Eat Mor Chikin

I feel I’ve been letting my legions of fans down this week. It seems like a ton is going on, but none of it is interesting enough to blog about, really. I found myself typing merrily away a few days ago, drawing a correlation between the amount of rain in western Washington state and the number of serial killers from that area, and I had a rare moment of wise awareness that sometimes, silence is preferable. (the thought was provoked by how unsettled and fussy D.C.-area people get when we receive a little sprinkling of rain, if you were curious.

It just feels like a lot of loose ends are getting tied up, or worked, on. Mostly wedding stuff; financial stuff; a project or two of Matt’s; etc. And my parents are coming this weekend, which I’m really looking forward to. They’re going to meet Matt’s mom for the first time. Heh. At this point, I shall refrain from comment, though please don’t misinterpret that as any slam on my parents. Hm, yep. That’s already saying too much.

One not-totally-uninteresting thing we did this week: On Wednesday night, we raced to Manassas to slide into Jiffy Lube just before 7 p.m., forcing them to stay a little bit late to change our oil. I feel really guilty pulling behind the bay at about 6:52, but they always assure me that if they’re open, they’re raring to go! They’re very kind guys there at the Manassas Jiffy Lube. So we got all lubed up. Then, since it was already about 7:15, we thought we’d try to grab some dinner out. All too often, since we moved to Manassas a bit more than a year ago, we’ve eaten out – probably about once a week, if I’m being honest. (I picked that one up from Simon Cowell. Heh. To be read in English accent.) Where we erred previously, though, was not in the act of eating out, but in the manner in which we did it. We’d go to a ‘sit-down restaurant’ – say, Ruby Tuesday’s or Hops or someplace – and, again, if I’m being honest, I dreaded these occasions because Lizzy just doesn’t want to be contained in a booth for as long as it takes to decide on, order and eat dinner. She is not a sit-in-one-place kind of kid (are any of them?). A few of you no doubt remember the infamous Burger King bawling session and "I'm waiting for you, Big Boy!” outburst, but I am happy to say, she has since mastered the art of climbing up those dumb ‘stairs’ in your typical fast-food Play Place. So now we’re good to go on the fast food. Fortunately for our ever-expanding waistlines, there are some semi-healthy selections on the menus these days.

So I steered us from the suggested Mandarin something-or-other to a fast-food joint where Lizzy could work off her energy in between chicken nuggets. I believe we chose Chick-fil-A merely out of convenience of proximity. – I have avoided it for nearly four years because my one experience there was going to lunch after I had started going into labor, and … well… you really don’t want to know any more than that.
I knew it was (I assume) Christian-owned; Matt and I have discussed the fact that it’s closed on Sundays, and we’ve seen Veggie Tales merchandise offered in the kids’ meals before. But I didn’t realize how strongly that came across in the restaurants themselves. They were actually playing Christian music! I was shocked, but pleasantly so. Not that Christian music, for the most part, is all that, but what a refreshing change. The place was almost empty, as well – one of the employees told me that Thursday (the following night) was their biggie as far as kids were concerned, because a clown comes and entertains. On this night, we had this peaceful oasis to ourselves. Lizzy made a little friend in the play area, which was clean, small enough to monitor our kid (unlike McDonald’s, where they practically aren’t within shouting distance any more if they go far enough), and had some inventive touches. Matt was blown away by the xylophone-like music contraption with notes written on the wall and everything. I seriously doubt any kid has ever fully taken advantage of the complexity of it, but I didn’t want to throw cold water on his discovery.

And the chicken nuggets were downright tasty!
I think we’re definitely “converting” to Chick-fil-A from now on whenever possible.