Alarm Cat

Place: Subway
Lunch: Big Hot Pastrami (with chipotle southwest sauce, pickles, and stale bread), creamy baked potato soup, Coke

I saw the Big Hot Pastrami ad over the weekend and was terribly excited.  It's been a few years since Subway's done the pastrami thing nationally.  So that was my lunch plan for today.

And it's awful.

Wow.

Almost flavorless.

I actually taste the staleness of the bread more than the pastrami itself.

Depressing.

The soup's okay, though.  I don't go to Subway much and I'm not sure when they decided to carry soup.  Apparently the cashier isn't either, because when I asked for soup, she had no idea what I was talking about.

The girl who made the sandwich (aka "Subway Sandwich Artist") did, though.

Woke up at four this morning.  I did so because Chester Cat decided I needed to be up then.

This happens when I return from long trips.  The cats tend to be more demanding for awhile, and I was just gone for ten days.  (They're not left alone, I have a cat sitter who visits them periodically.)

Anyway, Chester's method for waking me is to sit in front of my face, purr loudly, and slide his paw in and out of the space between my face and the pillow.

It's quite effective.

In this case, it led to him being shoved off the bed.  I'm grumpy enough on a good day.  But I currently have a sinus cold going on, so...

Ten seconds later, he was right back in my face, purring, doing the paw thing.

Then Maggie Cat appeared on the other side of me, looking at me like "Well? Are you up yet?"

So I laid in bed for awhile and pet them.  Then I got up and fed them.  They were SO excited.

I'm about halfway through the work e-mails for the past week.

And about half past sleepy.

House Cola

Place: Red Iguana
Lunch: Enchiladas Rancheras, beans, Coke

I was here earlier in the week for dinner and my eye spied the Enchiladas Rancheras on the menu for the first time.  It's two cheese enchiladas covered in sauteed mushrooms, "salsa ranchera", and more cheese.  I tried it.  It instantly became my new Red Iguana favorite, and that's saying something.  I had to have it again before flying home.

Fab.


If you're ever in Salt Lake City, you MUST try Red Iguana.  It's a Diner's, Drive-In's, and Dives kind of place (in fact, Triple D has been there.)  The original location is so popular, they opened a second location just a couple of blocks away to accommodate growing demand.

Smiling Table Server takes my order.  I say I'll have a Coke.

"Pepsi okay?" he asks.

"Even better," I say.

I'm a Pepsi guy when I'm not drinking one of the cane sugar glass bottle sodas that populate my pantry.  But restaurants typically limit you to the products of one of the major brands...Coke or Pepsi.  There are some exceptions, but they are few and far between.  So when you ask for Pepsi in a Coke place, they're all like "We have Coke products."  Or vice-versa.

So one day years ago, I decided to come up with a generic term that handled either/or.

"I'll have the house cola," I said to the server.

Server: "What?"

Me: "The house cola.  Coke or Pepsi.  Whichever you have."

Server, annoyed: "We have BOTH."

Wouldn't you know it, the place I decide to try this out is the one place that has both.

The idea was pretty much abandoned then and there.

And I had a Green River instead.