My Nucleus

My Nucleus

Happy Pancake Sunday

We have just had one of the best weekends! Pieces of it made me so happy that I could cry. It started with meeting Jordan's brother and his wife and Jordan's sister for dinner.  Our daughter came on Saturday, so we had a mini family gathering weekend which was too much fun. To conclude our time together we went out for a pancake breakfast. What could be better than that? Nothing. 

So, our weekend started on Friday night. We went to a chain restaurant that I suggested...I wanted a special burger with egg. The burger was yum.

When we were ready to either get the check or get dessert (and we weren't sure which) our waitress was nowhere in sight. Like...NOwhere.  I had a small moment of clarity when I realized that they have this tablet type thing at the table with labels that say:  "order more drinks" or "order dessert" or "call your wait staff". Hmm. Perhaps this is why we didn't see our waitress. We hadn't used the correct tools.

So, we decided to order a strawberry milkshake to test the theory that something really happens when you use this machine. --The light turned blue. But no one came to see us. After a while, we saw our waitress and stopped her...asking how we go about getting a milkshake. She looked at the blue light on our table tablet and said something like, "You've done it. You've ordered it. It's coming." Then for clarity, she said, "When the light turns blue your order has been placed." Oh...we get it now. We just needed to be more patient while the magic happened.

Maybe 10 minutes later our waitress comes breathlessly to the table with two milkshakes. --I should clarify that I did actually order two milkshakes. One "regular" size strawberry milkshake and one "monster" strawberry milkshake. Not for me, you understand, for others at the table. Anyway, our waitress triumphantly shows up with two shakes and said, "Here we are...one strawberry milkshake and one chocolate milkshake." For some reason, we all felt the need to say "no...that's not right". This meant we had to wait for the second strawberry milkshake while our waitress walked away with the chocolate one. I'm sure I saw her shaking her head as she walked away. I think she was thinking: "They don't know what they are doing when they use the menu tablet. But...they SAY that they ordered strawberry." 

Okay, an aside, the generation gap was definitely showing Friday! I had been thinking we were still hip, but to figure out that you don't actually talk to the waitress when you want something was a new and confusing experience. It gets worse.

With the second milkshake, the waitress asked how we wanted our checks split up. When we told her three checks, she did some magic on the table tablet and voila, three checks were on the screen. She said, "If you have to pay in cash, you have to pay me. Otherwise, you use this..." and with that, she was gone again. 

I paid first. You would think it would be super easy. You know, like swiping your card at the gas station or the grocery store. I mean, I know how to do that. Wrong. Many confusing screens come on to tell you you've pressed the wrong button. You pressed "gift certificate" when you meant to press "credit". Okay, start over. I felt like I was making progress when the tip screen came up and I agreed to the suggested tip amount. Press enter and ... and.... and blank screen. Nothing. Did the card go through? I don't know. But I can't re-pull my ticket to pay...so I guess so.(?) 

Then Sis in Law #1 pays. She also encounters the gift card versus credit card challenge. So, it's not just me. She tipped and then was prompted to sign. At the end, the machine said take your receipt from the bottom. That's like two steps further in the process than I got. Starting to make me question if mine went through. 

Then Sis in Law #2 pays. She has zero trouble and gets all the way to the sign page without hurdles. There was no receipt, but we figured it was out of paper. 

So, we could have left. The light now turned green. But, I really wasn't sure mine went through. So, we tried to wait (patiently) for our waitress to ask her the question. But, while we waited, Sis in Law #1 takes the tablet thing and sticks her knife in the thing. She was just going to stick her knife in and pull out our receipts. Thank goodness the family at the table beside us had left. I'm just not sure sticking a knife in a machine is acceptable behavior.

The receipt came out, but there was nothing on it, so that was a wasted effort. Then she hit the button that said, "call your wait staff".  The light now started blinking red. You know...sort of like if you are on a plane and hit the call button...but more annoying. 

What was odd was that after our table tablet started flashing red we saw our waitress. But she didn't come. I'm convinced by now that this thing doesn't work. Finally, she comes over to clear out the call button. The three of us, Sis in Law #1 and #2 and I start to talk at once. "I'm not sure mine went through", I say. "Did the light turn green?" "yes" "Then it went through. You are done." "But, "says Sis in Law #2, "it didn't ask her to sign." Our waitress clearly thinks we are out passed our nursing home curfew.  

Yeah, that was fun. 

The weekend just got better from there! 

More later. 

D's New Place

We spent Easter weekend with Danielle at her new place. I took several pics with my Smart-phone that I'm sharing here. I'm starting to think it may be time to upgrade to my camera phone.

So, to set the scene...a two-hour drive to her place was an all-day affair for us. I took the day off work, so it was a vacay day for me, which meant I wanted to sleep in, which I did. I woke up and realized we were getting a later start than I planned. 

Summer Daze

Hi, Hello, Have you missed my bright, shining face? I've missed you.

Did I tell you I found letters from my Grandmother? Of course I had not lost them...but when I had boxes and boxes of un-labeled papers they were quite inaccessible. Anyway, I found them and read each of again. Those are keepers. I don't quite know how best to "keep" them. Do I make a book with them? Right now they are in their original envelopes. Reading these letters felt like getting them anew. Letters from Grandma! What a treat.    

The letters included fun memories of antics we got into at her house during the summers. I think I've mentioned that my sisters and I spent summer days at her house. Mornings usually consisted of scraping new potatoes (outside) under the trees where a nice breeze could keep us cool. The potatoes were for lunch. Grandma sliced them really thin and seasoned them with salt, pepper and paprika and then fried them in the electric frying pan until they were just the right amount of crispy. 

Lunch also included things fresh from Grandpa's garden. Things like tomatoes.  Nothing better than a homegrown tomato on a tomato sandwich. Mayo on white bread and just a hint of salt and pepper on the tomato. That is what summer tastes like. 

Grandpa usually worked his garden in the morning before the summer heat became unbearable. And Grandma usually made a big lunch to feed him after he had worked so hard. They ate the big meal at lunchtime. By the dinner time, they just wanted a small light bite. 

*Techno Disclaimer* I've seen a few Pinterest or FB posts that say something like, "I'm glad my childhood was before technology or social media....things were simpler, etc."  I want to be sure that my trips down memory lane don't imply that my childhood falls into that category. I have a very different opinion. 

Technology was part of my youth and I have no regrets about that. I had a small transistor radio that I listened to. Loved its portability and the fact that I was never far from my music. I had a Swinger Polaroid camera. LOVED IT. I also had a Kodak Instamatic and took tons of pictures on that. I had a tape recorder and loved to tape random soundbites that I could replay over and over. And the telephone! I had a telephone in my room. I had the phone numbers of my besties on my bulletin board and usually called one friend after another (under the pretense of getting help on homework). 

If there were cell phones I would have tried to have one. If I could talk my Dad into it, I imagine I would have used all of the minutes within a day or two. I would have loved to take pics with a smartphone and see them instantly! And be able to share instantly. How cool I would have thought that was. 

I think I enjoyed both the technology that was available in the '70s (and beyond) and summer days outside. I'm enjoying my adulthood with technology and social media and I STILL enjoy sitting outside on a breezy sunny day. That's the cool thing about having our technology...we can engage or disengage from it at any time. The added cool thing is that we can use technology to engage MORE with others. When I got on FB, I lived on the opposite coast from my sisters and cousins. FB helped me stay in touch. Now that I'm back on the east coast, I love to stay in touch with my WA friends via FB. Postcards and letters and even phone calls just don't have the same immediacy.

My take: If you want to enjoy a summer day by making home-made ice cream...use the hand crank machine (or an electric one...it's up to you). Take pics (or don't). Post pics (or don't). Eat. (Definitely eat).  The ice cream will taste as sweet with a pic or without. Either way, homemade ice cream is a treat. 

That's just my two cents. (That lion didn't invent the phrase. He just overuses it.)