Breakfast:

• A tall decaf Americano with half-and-half, Sugar in the Raw, and Caramel Sauce…not syrup.  And YES, I like my coffee like my men: tall, decaf Americano, white and sweet topped with caramel sauce.   I was too stressed out to eat anything else that morning.  However, lunch came at me fast.

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Lunch:

• The Vegan Spicy Soyrizo & Black Bean Wrap from Mendocino Farms in my building.  The place gets PACKED very quickly so by 11:45 I was already ordering.

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Dinner:

• Homemade French Onion soup from scratch topped with a slice of toasted French bread and heaps of Gruyere.
• Ghirardelli 62% dark chocolate and a Cutie orange.

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Satisfaction level: Awesome.

Thoughts: I did VERY well resisting a fondue cheese sandwich at Mendocino Farms for lunch, knowing that I was doing French Onion soup for dinner.  Soyrizo was a total surprise. It WAS really, really good!  This place managed to change my mind on 2 vegetarian/vegan items already.  First is the Veganaise.  I’m hooked on that sucker.  I was never one to like traditional American mayonnaise to begin with, having grown up on mostly the sweeter Japanese one.  Veganaise, however, is still very good without that greasy, oily after taste. And now the Soyrizo.  Don’t get me wrong. As one heck of a pork advocate, I’m never giving up the real chorizo.  But dang, that was super good.

Mendocino Farms is great for Meatless Tuesdays because they have a lot of vegetarian and vegan option that are super tasty.  If anyone is thinking of crossing over, I’d try their foods first.  All of their veggie sandwiches I had there never left me hungry.  If I could eat/cook like that everyday, I would consider becoming a lacto-ovo-bacon-vegetarian.  Heh.

1. Brandon tore his calf muscle

As he changed the oil on his car on Friday, Brandon discovered some coolant leakage. Upon further inspection by the auto shop, there are more than just that. We think the Anniversary accident knocked things loose. So, this morning, instead of waking up to drive me to my stop, the Mister decided to sleep in a little. I left my car 5 blocks down at my bus stop.

As he was walking over to the car, Brandon stepped off the curb and, according to his ER doctor, probably landed wrong on his heel. He heard something popped and he was in excruciating pain and couldn’t put his foot down. Being a Marine, dude sucked it up, hobbled across the 6 lanes to the other side, then his body went into a bit of shock and he sat down and passed out for a second. He then proceeded to hobble some more to the car, got in, calmly called me, and drove himself to the ER about 8 blocks down.

I received the call around 8:30.  By the way, I’m in Downtown LA, 25 miles away, with no easy way to get home at that time.  You see, my special commuter bus runs 3 times into town and twice out in the evening.  If you need to get back any other time, you’ll have to take the Disneyland bus to Norwalk Station and either catch 2 more buses to get to my house or someone else have to come get you from the station.

Thank GOD for my former bus buddy Patty who retired about a month ago.  I called her asked for a ride and she was available.  Now, skip to read #2 and come back to read the rest of this.

Patty dropped me off at the ER and I waited for a good hour before Brandon hobbled out on crutches.  Torn calf muscle, he said, and possible torn tendon but they don’t know that yet.  And now we were off to his physician to get a referral to see a specialist and get an MRI or something else.  His doctor gave him a shot of stuff and sent us home with vicodin.

2. Patty’s car died on the way to rescue me

After she hung up with me, my friend Patty went to finish her errands.  Her car sputtered and died on the way home.  Thank GOD her sister was home, so she drove over to sit with Patty’s car until AAA arrives so Patty could use her car to come get me.

3. A coworker had to go to the hospital

Meanwhile, as I ran from work to come home to take care of Brandon, a coworker apparently got ill enough to need to be rushed to the hospital.

4. Burbank DMV’s computer system went down

My boss took the morning off to go to her DMV appointment.  System was down so no appointment could be kept.  She pretty much wasted her morning.

5. The bus before my usual home bound bus broke down

Ana took the bus into town with me this morning.  She usually takes a different bus or she would drive.  However, she was getting on the earliest bus home.  She waited, and waited, and started to get panicky about the bus home.  As she found out later, when my usual bus showed up, the one she was waiting for has broken down.  So she was on a super crowded bus back, behind her usual schedule.

I’m telling you. Cosmic Fuckery.

But the Globes gave Avatar Best Picture?  What were they smoking?  I mean, it’s a fantastic technological leap forward in movie re-making for Pocahontas/Fern Gully/Dances with Wolves.  That doesn’t deserve Best Picture.  That kind of voting usually we leave for the Academy of the Easily Persuaded.

Well, this time, the Academy is also easily persuaded but not by the biggest movie of the year but by the most critically-hyped film which the Globes ignored.

Topsy turvy, my little world of Pop Culture has become.  I blame it on the global warming.  Or dying bees. Or something.

But anyway. Hooray for The Hurt Locker!

Not sure if it “deserves” the award yet, but having the first female director winning as Oscar totally kicks ass.

It is odd to go into the Oscars and not having seen the Best Pictures films because I didn’t do the AMC marathon this year.  2 Saturdays of 5 movies? I just couldn’t do it.  I managed to have seen 4 out of 10–Avatar, Inglorious Basterds, Up, and District 9–which will be 5 out of 10 as soon as I pop The Hurt Locker in to the DVD player.  It’s been sitting here by TV  for the past 2 weeks. (Sorry, Netflix!)

So I go back to my method of buzz judging.  And boy, my buzz meter still works beautifully.  As a matter of fact, it works so well that I’m starting to think that my personal judgment is obviously flawed.  If you look at my recent years of prediction when I actually saw all Best Picture nominees and a few other, I’ve been horribly wrong.

This year, going in half blind, I only missed 5 out of 24.  Back to the 79.17% accuracy of 2007, baby!  (2008 was the most disastrous at 50% and 2009 was 58%)

I was on the spot guessing The Cove over Food Inc. for Best Doc–despite my strong feelings for Food Inc.–and Young Victoria over Nine for Costume Design.  It usually doesn’t fail to bet on a lavish period pieces for Costume Design.  And, of course, the luckiest guess of Music by Prudence for Short Doc.

Foreign-language film, as of recent years, has always been a wild guess.  I went with A Prophet. I blame Entertainment Weekly for that one.  The sound awards, usually go to the big bang/boom movies so naturally I picked Star Trek (editing) and Transformers (mixing) and missed on both account.  I guess there are more bombs in The Hurt Locker than I thought.  And of course, a big fan of Wallace & Gromit, I cheered for them and was wrong.  The surprise miss was Best Actress.  I thought for sure Gabourey would go home with the Oscars.

Oh, and I don’t know who else was offended by the Orchestra’s choice to play “I am woman” when Kathryn Bigelow exited the stage for Best Director.  I mean, it is definitely a “You go, girl!” moment, but “I am woman”?!?  Really???

However, watching the reaction shot of Jim Cameron after losing both Best Director and Best Picture to his ex-wife is priceless. Heehee…

Final note:

Dear Sam Worthington,

You know I love you. I’m absolutely, hopelessly charmed by your toothy smile which you seem to have forgotten to do when a non-movie camera is pointed at you.  You know I adore your accent and your gentle eyes.  Did I mention your pretty, pretty mouth…yeah…

However, sweetie, you were up in the stage presenting the Academy Awards chewing gum.

First you stop smiling.  And now you can’t stop chewing gum.

My fantasy life with you crumbles to the floor under the weight of reality.  What a shame.

Love.

- OakMonster

Just a little bit.

Having been up very late on Monday night, I rolled out of bed on Tuesday and made myself an egg on toast.

*sigh*

Breakfast:

• A slice of buttered 7-grain toast topped with one sunny side up egg cooked in a pat of butter along with slices of vine ripen tomato.
• A mug of English breakfast tea

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Lunch:

• A small Caesar salad with no croutons. Hey, I’m already off the wagon on the egg today, I might as well!
• A few spoonful of butternut squash bisque which was absolutely disgusting
• A big chocolate chips cookies

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Dinner:

• A square of veggie Perry’s pizza…with generous sprinkle of Bacon Salt. – YES it *is* vegetarian!

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Satisfaction level: Very satisfied but incredibly guilty.  Grrrr…

Thoughts: I was doing SO WELL!  Then again, lack of sleep contributed greatly to the lapse there.  Otherwise, the rest of the day I did pretty well.

So when I say I hate a book, you don’t have to agree with me.  I don’t expect you to.

I have a policy when it comes to reading a book.  Once I start, I must finish even if I don’t enjoy it all that much.  You know, the whole finish what you’ve started thing.

There have been occasions, however, when I just couldn’t go through with it.  Sometimes it was because it was boring. Sorry, Dickens. The Great Expectation will be read someday…as soon as I can stop falling asleep every 5 pages.  Like Reading Lolita in Tehran. I didn’t even get to actually reading Lolita, I don’t think.  About the 5th time it was complained about the horrible situation for women, I was done.  We got nowhere for 1/3 of the book already.  Sheesh.

Sometimes it’s the writing style…which you’ll read about later on.

At least with these that I quit early, I didn’t feel like I wasted my time.  You know, it’s like tasting something you weren’t sure you’d like. If you throw it away now, then you only have a little bad taste in your mouth.  But if you go finish it, you will suffer the pain and hate yourself for having gone through with it.

And that is exactly what happened with the first book of 2010, Anne Rice’s Angel Time.

It was one of those that I was hooked into the story and the characters just to get let down at the end.  Those that I really want my time AND money back after I finished.  I am so angry and disappointed to have invested my emotions and time (and money!) into it that I do want to burn that fucking book down so nobody else has to suffer the same fate.

First on the burn list, Angel Time.

From the cover, Angel Time showed some promises. The jacket grabbed my attention while I browsed through limited new fictions in Asia Books in Bangkok.  I grabbed this from Anne Rice’s website.

The novel opens in the present. At its center: Toby O’Dare—a contract killer of underground fame on assignment to kill once again. A soulless soul, a dead man walking, he lives under a series of aliases—just now: Lucky the Fox—and takes his orders from “The Right Man.”

Into O’Dare’s nightmarish world of lone and lethal missions comes a mysterious stranger, a seraph, who offers him a chance to save rather than destroy lives. O’Dare, who long ago dreamt of being a priest but instead came to embody danger and violence, seizes his chance. Now he is carried back through the ages to thirteenth-century England, to dark realms where accusations of ritual murder have been made against Jews, where children suddenly die or disappear . . . In this primitive setting, O’Dare begins his perilous quest for salvation, a journey of danger and flight, loyalty and betrayal, selflessness and love.

Intriguing, right?  So naturally, I ordered it when I came back. Amazon ratings gave it 4 stars.  Brandon was also interested to read it.  Today’s Assassin in 13th century? Yep, we’d really like to know how he’d pull that off.

Brandon got no more than a few chapters in when he gave up.  Now, you have to understand the the Mister is an avid sci-fi reader.  He’s willing to suspend disbelief for the fully fabricated story. However, the inaccuracy of something we know as true will drive him bonkers. One point he couldn’t get over is how Anne Rice would say that the Mission Inn in Riverside is “a couple of hours away” from Beverly Hills and San Juan Capistrano.  Seriously, lady. Have you actually DRIVEN in Southern California?  It definitely takes more than 2 hours from 90210 to the 909. Ditto to SJC.

Brandon also warned me that the writing is very tedious.  Apparently Anne is spending time describing every crack in the beams on the high dome ceiling held together by 18th century glue made out of prized race horses. Or something like that.

Having more tolerance to narrative than the hubby does, I was determined not to let the book defeat me.

Yep. Tedious is correct.  I even caught Anne rice using the same phrase twice within a few paragraphs from each other a few times.  Still I soldiered on.  A quarter of a book in and he still hasn’t killed anyone yet, but he’s getting to it.  Okay fine.  I’ll read a little more.  And then the Angel showed up and we were introduced to how Toby came to be Lucky the Fox, the lute playing, history book reading, mission visiting, quietly praying assassin.

THAT was the part that got me very interested.  Cutting through the tedious tiny details were action, tension, and drama.  Fantastic fun!  Now I know all of Toby’s skills, I was actually excited to see what he’d do in the 13th century.  Oh boy!  It’s going to be worth trudging through the first half the book!

Not so much.  Actually, it’s the second half of the book I want to burn.  Talk about TEDIOUS!  Do you really need 3 chapters to tell a back story? SERIOUSLY? And predictable. I mean at some point you can tell how it’s going to end. I skimmed through the second half because I already know how it is going to end.

The first kicker.  All the stuff you’ve learned about Toby before, what he could do, none was used here.  He didn’t play the lute.  He didn’t use his master of disguise skills since the Angel provides him with magical assistance whenever it is convenient.  He didn’t kill anyone.  All he did was, well, a Lord of the Rings journey: go here to get the story which will lead you to over there which you will have to bring something back here etc.  WTF?!?

The final kicker. One thing I didn’t see coming happened. And dude woke up in present time with a few pages left in the back. If that was all dream, I will send a VERY angry letter to Anne Rice.  It wasn’t all a dream though, I have to say.  But there’s a bombshell.  And the bombshell is contrite as hell and I kind of already guessed that too.

I truly hate it when I was strung along for the ride and there was nothing at the end. No resolution. No answers. Not even a fucking t-shirt.

Yeah, I’m talking to you too, Dean Koontz. *mumblegrumble* Never explain that stupid slow room in Odd Thomas. Don’t tell me it’s in the sequel because you already lost me there, sir. And that slipping through the slot in time thing in From the Corner of His Eyes wins shark jumping medal. *mumblegrumble*

In case of Angel Time, I’ve been strung along and driven off the cliff a long time ago–I just didn’t know when I was going to hit the ground.

Now, back to the fact that I also have books I couldn’t get through because of writing styles.

I must be truly too dumb to appreciate the Pulitzer Prize winning The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

Again hooked by the glowing review everywhere for the young writer and the premise of a multicultural sci-fi nerd teen.  The writing style is what gets me. I know it was supposed to be the point of view of Oscar with all of his Spanglish etc. Then there’s some Spanish thrown in for good measures without any translation.  But my GOD it was really hard to read, disruptive and frustrating.

I wanted to give it another try after I was done with Angel Time but of course only a few pages in and I was reminded once again why I didn’t get through it in the first place.

There’s another critical acclaimed book like that that I bought years ago–it was a HUGE volume too–that I didn’t event get past a 1/4 of it.  It was supposed to be about wizards in 18/19th century England that were going to war. Or something like that. I don’t even remember the title. Nor whom I given the book too.  The book was written like a term paper. TONS of footnotes and even more notes in the footnotes.  Disruptive as hell and just wayyyy too much information.

Would I toss that Oscar Wao into the fire with Angel Time?  I might as well. The fire’s already roaring.

And I think Brandon would throw Michael Crichton’s Timeline in after that.  He’s STILL pissed off about the cop-out ending even now.

I’m sure Kuri would add Twilight to the fire too.

Now, your turn! You tell me what book(s) you wish you haven’t wasted time on?  Which book you haven’t gotten through?

My god. Am I a bad blogger!

But I promise to have something much more entertaining than my weekly food journal in a day or two.

For now, on to Meatless Tuesday.

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Breakfast:

• Open faced “grilled cheese” sandwich: one slice of 7-grain bread, buttered, topped with slices of one whole vine-ripen tomato, sprinkled with Nature’s Seasons seasoning blend, and a few slices of snack-sized cheddar cheese, toasted in the toaster oven until the cheese is melted.
• A mug of full-leaf oolong tea.
• Mid-morning snack: 2 whole grain crackers (they’re like 2.5 inch across!) from Fresh & Easy with generous schmear of whipped cream cheese, my mid-morning snack of choice these days.

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Lunch:

• A bowl of vegetable chili based on the recipe in Food & Wine magazine (which I will blog about later).  In that: heirloom carrots, daikon, red bell peppers, kidney beans, hominy, onion, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and generous shakes of Chipotle Tobasco.  And a piece of 7-grain toast.
• Late dessert/afternoon snack: a Godiva dark chocolate truffle.

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Dinner:

• Because it was a buy one get another one for $2, I got 2 rustica pizzas from Z Pizza: Moroccan (egg plants, pine nuts, feta, basil pesto, caramelized onion) and Mediterranean (artichoke hearts, feta, roasted red peppers, greek olives, pili pili oil).  I ate a few squares out of each.
• A glass of organic peach oolong iced tea.

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Satisfaction level: Meat? What meat?  Nope.  Didn’t miss it one bit.  And I was full all day.

Thoughts: It’s getting easier and easier each week, I have to tell you.  I even didn’t miss the meat too much today.  But I did have an egg for breakfast.  I did crave some proteins for dinner but I didn’t go for my usual burger or ribs, but salmon.  A little weird, I know.  I’m sure I’m going to want me a juicy burger in a few days.

I’m also more conscious now of what I’d eat on a Meatless Tuesday and Brandon has been helpful in keeping me in check on that too.  He’d try to help me think of places I could get something meatless to eat at.

Now, I’ve been thinking about it today that since I’m doing this a Buddhist reason, perhaps I should also not do alcohol on Tuesdays as well to make the whole religious day out of it.  After all, abstaining from alcohol is one of the Five Precepts a good Buddhist should follow.

By not eating meat/eggs on Tuesday, and having not kill anybody, abstaining from taking life is checked off the list.  Abstaining from alcohol? One day a week, I can do that.  Abstaining from sexual misconduct is everyday…although I wonder if lusting after  Taylor Lautner and/or Sam Worthington or dreaming about Jason Mraz counts.  Abstaining from taking what is not given, no klepto here so check.  And finally, abstaining from false speech aka lying. Well, that might be a little hard to swing in a corporate world, but we’ll do our best, won’t we?

Alright. It’s decided. Tuesdays will be meatless AND dry.

Oh boy.

There have also been changes at my work.  We have created a new department which roped my marketing team of 2 in with 2 other departments to pursue new directions.  The new Boss Man is first a friend.  Much like my relationship with my boss Nhien, because we are friends first, communications are open in both directions.  It makes for very successful partnership I think, but yet also frustrating.  You see, the new department is like new found toy.  There are constantly “Oooh! I want to do THIS!” and “Yeah, let’s do THAT!” which tend to throw a wrench at both us and another department.

The perfect analogy for my current work situation, which my colleagues agreed on, is that the New Department is like a box of marbles spilled across the floor.  Your day-to-day responsibility is like the door you’re trying to reach.  You want to get to the door but you keep tripping on the marbles and falling down.  You pick up the marble and put it back in the box and keep going toward the door but there will be another marble to trip you up.  You eventually get to the door but you’re now all banged up. AND you’re late.  Eventually, we will all learn to navigate the marbles and manage to pick them all up AND get to the door gracefully.  In the meantime, put on your helmet, kids–it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Now, the Big Event just wrapped up without much of  hitch on Wednesday.  So a huge weight has been lifted but yet more are on the way.  In all of this, I’m trying to squeeze in an hour here and there to study Italian.  I’ve been neglecting homework because I thought I can totally do this without much help, but every week I fall further and further behind.  I’m realizing the reason why I struggle so much with it is because I’m learning a third language on my second language.

To use Hugh Laurie’s analogy of going to the set of House being the only one who has to add an accent, it’s like going to a battle with a fish when everyone else has a sword.  Almost everyone in class is a native English speaker.  Most also speak Spanish even a little bit.  I’m there with Thai being my native tongue and here I am learning a new language on my second language.  My head is translating it front and back and left and right before I come to some conclusions.  However, the benefit of my Thai tongue is that I can roll the R’s and sound the hard T’s better than anyone.

So here I am, trying to be a better student and put in some homework time.  On top of that, I still have to find time to cook–which, sadly, I’ve been able to do strictly on the weekends, to keep the blogs up to date, and to wrap up my tax paperwork.  Hey, at least the office is in order now.  I just have to comb through the pre-sorted bill and reconcile everything.

Oh, and today I had Italian class in the morning, was supposed to be at a salsa workshop at noon, bake a cake, then off to a baby shower at 4 and a birthday dinner at 7.  Thankfully the last 2 parties are at the same place.

At this level, I thought for sure I would go down with a cold after the Big Event.  I ended up with massive allergies starting at the event.  My stomach has been warring with me pretty much for 2 weeks.  And then my back decided to throw a coup as I was having a nice relaxing dinner with Brandon.

It’s like my brain knows of the maddening schedule I have ahead of me today.  So last night on behalf of the entire body, my back muscles decided to throw a tantrum and seized up.

So, no salsa today.  And up until now, I’ve been laying flat on the couch, nursing the stout left in the bottle from making my chocolate Guinness cake with some Ibuprofen.

I don’t know if having been a better eater helps stemmed the physical meltdown I usually have after a stressful period of time.  You know, my usual 24 hour of low fever and energy zap?  Not happening this time.  So the body just went for the most recent injury, my back, and uses THAT to punish me.

Well, I’m soldiering on anyway.  At least tomorrow all I have to do is type up notes for Thrill the World and go to the meeting at 7 p.m.

But then there’s the farmers market I want to get to, dinner I want to make, and the paperwork…FUCKIN’ PAPERWORK!!!

*sigh*

So, how is your week/weekend?

• Half of a giant blueberry peach scone I got from the farmer’s market over the weekend. I ate the other half on Monday.
• A mug of lemongrass-pandan tea.

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Lunch

• An avocado tomato sandwich: 2 slices of 7 grain bread lightly toasted, mayo (yeah..I didn’t think about the egg content…), seasoning salt, a few shakes of Tapatio, strawberry tomatoes, and half of an avocado.
• The other half of the avocado with seasoning salt.
• Split a giant Asian pear with coworkers.

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Snack

• Beard Papa’s Cream Puff, courtesy of best boss/friend in the world.

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Late Dinner

• Room service at the Marriott Downtown LA: Chicken rigatoni, hold the chicken, with extra mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, and ricotta insalata.
• A chocolate chip cookie.

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Satisfaction level: Very high.  I have to say I didn’t really miss meat at all.  But then again, I was preparing for a work event we were putting on Wednesday morning, so a) I wasn’t really that hungry, and b) I didn’t really care if I was hungry–I didn’t have time to.

Thoughts: I was really surprised that I didn’t miss the meat.  I mean, not even when I got to the hotel absolutely starved.  I didn’t even think to break the deal and get a burger.  As a matter of fact, I was looking forward to having some vegetarian pasta for dinner all day.

I think this whole eating meatless is growing on me.  Being conscious of what I eat does change a lot of things.  I’m sure I annoy people to no end with my new found path.  But hey, I still succumb to factory-grown bacon and I still cook the commercially-farmed chicken because I can’t find any ethical one close by.  A little bit is better than nothing at all.

Asian pears (thank GOD they are still in season because winter fruits are sooo boring!) from farmer’s market over Trader Joe’s blueberries from Chile.  But…well…what the hell, I had a couple of the blueberries anyway.  (Nhien brought it.)

• Ritz crackers with cream cheese
• A mug of Ecchaenacea Defense tea with honey

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Lunch

• A few bites of brown rice and garlic tofu with vegetables from Pick Up Stix before the fire alarm went off in the building.  I came back and just ate the tofu about half an hour later.  Mother fuckers on the 33rd floor really need to get fined for all their burnt popcorn, I swear to god.
• One of my home made dark chocolate covered–are you ready?–Not Quite Nigella’s recipe of salted maple honey bacon caramel.  A failed experiment, the caramel did not set but I found another delivery vessel that works perfectly.  Hehee.

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Dinner

• Garlic mashed potatoes with cheese and green onion, mac and cheese, sauteed vegetables and a little bit of a salad.  All the sides I ordered for our barbecue family pack from Maderas Steak & Ribs.  Everyone else was having baby back ribs and chicken.
• Lots. Of. Wine. 3 kinds to be exact.  Amount consumed among 3 ladies and one taster comes down to one full bottle and half each of the other two.  It was a Fresh & Easy twitter tasting party.

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Satisfaction level: Pretty high.  Breakfast and lunch were both interrupted so I got hungry here and there.  And PISSED off.  But oddly enough, I didn’t crave meat like I did last week.  However, dinner was very, VERY satisfying.

Thoughts: This week seems effortless.  And less junky.  LOL.  And I’m very happy about that.

*

MORE on the fantastic all-girls wine tasting night here which was an awesome cap to each of our Day from Hell episodes.

But those we pull no punches on the most are Brandon’s circle of friends.  The boys have known each other since high school and once we’re welcomed to the family, you’re also fair game for endless teasing and good natured banters.

For example, we were over at James and Aurora’s for pizza on Friday night.  Just so you know, James has always been the token Jew of the gang while I’m the token Asian.  Well, then again, you could be token anything in this group. A token redhead. A token happa.  A token Marine. A token Superman (Justin is a Marine veteran amputee AND an ER doctor in residency AND his wife is pregnant. So there, Superman!)  So that’s always fun.

But anyways. On with the show.

Bob was going over what was in the pizza order James placed that he had picked up.  One was mushrooms and olives and the other was pepperoni and sausage. Brandon pointed at the meat fest.

Brandon: I voted for that one.

Me: Hey, how come I didn’t get to vote?

James: Because you’re a woman.

Me: [Single finger salute]

James: AND you’re a minority.

So we grabbed our pizzas and settled down for dinner.  James had asked for some crushed red pepper flakes.  Aurora had set it on the table in front of me so while he was busy conversing, I started peeling the stubborn “freshness seal” off this new bottle.  The fucker just didn’t want to come off.  James, getting antsy for his turn at the pepper flakes, looked over.

James:  Oakley, can I help you with that?

Oakley: No!  I started this war and I’m going end it, goddamn it!

James: Oh, but how many LIVES do you have to ruin to win this atrocious war!?

Oakley: Just the Jews.

Payback is pretty sweet.