Category: blahg

  • quick update

    I am in Kansas for the night. Had an unpleasant interaction with a teenager working at fast food place in Oklahoma earlier today. Maybe I’ll write about it later. I’m not sure what they are teaching in Oklahoma along the lines of customer service or professionalism, but I do know that at least one person can say “fuck” loudly and often.

    I’m not really reading stuff that you guys are posting right now, although I plan to catch up in full once I get to where I am going (and get internet turned on). Please email me anything you really want me to know. I get email on my phone.

    Fish is still alive. <a href=”http://moblog.net/view/861915/fish-in-the-microwave” target=”_blank”>It is in the microwave</a>.

    Dogs and cats are still alive. Willow is the happiest of the bunch.

    Need to try to get some sleep now.

    P.S. the furnace never got fixed

  • 4:45 AM

    and all is not well…

    First of all the furnace in the RV is not working and it is fucking cold. I am worried the fish is going to freeze to death. They (RV rental people) say they will try to get somebody out to repair it in the morning. They also say that I can go pick up a space heater at Walmart and they will reimburse for it. This was not possible as there is no 24 hour Walmart here.

    Tried to sleep anyway, despite it being fucking cold. Luckily, I have a warm blanket, a light blanket and a comforter. Xander was so cold he joined me under the covers to sleep, something he never does.

    We got 2 hours sleep before Willow came over and peed all over me. She soaked through all my bedding. After I killed her (okay, I didn’t really do that) I checked the pamphlet for the campground. It has a 24 hour laundry room. I bagged up all my stuff, took things so I could shower too, since, umm gross. Hauled my ass and tons of stuff over there and found a sign saying that as of Nov 1, the laundry room was closed from 10PM to 8AM.

    I squatted on the sidewalk and cried quietly, so as not to wake the other campers.

    I am cold and exhausted and have no place I call home. This 25 foot box is physically stressful to drive. My back and neck are killing me. I smell like cat piss, and I have no blankets to keep warm. I can’t even begin a load until 8. Who knows when somebody will come to fix my heater or how long that will take. I am already a day late and at risk for missing the movers on the other end. Check out time is noon, so if they can’t fix it by then… Well I won’t have slept anyway by then.

    I would toss all this bedding and buy new stuff so I could sleep, and a space heater… except, yeah, no 24 hour Walmart (or anything else).

    Xander has refused to use the kitty litter since setting foot in the box on wheels too, so perhaps we’ll have an encore soon. If not him, I’m sure Willow will do something. She hates me.

    The fucking Walmart can’t even bother with an answering machine that lets me know what time they do open.

  • Willow the Alarm Clock

    Pro:
    Very effective at waking me up.

    Cons:
    I can’t figure out how to set her for the time I want.
    I can’t find the snooze button.

  • Open Letter: Moving Company Edition

    Dear Moving Company Contact,

    Please refrain from replying to my email with a phone call. No, I will not call you back. If I had wanted to call you, I would have done that to start with.

    I already spoke to you on the phone once. I called you back in response to your first message, despite the fact you had not provided me with your extension, or last name, thereby making returning the message an even larger chore than it needed to be.

    I then, not only answered the questions about the delivery date, I explained exactly WHY it needed to be that date. Then I secured your email address and extension number, because it had not occurred to you to offer either.

    In my email I reiterated the date information to you. I typed out the date, month, year, and even the day of the week.

    I fail to understand why you are now leaving me a message saying that you got my email, and to please call you back and tell you which date I want for delivery (offering me 4 possible dates INCLUDING the one I have already told you both verbally and in writing is the only one that will work). We are clearly suffering from a communication failure, and since you are in a service business, perhaps you should work on your end a bit.

    Also, I believe it is standard upon leaving business messages to provide your phone number and extension, especially when you call from a blocked number. Yes, I did make note of your information from our previous conversation, but considering that you seem unable to hang onto important details yourself, you should probably assume the same about others and over-provide your contact information as a matter of course.

    (Not)Respectfully,

    – Me

    P.S. The woman you are replacing was a lot more functional and competent than you, and I sincerely hope that she quit for a position someplace with co-workers who are not as useless as you appear to be. I just wish she had done it AFTER I completed my move.

  • Buried

    I took a break from the moving madness to go see The Dandy Warhols last Friday.

    I had a… time.

    I composed a long and eloquent post in my head about them, but never found the time to get it from my head to keyboard, and now my head has gone to further mush.

    Instead you will get the Cliffs Notes version.

    I shall start off by saying that The Dandy Warhols did NOT disappoint me. They were very good. I completely enjoyed them, and on stage they proved themselves to be true musicians. The set had a nice pace to it, and just the right amount of talking. Best of all, they reached a respectable point in the evening, said “this is going to be our last song” and played their last song of the night. That was it. They said goodnight and walked off stage and… no encore bullshit. No pretending that they were done, when they knew damn well they were coming back. It was a classy ending and one I’ve been wanting to see for a long time.

    The opening act was The Upsidedown, which I just had to look up because it did not stick in my memory. What did stick was their tambourine player. Easily the best and most enthusiastic tambourine playing I’ve ever seen. Really. Too bad I didn’t like their lead singer nearly as much. This was a band I enjoyed more when it was only music and no lyrics, and that is very unusual for me. They played for 20 minutes and then thanked us and went away.

    Here we end of the Cliff Notes portion and move on to the Throw Me Off A Cliff portion of my post.

    The second act was A Place to Bury Strangers. I did not have to look that up. I never intend to forget the name of that band. It will make it easier to avoid them in the future. I do not like to rain on anyone’s parade, and I am sure they love what they do, and they obviously have fans. But, unfortunately for everyone, there were not many at the concert I was at. Definitely none in the group of people I attended with. At first I thought they were just not my cup of tea, but eventually I determined that I actively disliked the sounds they were making and desperately wanted them to stop. Seriously, when they got started, I thought they had things set up wrong, and that the screeching feedback and out of tune yowling was an error that they would stop and correct, but that is just their style.

    A couple of songs in, I was mostly staring at the floor and trying to will myself to a different place, where I couldn’t hear them. I could only zone out and pretend I wasn’t there for so long, and then some kind of mating cats getting attacked by rabid raccoons sound would cause me to glance up involuntarily. I glanced up and was shocked to discover that the drummer was GONE. He had vanished in a puff of smoke and I had a brief moment of giddiness when I thought perhaps my wishing had caused it, and that the entire band would soon vanish. I glanced towards my friends and saw that they were cracking up. We met eyes and I started laughing too. It soon became clear that nobody had exploded, it was just the fog machine on overdrive. Once again, I mistakenly thought something had gone wrong and they would fix it between songs, but it turned out, they just really fucking like the heavy smog effect. It was so disturbing to watch the drummer breathing in and out that stuff. I’ve walked through fog machine output, and did not find it even slightly pleasant to breathe.

    After they had been playing for too long, I thought the song they were playing would be their last, but when it ended they started another, even longer one. That one ended and, once again, they started another. It went on and on. At some point in the middle I snapped and just begin laughing until tears were leaking out of my eyes. I am serious. I was disliking the experience so much that the concern that they might never stop playing had driven me to the point of hysteria.

    Along the way, Jono MOFO broke the strings on his abused instrument at which point he appeared to throw some sort of toddler temper tantrum about the breakage, and yet, they still did not cease.

    FINALLY there was silence. It was a heavy silence, with very little applause or cheering. The trio stomped off stage without a word. We stood around stunned and waited for The Dandy Warhols, but I was pretty concerned that they wouldn’t not be able to do anything to save the evening.

    However, as mentioned before The Dandy Warhols put on a great show.

    But, when we exited the building, we only had mouths for A Place to Bury Strangers. We talked about them on the way back to the car, on the way home, and were still talking about them the next day.

    Probably some of you reading this would like them, but I really, really did not. I’m sure you’ve already figured that out.

    From their myspace “A Place To Bury Strangers does not so much play songs as allow them to pour out. They are songs about longing, heartbreak and confusion played extremely well and at a passionately loud volume.” They are obviously accomplished artists, because THAT absolutely expresses my impression of their performance. Not playing, just pouring and flooding and some oozing, and I am right there, with intense longing to be someplace else, heartbreak that it was still happening and utter confusion as to why it was happening to me.

    I feel bad for them, and really, everyone. I think the person who booked them as an opening act for The Dandy Warhols did nobody any favors. The styles were not complimentary.

    And here, is a little video clip of the show for those of you who are interested.

  • My super power, let me show you it.

    I am Worst Case Scenario Girl.

    Let me catch the slightest glimpse of any bit of anything, and I can immediately run it down the path to its worst possible conclusion.

    I don’t mean that I can just tell you things that could go wrong. Actually, I likely won’t say anything to you about i at all. I just fast forward be boop Be BoOP BE BOOP in my mind right through ALL the bad bits. I hear it. I smell it. I feel the trauma. I experience telling others the bad news. I attend the funeral, and get into an argument with somebody there, and get a flat tire between the funeral location and the cemetery causing me to be late to the burial.

    This happens unbidden and very rapidly. I do not need anybody to tell me things will be okay. I don’t need anybody to tell me that my response is ridiculous. I have been doing this as long as I can remember and I already know that most of the time when I get an unexpected phone call, it is just because somebody decided to call me unexpectedly, and not because “omg the sky is falling”. It is just something that happens, and I cope. Most of the time. Yes, my blood pressure skyrockets and my heart races and my stress level soars, but I don’t freak out and I recover quickly. I am used to living with an impending sense of doom. While it was a propensity I was apparently born with (I used to call them daymares when I was young) rather than a talent I have developed, after all of these years, it serves me fairly well. Bad things do not shock me and knock me on my ass, and in general, in the moment of an emergency, I am able to deal with things reasonably well.

    This does have some relation to hating the phone though. It is not the only reason I hate the phone, but it definitely is a good portion of why I hate receiving unexpected phone calls. I often answer those with “What’s wrong?” or “What happened?” and it irritates the shit out of me when the person at the other end insists on going through, “Hello.” “How are you?” “What are you doing?” before they will tell me why they are calling.

    To say I am a worrier is something of an understatement.

    My mother and her husband like to backpack. They like to go deep into the wilderness away from all people. I understand the being away from people part, but I like to do that with a moat and razor wire. I do not like to leave air conditioning, indoor plumbing or internet behind. In fact I hate it. They we an backpacked in Alaska for their honeymoon, carrying enough for one week and having a plan drop stuff out of it at a specific point for week two. My little sister grew up doing that sort of thing with them.

    Every summer they go off for a few weeks. The entire time they are gone I SEE all the bad that could befall them. I await anxiously for their return, or worse yet, their lack of return.

    This year they invited our daughter to go with them. *shudder* Now, it isn’t that I NEVER let her out of my sight, but being out of range of speaking to me, or of 911 for several days in a row… That is not easy on me. However, life is not about being easy on me. I do not choose to let her do just anything that comes up, but I also work to not let my beyond worrier status keep her from experiencing things which will be enriching for her.

    This year she went with them. Visions of fires and bears and horrible rashes and injured backs and rattlesnake bites danced in my head.

    And it has been horrible. She went with only my sister and my mother’s husband. My mother stayed this time for reasons which are a very long story. This made it even more difficult, because my mother is the one that am more confident will be aware of the little safety details. This has left me with even less peace of mind.

    More than that though, having her gone, out of even telephone reach, feels like an appendage missing. I rarely have the “yay no kid!” feeling for more than an hour or two. Having her gone feels a lot like how I imagine losing an appendage feels. It is a HUGE gap in my life, and there is that sense of a phantom limb to deal with too. She may drive me fucking batty but she is so dear to me. When we are not at each others throats, we understand each other very well. I am doing my best to raise her to be independent, and I damn well expect her to move out and leave and start her own life and not be with me all the time. That is for the future. Right now? Right now I like to touch base with her regularly. That is what is comfortable to me. That is what feels natural.

    It isn’t only me. The night before she left, I could not peel her off of me. She was snuggled close, not wanting to go. Wanting the trip, but not wanting the distance.

    So she left on a Monday, due back on Tuesday the following week. The original plan had been to stay out until Wednesday, but while I was comfortable letting her be gone for my birthday, I did not want her gone for her father’s milestone birthday. Out of range for just over a week.

    Tonight, just a bit ago, the phone rang and the caller ID was one of their cell phones, and my heart STOPPED.

    However, they are okay. The heat chased them out early. Nobody is hurt. Well, I think perhaps my daughter has been irreparably damaged, because she said “Oh my god, Denny’s is THE MOST AMAZING PLACE ON EARTH!” I hope that is temporary delirium from too much heat, days of eating out of foil packets, and not having a toilet to sit on for a week.

    So, now I am sitting here on the sofa typing this and waiting for my (no doubt truly amazingly smelly) daughter to return home. She will be here for my birthday. Of course, this means our reservations for 3 are now fucked, because there will be six of us, and I need to make other plans. I don’t care though. I mean, I don’t care about losing out on the dinner. Making new plans does cause some stress, but that is my normal state.

    Soon she will be home, where she belongs, pissing me off as easily as she breathes, as she should be.

  • A Proclamation

    An anniversary of sorts.

    On September 13th, 2001 The White House issued a proclamation –National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims Of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001.

    On that day, things changed for me.

    I was born an atheist, and although my family tried to change that, it didn’t work. I have spent a great many hours in church, and even enjoyed a considerable amount of the time spent there, but there was never belief. When the Christian monotheistic concept of their god, and all that entailed was clearly never going to click for me, I looked at all the other possibilities and eventually came to the conclusion that I was [filled in completely with indelible ink] choice Z) none of the above. However, this was not something I spoke about. When pushed into a situation where it really made sense to answer, I would try to answer something as neutral as possible. It was not that I was embarrassed about being an atheist, I just didn’t see it as a decent topic of public discourse.

    By neutral, I mean that I would typically state that I do not practice a religion (definitely true) and also that I am agnostic (also true). Many people seem to think of agnostic as the middle ground between theist and atheist. I did not, and do not, view it that way. I consider it a position on knowledge, not a position on deities. However I let them see it through their eyes and be more comfortable about it. Not because I wanted them to feel more comfortable, but because I wanted them to be comfortable enough to shut up so we could move on to a more interesting topic.

    I consider religion to be a private and personal matter. I don’t want to hear about the beliefs of other people, much less have them pushed upon me, and I want to keep my own private thoughts and business my own private thoughts and business.

    For instance, I am about to write something that I do not believe I have ever said or written before.

    I am not a lesbian.

    Now, I think a great many people already assumed I was likely not a lesbian. I am married to a man. We have a daughter together. These are little aspects of my life that do put out into the public realm that there is a plausible likelihood that I am not a lesbian. However, I basically consider this to be a private matter and none of the business or concern of the majority of the population. This is something that should matter to an extremely small number of individuals. I am not embarrassed that I am not a lesbian. I am not proud that I am not a lesbian. I just simply am not a lesbian. I find it to be on the tacky side to be bringing up this fact in public. However, it is relevant to my feelings about being an atheist. It wasn’t a secret, it just wasn’t something I saw as being a subject up for general discussion.

    There are so many things on this planet that I find more interesting to discuss with people than religion or sexual orientation. While my sexual orientation, life style, political beliefs, thoughts on religion, and many other things do play a part in what I do, and how I do them, I find the actual things that I do to be the more worthwhile topic.

    It was a quick change. In less than a week I went from always trying to avoid the discussion, and giving a very neutral response, to just flat out stating that I was, am, and always will be, an atheist. My personal feelings about such discussions haven’t changed. I still would prefer it to be a private matter, and I don’t go out of my way to bring it up. I am going against my own gut instinct every time I say it, but I say it. I decided that my own personal comfort level was less important than the need to just say “Hi. We are here.” I still hope people find pretty much anything else about me more interesting.

    There were other things, within my family that also changed in that short stretch of time, but I do not feel those are my stories to tell.

    I am including a letter that I sent to essentially all my government officials on September 14th, 2001. (Of course, I desperately want to rewrite it now, ugh I HATE rereading what I have written, it can always be improved! It was written quickly and I was upset.)

    Why couldn’t we have a National Day of Mourning? As heart breaking as the events of Tuesday were, I find myself even further emotionally devastated by the President of the United States telling me once again, that I do not count, that I am not a real American. He had to declare it a National Day of Prayer, despite the fact that, more than ever, the United States of America needs to be UNITED. There is not a single Webster’s definition of prayer that does not include mention of some god or religion. Not every citizen of the United States has a god, gods, goddesses or religion. Labeled, by ourselves, and others, in a variety of ways, including atheists, infidels, freethinkers, humanists, and skeptics. We aren’t united under a single name, for reasons just as varied, but including a belief in individual rights and responsibilities, and the fact many of us consider it to be one of the least interesting aspects of our life.

    On a National Day of Mourning, those who do believe in such things, could attend services, it wouldn’t have changed that. The President and former presidents could still have attended such a service, he wouldn’t have to hide that he personally finds comfort in prayer. The only difference is the rest of us would be included and acknowledged, and I don’t know how much that inclusion would have hurt him personally, but it would have made me feel immeasurably better. Asking people to “attend religious services of their choosing on their lunch hour” just tells us that even at this time of tragedy, even as a representative of our own country, President George W. Bush, gives the politically correct lip service to religious tolerance, but for those without religious belief he cannot open his heart and arms to include us just a little bit. Directing everyone to pray is thoughtless, inappropriate, hurtful and divisive. Yet few people will challenge this unconstitutional act, because we are a group that so many find it absolutely acceptable discriminate against. Because of this, our government should be working all the harder to protect us from discrimination, rather than participating and even promoting it. Yet this is the second Day of Prayer that he has forced upon us.

    Does he think that only those with religion can feel sadness? That only those with religion think life is precious? Does anyone not grasp just how precious we think lives are? We do not believe in heaven, or any kind of afterlife or eternal reward. We do not believe in reincarnation, nor that we continue on in another dimension, on another planet, or become one with the cosmos. We believe this life is what we have. We value life fervently because of this. We can take no comfort from thoughts that the victims are in a better place; we believe they were robbed of the thing that matters, life. We do not have the solace of believing that one day we will be with our lost friends and loved ones again. Of course we are grieving. We are grieving deeply.

    He shuts us out and turns his back on us even as he remembers a tragedy that would have been far less likely to happen if not for the religious beliefs of the terrorists. I do not blame the religion, I blame the individuals, but let’s be realistic, their belief that they would be rewarded for this act in the next life, did not make it more difficult for them to commit the act. With his constant “God is on our side” wording, is he hoping to whip this country up into a holy war? Have we learned nothing from a history full of deaths on such crusades?

    I weep at the recorded images of those planes crashing into those buildings, and believe me, I am not weeping for the loss of a bunch of metal, concrete, glass and wiring. I am not weeping for the financial damage. It is the loss of the lives inside that I mourn so deeply. I shudder when thinking of the people who had extended periods of terror to live through before being brought to a hideous end by events beyond their control. I am heartened by the evidence that some of the individuals on flight 93 were able to at least take some control of their lives back and save countless other lives even though still tragically unable to save their own. I weep again at the images of young children in another country waving flags and celebrating this blow to our country.

    I seek comfort in the prospect of tomorrow, in the laughter of children, in seeing the red white and blue being displayed around my city. I am glad to drive past a local mosque and not see protesters lined up outside. I am proud to see people of varying political backgrounds uniting because they are all proud citizens of the United States of America, proud that they are fully allowed to have varying political backgrounds.

    My friends and I argue over whether our military should just start bombing people without finalized proof, what proof is enough proof, whether those behind it should be publicly executed, whether those who say “it wasn’t me but you deserved it” should be bombed too, whether there should be a trial and imprisonment not execution, whether we should be doing our best to avoid any further loss of life, even the lives of those responsible. We worry about the implications for the future of individual freedom, and argue over the cost of real safety, or whether such a thing is even possible. We worry about how to keep the wrong people from getting training at facilities in our own country, without making judgments based on the way someone looks, their names, accents and religions. We are horrified by the idea of more terrorist incidents, and also terrified that such concerns could lead to things like Manzanar. We frantically called friends and relatives. We hold our loved ones close. We try to reassure our children. We just don’t pray, or turn to any kind of religious leader for support or comfort. Does that really discount every other contribution we make to our community and country?

    Statistics being what they are, some of the victims of this tragedy also had no gods or religion, and no want for prayer on their behalf. Can the President of the United States and all the other countless politicians making statements and singing songs not find enough room in their hearts to just give those victims a little acknowledgment and respect even now. I don’t begrudge anyone his or her comfort in prayer. I am not asking them to consider the idea that we might be right, just consider that we are citizens of this country and are part of humanity. As a Christian, President Bush already firmly believes we will suffer in the next life. Is it really so important that he make us suffer in this one? Are we to tell our children that they can grow up to be anything they want to be, but only those with proper views on religious matters can be full-fledged citizens of the United States of America?

    Today I am in mourning, for the victims and their family and friends. I am in mourning for all the people in the world who feel a little less safe today. I am also in mourning because this country, which I love so dearly, thinks so poorly of me.

    So that’s it. Because of a proclamation by George W. Bush, I now state loudly and clearly:

    I am an atheist. I am many other things, but I am also, absolutely, an atheist. That, is my proclamation.
  • Volcano Lunch

    My birthday is next week and a friend of mine took me out for a mani/pedi and lunch yesterday as my gift. The mani/pedi went without incident. We sat next to each other in the massager chairs and tried to converse while people tickled our feet and manhandled us.

    For lunch we went to a sushi place that neither of us had been to before. Some people, especially when treating a friend to a birthday meal, might prefer to go with something “tried and true” but both of us enjoy checking out new restaurants in hopes of finding a new gem.

    This sushi place was chosen based on the fact it was very close to the nail salon and a couple of HER friends eat there regularly and like it.

    We arrived and were given a choice of sushi bar or table. I almost always prefer the bar, however it had been more than a month since the last time my friend and I had seen each other or really spoken. A lot had gone on in that month and we had things to talk about. Some of what I wanted to tell her about, I did not want people to overhear. We chose the table.

    They brought us menus and the sushi ordering form. We carefully opened the menus with our newly manicured and not really dry nails. The menu was the type that is filled to the brim with specialty rolls, a great many of them in combinations that have little thought put into them. Each roll was listed by number, name, ingredients, photo and price. It was a full color menu. It makes for a very crowded design, but gives you a decent idea of what you are ordering. We discussed our order and as we settled on what we wanted the waitress came by to check on us. We told her we had decided, but had not marked the sheet yet. She said she would do it for us.

    We ordered. We ordered by number, name, and pointing at the item on the menu. Triple specificity.

    #8 Crazy Boy
    #10 BSCR
    #11 Volcano Scallop
    #24 House Special
    #26 Sexy Roll
    #39 Sashimi Salad

    The waitress went to give our order to the sushi chef and we started to go over some of the topics we needed to cover.

    Before long the waitress reappeared announcing “Sexy Roll,” and placed it on the table. The overall presentation was not the same as in the photo, but I am fine with that. Each chef has a slightly different style for things and I do not expect plastic food that looks exactly the same. We dug in. It tasted good. We continued to talk.

    We were not finished with that roll when the waitress reappeared carrying two more items. “Crazy Boy,” she tells us. She pauses stressed because she is not sure where to put both plates down. Mind you, we are two people sitting at a 4 top and only have one item on the table so far, but it is apparently exactly where she wanted to put the other plates. I move what is left of the Sexy Roll and she puts down the Crazy Boy and the Sashimi Salad. She does not tell us the name of the Sashimi Salad since she had gotten distracted by the placement problem. I could easily tell what it was, because there was lettuce involved and there was nothing roll like involved in it, and everything else we ordered was a roll.

    Crazy Boy looked similar to the photo. Sashimi Salad did not. Again, I am not overly concerned with the look matching the photo, but when that difference in looks is caused by a change in ingredients, I am less excited. The Sashimi Salad in the photo has hunks of fresh fish, atop mixed greens with a non-creamy salad dressing. The mixed greens on our plate did have an oil and vinegar dressing on them, but the fish itself was tossed and slathered in creamy sauce. Had that information been on the menu in some form, I would have told them to leave it off. I made a mental note to be sure to alter the order if I ever came again. I was in no mood to complain, and just wanted to get back to our chat. I didn’t eat any of the Crazy Boy, but my friend liked it.

    A different waitress brought two more plates, announcing, “Scallop Roll and Lobster Roll,” as we made room for them on the table. My friend and I exchange looks and stare at the plates. (Huh?)

    I stopped her, “I’m sorry, I don’t think we ordered a Lobster Roll, and this Scallop Roll, is it the BSCR, or the Volcano?”

    “It’s the Volcano,” she informs us. “You ordered the Lobster Roll, right?”

    “No, I don’t think so.” (No, I definitely did not order the Lobster Roll. Nothing we said SOUNDS like Lobster Roll.)

    She goes to get the waitress who took our order and they consult the piece of paper and come over to the table.

    The waitress we ordered from says, “You don’t want it?”

    “Well, we didn’t order it.”

    “Sorry,” she tells us as the other waitress takes it and gives it back to the chef.

    I point to the roll on the table and inquire, “Is this the Volcano Roll?” I am asking again because it does not look like what I was expecting.

    “No,” she tells me, “it is the BSCR.”

    “Okay, the other lady said it was the Volcano. So the Volcano is still coming?” I ask.

    She looks at me confused, “You want the Volcano?” My friend and I exchange looks. (What’s happening?)

    “Yes, we ordered it, right?” The waitress looks at the piece of paper and nods and walks back to talk to the chef. My friend and I start up our conversation again expecting the rest of our order soon, but we only get a few words in before the other waitress interrupts again.

    “Do you want the Volcano?” she asks. My friend and I look at each other again. (Obviously somebody is confused. Is it us?)

    “Yes, that’s the spicy one, right?. We like spicy things.” I tell her.

    “Oh, you like the spicy sauce?”

    “Yes.” I smile at her encouragingly. She goes away and talks to the chef again and we get back to our conversation.

    In a flash, she returns. “You want the Volcano Roll too?” My friend and I exchange looks again. o.O

    “Right, we still have two more rolls coming, right? How many rolls did we order?”

    She looks at the paper, “Six. So you’re okay? You want 2 more?”

    “We’ve had four so far, right?” I say, trying to get us all on the same page. She nods. “So you are bringing two more? We still need the Volcano Roll and the House Roll?” At this point everything seems questionable.

    “Okay.” She goes back to talk to the chef again, and once again we try to get back to our conversation.

    She brings us a roll that looks ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like any of the photos of what we ordered, not even close. “House Roll,” she announces and sets it on the table. The House Roll on the menu was a roll completely covered with three kinds of chopped up raw fish GOODness. This thing was a small, very plain roll with two types of fish, all wrapped inside. My friend and I look at each other. (WTF?)

    “Can I see what we ordered?” I gesture toward the paper. She hands me the paper.

    I look over the checked boxes.

    #8 Crazy Boy
    #10 House Roll
    #11 BSCR…

    What? These numbers do not match up with the menu numbers. Also the prices on this piece of paper are all considerably higher. For instance this #10 House Roll is $9.75 instead of $7.75.

    I look down the rest of the sheet and see a mark by #26 Sexy Roll. #24 is not called the House Roll and is not marked. Written at the bottom in a box is Volcano Roll and Sashimi Salad.

    “Oh, House Roll on the menu is number 24, and this looks different,” I mention.

    The waitress nods happily, “We changed it, but I checked the right name.” I smile at her. She smiles back. “The BSCR and the Volcano Roll are the same,” she tells me. My smile fades.

    “What? They are not the same on the menu.” I point out.

    “Just two different names. They are the same. See, BSCR is short for it. B. S. C. R. It is the initials,” she explains cheerfully to me. “See? That’s why the chef is confused.”

    My friend and I look at each other again. (B S C R is short for for Volcano Roll, yes, it all makes perfect sense now.)

    “But they are different on the menu, the Volcano Roll is spicy. Also, the House Roll is different on the menu.”

    “Yes,” she agrees. “They have changed it. They have the wrong picture. We keep trying to tell them to change the menu.”

    The chef speaks now, “See? The Volcano Roll and Scallop Roll are the same.”

    “But, on the menu they are different.” I reply. I am not trying to be argumentative. I am speaking in a polite tone of voice and am genuinely feeling confused, sort of as if I have wandered into The Twilight Zone.

    “No,” he tells me.

    “No?” I ask.

    He motions at the waitress to bring him the menu. He looks at the menu. “See? It is the same. The BSCR has scallops, and the Volcano has scallops and lobster and spicy sauce. They are the same,” he states firmly.

    (Perhaps we do not have matching definitions of the word same. ) “Oh. Okay.” I tell him. (I don’t want to talk to you anymore.)

    “I can make it for you.”

    I glance at my friend and raise and eyebrow. Her answer is written on her face, as clearly as if she had used a Sharpie (OMFG Let’s just Get. Out. Of. Here.)

    “No thank you. I think we’ll be fine.” I tell the chef.

    “No, I can make it for you.”

    “No, it’s okay,” my friend tells him.

    “Are you sure?”

    “Yes. We’re fine. We’ll be fine with what we have. Thank you.” I respond.

    “What about the other one? You don’t like the other one?”

    “It’s fine.”

    He says something I can’t hear to the waitress and she shows him on the menu. He gestures toward our table. “Bring it here, I can make it like that.”

    “It’s okay. We’re fine, really.” (We just want to finish and go far away now.)

    They drop it and we try to go back to our conversation.

    A loud voice interrupts, “What’s wrong?”

    We look and another man has come out from the kitchen and is staring angrily at us.

    “Nothing, we’re fine. Just some confusion with the menu.”

    “What’s wrong?”

    “We’re fine now, everything is…”

    He cuts me off, “What’s wrong?!”

    The waitress steps in and starts talking to him. I cannot hear what she is saying, but he is sufficiently distracted.

    We go back to lunching and talking, but soon my friend interrupts me and says, “I think they are talking about us.” I glance back at the sushi bar. Both men have angry faces and are waving their hands around. The women are standing there looking uncomfortable. The men get louder and louder. Soon the men are yelling at each other. They are yelling loudly. They are yelling about us. The man from the kitchen yells at the man who made our food. This pisses our chef off and he begins to yell back about some other customer who was there earlier. They get louder and louder, and more and more angry. The women start arguing also, but not as loudly. I cannot make out what the women are saying. All four of them are just standing up at the bar arguing while we try to eat our lunch.

    Eventually the man who had been in the kitchen storms back into the kitchen in disgust. The other man begins to clean up his workspace with a vengeance, slamming and banging things. The waitress comes over to ask if we want anything else.

    My friend smiled, “Just our check, and a to go box, thank you.”

    My friend scooped into boxes, paid, and we left as quickly as possible. As we walked out the door the waitress called out, “Thank you! Come again!”


  • Jaw Breaker

    Two nights ago, my friend’s dog tried to kill me.

    Okay, not really, but that is what I keep telling my friend because it is more fun that way. The dog in question is still very much a puppy, and was simply doing a puppy face nip and lick attack, only she did it by frantically (and impressively) launching herself from the ground – 5 feet into the air. I was caught very off guard and did nothing to protect myself, or correct her.

    She hit the underside of my jaw with her jaw wide open while I was mid sentence. It slammed my jaw shut, scrambled my brain and luckily the word she caught me on was such that I only bit a very small side portion of my tongue. She got me with a tooth on each side of the underside of my jaw, which is why I keep telling him that his dog was trying to rip my throat out. One side left a little pointed bruise and the other side had a pinpoint scratch surrounded by a welt. At first there was actually a visible pinch mark in the center too, where her teeth had come together in her nip. I had a headache for about 12 hours.

    I am not even a tiny bit mad at the dog. She was not attacking, she was just doing what comes natural and it hasn’t been trained out of her yet. I am not even a tiny bit upset with my friend. He only got her recently and legitimately has not had enough time to train this behavior out of her yet. He is aware, and is working on it. He also has every reason to expect me to be puppy savvy enough that he not have to be on his absolute top guard with her, it isn’t like he had her around a toddler (and he did correct her as I stood there too brain stunned to do anything but hold my aching jaw).

    The welt is gone, but that spot still hurts a lot, which was really starting to bug me. It is nothing. There is no significant bruising or sign of damage. Just a little red mark that looks like the end of very pathetic attempt at a zit. I am not one of those people that is usually oversensitive to pain. Because of various health conditions I’ve actually lived with pain every day of my life for over two decades, so why the fuck was I being such a baby?

    Today as I was washing my face I finally figured out what the problem was. She actually nailed me with that tooth precisely at the bad point in my jaw on that side of my face. That is where it had been sawed apart and screwed back together almost 15 years ago, and has always remained bone sore to pressure (have a matching spot on the opposite side, but luckily she didn’t tag it). So, it is still sore, but now that I realize there is a physical reason why it still hurts so much, I feel less like a whiny wimp.

  • Cooking, Singing and Making the Dogs Howl

    Last night I spent a bit of time trying out Cooking Mama – Cook Off on the Wii. I loved the DS version and was really looking forward to playing it on the Wii.

    As usual, we rented from Gamefly. Their “keep it” feature is very convenient. Their used prices are reasonable, so it works out very well. We spend a lot less money on video games overall, even considering the rental fees. We get to try more games and we only buy ones we actually like.

    I like games that I can spend whatever amount of time I have available playing, and then I can leave and do something else. Needing to play another hour to get to the next save point, or leave a game on pause hoping that the cat didn’t screw something up is not to my taste. I like the quirky games. I like the thinking outside the video game box games. I like them in theory even when I don’t like them in play. I want to support them so that some other developer can interest a publisher in some offbeat, not a sure thing that I absolutely will love.

    I still like this game, but I don’t like it as much as the DS version, so far. Most of this is do to my own SPAZ FACTOR. Hand eye coordination is not one of my strong points. This game, like Trauma Center is simply easier for me to cope with in small gestures with the stylus on the touch screen that waving my hand around. Maybe I am too lazy for the Wii? Anyhow, after approximately 45 seconds of Cook Off, I was feeling like, in my hands, it was mainly a recipe for carpal tunnel syndrome. That is certainly not going to stop us from buying it (we already did) and I am still going to play it. However if I stop posting, perhaps it will be because I can no longer type due to a Wii injury.

    Along with the new recipes and new interface, you can now play against other people. After approximately 45 seconds of competitive Cook Off against the husband I wanted to smack him over the head with the remote. I refrained. Barely.

    Next I spent some time checking out Karaoke Revolution Country. I have not made a firm decision yet, but I think this might well have the distinction of being the first KR title that I do not purchase.

    I started out using a new microphone purchased by a friend after one of her kids broke ours while they were borrowing it. My first song choice was The Gambler, because it is a one note (easiest level) song I know it and it is typically easier to cope if you have some familiarity with the words and melody. I totally sucked and attempting to hit the green was making my throat hurt like hell. I can often sing male vocalist rock songs just fine in the game, but looking back, I’ve had trouble with country before, the few times country showed up on the other games. Now KR is not about singing well, it is about using your voice as the controller. I do not have particularly good vocal range and with the lower male voices I don’t tend to do well. I can’t sing high enough to hit the correct pitch in higher octave and I can’t sing low enough without straining my voice. Either direction I go, it is completely painful for myself, and everybody withing earshot. It makes the dogs angry too.

    Next I tried Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys. I also know the words to this, although I wish to insert “Chipmunks” after Cowboys and make other alterations as well, thanks to Alvin, Simon, Theodore and Dave. Same problem as before, except much much worse.

    I switched to a two note song that was at least by a female vocalist. 9 to 5. That went better. However at this point my voice was completely raspy. For my final song attempt I went with How Do I Live which is a three note song, but again, at least by a female vocalist. That was also okay, but I was exhausted and not have any fun at all.

    I also tried the mini-games. This is the first KR with mini-games. I sucked at them in ways that are difficult to describe.

    In those 4 songs, I opened up some new outfits and other random crap, but no extra songs. Looking through the songs that are visible, there just are not very many I have any familiarity with. I have not decided for certain not to buy it. I’ll let the kid mess with it first. She is much better at her vocal control than I am, but she is going to have even less knowledge of what the songs are.

    We’ll decide by Monday whether or not to send it back, unless the dogs have done themselves a favor and eaten the disc.