The GGA Project -- Day #207 "Slow Food, Kinda Fast"

What a great day.  I got an early start at the gym before Monkey woke up and then managed to have us both out of the house in time to catch a 10am movie in Dublin.  The only thing that could possibly motivate me to get us to the movies by 10am is the fact that tickets were $1.  Yes, that is ONE DOLLAR, folks!  Of course, knowing that this theater is offering this $1 series on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings this summer, every other parent in the surrounding area was there as well.  No matter, Monkey, Nicole, Maya, Sureya and I still managed to grab seats for Despicable Me, a really cute movie that actually made me cry in the end.  It was very sweet.


We were all pretty hungry when we got out of the theater, so we headed straight for a little cafe-type restaurant I'd seen and been curious about.


Today's New Activity: Lunch at the Red Tractor

Red Tractor's website is pretty sparse, but from what I gleaned in the restaurant their aim is to bring some down-home cooking to fast-ish food.  The set up is pretty quaint...like maltshop meets barn.

I took the occasion to order a meal worthy of a Paula Deen episode.  I think I was answering the "how much starch can you pack onto a single plate?" question with this one:

While it was *pretty* good, I wouldn't say any of the single side dishes here were anything to write home about.  Nicole really liked the burger she ordered, but I'm thinking a hot summer day just wasn't ideal for this comfort food extravaganza.  Or maybe I just wasn't in need of comfort today :)


And I wasn't.  I was having one of those days where everything looked beautiful to me.  It seemed that any direction I glanced in gave me a peek into some tiny bit of wonder--an exchange between two people, the look on someone's face, the light through the trees, the whole mess of it.


This continued through the afternoon, as the kids played on the Slip n' Slide in the backyard and Nicole took super cute and charming pictures of them using her Retro Camera app for Android.  It continued into the evening, while I enjoyed some alone time over, first: pizza, then: coffee.  Winning combo.


I think it's important to strike while the iron is hot on days like this.  These are the days when I feel life is one big, wide open opportunity for love and laughter and success and failure and joy and pain and all of it feeding into a big ocean of experience that IS our existence.  And since I have no proof whatsoever that anything exists outside of this one lifetime, I'm just going to ride all the waves this ocean sends my way the best I can--navigate the ebbs and the flows and sometimes take to the surfboard, toes forward, arms out, head back and sun on my face....all the way to shore.