Holding a grudge

My grandpa George tells a story somewhat frequently that begins with "I'm not one to hold a grudge, BUT." Of course, the BUT implies that he is holding a grudge. And as the story that ensues proves, it is a rather significant long-standing grudge. Apparently, when my grandma's father (my great-grandfather) died in 1965, my grandpa arranged and paid for the funeral. HOWEVER, by grandma's brother ("uncle so-and-so") wrongfully took credit for making the funerary arrangements and footing the bill. So, although my grandpa isn't one to hold a grudge, he still tells this story regularly, some forty-five-fucking-years later.

I, on the other hand, may hold a grudge... On July 5th of 2006, Ron and I were in the Singapore airport flying out to Thailand. I wasn't feeling great after eating some rather unusual food for the previous few days. Ron wanted to get some sick egg-ger-ger-ger fast food type sandwich that I was having no part of and very specifically said I did not want. He went to the egg-ger-ger-ger place and I went to Starbucks. We met back at a table, he had 2 egg-ger-ger-gers, and I had a latte (tall non-fat 1 pump hazelnut) and a particularly yummy looking "Peachy Danish."



I had been so mesmerized by my Peachy Danish that I had rather rudely forgotten to get Ron any sort of coffee beverage. So I left my coffee and Peachy Danish to go back to Starbucks and get him a drink. When I got back an unwrapped egg-ger-ger-ger was sitting in my place and Ron was most of the way through his egg-ger-ger-ger. Where was my Peachy Danish? IN HIS BELLY. The whole thing. Being that a) my stomach was a bit off b) that Peachy Danish was exactly what I wanted to eat c) it was the LAST Peachy Danish Starbucks had and d) I REALLY didn't want that stinky egg-ger-ger-ger, I was choked. Really choked. And, I've been going on about that Peachy Danish ever since.




But guess what we found at the Little Italy Farmers' Market yesterday? A beautiful fresh peach tart, that had a smidgen of custard, a wonderfully flaky sweet pastry crust, and one perfectly ripe baked delicious peach. It was lovely. Ron and I are now square from the great Peachy Danish incident of 2006. Not that I was holding a grudge or anything...

Post Script

LG asked if I took the nose pills, and if so, did I rinse them first. Allow me to digress a moment...

Ron was making my morning coffee yesterday morning. "We" have a lovely morning routine wherein Ron wakes up first then when I wake up, he silently passes me my chap stick and phone. I use the chap stick and read my email on my phone while he prepares my coffee. Normally I wait in bed for coffee but yesterday, I got up before it was delivered to the bedroom. Ron was standing there stirring my hot fragrant jo and in seeing that I was out of bed, pulled the waistband of his pajama pants way out. He then put the coffee stirring spoon somewhere in and around his testicles for a minute (looking a bit pained because the spoon was hot). And what did he do with that spoon? It went right back into my delicious hot coffee to finish stirring it up.

Yes, I drank the coffee and yes I took those nasty nose pills (without rinsing them). This is all just part of the Sh*t My Husband Does. I've grown accustom to tesicularly tainted coffee drinks.

Sh*t my husband does

Have you heard of "Sh*t My Dad Says" by Justin Halpern? Its really funny. This guy, Halpern, had to move home with his parents when he was like 30 and started tweeting about the nutty stuff his dad says. He ended up with a zillion followers and then wrote the Sh*t My Dad Says book, which includes a bunch of sh*t his dad says from his childhood. I picked up one of the books yesterday and have been totally cracking up reading it. A few excerpts:

"You are ten years old now, you have to take a shower every day... I don't give a shit if you hate it. People hate smelly fuckers. I will not have a smelly fucker for a son."

"Goddamn it, I just sat on your goddammed truck guy...Optimus Prime? I don't give a shit what its called, keep it away from where I like to put my ass."

Anyhow, I am reading through this book and cracking up, but keep thinking that sh*t my husband does is equally bizarre and funny...

Exhibits:
The night before last I asked Ron to bring me a couple of pills. He goes to get them from me and comes back with a very strange look on his face. Why? He has stuffed my pills up his nose such that they were just dangling out enough for me to see. Perfectly normal?

Or, showering fully dressed. Perfectly normal?

Or, periodically pretending to be a cat named "Mr. Muggles" who really likes to knead on the bed and lick his hands and rub his wet hands over his ears. Perfectly normal?

Incidentally, the disgustingness-under-fridge-mystery has been solved... Ron read my Fridge LaFleur post and said "oh ya, I kick shit under there all the time." Sh*t my husband does. For shiz.

Uni

A) Don't be fooled. Uni is SICK.

B) Don't be alarmed. I see the vignette. My new camera is due to arrive tomorrow and I will quit with the blackberry phone already.

C) I have to stay up late as Guest LaFleur is arriving at 10:45PM.

Pouting.

Fridge LaFleur

When I am in town, we have a fairly clean apartment. Granted, it gets pretty scary when I am not around, but as long as it is clean when I am here, I am happy. In order to completely bypass any possible home conflict and generally make my life more pleasant, I have a lovely lady who cleans our apartment. She comes when I get into town (poor her!) and then generally every other week when I am around. She does routine stuff, unless I ask for something extra, like the stove or whatever.

So then, with my generally clean apartment, I’d like to know what the f*&k happens in the 9 square feet under Fridge LaFleur... I noticed a dust bunny peaking out from under Fridge and decided to move her and clean underneath. Seriously, it looked like several people lost control of their bodily functions and died right there in the 3cm gap between the floor and Fridge’s underpan. Plus, there was enough hair to stuff a mattress. How does this even happen? I simply don’t understand.

Anyhow, this is what I get myself into when Ron works late. Don’t even get me started on the ceiling.

On another note, my new house was delivered yesterday (ie my tent), and there was a large piece of brown paper in the package. Kitty's favorite!

Grub

We had some seriously good grub this weekend.


Saturday:
Lunch at Blue Water Seafood. These guys make what I consider the best fish taco in town. That being said, I branched out and had the local fresh halibut sandwich. I *generally* think sandwiches are a waste. Sandwiches are usually either a bunch not very tasty junk all smashed together or really tasty stuff that you can't taste because its all mashed together. That being said, once in a while you do get an excellent sandwich that is just right, and my halibut sandwich was one of these gems.

Dinner Part 1 at the Urban Solace, which is a farm-to-table joint. I had a lovely glass of malbec and we shared a bowl of pan roasted mussels with smoked tomato butter and charred toast. Malbec and mussels? I was cold and it was amazing.

Dinner Part 2 at the Linkery, which is another farm-to-table joint. This place means business too- they make everything (other than beer and wine) in-house, right down to ketchup and club soda. The stars of the evening were these incredible char grilled green beans. I would have never imagined that a) you could toss green bean on the 'ol bbq, or b) that they would be so so good.



Sunday:
Lunch at Don Ponchos. Our favorite fish taco dive.

Dinner? Fish tacos at home. And they were good. We cheated a bit and bought a pint of the Don Ponchos taco sauce, but perfection doesn't come overnight people.



My poor camera is on the fritz, so all I have some sad-ish phone pics and not much else. Have no fear, my new camera should arrive this week :)

Sammy

Last night I had a long elaborate dream in which a faceless/genderless stranger came to the door to tell me that Sam was NOT dead. Sam, allegedly, just hadn't been around because he had a new BFF who happened to be A) the stranger's dog, and B) a dead ringer for the littlest Hobo. After following the stranger outside, low-and-behold, there was Sammy right next Hobo. The only problem was that Sam had a large black patch on his back. I got quite worried that the black patch was because he was dead, but NO, Hobo said, the patch was just because he and Sam had been spending so much time having fun in the sun. hmm... Must lay off night-time candy snacks.

Ron is working late, so I am about to attempt to turn on the tv. Fingers crossed!

Zoo

These chainsaw f$#@ers have been chainsawing outside our place for now the 4th day in a row. S*%t is driving me bonkers*.

Yesterday, I took a break from the freaking chainsawing, which if I didn't mention IS driving me bonkers, and took my new tripod to the Zoo.

Koalas are always adorable.



Meerkats may be the best to photograph. This guy was on watch until everyone else fell asleep, and then decided to snooze and sun his belly. Never trust him to watch your place.


They were kind enough to line up for me, such that I could get a Sears-style portrait. Tee hee. Meerkats are awesome.


Think I may go to the Museum of Man today. I suppose the chainsawing is good for getting out...

*I really thing "bonkers" is a pleasant yet underused word.

Blogger's Block

Seriously. I have just 64 days of glorious internet remaining, and I have blogger's block. This definitely constitutes f@%*ing it up.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Requests?

Snorkeling

This weekend in the water we saw:

Garibaldi (California's State fish)
Zebra Perch
Sardines
Baracuda
Sheephead
Lingcod
Topsmelt
Spiny lobster
Harbour seal

AND

a rather large (maybe 10ft) Seven Gilled Shark!

Also, last night I dreamt I was in a "sit down". ie the Sopranos marathon continues...

Sopranos

A couple of weeks ago, Ron and I caught an old episode of the Sopranos on tv. Then we watched the first few episodes through the "on demand" feature of our cable package and decided we'd like to watch the series start-to-finish. On demand only had a few episodes, so we tried getting the discs from netflicks, but they only send one disc at a time (with the package we subscribe to) and the discs aren't necessarily in order. So you can que season 2, but since there are 4 discs for season 2, you may get disc 4 first. Not the way to watch a series.

So then we tried Blockbuster. Have you rented from them lately? A) Its $5 for each non-new release, which seems outrageous. B) Late fees are back, and lets face it, I was born to return things late. C) I fucked it all up and picked out the wrong discs (I thought I had all the season 2 discs, when in fact I had discs 1-4 of various seasons. Lets face it, I don't always pay attention to details)

Don't worry, Costco saved the day and we bought the entire series, and got $50 bucks off to boot. It was actually cheaper to buy than to rent.

Anyhow, here's the problem. Ron now has us in a military-type regime to get through the series. He figures we can't really get on with our lives until we've completed watching ALL 33 discs, and insists we get through 3.5 episodes per night. We are already behind in the schedule and I have a feeling tonight is going to be a late one.

Already, all my dreams are gangster-centric. If I'm not being chased/shot I am chasing/shooting. And I am craving pasta. I think it all might be an elaborate ploy to get me to have dinner on the table daily at 6pm, just like Carm.

The Name Game continues...

Today I am "Maqi". FYI.

The Name Game

Baristas and cashiers have a terrible time with my name. I used to try to correct them to get my actual name written on my cup, but now I just agree with whatever the cashier says and see what name comes up. This is much more fun.

In the cup pictured, I was obviously "Marleen", but oddly enough the barista called out "Margaret" for my drink. The following are actual names that have been written on my coffee cups:

- Marty (this is the most common)
- Marfi (occasionally)
- Margie (once in a while)
- Markleby (no kidding)
- Barfi (yes, like the vomit)

Yesterday, the cashier said "oh, I have a friend named Marni" and proceeded to write on the cup. Then, the barista called out my drink (decaf non-fat "sugar daddy")rather than my name. When I got to the counter he asked me what my name was. To "Marni" he replied "Wow, I was way off. I though the cup said either 'Bert' or 'Meat'." He was correct, my name could have been either Bert or Meat. So now, I can add:

- Bert
- Meat

Be careful what you name your children!

Mudiversary

Camp Pendleton Mund Run = 0*
Ron and Marni Wedding Anniversary = 5

* 0 might actually = 0.5, given the level of pain this morning.

Off to snorkel!

The best 89 bucks I ever spent

Its not shoes.
Its not candy.
Its not olive oil.
Its not a parking ticket while getting the shoes/candy/oil.

What is the best 89 bucks I ever spent?

Portable shower/outhouse shelter. Its mine and it kicks butt!

Scared

I bought my tickets to Madagascar today. I'm scared. No Ron, No Kitty, No candy. Think I'll have some candy...

NO Photos, well almost none

So we just got back from a night in LA and another two in Santa Barbara, which were lovely. I definitely ate my body weight in deliciousness! The problem? LA: No one will let you photograph their food. Santa Barbara: My camera died! Ack.


May 29th
Joan's on Third (http://www.joansonthird.com/index.htm)
- handmade chocolate coconut bar
Super delicious. Good quality dark chocolate, coconut flakes, and marshmallow center. Only drawback is that it kinda looks like a turd.

May 30th
Joan's on Third (http://www.joansonthird.com/index.htm)(yes, again)
- handmade chocolate coconut bar
See above ;)
- Chocolate Coconut Cupcake
This was the best cupcake I've ever eaten. The cake was actually tasted like really good quality dark dark chocolate. Topped with vanilla butter cream and coconut flakes. It really was the best. Sorry Sprinkles.

May 31
Chocolate Maya (http://www.chocolatemaya.com)
- Dark chocolate truffle with ancho chili (pictured above)
Simply lovely. Dark, smokey, silky chocolate truffle with no chili flavor, but a hint of heat after its gone. I also got a bag of dark chocolate cabernet soaked cherries, which were excellent, and a bar of single origin 85% organic dark chocolate that was grown and produced in Ecuador. Believe it or not, I have yet to scarf this one down. The shop had an amazing selection of chocolates from around the world, including Madagascar. Lots of unisource/organic/locally produced options. I would drive the 4 hrs just to go to Chocolate Maya.

Don't worry, I will soon be on the "Madagascar" diet. *Sigh*