Wicked Burger and Elderflower Juice

Saturday:

That girl... since she found her man... unreliable. I guess that's the type of things that happen with the newly moved in.

Anyways, yes, the Precious Cashew, the Princess Paashuis, a girl so obsessed with rare paraphernalia and avoidance of competition (right!) that having a conversation with her is akin to reading some sort of twentysomething Martha Stewart catalogue. Yeah, I love this girl, and she certainly has mellowed.

So, I'm supposed to meet her today, and since the tennis game ends so early, I opt for a 11:38 wake up call. But that meets with a fuzzy response. So I go back to fumbling around in my kitchen, whipping up a very unhealthy breakfast of tofu scramble, sided with hash browns and ketchup. Very day-after beer breakfast and the type of thing I don't indulge in enough in Paris.

Aside: Damn that tennis game. It SUCKED! Mary played like her left toe was injured and she was a cyclops masquerading as a three eared horse. In other words, the game was a massacre. Of course she cried. I cried. Terrible. But, all sympathy evaporated with her extremely long final speech. I'm not sure many people listen to this girl because the way she bogarted the mic was scary.

Bumbling in the house. Eventually get frisky and call the Sheltonius who is himself bumbling around the house. Us two bumbleheads get our collective noggins together and decide a nice afternoon at the movies is just the ticket. Of course I have a meeting with Luba this evening, but what the hell... she checks her messages I'm guessing. So leave a message and go to make the afternoon show of Sin City.

But of course he's late, that consistent blunderhead. I see Shelton trawling up the sidewalk, 10 minutes after the start of the film, with plastic bag in tow. By that time, I had concluded I wasn't going to make Luba wait, that we would find something else to do, like stuff a giant hamburger down my pie hole.

Shelton - Uh, yeah, that's a great idea Sam, but I just ate 2 pieces of fried chicken and coleslaw on the subway here.

Me - Gross...

Shelton - Yeah, I kind of just attacked it. I was trying to balance the container on my thighs and stuffing chicken into my mouth. But you know what was worse?

Me - I can't possibly imagine...

Shelton - I was surrounded by all these pretty girls wearing really cute tops. And they all looked really hot. But I had to eat this chicken 'cause I thought we were going to see the movie. So I grossed them out.

This is sooooo typical Shelton. Any vaguely tempting female situation that comes up, he manages to creatively sabotage it with food or sartorial endeavours. Madness. He may be cute, but he's got this anti-chick magnet act down to an art.

So the Bumblehead and I decide to look for a restaurant for me to satisfy my burger cravings. We toss back and forth options, heading down stinky decrepit Yonge St., until we are practically on the Eaton Centre Corner. OMG!!! What have they done to my city!!??!! The square at Dundas and Yonge is hideous. I will certainly rip my camera out for that at some future point because I don't think I've seen such a massacre of public space in such a long time. How many giant TV screens do people need?

Funny moment:
There's this huge crowd around a guy on a unicycle who's attempting to juggle. Somewhere in the background a speaker says: If your parents don't give you money to give to Mr. Juggler, then they don't really love you.

We find the Senator round around the corner from the Imperial Pub. The Senator is that old Toronto stalwart of jazz. It's a classy old joint, with brass fittings, though the vinyl seating is starting to show cracks. We try to open the door but it's locked... but the waiter, a fat balding man of the old Toronto tradition, in his bright blue shirt and pressed slacks, opens the door and lets us in. We have the whole joint to ourselves!

I order the wicked burger, which comes with fries, coleslaw and corn relish. Shelton gets the asparagus soup. Bread comes out first. This is where you see it in full action, how snotty I've become with bread. I poke it. I sniff it... I wrinkle my nose. This bread is atrocious. Undercooked, no crust, thick core... slightly cold... I sneer in the general direction of this bread.

While I'm sneering and poking at the bread, Shelton proceeds to surreptitiously open his plastic bag... inside is a white styrofoam box... and inside this box is the last bits of 16 roasted potatoes and one last piece of fried chicken. While all the staff are busy in the kitchen, or polishing the glasses up front, Shelton, having almost the whole booth and the restaurant to himself, sinks his canines into the chicken. Within 2 minutes, nothing remains of the bird.

My wicked burger arrives. It's a normal ground beef patty stuffed with blue cheese and bacon, topped with caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, and mustard. It's thick and juicy. I do a similar full-toothed eyes wide open giant bite... It's too good... Yummy! The burger, the fries, the slaw, but not the relish, get shovelled down. For a good long 10 minutes, we don't talk. Or at least Shelton sips his soup plaintively, watching me hammer down the burger.

We leave and head back to my place, where suddenly food coma hits. Luba arrives later and I prepare salsa and chips for her. I bet she found us lethargic. Shelton is curled up on the couch watching TV while I am dishing out platitudes on french living. Flat.

Luba looks amazing. She's this stunning Slovakian princess, a Laetitia Casta lookalike, who disarms everyone with her idiotic but offputting honesty. For example, one time, when one of our teachers, a man, was trying to push her into making an experimental film, she just turned to us and said: "He just wants me to make a film so he can see me naked." He turned beet red, and stuttered half wits while the rest of us normally beleaguered research assistants cackled. Since then there isn't a week that goes by without him treating her to some special wine-tasting or dinner thing. All this and no hope for the geezer to even just see a tit. That's charm.

Anyways, so she gives me this wine. It's some sort of german wine. Probably sweet. When we finally uncork it 2 hours later, on the deck, looking out at the cottage like backyard, I'd forgotten we were supposed to be drinking wine. And, in the darkness, it tasted remarkably like grapefruit... or elderberry juice... hard to say. All I know is that it was delicious for a drink, but a complete failure as a wine.

I'm still jet-lagged so I opt out of finishing the evening at the Hooch, watching my old band, Pony da Look, play. I can barely move... I'm tired....