Rotate the foodstuffs!

This weekend is one of the first in a long time that I've been home, instead of gallivanting around the country or recovering from camp (or preparing for camp) or whatever.  As such, I've really been having a good time just relaxing.  Today, I went to Highland Coffees for the first time in a long time, the better to sit around, read, and drink coffee and tea.  I was most excited, since I'd received Middlesex  on Friday (and thus it begins!), and I was looking forward to a nice long session of caffeinated reading, sitting in the warm Louisiana summer air under Highland's bower.  Mmmm.  Anyway, getting to the subject, today I was wearing a shirt that was given to me by Dr. Ancelet.  It has text on it in French.  While I was getting a refill of dark-roast coffee (mmmm), the barista asked me what my shirt said.  I responded "Speak French on purpose!"  It was only as I was walking away that I realized I had answered the pragmatic question, not the actual one (that is to say, I had responded as above, telling her what the shirt meant in our lingua franca, rather than saying "Parle français par exprès!", which is what the shirt literally says).  The amusing fact is that I was, in a way, actually acting directly counter to the instructions of my shirt.  No real point, just recounting.

Middlesex, by the way, is wonderful so far (about a third of the way through).  I should expect no less, of course, since it's been recommended to me not only by national reviewers (and the awarders of the Pulitzer Prize) but also by rnbowpixy; personal recommendations carry a lot of weight.  It is absolutely nothing like I expected, but in a very good way.  Rather than being a stridently political book about an intersexed person (which I foolishly expected), it's a broad-reaching symphonic study of sexuality, love, immigration, and a myriad other topics that all combine to make up human nature.  Beautiful.

Last night Shane, Rebecca, and I went out to eat at J. Alexander with two of Rebecca's fellow TFAers.  I'd noticed the restaurant over by the Mall of Louisiana earlier, but hadn't really given it a second thought.  225 Magazine, however, recently ranked it as having the second-best salads in the city, and thus was Rebecca's curiosity piqued: as an Orthodox Jew, she eats a lot of salads when she dines out, since they're one of the few safe things.  J. Alexander's turns out to be a somewhat upscale steakhouse/Americana place that I found to be very pleasant.  It's got a very fancy feel without being overly stuffy or pricey, which I appreciate.  The cheeseburger I had was one of the best I've had in a long, long time, juicy and savory and full of beef flavor.  The wine also made me happy; I got a quite reasonably priced Côtes du Rhone, which was quite tasty.  Course, the tastiness was only enhanced by the fact that they serve all their wines in -- wait for it -- Reidel!  I mean, Christ, what restaurant in the 15$ non-steak-entree price-range uses that level of glassware?!  Very fun.  Even if the waiter was a little flaky, but I'm over it :)

My parents had been in earlier in the day to steal away my bed.  See, I had no plans of taking it to Ohio, and my brother's moving to a house off-campus in Austin this year, so he's getting it.  Mom and Dad drove from Nac, took me to lunch, helped me transport a dresser I bought home, packed up the bed, and drove back, because my whole family is crazy; we don't think that much of driving 10 hours in a day.  Did I mention lunch?  Yes.  I hadn't been to Parrain's in a while, and I was very happy to go there.  I hope they enjoyed it like I did -- I had the barbecued drum like last time I went there, because it's so. damn. good.  Our waiter... this is weird.  I got friended by this guy on Facebook a couple weeks ago, but I declined it (because I don't know him) and thought nothing more of it.  So yesterday, our server is greeting us and I'm thinking "he looks really familiar!  why?"  The bill comes with his name and... ah, it's him.  There we go.  So odd.

Also, did I mention a dresser?  Why yes I did.  The parents also took my dresser, which is a primary colored wooden thing that's been in my room since my childhood.  In its place, I now have a faux-pine chest of drawers, straight from your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart.  About ninety bucks and three hours of assembly later (it took forever because my Phillips head screwdrivers seem to have run away, leaving me with only a multi-tool to work with), I now have a nice looking dresser that doesn't make me feel like a juvenile.  There was also a lot of cleaning involved, as you can see from the pictures below.

( Pictures )

Friday night was also a night of fun and food (that seems to have gone on a lot this weekend, wow).  Erin, Katie, Mandi, and I started out by going to Waka House, a new sushi place out at Sherwood Forest & Coursey (give or take).  The sushi was quite good, and the value was wonderful: we ate until we were nearing stomach rupture, but we only spent 15$ plus tip apiece.  That's... shocking.  I mean, really.  Yay!  We continued by going to Hole Experience, where Katie and Mandi intended to get piercings.  Unfortunately, there were some issues, and it didn't end up happening, but still it was good times.  We had planned on going to see Clerks II, but it appears that it's no longer showing in Baton Rouge :(  I do note that it's still showing in New Orleans, but apparently only until Thursday?  So I guess I'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD.  Instead, we wet to see Pulse.  It was't a bad little flick, as dystopian cyber-horror goes.  I do have to say it was the most bizarre depiction of Columbus, OH I've ever seen.  I realize they were probably trying for a representative city of average Middle America, but... well, Columbus just isn't that urban of an urban space.  Sure, it's definitely a city, but that whole tenement-y buildings everywhere, full of urban angst and disquiet shtick?  Not so much.  Very amusing to those of us that know the city.

And now, finally, I think I've come to my conclusion.  Huzzah!

Well, the driving experiment was a success.  The drive to work (pretty much no traffic) took me about 8 minutes; the drive back from work (rush hour) took me about 11.  Woohoo!  I think even after stupid bloody Staring is re-opened, I'm not going to drive on it, because it's pretty much wretched.  The only tricky part is that my method has me turning onto Staring off of Menlo, where it will likely be bumper-to-bumper, but I guess we'll figure that out when the situation presents itself.

Also, my cat?  Ew.  I'm sitting here at the kitchen table just reading my email quietly, and suddenly I hear this wet HORRRK from near my feet.  Phoebe hacks up a nasty thing halfway between hairball and vomit, then calmly goes over to the food bowl to eat.  When I gave her a look intended to mean "what the fuck." she countered with one that clearly stated, "well, I'm not full anymore."  Which, fair enough.

I'm off to the store to go buy some sour cream.  I'm in the midst of making a barbecue sauce, and I can already tell that I may have overdone it a bit with the smoked, dried chili puree.  I honestly don't even know what those peppers are (celticmll brought them back for me from Oaxaca), but I clearly should have been more cautious: this sauce is gonna be a scorcher.

OK, so.  I can't deal with the cat any longer.  The next trip I take with Phoebe, I am sedating her.  She started to freak out today after I stopped in Alexandria for food.  Up until then she'd been sitting contentedly on my lap, but after she started to freak out.  She panted like there was no tomorrow (even though it was nice and cool in the car), and the front half of her body looked like it was drenched in sweat.  Except... cats don't sweat.  All the massive amounts of wetness was from her licking herself all but compulsively.  So I was already kinda worried about her (seriously, saliva dripping from the tongue, looked like she'd been at the dunking booth at a country fair), and then just outside of San Augustine I smelled a truly fowl smell [the misspelling of 'foul' was a typo, but I think it's still kind of accurate -- ever smelled a chicken house?].  I glance over my shoulder and see Phoebe taking a shit on my pillow.  I mean... what?!?!  I couldn't decide whether to be angry or really worried.  I defaulted to worried when I stopped and she didn't run to hide under the seat (like usual), but instead just stood there cowering.  I had to grab a couple of napkins and clean her up; she was all wet and shitty on her backside, and she was significantly hot to the touch all over her body.  I made her sit on my lap on a towel the rest of the way home...  I nearly called the vet, just 'cause she was freaking me out, but she's gotten back to normal.  I've decided it was a stress reaction, but it further cements my decision on sedation.  If nothing else, hopefully it'll keep me from having to throw pillows away.

Well, the thesis is [pretty much] out of my hands.  I haven't yet sent it off, though, because I was suddenly gripped this morning by the need to do a last-minute redraft of the translation (fruitfully, as it turns out, since I had come to a new realization about certain aspects of Richard's poetry in writing the introduction, and I wanted to incorporate them into my translations; many of the poems read much more resonantly afterward).  Unfortunately, that meant that I didn't get to Kinko's until after noon, when they were quite busy, so now I have to wait until 6PM to get pick up my print job (and I am not printing 3 copies, double-sided, of a 128-page document on my home computer).  This means that I can't mail the thing to Dr. Cerquiglini in Paris until tomorrow, but I'll just hope that air mail can get it to him before he disappears off to Salamanca (blasted globe-hopping profs), and it means I can't give it to Dr. Stone until tomorrow.  Neither of these are really major problems, it's just annoying, since I had told them I'd do these things by a certain date, and now I'm not.  Oh well, shit happens.

Anyway, I'm happy, since I finally feel relaxed about this for the first time in weeks.  I celebrated by scheduling a veterinary appointment tomorrow for Phoebe (just a yearly checkup/vacc, don't worry, and yes I was joking about celebrating).

In terms of real celebration, I'm very excited about an upcoming show here in Baton Rouge.  National touring groups don't often stop by the Capital City, and when they do it's generally groups that I couldn't care less about.  Now, though, who is playing next Monday at Chelsea's new location (also exciting) as part of GFL Fest?  Ted Leo/Pharmacists!  I am SO there.  Seriously, doors at 9pm, and I'll be there way early for dinner if I have to be to get in.  When they try to kick people out to the non-cover area, I'll just be like "no, that's ok, here's 10 dollars.  Thanks."  Also, 10 dollars for Ted Leo (and some Catalan band that intrigues me to boot) is a fucking steal.  Now the Mountain Goats just need to come through town, and I'll be sitting happy.

And now I'll stop being a post-whore.

ETA: Furthermore, Bluegrass on the Bayou will be this coming Thursday through Saturday near campus at Nicholson and Gourrier, only $5/day for students. I'm certainly not going to be spending hours and hours there, but I figure I'll stop by; despite their eye-gouging site design I'm intrigued. (Also, readers of 225: the festival is NOT on the parade grounds, as the magazine erroneously printed. Just so we're clear.)