the problem is the morning after

friday night i took E to the playground and then stayed home and studied neuroscience while my wife went out to dinner with her friend camel for her birthday. satuday we went to the lake with E, and took him to the beach to meet brett and mike b., where we played in the sand, on the swings, and put E's feet in the water. then we, mike, brett, etc. went to stewarts in denville for ice cream floats and dinner for E. i had a cheese steak, even though my cholesterol is like, 500. later on, my wife stayed home while E slept, and i went to the lake for an evening of estling lake decacdence at allison's house. i drank many beers, played a$$hole and flip-cup, etc. etc. there's like a while new crowd of younger kids who maintained a healthy huddle in one area, and the old-school crew of allison-robin-bryan-brian-erin-catherine, but also a few really younger (frosh in college) kids who i didn't even recognize- they all looked like they were in grade schoool to me(!).... i had a red bull and cut and run at midnight. who knows after that... sunday we took it easy and hung out with my wife's parents, but i went home in the afternoon to mow the lawn and stuff, while my wife took E to the zoo. i wish i could have gone, but the lawn won't mow itself! we went out to dinner at a chinese resturant, and i asked for my meal spicy, saying: "i don't want to go to the hospital, but you know, in that ballpark". it was barely, barely, mildly hot. it's like you have to grab the person and shake them and scream, "i'm not kidding god dammit, make it spicy!" what are they afraid of? if it was up to me, i would have just gone to a thai place, you never have that problem there! the only problem is the morning after... it's like if you're the non-asian guy in a chinese resturant and you say "please make it spicy, i'm not kidding", they are trained to tell the cook "there's a white guy out there who thinks he knows what spicy is, but obviously he's delusionsal. please add a few dozen molecules of hot sauce and i think that'll be enough". asking for spices on the side is an alternative, but it's not only demoralizing, but it's never as good as when it's cooked in... that's why thai food rocks. even the ice water is hot.