Good times

Yesterday, I met my mom at St. Dominic's Hospital (she had business there, she wasn't THERE there) to do a grandparents' night switch-off. As soon as we pulled up next to her, Ace started saying "Wanna ride in Granny's car? Wanna ride in Granny's car?" After I strapped him in and got everything transferred, we had the following conversation.

"Bye bye mama! Bye!"
"Have fun at Granny and Paw Paw's, honey!"
"Bye mama!"
"I love you!"
"Bye mama!"
"I'll miss you!"
"Bye mama!"
"Can you at least SAY you love me?"
"Bye mama! Bye bye! Bye mama!"

Thanks. My insecurities aside, it was really adorable to see how uncontrollably excited he got the second I said "Do you want to go to Granny and Paw Paw's house tonight?" He got the biggest grin on his face and said "Are you 'cited?" When we pulled up to St. D's and he saw my mom's car, he started clapping and wiggling and laughing. Seriously, that's really cute.

I went home and scooped Drew up and headed to Tinseltown for a matinee showing of Doubt. I freakin' loved it, Drew not so much. Everyone played their characters really well - Phillip Seymour Hoffman was the moderately creepy and suspicious priest, Meryl Streep the alternately hated and sympathetic nun, Amy Adams the wide-eyed young trusting and compassionate nun. I really can't stop thinking about the movie and how incredible it was, and how it wound up not at all being about what I thought it'd be about, and how that's kind of okay. It was good.

On to Nagoya for supper. I had the chicken teriyaki and tempura combination; Drew had the chicken and seafood udon and a spicy tuna roll. I don't know when Nagoya started giving out monstrous portions, but I can't say I mind. I got two large pieces of chicken breast, and on the tempura side, I got 3 shrimp, 3 sweet potatoes, a piece of broccoli, an onion ring, and a green pepper ring. Om nom nom. Drew's udon must've been pretty good because I didn't hear much out of him except "sluurrrpp."

Next up was a trip up to Malco and their fancy digital theaters to catch Valkyrie. It's very, very hard to see past how freakin' insane Tom Cruise is in order to enjoy a movie he's a part of, but he was such a good guy in this movie that it was at least tolerable. It was pretty standard war movie/action film fare, with a dash of "based on a true story" thrown in there. The acting was great and I loved all the characters. Plus, any movie with Bill Nighy in it is a good movie. I don't care if he's in a movie where the plot is "watch this grass grow." Bill Nighy would make it interesting.

It was about 9:30 when we got out of the theater and we wanted to go somewhere for some yummy dessert and coffee. Called Sal and Mookie's, they close at 10. Considered Applebee's, but meh. "Julep?" "Totally." It was very, very busy on the bar side when we got there, but we were seated in the restaurant side right away. I had to pee, but the bathroom is accessible only via a walk through their smoky bar. I decided to hold it.

Now, although I can always faintly smell smoke from the bar side of Julep when I'm eating on the restaurant side, it's never enough to bother me. Last night, however, since the bar was so busy, I was ready to leave within 5 minutes. My throat was starting to tighten, my eyes started watering, my nose completely shut down, and my coffee and cake tasted like smoke.

I was hoping to end my night with my husband on a positive note - not emanating the stench of cigarette smoke and suffering from an allergy attack. Oh well. I won't be going back to Julep until they can find a better ventilation system and/or find a better way to separate the bar section from the restaurant section. This bums me out because Julep's fried chicken is hands down the best I've ever had and their desserts are incredible. I'm sad.

So while it ended on a bad note, the night was awesome. I'm hoping to do this more often... just ship Ace off for a night. He LOVES it, we enjoy ourselves, and the grandparents get some Ace time. It's like a win-win-win.