Kon Chau Chinese Restaurant and Fifteenth Street Books

Don't let me order at restaurants anymore.  Please.  I don't care if I'm to be the death of feminism, please, just order for me like they did in the olden days.   It's definitely a universal law of some kind, like the Law of Attraction or Murphy's Law or something - whatever my dinner companion orders will be far better than what I order.  Went in for some dim sum at Kon Chau Chinese Restaurant with GS a whiles ago.  I dutifully compiled a list from Yelp reviews and used that to order.  BIG MISTAKE.  We basically ended up with a mishmash of starches that just didn't go together at all.  I guess it's kind of funny.  I had a bunch of leftovers.  Like Argentinians say, there's nothing that a fried egg can't improve.  The place was described as shabby on Yelp but I thought it was fine, though GS did mention the men's restroom smelled like a cat litter box.  I went to smell the women's room to compare and it wasn't so bad.  What do you guys do in there anyway?  We walked over to Lucky Oriental Market, which is in the same strip mall, to look for something that could wash the taste of failure out of my mouth.  God, I love that place - talk about local color.  It's run by Chinese Cubans who only speak Chinese or Spanish; to hear a wrinkled old Chinese lady call someone, "Caballero" is a freaking treat, let me tell you.  They have a whole bunch of weird things with undecipherable labels, it's a blast to visit.  I think that whole strip mall is being taken over by Chinese, actually.  There is an acupuncture place there, and since my last visit they opened the seediest looking Chinese Massage parlor.  For reals!  It looks straight out of Amsterdam.

GS likes used bookstores so we checked out Fifteenth Street Books in the Gables.  It's the location of the old Books and Books and on the same street as the new location.  Newish, I guess it's been like ten years by now.  The place is one of those utterly charming, wacky places that you can't figure out how they make enough money to pay the rent.  Obviously, they're laundering money.  Half bookstore, half antique store, it's run by a whispery gentleman who is in charge of the used books section, and by a pair of Hispanic ladies who run the antiques section.  Poor GS doesn't understand much Spanish so he was not able to appreciate the most awesomest lady there who made us Cuban coffee (in glass cups!  with saucers!) and proceeded to tell me the most hilarious details about her work relationship with the used books guy.  He asked me later what she and I were giggling about so much.  Ah, again, local color.

DeJongh Acupuncture Clinic

So even though I am broke and just had a pay cut and who knows what will happen with the layoffs and such...I decided to try acupuncture because I suffer from a whole host of vague maladies that make eating, drinking alcohol, smoking, relaxing, and sleeping difficult.  That's serious.  What else in life do I even have left to enjoy?  I'm in a constant state of discomfort.  And, as Wendy can attest to after our trip to Amsterdam, listening to me gag every morning and after every meal is no treat for anyone. 

After having a bunch of specialists look at me and diagnose gastritis, and chronic sinus infections, and a slipped disc, blah blah blah I decided I'd be better off looking for a more holistic approach, rather than treating my body like it's made up of separate organs/systems that have no influence or bearing on the others.  And frankly, I think all these symptoms are *in my head* - not that I'm a hypochondriac, but that they can be attributed to stress, or a blocked qi, or some such thing - I'm not actually sick.   I think.

The process of finding this acupuncturist was...a process.  It seemed a lot like dating: I got stood up once...and then someone knew someone that was perfect for me but they never hooked it up.  I found Ms. DeJongh when a patron who likes to *overshare* showed me her cupping  marks.  Long story.  Anyway, I was all like, bingo, my heart racing, thinking, could this be the one?  And when I saw that her office  was literally blocks from my apartment I thought - fate/kismet/destiny.  Yeah, I know I'm a kook.  It's only going to get worse.

She has free consultations, which is a bonus if you're not ready to commit (K, I'll drop the dating analogy, love you, bye-bye).  When I went for my first appointment, I actually had no intention of trying acupuncture.  I was hoping she'd have some super Chinese herbs that would spruce me up, but then I realized, I have got to really do something.  Cause I feel like shit, all the time.  The acupuncturist diagnoses you by listening to all your symptoms (who knew my excessive, old lady sighing was a symptom of something!), looking at your tongue, and taking your pulse at different spots.

My first treatment was today.  The room was set up pretty much like a spa, all good smells and new age music and dim lighting; the table you lay on in your undies is a massage table.  Personally, I jump at the chance to undress and pay people to touch and prod me.  My maximum going rate for this type of activity is a dollar a minute.  If I get it cheaper, kewl, but I won't pay more than that.  Haircuts, manicures, massages, all fall under the legal-jollies-I-pay-for category.  I would even put getting a dental cleaning in there, because I am not averse to a bit of pain, wink wink nudge nudge.  Oh, I only undress when it's appropriate, I should clarify.

Soooooo...she actually did begin with a few minutes of massage, a bonus I was not expecting.  She did cupping afterwards on my back, which felt like what you'd expect - getting eight marvelous hickeys from an overly amorous octopus.  The cups were cold, which I didn't expect, because I knew the acupuncturist uses heat to create a vacuum...but, anyway!  She did needles on my back, then on my front; I spent about 15 minutes with the needles in, on each side.  Only a few hurt going in, like in my wrists and tummy, but not so much that it bothered me...and most I didn't feel at all, or barely.

She did give me a bunch of Chinese herbs to take at home, which I am going to do religiously.  It's twelve pills, three times a day.  Luckily among my many talents is the ability to swallow pills by the handful.  I won't say how I learned I have said talent.  Man, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right.  It ain't cheap.  But, if it works, I can't pay enough for it IMO.  So, I don't feel much different right now, but I am doing a total of 6 sessions, so we'll see.  And now, back to the trenches.

FYI The name is Dutch, if you're wondering.  And the pills feel just like swallowing a handful of BB gun pellets.

Pickle Party

Went to a Pickle Party at M&M's apartment.  NO, it's not like hide-the-salami, it's merely a celebration of everything dill and fried.  Fried pickles, onions, and mushrooms, and Wendy's homemade pickles.  We skipped the pickle dirty martinis because, they taste terrible.  To be honest.  Saw the pictures that Monger, Mouse and Wendy took at Flugtag.  They braved the heat and risked heat stroke for good times.  I salute them as proud patriots.  I was at work, but who knows for how long; unless you have your head firmly planted in the ground you've noticed that this county (and country, and world) is broke.  Expect lots of reductions in service from your government agencies and please, try to be civil about it.  We don't like cutting hours and laying off people either, we don't do it just to cramp your style.  That is all.

Downtown

True Story: 
I had some training thingy downtown, and for lunch had some cheap pizza at a completely regrettable place I won't even dignify by naming.  You'd have to wander pretty randomly to find it by chance so I won't worry you'll eat there by mistake...and if you do, it's culinary karma, what I can do about that?  As much as I despise PC behavior, I found the owner's penchant for calling his delivery guy "Mejico" pretty damn offensive.

ANYwho, I took my leftovers to a nearby greenspace where the homeless were hanging and offered them to three different homeless folks, all of whom refused them.  The story in all this (finally):

Me: "Hi, I have some leftover pizza from lunch, would you like to have it?"
Homeless Lady, turns to the imaginary person next to her and asks this empty spot to her right: "This girl wants to know if you want some pizza, do you?"
She paused a moment, and replied to me: "No, she doesn't want any pizza.  Thank you."

On a somewhat related note, I hope I never become someone who won't eat a hot dog from a street vendor.  Just saying.