Highlights of the (semi) Disastrous

Most of our day to day life goes along fairly smoothly, and for that we are thankful. But you know how you never hear about all the thousands of flights that take off and land safely at their destination, you just hear about the horrible crashes? So you end up thinking (or so psychology says you do) that planes are pretty unsafe and crash frequently, when in fact (so they say) planes are safer than cars. The point of this fairly tedious explanation is that it would not really be very entertaining to read about all the normal and uneventful things that happen to us. It is much more fun to highlight the disastrous aspects of our daily life (at least in retrospect).

So, here are a few (semi) disastrous highlights from the past few days in the life of the Browns.

We went to visit Kevin’s parents last weekend and Kevin and I had the rare and cherished opportunity to go out on a date—just the two of us, with free babysitting. Since we were in Kevin’s old stomping grounds, he chose the restaurant. We dined at WW Cousins, which is a fairly nice building that houses a pretty tacky concept. You basically order the weight of meat you prefer, and then top it with a wide (and somewhat strange) range of condiments. I had my doubts about this being our date destination, but it was probably the best burger I have ever had. Because in my book it doesn’t get much better a great piece of meat sandwiched between two buttered and toasted white buns. And if you order a salad to make yourself feel better, they throw in another buttered and toasted bun, just to help you get those veggies down. After filling up on meat and white bread we took in a movie and then got coffee. None of this was a disaster, but I thought I would throw it in anyway (and I suppose the quality of our caloric intake could be considered a disaster by some).

Also while in Kentucky, we all went out to eat at a new Japanese restaurant that is owned by a family friend. I have only been to one other hibachi grill before—the time we went out for our anniversary and Kevin mistook the saki for water and nearly choked to death when the chef squirted into his mouth. Aaah, sweet disastrous memories.
In my excitement over eating out two nights in a row, I abandoned all motherly instincts and forgot to warn Cambel that the middle of our table would be going up in flames while the chef prepared our food. Enter disaster. The second Cambel saw those flames he screamed at the top of his lungs and gave himself over to his fight or flight response. We spent most of the rest of our time there trying in vain to coax him back to the table. Meanwhile, Ada was wholly unaffected by the show and calmly ate her food while randomly waving at the waiters.

Cambel stayed a couple of extra days with his Nana and Papa and I went to pick him up yesterday. After I had exercised great self control by choosing to continue to work until I had Cambel’s impossible carseat strapped safely in the car instead of throwing it into oncoming traffic, I had the brilliant idea of trying to eat my McDonald’s salad while steering the car. Hello disaster. Just a few miles after I finished picking up ranch dressing soaked lettuce off of everything within range of the flying salad I heard a sickening splash. Cambel quickly explained that his milk had just “blasted off,” just like my salad. Nice to see you again disaster.
Thankfully, the spill was pretty contained and the rest of the trip was disaster free (and consequently, not nearly as entertaining to retell).

So, I exaggerated a little. Really these weren’t disasters-- just funny stories of a few things gone wrong. But disaster is such a great word and who wants to read about boring perfect days anyway?