lunch

"For someone who doesn't like to have her picture taken, you sure take a lot of pictures."

I had decided this morning that given the lack of interest I had yesterday at the design conference and the overwhelming pressure I was receiving last night to be in the office, I would do well to resign myself to writing off the conference as a learning experience (Lesson learned? Never, ever go to a conference alone again) and earn money today.

I also decided to skip lunch and work the extra two hours lunch might take. I quickly learned the folly of my decision when I realized I had left my lunch at home, so off to lunch I went, half an hour after I had arrived at work.

As we were walking into the restaurant, Doyle was humored by my camera out, and commented about all of my picture taking, while showing me how he really felt about it.

Lunch was at a brewery, where we met up with a former co-worker, who had just found a new job (lots of cheers!). For the most part, I like brewery food, but today I was especially excited about having fish and chips, which I have been, strangely enough, craving for a while now. Might have been because it's been a month since I had some last.

To prove Doyle wrong, I took a picture of myself after lunch, catching Michael just before he started panicking about where he left his sunglasses.

Um.... on my face?

On the way out the door, one of the guys noticed a Lamborghini parked across the street. As we paused to chat a few more minutes with the ex-coworker, we watched the car. We speculated about its owner, laughing and suggesting it belonged to the old guy who just exited the donut shop the car was parked in front.

To our shock, horror, amazement and delight, the car DID belong to the old guy. Several elder jokes later, we all hoped the old guy would just peel out of the lot. He didn't, but if he had, he would have been all of our hero and inspiration.

Doyle and I went to Thai for lunch today. Normally, we don't eat Thai food for lunch on Tuesdays, as the hot hot spices tend to upset his stomach at track on Tuesday evenings. Today, he wanted Thai, so Thai we had.

Most Thai days, we order soup. We used to order chicken satay, but I've been trying to avoid meat since Andy told us about how he eats only humanely raised animals and goes vegetarian the rest of the time, and I thought it was good enough idea to try it myself. I've been getting a lot of my protein early in the morning, so soup works better than satay these days.

When we order soup together, it arrives in a large metal bowl with flames shooting out from under it. The flames keep the soup warm (hot), which is appreciated. However, after we scoop the first two bowls out of the flaming pot, the remaining soup always heats up quickly and starts to boil.

Last week, I blew out the flames, which were jumping from a small pink substance clearly created for burning in these pots. My first blow was too weak, causing the flames to move slightly in their mocking dance of light. One big blow later, and they were gone.

Doyle tried much the same today at lunch. His first blow was weak (weak sauce). It moved the flames a little bit in my direction, but not much else. Just as I bent over to blow on the soup in my spoon I was raising to my lips, Doyle blew the blow that would extinguish the flames.

Unfortunately, his aim was off.

Yes, he did, indeed, put out our soup fire.

He also sprayed me in the face, neck and hands with hot, scalding, boiling soup.

I had my eyes closed, so at least I'm not blinded by thai coconut soup or the mushrooms. Or the evil little corn spears that taste nothing like corn, but merely mock me in their corn-like shapes.

We laughed a bit about my soup shower, before I continued eating my soup. Unfortunately, I hadn't let it sufficiently cool in my bowl, and, well, one bite too fast later, I was downing a glass of water to the dawning realization I just scalded the back of my throat. I really should have just spit out that soup.

The rest of the meal was a fight to finish, or at least eat part of the way. Scalding the back of my throat caused everything to be too spicy. How in heaven's name, you might ask, does pad see yew become too spicy to eat? When you've scalded the back of your throat. Doyle suggested I try the salad to see if the rest of my meal was indeed too spicy, or if the scalding was causing problems.

When a bite of plain iceberg lettuce causes tears in your eyes from its spiciness, you've scalded the back of your throat.