The truth shall set you free

This week I had the opportunity to drive down to SLC to attend a chef presentation. It was billed as a chance to meet local chefs,see new products and see new techniques. I am old and tired and the only one with clearance to drive a company car  and so my reaction was meh-. Minion on the other hand is still young, LOVES to go on car rides and loves them even more when he gets paid to be a passenger so he talked fancy and convinced me to drive his Miss Daisy self.
I will admit the trip there was a whole lot of fun and even though it was taking forever I thought that maybe he was right in pushing me out of my comfort zone. And then we arrived to our destination and immediately I changed my mind. As soon as we stepped foot inside I got the sinking feeling that I did not belong and as I tried to convince myself that I was being silly introductions started and all be if every person in there was not giving themselves fancy titles. When it came to us I squeaked out what I was doing and could feel the hot glares of disapproval along with the internal dialogues as to why a glorified lunch lady had been invited. If the floor had suddenly turned into a portal to another realm I would have been eternally grateful but I think I have offended every nerd in every galaxy and so no good turn was to be given to me. I am not sure if you know this but in the BC time ( you know before children) I was on the fast track to food glory . I was running in circles that if I played my cards right could have ended up in some amazing things. In fact as newlyweds watching the food network one Sunday I recognized people I was associating with in my former career. Unfortunately kitchens and family life are as good a combination as peanut butter and olives, so instead I rambled down a road that has been far less glamorous.
The seminar continued and as I tried to decipher words choked out by one of thickest french accents I have ever heard my shame led to questioning. Maybe I should have stayed the course, maybe I should have tried to be in high end pastry and lived up to the potential, maybe maybe maybe... The longer we went the more my former training kicked in and suddenly I realized that all was not lost. I still remembered these techniques, I still knew the language and could actually perform all of the tasks. I wanted to tell these chumps with their fancy titles my discovery but we were limited to questions not life affirming discoveries so I stayed quiet.  Right about the time that regret was starting to set in though a funny thing happened. I realized that I was bored. The idea of meticulous placement of singular berries was not thrilling but tedious and monotonous. The beauty of a correctly made ganache somehow had been dimmed and I was having serious difficulty in not pretending to have a seizure or some other medical emergency so I could leave.
So even though I am capable of creating this

What I am most proud of creating is this

Because with this title I get to have awesome conversation and endless adventures and smells that could kill a horse.

Monkey business

I have not seen my person since Christmas and have been trying to get to Boise since October so setting aside all rational thinking and subjecting ourselves to what can only be described as road torture we headed to the other part of Idaho. The drive would have been a whole lot less crappy if we had not just returned from a whirl wind trip to Salt Lake City two days prior but hey you are only middle aged once so we soldiered on.

Sammy has been talking about his beloved auction for months so we decided to check it out. Only Sammy was still in the aforementioned city of Salt Lake so we went with out him. You would think that Karma would punish us for such an egregious act but it was quite the opposite. We were blessed with this.

You are seeing a real live monkey. What you are not seeing is that she is wearing a diaper. I really wanted to take this picture but wondered if that was bad manners. Luckily for us all my BIL decided that monkeys in public trump manners so he snapped this. Two seconds later this monkey got thirsty since she was eating a salty pretzel, which you know is probably part of her native diet so she turned to her companion and stole her Snapple. She stuck her monkey tongue in there and then wrapped her whole mouth over the opening and then resumed her snacking. I was appalled since monkeys have no business drinking Snapple but then a far worse crime happened. The girl straight up just kept drinking out of the bottle without so much as an obligatory wiping off of the germs. I judged her for her creepiness, silently of course sine what do you actually say to that? 

Remember how I said it was weird that Karma had blessed us for leaving Sam out of the equation. Turns out she was just a little late.

We went swimming and as I was sitting on the deck wondering why people even like to swim Thing Two came over and announced that he had puked in the pool. I have dealt with a lot of weird comments in my 10 years of mothering but this was a new one even for me. I walked over and sure enough he had spilled the contents of his belly right there on the edge of the pool. He had almost made it out but the thirty pieces of red vines rolling around in his guts must have slowed him down. I grabbed a towel and got what I could off the concrete and then walked out to inform the front desk. He said it was OK to keep swimming and I thought sure why not if I kid can whiz in the pool surely a few chunks is fine to. Turns out not so much. We ended up being the reason the pool was closed for the night. They did let us walk across the parking lot and use the other pools hotel. That was an awkward walk of shame to say the least. Hi we are the creepy parents who let their kid swim in his own vomit but we promise promise swear that we won't hurl in your pool MKAY MKAY. 

Perhaps none of this would of happened if only I had given him the obligatory wipe down from germs. You win Karma you win.

The culprit. You can tell I am a good mom since I fed him MORE sugar after he vomited. 

The non Puker