Recently, we celebrated two birthdays. My three-year old is now four and my five-year old is now six. Up to this point, we’ve had joint birthday parties for both of them. Why have one party, you ask? Well, their birthdays are two days apart and the idea of having multiple parties in one weekend simply tires me out. Besides, having one party has always worked out nicely (aka conveniently). However, now that they’re older, they have their own friends and their own interests. It didn’t seem fair to find a “middle-of-the-road” party that would appease all so we decided to let them have their own party.

Okay, let me tell you something about me. There’s something about children’s parties that I can’t quite wrap my mind around. I don’t know what it is. I actually find it less stressful to organize and cater an event than to organize a kids’ party. Honest. So to think that we would be having two parties in one weekend almost did me in.

For our six-year old, we decided to have a party at one of those bowling/arcade type places. And for our four-year old, we thought it would be best to do something at home. Now this is where the stress came in. When it comes to kids’ stuff, I’m not that creative. Don’t get me wrong. I have a blast with my kids all the time, but to entertain other people’s kids? With the help of two of my nieces, we decided to do a spa party. Now that the party themes were in place, I set forth to think about their birthday gifts. This brings me to the next thing about kids that I have a hard time getting right.

When it comes to buying toys for kids, I’m a bit inept. I try to buy what I think they would like and that’s where the problem comes in. Take my oldest niece, for example. When she was four or so, I bought her this really cool sand art. It was different shaped glass containers with bags of multi-colored sand. The idea is that you pour different colored sand into the bottles then stick on eyes, nose and a mouth to make colorful sand creatures. On the box, it looked fantastic. In reality, however, it didn’t work all that well. Imagine the hand-eye coordination of a four-year old as she tries to pour neon sand into small-necked bottles…especially if she tries to do it on the living room carpet.

In an effort to salvage the gift (as well as any of the remaining sand that hadn’t already poured onto the carpet), I offered to help my niece “play” with her sand art. I told her if she pointed out which color sand she wanted, I would pour it in for her. I figured we would have a wonderful time together while preserving the carpet from neon-colored stains. As you can imagine, my niece didn’t find this all too amusing and after five minutes, got up and left. So much for sand art. Fast forward eight years.

Jacob tore open the wrapping paper of a present to unveil a remote control toy he received from my sister-in-law. No, not a car or a motorcycle, but a remote-control tarantula. This thing had to be the ugliest toy I’ve ever seen and it was HUGE. Needless to say, Jacob would not play with it. So much for remote-control tarantulas.

In the end, our kids had a great time at their individual birthday parties. No missing kids. No broken bones. No sand art and no tarantulas. That, to me, is success.

I often get asked for restaurant recommendations and as much as I enjoy sharing some of my favorite eateries, I also love getting other people’s recommendations. I will admit, however, that although I’m very open to hearing where people like to eat, I’m also pretty skeptical. I’m very picky. What I love are the mom/pop shops, the neighborhood gems, the great late-night finds that are hard to get into.

Tom and I have had the pleasure of eating fantastic food over the years. Although we’ve enjoyed some of the best restaurants, we’ve also eaten at restaurants where I’ll occasionally reach into my purse to make sure my pepper spray is within reach. We were at a restaurant in the latter category not too long ago.

For years I’ve been told of a hot dog place I needed to try. People claim this place serves the best hot dogs and yes, I do love hot dogs. (Actually, give me a Coney dog topped with a beanless-meat chili, yellow onion, shredded cheddar, some Sri Racha and I’m a happy woman). So, I’ve been told of this eatery but was never interested…until recently. Tom had taken the day off and we were planning to see a movie. As we were deciding where to go to lunch, he mentions this hot dog place I’ve been hearing about. He swears it’s a great place, so I agreed to go.

We show up and I was pleasantly surprised at how busy the place was. It was a small neighborhood eatery and the only seats available were at the counter towards the back. We weave our way through the other patrons and took our seats. As I looked around, I noticed a very strong, peculiar smell. It wasn’t the smell of caramelized onions, sautéed garlic or anything like that. No, it was something much less appetizing. I’ve been around very interesting ingredients and aromas so nothing really surprises me. However, I wouldn’t consider strong body odor to be a culinary aroma. I didn’t want to cause a commotion (and besides, there were no other tables available), so I decided to “ignore it.”

I ordered the Coney dog and my usual side order of pickles. Soon our food came and it actually looked pretty good. The cook said he would stop back with my pickles. As I took a bite of my dog, I happened to look up and see the cook reach into a five gallon bucket to get my pickles. Now that, in and of itself, was not anything noteworthy. Maybe it was the fact that he reached in with his bare hand (actually his arm) to get my pickles that was unsettling.

To be honest, it’s not the body odor or even the hairy arm that was the deal breaker with this place. It was the interesting wrist bands that were hanging all over the front wall. As Tom and I looked closer, we noticed these were not just regular wrist bands. Printed on the bands was information from the County Sheriff’s department, along with the inmate’s ID number. Oh… During the remainder of the meal, Tom was wondering why I kept putting my hand in my purse. “No reason,” I answered as I kept probing. Ah yes, there was my pepper spray…