Avatar And Cricket's

---

There's a joke amongst my friends, the joke is that I am a bit of a chaos magnet. For whatever reason, wherever I am, things tend to happen. I just feel like that's life, but even I am starting to suspect our family might have a pinch extra iron in our blood or something.

Let's take the events of this past Thursday as an example of how things tend to happen around us. My son's birthday was last month, and part of his birthday celebrations included a future trip to the theater to go watch the new Avatar movie. After the flick we were then going to go to Cricket's, my boy's favorite restaurant. (Their poutine is next level!).

We also were going to be bring his bestie with us.

And so, in the way of all great planned outings, we excitedly hopped into our daughter's SUV on Thursday around noon. (Side note: It's amazeballs when your kids own their own vehicles and chauffeur you around...sigh). Anyway, we stopped down the road, picked up C, and then we popped into our local grocery store so I could grab some cash for movie concessions and a few comestibles that were on a special sale. (It was a 12 hour sale and in rural life you make your trips out count.)

It was at the store that our adventures started. I only had a few things, and was just putting the last of them on the checkout belt, when I felt something thump against my ankles. I whirled around and an older man stepped right into my space and yelled,

---

"I'm here!"

---

My face immediately went into people whispering smile mode and I began backing away slowly, noticing that there were a dozen donuts and two gallons of wine in the basket that had just smashed my feet.

"Indeed you are," I said exuberantly, my throbbing ankles and I figured the man was just one of the over-imbibing kind. That said, the checker and I talked in a little louder, over-involved tone, which didn't escape my notice.

Well, while I was dealing with Derp The Destroyer of Ankles, my family and C were getting a show of their own. I arrived back at the SUV to a bunch of excited faces. Apparently, some stable genius thought they could exit the store with a giant Dewalt drill, you know, without paying for it. Of course the guy was parked right next to us and the kids and the hubs had been delightfully entertained by loss prevention experts doing their thing.

We were all pretty fired up by our experiences, which was a good thing as we then endured Avatar 2: The Way of Water. I'm probably going to write up an entire post devoted to what I believe is simultaneously the most beautiful yet absolutely horrible movie I have ever witnessed.

It did do one thing right for sure though, it elicited emotion.

Another set of things capable of eliciting emotion...

After spending the hours of 1:15 to 4:35 in the theater and ingesting nothing but popcorn and drinks that day, we were all ravenous. Our discussion furor grew as our hangry tummies railed in protest the closer we got to Cricket's.

Cricket's is this super cool joint set right in the heart of downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It's quirky, the seating is all sorts of wild, everything from random booths to round tables, and there is all sorts of antique-like toys and memorabilia scattered around the space. A toy train even wanders around a suspended ceiling track.

The food is just plain good. Like pizza pans full of homemade poutine, scratch made meatball subs and pizza good. I adore the house made clam chowder.

It was apparent when we walked in the back door that the place wasn't really busy, it was early in the evening on a Thursday after all. I reckoned their was about fifteen souls in attendance besides our crew.

This was a good thing as our little server was beyond frazzled. Her eyes had the glossy manner of a person who was on the edge of tears or collapsing onto the floor. We assured her we weren't in a hurry or anything and were just out for fun, it was nice to see her pinched shoulders relax a bit.

After a bit of wait, we were all tucking into glorious appetizers of sweet potato fries, brick oven cheesy bread, and yes, poutine, when my husband made the motion to draw his piece.

The kids all jumped out of their seat and as my eyes slid across the dining room to the commotion that had disturbed everyone, I saw an elderly gentleman's head began banging on the table.

---

"He's choking"

---

My daughter is a second year medical student, about to start her clinicals and be certified as a CNA, and the hubs and I are certified in all sorts of first aid things, you know, because we work with the public.

"Get over there," I told my Squeak, because I could feel the panic emanating from the scene.

The hubs had already gone over. He's not the kind to insert himself into any situation unless it's required, and someone trying to do the Heimlich on a seated person was one of those things, so he had the giant Texan who was trying to dislodge the old guy's esophageal obstruction pick the choking creature up out of his chair.

I stayed back with the boys. One thing I have learned long ago, is you don't want to make a crap soup poopier. That is, during an emergency situation, the last thing you need is too many egos in the middle of things.

One of the ladies in the choking guy's party claimed to be a nurse. I also noted that one of the staff was on the phone with emergency services, and as we were downtown CDA, I knew the EMS only had a couple blocks to travel to get to us.

The problem was, the obstruction wasn't coming out. The old man began turning blue. People were starting to panic. Then chest compressions started because a pulse couldn't be felt. Then the "self-described" nurse began blowing into the guy's airway.

Another guy, a table over from me caught me eye and we both said No at the same time and I darted towards the choking man.

My daughter was calmly telling the nurse lady not to blow into an obstructed airway and I walked right up behind the man who was doing CPR and started coaching him. Doing CPR the right way for an extended amount of time is hard work, he was doing a great job, but doing CPR on a person who is cyanotic and not breathing is a bit daunting. I just softly told him he was doing a great job, counted off the beat the compressions needed to be, and reiterated that EMS was on the way. The last thing we needed was a panic.

Finally, EMS got there. In reality it only took them about five minutes to get there, but it always feels like an eternity. They were able to get the obstruction vacuumed out of the man's airway and get his pulse stabilized.

While they were working on the guy, we all returned to our table. The owner of the restaurant brought our food out, but none of us ate a lot, it was just one of those moments. We all were pretty happy that the guy didn't die.

Our little server came up to let us know she was leaving, as she shrugged her coat on, she looked right at me, tears streaming down her face and said,

"I'm going home to hug my poodle."

I didn't blame her.

---

---

---

And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's great at monitoring heart rate iPhone.

---