As I type, there are less than two hours left of Thursday, April 22, 2021, which means my day of days, my birthday is about to draw to a close. My sisters and my niece took my by limo stocked with champagne with the intention of finishing the evening at a dark, moody high end steak house with overstuffed leather chairs and an extremely obsequious waitstaff.
We thought it would be cool to first sip bubbly while touring the desolate hills northwest of San Antonio. That’s where hard scrabble settlers obviously had a hell of a time making a home (and a living) in some of the most unforgiving brush country in the this part of the world. This isn’t farming country. You won’t find crops planted here and the hills and uneven, rocky terrain mean that as livestock goes, goats and sheep are king.
I hadn’t been to this part of the hills in decades. With my mother’s recent demise, I’m contemplating moving. But I feel it’s safe to say I can eliminate this area as a future zip code.
So, we rode around a little more, trashed family members who weren’t present, listened to bad terrestrial radio and drank champagne and with 37 minutes left of the hour long pre-dinner, mobile happy hour, we looked at each other. The four of us decided we were bored so, we called the restaurant and asked to be seated early. The receptionist said yes, the limo dropped us off and we were taken to a table for four.
I have a condition that among other things, IOC occasionally affects the taste/flavor of things. Alcohol can taste the way an old, well-used SOS scouting pad smells and certain foods taste like pine and metal. I took one bite and had Ernesto, the eager to please waiter, box up everything. As a result, the number of styrofoam to-go boxes in my fridge would give Greta Thunberg full body hives.
Anyway, I just decided to put an end to this day when I started to feel sick at my stomach. I can handle anything but nausea, yet, here I am, putting a cap on officially turning 62 and my rumbling intestines feel like the battle of Tora Bora is being fought with painful peristalsis water cannons and eye burning sound effects.
I don’t think this is the result of anything I ate at the restaurant. I didn’t eat enough of my courses while there, but I did eat a few pot stickers earlier this afternoon. They seemed fine then, but in the course of a few hours, they made my fridge smell like sulfur, baloney burp and canine anal gland in DIRE need of expression.
I’ve had food poisoning infrequently, but this feels like the onset. We’ll wait and see. My sisters are staying with me and I just told one about my situation. She ordered the same things I did tonight and she feels fine, so we officially ruled out the restaurant as the the culprit. I told her I was suspect of the pot stickers from Lung Wu Fang’s Dumpling House. I told her every time I go there, I get diarrhea.
She looked at me straight faced and said, “Well, next time, try ordering Kung Pao Chicken, instead, dumb ass!”
Sixty-two is gonna be a banner year.
