Matinee Movie Wednesday

Lunch and a movie. Couldn't be a better day for it. I've had technical difficulties all day Tuesday, and so a break wouldn't be a bad idea. I got myself into such a pickle today that I nearly had a brain freeze. Finally Sitenoise came to my rescue. And once he's here on my side of the screen moving the cursor around for me, doing this and that so fast and with such ease, that I really can't figure out how I so messed things up that I didn't have a dock or a dashboard, no way to shut a program down or force quit anything. I finally manually turned off the computer, the external hard drive, unplugged everything one thing at a time, and finally it rebooted. Then I had a teeny, tiny dock. Then Phillip got home from his evening outing to rescue me, via screen sharing all the way from San Francisco.

This week's movie is catch up time. We are long overdue for a movie what with me feeling sickish for months. Now I feel better. And we are months overdue on Nick's Birthday Lunch. So it's Italian food for lunch and then we're going to see the Soloist. While Phillip was putting my blog world back together, he asked me if it was a good restaurant. I said, "I don't know, I've never been there. He asked me how I decided if an Italian restuarant was any good. And I told him if they could make a Spaghetti alla Carbonara correctly they were a good Italian restaurant. And then a conversation insued about the "correct way to make a Spaghetti alla Carbonara. I'm a stickler for a classic. No garlic in a Carbonara, I said, no olive oil, but I might be wrong on that. But basically it's spaghetti, raw egg, Italian bacon, and the fat from the bacon. The spaghetti is cooked al dente, the bacon cooked, then the hot fat and raw eggs whipped and are drizzled from their separate containers onto the hot pasta as the pasta is turned and stirred. So to make it well it takes impeccable timing and three hands working simultaneously for this dish to work. Simple ingredients, three hands working in perfect concert, a good hard grated cheese and freshly ground pepper. That's it. What must be obvious is that unless you are Shiva, it takes two to Carbonara. Phillip suggests that garlic is a good addition, I say no. Then just as I become completely dictatorial and shrill Ms M comes to my rescue, saving me from myself. I was starting to sound like Mussolini.

Down and Out, But Not IN London And Paris

I've hit bottom. Into my gut it has struck. I have a gastrointestinal disturbance. See I can talk nicely about these things. "These things" may be funny in their way, what with the sounds and smells and all, but not at a fancy restaurant, and not attempting to sit through a movie--I almost said "shit through a movie." So far I've spent some close personal time with my toilet. No vomiting yet, but I'm told by two girlfriends who visited in the last week, that vomiting is a component of this particular bug. So I will keep the puke pan next to the bed.

I was going to try to tough it out and go on my scheduled late birthday celebration for Nick. Since I was late to begin with, I'm now on the hook for making it real special. Well nothing says special like having your lunch date farting at the table and running to the crapper. That wasn't so nicely said, but some things require plain talk. And a movie is out of the question today.

I should just buy him a first class ticket to Paris. He speaks French.