No no, don't crush XM.

BJ is asleep in my room after not five minutes of laying there. I'm waiting on the laundry to dry. We are fifty years old. It's 2006.

In a little while we will be embarking on a great trip, a great sojourn, wherein there will be civil war battlegrounds to inspect and whiskey to be distilled. Family will feed us too much and we'll kiss on the lips until our kids get embarassed. I have to go fold. We'll talk again soon.

My life as a belle and sebastian song, specifically: Funny Little Frog. (Without the ambiguity).

I sat down today and wrote out my budget for the months of December and January and I realized that for about two weeks of every month I am pretty poor, the other two I have expendable cash. Not the kind of cash wherein I fill a bathtub with money and bathe in it's glorious riches or plump up my pillows with fifty dollar bills. No no, nothing like that. All the bills get paid, all the money gets stuffed into it's respected envelopes or electronically transferred into another account, and I am left waiting for the 15th of the month. Oh Friday!
In other news, it seems that after this week end it will be just a hand full of us left in this town. Even Kansas is hitting the road. What the crap. What am I going to do for an entire week? Sure I have packing and Christmas present wrapping and card writing, but that only goes so far.

consumer reports are awesome

It's 42 degrees outside today and I only have one window. It wouldn't be so bad if I had an arm or hold across the center console or a warm hand on my leg- but as it stands it's just me. At least for a little while. The weather outside reminds me of that one time on the bench with frozen drinks and leggings. It was that time we watched boats go by and I left my sunglasses. Who would have thought that just sitting on a bench could change everything? Who would have thought cold air and frozen corn liqour drinks would go so well together?
Next weekend I'm buying the christmas gift I'm the most excited about. The biggest challenge is keeping it a secret, but I'm confident I can keep this one under wraps. pun intended.

Bringin' the demon

Do you remember the potatoes? The 140 degree nights? The carrot incident? Because I do. There are things that seem burned into my mind. But I can't remember at what point I realized that it was no longer mirepoix that I was cutting, that the tip of my finger had been put on the menu. I got the job because of a letter that I wrote. I started with a letter and it seems that I will end it with one as well. Saturday night we watched traffic crawl down one way roads and mothers with strollers weaved in and out of stopped cars on their way to the Christmas Festival. Down town had become a winter wonderland complete with lights, caroling children, and santa hats with red and green blinking lights. We watched it all walk by. It was Saturday and the restaurant was empty for the first time in forever. They shut down the street that ran by the front of the building and our measly ten car parking lot seemed to fill up with phantom customers- families on their way to the parade who slipped by the valet and took advantage of the squares of unoccupied concrete. We caught a carload of sword fighting kids and bundled up parents trying to sneak in and out.

Valet: Hey, you can't park here unless you are eating at the restaurant.
Big Man: You got a license that says yous a valet?
Valet: You got a license that says you're an ass hole?
Big Man to his brood: Kids, get back in the car. Daddy's gotta take care of something.

My boss (for some unknown reason) stopped the title fight that evening between the 250+ pound black man and the skinny hungover frat boy who parks cars for a living. He said something about how he didn't want to do it, but there were three line cooks, a couple of dishwashers, and Kate in the kitchen just waiting for something to do. When I heard this I immediatly put up those fists of fury. I'll remember nights like that. Nights where we sat at the bar until too late drinking red wine and asking the most common questions:
1. What would you want your last meal on earth to be?
2. Which food network chef do you want to bone?
I'll remember the white pepper and how it made the space between my nose and lips burn. I'll remember how carrot ginger vinegarette tastes and that I can order vennison ossso bucco without fear or trepidation, that I like my steaks mid rare, that beef carpaccio isn't something to frown upon, that my head chef can make anything out of creole mustard and some flour tortillas, and that if one drinks copious amounts of booz the night before- nothing quenches the next morning thirst like arctic ice gatorade. I'll choose to remember those and I'll do my best to forget what happened that night- the night I should have walked out. But for the next couple of weeks and until they no longer need me, you can find me with a gatorade thinking about fireworks in parking lots on fourth of july and a tuna tar tar in a tiny little potato cake basket.