This, that, and the other

This past Saturday I was reminded of why we do not go out to eat with Emma.

A few months ago I found out that Olive Garden now serves gluten-free pasta, and so this past Saturday I decided to give myself a break and suggest we go out to eat. It had been a while, it was a beautiful day, too beautiful to spend indoors cooking.

Our plans for the evening were to go to the park, go out to eat, and then watch Barbie and the Three Musketeers with Emma.

And so before we went, I called to make absolutely sure they offered the gluten-free pasta, and I was assured they did. Before we ordered our meal I again asked if they had the gluten-free pasta, and before Emma too one bite of the pasta I asked if it was the gluten-free pasta. All times I was assured it was.

Within a half hour of us returning home she started having a violent reaction to the meal, typical of what happens when she eats something with wheat and/or gluten. She puked a total of six times in two hours. It was awful. Towards the end she was just throwing up liquid, having emptied her stomach the first four times. The poor thing was so out of it. She tried to watch her movie, but between bouts of puking she'd fall asleep since it always makes her very weak.

So I called Olive Garden to let them know what happened and to see if we could get our meal refunded. The managers were very apologetic and helpful, and soon I will be talking with someone from their insurance company. We still do not know how a mix-up occurred, since the manager told me that the gluten-free pasta comes frozen, all they have to do is heat it up.

It is strange.

But I felt so awful. Here I am, wanting to go out to eat, and then Emma ends up eating something that she shouldn't.

The next morning the first thing she told me was that we shouldn't take her to the Olive Garden any more.

Then when my parents called to see how she was doing, Emma told my mom "It's no fun to puke during a movie and miss the whole thing."

Then after breakfast she went into the kitchen, opened up the pantry doors, and said "See mom, look. You have all this food. You can cook, we don't need to go out to eat."

She can be a smart-ass once in a while.




But no, I don't think I'll be able to trust a restaurant again for a while.

This weekend Emma had some homework...she had to disguise a turkey who doesn't want to be eaten for Thanksgiving.

Emma's turkey has been hiding out at Mardi Gras, trying to blend in with the locals.



She wanted me to get a close-up of the sparkly toes.



Other than that, life has been busy. My tutoring at the community college is going by quite well...it is fun. One guy that I am tutoring in Statistics has become a regular customer. I helped him prepare for his midterm two weeks ago, and he just emailed me not too long ago to let me know he got a B. He was very pleased, since before our first tutoring session he was lost.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I have nine, yes NINE appointments, so come afternoon my head is going to be spinning.