Don't Stop Me Now

Hey-yo!  As it turns out, I am at the tail end of a sort of bad day.  I didn't do anything aside from pout, sweat and kill a cockroach, thus ending a roach-free streak I was enjoying fondly for the last week or so.  How carefree and naive I was back then.  Thinking I could conquer the world.  Life comes at you fast, especially when you go to the bathroom and the light strikes the diaphanous shower curtain to reveal the shadow of a large cockroach meandering on the other side.  Though not necessary, I would like to stress that it was in my shower; the place I go to feel clean.  Don't worry; I took a picture.

Don't know where the missing legs went; some of the graininess is from leg shaving.  Maybe I should thank this guy for forcing me to bleach the tub. 

Before this, I sat at work, using my time without meetings to run out of things to do online and to finish my GRE practice test.  41 wrong answers.  I'll pretend that it is because I didn't eat breakfast, didn't pack lunch, forgot my badge this morning and couldn't leave to get food and come back without it.  But, in all honesty, it is likely not due to those things.  Kaplan won this round; I went ahead and bought three more study books.  I'm freaking out.

Before that, as in last night, I went to Ayala mall (AGAIN), this time to get my hairs cut and to meet up with that wonderful couple who took me to Catmon for dinner.  I went there directly from work, since we have a driver, and that meant I had three hours to kill.  The haircut was wonderful.  Things were showing mullety signs.  She made that go away.

Photo of me taken at the barber shop

I figured it was worth asking about, since things here are often much cheaper than at home.  You know how much it costs when you get your hair cut at a semi-nice place?  P120!!!  Currency exchange: $2.80.  Seriously.  And that was because I got my hair cut by the owner.  Simply amazing.  Still had time to kill though.  I bought something at a makeup store, mostly because they seemed to think I was shop lifting.  I don't blame them; I had no makeup on at the time.  But, I didn't really want to spend $16 on some eyeshadow.  I also bought stuff at another store because the women wouldn't quit asking me what sizes I wanted things in, and so I felt pressured.  I think I spent like $35 there.  Regret.  I regretted it even before I brought the stuff over to the cashier.  They know how to get me.

Dinner was great.  We went to a Bennigans knock-off, weird, dated Americana and all, called . . . wait for it . . . Casa Verde.  Um, why did they give this American-interpretation-of-Irish-themed restaurant a Spanish name??  Hahaha.

Knock-off Bennigan's

Aw.  They are wonderful people.

This one is for Weez

Brian's ribs.  I ate a lot of them.

Giant burger!  He had it cut into 8 pieces; if this were in America, we would feel challenged and have needed to conquer that thing.

It was a good time.   

Before all that, I went to AA!  Barbecue!  When you go to the awesome barbecue places here, you approach what is a buffet of uncooked meat of all sorts of animals and cuts.  You pick up what you want, hand it to them, they perform magic, and voila!  You are eating glorious food.  

Pork belly, giant squid, eggplant salad, more pork belly, vinegar stuff with green tomatoes that comes with most things here

Clam soup, chicken wing, spicy chorizo and some other type of pork

Dirty clams. 

An aside: my mom always tells a tale of one of her earlier attempts at hosting a dinner party.  She made and served some sort of clam dish.  She didn't realize that she hadn't cleaned out the clams properly, so everyone was eating sand and trying to be polite about it.  The point here is to say to Mama D: even the pros do it.  This restaurant serves tons of clams all the time, and theirs have sand.  Still good.  

These chilies are served with most things too.  You add them to the vinegar+soy sauce stuff.

Tomorrow is the big day.  I am going out with the office folk to a videoke bar!!!  I have a lot of Queen to get out.  

I made big promises and need to see a score of 100, especially since I was the one who pushed and pushed for us to go.  To be honest, I am getting nervous about it.  Why?  I have no idea.  Perhaps some mojitos will help.

Final weekend plans are not yet solidified.  I need to get on that.  They will likely involve the Outpost.  Maybe I will even luck into some plans after that with people too.  We'll see.