I’m updating because Case is in NYC visiting family and I have, for company, a deaf cat (who is also cranky) and some coffee and beer and I think there’s some bacon and possibly yogurt around here somewhere. I figure Case might stumble on this and read it and see what I’ve been up to. Ordinarily, I would think “no one could possibly ever be interested in this stuff,” but Casey actually might be.

In addition to sending suggestive text messages to my recently published friend (grats, Carrie), gate camping with Stephan (it’ll make sense to him, the rest of you don’t need to know), and watching bits and pieces of odd TV (Generation Kill, good, The Craft, omg it’s only been 12 years?), I went to the special nerve doctor (I still have nerves), got the car washed, bought groceries (two pounds of bacon, two pounds of sausage, two pounds of oatmeal, and one pound of coffee—seriously), and … man, it seems like I did more than that. Uh. I guess I didn’t.

Here’s a shopping tip: tienda hispana. That’s Google’s language gizmo’s version of “shop hispanic,” only it’s probably wrong (and offensive to my Hispanic friends, one of whom has told me “Hispanic” is like “Negro,” e.g. deprecated as a term anyone you’re trying to describe with it wants to hear. Help me out here, mis amigos). One 16oz jar of instant coffee (get off it, it’s a lot better than it used to be and it’s a hell of a lot faster) costs how much? Well, if you speak and shop exclusively English, it’s $8.95, something like that (might be $8.97, magical bullshit supermarket nonsense). However, if you know that Clasico probably means the same thing as Classic, and Nescafe means the same thing as Nescafe, you’ll get the same 16oz jar of instant coffee for … $4.50. Or $4.97 or supermarket bullshit. Cheaper by almost half. Appears to be the same product (I sure as hell can’t tell the difference).

Think I’ll go have some right now.

We don’t “usually” order out, but we have been for the past few months, especially on Fridays since it tends to be an unpleasant work day for us, and since we haven’t gotten groceries lately, and there’s a place near here that does pretty good pizza. Sick of pizza, we ordered gyros (and a small pizza because they’ve got a minimum order thing going on).

So halfway through this gyro, on the edge of the plate, I notice that this sliver of red onion has suckers. And isn’t red onion.

There are a few things I won’t eat. Well, a few food items I won’t eat. Horses, dogs, cats—companion animals who put their faith in us and serve us in ways that I’d call relationships of one kind of another. If I had a cow that did my taxes, I wouldn’t eat that, either. And primates, because that’s dangerous. And lamb, because my father won’t eat lamb, which (like many things in my family) I discovered by accident and was told “yeah, but don’t bring it up,” so it’s a mystery and it’s kind of like a “really? huh …” sort of thing, so I don’t eat lamb because I guess I’m doing this half-assed honor thy father thing.

And I don’t eat cephalopods. Because they might be really fucking smart. Some people think maybe as smart as we are, but in a different way. And I’m just not down with eating shit that might be as smart as I am, but in an alien way, because you know, that kind of shit got a lot of dudes in trouble in black-and-white movies.

And I’m especially not down with eating the flesh of alien-intelligent creatures that might someday seek revenge if that flesh happens to fucking be raw, which this fucking tentacle certainly was. I don’t even know if I ate any, but there was absolutely some raw tentacled flesh on this plate.

My wife called the restaurant, they offered to bring more food out (“nope, he’s pretty much off his feed at the moment”), and ultimately promised to “take care of us” at some later date, also offering the apologia that “it’s a small kitchen, and we’re very busy.” They were apologetic, which is really all I was after.

Interesting aside. Peter Benchley, the dude who wrote Jaws before it was a movie, also wrote a book about giant squid. I heard him interviewed about it, and the scrupulous and in-depth research he’s known for, and he said that through many first-hand accounts and through all the literature he was able to find regarding it, the giant squid was universally considered to be an animal that held grudges. It would get pissed off at specific boats, remember them, and then try to fuck them up later.

If I die—from food poisoning or revenge from the briny depths—I guess this will be my last entry.