Dh has been out of town, so it was just me and ds for Mother's Day (though dh got me a card, flowers and candy before he left, and we'll be celebrating with a nice dinner when he comes back). Ds and I also went out to dinner, and I told him that since this day wouldn't be possible for me without him, I wanted him to pick the restaurant. He chose one of our favorites. My dinner was so bad (I could taste that the tomatoes were spoiled) that I only ate part of it and the manager ended up comping it. I saw our favorite waiter on the way out and he told me that Sundays are really bad there because people tend to call out and the chefs they bring in are not good at all. By the time I got home, I was throwing up and am only now feeling better. Worst part? I'd JUST gotten over a stomach virus that had me down for five days.

Many people comment on my discipline when I say I never eat fast food. Truth is, it's a bulimia trigger. If it's a restaurant with a drive through, I can pretty much guarantee I've purged from there at least once. So I avoid them. My kids can I have a happy meal, but I won't even touch a fry.

Just watched a PBS show about local restaurant reviews. We have always had a tradition of going out for dinner for birthdays and mine's right around the corner. My favorite restaurants have all gone out of business, so I'm scrambling for ideas. I was excited about the show, but quickly let down when all 3 restaurants were too far, one being in a neighborhood you couldn't pay me to go to (plus, they claimed to be a German restaurant, but their menu was all over the place and most restaurants that are too busy with menu options are just not good, since nothing is their focus), I can't even remember anything about the second one and the third one, the food did look really good but it was a brewpub and I've had almost all of their beers and frankly, they sucked. We used to eat out a lot, so restaurant food was usually good enough, but I've been cooking 99% of our meals for the last year or so and I'm almost always let down when I go somewhere else and the food doesn't live up to my expectations. But at the same time, I don't want to cook my own birthday dinner!

All those lice-ridden starving fleabitten people living in mud huts, caves, and grass houses around the world wish to hell McDonald's would build a restaurant near them so they could work at "less than minimum" wage. People in the US have no idea what real poverty is.

My dad came to this country with nothing. He barely spoke english. He got jobs as a landscaper and lived in an apartment with eight other guys sleeping on mattresses on the floor. Then he got a busboy job in a restaurant. He learned english in about two years, pretty fluently. He got a better job as a waiter. He moved on up to head waiter. He married my mom when she was a waitress, also from another country. They had me and my brother. We were taught our whole lives to work hard and not subsist on handouts. We were low middle class for many years but things got better over time. We also saved money for things we wanted, never used credit. I am a nurse today and I can help out my parents a lot, they don't have to work so hard anymore. I understand it's hard to get by sometimes but you have to pull together, families have to help each other out. And you know what? I don't understand why more extended famillies don't live togehter and help each other with bils and raising kids. So many people have ot have their own place, well maybe you can't afford it. In our culture, living together as a large family is normal. And it's much cheaper!

His psychological abuse took a couple years to figure out. He'd do something to upset me, like angrily insist that I change my clothes just before going out for a glamourous evening (because he didn't like them or at least said he didn't). While I was still discombobulated at the first attack, he'd hit me with another, like we needed to have a threesome. Threatened me by saying he was going to leave me if I didn't shape up, then within the next hour or so while I'm still distraught, he'd push for having sleazy people that I disliked as house guests and become angry when I objected. And then took punitive action, like then refusing to go to the nice restaurant we'd agreed on and driving us to a worse one instead. He had a well-honed method. It went on a lot. Actually it was a genius way to manipulate his loving and vulnerable wife.

Friend gets irritated with me and tells me I am too hard on DS. She says he is a kid and I should let him act like it. I don't believe that just because he is a kid he should be allowed to be rude and disrespectful to me or anyone else like her kids. He has manners and respect for everyone and knows how to act. When I correct him she always responds with let him be a kid. We went out to dinner and a movie with the kids and guess who didn't have a wild child throwing fits, yelling and running around the restaurant. Guess who didn't have to repeatedly ask their child to stop kick the back of another persons seat or stop yelling and continually get ignored . Guess who got to sit and enjoy the movie and not take their child out of the theater because the staff asked them to leave.

I don't think I could be a waitress. I'd probably forget and mess up on all of the orders and drop plates constantly. Though I'd fit in perfectly with those characteristics at this bland/disgusting Indian restaurant I once ate at. I've had frozen Indian entrees that had more flavor than their food. Plus, I don't know if I could deal with smelling food all day long. Especially if it was food I didn't like!

The only time I've ever dined and dashed was at a really fancy restaurant in Monterrey, CA when I was 19 or 20 and my boyfriend was 25 or 26. We were on a road trip and looked "rougher" than the rest of their clientele, though we had enough money to afford to eat there, otherwise we wouldn't have stopped! The service was really slow, for us. People who arrived after we did not only got their menus before we did, but also their food.

I get bad service in restaurants sometimes because I am a woman. I'm sure that's what it is. It can't be because I'm black because I'm not. Or could it be that the kitchen is shorthanded today? Or the waitress has too many tables to serve? Or that the new manager isn't managing well? Hmmm, couldn't be any of those things. Must be because I'm a woman. I didn't choose to be a woman. I was dragged out of the womb female. That's someone's fault too. Guess I won't tip the black waitress. Or maybe I'll just tip the white one more. Or maybe I'll just stay home and eat a sandwich. On white bread.