Pornos on the 6th Floor, Yayu, and a Shiner for Christmas

It's been some time, but I have been fighting a cold for like a month now. What? At least I thought I was. I now believe that I was fighting a cold for a week, and then fell victim to incredibly dry air. That's right. I'm now so old that my physical condition is controlled by my head holes. I mean, I've heard tourists say that we have dry air here, but I've never felt it myself. Not until this year. Nothing like waking up every morning with a sore throat and having it for half the day.

There's also nothing like going out on job interviews with a head cold. People were pretty understanding though. One of my recruiters, the one I was relying on to find me work since August while I did a half-ass search myself has nothing. Literally, they have nothing on their website. No problem, because I have another recruiter that has higher calibre clients. Well, a little problem. That recruiter thought I'd found work on my own so she wasn't looking for me. I don't even need to call her myself to tell her. She's that good. She knows already. I was ready to put my fist down the phone, but since that call she has been pretty aware of what I'm up to. She came across a job for me, but declined it because it was a little shady and not really a position for growth. So that was nice of her.

I networked a little more and have had some progress on a couple of leads. A new recruiter who came to me - Wow that's a first - has put my name in to a law firm. If I get that one, then there will be no further talk of work on this blog. Unless they screw me. The thing is, I met someone a few years ago who works at this firm and I think I might be replacing them. I don't think they could be promoted to be my boss at this point. Awkward. Let's hope they don't remember that we used to be classmates.

I spent most of the time after the initial cold studying for my exam. I think I did pretty well. I could have studied more, but I'm not looking for a gold medal. I just started a new course, and already I'm running into problems. It's a course I've taken before, so I'm not too worried, but Ali sure can be difficult. She wants to go to a Christmas party on the same night I have class. It's not at a gay bar this time. My class is three hours long and it's pretty important because the goyim will be taking a two week break for Christmas and New Year. Okay, so we push the course back two weeks. If only it were that simple, young Hallman. Nobody calls me that anymore. Pity. Back when Bobby and I were in the same classes at school, our teacher used to call us Hallman, and young Hallman but only when we were in trouble, or when our teacher was incredibly annoyed. My name got called more, but that's because Bobby was never there. So Ali wants to go to this party, but nobody's good enough to babysit Foxy. So Ali says that if she can't take Foxy to the party at a hotel bar, then she just won't go. I hate this. There's no reason why Ali shouldn't go to the party on her own. We have a lot of friends who are willing to baby sit, but Ali can't let go. I think I'll be babysitting and missing class.

Randy and Kat came over for Thanksgiving. I served, but I didn't make a turkey. I made ribs again. I'm getting pretty sick of ribs, but I recently overheard a recipe at the local that I might want to try. Yes, I've gone back to my old local. I stopped going to that other place because the waitress tried to take away my tequila. It's okay, she was new. I went down there expressly to sample their tequila which they were very proud of, and while I was there I had a doppelbock, by Celebrator. Not since those heady days in Oklahoma have I tasted such a beer. Oklahoma - the only place I know where Orange Peel can be mistaken for Native American. Yeah, she's brown but so if more than half the world. But she doesn't have a funny accent, so I guess it was an honest mistake - I guess. Down there, it was a six pack of some Texan brewery bock, possibly Shiner by Spoetzl. See, Oklahoma isn't stinking hot in the late spring, early summer. It's Holy Fuck, kill me now hot. And it's humid. That's the worst part. Except for the part where all my relatives from Arizona were there saying stuff like, "This ain't nothing. When we left Phoenix, it was 114 in the shade." So I decided that even though I'm travelling with my tea totalling elders and their apnea machines, I was a grown ass man and I wanted a nice cold beer. Sound good doesn't it? Except bock isn't a nice cold beer. Bock is a nice cold meal. After three - they were weak - I was full. It is the first and only beer to which I said I could not eat another bite. I felt like I was back in that Amish cafeteria in Chouteau, only not as full. The only reason I tried it is because Bobby said Bock is good. Little did I know, but Bobby had never had bock. He was just saying it was good because one of his friends told him it was good.

So fast forward to 2008, and there I am with a doppelbock because hey, if the bock was bad, then a doppelbock should be twice as bad, right? It wasn't. It was actually nice. Then again, I wasn't sick with heat stroke so maybe under the right circumstances I might have liked the Bock. And as I was cleansing my palate for the tequila, the waitress came over and tried to clear the table. What what what? I'm just sipping water, not leaving! That tequila was nice too, but the place has a two drink maximum unless I buy food, so they're kind of saying "Your money isn't good enough, go get your drink on some place else". The next time I went out, I had the cold, and wanted to see if what they say about Guinness is true. So there I was back at my old local with a pint of Kilkenny in one hand and a pint of Guinness in the other. Kilkenny is my new favourite, and as soon as I had cleansed my palate for the Guinness I realized why that one never was my favourite. It definitely has a taste. I had either heard somewhere or had tricked myself into thinking that Guinness could cure a cold, or at least help. I mentioned this to the bartender, and he shook his head and said that whiskey was the answer. The waitress started me off with a peaty, sweet whiskey but I was not satisfied. I asked to see a list so that I knew how to spell what she had given me. Hmmm, I noticed that they had Johnny Walker Green Label. Funny, the week prior another bartender told me that they only had Red and Black. Technically true, but they had a whole bunch more whiskeys that they served in their other bar and not in the beer bar where he was working. This time I asked if I could have Green. The waitress went around to the whiskey bar and brought some back just for me. Why Green? Because that's our drink - my father in law and me. Except he uses it to make gurepufurutu sauwa or grapefruit sours and I never notice the taste because we usually have it after beer. Well, I have to say that Johnny Walker Green is a very nice whiskey. I wouldn't have said that three weeks ago. But the best part was when I went back to the bar a week later and this chick at the bar asked me how my cold was. It was the waitress, having a drink after her shift. We talked about the dry air and she agreed. Her friend, the bartender from whiskey night shared his recipe for ribs, and the waitress gave me a great recipe for corn bread. She told me to come back for the full recipe, but I haven't had time to make the trip. So I polished off my two pints and waited for the music to end. Bronski Beat was playing. Right when it was getting good, the bar manager cut the music and put on some heavy metal. I was the last one in the bar, and made a little fuss because we're all friends. The manager apologized and admitted that he's too young to remember Bronski Beat. Fuck I'm old.

No more bar talk. I came home the other day and the lift opened on the sixth floor because somebody was getting out there. There were a bunch of camera cases stacked on carts in the hallway. Nobody was moving in or out, there were no moving vans near the main entrance. The first thing that came to mind was that there was a film crew making a porno on 6. It's happened before. I also thought about recent problems we've been having with some tenants, but that was a different group. The camera cases were gone the next day. Oh yeah, I've also been preoccupied with the condo association. Not since the 1997 annual general meeting at Nanna's condo in Boca Raton have I experienced such excitement. Some of the owners want new lobby and hallway decor, and they want the rest of us to pay for it. The first vote was defeated. The condo vice president called another meeting a month later, and again the vote was defeated. Well, say what you will about this guy but he sure is plucky. A month after that, he called a new meeting and finally the vote was passed. There's been a lot of negativity created because of this, but I guess the positive is that we're getting a new lobby.

Okay, so the movie part of this post is about The Bank Job starring Jason Statham, the always incredible David Suchet. I don't really remember much about this film, except a lot of naked ladies, and a bank being robbed. I did remember how hot chicks were in the 1970s. That was something I'd forgotten as I grew older. It was a good film, it's just been such a long time since I saw it that I'm low on details. I think the one detractor of the film is that they try to tie a sex scandal allegedly involving Princess Margaret into the plot. Who knows? Maybe it really was the reason that the bank was robbed, but it added an extra storyline that I don't think was entirely necessary. I rented this one because I wanted to see something with Statham in it. That guy never does a bad movie. That said, I've never seen any of The Transporter series. But I just might go see the third one, because it has Statham but it also has Robert Knepper. Who? You might know him better as Teabag or Theodore Bagwell from Prison Break. Sure, he plays a really bad guy, but the important thing is that he plays it well. Ali is totally confused with what's happening on Prison Break this season. She still hasn't booked her ticket to Tokyo. She's waiting for prices to drop a little more. Oh yeah, Mick Jagger is in The Bank Job. See if you can spot him. I admit, I had to rewind (do we say that anymore) and take a good look, but it's him for sure.

I'm not sure how this happened, but Foxy somehow gets Yayu out of her first name. One morning she was sitting in front of the hall closet looking at the mirror and screaming "Yayu, Yayu, Yayu!" repeatedly. I figured she was screaming "Lion, Lion, Lion!" her way which comes out of her mouth as "Yayo..." But this was slightly different. Ali confirmed it, Foxy believes her name is pronounced Yayu. She also believes that Grandma and Grandpa from Tokyo live in my filing cabinet, and that my name is Mommy. She's getting there though, growing up real fast. She got that shiner above her eye after a fight with a laundry basket. You can't take your eye off this kid for one second. Even though she knows she's not supposed to, she likes to climb in the empty basket and try to walk. Off course, the basket tips and her face meets the corner of my maple dresser. Silly girl.