Death Proof Saturday and Sherbet.

Tonight we made the trek out to downtown Austin for dinner at the ever popular Guerros from the movie Death Proof.



Yep, that would have been us standing there by that "No Parking" sign. Only instead of finding Stuntman Mike and his death proof car, there were space heaters and Mexicans selling girl scout cookies.



It was kind of exciting to be there as we recognized things from the movie and it was completely packed. We didn't have to wait too long before getting a table and the world's worst waiter.
Actually, let me back up for a second to make sure you can soak in every last detail of this excursion.
First off, we were told that the wait for a table would be a minimum of 45 minutes, which I am thinking may have been a scare tactic because we only waited twenty minutes at the most. At the time I was glad that we didn't decide to throw in the towel and go across the street to "Home Slice" pizza. Since we thought we would be waiting, Julie asked if I wanted to get a drink. So we tried to make our way over to the bar, but we had only gotten a few steps inside when I told her that it was NOT worth the trouble to get through the crowd. As I said this, some red headed psycho girl spun around like she was ready to throw her drink in my face and tells her friend: "Did you hear what she said?!" To which I responded to Julie that I would be fine without a drink and went back to wait outside as I apparently offended this drunk girl by not wanting to shove people to get to the bar where I would order a Dr. Pepper.
Outside was just as jammed as inside... but mainly because a group of 30 middle aged idiots wanted to stand around on the street infront of the restuarant with their doggy bags and see how much of a fire hazard they could cause.
We were then seated by a man, who as far as I can tell, had no penis. I say this because the guy was wearing the TIGHTEST jeans I have ever seen and there was NOTHING getting in his way. They weren't even a flattering tight kind of jeans, they were making it look like his legs couldn't possibly support the weight of his torso and head. And don't even get me started on this new trend where some men think its cool to dress like girls (tight pants, mascara, girly haircuts...) Its really very... gross.
Our waiter on the other hand, was all man and all ours. He was a little dirty. Tattoo ridden. He dropped the glasses of water on our table as if we offended him, right away sending Julie into a consumer rage. He finally showed up to take our actual drink orders and all we got for the whole table was a mixed drink for Pedro, and a Dr. Pepper for me.

Pedro got his mixed drink pretty quick but my Dr. Pepper was MIA for quite awhile.
Whenever the guy asked if we needed anything he would actually walk away before we could answer!!!! I'm not even exaggerating.
But the best, BEST part of this dinner was the food itself. Tastewise, it didn't suck. But that's the best I'm giving it.
We ordered nachos for an appetizer to split among the four of us. I want you to take this moment and ask you to conjure up in your brain an image of what nachos look like. Now let me tell you what we got.
We got three... count 'em, THREE, round chips with refried beans and cheese on them. I will point out, in fairness, that we didn't read the description of the nachos, we just assumed we knew what we were getting. Ooops.
I guess everything else was all right. The only other complaint I have is centered around my meal, I think everyone elses' went okay. I like to consider myself to be someone who isn't picky. I don't special order things. I don't ask for extra this or none of that, so when I ordered their famous tacos (burritos) and the waiter asked me if I wanted lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and sour cream, I said: "sure, that's fine."
To which he replied: "Sour cream?" and I said; "Um... yeah. That'll be good."
To my utter delight, I was greeted with a sour cream burrito. There was a teaspoon of meat and two ice cream scoop fulls of sour cream and that's it. It was pretty much the most disgusting thing I have experienced in my 27 years of being able to chew solid food. I wiped ALL the sour cream off and picked at the burrito thing a little but ultimately didn't eat it and still didn't complain. Not even when he asked to take our plates for us and then left empty handed before we could answer.

Despite dinner's obvious downside, we actually had a really good time and went back to the Pedro's to watch Fight Club. The Mikes had wanted to make some drinks so we had planned to stop at a liquor store, but to our surprise, every liquor store in the tri-county area was closed and it wasn't even 9:30. Again, not a drinker, but doesn't that seem like you're alienating some of your best clientele as a liquor purveyor? Do the drunks really come rolling in at 3:30pm or something? I swear to God, Texas is worth than Florida in some respects. It has all the quirks of living in death's waiting room, minus the Jeopardy marathons.

Just when I thought the night was over and nothing else could go wrong, I discovered two things.
1.) Strawberry Sherbert is nearly impossible to find. They have orange, lime, and rainbow. Hell, they even have pineapple and lifesave flavor, but strawberry? Nooooo.
2.) Did you know its called SHERBET? I have been calling it SHER-BERT! As in SHER-BERT and SHER-ERNIE. The entire fabric of my existence has unravelled. Its very sad. And yes, I do feel that picture of the Dr. Pepper can deserves that much space.

200 Foot Pole.

Yesterday Mike and I were driving behind one of those REEEALLLY annoying trucks that make a 1/3assed attempt (you know, less than a half-assed attempt) to cover the top of their rolling death machines. The fun thing about these portable crap haulers, is that whatever comes rolling out of it is always a surprise. It could just be sticks and branches, papers, coffee cups or trash, or it could be giant rocks. Either way, its a roll of the dice as to whether your windsheild will be smashed or you'll die. I must not be the only person who feels this way, as the truck, rather than fixing the Saran wrap loosely wrapped around the top to keep its contents from causing a 79 car pile up behind it, had a warning on the back which read:

WARNING:
STAY AT LEAST 200 FEET BACK. NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WINDSHIELD DAMAGE

I'm sorry, but yes, you are responsible for windshield damage, you ass knob! Can you imagine what would happen on I-35 if when reading that sign we had slammed on our breaks waited four minutes for the thing to get 200 feet in front of us and then continued on at 15 miles an hour to match its pace and thus not exceed the 200 foot rule of responsibility?
Well, I will tell you what would happen. Traffic would back up from Georgetown, Texas to EGYPT. Yes, cars would literally stretch across oceans, that is how insane the traffic would get.

Is that really all it takes, some stupid sign? Well, if that's the case, I'm running out tomorrow and getting a sign for my back windsheild that says:

WARNING:
STAY AT LEAST 200 FEET BACK. NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR COLLISIONS.

I figure if I have a nice 200 foot buffer on all sides of me, I won't have to concern myself with any sort of traffic laws. And should some turkey think that its okay to drive any closer to me, any sort of infraction would be rendered his fault as I am clearly not responsible.

I think this is a great idea, this 200 foot warning buffer. I recommend you all do the same.

WARNING:
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR OFFENDING ANYONE WHO READS THIS BLOG. PLEASE STAY AT LEAST 200 FEET AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER.

Up All Night

Its been almost a month and I think I am mostly better. One lingering problem is my inability to sleep at night. I have never in my life had insomnia, but lately, I just can't fall alseep until its time to get up. Its driving me insane.

Tonight, I thought I may have had the problem licked-- I was asleep by 11:30pm, however, awake again at 12:57. I tried to fight it, but by 1:36am, I was wide awake as Midas began a set of marathon sneezing. That's it. I'm awake. I laid there and thought about how hungry I was since the whole house seems to be infused with a chili smell from dinner. I tried turning on my side and Maya viewed this as an invitation to come take over my pillow. When I tried to turn back, she was already in the lock and load mindset where she had to lick and wasn't going to take "no" for an answer. I spent the next several minutes sheilding my face, pushing her away, trying to hide under the covers, but pugs are relentless lickers. Finally I managed to twist myself into a position where my hand was over my face and she was able to just lick my hand until there was no skin left-- a pleasant alternative to her jamming her tongue into a nostril.

Once the 20 minute lick fest had ended, I suddenly found myself obsessing over some dry skin on my leg. Then biting at my fingernails. Then I was thirsty.

A shameful amount of potato sticks and 7-up later, here I am on the internet at 2:15 in the morning. I'm actually looking forward to this three-day weekend, despite the fact that we have nothing planned because I'll have someone to force me out of bed early and hopefully get over this weird sleeping thing. I miss sleep. I miss dreams about Marge Simpson and Real Estate Carnies. I miss daylight. How did this happen anyway?

Ohhh yeah... a month of not being able to breathe. Hooray sick.

In other, better, news: Maya had her pre-screening today to become a Therapy Dog. Her first class will be February 20th in Houston. I think Maya will be an amazing therapy dog. Everyone who meets her falls in love with her. People have very strong reactions to how little and cute and sweet she is. I really think she would brighten people's days-- especially when there is very little to look forward to in their lives. Despite the manic licking, she definately has a calming effect!



My only reservation is that I will have to take her out to hospitals and nursing homes without Midas and he's going to go crazy. I feel really bad about the fact that he's going to feel neglected, knowing that he lives for "rides in the car" but he could never be a therapy dog. He doesn't love to be cuddled by all people. He barks incessantly at certain people (only certain people) and while I love him like crazy-- he's not everyone's cup of tea.

Maya on the hand is perfect. She loves everyone. She loves to be pet and squeezed and she's more than at home in a lap. Hopefully she'll do some good for someone. Who knows.

Here is a link to Therapy Pet Pals of Austin. I don't know if it will show up as a hyperlink, though, as Blogger has a love-hate relationship with HTML code.... meaning that it hates it. Conventional computer coding means nothing to this website.

http://www.therapypetpals.org/photos.htm

Woe is Me.

I don't know how 2008 could do this to me. I waited for SO LONG to be rid of that stinky 2007, but thus far, '08 has been an upset.
I'm ready to throw in the towel already and wait for the crap to hit the fan. So far this year, I have been sick EVERY SINGLE DAY. Today, on day 18 of my unending illness, I started to feel better-- so I got up... walked out to the living room and decided to break a toe on our plastic wicker furniture.

At this point I'm just trying to mentally prepare for bad news. Tomorrow someone is coming to look at the house. I was pretty convinced that we'd be here for awhile, so that means it will probably sell. The post office doesn't have a limit on how many change of addresses one can have, right?
I'm also going to the doctor for day 19 of my unending illness. It will probably sound something like this:
Dr: "Are you still feeling sick."
Me: "A little, but I think I'm actually getting better."
Dr: "And you have medicine... and you've been to the hospital... so why are you here?"
Me: "Well, because I still wasn't getting better so I made the appointment... but then by the time I started to feel better we had already entered into the realm of being charged anyway for not keeping the appointment... so... here I am."
Dr: "O-kay."
Me: "Yep.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................so...............................................................................................................................................................had a good Christmas?"

My class sucks. Lesson learned, not taking an online class here again. I've taken online classes before, but this class, as far as I can tell, is literally reading some crap online. No tests. No homework. No grades maybe? Naturally, my compiler isn't working. I'm not sure what is wrong with it. Yes, I can download a new one, but that's not even the point. At least, I can sit here with a snot rag jammed up my nose, glasses on, and drinking cranberry juice... the perfect picture of what I thought a computer programmer should look like. And at least I can say I was sick for almost a month and lost 16 pounds.
And at least Cambpell's still makes Minestrone soup.
That's something.