And I thought I had bad luck......

Well, this month is Lemur Queen and I's 5 month anniversary. Yes, we're been in wedded bliss for all of almost half a year. Time flies when you're having a blast. Anyways, we went out to a Middle Eastern Restaurant, Chez Car Bomb. No, sorry, my bad. *slaps hand* *bad Fat Rock!* It was Cafe Mediterrania. It was actually really nice, and in the non-scary part of downtown. We had appetizers, wine, and a quiet dinner. Lemur Queen has the Corfu Chicken and it was great. I had Honey Glazed Lamb in Couscous, and was underwhelmed. Usually, when I order a dish with "lamb" predominantly in the title, I expect there to be more than 2 oz of lamb in the dish. And the lamb in the dish should not be 50% fat. So, I didn't really like my food. But I digress. We had a waitress. She was nice. Not very attentive, but nice. She took forever to get our orders, bring out our apps, bring out our meals, and she never refilled my water. I usually have a thirst like a dying man in the desert. I need water. I never got a refill. Lemur Queen says that what was going on was a leasurely, relaxed dinner; and I that I needed to calm down. When I disagreed with her, she reminded me that all my recent dining experiences had all be in restaurants whose names ended in -ardees. But still, the no water thing means BAD TIP. We were mulling over whether to get desert when a large group enters the establishment. A large group of old people. We're seated very close to the door, so we can see and hear the entire conversation between them and the hostess and waitress:

Perky Hostess in Tiny Vest: "Hi, Welcome to the Cafe, how many for this evening?"

Old Woman #1: "Oooooh Heellooooooo!" (Think Jerry Seinfeld making that noise at George)
Old Woman #2: "Heelloooooooo!"
Old Man #1: "EH!?!?"

At this point my wife and I are thinking these people are drunk, or insane.

PHiTV: "Uh, so there's (counts) seven of you for this evening?"

Old Man #2: "Heelloooooo! We would like to dine here!"
Old Woman #1: "We want to sit THERE!" Points to tables right by the window, which need to be bused, and oh yeah, are RIGHT behind me. Oh, and the tables are a 4-top and two 2-tops. Not a large table for a large group.
PHiTV: "Uh, those aren't clean, yet. But we have some other tables over....."
Old Woman #1: "Noooooooooo, we want there! *points with granduer at dirty tables*"
The oldsters immediately being shuffling at the dirty tables while the PHiTV is trying to corral them somewhere else.
Old Woman #3: "We have wet jackets. WE would like you to take them and put them somewhere."
PHiTV: "Uh, why not keep them with you.....
Old Woman #3: "WE do not keep our jackets. WE want to give them.....to you."
Old Man #1: "Eh? Jackets!"

At this point our waitress comes over to the dirty tables, which the oldsters have now seated themselves at. While she is clearing off the plates, taking her tip off the table, etc, the Oldsters all thrust their wet dripping coats into her arms.

Waitress: "Uh, so, uh, is this going to be all on one check?" The menu clearly states a 16% automatic gratuity on tables of 6 or more, so she is just making it.

Old Woman #1 :"Oh no, we're all separate. We don't want to spend any more money than we absolutely have to."
Old Woman #3: "Noooooo! WE do NOT! Fetch us a Menu!"

As our defeated waitress is walking past us, she asks if we want dessert. We immediately ask for our check. No way in hell we're eating next to Monty Python's Flying Cheapskate Circus. Because we knew that girl was going to have her butt run off and was NOT going to see a penny from those geezers, we left her over 20%. She didn't deserve it, but damn. we felt so sorry for her.

Not another running post!

Oh yes, another running post.

I just finished my third 8k. I had never heard of this race distance until I moved to coastal NC. For you non-metric folks this works out to 5 miles.

Today's race had every opportunity to be a total disaster. The tee shirts were AWFUL. Inmate orange with pumpkins that looked like beach balls. Last night, it rained and rained. Usually not a big deal, but this race featured an "off road" portion. Off road + rain = mud. Costumes were encouraged. It's the weekend before a 1/2 iron man distance traiathon, so all the seroius runners stayed home, slept in, and ate pasta. Possibly all at once. The total race pack was definately under 100. And there was some question about the race start time.

Despite all these hardships, the race was AWESOME. The rain held off until the race was completed, the course was well marked, so even with the small crowd, I didn't get lost. The mud was REALLY fun, and it gives me an excuse to get another pair of running shoes. (Sale at Omega, 50% off! Yippee) Also, the mud provided excellent perperation for the Marine Corps Mud Run . My aerobics class is planning on competing next year. Oh, and did I mention that I KICKED ASS? Cut 2 minutes off my last 8k time!! In less than a month! Yeah, I rock.

And did I meantion the Worlds Strongest Man (TM) was there? He totally was. FYI: Worlds Strongest Man (TM) does not appear to equal world's strongest knees.

Lemur Queen

Weight loss = Cult?

Call me crazy, but that seems the be the case over at Medical Practice That Shall Not Be Named, As Lemur Queen Still Owes 80G On Her Student Loans. *Deep Breath*

Anyway

I work at a subspeciality medical practice, and our patient population tends towards "fluffy." This fluffiness does not bode well for their medical condition. Weight loss will minimize their medication usage, improve their overall well being, and keep that heart ticking. Unfortunately, for my patients, as for most of the nation, they are having limited success with this on their own.

So the office is now in the midst of picking out a medically supervised weight management program. Think somewhere between Nutrisystem and the Duke Diet and Fitness Center.

It actually looks like a pretty good program. Patients use packaged meals + fruits and veggies, with weekly medical supervision and meetings. The meetings are where the program takes a sharp right into crazy-town. The paperwork we were given STRONGLY encouraged us to use the official scripts and "key phrases" when talking to clients, as they have "proven success." See, I did it right now. "Clients", not patients, not customers, I guess that's to make them feel warm and fuzzy. And we are on the hunt for a program administrator. This person will lead the non-medical, office type aspects of the program.

They have suggestions for this person. Note that they are suggestions, as I belive making these requirements would, in fact, be illegal. The administrator (who also has a fancy name that I can't remember) should be:

Non-smoker
At or near ideal body weight
Willing to use *diet company name* products
Energetic (possibly code for young)
Perky (possibly code for babe-a-licious)
Supportive of *diet company name* ideals and goals (definitely code for drink the low calorie Kool-Aide)

Scary stuff. Our patients need to loose weight, no doubt. They are not doing it on their own, and bariatric surgery seems like a mighty dramatic step. But loosing weight by selling your soul to *diet company name*? This may be too much

Lemur Queen

Food Fight

In many ways, Fat Rock and I are ying and yang. There's gender, of course, and religious upbringing, and relative volumes of our households (Fat Rock 4, Lemur Queen 10), but the largest difference may be diet. This has afforded us the opportunity to expand our culinary horizons. It has also brought to light that what you think is perfictly normal, delicious food, is, in fact, crap.

First, an admission. Fat Rock does >90% of our household cooking. This is a wonderful declaration of love, and a way to ensure that Fat Rock does not begin gnawing on my shoulder "Alive" style. It's not that I CAN'T cook, it's just that my cooking fits into 3 major categories.

1) Slow food: sauces from scratch, lasagna, homemade bread. Yummy, but time consuming. Not practical for daily food needs.

2) Microwaved food: popcorn, Lean Cuisine, frozen veggies. Fast, delicious, and a one way ticket to protein starvation, according to my husband.

3) Salad and a Bagel: my main source of sustenance while in college. For more details, ask Magnolia Belle.

So Fat Rock cooks. and he cooks the HELL out of most foods. BBQ chicken pizza, Asian chicken salad, potato soup. The man doesn't even need a recipe. He has already introduced me to several new food groups. Such as:

maple cured bacon
pork chops
spam
pork "cracklins"
any pork product in general. Who knew the Lemur Queen household kept Kosher?
sauteed beef
liver pudding
boiled peanuts
Goo Goo Clusters
drop biscuits

I have introduced:
pita
hummus
perogi
stuffed grape leaves
chicken paprikash
curry
tastee cakes
the entire line of Morningstar Farms "meat" products (they are, in fact, textured soy product)


Now, CLEARLY my list is superior. Pita and Hummus and Perogis are now our go-to Tuesday/Thursday post workout meals. And yes, I have discovered that pork chops with rosemary are delicious. But seriously? BOILED peanuts? I have never eaten a food and thought, "it's good, but I wish it was more slimy." And liver pudding? UGHHH, don't let ANYONE trick you. It's NOT pudding.

To be fair, Fat Rock has taken one for the team. He gamely tried my Morningstar Farms "sausage" and didn't even gag (mostly). He even lets me eat microwave popcorn for dinner. This is HUGE, it was one of my fears about marriage. "I'll never be able to eat popcorn or cereal for dinner again!" Yeah, I'm a special kind of stupid. I know.

So we are learning, and growing. We keep trying new foods, and with the help of supportive friends and family, I will learn to prepare a meal in more than 3 minutes, and less than 3 hours. Tonight's attempt; chicken pot pie, with biscuits on top. Didn't realize until the first bite that it was a *shiver* casserole. Where's the hummus?

Lemur Queen

Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives

Ok. I may be getting into LaLa Land here, and may leave a few people behind. Before I worked in the manufacturing/development side of the pharmaceutical industry, I worked in pharmacy. I actually started school with the intention of being a pharmacist, but succumbed to the dark call of industrial pharmacy. Anyways, I worked in pharmacies for 10 years, went to conferences, went to "drug dinners", and met a lot of drug reps. I thought I'd weigh in on them. Not that you asked or wish my opinion at all. Lemur Queen will probably have something to say about this, since she works in health care as well.


Drugs reps are major pains in a pharmacist's ass. We can always tell when they've been though the local doctor's office, because suddenly people are coming in with perscriptions (scripts) for expensive, brand name drugs that aren't really the best therapy for whatever illness the patient has. Want an example? Prozac was the brand name for a drug called Fluoxetine, used to treat various and sundry mental problems. Anyways, the brand name drugs costs about $3 dollars a pill. The generic costs about $0.45 per pill. There is NO difference between the generic and brand drugs, aside from the price. We know a rep for Prozac has been through when patients start coming in with orders for "Prozac 40mg, one capsule once a day. Dispense #30, 6 refills, NO substitutions".

Son of a Bitch.

There's no reason for it. But the drug rep got him. Hence why I don't really like them all that much. Also, sometimes the reps play hardball with the statistics for the trials of the drugs they represent. Huh? Ok, example: "Plomox" is a drug that treats high blood pressure. It works the same way, same mechanism of action as another drug "Cheapo" that comes in generic and costs a fourth of the brand name. "Cheapo" is also a gold standard for treatment of hypertension. So, trials are done on "Plomox" and data is gathered. Well, the data doesn't show that "Plomox" is better than "Cheapo"; so instead of saying that Plomox is not superior to Cheapo (and thus worth the price), they say it's "non-inferior". Or they try to dig through the results to say some minor aspect of "Plomox" was superior to "Cheapo", like patients had 3% less flatulence or something.

But yet, pharmacy people can never seem to bring themselves to throw out the drug reps. We like them, even though we hate them, Why is this so? Because drug reps are H*O*T. Seriously. If you work in a pharmacy, doctor's office whatever; what you're mostly going to see are sick people. And sick people are not pretty people. Sick people are icky. The daytime TV drama where the beautiful girl is in a coma and wakes up with nothing wrong? Yeah, total fairy tale. I mean, what do you look like when you're nauseated? Like a pinup model right? Yeah, I'm a regular Chippendale's Beefcake when I have the flu, let me tell you. Well, that's prettymuch all we see in the pharmacy are uggos. I mean, we get the occasional pretty girl coming in for her birth controll, but ususally it's nasties and old people wanting to talk to me about their bowel movements (note to readers: old people ALWAYS want to talk about their bowel movements. It's like the latest episode of Desperate Housewives to them.). Then all of a sudden a supermodel comes in and wants a few minutes of your time. Those are drug reps. That's why doctors like seeing drug reps. Well, besides the hotness they always bring food to doctor's offices. And in case you think I'm joking about the hot part, here's a few pics trolled off google. Try searching for "drug reps", you'll get something like this:














And seriously, this is what they look like. Well, maybe not so much skin, but prettymuch this was it. When you spent your morning staring at some morbidly obese woman's bunions, it's a change right?

I mean, seriously, they look like barbie clones, right? The last time a woman who looked like this came into the pharmacy and she wasn't a drug rep, she offered to sleep with me in exchange for her prescription. Let's just say she was a professional, but not the good kind, ok?

Well, enjoy your Plomox!




Fat Rock.

Bong Hits for Shopping Fantasia

Ok, so I found some stuff at the antique store that I didn't quite get. I took some shots of it, and maybe you can help me. I just......I just don't understand how anyone could want this stuff....
First thing we found were the creepy ceramic penguins:

We decided to name them Beelzebub and Janet. It just seemed fitting. They were probably normal penguins, just going on a road trip and got in a big fight because Beelzebub wouldn't stop for directions and "knew where the hell he was going" and right at that second the artist who sculpted this magnificent pair captured the moment in cheap ceramic. I'm sure the artist later killed himself, as to look into the penguin's eyes is have your life essence pulled into a black hope of despair as the cold washes over you and all joy leaves. GAZE upon the penguins:

Moving on I spotted a pervert monkey. He just seems a little too happy clinging to that mango there, if you know what I'm saying. *wink*wink*Nudge*nudge* My boy Cheeta needs to take a cold shower, or at least put some pants on. Then I made a discovery that I actually tried to purchase. I was intercepted by the Lemur Queen midway to the cash register and had to put it back; but I did get a photo:

I just KNOW that our house would be enriched by having a lovable ceramic die cast of a lovable transient hobo with possible ringworm/foot ulcers with a lovable dog and is moving to/from London and probably smells like some lovable cabbage and cheap booze. Wouldn't you want it? That's what I said. My wife is nuts.


Next up is something that we found together. Lemur Queen and I were wandering around saying "our apartment's nice, but would really make it pop would be some giant ass oil paintings of parrots". We rounded the corner and ZING! there we were:

"But Fat Rock," you say, "Those are actually big ass oil paintings of Macaws, which are technically different from parrots, how can THEY make your apartment awesome?" Well, I know they're Macaws, but I just said "parrot" because that's most most people think of for the imagery. Our reader pool is more popular in the "lay-person parrot" category. So shut it.
We did find another awesome "parrot" (well, actually, this IS probably a parrot. Looks like a Yellow Shouldered Amazon) lamp fixture. Unfortunately, all this crap/treasures were out of our budget, or we'd have an EPIC apartment.
PURE AWESOME There was one item that utterly defied description: The Orbs of Mystery.
At first I thought that they were just weird glass grapes. But upon closer inspection I found they were so much more, they were Orbs of Mystery. Who knows what mighty powers these mystical objects might imbue? A side view of the ORBS: Perhaps these orbs are more than they appear. Perhaps, in my mind, I can use the Orbs of Mystery to summon any object or person. You know, kind like they do in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons(you know, since we can't tell reality and fantasy apart). Hmmmm...... Well, you know, I've always loved "The Fifth Element" starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich.......maybe if I concentrate really hard.......

Oooh. That didn't work too well. Wow, if you look at the picture closely, you get the feeling that she hungers for your very soul.

Reverse, REVERSE!!! Maybe if I just put my hands back on the Orbs of Mystery, I can conjure up something in it's place!

Well, let's try it again. You know, I always thought Lindsay Lohan was cute. Maybe if I think of Lindsay.........

Wow, even in my imagination I can't get crap to work right.......













Now I know why those things are in the "Discount" bin.

Fat Rock.