PlatKat.com

As posted on Yelp: Several of my friends recommended this place, so I jumped at the chance to try it. And then I sat in a chair for 40 minutes waiting for a table on a Sunday night. That’s okay, since we didn’t have a reservation, but we watched them seat a table of six with no reservation before us.

To start, we ordered tea and prosciutto-wrapped scallops, both of which were pretty good. Then our sub-par sushi came. The creamy scallops were okay, but the rest of the rolls were pretty bland. Most notably, the 5th Element roll, which was on the list of spicy rolls, was delivered to us without any of its spicy sauces on it. When we told our waitress, instead of apologizing for the mistake and giving us the rolls as they were meant to be prepared, she brought out two soy dishes containing the sauces that were supposed to go on the rolls.

My date and I were pretty surprised, but we had already spent enough time there and just wanted to finish our meal and leave. Our waitress was slow with the check, so while we waited, the manager (?) had a chance to come around and ask how our meal was. My date mentioned the mix-up and at that point, we received an apology. However, he chose to right the mistake not by removing the roll from the check or giving us some kind of coupon/discount to use next time, he foisted upon us a dish of red bean ice cream that neither of us wanted. We said we didn’t want it before he brought it and he insisted on bringing it to us anyway.

So we spent our evening waiting to eat mediocre sushi and then were rewarded with a mediocre dessert. Hooray.

“Why do you have pizza?”

“If you’re gonna have pizza with someone else, what do you have to do?” he continued. “You gotta talk about what you want. Even if you’re going to have the same pizza you always have, you say, ‘We getting the usual?’ Just a check in. And square, round, thick, thin, stuffed crust, pepperoni, stromboli, pineapple — none of those are wrong; variety in the pizza model doesn’t come with judgment,” Vernacchio hurried on. “So ideally when the pizza arrives, it smells good, looks good, it’s mouthwatering. Wouldn’t it be great if we had that kind of anticipation before sexual activity, if it stimulated all our senses, not just our genitals but this whole-body experience.” By this time, he was really moving fast; he’d had to cram his pizza metaphor into the last five minutes. “And what’s the goal of eating pizza? To be full, to be satisfied. That might be different for different people; it might be different for you on different occasions. Nobody’s like ‘You failed, you didn’t eat the whole pizza.’”

An excerpt from Teaching Good Sex

If only congress had put this much thought into sex education for our country’s teenagers as it did into calling pizza a serving of vegetables.

If I said I woke up at 5:30 this morning, that would only be part of the truth. I also woke up at 12:15, 2, 2:30, 4, and 5:20. I was hot, I was cold, I was dreaming about a BDH customer I forgot I had and was scrambling to get a Scrabble bingo so I could properly meet their pre-arranged requests. (What?) I even went as far as continuing the dream after waking up once, still thinking I had the client, and tried to solve my Scrabble conundrum.

I could also blame my restlessness on the foul sustenance that is Chinese delivery, and the fact that I did nothing entertained company from my home all day yesterday.

At any rate, waking up wasn’t easy. I received an email from a potential client (absent of Scrabble requests, thankfully). I nicked my rear right tail light on a pole (the hearse is fine). And then I drove to Everett, listening to an NPR segment about obesity. A 50-year-old woman admitted to spending each one of her birthday wishes on being thin. She had recently lost 80 pounds in 8 months and ran a marathon. It reminded me first that I am lucky for being thin and doing nothing… then I remembered I ran a marathon once upon a time too.

I got to Paine Field, and the plane shook as I went through my pre-flight checklist. We were bombarded with gusts of wind reaching 30 mph as we ascended from the small runway. The plan was to make closed traffic and do a few touch-and-gos. “It will be a good learning experience,” my instructor said.

By our third take-off, I was feeling nauseous. I was tired, and frankly a little frightened by my lack of control of the plane. It was difficult to turn, and when I could, I was often thrust into turns steeper than I intended. The crosswind component was flirting with the plane’s limits, and we only stayed in the air for about 30 minutes.

However, all that really matters are the last 2 or 3. I executed a smooth, steady landing in that crosswind. Funny how the prospect of crashing a plane will wake you the fuck up and get your ass in gear. Left aileron into the wind, right rudder smashed into the floor, I fucking killed it.

My nervousness about flying solo is gradually fading. I definitely wouldn’t have flown in this by myself, but it’s good to know if conditions ever get that dicey while I’m in the air, I can handle it. Now it’s time for copious amounts of coffee and hopefully a nap later.

I’ve been on this kick lately where I’m trying to buy foods that contain only ingredients that I can pronounce and understand. This means I’ve been reading the label on everything, which is something I’ve had to train myself not to do upon exiting a meticulous calorie-counting family. It turns out calories don’t mean anything if the food doesn’t fill and nourish you. (Surprise-surprise, right?)

Today, I really wanted to make a Frito pie. If you live in Texas, you already know it is the tastiest slapped-together food innovation since peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So I bought Fritos, which, while not exactly healthy, contain corn, oil, and salt. Totally fine as long as I don’t overdo it.

I also needed chili. I have my regular brand, the brand an ex turned me onto, the brand I know I don’t like, and the chi-chi organic stuff. Chili comes in a wide variety of flavors, textures, and artery-hardening potentials. As it turns out, a lot of them contain mostly the same stuff. They all have a little soy, with the exception being the organic kinds, that have a ton of soy. I’m also finding that soy isn’t the fucking godsend vegetarians make it out to be. It’s okay in small amounts, but it can fuck with your thyroid if you use it as the sole replacement for meat. (I’ll still eat boka burgers and drink soy milk sometimes.)

Anyway, I’m was reading a can of turkey chili and the main ingredient is “mechanically separated turkey”. I immediately imagined some poor little turkey being tied by the feet and wings to some horrible machine that would slowly draw and quarter him while his wild, gobbly shrieks filled the dark, cold room.

And then I bought two cans.

Approaching the dumpster adjacent to the parking lot, I had to step over what looked like the remnant of someone’s failed dinner of fried, seasoned zucchini spears and a shit-ton of Reese’s peanut butter cup wrappers. It’s always nice to be reminded that there are people out there much, much lamer than I am.