we did a little bit of target shopping, a little bit of dsw shoe shopping (i bought the shoes pictured above. i've since found out that they come in mustard yellow and forest green. it is for the best that i was ignorant.) then we hit the house of guitars, which is exactly what it claims to be. more guitars than i've ever seen in my LIFE. plus like a million autographs from like every rock band in history on the walls. it also sits on top of a GIANT cd store that's like what sam the record man would have been in its' last days - except filled with stock. what a throwback.
then we went to 'nick tahou's' and shared a garbage plate. we got a red hots one, with hash browns and mac salad. it was AWESOME. however, it was a hot and sunny day and we were stone sober (not ideal garbage plate consumption conditions.) we split one. the magic is in the mustard and the onions and the "beef" gravy/mince stuff on top. the hashbrowns and mac salad could have used a bit of salt but it's deeply satisfying in that way that only regional americana can be. it also runs right through you. it's a total colon cleanser. 
next up was mother's day tea. the day care is kind of mean about it. if your mom/parent DOESN'T show, you don't get to go! so mean!!! now i know why miss ramona had a meltdown when she found out that my sis couldn't go for the second year in a row. you're totally ostracized! and there's NO REASON for it! trust me, i'm ALL ABOUT kids not getting accommodated or coddled for no good reason. i don't believe that everyone should pass or that differences should be elided. however, this is not an exclusion based on merit or skill set and in this case, making the exception so that the four kids whose parents couldn't make it aren't left alone in the play room isn't DIFFICULT to do! totally not nice. me and the dotytron were totally swarmed by kids when we showed up. then we decided to take mosey on over to little ze's room to see what his class was like. he was eating snack. at first i couldn't see him but then the dotytron pointed him out, "he's right there!" at that exact moment, little ze looked up, saw the dotytron, and came zooming over, launching himself into the dotytron's arms for a GIANT hug. then he grabbed his coat, put it on, and looked up at us, ready to go.we didn't really know what to do, because we weren't sure if he could come to the tea with us and it wasn't technically time to go. so we tried to explain that to him, at which point his eyes welled, his lower lip started trembling, and those fat cheeks of his started drooping. it was the most tragic thing ever. the dotytron and i looked at each other, not really knowing what to do, and both welled up. basically, we're total suckers. it's his little face! we can't help it! the little guy's face is just too cute. anyway, we finagled him into the mother's day tea and it all worked out.
we rendezvous with the rest of my siblings (after i spent a full 30 minutes trying to get the car seat into the car) and hit 'five guys burgers and fries' for dinner. leaving the kids at the hotel where my mum and big d were staying was also tragic. just as we were filing out, little ze came running out of the bedroom (my parents' had a suite), and was all like, "guys! guys!" wanting to show us something. when we said, "sorry buddy, we're leaving now" his face TOTALLY fell and he turned around and did the sad, slow, walk back into the bedroom. i swear that face will stay with me to the end of my days. it's cuz he has such big puppy dog eyes. 
the new 'star trek' movie is extremely entertaining. yes, there are parts that are completely implausible and kind of annoying (bwe does the best job of summing them up here *warning* SPOILER ALERTS!) and i wasn't even that pumped going in (i'm not a jj abrams fan, unlike the rest of my siblings), but it somehow won me over. it was a near-perfect summer time air conditioned theatre blockbuster confection. smart, funny characters, knowing without being too meta and coy, nodding to the source material but forging ahead with a clear idea of how it was to be reimagined. it's also got big budget special effects (unlike the new 'g.i. joe' reboot which looks like HELL.) AND it has john cho and a pleasingly multi-ethnic cast. thumbs up. well worth it.
plus when we showed up at the theatre, the rochester star trek sci-fi/fantasy club (which seemed to consist of one dude and his gf) had set up shop with all kinds of memorabilia and they were awesome. look at him! so cute! they were also selling warf toys and giving the proceeds to charity. AND they also include buffy under their sci-fi/fantasy umbrella. if we lived in rochester, we would totally join. these guys are our kinds of people. so cute! plus, there's something that breaks my heart when you see people packing up a fan/memorabilia table at the end of the night. i don't know what it is. there's something about seeing people taking down a stand (any stand, really) that cuts to the quick. yes, i'm an emotional, sentimental weirdo...what do you want from me. 
saturday was all about the dance recital and checking out the venue for the performance. we also had dinner at the conesus inn. check out my piece of prime rib:
i totally ate the whole thing! i wasn't really expecting to, it just kind of happened. that's the princess cut. to give you an idea, it goes (in increasing order): princess, queen, king, truman. there's only one truman per cow or something, so you kind of have to let them know if you're having one early on. we also split some clams casino (i LOVE clams casino!) and stuffed mushrooms and coconut shrimp. your meal also comes with a salad and a baked potato. i didn't eat my baked potato. but i STILL managed to eat that entire hunk of meat AND a slice of leftover wegman's cake later that night. i feel shame.
the next morning i made a mother's day brunch for my sister (my mum and big d had taken off at that point) consisting of bacon, lettuce, tomato and avocado on a toasted english muffin, topped with scrambled eggs, topped with hollandaise. AND some fat babies. yikes! i felt more shame.
vto compound the shame, we decided to hit an arby's on the way home. it was my first time. the dotytron has been trying to convince me to go for the entire 8 years we've been together and i finally buckled. we roll up at the service centre, park, walk in, place our order. first of all: ARBY'S IS FREAKIN' EXPENSIVE. seriously, a beef and cheddar combo in the states (small fries! small drink!) is $8.11 USD. WTF?!?? that makes NO SENSE! ESPECIALLY in this economy! anyway, we paid, and then the FIRE ALARM went off. so we all had to evacuate! so we stood outside in the freezing cold, not knowing what to do. i'd just blown $20 on both our meals, we had paid, but hadn't gotten our food yet, so we were kind of in a bind. do we drive off and just burn the $20? who knows how long it would be before we were allowed back in? do we wait and get cold food? we ended up waiting 20 minutes and insisting that they start our order from scratch (their lips said yes but their hands and negative work ethic said no.) arby's did not win me over last night. i was definitely underwhelmed. i can see the merits, but mine was obviously made with zero love. there was the faintest smear of processed cheese and the barest whisper of bbq sauce and horseradish. lame! i like the onion bun and the curly fries. i think i need to give it one more fair shot before i call it.then the dotytron and i got lost for an HOUR in buffalo trying to get on the peace bridge after missing the exit like 5 times and paying stupid interstate tolls about 10 more times than we needed to. it was super aggravating. THEN we got stuck on the lakeshore facing the runoff traffic from that tamil protest that bunged up the gardiner. we had left at 3pm so that we could get home by 6...we ended up getting home close to 9. super irritating but we got a full singalong of the les miz soundtrack out of it, so it wasn't a total loss leader.
ha! we had started les miz when we were in the midst of getting lost and i had had the chance to sing my song ("i dreamed a dream" - thanks susan boyle, cuz now everyone is going to think that i only like it because of your human interest story. incidentally, not the case.) but the dotytron kept turning the stereo off after that. i assumed he was tense and mad because we had been so lost. then as we pull into customs, i turn it back on. he clicks it off. "why are you so weird about having customs hear us playing les miz?" his reply? "i'm not, i just want to sing and i don't want to get interrupted." lol! then i realized that the song that was coming up in the queue was "who am i" - the dotytron's favorite. hahaha...nothing dissolves tension more than the discovery that the dotytron likes to have an uninterrupted go at singing his song from the les miz sounds track. heh.
tonight for dinner i made us whole wheat penne with broccoli, chickpeas, and T's chilis. it was a bit of a throwaway, quickie weeknight thing. i didn't have a chance to go grocery shopping before we left and tonight was a late night for me at work. i have a wackload of book reviews coming your way...you've been warned!
fin.
