the woman taking my order at los portales last night knew even less english than the woman i'm accustomed to. when i ordered a glass of water with my tacos, i just knew she wasn't understanding me. so i wasn't too surprised when i got to XDU and found i had a glass full of that milky stuff that mexicans call water.
but it actually tasted really good! it was terribly sweet, though. it reminded me of chai tea. i would have prefered clear old water... i wonder if i just ask for "agua" (sesame street taught me that) if i'll get what i want? help me out here, phil.
this morning i got my drivers license renewed. i stopped by the branch on miami boulevard in durham, but they had the door locked and a sign posted telling us to visit their mobile service center. it didn't say where the mobile sevice center was, though, so i walked up to a gaggle of men in the parking lot and asked. turns out they were it. but they hadn't finished setting up yet, and he didn't know when they'd be done. so i decided to go to the branch on capitol boulevard near work instead.
i waited for an hour and a half at this branch (which wasn't too aggravating, since i'd brought a copy of bust with me for entertainment... the only tricky thing was arranging the magazine so that the vibrator ads weren't prominently displayed to the elderly lady sitting next to me) and i smiled when i heard my number being called by the sweetest-looking of the employees... a middle-aged black man who was humming beneath his breath. i commented on it and we had a nice friendly chat about what a nice day it was outside, and how he wanted to go ride his motorcycle.
i asked him if i could try to take the eye test without my glasses and he said ok. the machine apparently tests one eye and then the other, because he said "read the second line" (which i did), then he flipped something in the machine and said "now read the second line again" and there was nothing there. i said, "there's nothing there!" but as i pulled my head back i could see that there was, in fact, something there. ooops.
every time i go to the eye doctor he says, "you see double, don't you?" and i say, "no." and every time he says, "no... you do see double, it's just that your brain has adapted to it and it does a good job merging the two images into one." when he gives me the card to test my depth perception i never see any of the fuzzy circles jump off the page like i'm supposed to. i had 3 operations on my eyes when i was a small child (to correct the crossed-eyes i was born with) and have worn glasses ever since... mostly to help train a lazy eye, i think. my eyesight isn't really all that bad. it's just that my eyes have to work together in order for me to see anything. so my license once again says i have to wear glasses when i'm driving. which is good news for you. ;-)
for lunch today i did something i have never ever done... i went to hardees and got a hamburger. first of all, i never leave the station to go out for lunch, so that was new. we're just so far away from everything that "going out for lunch" simply takes too long. but the gorgeous weather lured me out. i'm glad it did.
secondly, i rarely eat fast food, so that's unusual too. but something seemed appealing about hardees today (probably their slogan about how "the last place you considered going for a burger will now become your first")... and i have to say, it was really quite good. surprisingly so. plus, my GI tract seems pretty happy, so all the better.
oh! and i just heard from charo's beau... he's invited the french atmospheric engineer and her boyfriend to my party, and they're planning on coming! yay!
Posted by xta at February 20, 2004 2:26 PM | TrackBack