Jun
24
June 24, 2007
For those of you who recommended Beard Papa’s in downtown San Francisco, holy crap, were you ever right. I bought a vanilla cream puff when I was there last week, and the memory of eating it still brings a tear to my eye—and not just because I accidentally inhaled a lungful of powdered sugar off the top of the damn thing and nearly choked to death in my hotel room (but quickly revived in order to lasciviously tongue-probe its gooey, custardy center).
I remember when I was a kid how much I used to love airports. They were so exciting and full of promise, from the swirls of busy people rushing to their departure gates to the stomach-dropping miraculous moment when the plane left the tarmac and began its inexplicable climb into the sky. I used to travel by myself to visit my grandparents in Michigan, and the sight of their eager faces when I walked into the gate, their opened arms and exclamations of delight, was even better than the flight itself. Even better than the thrillingly salty peanuts, or the nose-burning cup of ginger ale, or the blue plastic wings a stewardess would always offer me.
Of course nowadays only ticketed passengers can hang around the terminal, and you don’t get peanuts because someone could go into anaphylactic shock, and any excitement associated with flying has long been replaced by the ever-present feeling of dread and discomfort as you stand in line after line while uniformed men shout aggressively into the crowd about how any liquids need to be in plastic bags or SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES, and the whole time you’re standing there in your bare feet trying not to think about how many other people’s bare feet have touched the exact same section of the floor you’re on. Never mind the flight itself, where you’re so intimately crushed against both the seat in front of you and the stranger on your left, even if anyone did give you peanuts (which they will NOT) the sodium bloat would probably cause permanent injury.
What I’m saying is that I think it’s going to take a lot of convincing to get me to do another business trip anytime soon. The next time I deal with air travel I want a big payoff on the other side, like say for instance a week in Hawaii. I mean, that cream puff was pretty goddamned good, but definitely not worth the hassle of getting there.
In other news, we taught Riley to make a War Face. “Show me your war face!” we cry, and he immediately pulls his brows down and peers at us suspiciously (clarification: even more suspiciously than normal), his little lips pooched out. Then we yell about bullshit, you didn’t convince me, let me see your REAL war face, we’ll PT you until your asshole is sucking buttermilk, we didn’t know they stacked shit that high, and so on, because if you’re going to quote Full Metal Jacket a little, you might as well go whole hog, you know?
Oh, we don’t really. In all seriousness, though, the War Face is completely awesome. I told JB that this is the first party trick that officially elevates Riley above Well-Trained Dog status. Sure, my son might not be able to balance a snack on his nose then toss it in the air and eat it in one gulp, but he can by-god make a war face.
Jun
20
June 20, 2007
We have decided to put carpeting in the new addition, thinking that would help make it a warm, cozy area for watching movies and the like (we have wood floors everywhere else). The pets are in cahoots to convince me otherwise, though. I’ve swabbed up three separate Barf Incidents in the last few weeks, and as utterly disgusting as the experience was each time (let me just warn you that when a household pet devours a toddler’s leftover string cheese, then horks it back up less than an hour later, the cheese will have transformed into a whitish, slimy, oblong Object of Horror, and I just threw up a little typing that) I was so thankful the barf was deposited on a wipeable floor, because DOG, for one, produced such a Lake of Nastiness (at 3 AM OH MY GOD) that if it were on carpet the only solution would have been to soak the house in gasoline and let ‘er rip, because I am telling you there would not have been enough Spot Magic in the whole world.
Dog, being a dog and therefore a marginally superior pet (although admittedly sporting a brain the approximate size and shape [and . . . flavor?] of a Flintstones vitamin), mostly keeps the contents of her stomach where they should be instead of stealthily depositing them in such areas as the exact middle of our white bedroom comforter; while Cat is a creature whose favorite Jeopardy topics would be Small Helpless Animals I Enjoy Slowly Killing, Best Times of the Evening for Howling Outside the Child’s Door (Anytime After Bedtime is the Right Time!), and Bolting My Food and Hurling It Back Up: Can I Aim Entire Undigested Kibble Pieces Inside a Nearby Shoe?
So the carpet, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea, but on the other hand as much as I love our wood floors I am so goddamned sick of sweeping up dog hair (every. five. minutes) I’ll be glad to have one room that camouflages the ever-present tumbleweeds, even if it’s spotted with barf stains. And in related news, my house is going to be featured in Apartment Therapy AND Martha Stewart Living this month! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaa.
Tomorrow I’m flying to San Francisco again for a short, work-related trip. We get in, do some kind of software-related shuck-and-jive, then we bail back home on Friday morning, which is just enough time to suffer through lots of airport security and uncomfortable plane rides and city traffic, but not enough time to do anything remotely cool. I’ll be staying at the Marriott, though, and if I remember correctly there’s some kind of amazing cream puff place just around the corner, or there’s always room service pie ordered at midnight and devoured in front of the TV, so I guess as long as there are available desserts it’s not so bad. I have my priorities, you know.
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