A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Now I can laugh at the week I just had
It would have been okay if it was just “bad”
But it was the worst, and that’s not a rumor
But now that it’s over I can find a bit of humor

There were so many things that seemed to go wrong
For a while there I thought I’d not last very long
You probably won’t believe half the things I say
Believe me it was worse than just having a bad day

To start with, I came down with a nasty old flu
The stomach virus got me, hope you don’t get it too
Many trips to the porcelain bowl left me weak
It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Then I found out I could have unexpected exposure
My landlord announced the apartments going into foreclosure
I just moved in… now another castle I must seek
It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Five of our pond fish died, for no apparent reason
How does that happen? Is it that time of season?
If left floating on the water they begin to reek
It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

What happened to the electricity? Where is the power?
For hours the whole block in the dark had to cower
If I can’t use my laptop soon, I’ll just freak
It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Why does my living room carpet feel so boggy?
There’s a lot of water coming from somewhere, making it soggy
Oh look, my air conditioner has a leak
It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Oh no! The cats broke the thermometer glass
Of course, the dogs had to see what’s come to pass
Now they’re all cut up ‘cuz they just had to peek
It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

I’ll spare the other details of the week I just had
Just so you know it got pretty sad
But I kept trying to think positive, down to the letter
And thought, “Hey well, you know, it can only get better!”

Written by Dave Twelker
Inspiration provided by Tammi Fletcher

Haleakala Volcano, Maui, Hawaii 2007 courtesy of "Knitting Bitch"

What if you were blind?

If you’ve ever had a night when you couldn’t sleep and spent too many hours playing channel roulette you no doubt would come across plenty of infomercials selling vacuum cleaners, exercise equipment and diet products. But have you ever come across a train wreck and couldn’t help but look? You know those half baked dating shows where the couple on the date is either going to end up hating each other or sucking face on screen! We’ll I’ve seen plenty of these over the last 4 or 5 years and occasionally I see something interesting or cool that I’d actually like to do with my friends or husband,

During my husbands’ trip to the island we both got to experience one of these events that I thought would bring us closer, be very sensuous, very exotic and rather sexy! It’s called “Dining in the Dark.” I found a rather nice restaurant in the nearby town of Kaneohe and I signed us up! This was going to be a four course gourmet dinner that we could have with wine or without wine. The restaurant is known for there wine so they offer a special wine with each course. We opted for soda pop and water rather than wine. Just haven’t developed a palette for wine.

They bring you thru the restaurant to a small gathering area and here they blindfold you. You cannot remove your blindfold at any time. If you need something you speak up or raise your hand. If you break something you sit still and let the people waiting on you handle everything so you don’t cut yourself. And if you have to go to the bathroom you raise your hand; you are escorted to the bathroom and taken inside. Once you are inside and alone, with the door shut, you can remove your blindfold to do your business. But before opening the door you must put your blindfold back on. You will not be told what you are eating and will not know or see anything until the dinner is completed.

As they place drinks and dishes on the table in front of you they tell you “coming from left” or coming from right” or something similar so you know where everything is being placed. There are no extras on the table, no tablecloth, only your silverware, dinking glass and the course you are eating then. We figured our pre course (not big enough to be called a course) was a small square of watermelon with something pureed on top and it was really good.

Dressing up is not required since everyone is blindfolded!

The next course was a leafy salad with some type of fabulous chunks of meat, some sweet bits that tasted like oranges and a couple of very bitter bites. But overall it was awesome! The third course was some type of stuffed ravioli in a sauce. It tasted like a wonderful cheese mixture but other than that we had no clue.

No, she was not the hunky waiter I described! She was our server!

By this time we were getting pretty good using our fingers to figure out the size and shape of the plates being placed in front of us, where drink glasses were and how to get the food on the fork and in our mouths. The food had more flavor than I’ve ever experienced before and the room sounded huge and caverness. Our waiter stayed with us at all times in case we needed something and actually told us we were doing pretty well with guessing what we were eating.

Now comes the fourth course of meat. How would we do with a knife and fork? Luckily the meat was so tender and juicy that a butter knife was all we needed. The meat tasted like a prime rib but in big chunks that had been slow cooked but had a smoky taste. The meat seemed to be on top of some sort of mashed potatoes that had baby onions mixed in. I still can’t explain the meat taste but it was incredible and filling! Up to this point we had cleaned all of our plates and Brent did on this one too but I couldn’t. About this point Brent got to experience the trip to the bathroom and no luck seeing anything without the blindfold.

Finally was desert and we nailed this one! It was a small round cookie/pie crust with a pudding of some sort that had strawberries, berries, kiwi, and another berry on top. And on each side of the plate was the best chunk of chocolate I have ever tasted. And anyone who knows me, knows I know my chocolate. By this point I figures out how to steal one of Brent’s pieces of chocolate but was so proud of my discovery that I told him and let him have it back. But good job Tammi!

Yeah, Tammi needs to think about loosing weight after seeing these pictures!

When we were finally done we reviewed what we thought each course was and what our waiter looked like then the blindfolds came off. I was way wrong on the waiter. He talked like a surfer dude so I figured a white person who moved to the island who now had a great tan, medium length wavy sun kissed brown hair and rather hunky. Wrong! I forget his name but he was a young local man in his 20’s, of Hawaiian decent with nicely styled short black hair and still very hunky looking! He then started sharing the pictures of what we ate and compared what we guessed with the real thing. We did pretty well.

The pre course we said was a watermelon square with something pureed on it. It was watermelon with special green olives puréed with virgin olive oil and scooped onto the square. I had no idea I liked green olives!

Course one we knew was lettuce with oranges and something bitter and chunks of a delicious meat but the meat wasn’t beef, chicken and didn’t taste fishy. Well it was fresh lobster tail. They split the tail between the two salads. There was some type of vinaigrette dressing that I liked despite not liking vinaigrette dressings. And the bitter was new that night. They added bits of lime to see how the bitter interacted with the other flavors.

One of my all time favorites!

Course two we had pretty good too. It was filled pastas but the dressing was a combination of chipotle and very expensive vodka. I don’t like chipotle because of the spice but thus combination was wonderful!

Course three was actually prime rib tips slow cooked on top of celery mashed potatoes with baby onions. And we nailed the desert which was actually a yellow sponge cake base with a vanilla pudding that had the fruits layered on top. And the chocolate bits were truffles! They were out of this world!

Large portions for a gourmet restaurant!

Look at those chocolate truffels!

I know there are many places on the mainland that have dining in the dark experiences. If you want adventure and love food try it. You will be amazed at how quickly your other senses become heightened and make up for the lack of sight. A very eye opening experience that was actually very sensual and yummy! Oh, and the room was one they use for larger gatherings of 30 to 50 people and we were the only two that night which is why I said it sounded large and caverness.

Here’s a teaser for the next entry for my faithful followers…

Until next time, love and hugs to "my faithful followers!"