The Birds, The Bees & The Poutine

My wife and I celebrated our anniversary on Saturday night.

#17.

It feels like yesterday.

Our anniversary dinner.

But it was actually two nights ago.

And what a romantic night it was.

Just me and my wife.

Enjoying a candlelight dinner.

At a quiet restaurant.

...with our three kids.

And a high school friend of mine in town visiting this weekend.

I’ve always had perfect timing.

To celebrate the occasion, we got a table for six at a new downtown restaurant.

Voted best new restaurant.

The menu was different.

To say the least.

Maybe unique is a better word.

Exhibit 1 -- The Appetizers.

And we tried them all.

At least I did.

The kids really enjoyed the Crispy Buffalo-Style Pig Ears.

But hated the Grilled Figs with Bacon and Walnuts.

I was the only one to eat the Boudin Noir.

Well I didn’t really know what that was.

But when the waitress told us it was Blood Sausage.

Everyone else bowed out.

We all tried the Bruleed Bone Marrow.

We had to.

Since it came on the house.

After all, it was our anniversary.

And they must’ve had too much just sitting around.

Plus nothing says marriage like free bone marrow.

Just ask George Lopez.

For dinner we kinda went family style.

A little bit of this.

And a whole lot of that.

The whole lot part was poutine.

The house specialty.

Now for those of you not as cultured as moi.

Let me esplain.

Poutine is one of them french dishes.

Basically it’s french fries topped with a bunch of stuff.

My wife, my 12-year-old son and my friend all ordered poutine as their main course.

Well different types of poutine.

My son got the lamb poutine.

I’m not sure that’s what he really wanted.

But he was so shocked we let him have french fries for dinner.

He couldn’t pass it up.

Now he may have been thinking fries.

But the menu described it as a whole lot more than that.

• Hand-Cut French Fries, melted cheddar cheese curds, gravy, braised and grilled lamb, smoked espagnole sauce, goat cheese, micro sorrel. 

I didn’t know what half of those things were.

And neither did he.

But fries for dinner?

Where does he sign?

My daughter got the “all turkey kick-ass corndog.”

For $5, I’m not sure how much was turkey.

And how much was kick-ass.

But she seemed to enjoy it.

I flipped a coin between two dishes.

Finally going with the Schnitzel.

In addition to being a funny word to say.

You can never go wrong with fried chicken.

In fact, the runner-up for me was also chicken.

Chicken and Waffles.

A very close runner-up.

But if I wanted that bizarre combo.

I'd go straight back to the great Roscoe’s in LA where my love for that dynamic duo began 25 years ago.

The good thing about this meal is that the food was so rich, there was plenty of time to talk between bites.

And the topics ranged.

Hey, 17 years is a long time.

But I didn’t realize how far the topics would go.

I expected the news.

And the weather.

And of course, the sports.

But what I didn’t expect was a serious talk about the birds and bees.

Thankfully, this was not the first time that topic came up.

Our assistant principal handled that in 5th Grade.

So we didn’t have to.

But our conversation on Saturday got a whole lot more personal.

You see, with a 14-year old daughter.

And a 12-year old son.

They’ve got friends.

And their friends got friends.

And their friends are doing things that friends do.

And saying things that friends say.

As parents we have a choice to answer all the questions.

Or run as fast as we can the other way.

Unfortunately I’m not very fast.

And my wife and I have always answered all of their questions.

Even if it wasn’t asked in the form of a question.

Now we are usually pretty good with most stuff.

And I think we held our own.

But at one point it got so open, I almost choked on my Schnitzel.

I didn’t realize just how much they already knew.

Or how much they thought they knew.

But we hung in there.

Figuring it was better hearing it from mom and dad.

Than their teenage or soon-to-be teenage expert friends.

By the time dinner was done, we had cleaned our plates.

And our minds too.

Doing what parents do.

Or should do.

Thankfully there was still room left for dessert.

And I was definitely in need of some sugar.

Good Day Sir

I usually spend all day writing a blog in my head and then when I get home I put pen to paper.

I mean fingers to keyboard.

But not this time.

The blog I had planned all day is being put on the back burner.

Instead you are getting a side of me that many of you have never seen before.

An off-the-charts happy, smiling from ear-to-ear, good things happen to good people, optimistic side that I have not felt in several years.

If ever.

I am typing as fast as I can because if I don’t finish this blog by midnight, who knows what will happen.

The source of this sudden burst of elation is my return to the working world.

I just finished day two of my new job and as Ronald McDonald would say, “da da da da da, I’m Loving It.”

Just like any relationship, the beginning is always the best.

The first date.

The first kiss.

The drive home after the first kiss.

Then the kids come and everything goes to hell.

Ok, back to the happy guy.

I have completed two whole days in the new job and they have both been fantastic.

Well day one was fantastic and day two was even better.

Ok, calm down, yes, I do realize that two days do not make a career.

But coming from where I came from, being happy is something that I couldn’t be any happier about.

This job has made me feel alive again.

I feel rejuvenated.

I feel respected.

I feel relieved.

And any other positive word that begins with the letter R.

I have no delusions that this feeling will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Honestly, I just hope its still there in the morning.

As I headed home from work tonight I spoke with a couple of my bestest buddies over the cell phone.

And let me tell you, my day was so good, AT&T only dropped one of the calls.

Now that’s amazing.

Both of my friends have been with me since college.

They were with me before my career, during my career and in the two years after my career died.

Tonight, both guys spoke with a friend they haven’t spoken to in a long time.

Oh, we’ve had calls.   Plenty of them.

But not like this.

I did most of the talking, sharing as many details as I could about how my week has gone.

They both told me that I deserve to be happy.

They both told me how excited they are that I am feeling so great.

And if they are so excited, just imagine how I must feel.

While I was out of work, I had dreams that this day would come.

But those dreams never came.

Well, not for me.

After everybody was let go from my last job, the shock and pain hit us all.

Hard.  VERY hard.

But one-by-one, the good people who were treated so badly found new work.

And one-by-one, they moved on with their life.

And one-by-one, they spent more time talking about tomorrow instead of yesterday.

I didn’t get that opportunity.

Until now.

During my two years on the bench, I had a couple of jobs that came my way.

Not job offers, just possibilities.

But none of them panned out.    And honestly, none of them were right.

This job is right.

At least 48 hours in, it feels right.

And that’s all I’m thinking about.

Honestly, I’m not thinking about in two weeks or in two months or in two years.

I’m thinking about now.

Right now.

And I feel good.

And that feels great.