there, so we could show them where to park, and because there was just more hugging room. First Jacob came running in. OH!!...I could hardly stand to turn him loose, once I got my arms around him. He's the firstborn. He's handsome and charming and smart...OMG is he ever smart. He's in the first grade and he's reading on 5th grade level. He told his parents he was more excited about seeing Grandma and Grampy than he was about going to Disneyland. Here he is right after he came in:

Then came Moosie. Our first look, face to face. Pictures are great, and Skype is fantastic, but there is nothing like getting your arms around someone you love. He came rolling in with Grampy, riding on the front of his chair, just like Jacob did when he was younger. 

Here he is...my first look at this beautiful baby.

My greatest fear was soon put to rest. I was afraid that he would be scared of me. It only took a couple of minutes for us to bond. For the rest of the visit he was MY boy.

We all had dinner together, Joe and Debbie left for Vegas, and we were on our own. I had a two-year-old for the first time in 25 years. And this was all virgin territory for Dave. After dinner we watched the boys play with some of the toys we'd bought for the visit, and then it was bedtime. After pj's and kisses all around, Jacob hopped into bed and dropped right off. He must have been tired. I gathered Moosie up into what lap I have, and we rocked in the rocking chair a little bit. It didn't take long for him to drop off too. I put him into his travel crib and marveled at my two sleeping angels. 

Fast forward to 2am. I heard a little whimper and found that my mom instincts were still intact, as I immediately awoke. Moosie was standing in his crib, so I went over and asked him..."Baby, why are you awake? It's still sleepy time." That child looked at me like I was dumber than a box of rocks and said, "Diaper". Oh yeah....those...I'd forgotten that little boys need a diaper change in the middle of the night. I said..."Oh, I'm sorry...is it wet?"....he said..."Wet."....like, can we get on with this so I can go back to sleep?

The next two days were spent in typical kid mode. Waffles for breakfast accompanied by Spongebob Squarepants. Baking cookies in the afternoon, and a movie in the theater room that evening. Chicken nuggets and blue box mac & cheese. Fruit cups and Gogurts and sippy cups.

I dragged those poor boys around so much...to meet all our friends and to show them off. They were so well behaved. I was so proud. A week later, my friends were still commenting on how polite Jacob was, and how sweet Moosie was. Jacob always remembered his manners, no matter how many people he'd been introduced to. He even asked permission before petting my friend Jim's little dog. (Jim said "Kids don't talk that way!!"...I said, "Mine do". ) Joe and Debbie deserve full credit for that. They are wonderful parents, and I'm so proud of them. I wish I'd done some of the things with my boys that Deb has done with hers. 

When the time came for them to leave, I tried really hard not to cry. So did Grampy. We tried, but we lost that one. It was so hard to let them go. I just wanted to hold them and not turn them loose until they were ready for college. I know they are busy, and our travel days are over, but I hope it won't be another 3 years before we see them again. In the meantime, I'm grateful for pictures and videos and Skype. But nothing can fill that hole in my heart like the warmth of their hugs.

I'll leave you with some pictures, before I cry again.

My handsome son Joe and his beautiful wife, Debbie. Now you see where those boys get their looks.

Be still, my heart!!

Remember this boy...he's going to be something special to the world when he grows up.

My family. My loves. My heart.