Category: Uncategorized

Fadi’s Mediterranean Bistro
14902 Preston RD
Dallas, TX 75254
(972) 934-8500
http://www.fadiscuisine.com

My lunches are often short, so I am always looking for the healthiest, least expensive options available for a quick in and quick out. There isn’t always time for a sit down meal in a full service restaurant. On those days, I try to run in to a Souper Salad, or a Sweet Tomatoes, where I can fill up on my favorite vegetables and grab a bowl of soup, but healthy and filling isn’t always savory and satisfying. For savory and satisfying that is healthy and filling, I love Mediterranean food. I cannot tell you how excited I was to find out that a Salad Bar and a Mediterranean Restaurant had had a baby and named it Fadi’s Mediterranean Bistro. Even better, since I am very particular about cleanliness, Fadi’s serving line was meticulous.

The salads looked very good. Nothing wilted, nothing browned, nothing I could turn my nose up at. I went for the hummus, Greek salad, Tabouli salad, and chick peas, then turned the corner to the serving station, where I chose clay oven baked chicken and rice, and some zucchini. All of that, plus pita bread and a drink, came to $12.75 with tax. Considering the portion sizes, it was a very good value.

While the zucchini was just all right, and the Tabouli was a little too sharp with lemon, everything else was fantastic. I was shocked at how good the salad was, especially since there was very little dressing. Just the combination of vegetables (including radish, carrots, peppers, and onions) with the olives and feta was quite good. And the veg were as crisp as they had looked to be. The hummus was one of the best blends I’ve tasted, having a warm, nutty appeal, and the chick peas were fantastic. I even liked the chicken, which was moist and tender.

I shave my armpits and legs, wear high heels and makeup, and love dresses, do my level best to cook dinner for my family and keep the house looking nice, work a full-time job, maintain something that might pass for a social life (even if 3/4s of it is conducted online), and love God and Country (The Country, not Country music. That I do not love.) I am what a feminist looks like.

In my early years, I was really confused about what constituted Feminism. Feminism, in my brain, was yelling at men, and burning your bra, and being a hippie of loose moral character. That’s what I saw on the news, anyway. I thought Feminism was about being angry and unattractive. I was wrong. I was also five, so I can be forgiven.

But thanks to those hairy, angry, loose women, I have never had to make a choice about whether to put on lipstick or march for legislation. I know that a Feminist can do both. Hillary Clinton looks mighty fine in her suits, and Libby Dole never looked too shabby either.

What is Feminism about, aside from the trappings of fashion? Stealing from the best definition I’ve seen: It is about defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.

We define equity in political, economic and social rights, and equity in opportunities for women through a guaranteed right to political process, the ability to earn equal wages for equal work, and guaranteed rights to conduct our lives with the same array of options and choices (including education, work, and lifestyle) as men, and we define equal opportunities as just that. If a man is allowed the chance to do it, a woman should be allowed the same opportunity.

We establish and defend these equities through legal or political process, as politicians ourselves, or as lobbyests, or as private citizens through our voices and our votes, and by demanding our equality–demanding our rights, even when the other side does not want to hear us.

I am a Feminist. I am about equal rights for all people. And the older I get, the more I want to talk about it, and the more I understand the anger, and the more I understand the importance of refusing to sit down and be quiet. And the older I get, the more I realize what mountains my forebears crushed into molehills.

My generation, and the generations of women after me didn’t fight those fights, we only reaped the benefits. Our job is to not only press forward while maintaining the status quo, but to protect and nurture womens’ rights to choose where they stand in life, and to ensure that the spirit of Feminism is shared throughout the world.

Excellent message to this video, and it doesn’t hurt that you get to look at Daniel Craig and listen to Judi Dench. It’s like when you get peanut butter on your chocolate!

I don’t know if you read Nile Rodgers’ blog, but it is certainly worth a looksee. I love Nile. Lovelovelove. Le Freak, by Chic is one of the first songs I can remember really grooving to and getting. I mean, I understood that rhythm. That song, and Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, are inextricably tied to summer for me, and anytime I hear them, I am immediately transported poolside, hearing them on a transistor radio. I also always wanted to do my hair like his. As I discovered, I would never be able to accomplish his, or my other hairstyle icon, Cher’s, locks. Poor little blonde girl.

Nile has also produced some of my favorite songs. I can almost tell you when he has touched it. Nile brings music to life. There is real joy when he finishes with a track.

Listen, I like pop music. I like disco. I love funk. You know why? The world is hard enough already. I want to be able to dance while I’m living it. I really don’t care how stupid, or unoriginal it is. If it makes my shoulders happy, and I can dance to it, I’m on board.

How can you not be happy when you hear this? You hear that bass? How can you not dance to this?

I owe Nile Rodgers a debt of gratitude for all the joy his music has brought into my life. I owe a lot of musicians.

Maybe I’ll start posting about songs I find meaningful. That could be fun.

That movie messed me up. A home invasion, rape, and murder of wife and child in the first 90 seconds. Messed me up. I had to get out of bed because I was lying there in grim imagination.

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned being at home when my house was broken into by three men. I was quite fortunate. I was able to call the police, and lock myself into a back bedroom, and the one man who had vocalized a desire to take care of me turned and ran when his minions took off. I’ve made it into a funny story because I’m a whistler in the dark, but it was pretty bad.

I think about Adam Walsh a lot. I was ten when he was kidnapped and murdered, and it made a big impact on my mother. It made a big impact on how we did things after that news story broke. Adam’s story has made a big impact on the way I parent.

I’ve had so many weird-bad things happen to me that I hope I’ve taken up all the statistics for my family. There was the molest-y babysitter, the guy who followed a friend and me for two blocks before pulling his car into a driveway to block our path and jumped out masturbating, the jr. high teacher who took a very physical interest in me and always wanted me to ride in his car with him instead of on the bus with the other kids, where he would pet my thigh–thank God he never tried more, the time a relative chased another friend and me in his car, driving up on a curb after us–after another little girl had pointed me out for him while I was trying to walk home (he hadn’t seen me in many years, and wasn’t sure which one I was–thanks, other little girl, you nearly got me killed that day.) There was the carpool driver who threw two other students and me out of the car in a very bad part of town, and the guy who tried to chase us down and force us into his car–honestly, that’s one of the most terrifying things that has ever happened to me, and includes me running almost under an 18-wheeler trying to get away from the man. There was the very ugly domestic violence, the home invasion, the professor who lured me in for an after-hours session and then tried to pounce, and the date rape, and really, don’t you think that’s enough? I think that is enough. I think I’ve done the violent crime–oh wait, I forgot the attempted mugging and the sexual assault at work. Yeah, I think I’ve taken up plenty of cosmic unpleasantness. Enough to cover my family for generations.

But what all that has taught me is that bad things happen to decent people all the damned time. One minute, you’re walking home from school, the next, you’re running down alleys crying and yelling. It happens. Doesn’t matter how much of your own business you are minding.

Jennifer Day was a little girl I met the summer before my freshman year in high school. We were at two orientations together and hit if off like gangbusters. She was a pretty, sweet, outgoing girl, and I was really looking forward to us being friends. She was also abducted and murdered not long after I met her. I’ve thought about her frequently. I’ve thought about her parents.

My mother would have given anything to keep me from having to deal with the situations I faced. Fortunately, my situations never turned dire and she had taught me to think and reason. Keeping a cool head kept me from worse harm. I’m working on that with this little guy, who woke up while I was typing and is now sleeping on my legs, snoring like a buzzsaw.

John and Reve Walsh are heroes for taking Adam’s murder and turning it into a platform for saving children, and catching criminals. I am grateful for them, and people like them, who take the worst trauma and turn it into something to help others. No vigilante justice. No whining. Just work to save other people from facing the same.

My grim imaginings had taken me to a courtroom and I was feeling every bit of the truth that no earthly justice can bring back what is lost. No earthly justice can fix a sociopath’s brain and make him/her regret what they have done. All justice can do is remove an obstacle to another child’s safety.

All we can do is keep a close eye on our kids, and watch out for other people’s. And carry a big stick.