I took Elizabeth to a Lebanese place for dinner on Friday. We drive by when I drop her off at the art studio she's spending time at. The name and decor are not indicative of Lebanese food but it's a really neat looking place and E is a sucker for anything with the suffix -noush, -mous, or -ouli. Patchouli being the only exception.
So it turns out I, the pickiest eater on the planet, can be quite happy at a place like this. I love the rice with the vermicilli mixed in and they love making kabobs of meat. It's right up my veggie-hating alley, actually. E gets all sorts of pastes and sauces and non-meats. She loves it, which is why I'm game to bring her to places that generally aren't high on my restaurant priority list.
We also had Lebanese wine. It was a tasty blend of Cab, Cinsault, Mourvedre, and Grenache.
Saturday she was getting her hair done early and we were heading to have dinner at a friend's place later. In between we made Elizabeth's Ice Box Cake. It's so good that I ate it for breakfast the last time she made it. Basically you make some homemade whipped cream and use it like spackle to smush chocolate wafers together in a circle. They should be on their sides like a slinky formed into a circle. Lots of delicious cream in between each cookie. Then you use the rest of the cream to completely cover the cookies. Voila! You've got a kickass dessert that tastes like the best oreo you've ever had. It's light too, so you fatties can get more down.
Sunday we went to the zoo. It's something she hadn't done since being a kid and I had only done once since I was too young to remember. While it's fun to to stuff like that it's also maddening because you get to witness the shittiest people on earth doing their thing. I'll explain.
You know how ducks are suckers for sno-cones? Yeah, me neither. But that didn't stop a kid from dumping his over the railing, almost hitting a duck in the head. What did the dad, who was holding him up do? Absolutely fucking nothing! Not for a single fucking second did he take the time to explain to his kid that what he did was wrong. Look, I know kids do some stupid shit before you have a chance to grab them sometimes, but for the love of the big bang theory you've got to put in a little fucking effort after the fact or your little retard child is going to grow up just like you. Little boy blue and the man on the moon...
Hey, you've seen a peacock before right? They've got that long plumage extending a good five feet off the back of their body. It definitely looks odd. Beautiful, but odd. So this particular zoo has free range animals, of which peacocks are the most interesting and prevalent. Despite signs telling you to not touch the free range animals, or to not run around them, or to generally not approach or bother them, can you guess what both kids AND adults were doing?
How about stepping on the fucking plumage! How about kids running after them and trying desperately to touch them. Fucking ADULTS trying to pet them. And again, not a single parent was doing anything about their kids breaking the rules and scaring the shit out of the birds. Nothing. Look, I'm not perfect. I've done a couple stupid things in my life and I make mistakes. But goddamit there was someone there to point out what I did was wrong and correct me so I didn't grow up to be a completely selfish douchebag with zero respect for anything but myself. Correct your fucking kids when they do something wrong or I will...I will...blog about them and call you a douchebag.
So there!
Later, we see a woman drop her little ziplock bag containing pink wafer sticks for her kid. One of the many kids opting to not walk at all and instead be pushed around in carts or strollers. Those future fat bastards are going to be sitting next to us all on flights some day. Awesome. So anyways, there were about 5 left and the bag fell open and to the ground. A couple fell out and a couple stayed in. The mom apologized to the kid for ruining her snack, kicked the wafers off the path and walked on. We were literally 20 feet from a garbage can.
But my favorite thing was not someone disrespecting the zoo, it's animals, staff, the environment, other people's property, and anyone else in their path. It was a guy trying to do a nice job for his kids near the turtle habitat.
They were behind us and we'd already ascertained that there were no visible turtles at the moment. This guy and his kids was behind us and approaching the area. As he gets close he says in a somewhat slow, sing-songy drawl:
"Look, there's a big ol' turtle."
I take a quick look over and note there are still no turtles.
About 5 seconds later...
"Nope. That's just a log."
Log, turtle, it doesn't matter. The guy was trying. That's all I ask of you assholes out there. I understand that your fat little kid is going to chuck his sloppy joe at an animal. He doesn't know any better. And he isn't getting much distance with his chubby little arms, anyways. But can we agree that you ought to go ahead and explain to Chunk that he wasn't supposed to do that? Maybe put the fear of god in him if he chooses to do it again? Take away his fifth order of dippin' dots? Something?
Anyhow, we finished the day at a local brasserie that has a happy hour that offered half off specials on everything we love. Frites, moules, beer, and even thin crust pizzas were all half off.
Maybe it was a little karmic payback for not being complete douchebags.
