"...in her spare time Cathleen enjoys saving baby seals along the Bering Sea coast, putting in time at the local orphanage, and fishing garbage from the banks of Lake Merritt."

Jesus Christ! Pt. II

Last week we did a good deed and were rewarded with a free dinner of our choosing. The afternoon was getting on, the horizon paling salmon and orange... I was enjoying the Cowboys defeat on the tele, Cathleen was pulling clothes from a box rummaged in the garage. I was voting on each shirt, boo or somebody's gotta like that, get rid of it and occasionally, oh, very nice. We went through a few boxes and then hit the drawers. Despite the twenty shirts Cathleen tried on... oh, and the thirty hanging in the closet, and handful in drawers, she made mention of being short on shirts. This is an outline for future discourse on the subtle differences between women and non-metro-men.

Anyway, we got hungry and thought to cash in the karma ticket at this sushi place we've never tried. I thought it also sounded good cos I was feeling thirsty for sake and this place in particular has the bottomless option and is known throughout the neighborhood for its strange staff and owner who push exorbitant amounts of rice wine on the meek clientele. Well, so it goes... we walk down and the streets and shops are slow or closed cos it's Sunday and people are chilling in their homes and on patios. We find our joint and have a seat up by the chef and commence with an honorary, hands-behind-the-back sipping of our sake from square wooden receptacles (a sake ritual for first-timers apparently). The food is good, we order in waves and I'm really digging on the salmon cuts, but meanwhile every time our squares get lower they're filled again. The deal is, if you don't flip the fucking thing over they will be very pushy to refill it, no matter what level it's at. So we get trashed, unconditionally. Near the end, I'm starting to fight it a little bit and the lady of the house tells me she doesn't speak english, Only the Japanese as she fills my square for the umpteenth time against my wishes. I've always been part of the clean plate club... I just want to put that out there... in other words, this is a potentially disastrous situation for me. Somehow I manage to finish that portion too and quickly, I mean quickly, flip over my square. Cathleen does the same and we're having a good laugh at that cos we're having a nice evening, and the social lubricant has abounded. That's when the owner comes over, a slender smiley grayhaired man and he comes straight over to me and flips my square right side up, and refills the fucker. My reaction time is pretty slow at this point. The lady of the house is telling us a story about people not being able to find the door. Jesus christ!

We thank everyone and sign up our bill and head for the door. There's like eight people eating and eight people serving. The staff is shouting goodbye and we're doing the same. Just as we're getting a few paces from the place, the lady of the house comes running outside with a big smile and shouts after us, Can you walk straight? and all I can think to shout back is, You are such a bad influence! We stumble home in a drunken fashion discussing the restaurant approach of getting your customers shithoused and what that does for repeat business, and/or will they remember how the food tasted. It's called Coach Sushi cos the old grayhaired man use to be a baseball player, and then a baseball coach back in Japan. Now he's the coach of this restaurant, the supercute blondhaired hostess tells us, and I'll get in trouble if he sees me not keeping these full of sake. She has a wry smile as she says this, she knows where this is going. These people are crazy...

Justice is served

Did you see that?

Four news stations spouting garbage on the Seahawks upset-to-be, meanwhile playing at home where only one game has been lost? Redskins Win won for the Gipper propoganda, a ridiculous proposition following the death of their gangster, try-to-kill-em hitter Sean Taylor. Did anyone see one of the best passers in the game, with little credit behind him, come back in the fourth and demolish the Skins? It was a great game on both sides. Even in closing thoughts, any credit?... no.



Did you see that?

Hines Ward in the endzone Fourth and Goal, a hand in the facemask, a hand grabbing the shoulder? Defensive pass interference? Bumblebees getting a first down and going on to take the lead in closing minutes because of the bullshit call. I'm not seeing any mention of it in ESPN recap coverage. Are you kiddding me? Someone should be fired. Is this the fucking 2005 Super Bowl? Eat me Pittsburgh! Eat me officiating crew! It was hard earned tonight by the Jacksonville Jaguars. They had to go through multiple teams and they earned it. So let it be known, 2008 predictions are tried and true. Bumblebees fall and that is justice served!

Deprivation on so many levels...

I am taking a deep breath now and contemplating going back to bed. I've fulfilled my duties: stirred awake a friend upon the couch, put coffee in our delirium tremened hands, and managed to drive him to the airport. I rewarded myself with a shower and breakfast, a second cup of coffee.

I am looking at the calendar now. Cathleen has merged our lives such that a Gmail calendar foretells future plans with family, friends, and places along the way. We got nothing, it's beautiful. The only plan we had was called off this morning when I awoke hungover with a voice of gravel, foreseeing a day of Battlestar Galactica and new-fashioned ready-to-eat packaged food.

I have nothing to do. Future possibilities in employment lie dormant, hibernating through the annual budget analysis and holiday hangover. I spoke with a few employers yesterday, kind bored HR types issuing dates of the ten-step hiring process, consulting mundane calendars. "Thank you Mr. Reebs for applying. We felt your interview went very well and would like to string you along for another few weeks before a follow-up interview. How does that sound?"

I made friends last night. Local Oaktowners with major promise in vocational connections (through one's Daddy) and a future tennis partner to take the strain off Cathleen, who I daily ask for a tennis match requiring her to more often than not decline. It was a big dinner party at a friend of a friend's restaurant in Sebastapol. Four courses and forty dollar bottles of wine lining the table. Great conversation and a little yo-yo in the bathroom compliments of the chef. At a local watering hole we played shuffleboard and drank cheap bourbon. I somehow managed a lightning sobering act and got us on the road after one, pushing south 101 to a car filled with chatter and deafening music. Life can be so good.

I want to thank friends for a wonderful week. The love helped me stave nausea for Christmas, my least favorite thing to do... right up there with selling narcotics to children. I want to take a deep breath and manage to cleanse the temple a little bit, lay off the sauce until football rolls around. Want to tell the Bobicks that I respect their guys out there doing battle on the gridiron. May the best man win. And if you got any more lip, eat me.



My baby likes mimosas...

2008 predictions Pt. I

Seahawks walk over Redskins in a 2005 fashion.

2008 predictions Pt. II

Steelers fall early. Roethlisberger can't take the heat.

2008 predictions Pt. III

I will continue to eat and drink copiously of G-D's finest in the coming year.





This year's brewing will be better.

2008 predictions Pt. IV

Baby will buy us a goat farm up in the rugged hills of Carolina.



She'll be briefly be checked into a mental hospital following a run at modeling and the big lights of Los Angeles.



Balance will be regained and a life of love and leisure will resume.