19

So, the Spare to the Throne is 19.  I'm not sure who allowed that to happen, but it did.  I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday -- or IF he wanted to, now that he's a college guy.  He asked if we could go shopping for clothes, because thankfully, his friends like to dress up, so he wants to too.

Actually, he's always liked dressing up, but he didn't do it often.  And he sometimes got it a little wrong, like the time we did pictures with my family when we were on a cruise.  Somehow, his father couldn't locate his dress shoes, so he came out adorably dressed in a vest, dress pants, bow tie and button down shirt.  Adorable, given his missing front tooth, and then you got to his feet, garbed in neon orange flip flops.  The photographer said he would just shoot him from the feet up, at which point my mother said he'd better keep the flip flops in the picture, because she just loved it.  And he did.

He loved wearing a tux at prom, and can't wait to wear one at Jillie's wedding, and after wearing them every day of his high school career, he has banned both khakis and polos from his life.  I guess ya gotta love a man who knows what he doesn't like.  So The Spare, his little lady friend (who we LOVE), my boo and I headed off to shop.  Jim was an integral part of this, because he not only could give the man's perspective, but he also worked for some time in retail, selling menswear, so he could steer him in the right direction.  Comes in handy, that man does.  So Seth ended up with several new button downs, a new vest, two ties, and a pair of pants.  Jim -- a devoted non-shopper like myself -- enjoyed himself, if you exclude Seth's insistence that he wanted a teal shirt included in the mix.

He will be looking quite dapper now, and Jim's next goal is to teach him how to iron over Thanksgiving break.  Seth insists it's not necessary, even hinting that it's a dying art, but it's pretty useless to argue with a Marine.  I'm thinking that next weekend, Seth will be ironing.  Good thing I just replaced the batteries in the smoke detectors.

Speaking of which, after we went shopping, we headed to Stir Crazy, only to find out that they were closed.  On to Plan B, wherein we ended up at Benihana.  Seth loves a hibachi grill, but his big concern was if they had a vegetarian option for his girlfriend, who doesn't eat things with a face.  Of course they do, so we enjoyed a wonderful dinner of steak, chicken, and shrimp, plus the show the hibachi chef put on.  It was totally yummy, and we sat around afterward just chatting about upcoming plans.  Seth's girlfriend realized that one of her friends had been seated near us, and his mom came over the chat for a few, then we took our leave and dropped the kids off at Butler again, with many hugs and an I Love You or two from the boy.  Love. That. Kid.

We hadn't gotten more than five minutes from campus when Seth texted and said that Benihana had been evacuated about five minutes after we left, due to some kind of electrical fire.  MAN!  We were THAT close to getting a free dinner!  Oh well.  Maybe next time.

It's the end of the world as we know it

Well folks, believe it or not, the fast has been broken. Jill ate meat. Well, not exactly meat, but after nine years of not eating anything with a face, the girl ate a bite of chicken.

I made a thrown-together dinner tonight --- chicken breasts, lightly browned, cut into pieces and thrown into the pot with some tomatoes, beans, corn, herbs, garlic, and whatever else I thought fit. Threw in some cheese and sour cream and call it a dinner, cause that's what I did. In typical Dan fashion, he added some broken up chips (he can't have a dinner without a lotta carbs), and there we were.

There we were, fixing up nice bowls of this mix, and in walked Jill. Uh oh. Normally when I cook something like this, I mix it all up and add the meat last. That gives me a chance to fix the vegetarian girl the same meal as us, without me thinking too awful much. Tonight, I totally forgot to do that, which meant I had one big pot 'o Mexican stuff, and no pots of vegetarian stuff. Sometimes that is still ok with The Brat, cause she'll just pick out the meat if it's in chunks, so that's what I suggested. She started staring it down, and thought that the chicken wasn't so chunky, and it was gonna be hard to pick out. I begged to differ, but after a long day working in the barn, she gave up the ghost and fixed a bowl anyway.

We were sitting there chatting away, when she came upon a big chunk 'o chicken in her bowl. She held it up and perused it, turning it all around on her fork, staring at it the whole time, before she announced, "I think I'm gonna eat this piece of chicken." Now, I've heard this before. She said a year ago, maybe two years ago, at Thanksgiving, that she thought she was maybe going to have some turkey. I told her she could eat what she wanted, and no one really cared, because it was up to her. Chickened out at the last minute (pun intended, maybe, I don't know). Ate no meat until tonight, when she sat there staring down the chicken. She looked a little apprehensive, then asked, "who thinks I should eat this chicken. We're gonna vote." Dan's hand went up in the air immediately. Seth's hand went up too. I waited, vetting the possibilities: vote no, and I'm telling her what to do. Vote yes, and if she ends up mad later, it'll be my fault. In the end, I made it a unanimous vote, at which point that chicken disappeared quicker than a Dairy Queen Blizzard, and history was made. Jill promptly announced that she's going to eat turkey at Thanksgiving, too.

It's the end of an era. Chickens all around the world cried.