We Reserve The Right To Refuse To Stop Talking About You

Life apparently does not mean to allow me to continue to be sad.

I mean, I am still sad. But life did kick me right up out my funk last night.

The Artist was supposedly leaving town last night, but he called me before he left to talk about work. We were going to do a job today, but it was gross and wet and mangina-inducing cold out, not conducive to work outdoors. Being as how I was both mopey and hungry, I got him to go out and eat Mexican food with me.

The great Mexican divide. We have three Mexican restaurants that we like. One of them is very far out in my hometown and we usually eat there only on long commute day or other times when we're in the town where our moms live. We lurrrve this restaurant. They lurrrve us back. It's run by the guy who used to be the general manager of the horrible Tex-Mex chain, Loco Lupes', and made enough money that when they closed down he opened his own place in the old Shoney's. That guy's been seeing me for takeout nachos since, like, 1999 or something. They give us the best table in the smoking section when we dine in and give us twice the normal amount of queso when we carry out. We don't eat there unless we intend to tip 40%.

There's a decent place in Green Hills that Design School Homie likes, but the Artist and I haven't eaten there.

Then there's La Hacienda.

La Hacienda is basically a Mexican restaurant that feels like the high school lunchroom. The prices are a little high for the atmosphere -- very bright, very loud and very close to other diners -- but there's always soccer on the TV and they give you enough meat and cheese to make five or six fajitas. Woo. (Their queso, I must confess, can't touch San Miguel's for quantity or quality. If you're around the 'Vegas e-mail me and I'll tell you where you can find Mexican Restaurant Heaven.) Their tortillas are fresh made in house and divine. I ate my leftovers for lunch at work today and called it good.

Anyhow, so we're at La Hacienda, which as I have mentioned, is loud. And close. As we walk in we see a table of fourteen girls, none of whom appear at first glance to be out of high school.

Then we see the seven two-person margaritas spaced at intervals across the table.

The Artist and I are nosy. It's in our nature. I don't think he ever read it (seeing as how he didn't really learn to read functionally until I met him -- thanks, American school system, thanks a bunch), but I like to play what I think of as Harriet the Spy -- or at least the game she used to play with listening. We speculate about the people around us in restaurants. For that, La Hacienda is heaven. No one can tell if you're looking at them or not because there are five tables and two waitpersons in between them and you most of the time.

We had a brief discussion of the very underage looking girls and determined that they were almost certainly in a sorority, then started arguing over whether they were a Vandy sorority or a Belmont group out kicking up cinders. We gave it up as we could see no letters -- a good argument for my theory -- because we had to speculate as to whether the two people over by the kitchen were a boss and his secretary being a little too flirty or no. (Dude was being REALLY squirrely in a way I can't really describe, just obviously preoccupied, and he kept glancing at the door.)

Ultimately all decisions in this game are indeterminate unless you can hear actual conversations, but as neither of them had a wedding ring the adulterous-boss theory got declared null and void, just as a party of middle-aged couples sat down at the table next to us.

The middle aged ladies looked like my mom if she shopped at Coco and Ann Taylor instead of the mall. The middle aged guys looked like slightly less straightlaced versions of my dad. They got two-person margaritas. Definitely less straightlaced than either of my parents.

As soon as they got their margaritas, they brought up the entrance table full of suspected sorors. Considering that I was practically knee-to-knee with the woman who had made the comment and that the Artist was clapping his hand to his mouth in an effort to contain his guffaw, I told the woman we'd been talking about that twenty minutes before they got there and hadn't figured it out. Hell, you'd do it at Monell's, why the hell not?

They were absolutely charming. The entire table died laughing, we went back to watching the soccer -- and when we called for our check the little woman who looked like my mom if she were blonde told the Artist he should go find out where they went to school. When he demurred she tried to get me to do it -- I demurred. I wasn't quite ready to face either Belmont or Vandy margarita-drinkers in ripped jeans and a headwrap, mostly because I was pretty sure they'd think (and be right) that they had been being discussed, which if on the off chance they were Lipscomb girls could get them in trouble, like, expelled trouble.

But then I passed them on the way to the register and looked down, trying to see a keychain with Greek letters, and saw a Burberry coat that cost more than the book on my car.

I am five. I went back and reported to the little lady while I put the tip down that my money was on Vandy. (She was a self-admitted Vandy grad and just died laughing.)

Now you have to remember. Torn jeans. Headwrap. Leather jacket. And Ann Taylor. Face to face.

The little lady was a little squiffy at this point and held my lapel button up to her glasses to read it.

"All bigots will be reincarnated...as gay, homeless, people of color?"
"Yeah."

They all grinned at "reincarnated" and laughed at the end, not mean laughter (and most laughter sounds mean to me for some reason). The other little lady asked me where she could get one. I told her OutLoud down close to Elliston. Maybe she'll go.

All the way home the Artist and I laughed because that means thirty years from now we'll still be able to go out into restaurants and play the guessing game, if our delightful dinner companions at the Greatest Little Tex-Mex Lunchroom in Nashvegas were any indication.

Then he decided to stay in town so we could play in a seven hour D&D session, and then I went to work. And now I have mail, and it's my mama.

What I'm Reading
I actually haven't gotten a book yet. I finished Cat's Eye at work and have to lend it to CDHSarah when she comes over to cadge graph paper in a couple hours so she can plan a maze for her dungeon and have the infravision calculated in BEFORE we get there -- we've been so lucky this campaign she's half sick of us. Her husband is level 2, owns 2 houses and has 40,000 GP because we've been so lucky on our treasure rolls thus far. CDHSarah is an excellent Dungeon Initiate -- she's wagered me +20% EXP for the entire party if we make it through what she's set up in less than 7 hours of real time. I have been a busy girl since I got off work.

I haven't quite settled on whether I want to reembark on the Byatt books or go somewhere not quite so fraught with whatever quality it is that they share with Atwood, one I can't put into words without sounding critical of the books; it's not a bad quality, it just has to do with the subject matter. The narrator of Cat's Eye lived in the same basic timeframe as Frederica, I think that may be it, so I may read Olivia Joules again before restarting with Frederica. Mix it up a bit.

The WinAmp is silenced.

**eta**

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THERE WERE SEQUELS TO HARRIET THE SPY????

Leave me a comment and explain THAT one, missy!