Get the jokes ready...

OK, apologies for the previous whiny post. I realize there are probably a lot more important things in a lot of your lives than collecting little books about sports teams. Guess I need to up the meds or something. Just in one of my moods, between paying the bills, a bit of a tiff with a co-worker (quashed, but still) and the pressure of a date, too much work... You know. It was just sort of the last straw.

Thus, venting.

Anyway, I thought I'd make up for it with a bit of a more interesting and informative, slightly less whiny post. No, it's not Civil War day. Though I'm plotting a post on the quotes of Gen. George Pickett. ("General Lee, I have no division...")

It sort of ties into the date, which went well - my definition of "going well," I think there's going to be another one - because the young lady I went with chose a restaurant she likes, and a cuisine I'd never had:

Ethiopian.

(Insert joke here.)

That's right. Ethiopian food. And it was darn good. Lot of vegetable, beany-type side dishes. And the fascinating thing: You don't use utensils, you eat with your hands. And the bread they bring you, which isn't bread so much as a kind of tortilla, for lack of way of explaining it. A soft, flat bread, but lighter than a tortilla. You tear it in pieces and scoop up the food.

The place is called Makeda, in nearby New Brunswick (home of Rutgers University, or at least most of it).

I got some kind of spicy lamb chunks in brown sauce (yeah, I have no idea what it's called or what exactly is in it) and if it wasn't as spicy as the menu suggested - a good thing on a date, I suppose, avoiding chili-breath - it was still very tasty.

And the sides... boy, y'all know I'm not normally one for vegetables, but one was made of split peas and spices, in a kind of mush (not the best of words, I admit) and the other was split lentils and spices and really, really delicious. Bean/pea type vegetables are some of the few I like, and these really were tasty. There's ginger in the lentils, and something that reminded me of vinegar, a kind of tanginess.

My date (a vegetarian) had that lentil dish as her main course, and I was almost jealous I didn't get it so I could have more.

Almost, I say, because by the end of the meal I was stuffed. Reminded me a bit of Indian food, though I couldn't exactly explain why, but you know how when you get Indian food, it just fills you up with all the meat and vegetables in thick sauce? Like that, you know.

And undoubtedly, it's all healthy, too. It just seems like it should be.

(Insert politically incorrect joke about fat Ethiopians here.)

Tonight, at a Super Bowl party, I just killed my diet, though. Wings, subs, beer, the first dessert I've had in a while outside of tiny slices of cake...

I get no more bonus points for the entire week. All the way through Thursday. It's going to be Mookie Monkey Salad Week, that's for damn sure.

This Weight Watchers thing is really working, though. It may be water weight, but I'm down nine pounds in three weeks. So I've lost most of the holiday weight. On to the weight I gained back last year.

Progress update:
Holiday max-out: 235+
Current weight as of Friday: 226
Last year's post-liver issues low: 213
Pre-Jersey weight: 204
Doctor's recommeded weight: 200
Goal: 199
Fighting weight: 185
Ideal weight: 165
High-school weight: 148

It's all about points, baby. Life would be so much easier if I could chart my "time" points online and be able to allocate them to whatever I want. I'm so freakin' busy, I think I took on way too much extracurricular stuff. I can't even find time to do things I want to do; hell, I can't even find time to do things I have to do.

Sigh. Maybe I need a schedule. Monday Mookie Movie Night (read: HorrorTalk review night; I've got two to do...), Tuesday and Wednesday Project Nights, Thursday Hockey Night in Hillsborough, and so forth.

I'll have to think about it. My horror reading is suffering, my Blood Bowl figures remain unpainted, I'm behind schedule on my Strat-O-Matic hockey league, the Raiderfans.net magazine still isn't done, my book project is in infancy, my November novel I swore I'd get back to is untouched, and the list goes on and on. And did I mention those HorrorTalk reviews?

Double sigh.