Scrappy is wise, as usual.

Got to Maine. It's pretty nice so far. Our hotel rooms overlook the beach, so that's really nice -- I can sit inside in the air conditioning and still watch the waves. (It's way too hot to be outside and not be in the water, but I can't be in the water right now because I have to finish an assignment for the genealogy class, because dealing with everything else this past week meant that I couldn't finish it before I left like I'd meant to.)

Food has been OK so far. First night, my mom was too tired to go out, so my dad and I went to a Thai restaurant (which he raved about like I've never heard him rave about any food before -- like, he took the first bite and was like, "OMG, this is delicious!" and he usually doesn't really care about food at all), and then we stopped at a seafood place on the way back to get some fried clams for my mom. Last night, we went to a place where the veggie option was a veggie rice bowl, which turned out to be a big bowl of white rice topped with grilled asparagus, steamed cauliflower, chopped tomatoes and avocado, with a little container of teriyaki sauce to pour over it (which the menu claimed was peanut sauce.) I like each of those things individually, but all together it was kind of weird. But, whatever. It was food.

Well, thanks, Scrappy...I appreciate that. Feeling a little bit better if only because I can't keep up the angsty intensity as I used to. (Also, I've always had a lot of survivor's guilt and it doesn't take much for me to give myself a hard time with it.) Hil, that's funny...my dad doesn't have much of a palate, either. Because he's got asthma and grew up kind of clogged...still think he doesn't smell well. Every so often, though, he'll hit me with some new-to-him flavor combo, like maybe pumpkin spice, and, like, want my opinion on it. (in that case, my opinion is "Fine...probably not a first choice. Unlike cherry." I know you are all dying to know.)

Probably still over-identifying with Monica Geller just a little, but not sure why twitter's so convinced she's not a liberal. Leaving aside the whole "How Jewish?" question, right? She is still a single woman that likes birth control. She is a sous-chef so I would hope she'd have a good thought for the kitchen staff who are immigrants...Friends can be a bougie show, or at least, not terribly grounded, and I say that as a huge fan, but I think even other liberals have kind of bought the image of a liberal as being someone who...lets it hang out a lot, whereas I don't think you have to. I mean, I'm intense, and I've been liberal...I may be past that now, but if I still wrote fanfic, maybe I could see Mon putting some Big Fat Goalie energy into Pantsuit Nation or something. Maybe enough that she scared them, but still. her heart's in the right place. I can accept that Rachel probably started with shitty make-your-rich-dad-happy-keep-the-party-going politics, but she wants to control her body, too. also, she evolved over the years the show went on.

Well, that was an odd restaurant experience. My mom noticed a drink special that included kombucha. She asked what it was. I tried to explain it as best as I could, since I've tried it a couple times. Then she asked the waitress, who could just explain, "Well, it's a hipster thing...? I've never had it." My mom decided to order the drink and try it, but it turned out that they were out of it.

Then I tried asking if something on the menu was vegan (it was labeled vegetarian.) The waitress was like, "Well, it has sauerkraut, and I'm not really sure if that's vegan... You know, I don't actually know what sauerkraut is." I can understand not knowing kombucha, but she doesn't know what sauerkraut is? (I ended up ordering the veggie burger, which I knew was vegan, since the waitress kept giving me confusing answers to whether or not anything else was vegan. The veggie burger was pretty good.)

Sheesh, Hil. What an incompetent waitress!

Also, poor training by the restaurant.

Wow! Maybe she should practice 'let me ask the kitchen' for a response, or consider another profession.

I've had kombucha. All I know is, it looks like iced tea and tastes terrible.

I can understand not knowing kombucha, but she doesn't know what sauerkraut is?

It's like face-blindness, but for fermentation.

It's like face-blindness, but for fermentation.

Heh!