Sick Tiki Monkeys

Before I begin what I hope is a jolly good light headed blog post, I’d like to take a moment to bitch. My bitch will be in the form of a Post-It Note sized letter.

Dear co-worker who I genuinely like but to whom I would like to kick in the fucking ass right now,


If you are sick, stay home. I know the American way is to come into work even on the verge of a deathly bubonic plague. I know we Americans believe this shows commitment to the job which we think is ever so important with this horrific economy we are currently in. I read the CNN articles too! I read about the guy who used to be the CEO of some tech firm and now he and his wife are living in a beat up van eating Taco Bell with the money they begged for all day. I know what it’s like. But for fuck’s sake, if you can barely stay awake at your desk, are hacking up half dollar phlegm balls, and you sound like Darth Vader, for the love of all things holy, stay home. It’s not that you can’t work from home, because you can – we all can – when we are ill. But because you made the goddamn selfish decision to come in – on the same day we are all stuck in an airless conference room for a meeting no less – we are all sick. All of us! Our entire support staff is sick at home and has been for the last two days. Thanks asshole. I mean, I really do like you, I really do, but what the fuck? – that was a really douche move.


Sincerely,


The woman you share a cubicle wall with and don’t think for a moment that wall protects those fucking germs for jumping up and over.

******************************

And now to the blog post I was going to write two days ago if I hadn’t actually gotten a cold and could manage to stay awake for more than a half hour at a time.

SO, this past Sunday was a real hodge-podge of activities. Andy started off the day by getting up at 4:30 AM to catch the Liverpool match down at the Harp. At 10 AM I joined him to watch the Packer game. We were both pretty bored of the Harp by the time the Packer game was over at 1 PM so we decided to go to the Santa Ana Zoo. The Santa Ana Zoo is kind of a mini zoo – it only takes an hour to walk through and the largest animal they had was a camel. However, if you like monkeys, this is your spot. I know you are wondering about my opinions of monkeys (it’s a common question I get – “What do you do for a living?” and “How do you feel about monkeys?”) so I’ll tell you. I like small monkeys – like a foot tall or less – but I can’t stand chimps, or gorillas. I guess ‘can’t stand’ is pretty strong of an opinion. I don’t care for them, though they have done nothing to me personally. I mean, I don’t have some poo flinging story from my childhood or anything. They just kind of creep me out. Too human, maybe. Small monkeys still seem like animals. Chimps and gorillas don’t – I think I have this fear that one day they will get really upset by being in cages and kill us all with shivs made from nuts and banana peels.

ANYHOW, after the hour walk around the zoo it was still early and I wasn’t quite ready to go home yet. We decided to take a drive up the coast and halfway there I made the decision that we’d go to Sam’s. Of course Sam’s is no longer – it’s now Don’s – but I didn’t really care as long as it was still tiki themed, which it was.

I might as well tell you about my love for all things tiki. I have it. I have love….for all things tiki. I don’t know where it stemmed from – ‘Grease 2’ maybe? I just know I’ve always had it. Our wedding was tiki themed for fuck’s sake. My all time favorite bars are all of the tiki persuasion. There’s Tiki Ti up in LA that is awesome. There’s Foundation in Milwaukee that used to be punk rock but moved to tiki. There’s Kon Tiki in Tucson. And of course there is Sam’s, er, Don’s in Sunset Beach.

Don’s is OK. They haven’t changed the décor much from when it was still Sam’s but the drink menu is definitely smaller. Of course, if I have a tiki drink I want it in a tiki glass, which Sam’s used to do but Don’s does not. And the fruit! You can’t have a tiki drink without the fruit (are you listening Don?)!. They did have a huge wall full of tiki glasses that I was a little put out weren’t available for purchase.

Andy had the Navy Grog which I keep telling him he doesn’t like but he continues to order (the name perhaps?) while I had a virgin strawberry margarita. I miss drinking by the way, especially since the Vicious Virgin looked fantastic. Who names a drink “virgin” and doesn’t actually make it virgin? (DON)

Pretending to like his Navy Grog...again.

As we were leaving we noticed this guy who was making tiki head statues in the parking lot. It’s actually probably a good idea that I wasn’t drunk on Vicious Virgin cocktails or else one of these would have come home with us.