Being Thankful Can Be Hard

We had a great Thanksgiving. I was able to do what I love to do, cook a big meal, and it was pretty dang good. We had a small table this year with just Leslie, the girls and I and it was perfect. The girls were all sophisticated with their sparkling cider in wine glasses and after dinner we played "I am thankful for...." and we go around the table and you cannot say what anyone else has said. We had fun with it and it made it through about ten passes around the table before it broke up.

The next day, Friday, it was evident that Cooper was not doing so great. After many months of his deteriorating it appeared that something dramatic had happened over night--Leslie suspected a stroke. She took him to the vet and we were prepared to have to say good bye to him Friday; but a phone conversation between us led her to bring him home to see how he faired overnight. Not so good is the answer.

I could go into details but the result is the same, around 11:00 this morning Leslie took Cooper to the vet with the purpose of having him put to sleep. Before she left we all gathered around him on the floor and patted him, cried tears on him, told him how much we loved him and told him how thankful we were that he chose us to be his family.

Giving thanks at Thanksgiving is not just for our family, friends, food and toys; giving thanks for our pets is right up there--in some families above human family members. Today we learned what being thankful is really all about. It is truly about deep gratitude for the love given and taken, the companionship, the laughs and finally the feeling of deep loss that comes with the person, or pet, responsible for those emotions being taken physically out of our lives.

Cooper is part of God as are we all, he lives in our hearts and our paths will cross again. Bless you Cooper and thank you for such a wonderful life that I was able to share with you.

A sad Thanksgiving weekend for the Smiths, but a happy one knowing how much we have to be thankful for in our lives.

East Side Sario's...I mean Mario's

This is a picture of the Chicken Marsala I had last night at East Side Marios in Lakewood, CA, to be called East Side Sario's in our house from now on. It appears that I have eaten half my chicken before taking the picture, appearances can be deceiving however since this was taken right after it was set in front of me. I had to put my fork in the picture for a size reference to how small the serving of the "tender boneless chicken breast seasoned with cracked black peppercorns, sauteed with mushrooms and Marsala wine" actually was. For $14.79 one would expect a whole chicken breast for a dinner entree, instead I received what amounted to a half breast, and a small one at that; or at least have the accompanying side dish not be two to three times the size of the protein. The Marsala based sauce tasted like canned gravy and overall the dish was not good. Our server asked how the meal was after service and I pointed to the piece of chicken and said, "I am disappointed in the size of the portion of chicken, is this the regular serving?" To which she replied, "Yes that is the normal portion...at least you have a lot of potatoes."

Leslie and I went to East Side Sario's because we had been given a gift certificate for $50.00 and decided to use if for our date night. We had a beer in the bar, great value of a large Stella Artois at $4.49 Happy Hour prices, then moved to the dining area--which was dark and cold. We shared a pizza (New York Classic) which was good, but for the price I would rather spend a few more bucks and get Catalano's (Carson and Orange in Bixby Knolls section of Long Beach). Then had our entrees.

The entrees came with a pretty good salad, Leslie really liked it, I was a bit luke warm as they had a considerable amount of crunchy noodles on top. Then our entrees arrived. Leslie had the Sizzling Chianti Steak which is billed as tri-tip but was not that cut and it was over cooked for her order. Tasted okay but again not worth the price ($15.99--note my pennies may be off on the prices but pretty close).

Will we go back to East Side Sario's again? Probably not, if we do it would be for a beer before eating somewhere else, or if we do eat there maybe try one of the pastas. On the plus side, after $11 for the beers in the bar and the $64 for the dinner with the kindness of the gift card it only cost $25 to discover a place to stay away from in the future. Note that East Side Mario's is a brand of the Marie Callender's chains, further disappointing me given the quality I have experienced at every Marie Callender's I have visited.

UPDATE: Not one to hit and run I did make a comment on the ESM/MarieC's website and the General Manager of the East Side Mario's store did contact me, asked about my experience and offered a free Sunday brunch or dinner for two. I told him I did not make the comments merely to get a free meal, but he insisted and sent us a dinner for two. I admire that he took the time to call and see what the situation was, however it seems he was more upset with the server's comments than that the portions of chicken in the entree are miniscule. Today the letter arrived for 2 free entrees--I don't think we will use the freebies as 1) it feels like I contacted them just to get a free meal and 2) frankly not sure what there is to eat there I would want to go back for--except the cheap Stella's at Happy Hour and friend Julie H. indicates a better deal at Curley's in Signal Hill for Stella!

Coming Back

I realize I have been on sabatical for several months and have let my less serious side fester in the writing department. I have been getting a regular every Monday post out on my more opinionated site (LBPost.com, my section is My Front Porch) and have not taken time to feed this side of my brain. Bad on me but since I don't know if anyone visits this site but me I guess I am the only one who notices.

Facing a challenge in that I would like to write a bit more about national topics and the publishers of the LBPost want me to tie everything into Long Beach in a direct connection. As a result I feel like I am stretching the connection sometimes to get my bigger picture opinion on the issue in. I am the only one who writes from center to center-right on the site, in fact taking all the LB media, print and on-line, I am probably the only one, as such I am of the opinion they benefit from having a perspective not written about in the city. But it is their site and if I want to play it is their rules. Writing that has spurred me to contact them about discussing the issue.

My intent is to be more current on contributing to this space, for me and hopefully some who visit will like it. I have missed several movie and restaurant reviews I could have shared, plus many fun family happenings.

Where's Olive?

After consuming some quite tasty carne asada, or at least my version of the same, and getting the kids to bed last night serendipitous timing while channel surfing brought to to "Little Miss Sunshine." When this movie came out in 2006 it started off as a bit of a sleeper. I can remember recommend it to others while it was still in the theater and most people had yet to hear of it.

While I am neither a Greek nor theater scholar I do believe the Greek tragedy involves ill will befalling a hero, or heroine in his or her attempt to achieve a goal, a conquest or other significant achievement. Little Miss to me is the modern equivalent of a Greek tragedy. Olive, our heroine, is the ray of sunshine to a very disfunctional family whose fates seem to conspire to keep Olive from her goal: performing in and winning the Little Miss Sunshine. While her big brother, parents, uncle and grandfather all her their bags of crap they keep dragging out, Olive maintains her positive outlook.

The line "Where's Olive" is one of the many one-liners, joining "Welcome to hell" and "Go hug Mom" from Dwayne who is silent by choice delivering his dialogue on a small spiral notepad. A very good technique from the director and/or screenwriter to add a significant piece to this film.

Excellent casting, acting, writing and direction if you have not seen Little Miss Sunshine find it on HBO and TiVo it or get it on Netflix--better yet buy it and make it one of your annual viewings. Caution, for those who have not seen it, as charming as it may seem with little Olive as the lead there is significant foul language--particularly in scenes with Alan Arkin dialogue.

Rating: Wide Awake

Regarding that carne asada....some skirt steak pounded flat with salt, pepper, garlic powder, chipolte chili powder, a little olive oil, "daddy-q" sauce, balsamic vinegar, grilled quickly over very hot coals; simple, delicious!

Tonight a large pork loin roast, 3 lbs, I'm slow cooking on the grill for about an hour and a half to two hours. Over night rub of most of the above, coated with balsamic, dijon and olive oil. Will baste with an apple/bourbon version of the homemade sauce to get nice sticky crust as it slowly cooks. Oh, plus a few cups of icey bourbon for the grill master while cooking!

Iron Man and Indiana Jones

Thankfully we have Tuesday nights! Leslie and I have been to the movies more times in the last several weeks than in past....let's see Blaire is 8...past eight or nine years. Having spent the last several years taking eight or nine days to see a movie on DVD watching about twelve minutes at a time before dozing off it is great to sit in comfy chair in a dark theater with some salty popcorn, a cool drink, a great big screen, great sound and watch a good movie. The past two week we saw Indiana Jones and the Something of Something and Iron Man. Both were very good movies, let's start with Indy.

Leslie loves Harrison Ford and the Indiana Jones series. She met Indy in 1981 when he was chasing around the jungle with Karen Allen. She did not meet me until about 1992 or 1993, Harrison was first, I got that. We saw Harry last week still chasing around with Karen Allen, this time in Peru and the jungles of South America. The beauty of this fantastic tale? It is the Indiana Jones franchise from beginning to end. It is kitchy, it has the predictable one-liners, it has Ford doing a great job being Indiana Jones. Hold on to your hat chase sequences and hold your breath escapes by Ford are just as fun to watch today as they were over 25 years ago. It was it is and that is an Indiana Jones movie; made for thirteen year old boys and everyone loves it. Bravo!


Rating: Comfy on the couch If you are adamant about the sound and big screen and you don't have a home theater system like Shaquille go see it at the theater, otherwise DVD will do you fine. Get the first three in the series from Netflix and have an Indy marathon.

Iron Man was great. I am not much on comic book movies, Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Aquaman, wait that was just a fictional movie in the fictional series "Entourage" on HB); so I have stayed away from the Marvel Comics that have been redone by Hollywood. I typically do not like movies from comics, probably because when I was a kid I was a comic book wussy. I did not like the action comics, I liked the comedic comics, Archie, Richie Rich, the stupid ones. I had heard some good reviews on Iron Man but it was not until friend Chuck was in town from Houston and we were having dinner that he mentioned he and wife Michelle had seen Iron Man and liked it that I put it in the Date Night movie rotation. Leslie was game so off we went. Wow, what a great movie. Directed by Jon Favreau ("you're so money" guy in the classic "Swingers", classic being a loose term as a lot of my friends really like it and I never really did, back to Iron Man) the movie is not the typical comic book movie. For one, while it is a bit fantastic at times it is not suspend all belief type fantastic. Secondly the special effects are done very well so they are not annoyingly special effects. Thirdly the acting is very good. And on I go, the writing is well done as well. I, we, liked this movie very much--especially Leslie who loves action movies. Where Indy is kitchy and corny this one keeps you glued to your seat. It was a pleasure to watch Robert Downey Jr. turn in another great performance, and hey spending time looking at Gweneth Paltrow does not ruin any movie. There are two bad guys and both are chilling in their evil. Jeff Bridges has plenty of roles where he is the kind of off-beat, goofy guy but shows again he can play bad guy real, real well. When the guy took our ticket (our Tuesday night guy, about 60 years old and always happy) he said, "best movie we have playing..." he was right.

Rating: Wide Awake see this movie!

On the home DVD front we saw the first two Bourne movies, Leslie slept through most of the first one, I slept through most of the second one, didn't seem like we missed much. Can't wait to get the third one from Netflix this week! zzzzzzzzzz