saturday afternoon in the curry cottage

yes our home is full of the intoxicating scent of chicken tikka masala, due to tonight's first ever British game night! our sweet Anglo American friends Theresa and Lee are bringing our 'nephew' Elliot to watch dinosaur cartoons with his 'cousins' while we play with some Wi thingie. seeing as i cannot even understand facebook i am guessing i will suck :) but oh my gosh, my curry smells GOO-OOOD!

it is official. i am in love with Pedro, a handsome checker at Trader Joe's :) usually that place takes hours to check out of, despite having 8 cashiers and only 10 customers at any one time but today i arrived at the checkout, wearily set out my folding telescopic chair, popped a piece of energy boosting gum and readied myself for the 25 minute wait... all the while trying to talk myself out of scharfenberger chocolate while trying to block how good it tastes from my mind. suddenly i was jolted from my old-lady-with-a-checkbook-and-dumb-questions coma by Pedro Hernandez - imagine George Michael with a latino twist, THE eyelashes, THE stubble, THE soft whispery voice... it was the most sublime checkout experience ever... second only to... Barney (enters stage right)

oh Barney, how i miss you. he used to work at Lucky, where i simply COULD NOT shop. i don't shop at stores named after pets, i just can't... the same reason i can't eat cheerios because they look like cat food. anyway that day i stopped in for an emergency gallon of icecream and fell in love - he was charming and had a line of fans waiting at his checkstand simply because of the way he tied the grocery bag handles like balloon animals and whispered huskily "hold it by the handles and you'll be just fine" :) i kept my beloved Barney receipt (with his little happyface autograph) on the side of the fridge for years til it was too faded to make out.

sure then there was the IKEA hotdog guy, who looked like Michael Stipe, who i had a mad crush on during the summer of 2000, when IKEA was in Tustin and i had a major pregnancy craving for hotdogs. when IKEA moved to Costa Mesa i saw him working in some fancy managerial role then he was gone... never to be seen again. i often think about the hotdog man when i am driving by and wonder what became of him.

sigh... enough daydreaming about hot guys.... back later with pics and such :)