WHEN YOU GET THE "URGE"

Tonight everyone had the "Urge" to go for a burger and a beer at URGE AMERICAN GASTROPUB.  


This happens to be a great little restaurant (although tonight very loud) with a terrific bar and a huge selection of beers.  


This is very popular venue and it was Friday night.  We arrived at 7:20 and the wait was 30 minutes to an hour (this, for me, is an eternity).  After about 20 minutes, we snagged a couple of couches and ordered drinks...in my case a Calico.

After about thirty minutes, we decided to check how the wait was going.  I was closest.  I sidled up to the podium to check it out.

My eyes raced down the page, quickly scanning the entries, there we were:

Henry--IN 7:22--30 to 1--Old Guy glasses

I started to laugh!

After years of spending time being politically correct, it all came down to "old guy glasses."


In hindsight, 18 months ago our reservation could have been the one at the bottom:

"redhead with man (big)"

Dinner was great!! and I got a blog out of it...what more could you ask.

Oh, yeah, he is my old guy with glasses...

and "old" is relative.

CAREENING THROUGH LIFE!

Careening---it is a great word!!

It means "to lurch or swerve while in motion."

To me it invokes a memory of one of the all time great moments from any movie.  The moment when Woody Allen (as Alvie Singer) follows Annie Hall to California and tries to drive out of the parking lot by careening off of all the cars...hmm, maybe caroming would be a better word.  As he backs up and goes forward hitting all the cars in the parking lot, while scenes from his childhood at his family's bumper car concession are interspersed.  Still makes me laugh to even think about it!!


I went to YouTube to send a link for this scene.  There are so many great scenes.

1. The little kids in school talking about what they do now--"I used to be a heroin addict, now I'm a methodone addict."
2. Killing the spider and finding the Erno Laszlo black soap.
3. La-Di-Da, La-Di-Da, La La
4. Christopher Walken talking about driving into the oncoming traffic.
5. Marshall McLuhan at the movies--you know nothing of my work...nothing
6. The lobsters at the beach house
7. The bumper cars

His new movie is pretty fabulous as well.  The man is a genius--I am not...moving on...


In this case, however, everyone was coming over for the family favorite meal of Black Beans and Rice.  This is a perfect family meal, but involves tons of slicing and dicing of every vegetable under the planet.  Now, faster than I can say "medium dice", Cliff has unsheathed his Shun and is chopping away.


Again, I digress.  When the troops descended, it was unbeknownst to me that Betsy had brought her dog Sierra.  A quick turn into the kitchen for me became a flip over the dog and careening to and fro through the kitchen--landing on my not so good left wrist....and come to find out...my middle toe.  It is twice it's normal size (not small to begin with) and black and blue.  We will tape it to the next one and move on.

Does she look guilty???

Because this picture was taken a long time ago!  Maybe it is an anticipatory guilt?

Speaking of accidents, one of my friends rushed her son to the hospital this weekend.  He was hurt playing "virutal soccer" on the computer....she just did not realize that he had a "virtual injury" until she had waited to see the doctor at Urgent Care and began describing his pain level at 8.5.  It is a new world friends, a Brave New World.

ROCK AND ROLL MARATHON

It was a gorgeous day in San Diego.  Today was the Rock and Roll Marathon and half marathon.  The day that Henry has been training for religiously mile after mile after mile after mile....I believe he has run 450 miles during the past year or six months (that felt like a year). 

 Clifford and I arrived at Fashion Valley and began our walk to the 163 highway to find Betsy.  This is Friars Road in front of Bloomingdale's.

 This is the on ramp to the 163 South Bound.

 This is the 163...and we are walking on it.

 Very, very cool!!

 I managed to find this horn at the Dollar Tree for (that's right) a $1.   It was orange...what more could I ask for???

 Betsy used her incredible skills at coaching, along with the orange horn and a cow bell to cheer her mentees from Team in Training on to victory--which in this case means finishing the marathon.

Betsy even managed to raise her coaching skill set to a higher level....the divide of the 163.

We watched thousands, and thousands of runners go by:  the Running Elvis', the TuTu Cute people (men and women in tutus of all makes and models), the British Palace Guard contingent (not the real ones, obviously, but they had the hats and the jackets), the man in the wrestling mask, and, my fave, was the barefoot, barechested man with the waist length grey hair flying behind him and the torn jeans...but I digress.

Cliff and I waited...and waited...

We awaited the arrival of Henry the Orange.  Suddenly, there he was...I screamed...

 I waved my sign...

 I yelled his name

 I waved my sign

 He was on a mission...

 He did not look up

No, he never did see us.  We were at the 7.1 mile.  Jen was at the 8 mile marker at Bloomingdale's and the band.  He was, as she put it, looking spry!!

Congratulations on a job well done!

13.1 miles!!!!

2 hours 39 minutes!!!!