Mighty Foolish

It might interest you to know that I am an idiot.

I don’t mean to imply that I’m not smart, or that I can’t do math or comprehend words that are more than two syllables long because that simply isn’t true. What I’m trying to say is that even though some people consider me to be a smart guy, I still do so many stupid things on any given day that it’s amazing someone hasn’t taken it into their head to simply put me down for the good of the human race.

Take this morning, please.

There I am on the train, headed into the city for work when a guy boards and begins a well rehearsed little begging schpiel, telling everyone that he wasn’t begging to buy drugs or anything and that he just needed a few dollars to get something to eat. Normally I don’t give handouts because you never really know if the money will do any good, but this morning I was in a good mood and thought that I’d give the guy a dollar. Especially since his speech included a little song and he actually seemed happy and cheerful while asking for a handout.

Nothing like a little smile from a beggar to make you feel good in the morning.

So, as this guy is walking down the train towards me with his hand out, I reach into my pocket and pull out a dollar to give him. At the same time that I’m doing that I realize that I need to blow my nose, so I also take out a tissue and blow. I then put the dirty tissue in my pocket, the dollar into the beggars hand and I exit the train since I had reached my stop and needed to get off.

And all was good in the world.

Until, that is, I reached a garbage can and reached into my pocket to throw away the dirty tissue and I realized that instead of having my disgusting used tissue in my pocket I had a perfectly clean crumpled up dollar bill.

Oh. Crap.

So, let’s recap my morning commute, shall we? Wanting to be a good person I decided against my better judgment to give a handout to a poor, unfortunate soul but instead of supplying him with the means to purchase something to eat I unwittingly gravely insulted him by handing him a slimy, wet and disgusting newly used tissue. If I ever see this guy again, if he doesn’t kill me on sight, I think I’ll have to buy him a fricking new car to make up for my thoughtless act of immense stupidity.

Oh dear lord, I am such a schmuck.

Much Too Much Of Too Little

I’m back from Barcelona and boy, am I hungry.

I’d love to tell you that I had a wonderful time, or that I managed to find some time to sightsee or even leave the hotel for any great length of time. But the truth of the matter is that I basically arrived in Spain, went directly to the hotel, worked for 16 hours each day and dragged myself to my room to sleep a few hours before getting up and working another 16 hours. The only time I had free was on Saturday afternoon, from 2pm to 6pm, when I frantically ran around Barcelona trying to take in the sights and take a few pictures before running back to the hotel to finish working.

And don’t get me started on the food.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Spanish food. Tapas, in particular make for a wonderful meal every once in a while. But the problem with going to a foreign country for business reasons instead of for a vacation is that unlike during a vacation where you can explore new and exciting places to eat, I was stuck eating whatever the hotel could provide. And after a week of eating nothing but tapas I have made a life-altering discovery.

You really can have too much of a good thing.

Case in point; tapas. Now, I like tapas as much as the next guy, ordering many different small portions of delicious finger food makes for a very enjoyable meal every once in a while. But when you are eating the same delicious finger foods every meal for four days straight they begin to lose their appeal. And when the tapas are always room temperature you might find yourself desiring something edible with a temperature hotter than your own skin. And should you be a meat eater, like I am, you might become discouraged on the third or fourth day of eating nothing but fried cheese balls, fried potato balls, olives (stuffed with, of all things, anchovies! blech), skewers of shrimp still in their shells and some pieces of fruit.

By dinner on day three I was ready to eat my own fist.

To give you an example of my Barcelona meal menus, I took the liberty of writing Thursday’s menu down for posterity’s sake. So, here is what I ate on Thursday, which is exactly the same thing I was served on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

  • Breakfast
    • Little pieces of fruit
    • Cookies
    • Cheese wedges
    • Dinner rolls with sugar on top
    • Coffee, tea or juice
  • Lunch
    • Cold potato omelets (plain or spinach)
    • Cold shrimp (still in shell)
    • Cold fried cheese balls
    • Cold fried potato balls
    • Stuffed olives
    • Sliced deli ham
    • Rolls
    • Cookies
    • Small pastries
    • Coffee, tea or juice
  • Dinner
    • Salad (lettuce, tomato and cucumber)
    • Tiny medallions of cold pork in peppercorn sauce (skewered on a toothpick)
    • Cold potato omelets (plain or spinach)
    • Cold fried cheese balls
    • Cold fried potato balls
    • Stuffed olives
    • Rolls
    • Cookies
    • Small pastries
    • Coffee, tea or juice

Mealtime became the most discouraging time of day for me.

The worst thing about mealtime was that, even if it was cold, all the food was tasty and delicious. It wasn’t as if the food was bad, inedible, or of a type that I personally wouldn’t eat, like fish or snails. Everything tasted great; it just wasn’t what I considered food. At one point during a meal I turned to another member of the crew and remarked that I felt as if what we were eating amounted to food-flavored air, because no matter how much we ate we were doomed to be forever hungry. He agreed with me and postulated that perhaps that’s why most Americans are fat while most Spaniards aren’t. I told him he was crazy.

But when I got home I realized I lost 6 pounds in 5 days. Go figure.

Up, Up, And Away, Again

I’m leaving on another trip.

This time I’m headed to Barcelona for a week. I’ll try to update while I’m out there, but don’t expect much until I return next Monday. I hope to have plenty of pictures for you when I get back, but no promises since it is a business trip. But, if you’re really good while I’m away, maybe I’ll share some good news with you when I get back. And maybe I’ll even let you have a cookie and stay up late.

Won’t that be nice?

Grand Pop

My grandpa is recovering.

We know this because he is causing more and more trouble at the hospital every day. And, just to show you how absolutely insane my whole family is, let me relate to you the exchange that took place between my grandpa and his night nurse, a pretty woman with spiky hair, the first time he met her.

Grandpa: “Wow! You must have been really hungry.”
Nurse: “What do you mean?”
Grandpa: “Well, I’ve been hungry before but I’ve never been tempted to try to eat a firecracker.”
Nurse: “Are you making fun of my hair?”
Grandpa: “Smart girl. So, when can I get something good to eat?”
Nurse: “With that attitude, maybe never.”
Grandpa: “I don’t like you anymore. Can I leave?”
Nurse: “No. You have to stay a few more days.”
Grandpa: “But I want to go home.”
Nurse: “I’m sorry.”
Grandpa: “You’re a liar.”
Nurse: “Yes, I am.”
Grandpa: “Go suck another lightswitch.”

We couldn’t stop laughing for hours.

Death Becomes Me

I got my face kicked yesterday.

I don’t know what happened, but yesterday morning I woke up dead. Not just feeling dead, but actually, clinically deceased. I’m not kidding. I really think someone with a mucus covered baseball bat snuck into my bedroom and hit me repeatedly in the face until I was dead. And then, just because the person was a real mean bastard, they resurrected me only to beat me to death again. They may also have thrown buckets of ice water on me and super-glued my nostrils closed just to make my death that much more horribly annoying.

The bastard.

I really cannot convey to you with mere words the amazingly crazy sickness that overtook me yesterday. I actually needed HoBiscuit to help me get out of bed so I could eat some soup! Walking was nearly impossible and every time I sneezed my entire body convulsed and wave upon wave of icy cold shudders flowed across my body like an Antarctic tsunami.

My freaking goose bumps had goose bumps!

What’s even more amazing than my being that sick yesterday is that today, a mere 24 hours later, I am almost 100% better! I’m very tired and I feel like someone’s been using sandpaper on my throat, but otherwise I’m fine. No headache, no cold spells, no shakes, nothing. Talk about freaky! How can I have been so sick that I honestly thought I was going to die and then, only a day later, be able to walk around and work as if nothing happened? Am I dead? Am I some sort of resurrected, undead zombie now? Should I take to shuffling around the city moaning, “Braaaiiinzzz!” and attacking attractive, single women until someone puts me out of my misery by re-killing me?

Mmmm… brains.

And honestly, why is it always brains, anyway? What is it about a brain that drives zombies crazy? Why not the heart, or the kidneys or even the gallbladder? What happens to the brains after the zombie eats them? The zombies are dead so they can’t actually digest the brains, which means that after only a few feedings their bodies would literally be full to bursting with brains and they physically couldn’t eat any more. Then what? Do the zombies stop hunting for more brains and sit around waiting for the ones they already have to rot away? Do other zombies attack the brain-stuffed zombies to steal their eaten-but-not-digested brains? What about zombies without stomachs? Do the brains just keep falling out of them and do other zombies then pick up the brains and eat them? Can a zombie, who has eaten someone’s brains, simply reach into their own body and re-consume the same brains to satiate their hunger? Do zombies love? Can they get married? What kind of cake would be served at a zombie wedding? Who would DJ and what music would be played? Where would a newlywed zombie couple go for a honeymoon?

Hey. Why do I have a sudden craving for brains?

Wha Happen?!

I can’t believe it’s been over a week.

Where has all the time gone?! I’ve been running around like a mad chicken without a head for days now, doing things that are both disasterous and funny, and I haven’t had any time whatsoever to write about it until today. I mean, really wacky things are happening in my life. Like, really, really wicked cool, funky fresh and awesomely stupid things. But, because some very important things are still up in the air, I can’t really say anything about anything… yet.

Now, doesn’t that just suck?