Jami's How Not to Date Guide, Part 2

if you didn't read part one, you can find it here.

Worst First Dates Countdown continues with . . . .

Number 2 - Hi, Nice to Meet You and Your Underwear I'm in college. I've got a date with a nice guy who is, stay with me here, the friend of a friend's roommate. I had a new roommate, due to a previous roommate moving out unexpectedly. So she's still sort of unpacking, we're getting to know each other and my date arrives. I don't remember why he came up to my room, but here's what I remember: my date is sitting on my bed and my roommate starts SHOWING HIM HER LINGERIE. I swear to you, I am not making this up. I couldn't make this up. She is putting them into a dresser drawer, holding up each one to him and giving a little explanation "these are crotchless panties - see? This is a bustier, it's called a demi-cup because it doesn't cover the whole boob . . . Here's a teddy. This one's my favorite, it's nipple-less and crotchless. This one is just a regular one. My mom bought it for me" (still not kidding). The date got better, dinner, a nice romantic walk, etc. But I think we never got over the shock of seeing all her naughty-wear. I went out with him a couple more times, and each time he mentioned my roommate's under-things. So, goodbye then. Also, the roommate didn't last. Number 1 - There Are Too Many Reasons This Went Wrong to Come Up with a Clever Title. He was a nice, shy guy in my youth group. Let's call him Bob. One night in May, he was giving me a lift home from church and, attempting to make conversation, I say "So, are you going to prom?" He tells me that he doesn't really know any girls at his school. Being new to the Youth Group, I assume he's also new to the area. That's rough, who do you ask to prom when you haven't really made friends yet? I suggest he asks someone from Youth Group. He says something along the lines of "do you think anyone would be interested?" I assure him that if he asks someone, she will probably be glad to go. A few days later, my mom asks me why I haven't told her I'm going to prom with Bob. I say that I didn't know I was, or I'd have told her. Apparently, he thought that was him asking me, and me accepting. So, okay. I'm going to prom. A few days before prom, I call to find out when I am being picked up. He says "Between 6 and 7:30." Hmm, gonna need you to narrow that one down a little. Kind of a big window there. Don't want to have to sit in my get-up for an hour and a half, ya know? He settles on between 7 and 7:30. Okay, that's doable. Except, of course, he shows up at 6:40. Sigh. His mother had come along - shades of date 5 right? - because she wanted to get pictures and knew my parents anyway. He produces a wrist corsage the size of a small shrubbery, which about covers my entire forearm. But it's pretty. He attempts putting on his matching boutonniere, can't do it, and says "Mommy, can you do it?" This is followed by approximately 100 pictures during which he apparently couldn't decide the appropriate thing to do with his arm (put it around me? leave it at his side?) so his hand is sticking out straight from behind my hip. He'd put his arm behind me, but was not actually touching me. Didn't know that until I saw the pictures. We get into his car, me in my voluminous ball gown and he looks into my eyes and says "Lift your skirt, would you?" Me: "WHAT????" Him: "Your dress is on the gear shift." Oh. Okey-doke then. And we're off. We met up with a few other couples (a friend of mine, her date and two of their couple-friends), and headed out to dinner. Along the way he points out a dead deer on the side of the road and then misses the turn and almost gives me a concussion cutting the wheel so hard that we about spin out. Only my heavily-sprayed 80's hair saved me. At the restaurant, he makes the following faux pas:

1. He suggests it might be romantic to speak in German all night (he'd completed German 6, I had just finished German 2.) This might be romantic indeed, if "That is my pen" and "I enjoy playing soccer" are romantic statements.
2. It comes out that he's intimated, but not actually said that I am a college freshman, not a high school one. This leads to a confusing conversation about my "major" until my other friend explains that I go to a different local high school. Bob turns pink.
3. Bob gets the bill and says, loud enough for me to hear it "Geez, I could buy a Volkswagen for this". Seriously, I didn't even have an appetizer or dessert!!!

We head on over to the prom, Bob isn't sure where it is. We get lost, park in a parking garage about 6 blocks from the building, which isn't too bad, unless you're in a giant floofy dress and new high heels. Finally, we arrive.

Bob and I begin to dance, and I use this term loosely. I don't generally criticize poor dancing. Mostly, I think enthusiasm makes up for lack of skill. Bob did show enthusiasm. And a serious lack of rhythm. I'd have to say a complete lack of understanding that there is such a thing as rhythm. And I'm trying to be nice here. It was, let's just say, not good.

After a few random spastic motions, I suggest we mingle. I find a few friends. I introduce him to the people I know, none of them recognize him. I ask "How long have you gone here?" "Since kindergarten." Oh. Remember, I thought he was new here? Not so much.

Bob discovers the buffet table, and even though it's been just over an hour since our Volkswagen-costing meal and he makes a sandwich that would make Dagwood proud, and scarfs it down. Which is fine, because I'm afraid he's going to start dancing again soon.

Eventually we leave. Everyone we came with is going back to my friend's house for a slumber party (girls upstairs, boys downstairs, no hanky-panky). Of course, no one else parked in the garage we did, so they go one way, we go the other, and walk, and walk, and walk, until Bob admits - he's not sure where we parked. We find a garage that "looks right", and Bob hits the elevator button. I am looking at the directory of the garage (floor 1 -yellow and red, floor 2 - blue and green , etc.) when I hear the elevator ding. I turn around to see it CLOSING and he yells "I'll find the car and be right down." Now I'm a young teen, alone, in downtown Pittsburgh, at 3am in a giant dress and painful shoes.

Luckily, one of the other couples is passing by and sees me standing there alone. They pull over and wait for Bob to return, almost a 1/2 hour later!! Without the car. Because it's the wrong garage. The guy in the other car thinks he knows which one it is, and drives us there, waits with me again while Bob locates the car. And we're off, again.

At the house, we change into modest jammies and since it's only 4 am, let's watch a movie, right? Our hostess decides on Casablanca, pops it in and we're sort of drowsing, watching it when Bob starts to analyze it for historical accuracy. After several people try to politely ask him to shut up, the hostess turns it off and announces that everyone's going to bed.

In the middle of the night, the very, very, very large girl sleeping on the floor next to me rolls over on my wrist shrub and totally flattens it. It looked like a green dinner plate. I laughed so hard I cried, and she thought I was upset, until I assured her that it was the best part of the prom.

At breakfast, everyone is deciding what we should do - local theme park? Go up to the lake? Bob suggests - Natural History Museum. I announce that I have to be home in an hour. And that's the date.

Jami's How Not To Date Guide, Part 1

In this post, I talk about first dates. I mentioned just a few, and again, by suggestion from EDW, who apparently controls me telepathically from her desk in NJ, here are the Five Worst First Dates I Went On: Counting down from . . .

Number 5 - Only Bring One Date, Next Time

Normally, I would steer away from calling two seventh graders going anywhere as a "date" but I am going to include this one as it had what may have been the most egregious error of any first day I've been on.

Imagine the nerdiest guy in your junior high. The one who wore the sports strap thing on his glasses all day everyday, even though you knew he's never chosen to play a sport in his life. The one who even has the dorkiest name you've ever heard. Got it? Hold that picture in your mind.

He walked up to me in front of my homeroom class, in front of twenty-seven other seventh graders and asked me to the dance. Months before, I'd asked a guy to the Sadie Hawkins Dance and he'd not only turned me down, but laughed in my face. So, you know, I was a little sensitive to the courage it takes to ask someone out and the pain of rejection. And dude, in front of all those other kids. He didn't need me to turn him down. I said, "I'll have to ask my parents if I am allowed" planning to turn him down privately later, but they'd still all know. My friend Julie suggested I just go - how bad could it be? I wasn't going to go steady with him, just this one dance. In a fit of goodwill, thinking it might even help his "rep" I'd walked into HIS homeroom the next morning and said I'd be glad to.

We didn't go there together. His parents lived on the other side of the district and his mother wasn't going to "drive all over creation" to pick up his date. Julie, her date, and I met him there. I don't remember what he wore, but I remember thinking, when I first saw him, that it wasn't as bad as I'd expected. Maybe it would be okay. Until he introduced me to the woman behind him. His mother. Whom he called "Mother". Bad sign. I've seen Psycho.

Did she leave then, satisfied that she'd met his first (and possibly last ever) date? Silly you, of course not. Since he was going to the dance, she'd arranged to be a chaperone. Of course, she isn't going to go stand with the other chaperones, she wants to stand and talk with us. Comfortable. Fun. Really. My date went and got us BOTH punch. Julie and her date melted into the throng of Junior High nervous energy leaving the three of us sipping punch and making short awkward attempts at conversation. Then, the first slow song.

"Would you like to dance?" He asked . . . . . . his mother.

Yes. It's true. They went off to the dance floor and waltzed around (no lie). I gawked at them, wondering if this could be a prank. The song ended, the music picked up, and I figured at this point Mother would wander off the dance floor and I could maybe at least dance with the boy a bit. But as I start toward them, they start to Jitterbug. I am still not joking. They looked like they were having a ball, so I found a group of my friends and joined them, trying, as hard as I could, not to look at "my" date - swinging his mom around the dance floor. He did ask me to dance later in the night. I did one slow dance, told him that I'd had a very nice time, but not to ask me out ever again. He didn't.

Number 4 - I Didn't Know We Were On a Date

My senior prom. Not a horrid, awful, embarrassing date, but bad like when you order your favorite meal and it's cooked wrong, but you have to eat it. I didn't have a date, so I'd asked a male friend who was a sophomore. I knew we had fun hanging out, he was in the same group of friends I was in and I figured, no romantic pressure. We have some fun, dance, talk, he puts his arm around me a couple times, but I don't think much of it. Then, we're on the dance floor, slow dancing and he kisses me. Ewwwwww! I push him away. "What are you DOING??" Him: "This." And he does it, again. Me: "Uh, no, I um. No."

So now, you know, it's a little awkward. I excuse myself to the bathroom. I splash some water on my face, which is really red. Redo the make-up. Convince myself that we all do dumb things, so I'll go back out and pretend nothing happened and give him the chance to save face. WRONG! I go back out, sit with him in a booth with some of our friends and he puts his arm around my shoulder and tries to cop a feel. In front of my friends!!! I drag him off to have a private talk where it comes out that if I asked him to prom, clearly I was interested in making out with him. But I'd asked him as a friend, I remind him. Sure, but he assumed I just said that to not seem like a slut. Hmm. No. So now we're stuck together all night (they don't let you out of prom early, even if you're limo is there and you can prove you're not going to drive drunk or otherwise). Fun. Later, just to put the icing on the cake, I find out he'd gotten back together with his girlfriend days before we'd gone to the prom. He'd slept with her the night before. He hadn't mentioned that to me or vice versa. Nice, hunh? Number 3: Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Or Does She? This is one I mentioned in the first date post, but here's the whole story. A guy I worked with asked me out several times. He'd been in a long-term relationship, even moved from another city to live with her and she'd dumped him, broken his heart, blah blah blah. I heard all about it at work. The first several times, I'd turned him down. He was nice enough, not bad looking, but not really my type, plus who wants to be the rebound girl? Finally, I gave in. Just a coffee-date though. He planned to pick me up after work one day. He picks me up, and then mentions that he had a mix tape for me, but - uh oh! he forgot it in his apartment. Can we go get it? He just lives a couple blocks from work and it's on the way to where we're going. Sure, I say, why not? You know why not. Because I'm a sucker, but hey, at least he wasn't an axe murderer, right? I've never been that trusting again. It's so unlike me. Of course, 10 people saw me leave with him, it'd be hard for him to say something like "I never saw her". . . . anyway . . . We get to his place and he suggests I come up and he'll find the tape, whatever. As soon as I walk into his apartment I see - fresh flowers on the mantel. Do you know any single straight guys with flowers on the mantel? No. Of course. There are pictures of him with a girl scattered about. On the wall. One of them on the beach together is on the end table. "Is this Alice?" I say (not her real name, which I forget). "Yeah" he puts on his sad face, "I haven't been able to take them down." Hmmm. But he hates her. She destroyed his heart. He's rummaging around for the tape, and can't seem to find where he put it. He offers me a Coke while I wait. I sit on the couch, stupidly waiting while he rummages some more and then sits down next to me. He makes a very awkward move on me and I jump up. I ask where the bathroom is, and when I go in it, there is Girl Stuff everywhere. Two toothbrushes (who leaves her boyfriend without taking her toothbrush?), perfume, curling iron, hair gel, make up, floral scented moisturizer. Decorative soaps, I kid you not. I go back out and say something like "Alice still lives here." He works hard to come up with a few good lies. I demand to be taken home and I swear to you, he suggests a quick roll in the hay - won't it be exciting knowing his girlfriend could walk in and catch us??? No. No, it won't be. Because it's not going to happen. He didn't even get a good-bye handshake. Tune in tomorrow for 2 and possibly 1. Though that is a loooooong story that might need its own post.

Jami Goes Away

To the beach we go, can't wait! Tomorrow morning, we hit the road for an extended-family style vacation with lots of adults to watch the 2 kiddies who will be there (Eddie, of course, and his adorable cousin "Z"). One of the reasons there haven't been posts this week is that I have been planning, cleaning and packing, as well as trying to convince the boy that the faster he goes to sleep, the sooner we will get to go to the beach. He's wanted to leave every day this week, and while that sounds like a great idea, since our reservations are not until this coming week, that might not work. I have 8 good books, an iPod, a beach umbrella, a comfy beach chair and plenty of diet Coke and Mike's Hard whatevers. I should have Internet access, so I'll probably drop a post in here or there, and I promised to do at least one guest blog over at EDW's place while she's out on the open water, so look for me there, too.

Jami Updates the Info

Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, which I mentioned before, but had an old link in it, can now be found, in its entirety here, for absolutely free. Go watch it a few times. I love it.

Jami Raising a Non-Wimp

Independence is one of the things I like most about being me. I have never been of the school of thought which says that children are delicate and should be coddled. Doing things yourself, and failing the first few times is part of what makes you confident, and gives you real self-esteem, not the made up "oh, everything you do is golden" BS self-esteem they push these days. Of course, once I had my baby in my arms, my head-plan warred with my heart's idea of never letting him out of my sight, and keeping him completely ensconced in bubble wrap. I persisted, though, in trying to raise a brave, strong, capable child. Interestingly, a few years ago a woman who takes in foster children told me how the toddlers who had been neglected were shockingly able to take care of themselves, far above what we expect from children their age. Three-year-olds who will go into the fridge and fix themselves a sandwich or bowl of cereal. Two-year-olds who will get themselves ready for bed, brushing their teeth, changing their diapers getting into their PJs. I don't want to neglect my kid into competence, but I also don't want to do for him something he can do himself. For the most part, I think I'm doing okay. Eddie plays outside with minimum supervision (for his age). He dresses himself, and even changes his clothes if he has an accident. There's a great website, Free Range Kids that's sort of the anti-super-overdone-safety movement. It's a good reminder that, yes, bad things do happen in this world, but killing yourself worrying over the extreme unlikely-hoods aren't great for your kids either. Parenting is a constant dance, I think. Your kids and their needs and abilities change as fast as you can get use to them. Our job is to protect them from the real and permanent type dangers while letting them stretch and grow, and yes, fall and get hurt and learn. It's darn difficult, but it's what we signed up for, whether we knew it or not.

Jami Misses the First Date

EDW, my dear blogging buddy, asked me something about dating. As usual, our conversation meandered off whatever it was we were talking about, but she suggested I blog the brilliant things I told her, and since she's blogging about something at least vaguely similar, I gladly obliged. Check her insanely awesome ramblings here. Ah the first date. I miss it. Probably won't have any more. The Husband frowns on me dating. It's a shame really. First dates are a glorious ride. They are the absolute epitome of potential and anticipation. Do you remember what you wore or said or where you went on your third or sixth date? Did you try on every shirt/skirt/pants combination in your wardrobe? Practice your smile in the mirror the 10th time you go out? You do for a first date and you know it. I did this post awhile ago about first kisses, and those are great, too. I once told a friend that I loved the first kiss, and horrified her by admitting that I'd even kissed a few that I knew would not be getting second dates. Why not? I'd figure, Maybe there will be sparks. Nope. But this isn't about that kiss, it's about that date. For a first date, you're both excited and nervous. You're on your best and you have that same happy-sick feeling you get when you're strapped into a newer, bigger scarier roller coaster. You know which one I mean? When you're thinking that you really want to get off the coaster right now, but you also think that's it going to be really fun, if you can just live through the hideous glory of that first uphill climb? That's a first date. We've all had bad dates with great people and vice versa, I'm sure. Or, if you haven't, maybe I've just dated too much. One bad first date, just a totally bad idea on my part: the guy asked me out for a night I was supposed to be in this talent show, so I suggested he come to that first. WRONG! That date took a sharp drop when I was too nervous and squeaked out my song, followed by some truly untalented. It soared back up once we left that place. I did adore him, but he wasn't the one, and I knew it. Bad date with a bad guy - he "forgot" something in his apartment. Naive me, I follow him up like I believe him. Not only is it (duh) a not-so clever ruse to get me into his apartment, but also, obviously, even to a first date who has never been to this apartment before, his girlfriend LIVES there. There are pictures of them on the wall!! Her tampons and haircare products were out in the bathroom! Bad date, bad man, good story. Good dates don't often make for as great stories, but some are just sweet. There was the total jerk (I found out later) who took me on a foggy night time walk to the gazebo overlooking the lake and sang romantic songs to me. Very nice. Gave me his jacket and all. He lasted about 4 dates. I knew he wasn't going to make the cut pretty early on, but hey, the guy serenaded me! Points for that. I'm wandering away from my point here which is, I think, that a first date is a new book by a new author you've heard a lot about. It's that first step backward off the mountain when you're repelling. It's a future of love or strife, joy or tears or indifference about to start. It's an unwrapped gift that takes an evening to gently open. I love a first date.

Jami Ponders an Old Wives' Tale

So I've heard that you can tell how tall your children are going to be by doubling their height at age 2. For example, if your 2-year-old is 31 inches tall, she'll grow to be 62 inches. Hmm. The problem I have with this particular bit of folklore is that the infamous "They" don't tell you when during that year to measure the toddler for accurate height guessing. I presume this is why the idea became a "truth". On Eddie's 2nd birthday, he was approximately 33 inches tall. By the day before he turned three, he'd sprouted to 37 inches. This means that if Eddie stops growing between 5'6" and 6'2", the myth is correct. Well. I hate to be a spoilsport, but I'm going to have to say that there's not a lot of supernatural going on for this one. I predict he's going to have black hair. His eyes will stay brown. He'll speak English. I'm magic.

Jami Is Easily Amused

This is not news to pretty much anyone who knows me. But, while I have just a few minutes, here are the two signs that have made me smile lately: 1. At a local car wash, someone keeps taking the "b" out of bays and replacing with an "L". So the sign reads "automatic lays: $5, self-serve: 50 cents" Wrong? Yes, but it still cracks me up. I'm not sure what an automatic one is, but self-serve should be free, doncha think? 2. There's a building near us that must have trouble keeping commercial tenets. They always have a sign out that there are offices available. For awhile, the sign said "RENT OFFICE SPACE NOW!" The first time I saw that, I thought "Well, it is a good movie, but I don't know that I need to get it right now". However, since the Husband runs a video store, I'm going to have to endorse this sign. Rent Office Space now.

Jami Successfully Gardens

I grew a zucchini! I am eating it now! I know that to most people, this does not sound like a reason for an entire blog post, but here's the thing - it's my first zucchini. It's the first thing I've successfully grown, in my memory. So here's the tale. . . . . . . Occasionally, I get crazy ideas in my head that won't go away. This spring, the idea I had was: plant a vegetable garden. There were numerous reasons for this idea, including that I like food and food is expensive. I therefore asked the Husband if, for Mothers' Day, he would create a place for me in the backyard where I could garden. He gave me that look that I have learned means he recognizes that I am having one of those ideas. Several days later, I reiterated, I really, really do want a garden. Honest. Gonna grow some veggies. He shrugged. Mothers' Day rolled around and I got . . . a gorgeous locket. Shocked, I told the Husband that I hadn't expected anything, but he said he'd wanted to get it and that Eddie helped pick it out. A month later, I still had no garden, while the Husband tried to figure out where and how he was going to do that in our yard. I suspect he may also have been waiting for this weird idea to pass, but sadly (for him) it didn't. I bought seeds and gardening gloves. He put in my garden. It's small. Just the area under where our shed used to be. Eddie and the Husband turned over the soil, pulled out the rocks, cut some wood to frame it and poured down some top soil. I joyfully planted my seeds. I planted zucchini, snap peas, bell peppers and hot peppers. These are the veggies I like best, and also I'd heard that zucchini are easy to grow and being basically a gardening idiot, it seemed like a good place to start. God understands that not only did I have no idea what I was doing, but also that I have a low level of frustration. I worried that if the gardening was too hard that I'd become disenchanted with it. So He sent a week of solid rain immediately after we planted it and BAM! I had sprouts like crazy. I assumed some were weeds, but if it was green and growing, I cheered it on. I finally figured out which were future foodstuffs and which were garden invaders (thanks, Google!), and removed the offending weeds. I watered them once the rains stopped. I made a make-shift trellis for the peas to grow. I thinned out the weaker plants. I moved the extra pea plants into pots, because I couldn't bear to toss them. I mourned the poor peppers which 1. needed more heat and less rain and 2. got mostly obliterated by the zucchini, which started to look fairly jungle-ish. My neighbor, clearly a more experienced gardener, noticed my frequently visits to my fledgling plants. "Whatcha got growing there?" Me: Zucchini, some hot peppers, snap peas Her: Uh, how many zucchini plants do you have there? Me: I don't know 10 or 12? Her: TEN OR TWELVE??? PLANTS?? (at this point she was making the same incredulous face that all you experienced zucchini growers are making) Me: Uh, sure. We like zucchini. She then went on to explain to me that she has one zucchini plant and at the time had 4 good zucchinis developing. I must say, I had not really thought that far ahead. Basically, since I didn't know what the heck I was doing, I'd pretty much put every seed I had in the ground and hoped something would come up. At one point, I had a panic moment where I counted more than 40 buds on the zucchini plants. The nice neighbor assured me that not all the buds become zucchini - some flower and that's all. Last week I saw little zucchinis starting. Today, while I was out, Eddie and the Husband discovered that one of them had reached more than 10 inches in length, and when I came home, they couldn't wait to show me. I checked Google again, yes, that's big enough to pick (even too big, according to some of the sites)! There are a few teensy tiny hot-peppers-to-be. No recognizable pea pods yet, but I am heartened by the deliciousness of my first ever zucchini. I am a gardener!

Jami Explains Why She Hasn't Been Posting

I haven't posted in a couple of days and I am not really posting much tonight. See, I want to, know I should, post about the fact that on Wednesday Eddie turned 3. Three years old! But I just am having a hard time doing it. Dang, it's hard. My baby, still a baby in some ways, but more not. More a kid. I'm not ready to give up his baby-ness, even as I'm so proud of every step he takes away from it. Parenting is so hard in some unexpected ways. I cried when I put him to bed the last night he was two. It was the end of something ineffable, that I can't even begin to explain. Three years and three days ago, he was an idea, a theory, a someday. Now he's the biggest part of my everyday and I can't even fathom living without him. I joke about letting people take him for a week or so, but I go to work for a few hours here and there and can't wait to get home to him. Happy Birthday, Baby Boy. I'll try to really post about your birthday soon . . .

Jami Should Not Be Left Unsupervised

The Husband was out of town last night. When we're alone, I give Eddie his dinner, but don't eat and then after he's in bed, I have dinner by myself in front of the TV. Usually I get a pizza, but I decided to just enjoy the Eating In Front of the TV with My Choice of Shows without spending the extra cash. So, off Eddie goes to dreamland and I come down to raid the fridge; I find some salad mix, leftover grilled chicken, salsa, and know that there are chips in the other room, I'll toss it all together, break the chips on top and have a nice healthy taco salad. Good plan, right? Then I think: Maybe I'll throw some shredded cheese on top, too. Hey - speaking of cheese, I have nacho cheese in the freezer. I could thaw that and add that. Why not? I'm not having the pizza, after all. While the cheese is thawing, I continue to think . . . Why not just get the stir-fry veggies out of the freezer cook them up and toss them with the chicken? Mix all that with the cheese and salsa and eat that with the chips. . . That sounds good. . . Sure, it's not as healthy as the salad, but there's still veggies and grilled chicken. And the salsa, that's good . .. As I start to heat the cheese, I decide that it's really just too much effort to stir-fry the veggies. And really, if I save the chicken, then I can have the salad with the chicken tomorrow. That's right, I start off with grilled chicken on spinach and I end up with . . a bowl of melted cheese and chips. And I did throw in the salsa, so hey, it's good for you, right? Also I made a hot pretzel, so it wasn't just chips. Hot pretzels are low fat. It's all good. Sadly, this is typical of me when left alone with the kitchen. If I'd be eating with Eddie, none of this would have happened. I can't feed my kid nothing but chips and cheese for dinner. If the Husband had been home, I'd've at least made the veggies. But left to my own devices, nachos for dinner. Sigh. He's going away again in September, for several days. Anyone want to come and monitor my eating?