A Pot Luck Week (with Extra Rice)

Thursday night we had a phenomenal chicken stir fry for dinner: I thought it was from a kit, but then Athennia said she had made it from scratch!

Then on Friday night we whipped up a pizza. I find plain pizza kind of stale after a while, but that's the only kind Riley will eat; so, we tried to find a happy compromise in a 66% Hawaiian, 34% plain pie...

Not bad!

Saturday we apparently did nothing at all. I have no photos and virtually no notes in my calendar. As far as I can tell, we all lost an entire day without a trace. But I suppose, with inflation as high as it is, that is was only a matter of time until a standard week became worth only six days. (I'll bet we don't even have real weeks anymore: They're probably all just "Federal Reserve Time-Notes" or some crap.)

Sunday, Athennia decided to try filing her taxes; but, between switching jobs last year, shifting around some investments here and there, and Taylor having turned 18 back in October, she decided she would feel better having a CPA take care of everything this year. So, she called around to a few local H&R Block locations and managed to get an appointment at the Franklin Mills Mall that afternoon.

Looks like Riley and I have a day at the mall together.

I hadn't been to Franklin Mills in a good 16-18 years—certainly not since they renamed it to the imbecilic "Philadelphia Mills." And, based on the state of the Neshaminy and Oxford Valley Malls these days, I decided that, if there was even still a building standing when we got there, that would be enough to impress me.

And there was, but that was about it...

Remember when this mall had a black and white tile theme going on, and lovely gardens in the center? Remember how there were giant stacks of televisions and enormous speakers at every intersection? Remember how the food court was an actual... court... instead of just some shadowy alcove with a Popeyes and maybe two other places that look like they probably serve dog meat?

Well... those days are over. Instead, welcome to whatever the hell this is: They stole the gym floor from a local elementary school while deciding that having actual stores is optional for a shopping mall.

The mall is still about the size of the Atlanta airport though; so Riley and I had plenty of walking to keep us busy while Athennia figured out how much she had to tithe to our IRS overlords.

The first place we stopped was Spencer's—where Riley spent six hours examining the incense flavors before she found something she wanted even more.

I didn't have a problem with it; but I made her to swear to me that her mom would be okay with it as well...

What do you think, Mom? Is this the gateway blanket to crystal meth blankets and PCP blankets like they insisted back in middle-school health class? Is our innocent little girl going to be unrecognizable six weeks from now, listening to Steppenwolf and throwing old pairs of sneakers over the telephone lines for fun?

Luckily, I found something prescient a few minutes later at Five Below...

Also, in case you were wondering, the devil wears Puma, not Prada...

Athennia ended up getting her taxes done inside of 45 minutes... and wound up with a pretty hefty (and completely unexpected) refund to boot. She reached out to us just as Riley and I were leaving Burlington (where Riley procured herself a new wallet), and we met up and headed over to Marco's Pizzeria in Newtown (where we had already been planning to do dinner even before the trip to the mall came up).

We stuffed our faces with pizza, went home to digest for a bit, and then decided to head back out to Friendly's for dessert.

Just that quickly, I could already see the blanket's influence on Riley! A Kurt Cobain shirt and a green-colored sundae?! That's bad news!

And yet, you'd think that being wrapped up in that blanket just before coming here might've given her enough of the munchies to finish her ice cream!

But, no.

Your mom and I finished every bite of ours! (Well, except for the "surprise" I found around the halfway point of mine...)

Athennia and Riley don't eat their cherries. Me? I'm not big on hair.

And now for the "extra rice" portion of the story.

Yesterday morning when I saw Athennia out on her way to work, we found a little "gift" in the stairwell from our scuzzball neighbor Ruth (the only other person who lives up these stairs besides us)...

Yes, that's a trail of rice—from Ruth's door, all the way down the stairs and out to the spot where her car had been parked.

And yes, she really is such an airhead that she can walk a distance like that without knowing (or caring?) that there's a hole in the bag of trash she's carrying. (Sometimes it'll be vacuum dust and floss-picks all over the stairs. This time it was fried rice.)

Naturally, Athennia called the leasing office to give them a heads up and assure them that it wasn't us. And as for me?

Well, I just had a hankering for rice all morning after that; so, for lunch, I decided to walk over to the nearby Bubbakoo's Burritos that I've been meaning to try out since I moved in...

All in all, I enjoyed it; but I'd still opt for Qdoba any day of the week :)

Later that night, we were supposed to watch The Crow—something Riley had even pinky-sworn on earlier in the week!

A pinky swear, man! Those are sacred!

But, pinky swears and family time mean nothing when you're hopelessly strung out on pot blankets; so, Athennia and I mourned the loss of our daughter's innocence and finished up the first season of The Tudors instead.

Finally, here are a bunch of random cat pics to close out the month :)