Score!

On my front porch when I got home this evening:

1. Autographed copy of Snake Farm (Ray Wylie Hubbard)
2. The Money Pit (Tom Hanks (1986)...broken down house...if you haven't seen this one, you should)
3. Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut - the book, not the movie)
4. Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook
   
   I love the internet.

I also love Ray Wylie Hubbard, Tom Hanks, Kurt Vonnegut and Anthony Bourdain. Do you see a pattern there? I evidently have a weakness for smart-ass men, especially smart smart-ass men. Who knew?

Hunger Strike

I receive CNN e-mail news alerts throughout the day. Between the alert and the unsubscribe information is always an ad.

This morning I received an alert about a hunger strike planned by Susan Sarandon and Cindy Sheehan for July 4th.

The ad was for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

Holiday Prophecy?

Right before I woke up this morning, I had a dream. The dreams I have right before I wake up have more of a tendency to actually happen than the strange dreams I have during the night. The dreams that actually happen are very mundane and have nothing to do with earthquakes or plane crashes or the like.

My dream this morning is that my office will close at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, 7/3, letting us out early for the Fourth of July holiday. In the dream, I will have work to do that has a deadline of 7/10 which I will leave on my desk to take care of on 7/5. It was pretty specific.

I'll let you know if it happens. If it does, I promise to try to use my powers for good.

Want to Hear Something Weird...Again?

As Bonnie and I were driving into Houston Saturday, I called my son and asked if he wanted to meet us for lunch somewhere around Baybrook Mall (which is on the way to his house) or if we should drive to his house and go to lunch from there.

He gave me directions to Café Express which I repeated to Bonnie and promptly proceeded to use in order to get us lost. At least, I thought we were lost. When we got to I-45, I made the northerly turn as instructed and drove and drove and drove. I couldn’t see the traffic light ahead which Cory said I was supposed to use to make the turn to Café Express. So, in fear that I would end up in Dallas before realizing I had gone too far, I pulled into a parking lot and called Cory.

I told him I thought I was lost and that I had just passed Pappasito’s. He told me I was going in the right direction. Still amazed that I actually possessed the willpower to pass up Pappasito’s, I stayed on the phone with him. As I began to exit the parking lot, he said, “Are you behind a red car?” I looked in front of me and, sure enough, I was behind a red car. I looked at the access road in front of the red car and there was Cory, zooming by.

To put it into the Texas vernacular: I tell you what, that’s weird right there, I don’t care who you are.

Food Note:
Café Express was delicious. I got a grilled shrimp Caribbean salad which had jicama, fried plantains, green onions and sweet carrots in a lemon mango vinaigrette. To kick it up a notch, I walked over to the *extras* bar and added roasted garlic, sun-dried tomatoes and capers. I had a little party of flavors in my mouth and it was fantastic.

Proof That God Hates Motorcycles

Associated Press Jun. 22, 2006 10:00 AM
Westminster, Colo. - A motorcyclist died after he was struck by lightning while riding in rush hour traffic between Denver and Boulder, police said. Witnesses reported seeing a flash of light shortly before the motorcyclist struck the center divider on U.S. 36 Wednesday, police spokesman Tim Read said.Gary Missi, 46, of Longmont was pronounced dead at the scene.

A coroner's investigation was under way to determine whether the lightning bolt, the collision or something else caused his death, Read said. The lightning blasted a 4-inch-deep hole in the highway and sent chunks of asphalt hurtling across the highway.


Also...


Kuala Lumpur - A Malaysian man who was talking on a mobile phone while riding his motorcycle was killed when struck by a bolt of lightning, news reports said Wednesday.
The man, 39, was believed to have lodged the phone between his ear and helmet and was speaking on the phone.

Passersby said he was thrown from the motorcycle after being struck by bolt, the New Straits Times daily reported.

The victim was immediately sent to a nearby hospital in the southern Seremban city, but was pronounced dead on arrival, a police spokesman was quoted as saying.
Police are investigating the accident.


Vic motorcyclist struck by lightning
A motorcyclist has been struck by a bolt of lightning at a property near Warragul in Gippsland, Victoria. The 20-year-old woman suffered minor burns when the lightning hit her on the head and then exited through the chest and thigh. Rural Ambulance officer Warwick Bone says she was in a lot of pain.

"She did get some minor burns from studs that she had in her clothing as the lightning had passed down through the body," he said."It looks for a way to get out and metal's a good conductor of electricity, so it comes out through the studs and burnt her around the waist."


One killed, two hurt by lightning
PETALING JAYA:

[edited out part about two construction workers hurt by lightning because this post is about motorcyclists and it's my blog]

This is the second reported incident in as many days of a person killed by lighting. In Seremban on Tuesday, a motorcyclist was killed when he was struck by lightning while riding his motorcycle. Mohd Faiser Baharin, 39, was on his way to his Felda Sendayan home when he was killed.

We Interrupt this Self-Indulgent Blog...

...for even more self-indulgence.

Stuff I bought at Border's while in Houston:

Princess Bride DVD

Michael Buble (Michael Buble)

Heart Shaped World (Chris Isaak)

Nimrod (Green Day)

The Very Best of Meat Loaf (Meat Loaf)

(Be thankful I'm not boring you with my Bed, Bath and Beyond purchases.)

Pictures of Cory and Jamie's New House

Oakley

Cory and Jamie's lovely dog...

Guess What

Cory and Jamie are pregnant!

That means I'm going to be a, what's the word, grand-something? I think I won't be grand. I shall be fabulous. The trend starts here. Feel free to have your children and grand-fabulous-children call you grand-fabulous-mother. It's my gift to the world.

See Ya

I'm off to Houston for a day or two of shopping and margaritas and Chianti and food and, perhaps, some live music if we can find it (?), oh, maybe Karaoke (!) and whatever else strikes the fancy of me, my sister Bonnie and my daughter-in-law Jamie. It turns out my son, Cory, is working most of the weekend which makes it a girl's weekend.

I think I've mentioned this before, but, if you read my blog so you'll know when I'm leaving town so you can rob me, the jokes on you since your stuff is probably already better than my stuff.

Lock up after you stop laughing and be a dear and bring in the paper.

Wonderful, Beautiful Caffeine Talk

One of my favorite Simpson episodes has Homer pondering the magic of “drunk, talk…wonderful, beautiful drunk talk.” The same can be said for “caffeine talk.”

As I sit here taking my last sip of my Rao’s Caramello (compare to Starbuck’s Caramel Macchiatto, only better), I am pondering the wonders of caffeine. How can something that makes us feel so good not be illegal or bad for us?

Although the medical establishment has run test after test trying to find something bad about caffeine, they keep coming up empty. The latest news is that caffeine might actually protect the livers of heavy drinkers. The worst side-effects researchers can come up with are irritability and insomnia.

Since I’m so laid back I’m practically laying down and I sleep so hard that I actually didn’t wake up when there was a train wreck practically right outside my front door (I remember bouncing about an inch off my bed and going right back to sleep), I don’t see either of those things as a problem.

Mmmmmmmm, caffeine.

Best Laid Plans

Monday
I sent an e-mail to my lunch friends saying that we should walk to the Wellness Center (about 2 miles from the office) for lunch at least one day a week and eat a delicious healthy lunch and walk back to the office. My friends agreed and the lunch walk was scheduled for Friday.

Thursday
My friends and I began e-mailing each other saying things like, “Are we still on for lunch Friday at the Wellness Center? Or, we can do something else. It really doesn’t matter.” Thank, God. I had talked myself out of the torturous walk in the 90 degree heat myself but didn’t want to be the first one to back out.

Friday
I purposely wore inappropriate walking shoes for the death hike to the Wellness Center. Instead, we walked across the street to the new resale shop which is in the same quaint little shopping center as a new, very New Orleans-ish, antique-ish sort of home accessories shop and which is also the location of the best bakery in town. We shopped and ate lunch under the covered patio.

Conclusion
We’ll give healthy another shot next week...or maybe the week after that.

Edited to add at 3:15 p.m.:
We just went back across the street to Rao's for a hot Caramello (my office is cold so that really does make sense). I wonder if anyone at work has noticed that I've pretty much taken a day of vacation at the office today. I just love walking into my office and seeing shopping bags strewn about. It feels so festive.

Miracles...the other kind

In 1975, Marty Balin of Jefferson Starship wrote the song Miracles. I still remember the day, about ten years later, when I actually caught the lyrics to the long version of the song. Radio stations had been prohibited from playing the longer version because of suggestive lyrics and quite suggestive they are. I don’t know if the disc jockey played it by accident that day or on purpose, but I like to envision him getting a frantic call from the station manager and chaos ensuing in the control room.

It’s a sexy song anyway what with Grace Slick seductively echoing Marty’s words as he sings about love and what-not and her moaning and carrying on in the background but then I heard, or thought I heard, “…when I went down on you girl.”

“WHAT? What? What the hell was that?”

Marty went on to sing, “…when I start dancin’ inside ya…”

“Holy, crap.”

This was pre-internet, pre-Google, pre-All Music.com so there was no easy way to find out the story behind this erotic turn of events. When I got to work, I started asking people if they knew about this version of Miracles and nobody knew what I was talking about. I didn’t work with a very hip crowd at the time. It was also pre-Amazon.com and pre-Best Buy so I couldn’t just go out and find a Jefferson Starship cassette (yes, cassette) with the entire song on it. Life was certainly more complicated in the olden days.

But from that very first look in your eyes I knew you and I had but one heart.
Only our bodies were apart. That was so easy, so easy.
I had a taste of the real world when I went down on you, girl.

I can hear windmills and rainbows whenever you're talkin' to me.

I feel like swirling and dancin' whenever you're walking with me.
You ripple like a river when I touch you, when I pluck your body like a string.
When I start dancin' inside ya, oh baby, you make me wanna sing.

Baby, we're sure doin' it tonight.

Every time you come by, let me try.

Pretty, please sugar on it.

That's how I like it.

Leaf it to Me

Last night, I met some friends at Applebee’s for dinner and drinks. My drink of choice for the evening was the Mucho Mary. Depending on the restaurant or bar, Bloody Mary’s usually come with an interesting assortment of edibles impaled on tiny spears and stuck into your bloody (adj. British slang) Bloody Mary.

My favorite Bloody Mary toothpick treat is the hot string bean which is often served in your New Orleans variety Bloody Mary. The Bloody Mary at Ralph & Kacoo’s in New Orleans is so thick and delicious that it’s actually crunchy with tiny bits of onion and celery swimming among your vodka, tomato juice and Tabasco sauce. The Bloody Mary at Pat O’Brien’s is also outstanding with lots of skewered olives, cucumbers and celery.

My Applebee’s Mucho Mary had some unusual things on its little toothpicks. It had the obligatory stuffed olive along with chunks of apple which were surprisingly good soaked with spicy tomato juice. There was also a leaf. Since everything I’ve ever had stuck in my Bloody Mary in the past was edible, the leaf presented a dilemma. It looked like a tiny palm tree leaf but the tip of it looked sort of like a leek or green onion. If it was onion-ish, I definitely wanted to eat it. If it was just your garden variety (excuse the pun) leaf, I didn’t want to eat it.

So, I did what any good little Cajun girl would do. I bit it. It wasn’t onion-ish. In fact, it had no flavor at all. This leads me to believe it was either (a) a decorative garnish or (b) plastic. The moral of this story is, if you don’t want a Cajun girl to bite something, don’t stick it in her Bloody Mary.