abqrock's Blog

That is what I want on my head stone.Welcome to a world where confusion and chaos rain, (yes rain) in the mind of a wanna be anal-retentive. I am the chairman of the Albuquerque ROCK chapter.I have such a great imagination that I believe someone (me) who is an introvert, who knows very little about celiac and is pretty sure her 5-year old is smarter than her, can organize and run a support group for Celiac kids and their parents. In my 40+ years I have found that if I listen to people's opinions (finding out what the heck is going on) consider all the options (stall) and delegate (person with the best idea gets to work) People think I am a thoughtful, steady and an organized manager. People comment on how much I know about Celiac when in fact I am just an insomniac with DSL. Thanks to people like the rather well spoken young man Coulter and others hard work, like the yahoo silly yak site, I can help inform people about Celiac and DH with less work than it takes to get a 2nd mortgage from CitiFinancial. (Now that is a LONG story of incompetence and confusion!!! Theirs, not mine.)I am a women with lists! (see wanna be reference) I see a list like Coulter’s and it make my fingers itch wanting to copy. Most of the sites I have, but when I see that well thought out, organized and extensive list, I drool. I track what my son eats on a magnet form I made that I keep on the refrigerator.Recently our family had to leave for OK on short notice so I forgot to pack the list. We stoped at MickyDs and my poor son said he could not eat because we did not have the list. I am hoping for a palm for Christmas so I can use Clan Thompsom's software. Computers and lists in one package, I'd be in heaven. I might actually like going shopping. My house would be spotless if I could clean by computer. At least I have found cleaning lists on several web sites! My son was diagnosed in a rather short time because I had a list of symtoms I kept track of that I compared to an Internet list on Celiac. My list matched the Celiac and DH list so off to the Doctors we went. The doctor had said my 22-month-old son was losing weight because it was summer and he was more active. I explained that my son was going to wait another year to start triathlon training so that reasoning did not apply to him. I also felt that infantile eczema or not, itching until you bleed is not normal. After what my son has been through I do not even know if he would notice Chicken Pox. I became interested in R.O.C.K because I was tired of my son hearing from family and friends "poor boy, he can't eat anything” My son is into drama, I did not want that type of an audience for him to play to. ROCK stresses the positive and downplays the drama. My son was born to a 39- year old mother; he is lucky he only has Celiac. ROCK says Look at all you can eat and do. I grew up working in restaurants; I was a high maintenance guest long before I heard of Celiac. I learned to ask nicely, give complements and tip heavy. I even have said “I know this is a pain but work with me here, the tip will reflect it” That never fails to cause a smile. We go to Paisano's Italian restaurant in Albuquerque that will make anything on the menu (except the bread) in gluten-free. Pasta, sauces, desert. Their Calamari is better than most gluten recipes I've tasted. The owner and his father have Celiac and make all their food from scratch. We feel so comfortable there that recently we met someone there for lunch and I was so busy talking (can you imagine) that when I ordered, I actually forgot to say gluten-free! The waiter confirmed the order and said you want gluten-free right? Thank goodness for his memory. It does not hurt that I always tip at least 20 to 25%. If you're going to be a pain at least make it worth the waiters time. And if you don't think a Celiac guest is a pain to the staff you are not living in reality. Think of what it took for you to make your meal in the beginning and now add 80 meals with the high chance of cross contamination. When a Celiac guest walks into a restaurant they are going to make an impression and that impression is going to carry over to the next Celiac that walks in. When I worked as a waiter or bartender I loved guests that came in at the last minute. Why, they were grateful that I let them in, plus I was nice to them and it showed in the tip they left. If they were smokers even better. Smokers are less cautious, feel immortal and drink more. Smokers are less likely to budget and tend to be rebels. This translates to bigger tippers. This is not an official research paper, just practical experience. So I looked forward to smokers. I think it would be a great help to get the restaurant people looking forward to Celica’s walking in. Food vendors curry the favor of restaurant people because they know that restaurants create trends. If you did not know about Celiac and you saw gluten-free on a menu item you would ask what it was.Ta daaa, now restaurants are creating Celiac awareness!Too many words, too little time. Good night.Tas