Yo, administrators

DIALOG is not a verb, and if it were a verb, it would still have two more syllables than either SPEAK or TALK.

Just dialogin’.

D.

Colbert pushes the envelope

. . . but no more of a push than the rather forceful kick that the Summer’s Eve douche people (douche-people?) gave that poor envelope. Here’s Stephen holding forth on feminine hygiene, dick scrub, and vaginal puppetry.

Various and sundry:

* I am trying to install World of Warcraft to our bedroom computer. That’s the one that I’m supposed to be using for writing. If I start using this computer for WoW, I’ll be closer to Karen but I will have less face time with my son, who hangs out on the other side of the house in that computer room. (We collect computers the way some people collect cars.) And in either circumstance, I won’t be writing.

* Jake and I went to a local Thai restaurant that aspires to the Pacific Rim fusion thing. I should have been more worried when the hostess repeated our order back, and then the sushi chef did the same, while arguing with the hostess that she always got things wrong. I told the sushi chef twice that I wanted the various items as nigiri, not sashimi (nigiri = on rice, Sis), and he still screwed it up. Worse yet was Jake’s noodle dish, which sounded Asian from the description, but had some sort of gummy cheese thing going on that made the noodles stick together. He soldiered on and ate a few mouthfuls of it. I tried it, too; I figure the dish had to have been four or five thousand calories. Flavor, not bad; texture, appalling.

* There is something deeply wrong with this new computer’s keyboard design. I’ve lost track of how many times my fingers have all shifted over one key, and then I’m typing honnrtodj/ (that’s “gibberish” in one-key-over code).

* It’s been a nice, long, pleasant nine days off from call, but tomorrow I’m back on again. And if my partner’s complaints are any way to judge the current climate, things are hopping.

* I bought a couple of hamsters today. They’re working hamsters, but scrub your mind of those dirty thoughts. To give you a clue as to their purpose, I’ve named the male Stud Muffin, and the female, Mother of All Hamsters. The male was the one getting beaten on by all the other male hamsters in the cage; I felt a wave of sympathy for him, and decided that I would answer his prayers and transport him to a world where he had ready access to food, water, and a receptive female. And how does he repay me? I put him into his new cage several hours ago, and he has remained in the same spot ever since. Yes, I somehow purchased the pet store’s only catatonic hamster.

D.

I would say their days are numbered, but they don’t have much competition. And they do have nice decor.

*

Roll call

I know I’ve been boring and you all have better things in your lives, plus the whole blog thing just ain’t as pop as it once was, but it still seems quiet around here.

Anyone out there?

D.

Vacation

I have a five-day vacation coming soon, and for once we have no obligations to either set of relatives. We could go anywhere.

The initial plan had been to go up north and visit with the folks at my old hospital, see my former employees, suck up some nice redwood- and/or saltwater-scented air, and do some tide-pooling, but I think Jake wants to see something different. I suggested Monterey (California, that is, home of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Asilomar, and some fantastic tide-pools). But as really crappy luck would have it, the Mazda Raceway is hosting some sort of motorcycle race that weekend, and there’s no room in the inn. Asilomar is sold out, as is the HoJo which is more or less across the street.

Asilomar is really neat place to stay, incidentally. It’s a conference center nestled amongst pine trees, deer, sand dunes, and of course TIDE POOLS. None of the rooms have television, but in this age of high speed internet, who needs a television? In my former life as a grad student, we had our annual meetings at Asilomar. Many rooms have wood-burning fireplaces. Nothing as awesome as a pine-scented fire burning in your fireplace. Snap, crackle, pop. And they often have huge bonfires at night in their fire pit.

Damned motorcycle racers!

So we’ve decided upon San Diego instead. Jake loves aquariums, zoos, and museums, and San Diego has plenty of those. We’ll likely hit the aquarium at Scripps, some subset of the various tide pools, and perhaps the San Diego Zoo. Now we just gotta figure out where to stay and where to eat.

D.

Back to Bako

Back to 105 degree heat, and the dust, and all that. Back to our critters who no doubt missed us but would never let on. (Our surviving ferret Bueller, the little twerp, knocked his water bottle over sometime this weekend. Hell of a way to try to kill yourself. Still, he looks none the worse for wear.)

With the exception of that first night, our meals were excellent all around. I think the most memorable dishes were the sesame cake-scotch semifreddo at Cass House, and the corn pudding that sat below my seared scallops at Black Cat. I’ve found several recipes for corn pudding on the web, and I’m eager to start experimenting.

Of the two towns we visited, Cambria and Cayucos, Cambria is the more upscale of the two, but that just means that instead of innumerable antique stores selling cheap shlock they had innumerable art galleries selling expensive shlock. Yes, yes, art is subjective, but you’d think I would occasionally see something worthwhile at a seaside art gallery. Nope.

I haven’t checked my weight yet. Made no effort to stay on the diet, so I won’t be surprised by the worst.

D.

Vacation

We’ll be on the road to Cayucas today (on the coast, a bit north of Morro Bay) with every intention of eating some amazing food tonight.

Hat to Lyvvie for this one:

D.

Think fast!

I hadn’t been to this location of my gym in several months. The In Shape on White Lane tends to be less well air-conditioned than the other locations, more crowded, or both. But I had business on this side of town. Food business. The guy who runs medical records (a man who knows his food) told me there was a new market nearby, supposedly a “Mediterranean” market whatever that is, and I wanted to check it out. And a good butcher nearby, too. So I had two reasons to sweat my stuff at the White Lane gym.

Everything looked a little new or different. I wondered if they had remodeled, or if I had simply been away too long. When I went into the locker room, I was sure they had remodeled. Painted the lockers, perhaps? I didn’t know. The place looked a whole lot cleaner than I had remembered.

I’d gotten out of my pants and into my gym shorts when a woman (fortunately fully clothed) walked over to the sinks.

My first thought: The lockers have gone co-ed here? Whoa.

Then: Think fast. Did you see any urinals when you walked in?

Sadly, no.

“Um,” I said, “this is the women’s locker room, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure anymore,” she said.

I contemplated telling her how it was all okay, since I was after all just a lesbian trapped in a man’s body, but all I managed was, “Whew. That was close,” and I grabbed my pants out of the locker and retreated to the men’s locker room, which was just as nasty as I had remembered.

But I read the Locker Room Rules this time, and you know what? I didn’t do anything wrong. They have rules against taking photos with cell phones and rules against allowing opposite-sex children over the age of five into the locker room, but no rules against allowing creepy balding almost-fifty-something men into the women’s.

They really ought to do something about that.

D.