The seagulls know

It’s been a while since Jim and I have been able to go out to lunch together during the week, so today was definitely a treat. The original plan was for Grubbin’ Mexican, but we were gabbing with my co-worker A, so we ended up trying Pelayo’s, a Mexican restaurant recommended by A. Pelayo’s is only a couple of miles away from my job, so it saved us some time.

I was pleasantly surprised by the interior, which was open, airy, and neutral. Plus they had a machino, a la Chevy’s! We sat down at a large table for two on nice, padded chairs, and were given menus and asked for our drink order.

Despite having just eaten Mexican for dinner the previous night, we ended up going with our usual Mexican restaurant order: a veggie burrito for me and a chicken one for Jim. Plus we split an order of nachos. You can always get the vibe of a Mexican restaurant by the quality of their chips and salsa. While their salsa was nothing to write home about, both of us liked the chips, which were light and crispy, also very much like Chevy’s. And the salsa wasn’t bad at all. It just wasn’t Grubbin’ Mexican or Sandoval’s quality.

Anyway, our burritos were a decent but not overly generous size. Mine came with lettuce, tomato, whole beans, and rice, plus sour cream and guacamole on the side and ranchero sauce on top. I have to admit that I really, really, really liked the ranchero sauce, which was actually more like salsa. It was mildly spicy and slightly chunky and nothing like the enchilada sauce-like ranchero sauces I’ve had before.

The nachos were not my faves. The refried beans were overly greasy and way too rich (something I never thought possible). Plus there was enough salt in them to permanently raise my blood pressure. Unfortunately, the beans kind of ruined the entire plate for me. The guacamole was mild flavored and very fresh, and of course I liked the chips.

I was overall quite happy with the place. I thought the food was pretty darn good, the service competent, and the prices reasonable. I only tried two salsas from the salsa bar, not including the house salsa our chips were served with, so the jury’s still out on that one. I think that the next time I’ve craving Mexican, Pelayo’s is it for me.

After work I went and grabbed Midget from the vet. It cost me another $475 and her diabetes still isn’t under control. I’m beyond frustrated at this point, but I was a little relieved to learn that she’s not in a diabetic crisis (yet). So even though her blood sugar is all out of whack, she doesn’t seem to be suffering too badly still. The problem is that it keeps causing her to get infections, and THAT makes her feel all iggy. She’s got another dose of antibiotics for her second bladder infection. She might have a vaginal infection, too. We’ll see with the cultures, bloodwork, etc. come back tomorrow.

I also went by Midget’s Homeopathic Consultant. Yes, that’s right. I hired a friggin’ homeopathic consultant for my dog. I have officially turned into one of THOSE owners. It’s terribly embarrassing, but I am desperate to help her get better. I don’t know if I’m to the point where I’ll feed my dog the raw food diet she is recommending, but the way things have been going lately, I’ll be going regularly to Costco for 50 pounds of meat before I know it.

So, armed with Homeopathic remedies and antibiotics, I got Midget home. Her food is now mixed with her antibiotic, her homeopathy treatment, her multivitamin, and fur supplement. I have to put round one of drops in her eyes, feed her, inject the insulin, do a blood glucose test, and then put round two of drops in her eyes. I didn’t do it today, but I also have to give her another round of homeopathy treatment half an hour after she eats. I hope that this isn’t all in vain.

I’m not sure why I’m going to such drastic lengths to help my dog. Guilt, responsibility, my moral compass . . . it’s an odd mixture. I love Midget, and I just need to know that I did everything within reason to help her quality of life. When she looks at me right now, my heart breaks because she’s so weak and not herself. I’m bracing myself for the inevitable: I’m pretty sure that no matter what I do, Midget is going to die pretty soon. And I would feel horribly guilty living with the fact that I didn’t take care of my dog like I should have. So that’s a big part of why I’m doing what I’m doing.

After all of her treatments, I took off to Jim’s house because we were headed to the Giants game with M & M’s R. They got to drive their brand spankin’ new Ford SUV hybrid. As much disdain as I have for Fords, I have to admit that it’s a pretty nice car, and they definitely loaded it to the hilt with a GPS, leather interior, dual climate control, etc. We didn’t have seats together, but it saved us all money to carpool over to the game anyway and we got to use the carpool lane to boot.

Our seats were surprisingly awesome. We sat in section 139, row 3, in seats 13 & 14. Almost everyone around us were season ticket holders and had a whole camaraderie thing that was fun to observe. Near the end, one of the guys, Alex, got a Padres fan kicked out of our section. He had come down to the first row to watch and then started cheering a little too loudly. First came the mild heckling, making fun of his old school Padres hat and asking him if he bought it on eBay. Pretty funny stuff.

There were a couple of other characters in our section. A black girl was trying to hit on her friend, insisting that he lean back on her lap from his seat a row under her. He tried to protest, to no avail. She was very determined and she definitely won. Another was a nuclear family, where mom and dad sat nowhere near each other and the two kids ran back and forth, depending on how long each particular parent could handle them. I found it very odd that the mom was dressed in a hat, heavy coat, gloves, and a blanket, while she let her kids run around with almost no cold weather clothes.

While the Giants got on the board against the Padres in the first inning, they quickly lost the lead. It was a good pitching duel, Cain v. Maddux. Cain allowed 3 runs early on, but he settled down and pitched 7 innings. In the 8th inning, Keichi Yabu came in after Hinshaw allowed a hit and walked another batter. THE game moment happened with Yabu's first pitch, which was a freaking triple play! So incredible. Then in the ninth, he went 1-2-3. With that, the Giants took the game into extra innings--four of them, to be exact.

When the seagulls started circling in the top of the 13th, I had a sinking feeling that the game was over. The seagulls know. I was right, because the Pads scored four runs, thanks to Sadler. I actually felt a little sorry for the guy, since they kept him in even after 40+ pitches. He's a reliever! He's not meant to throw that many pitches. The Giants were very quiet in the bottom of the 13th and just like that, the game was over.

We were treated to fireworks after the game. It was a beautiful show and surprisingly long. We got a great view from the top of the slide area that was actually quite private. There were probably about half a dozen people where we were at. The only complaint I had was of the musical selections--I mean, Josh Groban (You Raise Me Up), Bette Midler (Wind Beneath My Wings), and Michael Buble (Sway With Me)?! Very, very odd. As long as I tuned out the music, it was a great display.

I know I haven't mentioned M & R, but that was because we barely interacted. They were seated in the same section, but back in row 20. Apparently R hated their seats, so it was probably a good thing that we didn't sit together. I was absolutely thrilled with ours. We even had a backrest! Thanks to Omar Vizquel, the seats were also freaking cheap. You can't beat $14 a ticket. Seriously. There was a ceremony before the game to honor him for being the shortstop to play the most games. It was nice to see the guy honored. He's incredible, and I'm so happy that he's a Giant.

Right after the ceremony, Jim and I grabbed some dinner. For the first time in forever, we didn't get Cha-Cha bowls. Instead we got hot dogs, mine a veggie dog of course. We both ordered ours with bell peppers and onions, and then I topped mine off with ketchup and Jim's with mustard and ketchup. The bell peppers made the veggie dog actually taste good. I liked it. Jim said his was "okay," which I think meant that if he had been hungry, he would have rather had Cha-Cha bowl.

After the game, we hit up In-N-Out because the boys were hungry. Well, I think M was hungry, and Jim is never going to turn down In-N-Out. It was my first time going through the In-N-Out drive-thru, and let me tell you, I was less than impressed. Drive-thrus suck.

Anyway, overall, the night was a lot of fun. It was a bummer about the loss, but we got to see that triple play and fireworks. So that made it worth it.