Chocolate Hangover

I really didn't think it was possible. Today, I feel hungover. I am tired, my eyes hurt, my head is all stuffy and spinning, and my stomach is queasy. I had not a drop of alcohol last night. I seriously believe I am hungover from chocolate. Yep. The Great Wall Of Chocolate that is. If you've never heard of this, let me explain. This dessert (aka assault weapon) is available at PF Changs. It is in fact very very delicious and everything it's cracked up to be: A WALL of chocolate. It's literally a wall of chocolate cake and chocolate icing with choclate chips and rasberry sauce. If you attempt this dessert for the first time, I suggest you proceed with caution.

Race for the Curb

Saturday marked my second annual participation in the Komen Race for the Cure. Somehow, Cecile has managed to talk me into this two years in a row. Last year I had nothing better to do. This year, well, I had nothing better to do. Except sleep. She failed to mention that there is a category of participation called "Sn00ze" which means you can pay your $25 and not show up. Sounds good to me - had I only known.

RFTC requires a wake-up time of 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning (thank god I only live a block from the race sight), a 45-minute wait for the wall of race-goers to part in order to turn into the parking garage (also required a jump out of the car to assist the frazzled volunteer desperately trying to get the people to stop. I am quite sure that had it not been for my graceful jumping jack-style-arms-up-hands-spread-stop gesture we would've never made it. Even then the race-goers still tried to keep going although there were car wheels about to take out their toes), and a submersion into said sea of people waiting at the starting point in front of NorthPark bouncing to the likes of Celebration, Play that Funky Music, and My Sharona while waving their Susan Komen race towels (we arrived too late to get towels) into the air waiting for the Fun Run/Walk* to begin.

Once the race begin we found ourselves stuck behind "Team Taiwan" which had made a festive green Olympic/marching band-esque banner - a fun way to boost team spirit, but a certain way to slow traffic. We made several swift manuevers and pushed past Team Tawain, which were receiving spirited cheers from Jesuit high school freshmen volunteers: "Taiwan Rulz!"

Along the way we saw the aftermath of several wipeouts. All looked the same - victim being helped up/held by both arms by a slew of those concerned - wiping the grass/dirt off of scratched knees and t-shirts. More roadblocking.

Rounding the home stretch we saw a few front-yard tailgaters. Cecile was skeptical that their styrofoam cups contained alcohol at 8:30 a.m. But hey - I'm from Louisiana. Anytime folk are gathered with fat boy lawn chairs and styrofoam cups - I automatically assume there is drinking involved. And vodka does pair quite well with orange juice - I'm just saying.

Once we finished the race we scanned the promotional products alley (free stuff from Jamba Juice, Starbucks, Silk Soy Milk, Smoothie King, Subway, etc.) and determined there were too many people and too long of lines to wait for a 2 oz. shot of coffee. I did manage to snag a banana. Good thing we were meeting up with some of Cecile's co-workers at Kel's for breakfast.

If you haven't been to Kel's, they've got some good waffles. Not the fanciest place or the easiest to find. It's tucked behind a shopping center at Inwood and Forest. This will give you an idea of the atmosphere: Cecile kept asking if it was a truck stop.

Well there's race day for you. And my once a year attempt at doing something good for society - excpet for the check I write to SPCA every time they guilt trip me with those orphaned puppy mailing labels.


*There is no Run unless you want to risk certain trampling of small children/old people/dogs

Gestures

I found myself doing something the other day that I've noticed before but never really paid much attention to. But it's strange, the way that we, as humans, relate things to each other. Example: I was relaying a story that had been told to me over the phone. A boy that I was interviewing for a story told me how he broke in a Texas Longhorn, that he had to feed the cow these special pellets and if cow did anything bad, like swing his horns at the boy, the cow got no more treats. The boy also told me that the beginning stages of this training period were pretty rough. When he tried to put a rope around the cow, it would take off running. The boy described a photo that was taken of this where he was holding onto the rope when the cow took off running and it looked like he was skiing. Now, I must remind you that this was all told to me over the phone, I did not see the boy make any gestures while talking, I have not seen the behavior of the cow. But, when I retold this story to someone else, face to face, I found myself making hand gestures. I posed my hands like you would on a ski rope and I held out my hands as if presenting a treat and then pulled them back as if taking the treat away. Now tell me this, why would I come up with these hand gestures having never seen the actual actions, nor having ever seen anyone mimic the actions. Ah the power of imagination.

Reading Race

I am so looking forward to the weekend, I thought I was going to get the afternoon off, but there is too much work to do. People to call, stories to write, waiting for people to call back so can finish stories and go home, mail to open, questions to answer. So yeah, I can't wait for a little down time. I want to swing by Borders and pick up John Stewart's new book. Although I have to remind myself that after I took my dad to Half Price, which came about 2 weeks after I myself had made a trip there, I have a plethora of books on my shelf waiting to be read. To name a few, Contempt, American Gothic Tales (This is a collection of stories I had for a class in college - Gothic Literature - it's a great collection, and the class was great too, except I was definitely the sore thumb. In fact, I was a little frightened every Tues and Thurs morning at 11:30 that semester), Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Thanatos Syndrome (I've made some progress on this one), Infinite Jest (I keep promising to read this next), Heart of Darkness, A collection of works by by Ezra Pound, Eudora Welty's The Runaway Bridegroom, and more. I need to hole myself up for a month so I can catch up. That's always struck me as a funny phrase - catch up on my reading - like you're in a race and have somehow fallen behind and won't quite make it across the finish line in time. But yeah, hole up for a month - only reading, no television, no radio, no phones, no internet, just the books that are piled up on my shelf. Actually, scratch that. Go to the beach for a month - that's it - I can sit on the beach and read. See - there you've got no phones, no radio, no tv, but you've also got beautiful and calming surroundings, and a carefree vibe, which, I'm certain if holed up in my apartment I wouldn't have, especially because my apartment is already cave-like and it would only become worse. And I would constantly feel like I needed to clean or turn on the tv or check my email.