Fried Hamburgers and Sexy dresses

11 weeks, 4 days

1/7/12

Today, Case woke me up about 10:30pm…..ahhhhh glorious sleep, I better get it now while I can. I was half asleep when he gave me 2 assignments to complete today. One had to be done today, the other one just had to be completed in a timely manner. Assignment 1 was a new pair of Carhartt jeans from Preston’s in Athens, and a belt. Assignment 2 was a sexy (cleavage) revealing dress to wear out to dinner, for his birthday. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH you are joking right, a sexy maternity dress. I am about as likely to find that as I will some maternity insulated work bib overalls. Déjà vu……right. Again I am flooded with memories of my rant about maternity clothing. There are only 2 types of maternity clothing, “Corporate” maternity clothing and these horrible thin silky “Floucny” trendy floral tops that you would wear with some nice dark jeans and heels. Dresses of the maternity variety tend toward the “church going”, “Sunday Best”, “baby shower” conservative style.  ALL of these are made in muted colors in that thin polyester “flouncy” fabric. Insulated, thermal, or warm maternity clothing simply does not exist

According to retail America, if you are with child, you are strictly corporate, conservative, yoga practicing, and apparently burning up hot all the time….. I am apparently the only strange bird pregnant woman who is FREEZING COLD ALL THE TIME, and who wants rugged work clothing, real athletic clothing (not just yoga pants), and sexy dresses. I guess now that I am going to be a mother, I can forget doing any work outside, I should dump the idea of a hard workout, and looking sexy will never happen again. Other than my new elastic waist jeans, I am totally not digging my choices in maternity wear. It all looks so…..boring.

 I finally decided against purchasing anything else new, and would pull something from my own closet. I have a cute black, yellow, and teal blue dress I think will work. It is one of those dresses that is like a bubble skirt with a tighter band at the bottom. The bubble skirt will have plenty of room for the expanding belly.  The dress is low cut, which is all Case is concerned about anyways now that the little bean in my belly has so graciously blessed me with tata’s that I never imagined I would be able to have, without surgery. Lol J Thanks ‘lil Bean. This will just have to do…….now to attempt to squeeze my feet into my prepregnancy heels. I am not far enough along to have major foot swelling, but I have a mad case of plantar fasciitis in my left foot, that isn’t being helped by the new weight gain.

Enough with my rant on maternity clothing…..so today I ventured out with Grandmamma June and Aunt Dale to Smalltown USA….Athens, Alabama. I love my Athens…..it has that quaint hometown feel. The thing I like the most about Athens – about 100 fewer traffic lights than Madison. J Sorry Madison, I have been sending my tax dollars into Athens here lately, I can’t seem to even drive across Madison without  wasting HOURS in traffic lights. While farther from my home, Athens has become a quicker trip for shopping and dinning, than Madison.

Every small town has one, an old school (REALLY OLD SCHOOL, like pre civil rights movement kind of old) greasy burger joints with the lunch bar counter. Huntsville has Big Spring Café, Decatur has C.F. Penn’s Hamburgers, Athens has Dub’s burgers…..every town has one. All of these healthy choices will often advertise, as soon as you walk in, that they have been using the same cooking oil for the past _____ number of years (at least more than 60 years in most cases). In a generation of organic, non-beef tallow, no high fructose corn syrup, whole gains only touted foods; you would think that these kinds of burger joints would have went to the way side years ago. On the contrary, these restaurants are just as busy as ever.  If you have never been to a burger counter like one of these, I suggest that you harden up your gastrointestinal track and take a venture down retro burger lane. This style of hamburger is what our grandparents grew up with before foods were baked, broiled, and grilled. I call it “retro” because you won’t find any modern fast food restaurants that make  hamburgers like this. These hamburgers are fried (in the 100 year old recycled oil) to the point where there is this glorious fine “crust” encompassing the hamburger meat mixture. Think Taco Bell was the first to come up with a “Meat Mixture”, no. These “retro” burger joints are not serving you a 100% beef patty, matter of fact, we aren’t really sure what it is….but it doesn’t really matter because whatever it is, it is an amazing slice of heaven between mustard, real hearty chucks of onion, and a bun. To be truthful, before I turn some of you folks delicate tummy’s into a wad….most of these restaurants supplement the ground beef with eggs and bread crumbs or crackers. This gives the fried burger that nice golden dark brown crust of heaven, it also gives the burger a softer consistency which is strikingly different than the tougher texture of a 100% ground beef patty. I do prefer the softer “reto” burger over our modern fast food burgers any day of the week. Basically it is meatloaf in the form of a burger, without the ketchup.

I have digressed…..I got lost in my own burger fantasy there for a moment. J The point of this story…..while Grandmamma and I were in Athens we noticed that Dub’s Hamburgers was still open. (Often these Mom and Pop burger places close early in the day on Saturdays). Her and I stopped, and ‘lil Bean had it’s first Dub’s Hamburger. Only the best mystery meat for my growing fetus. Pregnant with the inability to indulge myself in any vices……my Dub’s burger was like heaven.