Parentheticals

Friday night M and I went out (around 8:30 pm, due to the fact that she had locked her keys in her car at work, and I had to take a cab and unlock her door for her), dinner of giant hamburgers (I had bleu cheese and bacon on mine) and a game of bowling (only a 104, but I didn't hit my stride until the 9th frame, plus bowled a few strikes for fun afterwards, and I'm confident that if we would have played another game I would have been in the 150-170 range, but I know that sounds arrogant and presumptuous, so forget it, I sucked it up and got a 104, ok?). Would have been a lot more fun if a certain third person had not been with us, a person who chose to suck all the energy out of the room by whining, near tears, about his overly-dramatic problems (Granted, I've been known to be a bit of a sensitivo myself, but this guy made me want to kill myself) and sulk when I beat him at bowling (with a fucking 104!) and hint at the fact that he would drink alone and not sleep when we dropped him off. Yeah, that was awesome.

Saturday we drove to a random neighborhood that M had read about in the newspaper. Supposedly it was part of the 'Ukrainian village' neighborhood, but instead it was rather run-down and had 62 Mexican restaurants. We did go into a 'witchcraft' shop, which had a few candles and phallic statuettes and a shelf of potions (one of which was called 'love sauce'). When we left the owner and her 9 year old daughter told us to come back soon, and that they would be getting in a lot of new merchandise for valentines day. The daughter shouted "love sauce!," which made me laugh and think of 1999/early 2000 when I referred to things of a sexual nature as 'sweet naughty sauce' (as in "Fuck, dude, am I ever going to get some sweet naughty sauce again?")

Then we drove north to a Menards, and failed to find a bookshelf that matched the 6 overflowing ones we have now (they no longer carry that brand) but I did buy some boards. Remember when we bought new bedroom furniture back in early Nov? Well we got our charming bed, and within a few days discovered that the three cross boards it had to support the box spring were an inch too short for the frame, so that sometime upon sitting down or movement of any other kind prompted one or more of these boards to fall out of place and occasionally send half of the mattress askew. I'm sure we could have complained about this, but instead we lived we in for a couple months. So at Menards I bought three boards and had them cut to my precise measurements (and in doing so felt quite macho, though I suppose it would have been better if I would have done the cutting myself, and possibly even better than that if I would have felled the tree with a single chop of my ax.) But the boards fit, and appear to be doing their job, though I don't have any sort of support in the center of the bed, and they will probably sag and break someday (when I'm getting some sweet nau...... aw, nevermind).

Now it was late afternoon and I hadn't eaten since breakfast. Here in Chicago there is a show on PBS called 'Check, Please' in which three random upper-class citizens all go to three restaurants, and then talk about them. We watched it last weekend and saw a mexican place in the far north suburbs called 'Wholly Frijole' which got unbelievably positive comments, and was also super cheap (nothing over 10 bucks on the menu). So since we were already on the north side, we decided to make the trip. We didn't know the exact address, so we turned the wrong way off the exit and ended up having to call information to find it. But, of course, because of the show the previous weekend, the place (which only holds 25 people!) was completely full with a line out the door and nowhere to park. A table for two would require an estimated hour and 45 minute wait, which wasn't possible, so we had to go somewhere else. We ended up stopping at a Greek restaurant a mile down the road called Psistaria (I'm guessing the P is silent). Neither of us had been to a greek place before, save for late-night gyros, so everything was new and exciting, which is what I like at restaurants. We realized too late that there was some appetizer that required the waiter to pour alcohol over and light on fire, prompting a flame up to the ceiling and a shout of something in Greek. I got a half-liter bottle of beer and a combination plate, everything was excellent and exciting (except my eyebrows felt insecure for the first time ever).