What Now

FONDUE, VOMIT, & STEPHEN KING

Steve and I went to The Melting Pot for our anniversary dinner last night and we had a lot of fun! We'd been to the one in Myrtle Beach, so we knew what to expect as far as food and such. I like this kind of restaurant, because it forces you to talk to whomever you eat with! Steve doesn't usually talk much when just the two of us go to restaurants, but since we had to share plates and a cooking pot (and because I had sharp, metal forks that I could poke him with if he got too quiet) we talked much more! I like good conversations over meals. I get there rarely. Everything was so good, and our waiter was really great! I did manage to drop cheese on myself, and burn my mouth with a potato, but we had a very nice time. Part of me wonders if we could be getting a bit taken advantage of, though. Don't get me wrong, I like the restaurant a lot and I'll most definitely go back, but I have this sneaking suspicion that eating there means you pay more for less food AND you have to cook it yourself.

Oh, well, being able to poke Steve with sharp, metal forks kind of makes it all worth it! :)

After we ate, we dropped by the fancy Barnes & Noble for a few minutes. OK, so it probably isn't exactly any fancier than any other Barnes & Noble, but it's in a fancy shopping mall, so I call it fancy. But I digress. On our way in, we heard this terrible sound. We stopped and looked around, and we realized that what we were hearing was some guy throwing up out in the parking lot. Only it didn't sound like a normal person puking...well, if there is such a thing as a "normal" sound of someone puking. I wish there was a way for me to explain so that you would understand how bizarre it sounded, but if it tells you anything, we stood there listening to this sound and looking for its source way longer than we would have if we had known it was someone barfing to begin with. Once we realized, we hastily walked into the store and Steve remarked that it sounded like some kind of creature from "Star Wars" and we busted out laughing because he was exactly right. He sounded like a Taun Taun! I realize how evil we must sound, admitting that we laughed like fools and someone who was obviously sick (and possibly non-human), but it was just one of those things that you can't help laughing at. Poor guy. I hope he's better today!

Our trip to Barnes & Noble was so that I could pick up the new Stephen King novel in hardback. I was going to make myself wait for the weekend before I got it, but I didn't. "Under the Dome" is an enormous book! I'm not kidding, at a glance, it looks longer than "The Stand" and that had over a thousand pages! It's supposed to be a book he started writing in the 80's and just couldn't finish, but he went back to it and figured he might as well clean it up and release it. I mean, the man can publish a grocery list and see it go on the NY Times Best Sellers List, but I hope that the story is good. If not, I could always hollow it out and use it as a panic room or something. Seriously, the book is huge!