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March 5, 2000 |
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Pam and I spoke on the phone yesterday. I suppose
it's my first chat with her as my girlfriend. That sounds pretty strange;
I'm not used to the sound of it. It does have a nice ring to it though.
She was calling from her hotel room while visiting friends on the east
coast. She told me she went on her 168th and 169th skydive, among other
things. She had dinner plans with friends at 9pm. Naturally, being
mischievous, I would try to keep her as long as I can, so she would have to
explain her tardiness… and the afterglow.
On the way back from the gym, I noticed a particularly
strange sunset tonight. I'm not talking about a nice, simple, beautiful
orange sunset. This one was a pretty bright pink. No joke. It
looked like an abnormal artificial color, but there it was in plain sight.
What's the deal?
Otherwise, tonight was Sunday Dinner with Len™. We had our normal debate about where we would go to dinner, to which my only suggestion was "somewhere I can get dessert." I suppose I've been having a sweet tooth lately. We ended up going to Chili's. We talked about a number of life-altering subjects.
First, we talked about how truly evil the queso cheese-chili dip and tortilla chips were. The chili is already pretty bad for you, but when they make the mixture a high cheese concentration, then we're really in for cardiac arrest caliber here. I love cheese, but let's face it. Cheese is little more than a more digestable, marketable form of fat. If you're trying to keep a low-fat diet, pizza is like the Antichrist. Shame too, because I love pizza. There are times when you simply need anchovy pizza. Note: If you're going to send me mail about how truly gross that is, I'm simply going to ignore it.
Among the tortilla chips there was one that seemed exceptionally greasy. I know that you're thinking that greasy chips are nothing new, but it looked greasy enough so that Len and I both noticed and pointed it out, and we never make a point to observe tortilla chips. There it sat… lonely and unwanted, aspiring to be more, ridiculed by his chip friends.
What else did we talk about? Oh, yes… Warm fruit. My opinion? It's an aberration. Sorry, I know this will make me sound un-American, but warm apple? warm apple pie? hot apple cider? Very strange stuff. Same thing with pineapple, warm pineapple? Yes, I realize that you'll often find it in Hawaiian pizza, Teriyaki burgers, and baked ham; it still doesn't take away from the fact that it's weird. Some places make burgers with peanut butter, just because it's done doesn't imply that it's right. Fruit is supposed to be cool and refreshing. Preparing fruit warm takes away from its inherent fruitiness. Then we talked about tomatoes, which are technically fruit (yes, genius, look it up) and whether or not they are an exception. Couple of points with tomatoes. First, they aspire to be a vegetable; so much so that people often mistake it for a vegetable. Second, stewed tomatoes still seem a little weird to me, and tomato sauce doesn't really count. I suppose this excludes warm apple cider, which is a pity because I truly despise the stuff. Some people use it as a Frank ward; no joke.
Other points of interest? Ketchup and chicken. We both ordered the chicken crispers (strips). He eats (some of) them with ketchup. Anyone else thinks this is strange? He accused me of scowling at him. I know ketchup is supposed to be this ultra-versatile condiment… but chicken? He makes the claim that it's okay if it is in boneless deep-fried form, like say… chicken nuggets. [No. That's still weird.] Of course, he doesn't explain why this particular form of chicken seems inherently more ketchup-able, well other than historical, which doesn't really fly in my book. Obviously I don't eat my chicken nuggets with ketchup.
He then accuses me of eating scrambled eggs with steak sauce, which incidentally, I do, but that's not weird.
No more food debates during dessert. We ended up ordering the same thing, which, of course, had coconut in it. It was pretty good. Incidentally Erica, our waitress, took our chips away. The greasy chip died an honorable, defiant death.
We stopped by Barnes and Noble after dinner, neither of us got anything, but I ran into Mark which is someone with whom I worked. We chatted for a while; he seems to be doing well.
This is probably a good lead in to the next section. I suppose this is a bit funny, since I aspire to be a writer some day… I'm a notoriously slow reader. I'll often use the excuse that, "English is my third language" but that's really a lame excuse since I've known English for twenty years and I'm sure there are plenty of twenty-year-olds that read much faster than I do. So in that respect, I'm lame. Now I cannot stress this next part enough…
Don't ever loan me books.I'm notorious for holding on to books for too long. I suppose it is a combination of being a slow reader and having little spare time. We're not talking months here; we're talking years. Len once said that after a year he'll simply buy new ones and let me keep the books. If you think I'd be interested in reading a book, send me the name and author. I'll be very grateful. My friend Dave, who organized a baseball lunch a few weeks ago loaned me an exceptional book about Satchel Paige… about a year ago. Now I've taken the book with me to a number of places. I brought it with me when I attended Lino's wedding. Then there was that trip to New York this past summer. Naturally, I continued reading it during my vacation in Florida. I was still only halfway through it. Dave, finally asked me about it on Friday, and I vowed to finish it this weekend and bring it back on Monday. Tomorrow
It's just past 9pm. I told Pam that I would call her about this time since her flight had gotten in about an hour before. As I was walking through the door, I heard someone leaving a message. It was Pam. I ran out the door for a moment to give something to Len before he left. I called her once I came back in. We chatted for a little while, she said she was about to grab a shower and asked me to join her. [Hmm, really…] I told her I had to finish a book. [Hmm, really…] In restrospect, I can't believe that I didn't jump in my car to speed to her place, well other than the fact that I had showered only a couple of hours before. It wasn't a cleanliness issue, you understand. I also had to eventually wander into work tonight to check on some things. I also needed to finish this book, not that it was that important to Dave (or it didn't seem to be when I talked to him). I have always believed that a person is only as strong as their word and I gave him mine. Of course, that didn't prevent her from trying to persuade me; some tactics which were quite unfair.
She kept referring to it as tiny tortures. Torture? Yes… but nothing tiny about it.
I did finish the book, by the way. It was Maybe I'll Pitch Forever, an autobiography by Satchel Paige. He was an exceptional pitcher, known for both power and control. His career spanned decades. Prior to reading this book, Satchel Paige was only a name with numbers attached to it. He tells a tale of which gives, not only himself and baseball, depth, but just as important, it gave me a sense of history. I regret I was never able to see him pitch.
As for book borrowing, I don't think I'll borrow another book again, serves me right.
March 5, 2000