Archives for July 2009

When Melanie and I see each other, we consider it our personal mission to seek out the most mediocre Mexican food we can possibly find. Now granted, we didn’t start out with that goal – we started out looking for Mexican food that was actually delicious – but after about five consecutive trips to Mexican restaurants where the definition of what constituted “cheese” was apparently up for grabs, we sort of embraced our ability to find food that is nothing more than absolutely adequate and in some cases completely inedible.

We have a gift, really.

So last night we were hanging out with our friend Annie, and we decided to go in search of some Mexican food here in Charlotte because 1) we value tradition and 2) we really wanted some chips and salsa. We didn’t know what Mexican restaurants were in our area since, you know, we don’t live here, so we relied on Annie’s GPS to direct us to the nearest restaurante.

The first two places we found were closed. Not closed because it was after business hours. Closed FOREVER. And just for the record, I believe that’s what you might call FORESHADOWING.

Fifteen minutes and several miles of unfamiliar roads later, we found another Mexican restaurant. There was an illustration of a small-ish rat with a tire on the sign, so we knew that it must be just the place for us.

(A quick FYI: unless you’re opening a restaurant that’s geared toward small children and features people dancing in animal costumes while distributing platters of mediocre pizza, I’m not so sure that I’d go with a RAT as my eating establishment’s mascot.)

(But what do I know? DIsney made a fortune off of a movie about a rat who happened to be a deeply gifted chef. So just scratch everything I said in the previous paragraph and feel free to launch as many rat-themed culinary ventures as you like.)

Anyway, after we sat down at the restaurant our sweet waitress brought us some chips and three (THREE!) different kinds of salsa. I was immediately beside myself with excitement because one of the salsas was green, and for just a moment I thought maybe it was going to be something along the lines of the green sauce from Ninfa’s, which is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world.

Case in point: if I had to choose between green sauce and cream cheese, I would choose green sauce.

I KNOW. Those are some strong words, aren’t they?

Anyway, I got all excited about the maybe-green sauce, so I scooped up a whole bunch of it with a chip, popped the chip in my mouth, and y’all, I cannot explain what happened next in complete sentences because it was far too traumatic for me to think in anything other than short bursts, so here is what ran through my head over the course of the next four to five minutes while my taste buds got the smackdown of my life:

– hot
– oh, really hot
– suuuuuuuuuper hot
– thousand fiery suns
– thousand fiery suns in my mouth
– thousand fiery suns just exploded
– need water
– not enough water
– would speak but tongue would fall off
– tongue perhaps on fire
– more water
– definitely not green sauce
– possibly hottest food on planet earth
– entire mouth ablaze
– forget water need ice block

Apparently it was jalapeno sauce, not green sauce. And I can say without hesitation that if I ever eat jalapeno sauce again, I will not scoop it up enthusiastically. Oh no ma’am. Instead, I will apply it to a chip with an eye dropper. And then I will eat that chip very slowly over the span of approximately two to two and a half months, just as the good Lord intended.

Lesson learned, mis amigas.

– Y’all provided SUCH great feedback on yesterday’s post. You’ve given me all sorts of helpful info to use in my little presentation thingy with Lysa, and I am so grateful. I would give every single one of you a big bag of sweet potatoes, a pound of thick-sliced bacon and a carton of Land O Lakes butter if I could. THANK YOU.

– Several of y’all have emailed and commented to ask why I quit writing about The Bachelorette. There’s definitely a long-version answer, but here’s the short version: it was just too much. Y’all know I love me some reality television, but writing about The Bachelorette was increasingly problematic because there were some ongoing situations on the show that were really uncomfortable for me to address here on the blawg. And the bottom line is that I just got really convicted that I needed to stop blogging about it.

I haven’t LIKED not blogging about it – after all, it’s one of the most fun things to write about ever in the history of all topics in the entire universe. I’ve really MISSED blogging about it, in fact. But this season totally fed my snarky, judge-y side, and it totally fed a discussion of topics that weren’t entirely appropriate for my little family-friendly interweb netsite, and I was feeling so conflicted every single time I posted a recap that I would regret the post for the next couple of days.

I don’t know what I’ll do down the road because I can tell you right now that it will require supernatural restraint to keep my hands off the keyboard if Reid is the next bachelor. But I think not writing about the last half of Jillian’s season was the right thing to do. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it was what I needed to do. If that makes any sense at all.

(Don’t you love how my “short version” explanation was three paragraphs long?)

(I am nothing if not wordy.)

– Are any of y’all going to Deeper Still in Greensboro this weekend? I’m driving over from Charlotte with a couple of friends Friday night – then driving back to Charlotte afterwards (and by the way, Beth Moore has written a great post about DS over at AllAccess). I’d love to meet some bloggy friends who are there!

– All righty. My flight to Charlotte is finally here (this post was the product of an hour-long flight delay). Hope y’all have a great Thursday!