Author: Josh

Friday was hot until around 4:15 p.m. That’s when a monsoon fell upon southwest Austin. One second the pavement is melting from the heat, the next second, I couldn’t see out of my window because the rain was coming down so hard. It really seemed like a tornado had blown through. A tree in the parking lot blew over and onto somebody’s car. Another large tree across the street from out office had been blown over as well.

The rain stopped. The sun started coming out again. The electricity went out at 4:30 p.m. We all left work early.

I went over to El Arroyo and Elise and I drove over to 4 Wheel Parts to pick up the Jeep. We had the new tires installed.

I went home and Elise went back to work. Our friend, Jamie came into town to…

Go tubing the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels on Saturday. A whole gaggle of us floated the river. Not a whole lot to report there. We sat in inner tubes and floated in a cold river. At one point it started to sprinkle (the sky, not the river). Luckily it didn’t rain but it did render a very cold Josh. After our 4 hour float, we all ate at Adobe Verde. Great Mexican food.

Elise and I bummed around on Sunday. I botched an Asian Mahi Mahi recipe. Actually, the fish was bad. Pair that with a little burnt marinade containing brown sugar and you’ve got a meal fit for the trash.

Riding the trusty Shadow is painful. Honestly. I’ll hit pockets
of air on the highway that, if I had to guess, would be like driving through the
exhaust of a fighter jet. The hot air scorches my face and makes my eyes
dry out and water. It is hot. It’s so hot that my palms sweat.
Usually my palms will only sweat if I’m nervous.

It’s so hot that I really don’t think I am going to sit out on the blacktop
parking lot while wearing my navy blue polyester Adidas jogging suit and eat
bulky slices of Romano cheese and drink warm chocolate milk like I had planned.

I miss my wife. If anyone sees her, tell her hello and that I love her.

She works a lot. She went to work at 9 a.m. yesterday and wasn’t done until 11 p.m. I helped her out in the evening. We went to Lucky Lounge to break down a fajita buffet that she catered.

Days like that seem pretty regular. I think she’s frustrated because she’s still new and there’s a significant lack of help. Plus when you’re in catering, you have to deal with clients. Often picky clients.

I remember a time when I worked at the Austin Country Club. A client was throwing a baby shower and invited were well-to-do women in their late twenties and early thirties. All wearing name-brand pastel country-club-quality spring dresses. All had very small hands attached to golf ball size diamonds on their engagement and wedding rings.

The Austin Country Club can get linens in any color of the rainbow. This particular client wanted “sea foam green” linens. We usually stocked a plethora of “sea foam green”. I put “sea foam green” in parenthesis because I can’t bring myself to write sea foam green. Damn, I did it. Now I have to subscribe to Christopher Lowell’s decorating tips and tricks mailing list. Anyway, my boss and I set the beautiful banquet room overlooking putting greens with off-white tablecloths and “sea foam green” napkins, all folded in the most elegant of ways. Polished silverware was set as were bread plates, glassware, centerpieces, polished dressing boats and bread baskets. The whole nine yards.

Our client arrived. Let’s call her Bianca. Bianca took one look at our immaculate room arrangement and looked horrified. She cried. She cried so hard that one would have thought she had just witnessed a puppy walking in through the back door of a Vietnamese restaurant. She wasn’t crying because Doug and I had done our standard and amazing job of setting up an fine dining banquet room. She cried because of the linens.

Everyone else thought the room was gorgeous. And it was. Bianca whined about how she wanted “sea foam green” napkins and tablecloths for her friend’s baby shower brunch. Still crying, she told us that she wanted us to “do something”. We told her that we only had “sea foam green” napkins, not tablecloths. “Do something”. Still crying.

If you’ve ever had a fancy-shmancy breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner or bag of Doritos at a country club, then you know that there are a ton of table accessories. For each person there are: 23 forks on the left; 6 knives closest in on the right; 14 spoons to the right of the knives; and a wide array of utensils that lay horizontally above where one’s plate will be when served. Among these utensils are a shrimp fork, a grapefruit spoon, a pea fork, a sausage grinder, lemon tweezers, a lice comb, a salt knife and a ball ping hammer. Bianca wanted Doug and I to remove all table accessories and start over. With new linens. She’s still crying. “Sea foam green”.

Doug and I took Bianca out onto the putting green and pummeled her with a 7 iron and one of the sausage grinders.

Bianca eventually calmed down and the party went well. Everyone enjoyed their food, the service and watching Bianca’s friend open packages filled with Made For Baby Bentley Big Wheel, J. Lo.’s “I’m Still From the Block” Diamond Baby Gucci earrings, Pedialyte by Crystal and trust funds.

Anyway – that was a fun client experience for yours truly.

If you really hate me and want to do something about it, I have a suggestion: put me in a room with Rosie Perez and a customer service representative from Network Solutions.

“I’ll escalate this to our engineering department”. That’s what I hear every time I call Network Solution’s V.I.P. customer support hotline. We have 200+ client websites that are registered through Network Solutions. We utilize their web forwarding feature. I just so happened to notice that their web forwarding feature stopped working today. That means that 200+ of our clients are without websites. Want to know how long before this is fixed? “three to five business days”. But knowing that they have escalated this to their engineering department makes me feel so much better.

I don’t really like talking about work. I really don’t like Network Solutions either. Rosie Perez makes me want to chew on tin foil.

Sorry. Carry on now.

Harold and I watched Bad Boys II last night at the theatre. Funny, action packed and long. Usually I can wait for a movie to end before I need to use the restroom, but this time I had to go. Don’t you hate (and I promise this isn’t going to turn into your one-stop website for daily restroom adventures) it when you’ve been sitting in a movie theatre chair and you have to get up to use the can? The lights are low, your butt muscles are asleep and while you’re staggering towards the aisle, you kick empty boxes of Raisinettes and other peoples’ feet.

On the way to the movie theatre, Harold told me all I need to know about huaraches. I spouted off about how back in my day, we didn’t have shoes. Then something about the stock market. Harold pointed out that the Texas Lottery was up to $47 million. He asked what I would do with $47 million. I told him that after taxes were taken out and I received my check for $8, I would invest it or buy a few chicken burritos.

But seriously, I told him that I would buy a decent, manageable house, give my parents and in-laws a lot and probably a new motorcycle. So I’d have many millions left to invest in the stock market. I then had to explain to Harold what stocks were. He asked if he could buy stock in the mall. It’s fun explaining something to someone for the first time. I told him that in order to purchase shares in a company, you have to be able to throw a football with your left hand without looking like you’re the offspring of related parents.

I’m going to have to disagree with 68% of this free name analysis from kabalarians.com.

Red is false, green is true.

Your name of Joshua gives you the ability to be creative along practical lines of endeavor. Your ideas can be very original and inventive. You enjoy being with people in a social environment. Your personal appearance is important to you, for you desire to make a good impression on others. Your pleasant manner attracts people to you with their problems and you are capable of offering practical advice, though you would probably not follow such advice yourself. This name causes you to be somewhat too concerned with the personalities, problems, and activities of other people. You seem positive and decisive and can be outspoken in the expression of your opinions, but you lack the self-confidence needed to follow through with your ideas and plans. Procrastination is your downfall. You frequently choose the path of least resistance to avoid your responsibilities. It is not easy for you to overcome obstacles or face issues. This name does you an injustice in that it restricts your success in business and personal pursuits through a lack of ambition. There is a weakness in the fluid functions and in the region of the head resulting in sinus problems, headaches, eye, ear, or throat conditions and related ailments. Hair loss could also be a problem.

PWhen something that I’ve grown accustomed to suddenly changes, I usually say something like “awwww, man!” Take for instance the pleasant fragrance that was once emitted from the automatic air freshener dispenser in our office building’s men’s restroom. One wouldn’t ordinarily associate a sweet, fresh smell with a men’s restroom. Our building’s men’s restroom is an exception. 95% of the time, I would walk into the restroom and smell the wonderful smell that a little automatic wall-mounted canister of industrial-grade air freshener would spritz out on it’s little schedule. The other 5% of the time I would be met by the smell of what very easily could have been the byproduct of rancid armadillo and bleu cheese stew.

But really, I liked the smell of the air freshener that had been used in the restroom for the past couple of months. I seriously contemplated standing on the sink basin and opening up the dispensing mechanism to find out what brand and fragrance flavor air freshener was used. I wish I had. Today the fragrance flavor is different. Now I feel lost when going to the restroom. It’s bad enough that I can’t seem to convince myself that there are not Indiana-Jones-and-the-Temple-of-Doom-like poison tipped darts being shot into the back of my neck from above the bathroom’s mirror…

You see, even though I generally enjoy my 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. bathroom experiences due mainly to the associated aromatic pleasantness, like clockwork I get the bejesus scared out of me while ‘tending to business’. Invariably, while I’m standing before the urinal, that sweet aroma dispensing mechanism spits its nectar into the confines of the restroom. When this happens there is a distinct and wet aural puff not much unlike the sound that is heard when a tribesman shoots a dart through his blowgun and into the jugular vein of a small woodlands creature. Every time I hear that noise, I think I’m being shot in the back of the neck with a blowgun dart. I’m here to tell you that that kind of nervousness can lead to some pretty serious performance anxiety. I don’t know who would want to shoot me in the back of the neck with a blowgun dart. And to do that while answering the call of nature is beyond me. Perhaps I’m seen as a threat to the people of the Sweet Smelling Men’s Restroom Tribe. They’re trying to get me when I’m most vulnerable. That’s why I now carry a machete. You should see the looks on peoples faces when they see me walking down the hall and into the restroom. They just don’t understand what I’m up against.

I was just outside, contemplating my personal life and the late 19th century Bohemian arts revolution of eastern Europe when I realized that I, along with all of my friends, am a yuppie. This was discussed during a lunch date (heh) that I had with Victor yesterday. I’m a webmaster. My wife is the Director of Catering for a popular local Tex-Mex chain. My friends are Assistant Vice Presidents of large banks, Certified Public Accountants, Engineers, Online Ad Sales Managers, Financial Analysts for the largest media corporations just to name a few.

I thought this was noteworthy because I feel as though I can step away from myself to watch my life evolve. Almost ten years ago, I knew quite a few people who delivered pizzas for pot money, were career restaurant waiters and topless dancers. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with any of those professions. As a matter of fact, a combination of the aforementioned would be interesting. Like, oh, I don’t know, pizzas delivered by topless dancers. I never see these people anymore. Well, except for John. He was a topless dancer.

I’m just taking note on how I’m getting older.

This past weekend was a relatively quiet one. I surprised Elise and took her to The Oasis to see the sunset on Friday evening. We went over to John and Christine’s afterwards and hung out by the pool for a little while.

On Saturday, Elise and I drove around and looked at houses. And looked. And looked. We’re trying to get an idea of what neighborhoods and types of houses we like.

We woke up early on Sunday and went grocery shopping. We hadn’t gone to the grocery story in a month or so. We came back home, watched a few episodes of the Sopranos on DVD and I made stuffed, 4 cheese cannelloni. I also made watermelon smoothies with boysenberry sorbet and ginger.

It’s been a long week. The boss is in England so I’ve been very busy at work (you’d think it would be the complete opposite). On Tuesday I was treated to a fajita lunch at El Arroyo by my wife, El Directoro de Cateringo. I hung out with Harold on Wednesday. Usually I take the Jeep so he and I can go someplace. This time Elise had the Jeep so I had to ride the trusty Shadow to Harold’s house. We played basketball in his driveway and I showed him how a motorcycle works. I had to cut our visit short because the skies turned black and I knew I needed to get back home eventually. I was rained on on the way home. If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle in the rain, even during a light sprinkle, you know the pain. A SUV drove up beside me and gave me a couple gentle honks. I looked over and the passenger, a girl who I would guess was the same age me, gave me a kindly, sympathetic wave as she stuck out her bottom lip. I smiled and nodded. That sympathy made me feel a little better.

I kicked a girl in the nose while sparring in Tae Kwon Do class last night. I don’t say that because I’m proud. We ended class early so we could all huddle around her and watch while she dabbed the blood with a paper towel and listen to yours truly repeatedly say “I am soooooooo sorry”. It really was an accident. It was one of those foot-and-face-meet-each-other-because-they-were-traveling-towards-each-other type things. She lunged as I was kicking. I felt really bad. I apologized profusely.

That’s pretty much what’s been going on recently.

I took the first step in the actual pursuit of a home. Elise and I have been doing a lot of research and consulting with family, friends, Fannie Mae and the credit union. I e-mailed Della, a realtor who happens to be a third degree black belt and my instructor’s wife and gave her our criteria. She said she’s going to start looking for us.

Since Elise started working, we’ve been putting her earnings into a secondary savings account that I setup specifically for the purchase of a house. I’m sure that once Della starts sending us information on houses, we’ll become more motivated to save more and to save it faster!

Elise and I took John to the Round Rock Express game on Friday night. The weather was really nice and the park was quite impressive (I’m not really a baseball fan). We really didn’t watch much of the game. We sat and talked and laughed at John while he spilled Buffalo wing crumbs on the guy sitting in front of us.

After the game, we took John home and Elise and I caught up with the remnants of a bachelor party. We met up with the boys at Club Austin, then we trekked all the way to Fado, then finally to Katz’s for a late night dinner.

We began shopping for new wheels and tires for the Jeep on Saturday. That took pretty much most of the day. We’re going to beef the Jeep up with 32″ tires. For dinner, I cooked the elk tenderloin filets that had been marinating for the past couple days. I really undercooked them, so that kind of hosed the meal. I had made garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes, but they were cold by the time the elk was done. Wow – the elk was awesome!!! Very tender, very flavorful. Definitely going on my menu whenever I own my own restaurant. I want to try ostrich and antelope next. After dinner, Elise and I went over to Tommy’s to watch boxing.

We slept in on Sunday. I woke up in time to make a grilled salmon salad for lunch. Veggies, grilled salmon and a raspberry vinaigrette. We were homebodies most of the day. We did make a special trip down Barton Springs so we could buy two 90 cent frozen custards at Sandy’s.

We decided to splurge last night and bought tickets to the upcoming Aerosmith/Kiss concert.

Crap! I forgot to tell everyone that Elise and I had a baby. We kept meaning to call and tell our friends and family, but it seemed as if we always became sidetracked by something usually pretty important. One time, we were going to call my parents to tell them but we found ourselves in a heated debate over pro mint waxed floss or cinnamon waxed floss (not pro).

Actually, these are photos of Amanda Morgan Karotkin (AKA Mandy Mo), offspring of Bill and Andrea.