Friday, January 12, 2007

Walking with my cat in rainy Vegas, drinking a mocha. (Or something like that...)

Some random thoughts today, since I have nothing very coherent:

It’s been gray and dreary the last few days, and it’s expected to stay like this for a while longer. I hate days like this – when I wake up in the morning, assuming it’s barely six or six thirty, only to discover half the morning is already gone and I’d better get out of bed so I can trek down to Seattle’s Best for my morning coffee. It takes a little longer to wake up, a little longer for the sleepy fog to clear, a little longer to realize it might make things a bit brighter if the kitchen lights were turned ON. (I just turned them on… and it’s two o’clock in the afternoon. I just NOW figured out that those bulbs up on the ceiling are capable of casting illumination into my dark abode. I am brilliant. Not as brilliant as those lights, obviously. But brilliant nonetheless.)

I just discovered a great new coffee drink – mom and dad and I met Rick for lunch this afternoon, and afterwards we stopped by It’s A Grind. It’s A Grind is a coffee shop Rick and I first discovered out in San Diego, and they’ve slowly been adding new shops across the country. Their hot drinks are good, but what we like even more are their cold blended drinks – I’d take an It’s A Grind blended coffee over a Starbucks frappuccino any day. But they just added a new hot drink to their menu, something called an “Aztec mocha.” It’s a mocha with cinnamon, chili, and spices added. When mom read the description, she was a little skeptical – “CHILI? In a mocha?” Chili and chocolate is actually a popular combination in the Southwest. In fact, there’s a restaurant in Austin called Z Tejas that serves a “famous” ancho chili fudge pie. And while I’ve never actually tried it myself (why haven’t I tried it?? I don’t think I’ve ever had dessert at Z Tejas… I’m going to have to remedy that… ), food critics seem to love it. Chili helps to bring out the flavor of chocolate. So it’s no surprise that I LOVE the Aztec mocha from It’s A Grind – I’d have to say it’s my favorite mocha of any coffee place I frequent. Those Aztecs really provided a great service to the culinary world by introducing everyone to chocolate…

You know those commercials for Las Vegas – “what happens here, stays here”? They confuse me. Every one is the same sort of thing – a wife asks her husband what he did while he was in Vegas, and he laughs nervously and says something about going to Cirque du Soleil. Or parents come back from Vegas, and their kids ask about what they did, and the parents look at each other and blurt out something about Wayne Newton. Etc, etc. I want to know WHAT it is these people are doing in Vegas. What is it that happens there and has to stay there?? Are they all having wild affairs? Shoplifting? Being arrested for public drunkenness? Pulling a Britney Spears and getting married and divorced in the same weekend? What IS it, exactly? I mean, it’s not like every hotel room in Vegas comes with a hooker and a minibar stocked with illegal drugs. I was just in Las Vegas last year – I walked around in the 105-degree heat. I bought a much-too-expensive designer shirt (which I only bought because it was on sale – the regular price was a ridiculous amount to spend for a shirt…). I drank a couple margaritas. I watched some lions in a glass enclosure at the hotel. I ate some great food at some great restaurants. That’s about it. And now I feel so shortchanged – apparently I was supposed to do something else… something that would be a secret forever and no one would ever know about. I guess I have to go back some time and try a little harder to be bad… yeah, I’m gonna drink THREE margaritas… AND buy a designer shirt at FULL PRICE…

Why is it that my cat will never sleep on my lap like some cats (Ozzie and Kiko, for example…) but she WILL sleep on a pillow if I put it on my lap? What, my lap isn’t squishy enough? (I suppose that should be a compliment to me… I don’t think I’d WANT my lap to be “squishy.”)

Speaking of squishy laps – I’ve been wearing my pedometer every day the last few weeks. I’m trying to average 12,000 steps a day. They (whoever “they” are) recommend 10,000 steps a day, so I’m aiming for a bit more than that. It can actually be surprisingly difficult to reach that magic “10,000” mark… even more, I would imagine, if you had a desk job that kept you seated for many hours during the day. You’d have to get up every fifteen minutes or so and walk a few laps around the office. Which probably isn’t such a bad idea anyway…

Well, I’m only at 5,084 for the day, so I should go walk a few more laps around my house (or maybe just jump on the treadmill…). Need to work off that yummy Aztec mocha…

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