Saturday and one more day of vacation

I am just starting to get used to doing my own thing and here the vacation is over already. I feel that I should have accomplished something great for the two weeks that I had: like go on a boat trip to the Caribbean, climb mt. Kilimanjaro, or at least shoe the effects fo two weeks of solid exercise and non-smoking, but I have accomplished none of the above.  It has just been a nice time off albeit lonely at times.

Yesterday I went with C and N for lunch at a pizza place where 5 or 6 cop cars arrived and were taking pictures, etc just like on CSI.  It turns out that some guy on a bicycle stole a lawn-mower and was pulling it on his bicycle when a neighbor saw him and follwed in his car.  The guy panicked, unhooked the mower and charged off on his bike into 3300 South across the traffic.  Well a truck hit the guy and he ended up in critical condition in the hospital, and the cops had a MAJOR crime scene to process.

S and D invited me to a Russian evening today.  They do not take these evenings lightly and we started off the evening at their house with black pepper crackers, fish and Vodka (the Vodka was ICE-COLD and served in iced little tumblers.  “Na Zdorovie”. After two vodkas, we went off to Rasputin. As expected, S&D checked the restaurant for a liquor license and air-conditioning and menu options before we arrived.  Although Rasputin did not have air-conditioning, they did have a swamp cooler and this was considered OK for the evening (remember the temperatures here are around 103 degrees.  S,D,L, E and myself arrived in style in the hybrid car and ordered some interesting Russian dishes starting with a Borcht (Russian beef and veggie soup).  The waiter was stoic Russian and found no humour in any of our comments:

D: “Do you have something small for the little girl?”

Waiter: “No, everything is big”

P: “When do the Russian dancers come on?”

Waiter: “No Russian dancers”

Maybe it was the defective swamp cooler that put the waiter in a bad mood in any case.

We noticed that the cook seemed to be a Russian ouma.

As we were leaving, we noticed the ouma carry our left-over water glasses and pour the left-over water into the portable swamp-cooler.  Mmm, this kinda freaked S out and her mind was working overtime on the food processing techniques in the kitchen that we did not see.

After dinner, we bought some icecream and went back to the house where we chatted and played until just now.  The evening was quite diverse with discussions around the technicalities of the Comcast cable internet connection signal levels, the new carpet and planned custom window covering, the past and future of our kids, love stories and the possibility of starting a dinner/dance club … and we were not even intoxicated. Although I must admit to being surprised to learn about the wild pasts of my hosts.