Party of 4

Going to a restaurant with children is a brave undertaking. I am usually proud of the boys, (Matt included) but sometimes if the meal is taking an extra few minutes to arrive true chaos ensues and something is going down, usually some one's beverage.
My favorite thing (insert sarcasm) is when they seat you at a table & not a booth in the middle of the room for every one's entertainment. The tables are always smaller and they put so much stuff on the table, the sweetener box, the ketchup, the salt & pepper & of course no table would be complete without the small booklet of menu items that are already listed on the actual menu. The menus themselves are giant because they have to keep adding more "bad" yet delicious cholesterol inducing items in which to gorge ourselves with. I digress... so, everything that can be removed is set on the floor for the waiter/waitress to accidentally step on as they move around the table collecting the menus. Which is another awkward dining event - the menu return. I don't know why this is, but it's as if when presented with this seemingly simple task we just lose brain cells. Pass it to the person next to you or, er uh no give it to the waiter, oh no er, he's taking someone else's, give it to that person, no now he's reaching for it, ahhhh and done. Now we wait...
Ok, the waiter has brought us new drinks, cool... wait! Oh man he didn't take the old ones. Now we have more crap on the table. I need sweetener for my tea, oh great now I have all this freaking paper everywhere. Mmmmm, the chips and queso.. crunch, munch, crunch... oh great now we have empty glasses, paper and now the boys have dropped queso all the way from the bowl to their shirts. When is that waiter going to clue in that these empty glasses need to be taken? Queso's gone, we really mowed down those chips fast. Waiter is here, he's taking the empty plate but left this paper and the empty glasses! Oh, he's bringing Matt another drink, he takes his empty glasses but not mine. (Is there such a thing as table claustrophobia?) The boys are now asking us every second when the food will get there, regardless that we just stuffed our faces with queso and chips - they're STARVING! Now they are goofing around a little more, moving is never good. My cacophony of "sit still" begins and the moving continues a little more, uh oh and down goes the beverage all over the wrappers and napkins and laps. Cue the crying, cue Matt's growling that they should've listened to their mother, etc and so forth. The meals arrive on HUGE plates that barely fit on the table under good circumstances, need more napkins please, lots more. The waiter didn't bring our meals and now this person that I'm not familiar with and who is not familiar at all with our order is asking if everything looks ok. Well,of course it does and they leave... Oh, wait! Crap, I asked for cheese sauce instead of the red sauce - I forgot. Our waiter returns and asks the exact same question, yay, I can tell him it's WRONG. He's giving me a crazy look, never mind - this is great, everything couldn't be better. Kids eating, husband eating, me eating, and down goes another beverage all over a plate of food. WAITER! I think they should start announcing our arrival as the in house entertainment before seating this party of 4!

Catharsis

Catharsis; Webster's dictionary defines as an act of purging or purification; cleansing. How poingnant this word is for me right now. Writing is one way I purge and maybe I should be purging more often and start up my blogging again. I am a word nut, I have gained this obsession because I like to win at Scrabble, so I looked up catharis in my thesaurus (I have an actual thesaurus, not just the one in the Word program.). it says "see purification", the opposite of purification turns out to be contamination. Really, CONTAMINATION? Beacuse that is how I saw it- CONTAMINATION in bold capital letters.
Such an ugly word, but that is how I have felt and the irony is that when something is contaminated (if not treated) will spread eventually, contaminating everything around it. I will absolutely NOT let that happen any longer. Maybe I should write more on my blog. Maybe I need to get busy and take action purging, purifying, cleansing. I'm not a constant complainer and I know things can be worse but right now things SUCK! (Ahhhh, that was cathardic) Satan has been chipping away at my resolve (as he does with all of humanity), when things go wrong he throws more and more into the pot hoping eventually you will fall away from God. Why would God want all these bad things to happen, right? This is not going to work on me and I sometimes wonder why satan even bothers with me at all, I will only draw closer to God through difficult times. I have become quite stagnant, however, allowing this funk of contamination to envelope me until somedays I find it hard to breathe. Praying, check. Hoping, check. Praying harder, check. Getting up and doing something to purify and cleanse this junk off of me... well, I missed that one. How many ways can I be cathardic? Writing, laughing, crying, reading, exercising, cleaning my house, going over my goals, enjoying my kids, going on a date with my husband, just putting one foot in front of the other so that the contaminates don't have a chance to cling on to me. Get thee behind me satan, I'm leaving this funk back there with you where it belongs.