Category: Uncategorized

Okay, not a real review, in the sense that my taste buds have been dulled by years of eating Ragu spaghetti sauce and McDonald’s products.

But here is my 11 word review, which was written as I sat in the chair by the elephant:

“My God it’s loud in here. This steak is great! Volcano!”

Can you believe I’d never been to a Rainforest Cafe before? I think this says more about me avoiding the Burlington Mall than anything. See, I had a bad car experiences there, one when I was pregnant and scraped up the side of my Jetta because the curbs are twice the size of normal curbs (I lie not – please go and see for yourself) causing $1000 worth of damage. And then when Junior was about 7 or 8 months old, we were picking up glasses (the Lenscrafters kind) and some idiot punk kid jerk rear-ended us on that horribly scary ramp to Route 128 south that you need to get on to get on Route 3 North, that has idiots zooming in from the right at a full 60mph. The kid behind us didn’t bother to notice that the car in front of us had stopped, which meant we had stopped. Everyone was fine. The Jetta wasn’t. So you can see that if I have to pick a mall, why I go with Pheasant Lane in Nashua, or Solomon Pond in Marlboro.

Where was I going with that? Oh, right, so my sister’s family eats there a lot, but it was our first time. I thought the food was really good, if it did take a long time to get to us. I hear that’s par for the place. And the bill was in the stratosphere for 6 adults and 3 kids (over $200) but we had fun for Uncle Buff’s birthday, and that’s all that matters.

Rating: A for food, B- for speed of service, A for the waitstaff, D for prices. Oh, and D for the bathroom cleanliness, but to their credit, someone came in to clean them as we were leaving. But I’ve never seen more toilet paper on the floor in any bathroom anywhere. Could be due to the average patron age hovering near 5.

The ads I’m not supposed to talk about, over on the right? For two days now they’ve actually been non-you know what-related! They’ve actually reflected the current content! Mostly for hand sanitizers and Nissan Maximas, with back pain thrown in. (Oh, mine isn’t gone, but it is better. I’m pretty functional now.)

I went to the sex offender registry, which is now able to give details (name and address) about level 3 offenders. It’s scary to sit there and wait for the search results, hoping against hope that the closest offender is nowhere near your neighborhood. I feel pretty safe where I live, but who’s to say what the neighbors have been up to? (Oh man, is this website ever slow. The headlines in the Telegram point out that the servers have been getting HAMMERED with people looking up their towns.)

I’m more nervous about my mom’s neighborhood. It’s never been the best place to live, and the apartment complex at the far end of the street isn’t the most desireable place to live. Some poor woman was shot and killed by her freaky neighbor about a year ago. I’d be thrilled to find out there aren’t any in the neighborhood, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were. It’s certainly not the way it was when I grew up there.

Huh. We only have two that live in Leominster, and 3 that work here. And they don’t live anywhere near me or my mom! Whew! I’m feeling a lot better all of a sudden.

The window is fixed. Now it goes down and then back up again. Can you imagine??!

Total cost for everything done to the car in the past week is in the $350.00 neighborhood. More than I wanted to spend, but less than I feared. Next up, the 90k mile checkup. Yucko. I’m going to have to figure out if I can do that one in pieces, if the going rate is over $500 for a 1992 Nissan Maxima. Which I assume it is.

I can’t complain, I haven’t really put money into the car since I got it two years ago. You can’t count the $2000 in bodywork from when the guy backed into me, because, well, that guy backed into me. I didn’t do it. It wasn’t normal wear and tear for the grill to be ripped off. At least I hope it wasn’t.

I wouldn’t mind getting another minivan, because I still really really really miss my old one. But how can I justify it when this car, while older, runs so darned well and doesn’t come with a coupon book of monthly payments?

Is my stiff neck getting worse, or is this a side effect of me favoring it combined with the radical stretching exercises I’m doing to see if I can get my muscles to relax a bit? I don’t think it’s anything terminal, given that I’ve had these before, but damned if I don’t feel worse now than I did earlier. I did find the Advil about 30 minutes ago. I should probably unclench my teeth for a while, too. I wasn’t aware that I was clenching them. I don’t feel like there’s anything clench-worthy in my life.

Also, I discovered a little cut on my hand the hard way. The hard way being “by using some of that Purell Instant Hand Sanitizer after I sneezed,” which then burned the little cut with the fury of a thousand white hot suns. Or maybe 400 white hot suns.

Can’t you see that I’m falling to pieces right in front of your eyes?