Get Out of the House Day

It's becoming traditional that Wednesdays or Thursdays are out 'get out of the house day.' This morning we decided to stick close to home due to the ongoing heat, and hit up storytime at the library. We met up with the twins' cousin and nanny (that's one person, not two) and two of her charges, and the ladies had a lot more fun this time around. Then we played on the nearby playground for an hour and they got in some much-needed swing and slide time. I was glad for the extra pair of eyes, but I also have to say that the ladies are getting better and better each day about staying within limits. I'm no longer quite so scared that Simone will just take off in a random direction or into traffic.

And then we came home and Miss S. decimated an entire box of tissues while I was in the bathroom.

Kitchen Nightmares Keeps Me Sane

I have come to understand that one of the main reasons I enjoy Kitchen Nightmares so much is because it's all about working with big egos, defensive gestures, people seeking cookies before they'll do any real work, people who think good intentions are enough -- the whole range of bad behavior that we so often wrestle with (in very different contexts, of course) here in discussions of certain flavors. You know, like "that's just your opinion" and "but this is so much better than it used to be, why don't I get any credit for that?" and so on and so forth. And Gordon Ramsay gets to cuss and yell and tell the blunt, bald truth to people's faces -- and eventually, they all come around and try it his way and and see the results. It's a seriously cathartic show for me, in other words. A little fairy tale of interpersonal relations under stress. Plus, of course, it involves food.