The 36

I've never shopped for baby food; I really haven't had any need to do so. Hopefully I won't need to do it anytime soon because it, apparently, is a most perplexing endeavour. I was at the grocery store last week and it took three men, each of a different generation, all of the same family, to decide on which jar of mushed peaches was best for the baby in question. Some things men should just not be allowed to do. Buying baby anything is one of them.

Apparently men shouldn't stock restaurants, either. Sunday night Thorsten, Andreas and I went to this Somalian restaurant to get some take-out chicken and rice. They have these $5.00 student specials where you get a meat dish, rice, and salad. It was previously known to me simply as the "$5 chicken and rice deal" after Paul came home with one a couple of weeks ago. So we go in and discover that they, in fact, have three meals to choose from: chicken, beef stew, and "foul". The foul meal kind of scares me. The place is deserted and we stand at the counter for five minutes waiting for service. The chef comes out and asks politely, "what would you like?"
"We'd like one of the five dollar student specials" I reply.
"OK, there are a some to choose from on the menu and I also have goat meat."
"Wow, that sounds good. Is the goat meal also five dollars?"
"No, the goat is nine."
"What's in the foul meal?"
"Foul meal? I don't really know."
"OK. I'd like the chicken."
"I don't have chicken, sorry."
"How about the beef stew with noodles?"
"Actually, all we have is rice."
"So basically there is one meal available: beef stew with rice?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Fine, we'll take three." I don't know if you had to be there or not, but we laughed about this for ten minutes. The beef "stew" was more like beef cubes with some red mystery sauce. But for our five bucks we got lots of rice, so we couldn't complain. Plus the guy was really nice. Five dolla motel, anyone??

Last thursday Laura and I went to the "Freedom Festival" here in town which is basically just your average traveling carnival, complete with real, live, "carnies" complete with their own trailers. I hate rides. Well, I don't mind most roller coasters. All the rides at this place were some variation on spinning you around in circles. Some put you sideways, some upside down, but in the end they all came back to either spinning you around really really fast, or flipping you upside down. Neither of these motions is even remotely normal for your average Joe Humanoid. These things basically just make me sick. But Laura loves them and I couldn't wimp out and make her go alone, could I?? So I went. And I got sick. Well I didn't really get sick. Thank goodness we ran out of tickets after three rides. My stomach couldn't take a fourth. I've never puked on a girl before but I imagine it could make a good blog entry. I think I've fulfilled my chivalry quota for the month. Just think, when I was ten I wanted to be a jet pilot. I just laugh.

This morning at 9:02 am it was 27 degrees outside. With the humidity weathernetwork.ca said it felt like 36 outside. 36 degrees, at 9 am. Good thing our lab has air conditioning. Actually good thing my house has A/C too. I remember El Salvador feeling like this, without the air conditioning. I thought Canada was supposed to be the Great White North. Clearly somebody never got the memo.