Random Esquire

1.  I went to a wine tasting last night with Instigator.  I drove her home while she clutched a box full of wine bottles on her lap.  She looked very pleased.

2.  While visiting my parents on Memorial Day, Little Filthy jumped up on the couch next to me and flopped over on his back.  This left his…er, little filthy in full view.  My mother came by and put a napkin over it.

3.  Kelly McGillis, the hot chick from Top Gun, came out.  She’s a lesbian now.  I regret to inform all lesbians that she did so past her prime.  Score one for the straight guys.

4.  Besos wanted to clobber me earlier this week.  This is because sometimes, I suck.

5.  I want to try my hand at portraits.  You may recall the pictures I took of Besos.  I may have a rule that everyone has to be naked.

6.  Little Filthy stormed the bed the other morning.  I had clean, folded clothes on the end of the bed and they went flying.  He doesn’t care.  If I toss warm-from-the-dryer laundry on my bed, he will instantly jump up and roll around in it.  He’s sort of impossible.

7.  My niece and nephew are in town next week.  I’m taking them to the zoo.

8.  I am perfectly shocked that someone from the porn industry hasn’t tried to buy littlefilthy.com from me.  It’s gold, people.  Solid gold.

9.  There may be a pilsner glass in the freezer calling my name.

10.  I need to plan my next big trip.  I must plan my September trip to Seattle.  Oh, wait:  “Crash with Chris and Bev.  Do what Chris does.”  There, done.  Next is Egypt.

Hm.  I wonder what kind of bugs they have there.

1.  A friend of mine wrote me an e-mail and warned me of a random topic subject.  She then said this:

“I called the BlueCross BlueShield Ask-a-Nurse hotline today to find out what in the world I’m supposed to do about suspected frostbite on my knee (mishap with a too-cold ice pack) and the nurse asked me if the redness and swelling (repeat: on my knee) was accompanied by vaginal discharge.”

*Blink*

2.  Did you read about this woman?  She called 911 and said she’d been abducted by two black men and was in the trunk of the car with her daughter.

Except really?  She was going to Disney World.

Sounds like something Bev would do.

3.  I considered taking a taxi home from work last night because I was beat and the thought of waiting for the train didn’t thrill me.  But I decided to save the $$ and hoof it like a trooper.  At the train station, I saw a woman I’ve seen many times before.  She was playing an instrument, swaying to the music a little.  The thing is…she reminds me of my grandmother and it sort of kills me to see her.  One day last summer, she was down in the hot train station and after I saw her, I left, bought a bottle of water and re-entered the station to give it to her.  It just seems wrong.  I don’t know.  Anyway… I was glad I walked.  As the train pulled up, I dropped my taxi fare into her box and disappeared into the train.

*sigh*

4.  Little Filthy was booted from the bed last night by Besos.  Apparently, she’s not learned to sleep with a dog on her face.  Or a tongue up her nose.

I have a buddy who is planning on breaking up with his non-girlfriend  shortly.  They’ve been seeing each other for two months.  We were hanging out a few days ago and when his mobile rang, he took a look, saw it was her… and groaned.  Not a good sign.  Heh.  And it does not look like she’s going to let go easily.  Facebook, Twitter,… so many ways to stalk, so little time.  I informed him that he should wait 2 weeks since the last time they had sex.  Plus, she just had minor surgery and is relying on him for some things.  So he’s pretty much f*cked.  Which, of course, I find delightful.

I have genuinely sympathy for him as it is hard to tell someone that it isn’t working out when you know they will be hurt.

Correct that.  I had genuine sympathy for him.  Until I got a text message from him in which he informed me that she got angry at him that day because he farted on her three days ago.  I laughed.

Then he mentioned that it was after she’d given him a blow job.

*Blink*

But let me back up.  Here’s a transcript:

RE:  Is it bad I sorta want yer nongirlfriend to stalk you for my entertainment purposes?

Friend:  Only if you come stand guard.

RE:  No way.  She will turn her black eye…the eye of Mordor…on me.

Friend:  Srsly, the “you farted in my face after I have you a bj” moment is now the touchstone of our “relationship.”  I didn’t mean it but I can’t explain it away.

RE:  Dude.  After a BJ?  You deserve the stalking.

Friend: Un, in the CONTEXT of the situation, not so bad.  And she’s farted on me!

RE:  You guys farted on each other after 2 months of dating?  Dude.  You are both kicked out of the human race.  I’m totally gonna blog about you.

Let’s pause here – because I’d like to point out that he somehow thought this could be explained away if I only knew the context.  And I’m here to tell you that it cannot.  Unless she was dying and his farts are the breath of life (which, unfortunately, I can tell you they are not and I have this knowledge after attending a movie with said friend who, upon finding seats, promptly farted me and I dropped my drink on the theatre floor.  Fun for all!), I’m not thinking that any context is going to help him here.  Anyway, continuing on:

Friend:   I swear it wasn’t “in her face” it was pointed in another direction.  And I”m pretty sure I’ve done/said worse.

This was followed by:

Friend:  I mean, HOW DOES THIS UPSET HER 3 DAYS LATER?

I really can’t stop laughing about this.

My neighbors’ patios are becoming flower be-speckled.  In fact, if you look down the row of patios, it is flowers, flowers, flowers.

Until you get to mine.  I’ve got a grill.

Last summer, I planted some herbs.  Admittedly, this was so that I would have fresh mint on hand for drinks because I was having a fair number of dinner gatherings and mohitos were the name of the game.  My female neighbor took pity on my patio and I came home from work one day to find a potted plant with flowers in it sitting outside my door.  Then my patio had herbs and one flower pot.

This past weekend, however, my male neighbor and I both found ourselves out on our respective patios and we discussed the sad state of affairs.  He has a grill, too.  Anyway, to make a long story short… we decided to clean up our act.  And in less than 30 seconds, it was clear that we were going to have a good, old fashioned…patio pissing match.

The next morning, I went to Home Depot.  Okay, do you know how many different kinds of flowers there are?  Average woman’s answer: “Well, there are petunias, marigolds, …”  I’d continue that statement but I can’t think of any other flower names to put in there.  Here’s what I thought to myself, “There are purple ones, yellow ones, pink ones…”

I loaded up the cart.  I got dirt first.  Then some pots.  Then I decided to get a jalapeno plant.  And a grape tomato plant.  And some herbs.  And then I looked at flowers.  I just grabbed some colors.

Back home, I spent an hour on the patio reading instructions on how to repot plants.  A few hours after that, I was done and pretty pleased with myself.  I was a mess.  I had a leftover 25 pound bag of dirt. (No clue what I was thinking there.)  But my patio had some color.  I swept the patio and congratulated myself on a job well done.  Within seconds, I became anal retentive and noticed dirt on the outside of the flower pots.  I wiped it off.  Then I saw dirt on the leaves of the plants which probably got there when I dumped dirt on them to fill in gaps in the pots.

I had a brilliant idea.  I ran inside and returned moments later to find my female neighbor out on her porch.  She was staring at my patio.  She smiled broadly at me and said that my patio looked great.  The smile, however, faded from her face within seconds…

…when she saw me use a can of compressed air to blow the dirt off the flower leaves.

I give it a week before everything is dead.

Today I found out some shocking news.  For those of you who know me, you know that I place a high premium on loyalty.  But today I found out that I’d been replaced.  By him.

(more…)

1.  I sounded pretty awesomely brave in my earlier entry on Costa Rica.  Let me work toward dispelling that image.  While in Costa Rica, Besos killed all the bugs.  I am not ashamed.  Hey, I’m rarely anything other than rational.  Grant me this.

2.  On to the bridge jumping, also mentioned in that earlier entry.  After I had climbed up the rocks and out of the water, grinning at Besos, I said to her, “I clearly jumped in to impress you with my bravery.”  She grinned.  I said, “Yup.  That was all to impress you.”  She smiled.  She politely said that she would never have done it.

From the family that was with us, the daughter and son in law jumped in the water after I did.  It was later that evening that Besos told me that she suspected, from overhearing some of the conversation, that the daughter is pregnant.

*Blink*

Lemme get this straight.  I climbed and  jumped off a bridge in the Costa Rican jungle into a swirling mass of water and congratulated myself on my bravery …

only to have a pregnant woman do it after me?

Boo!

3.  While in San Jose, Besos convinced me to eat at a little food stand in one of the markets.  Oh, and by ‘market’, I mean an open air tin building held together with bubblegum and picture wire.  And by ‘food stand’, I mean an open flame.  (Okay, sort of exaggerating… )  Two bad things happened here.  First, Besos happened to glance down she said, “I haven’t seen one of those since Mexico!”  I looked down.

…at a cockroach about 2 inches long.  I am pleased to report that I had no reaction other than to lift my feet a foot off the ground.

The second bad thing that happened was that Besos noticed a small child shoveling beans and rice in his mouth faster than the asthma kid sucks on his inhaler.  His shirt was full of holes and he was skinny as hell.  She wondered aloud, “I wonder if he’s homeless.”  I got up to pay the bill and said, “I’m going to buy him a soda.  And a sweet bread.”  I then went to the counter and tried to motion with hand signals to the boy and did he want a soda? or a pastry?  I’m making drinking motions with my hand and pointing under the counter as a sweet.

He stared at me and hardly moved.  I looked at Besos and she spoke to him in Spanish.  He hardly looked at her, eyes locked on me and then he responded to her.  I asked, “What did he say?”  She said, “That he’s not allowed to speak to strangers.”  It was about that time the boy’s father showed up and they had a whispered conversation.  The father looked at me.  I sighed.

In about 60 seconds, I went from friendly diner to creepy stranger offering soda and sweets to children.  Awesome.

Below are a few pictures – click to see the full size (for some reason, this doesn’t work with all of them).

1.  Runway in the jungle.

2.  Lizard.

3.  Bamboo

4.  Graffiti in San Jose.

5.  Gentleman who rowed us across a marsh (where, reportedly, a croc lived).

6.  Birds about to eat a little boy in San Jose.  heh.

We are back.  Pictures forthcoming but three quick highlights until then.  Besos may not travel with me again.

1.  Our first day on the beach in Manuel Antonio (we got to the beach by hiking through the jungle where we saw our first monkey), while Besos had dreams of sipping fruity drinks and sunning herself, I volunteered us to kayak out onto the ocean and snorkel.  Did you know that Besos is afraid of the ocean and can’t tread water?  I learned it when she practically grabbed me by the neck.  A good couple hundred yards from shore, we ditched the kayaks to snorkel by some rocks.  I ditched my life jacket so I could dive down to see more fish.  I suspect Besos considered ditching me to get back in the kayak.  Oh yeah, we wiped out getting back to shore and flipped the kayak.  Yes, we’re still dating.

2.  Did I mention that we took a small puddle jumper plane from San Jose to Manuel Antonio?  Well, we did.  About 15 passengers and huge windows.  Everyone stared outside except Besos who stuck her nose in a magazine and refused to look.  heh.

3.  We decided a fun ATV trip up into the mountains/jungle would be a lot of fun.  It ends with a hike up and across some bridges to a waterfall.  Did you know that Besos didn’t know how to drive an ATV and was afraid to do so?  I didn’t either.  Oh yeah…and she’s afraid of heights.  See?  You learn things about each other when you travel together.  I rode behind her.  She took great pleasure in coating me with mud with some fast spinning back tires.  Once up the mountain a bit, we hiked up through the jungle with our guide and four other tourists – a Mexican family (parents, daughter, son-in-law).  The guide asked if we were afraid of heights.  I said no.  Besos said yes.  We continued to climb, crossing bridges over rapid creeks and jumping stones.

As we continued through the foliage, the guide again asked me if I was afraid of heights.  I again told him no.  That was about when we began crossing a bridge.  He peeled off his shirt and climbed on to the bridge and told me that we would jump…into the water below.  I peered over the edge at the rocks and water.    I grinned.   Besos sighed.

So I climbed over the bridge rail after the guide, hands gripping the bridge as I looked down and then I kicked off and jumped.  I was pretty proud of myself when I came up for air.  Then the guide said, “Now, we will climb the bridge and jump from the top of that.  You’ll see the difference.”

Well, I’m not gonna lie.  It was different.  Besos filmed it this time as I climbed on top of the wood bridge, shook my arm in the air in triumph and then leaped.

The best part?  On the tape, you can hear the Mexican mother and Besos speaking and when I hit the water…the woman screams.  When I watched the tape, I asked Besos what the woman had said.  She said that the woman had said, “Look at your friend!” and then Besos calmly responded and told her that yes, I was crazy.  And then I jumped.

Dude.

Kick.

ASS.

Well, Besos and I are off to Costa Rica for a week.  Time to unwind!  I hope you all have a great week.

-R.