meatballs or bust, kitchen for Xmas, and oddest hotel room feature EVER

(our pink eye suffering protagonist is sitting in the car on the way to the grocery store with Coach while visiting Lad at school.  Up to speed?)

Me:  Why don't I make Lad some meatballs?  Let's text him and ask him if he would eat them.  He could put them in his freezer.  (Please note:  my mind working in mom-mode despite the searing pain in my eyeball.)  

Coach:  Oh, his phone is dead.  (Do you remember this cropping up before people?  Can you say history repeating itself?)

Me:  @#$&*@!#**?!

Guess what's fun?  Wandering around an unfamiliar grocery store searching for vitals with one hand hovering in front of your bad eye.  Coach likes to stick to a list.  I like to improvise, thus my very well fed, happy family.  So, I bought a small frying pan to potentially speed up my self-appointed meatball mission.  I could not ask Lad what his kitchen was furnished with because of the dead phone. 

We got back to his place and I got set up to start cooking the meatballs.  His next game was not until 8 pm.  When I was done, we planned to go eat lunch.

Prepping my space.

Me:  Do you have a frying pan?

Lad:  No.

Me:  Good thing I bought one.  OK, I just need a bowl.  (Don't have one)  Spatula (Don't have one)  Fork?

Lad:  (envision him pulling open a drawer showing disposable plastic ware).

Me:  Oh.  OK, then.   

Coach was a little like:  'That took a long time.'
 Really?  Who stood there making the meatballs
while her eye was on fire?  All I asked was the
occasional photo for m'blog.  Sorry to inconvenience. 
OK, rant over.

I made three pounds of meatballs.  Thankfully, I bought ground turkey.  The  little disposable trays were deeper than the ground beef trays.  I mixed the ingredients in the tray and stirred them with the fork in the newly purchased frying pan.  I started switching out the fork frequently when I noticed the first fork melting into my delicious meatballs.  I suggested he feed that first melted plastic batch to his roomies.  Joking.  

Mission accomplished and I am pretty sure that I managed not to drip any pink eye tears in the food.  We divided the meatballs up and stored them in his freezer so he could pop out a tiny tub of them and have a meal.  

Once we learned that this kid had no BOWL - or ANYTHING for that matter, we hatched another plan.  We dropped Lad off at his unfurnished kitchen place and drove back to the bazaar hotel.  He had to get to the pool early for warm-ups, etc.  We wanted to rest at the creepy hotel, but first:  TARGET.

Weirdest hotel room EVER.  I did take a video, but I don't think any of you will want to watch a 28 second tour of my hotel room.  Wrong audience.  Plus the bed isn't made in the video because I didn't think to take movie when the room was made up.  I am standing in front of the bed here.  See the purple doors?  Not only are they somewhat transparent, they OPEN and lead to the bathroom.  Not an entry way - just a view over the sink.  WHY??!!  There is no tub in there, so not like a guest hopes to soak in the tub and watch a movie with the sly purple doors slid open.  

Coach was all about doing this shopping thing fast and I was really interested in relaxing at the hotel with my ugly eye closed, so I was not about to argue.  We purchased all kitchen necessities in less than 30 minutes.  We sprung for a microwave and a crockpot.  Box of plates and bowls.  Silverware.  Cups.  Box of pots and pans.  Dish soap.  Hand soap.  Kitchen towels.  Cutting board.  Pyrex.  A kitchen without Pyrex makes me shudder.  Just saying.  

Here is the view from the bathroom sink
with the door slightly opened.  You can
 see my dress laid across the bed and in the
background if you squint you can see Coach
 crouched next to the bed plugging in his phone.

After Lad's senior game (where friendly parents tried to shake our hands and introduce themselves until I repelled them with my ugly eye and instructed them to keep their distance), we walked him to the rental car, popped the trunk, and I hummed jingle bells.  Merry Christmas, Lad!

To clarify:  both his roommates are from Serbia.  He lives in a different arrangement off campus than he did last year.  We never knew that he and his roomies had no kitchen stuff until we saw it.  You know what they do have?  Mice.  

At one point, Lad said to us:  'I didn't know it was going to be so hard for you to find a hotel room.  You could have stayed in my room.  I have the biggest bedroom at my place and I have a futon.'  

Check this gem out.  Walking into the foyer -
 there is the front desk.  A balcony where
 people at a wedding are hanging out, and
there, my friends is a photo
 of an odd old couple.
  Front and center.  Is is Ma and Pa Kettle? 
No clue, but guess who became motivated
to secure a hotel room at a popular name
 brand hotel for graduation?  You guessed it!  

We did have a tough time getting a hotel room.  One of the hotels informed me that this was because of some government meeting that was taking place in New York.  Regardless, no way in HELL I would have stayed at his place.  Hey, thanks for the offer though.  

I told Lad how to make chicken taco meat in his new crockpot.  This is getting lengthy so I will not go into detail about the countless phone calls after we returned home asking for instructions on how to make this crazy-ass simple recipe.  When he wanted to start the crockpot late in the day, I suggested he hold off and start it by noon the next day. He then asked if he should re-freeze the chicken meat that he had already thawed.  

I looked at Coach and said, 'Maybe this was a mistake giving him access to a kitchen.  I see food poisoning in his near future.'

Please share when you comment, and you know you will - what is your easiest, (preferably healthy) recipe that you make in the crockpot.  I need to hook this kid up.  So much cheaper to prepare the occasional meal in his own kitchen.  

Meanwhile, I plan to whip up enough meals for both Tank and Eddie to take some back to their respective campuses.  At least I no longer threaten to drip pink eye germs in their food.