Hankering for Scallops

I was up near 740am and felt one heck of a lot better than I did Saturday morning. Downstairs, I found the family room full of campers. All but one was still sleeping. I quickly prepped a pot of coffee then headed to my PC.

Soon the coffee was ready and I enjoyed a cup or two ahead of a run. Mindy was up shortly before 9am. One of the overnight guests had to leave to make it to swim practice. Her mom showed up around 905am. Mindy was planning to make bacon and pancakes for all the girls. I headed out for my run soon after Mindy put the bacon in the oven.

At the time, it wasn’t raining but the promise of heavy rain remained in the day’s forecast. Judging by the bucket Bella left out on the deck, it rained about an inch during the overnight already. I ran three miles without getting rained on. Back at home I enjoyed what remained of the pancakes and bacon. I wasn’t prepared for the Reece’s pieces cooked into one of my flap jacks. Blahh!! Mindy chuckled then shared that there were plain pancakes in the stack, too.

Once my belly was full, I headed outside to take down Jimaken’s tent since the weather forecast promised heavy rain now through Monday. Figured I’d better get it down while it was fairly dry. It was too wet to fold up and put in the backpack. Instead, after taking it down I put it in the garage where it could dry a bit more. By then a couple of the other parents were there to pick-up their kids, including Kelly, Bella’s gymnastics instructor.

I headed out back again, this time to spread grass seed over all the holes I filled the day before with topsoil and then several other thin spots in the back lawn. I also used the leaf blower to fluff the grass that was matted by the tent. That worked really well. I took a few minutes to rake away the newly fallen walnuts too. Not nearly as many as the week before. We’re finally getting close to bottom!

Once all the kids were gone we celebrated briefly. Mindy insisted that we go out for dinner, especially after her busy weekend prepping for Bella’s party. By no surprise, she suggested CBC. And while I was OK with the choice, I offered up the Big Fat instead. She wasn’t opposed.

Through the afternoon I watched the Bengals and Patriots game. The heavy rain that was forecasted for most of the day managed to hold off through the entire afternoon. However, it was getting closer. It started to rain locally around 430pm and when it did it came down in buckets. In fact, it was raining pretty hard when as a family we made a mad dash for the Pilot to head out for dinner.

Felt the timing was right to have our discussion with Bella concerning the drama raised during her overnight birthday party. We explained our objective was to give her tools to use in the future rather having a dramatic meltdown. However, in hindsight, addressing it with Jacob in the car at the same time might not have been wise. No one loves a pile on more than he. I think she understood the gist of what we offered, at least I hope so.

It’s a relatively short drive to the Big Fat. Because of the heavy rain, I let the family off at the door then went to park. I noticed that the first spot was vacating just then. I waited patiently for the customer to depart then took that same premo spot.

Mindy and the kids were already seated. Not very bust at all, but then again, it was a Sunday evening and stormy at that. Johnny, the owner, had greeted and seated them. Mindy ordered a glass of wine. The rest of us only soft drinks. They served us complementary pita and green sauce per usual. Yum! That’s always a big hit. The pita was especially fresh.

I had a hankering for their broiled scallops though the pasta and lobster special sounded delicious, too. Jacob & I ordered the tried and true scallops, but Mindy went with the special, so that meant I would at least get a taste. Bella ordered pasta and red sauce from the kids menu.

The scallops were decent but could have been better. In addition, the portion size was noticeably smaller. Mindy’s pasta special was to die for delicious. We ordered three desserts for the go. I picked up the dinner check. Ouch!!! While dining, we kept a loose eye on the Denver/Dallas game they had playing on the smallish TV above the bar. It was an epic back and forth offensive struggle. I think it was 38-38 when we left for home. By then the rain had stopped, at least temporarily.

Home by 7pm, I quickly tuned the TV to the conclusion of the Denver/Dallas game. It was 48-48 with a minute or so to go. Dallas had the ball, and Tony Romo had already set team records for single game TD passes and passing yardage. But that didn’t stop him from throwing an interception on their own 27 yard line which lead to a game winning field goal for Denver. No matter who your favorite team is, unless it happens to be Dallas, it’s hard not to pull for Peyton Manning, who I think is the best QB to ever play football.

After the game Jacob headed to his room to get busy on his public speaking project that was due the following day. He sprung the assignment on us while at dinner. He needed to draft a 5 minute speech about himself and it needed to include life lessons. We offered several topics to which he pooh-poohed almost all. And even when he thought an idea might be good, he’d come back with a classic case of writer’s block. It got so bad that he was blaming us. Big mistake, especially when he procrastinated all weekend. Now having said that, Jacob is a straight ‘A’ student and is usually very responsible with his homework assignments. He’s not one that typically needs ridden hard or pushed to complete his work. Now Bella, that’s another story. But this time he was being a PITA.

Speech, music, art, not in Jacob’s wheel house, and definitely not in his comfort zone. His immaturity often comes out in such circumstances, and this night was no exception. It was 9pm or so when Mindy headed to bed and told Jacob she was done trying to help. I don’t think she heard the same swearing that I heard as he headed back to his room. Later, while I was watching a bit of the SNF game, I heard him in our room talking to Mindy about his assignment again. By then it had to be near 10pm. I soon fell asleep on the sofa but upped around 1020pm and headed for bed.