No caffeine...

There is no caffeine in my coffee... I guess I need to say that louder. THERE IS NO CAFFEINE IN MY COFFEE! This is because there is no caffeine in my house; there's only de-caffeine and it just doesn't cut it. Normally I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do (well, almost) is make a pot of coffee. I use Central Market's Double French Roast and Double French Roast Decaf. I use mostly leaded, but I throw in some of the unleaded just to prove I am NOT an addict.

I ran out of leaded yesterday morning, actually, but did I remember to go to the store and buy some? No. I did not. Instead, I went to lunch downtown at the Moonshine Grill with Aline. A lady in Ricë's yoga class had told Ricë about it and Ricë asked me if I'd been there, and I said, no, at least not since it's been the Moonshine. It used to be a restaurant called Emilia's, and I'd been there (at least once with Aline, come to think of it, along with Ray and Anne and Gus), but I'd never been to Moonshine.

Ricë's friend had told her that something there was 'FABulous,' but I couldn't remember what it was. So before I get to the restaurant, I called Ricë to find out what was fabulous, and damned if she could remember. "Honey, I can't remember what I ate yesterday, let alone what someone else ate two months ago!" I was on my own.

Well, except that I was with Aline, and she got there first and had already ordered the corn dog shrimp, which is exactly that: big shrimp, skewered, battered in corn dog batter and deep-fat fried. (Of course I could just say fried, but 'deep-fat fried' is so much more euphonious, is it not?) (See what happens when I don't have caffeine? Words like 'euphonious' start popping out of my hands before 7:30 in the morning!) Next we had fish: the Broiled Rainbow Trout for Aline, and the Horseradish Crusted Salmon for me. These came with vegetables (carrots, al dente, and lovely summer squash and zuccini) plus a side. Aline got the polenta and I got the sweet potatoes. I was, of course, very tempted by the Coffee and Ancho Rubbed Half Chicken, too.

It's not that we weren't full, but when you're trying a new restaurant, you should always have dessert. So we had the Signature Skillet Apple Pie. The menu says "It's Big!" and boy, howdy, they aren't kidding! We left half of it, not because it wasn't good, but because we were already pretty full, and, umm, it's big! And we had coffee (two cups for me) and then we were ready to leave.

Aline had valet-parked, but I had opted for the free parking down the street. So I mosied down the street just in time to see a woman pushing an older car around the corner... By herself... Holding the steering wheel in one hand while pushing the car.

I quickly dumped the stuff I was carrying in the front seat of Yax, my trusty little '95 Honda Civic, and went to help. Another guy saw her, too, and the two of us managed to push her car into a parking space while she actually sat inside it and steered. She was already cussing a blue streak, and I was having a little trouble understanding her, but I think what she told me that she had borrowed the car from her boyfriend to go visit him and run out of gas. This made no sense to me, but she still needed gas, and a gas can, and I can do that. So Julia and I set out for the gas station a few blocks away.

I really was having trouble understanding her. She was telling me about her boyfriend telling her to 'shut up,' and how she told him he had to say it louder, because she couldn't hear bad talk and he'd better not be talking any... And there was something about an old lady in her neighborhood who told her that he was "A wannabe that don't know how-to-be." Yeah! We filled up my gas can and drove back to her car and I left her and the gas can beside the road, cursing. Not at me, of course, but at the boyfriend for lending her a car with no gas in it.

I could've waited to get the gas can back, but handing out gas cans to people in distress is a mission I have taken on in life. It has to do with someone saving my life once, but that's a whole 'nuther post.

Or a sermon, if you're a Unitarian. I've already subjected Ricë's Unitarian fellowship to it, and, no doubt in time, I'll subject others. You may be next. Unitarian or not... Be warned.