She Has a Robotic Hand
I just had a super fun weekend. There was bowling and we almost saw Gay Beast — except that Gay Beast’s myspace site listed 9pm for the show at the Triple Rock, and Triple Rock’s site said 6pm. Of course, I didn’t see that until 8, so when we got there, all there was to do was buy the Gay Beast EP. Dan (the singer and keyboardist) recognized Cake Woman and I from myspace, which is ridiculous and marks the two of us as internet nerds. Well, me at least, because I’m not memorably cute like Cake Woman.
For local bowling, I think that my favorite is currently Elsie’s. The bowling experience was better there. Before the show, Cake Woman and I went to “Memory Lanes” in south Minneapolis. You might remember it as “Stardust Lanes” or “Murder Alleys” or “hey, would you like to buy some crack? No? How about some meth?” It was not shady at all, and kids were everywhere. Cake Woman and I barely made any jokes about balls or each other’s mothers — or balling each other’s mothers.
That’s what your mom said.
This morning I awoke with uncharacteristic ease, went downstairs, brushed my teeth, showered, and shaved — all within a mere half hour or so. It was eerie to be awake with the rest of the world. I came upstairs to my room where Cake Woman was grimacing and scraping sleep out of her eyes with a sharp stick. She asked if I wanted to visit the Pannekuchen Huis for breakfast. I did, but we had already spent enough on breakfast for the weekend to line the streets with twenty dollar bills from here to downtown Minneapolis. I suggested that maybe I should make breakfast. She agreed and we picked up supplies from Rainbow.
Stan had already eaten, so I woke up Lisa, who was delighted by the idea of someone besides herself cooking for once. She made some timing suggestions with regards to the hashed browns and turkey breakfast sausage “links,” but for once managed to stay out of my way. I started the sausages first, which ended up way overcooked. After that I started the hashed browns, which got a wee bit burnt and turned mushy. I blame not enough cooking oil. They should have cooked more quickly and thoroughly so that turning them did not result in a rapid conversion from shredded to mashed form (or something). I had to help Cake Woman with her scrambled egg whites before making scrambled eggs for Lisa and I. Those got overdone, too, because I should have plated them before cleaning the cast iron pan (or something). Cake Woman was watching them and I said “you can plate those any time now” and she didn’t know what I meant. They were probably overdone by then anyways. Ugh.
The important part is that the only church that I worship at is the Church of the Fucking Delicious Breakfast, and my home service was somewhat of a travesty. I mean, any one of those things I should have been able to make with aplomb, but I couldn’t seem to split my attention three ways with any real efficacy. Balls. Cake Woman said that from then on she was in charge of breakfast. Hellz no, how am I supposed to get better if I stop?
How did we spend so damn much money on breakfast? I’m glad you asked. You see, on Saturday Cake Woman wanted to go to Ike’s downtown, because she had heard that it was good. What she hadn’t heard was that it is somewhat expensive. They do not list this on their menus or the convenient food descriptions printed right on the placemats. I had a sinking feeling that I was going to regret not suggesting that we go to McDonald’s for those digusting McPancakes ‘n’ Beef Trim Sausage abominations. Indeed, our bloody marys were served in glasses big enough to have mandatory warning labels not to let children play in or around them while empty (to say nothing of letting a child play with a glass full of mildly alcoholic beverage). Unfortunately, the six pounds of garnish (including, but not limited to: two kinds of olives, a pepper leftover from a Papa John’s pizza, a beef stick, cheese, one of those onion things from a gimlet, a can of Milwaukee’s Best, an entire bunch of celery, a small primate, a large flightless bird, two eunuchs, and a pickle. Cake Woman ate both pickles — I ate all of the rest of the garnishes. I don’t remember ever tasting vodka. I also do not remember any spiciness or tang in my bloody mary, just sort of a gritty tomato juice with chunks of human garbage floating in it. The wee shot of beer chaser was also terrible, which normally isn’t a problem, but you know what, IF THE BLOODY MARY IS AWFUL AT LEAST THE BEER HAD BETTER BE GOOD.
Stan and Noah had come with us, but Noah wasn’t really in the mood to eat anything new, so he had some of the giant (but let’s face it, kind of bland) sticky bun and some ham that Stan smuggled out of the omelette bar. Apparently the omelets were okay, but not great. I had some of Cake Woman’s, and it was indeed fluffy and full of stuff. The eggs in my eggs benedict were great, but the hollandaise sauce was as flavorless and weak as the bloody mary had been. The ham (canadian bacon?) underneath was chewy. The english muffins were soggy, and not in a “we just soaked up all that yummy yolk, so scarf us down mother fucker” kind of way.
There was a plate of sausage, bacon, pancakes, and hashed browns for everyone — it was theoretically all-you-can-eat, but I’m the only person who eats like he has a tapeworm (and no, that’s not the secret to my “diet” — in fact I may have gained back five pounds over the holidays: all in my boobs, hooray!) so I ate everything I could, including some of Cake Woman’s unfinished omelette, most of the tray (the hashbrowns were not crispy, making them no better than mine, and no one paid or trained me). The bacon was sweet and cut thickly, but needed to be thrown back on the grill to acquire something you might have heard of called “crispiness.”
They did give us a couple of very nice boxes to bring home all of Noah’s completely untouched food, and then charged us for everything we ate and possibly everything that everyone in the restaurant ate or looked at. We may have also paid for some of the people walking by on the street to smell things when the door opened — I’m not sure. In any case, don’t go to Ike’s unless you are feeling like eating at Old Country Buffet, only less sad. I never feel like eating at Old Country Buffet because I was dewormed in 1998, right before I gained thirty five pounds and started crying myself to sleep every night — if by “crying myself to sleep” I mean “lying in bed awake and alone, planning all the things that I would need to do to prepare my affairs for the unfortunate accident that would soon befall me if everything went according to plan.”
Saturday afternoon and evening were spent watching the season two of Project Runway so that Cake Woman could get caught up to date. I didn’t so much watch as plan all the things that I would need to do to prepare my affairs for the unfortunate accident that would soon befall me if everything went according to plan. Okay, I watched, and they have gotten rid of most of the people who make me want to wrap them in their own design and light them on fire while stabbing them with sharp implements.
Oh yeah, tonight I gave my old carpal tunnel brace to Cake Woman. When we went downstairs to the Keathly household to say good night to Noah, she told him that her right hand (with the brace) was robotic. Noah loves robots, so he was very impressed. He told Cake Woman that he loved her, which I think is moving a little fast, since it was only just this weekend that he told us that Cake Woman is his girlfriend and not mine any more. Cake Woman suggested that we share, which does not appeal to me at all. She’s all mine, Noah, so back off! Even if she does break up with me and date Noah, two days is way too fast to drop the L bomb.
Yes, I stayed out of the way, but damn if you didn’t take any of my advice. Maybe next weekend I should give youse a lesson in breakfast cookin’.
As for Noah, he’s just taking after his dad. It only took Stan two days to say “I love you” when we started dating too. Granted, there’s no 7 years of semi-knowing each other in the background, but hey, you can’t fight genetics! Besides, Noah is only 3. He tells EVERYONE he loves them.
I know, Jay and I told each other “I love you” a month before we met in person (how’s that for geeky geeky net love?). 11 years later, I can’t get him to stop following me around.
Actually, it has been 1.5 months or so. I have been instructed to not even consider the L word for another 6.5 months, so I will not be following the Keathly example.