kris

Yeah, so, Doyle invited Kris and I out to dinner. Since we closed the office, I haven't seen him much. Which sucks, actually, as he's a really good companion, coworker and friend. He's been inviting us to events, we just haven't been going.

So, when he invited us out, even if I didn't want to go to the main event, I still wanted to go to dinner with Doyle and Shwu.

The plan was go to the Tofu House. When we arrived, Kris was immediately suspicious. We had eaten here years ago. The food was both awful and potentially very dangerous for Kris, as the soup items were made with fish broth. I vaguely recall being unable to eat my dish as the first bite burned my tongue, both with fire heat and fire hot.

After confirming the broth wasn't fish broth (plain water!), we decided to stay.

All I can say is that it was a REALLY good thing we had Shirley, Steffi, Jimmy and that Asian half of Doyle with us. Kris and I were some of the few non-Asian people in the restaurant and BY FAR the whitest. You know, the white people who can't eat spice? Yeah, that's me.

I thought about trying the "no spice" option, but I did want SOME flavor in my tofu, since I wasn't ordering a meat dish. I was entertained by the menu somewhat by still being able to sound out the Korean letters and words, even if I don't know what the hell I'm saying.

Note to self: really learn a language, okay? This half-ass knowledge of German, Korean and Spanish really sucks. Learn more than English already.

The meal ended up being just simply delicious. I'm not sure that Steffi and Jimmy knew about my current picture taking habits, but at least Doyle and Shirley were nonplussed (which, used here in the colloquial way, means "unperturbed," which is the exact opposite of the original "so surprised they don't know how to react" definition of the word - ah languages, always evolving).

I doubt Kris and I will seek the restaurant out again, but I'll definitely stop by with other friends.

Kris, Heather and I are planning on spending the weekend in Santa Barbara. Heather has arranged a group wine tasting in celebration of Andy's birthday (that would be HER Andy's birthday, note the tag, we're going with Chenoweth here, not Crews).

We managed to drive all the way to Morgan Hill before disaster struck, where disaster is a minor bump in the road. Well, bump if bump is a bots dot and minor if a flat tire is minor.

Kris was just changing lanes from lane two to lane one when the rumble over two bots dots was particularly loud. "What was that?" I asked.

"I just changed lanes," Kris answered.

"Is it a flat tire?"

"No, just the bots dots."

We listened.

"Uh, that's flapping. That's a flat tire. Pull over."

"Oh. Yeah."

When all of this was happening, none of us thought to look out the window to see where we were. It was 8:15 at night, we were on 101 heading south. We had passed Morgan Hill. Great. That's all we knew when Kris commented, "Time to call Triple A."

"No it's not. Your membership isn't any good," I answered, fumbling with the console between us. "They cashed our check, then denied your membership, and we have no way to prove it because Netbank went under and f---ing took seven years of our banking data with them."

Kris looked at me aghast.

"Time for Audi Roadside Assistance!" I called out, triumphantly pulling out the card I had placed in the car just last week, finding it on one of my organizational crusades.

After a few minutes, the fifth or so question I was asked by the Audi operator was "Do you have a spare?" Well, crap. Did I?

Yes! And it was a full spare, no less! And it was full! Yay!

Five minutes after hanging up with the operator, we received a call back: the car service guy would be at our vehicle in 40 minutes. "That's too long!" Heather cried out. "Let's change the tire ourselves!"

Out of the car we tumbled out, hair and jackets whipping around in the cold wind blowing along the freeway, tousling everything. Heather found the jack and wrench from the back, handing them to Kris as she pulled the spare out of the back. After a few moments, Kris handed the jack to me, asking me out to work it, the mechanism's leverage point not immediately apparent. I cranked it, told him how to place the jack, then hopped back out the car, car manual in hand, to show him where to place the jack, then putting the jack where it needed to go.

Kris cranked up the car as I ran back into the car to get my camera. Only after I had taken a few pictures did I realize his folly, and told him to drop the car back down. "Why? I just lifted it."

"Because you can't loosen the lug nuts with the tire spinning."

"Oh."

Down went the car. Off went the lug nut covers (the car has lug nut covers? What kind of car has lug nut covers?). Loose went the nuts (after some heavy duty stopping in the left direction) and back up went the car.

You know, physics is great. With the proper leverage, even a scrawny woman can lift a car.

Part way though this escapade, our surroundings lit up. A police office had pulled up behind us, shining his lights on the car. He hopped out of his car, and stood behind us, flashlight shining down on the tire. His car lights helping much more than his flashlight did.

I would have helped Kris and Heather more, but I was too busy either taking pictures or talking to the car service guy, who called 30 minutes into the ordeal, after we had already changed the tire. I hopped back out of the car in time to roll the flat tire back to the back of the car and drop it back in the spare well, but not soon enough to let Kris know that when tightening lug nuts (or, as in the case I learned with: clutch plates), you want to tighten in a star pattern, and not around in a circle.

The police officer let us know that the Kris-arm tightening was sufficient, that we didn't need to jump on the lug nuts to tighten them, and that I needed to check the alignment of the car, as the tire wore then blew on the insides of the tire, indicating poor alignment. Great.

My thoughts were, huh, this flat tire wasn't so bad. I had fears of a disastrous tire blow like you see in the movies. "That's crazy, Kitt!" you think, "You're retarded." Maybe. But talk to my brother's ex before you say that, and ask about the Honda rolling after a blowout ("That's one [flip]. That's two. I wonder when I die. That's three."). Then ask me not to worry.

Heather's thoughts were, "HEY! New life experience! That wasn't so bad!" She had never changed a tire before, and was worried about it. She was happy the car had a good manual, as well as all the tools for changing the tire.

Kris commented it was the first tire he had changed, too, which surprised me. I hadn't expected to be the only person in the car who had changed a flat tire before.

When we arrived at the hotel, at 1:30 in the morning, much later than we had originally planned to arrive, Kris wandered into the hotel room, and wandered back out as I was walking in the door. "Huh, well, that's a new one," he commented, looking up at the canopy bed. "I've never slept in a canopy bed before."

"Another new life experience?"

I think I heard, "Yeah," through the toothbrush in his mouth.

I think I'll save the new life experience of "sex in a canopy bed" for tomorrow.

"You didn't tell me you were downloading World of Warcraft."

"I told you I was downloading the demo of a game I wanted to play."

"Yes, but you left out the part about how you were downloading the most addictive game produced in the last three years."

"I might have left that part out."

"And the part about how you play in guilds, coordinating raids, and you have to commit to 20 to 30 hours a week for your guild? Like, that's a part-time job?"

"Yeah, I'm sure I left that part out."

Back in sixth grade, we had to do presentations about South and Latin American countries. The presentations were to be fairly elaborate: each pair of students presenting on one country would have a six foot table, from which they were expected to dress up in locally culturally appropriate garb, and present the highlights of the country's unique culture.

At that time, I was fascinated about Costa Rica, and incredibly excited about the assignment. I was one of the very first people to sign up, without any hesitation.

At the end of the day, I went back to the sign up sheet to see if anyone had signed up with me, finding my classmate Kimberly Looft was my partner. Kimberly was one of the cool kids, so hey, this was great!

When I went over to talk to her, I overheard her saying to someone else, "I signed up with Kitty. I'm going to get an A!"

I don't know if I walked away, or continued to walk up to talk to her, but I do remember becoming very annoyed at Kimberly.

I kept the annoyance throughout the project. Instead of leading the project development, I followed. What do you want done? I'd do the minimum effort needed for the task athand. If she wants an A, I thought, she'll earn it.

The only serious effort I put into the project was to research (before the Intarweb™, people!) and prepare local, mid-millenium, interesting foods. I made a strange corn tortilla-like pancake, and an interestingly tasty bitter chocolate drink (this, when it wasn't uncommon for me to eat two pounds of chocolate in one sitting).

The food may have been the only thing that saved our grade, as our table was disappointingly empty, as I didn't decorate it. Especially compared to the Mexico table next to us, which had flags and music, and food and maps and colors colors colors.

We earned a B on the project, which affected my overall grade of an A not at all. I don't know if it adversely affected Kimberly's grade.

Today's workout at Velocity Sports made me feel like Kimberly.

The workout was:

16 runs
100 pullups
16 runs
200 pushups
16 runs
300 situps
16 runs
400 squats

This workout was done with a partner. Each activity could be divided in any way the partners wanted, 50/50, 60/40, etc.

When the workout was described, Kris immediately called out, "I'm partnering with Breanne!" We all laughed. I figured I'd partner with someone else, but Kris surprised me and asked if I would be his partner. "Keep it in the family!" he says.

So, we started out. Sixteen runs, 400m each, no problem. 100 pullups? Uh, okay. I did 10, Kris did 10. I did 10, Kris did 10. I was doing my pullups assisted, with a band. Kris did pullups for real. A real man.

I barely squeaked out my 50 total.

Sixteen runs, I did my eight, though more slowly than Kris did his eight.

Two hundred pushups. That's 100 each, if we go 50/50. Oooooookaaaaaaay.... 10 for me. 20 for Kris. Oh, yeah? 20 for me, 20 for Kris. I tried upping my numbers from 20, but it just wasn't happening. I dropped back down to 15, then 13, then 12. Kris stayed strong, letting us split at about 47/53.

Sixteen runs, with Kris' fitness kicking in. He did nine, and I did eight, before I realized he said, "meet you down there," and not "mumble you down there."

Whoops.

300 situps? 150 situps for me? No problem. I started with 20, to which Kris answered with 30. Oh yeah? I did 35, and Kris answered with 35 back. We were flying through this exercise.

For the first 100.

Fatigue set in and we started slowing. Around 160 I was feeling Monday's abs workout. Around 220, I was back down to 15 situps, not stopping even though I was really slowing down. I wanted to give Kris as much rest as I could, which was easy (just keep going) and hard (just keep going) at the same time.

When I stood up to run my eight laps, nausea rolled over me and I almost sat back down. Kris must have sensed my wooziness (yes, a real word), as he ran 10 of the laps, for my 6. The knot in my knee didn't help.

Neither did the hamstrings, which were strung tighter than a bow string.

Kris and I threw down the gauntlet on the squats, being the last partner sets, and determined to jump up to finish second. 30 squats for me, 30 squats for Kris, 30 squats for me, 40 squats for Kris. Down. Up. Down. Up. Keeping form but going fast, 35 squats for me, 40 squats for Kris, 30 squats for me, 50 squats for Kris. 35 squats for me, more for Kris. We cranked them out, finishing the workout only 3 minutes late, and second overall (not that it was a contest or anything, but the workout was supposed to be done as fast as possible without losing form).

My legs hurt. My arms hurt. My stomach hurts. My head is starting to hurt. I have a train ride and a 45 minute walk home left to do before I can rest.

Maybe that walk will make up for my Kimberly moment earlier.