Table For Two

We walk up to the man behind the little lectern, hoping there will be just a short wait.
"Hello, Table for two?"
"Uh, yes please."
"Okay, that will be about fifteen minutes. You can have a seat at the bar. When the pager goes off just come back over here."
The man hands me a gizmo that looks a bit like a bad Star Trek phaser.
Again with the seat at the bar. Inside my head I am screaming No! No, goddamn it. I would not like a seat at the goddamn bar. I don't want to get drunk before I eat. I'm fucking starving and if I have a drink or two on this empty stomach I will be drunk before I even sit down for dinner, you moronic little man behind your stupid little lectern. Except I don't say that. I don't say exactly what I'm thinking because the maitre d' would hate me, Mark would hate me, and the waiter might just spit in my food if he heard me. So again I am sitting at a bar on an empty stomach sucking down my first vodka drink. I know that the bar is the life blood of these restaurants, and they need me to sit here and have at least one drink at twelve dollars. Doesn't matter if the actual food, the dinner, is a two for one early bird special. They get you at the bar.

Thirty minutes later the Star Trek phaser starts vibrating, and little lights are flashing as if it were about to explode. It instills a sense of urgency in me.
"C'mon, pay the bartender and let's go."
I guess that I fear they will give away our table if I don't run over to the maitre'd right away. Fact is they will. You have about a one minute window of opportunity before they go on to the next customer.

We make it over to the lectern, and a nice lady shows us to our table. The waiter comes around and the first order of business is making sure I have more vodka.
"Can I get you a drink sir?"
By the time the food comes I've had at least three drinks, and I'm shoving food into my mouth that I cannot taste because my tongue has a coating of vodka on it. I might as well be eating a sponge.
Halfway through dinner the waiter comes back over.
"Can I get you another drink sir?"
"Sure, vodka soda, no lime."
Okay, so maybe the problem isn't the restaurant.

Dogma

Some people don't value dogs very much. They consider them a nuisance, and not worthy of their time. Such people do not recognize that dogs have emotions, and attachments to humans. I know better. I also know that they can help out humans in ways you never expect.

If a white man tells you he or she is not racist, or does not harbor any racist thoughts, they are either lying or simply cannot recognize what a racist thought is. When I was fourteen I thought that I wasn't racist, that I didn't hate negros (We called them that back then, except when we called them niggers). For the next fifteen years I believed that, and then I drove a taxi in Chicago for two years. My racism came flowing out in long tirades. It was ugly and persisted through the next decade. As I entered my forties I softened somewhat, and then I met Mark. Now I'm not saying that I overcame racism overnight, but the fact that the man I fell in love with happened to be black, helped me tamp it down to a subconscious hum. I found that every time I saw a black person and I had a racist thought, if I would picture that person as being Mark, they would be rendered human. Thuggish looking kid walking down the street? Put Mark's face on him, and he was family. I did this over and over again until I actually became a bit more tolerant of black people than Mark himself.

On the first of May a new family moved in across the street. Damn they looked ghetto. And instead of picturing them as family, I pictured them as fucking up my property values. I was not happy with my new neighbors. Even Mark was upset, "They look like they moved here from Sistrunk." Turns out they did move over here from the ghetto off of Sistrunk Boulevard.

Just a couple of days after they moved in I was walking my little Schnauzer, Sasha. As we passed our new neighbors place a little girl came wobbling down the sidewalk, "Doggy, doggy." She was followed closely by her father, a large, and very tough looking black man.
"She loves dogs. You don't mind if she pets your dog do you?"
"No, Sasha loves people."
Sasha wiggled and squealed in delight as the little girl scratched her back.
"My name is Tony, and this is Gina." He then introduced me to his wife who's name I don't remember (I have trouble with that, remember?). We talked for a little while, and then Sasha and I finished our walk. Turns out this guy is just trying to bring up his little girl in a nice place. Now every morning as I walk by with Sasha or Chandler, Tony says hello, and I wave and say hello back. Sometimes I walk up to their porch and we chat a bit while Gina plays with the dog. Things could have gone another way, I'm just glad that I had Sasha to lead me up the good path. Our new neighbors still could fuck up my property values, but I don't care about that as much now.

Memorial Day

Photo Friday, The Devil and Dad and Mom

Mark has been shopping again. He brought home this hideous creature,

 and what's worse he put it on the table right next to dad and mom. 

"It's art." Mark said. And then he added, "It's was only a dollar."

I promised him a 'Christmas Story' moment.

Video Thursday, The Reverend Worley Comes Out

Pastor Charles L. Worley comes out to his congregation.

See the original, click here

For those who can't make out what he's saying in my video, here is the transcript.
I'm a homosexual lover.
You say, did you mean to say that?
You better believe I did.
Do you know why I'm a queer?
I imagine kissing some man.

My Secret Inner Office

I grew up in a house with ten brothers and sisters. Is it any wonder that I love the fact that I have my own bathroom now? Until I was twelve we only had one bathroom in the whole house. Now as an adult I get to go into a bathroom that rarely has the imprint of anyone else's butt on the seat, or strange hair in the sink. Mark has his bathroom, and I have mine. I truly treasure the privacy of my little tile lined sanctuary. When I was a kid you could be sure that somebody would be pounding on the door before you were done. Now I can stay as long as I want. Well, almost as long as I like, for no matter what the time of day, as soon as my ass hits that toilet seat it is guaranteed that either the dogs will start barking, or the phone will ring. I have learned to ignore those interruptions though. If it's the phone, the answering machine will pick it up. As for the dogs barking wildly because somebody is knocking at the door, I've found over the years that the UPS truck is already halfway down the street before I've pulled my pants up. Let them bark.

Murphy

It seems that when you get involved with a dog shelter, dogs start falling into your lap. Since I've been volunteering at Abandoned Pet Rescue I have been involved in at least four stray dog affairs, including the one who got run over by a truck when I called to it.
I definitely learned my lesson on that one. Yesterday while my friend Dean and I were on our way to APR to walk dogs, we spotted a cute little Boston Terrier running around in the middle of a very busy street. We stopped the car, and I jumped out and into the street with my hands up, stopping traffic. I made a point of not making eye contact with, or calling the dog. Like I said, I learned my lesson. When I got to the other side of the street where the dog was, he ran right up to me. Luckily for little Murphy, who had no tags nor a chip, his owner called Abandoned Pet Rescue within an hour. When they were reunited I suggested to the owner that he get tags at the very least, and that a chip would be a good idea. He looked at me and said, "Oh, Murphy never goes out. He doesn't really need that."
I swear, if I ever see that dog running around in the street again, Chandler and Sasha are going to have a new brother.