Wednesday, since we were over by the old ‘hood, Ben and I decided to go to our favorite Indian place for dinner. I fell in love with Pasand when I ate there on the very first trip I made up here to San Jose to visit Ben. It might even be the reason that I ended up moving. I mean, Ben is sexy and all… but he’s no Ginger Chicken Tikka Masala. Since then we’ve taken his dad and Kandy, my dad and Cherie, my mom and Cameron, pretty much anybody visiting meant a trip to Pasand which is why I always encouraged visiting.

So as we got out of the car tired, hungry and frustrated after sitting in Urgent Care for well over and hour to be helped by a quack doctor physicians assistant so old we actually got to watch the last few whisps of hair fall from his head in our 10 minutes with him, it took us both a few seconds to realize that the simple Pasand sign had been replaced with a rather large, rather LOOK AT ME red sign that read: Bombay Garden.

Ben: What’s that Bombay Garden… Wait.. WHERE’s PASAND!?
Me: Lets just go in and eat I’m starving.
Ben: Well, lets go in and see what they have.
Me: I’m STARVING, lets just EAT here.
Ben: We’ll ask first.
Me: And then try it.
Ben: Anna!

We were “greeted” (if you can call it that) by a guy in his mid 20’s who must have just pulled himself from the nearest mirror when he saw us coming in. He looked bothered to have been pulled from basking in all his magnificent greatness and to be dealing with us plain commoners. Seriously, I slipped a little in the trail of EgoSlimeâ„¢ he left behind him.

Ben: So, is this place under new ownership or is it another restaurant all together?
EgoBoy: New ownership.
Ben: So the food is all the same?
EgoBoy: Same. Added more to the menu.

The guy couldn’t even be bothered to throw together a complete sentence with, like, verbs and adjectives or ANY RELEVANT INFORMATION. When we walked in it was instantly clear that this was NOT the same place. AT ALL. From the fancy new chairs that must have been crafted by the same people who make electric chairs, to the plasma screen TV’s playing Bollywood soap operas. The entire atmosphere felt wrong. Tight.

The food was twice as expensive for half as much that tasted half as good. They didn’t even HAVE the Ginger Chicken Tikka Masala. The menu is NOT the same, Pretty Boy. Not at all. The lamb samosas I’ve grown to love were LESS than half the size and we had to ask our waiter (who was a leftover from Pasand) for the sauce we’d ALWAYS gotten before. Not the same, Pretty Boy! Then!! When we ordered our food, we had to CHOOSE between rice or Nan. WHAT?! EVERY other Indian place I’ve EVER been to has ALWAYS included BOTH. BOTH! Now you want me to CHOOSE?! NOT THE SAME, PRETTY BOY!!

Our food was $10 more for Ben and myself than what it usually is when we have Cassidy with us and order extra rice and two more samosa’s. We finished everything in the table. When it was Pasand we’d have enough left over to feed Cassidy and myself lunch the next day.

Worst of all though I’m just SAD! I mean, if it were any other place we’d have probably walked in and enjoyed the meal. But we compared it all to what we LOVED. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but I REALLY loved Pasand. Everything about it. The man who always greeted us seemed HAPPY to see us. EXCITED that he got to share is good food with us. The food was DAMN GOOD and there was LOTS of it.

Pasand was one of the first places that really made San Jose feel like home to me. It was my favorite, a nice treat we got because we were broke back then and couldn’t afford to go out to eat every night. I have lots and lots and lots of places like that now. Lots and lots. San Jose IS home now and when I go to the town I grew up in I always feel a visitor and I can’t wait to get HOME to my familiar neighborhood and streets and restaurants and stores and friends and FAMILY. But a little part of me is mourning the loss of that first security blanket I had here.

Last night was SO. MUCH. FUN. I laughed more than I have in MONTHS. The best part was seeing Ben so happy. He’s a happy drinker. The more he gets in him the bigger his smile gets and the more funny he becomes. I have more pictures but I want to get to the Farmers Market before all the good stuff is gone. Some of the pics didn’t turn out well because, well the operator was a bit tipsy. There were other cameras there to I’m sure some funny stuff should surface in the next few days.

I need some time to decompress from the last few months.

Tomorrow is the Halloween party. Sandra is bringing mummy mojito mix! FTW!! Sunday Cassidy and I will do the farmers market and hopefully some brunch with the female parental unit. I never thought I’d be saying this out loud but I miss my mommy… Then next weekend I’ll be in BakersHell but that’s okay because I’ve already suckered Julie into dinner on Friday night. Now I just have to convince Kristen and Lisa. *bats eyelashes* Then the rest of that weekend will be spent sucking in as much Carrielee and Amber time as possible. I miss my Carrielee. A lot. Lots and lots and lots and lots.

Oh yeah, tomorrow Ben is going to buy a Range Rover and a car trailor so he can start towing his M3 to the track. Long overdue. I’m stoked for him. Then in two weekends we’ll be at Thunderhill with the track car for the first time since the motor rebuild. Ben will be BACK AT THE TRACK. And all will be well with the world.

The theme is coming along very well. I hadn’t planned on having to use SO much PHP. But it’s been fun. And challenging. And it’s starting to finally take shape and I’m REALLY liking it. It won’t be November 1st but hopefully not long after. I’ll throw somethng temp up here in the mean time because the pink is so… PINK! But it’s for a good cause and I’m going to see it through.

I wrote a blog out today that included phrases like “will retake the place of the catty, manipulative, bitch you wanted to backhand a month ago” and “and sticking your nose so far up somebody else’s ass you have problems determining where your nose ends and their colon starts”. I think maybe my backspace key isn’t quite functioning well enough to be blogging about some stuff publicly just yet… So to make myself feel better, the post in its entirety is available over at The Vox Blog but only to those of you who I have set as friend or family. The rest of you will just have to sit and wonder what I’m talking about and assume you have a clue.

We had a great time at Laguna Seca this weekend. I laughed so much my tummy is actually a bit sore. I could go on and on about all the funny things that happened and all the laughing and the crazy late night trips to Safeway for sweat pants but I’m really so tired I’m having problems keeping my eyes open as a write this. So I think instead I’ll go curl up on the couch and catch up on some TiVo’d goodness and call it a night.

P.S. - I’m working on a new theme. Like, coding it from the ground up. A THEME for wordpress, not a ‘layout’. An actual functioning theme with multiple php subpages and stuff. I realized I had gotten lazy and taking a prefab theme and manipulating and molesting it into what I wanted wasn’t “fulfilling me”. Ben inspired me to start setting more goals for myself. Like, achievements. This is one. Get back into the present and start keeping up with the latest interweb goodness. I can’t believe how much things can change in a year in the world of HTML, XHTML, PHP. Last night I went to sleep and suddenly tables became passe and all the cool kids were using divs and Web 2.0 swept the globe and cured World hunger.

I could set a goal to have it up by the beginning of Novenber but I think we all know how WONDERFUL I am at meeting those goals. See, I’m setting myself up for failure here so in the off chance I actually get it all coded and functioning by then you can all go on and on about how awsome I am. If not, feel free to point and laugh at will.

Oh yeah! Julie is back!!. Go show her love becuase if she leaves the internet again I might actually have that nervous breakdown I’ve been talking about for the last four years.

Saturday: Clean, laundry, dinner with The Crew. Cassidy spent most of the DAY running back and forth between our house and the neighbors WITH random neighborhood kids in tow thrashing the house and the backyard and letting the cat out every 10 minutes. Thanks goodness for hardwood floors. I know I complain they are hard to keep clean but they tracked something through the house that I can only describe as “Eww”.

I really wish I had remembered to put the memory card back in the Canon before we left the house for dinner. I actually took the time to wipe the card clean then got sidetracked and didn’t put it IN the camera. *shakes fist at blondness* Dinner was a blast though and I’m still full from the filet.

Sunday: Went to the Top Driver Shootout AutoX at the Marina. This time I remembered to bring the memory card and took 1200 pictures. That’s a lot. I went through and got most of them organized into subfolders by driver/car last night but was too beat from all the walking, sun and fun to get many of them posted. Unfortunately, early in the day I used the circle polarizer on the lens to take a shot of an Alpina and didn’t take it off for the actions shots so a lot of them came out dark and will need a bit of PS manipulation to lighten them up. I should have listened to Ben and gotten a bit closer to the cars but after watching a few of them spin past cones, it’s not a comfortable feeling planting yourself right in the path of the cars. But he’s right, that IS where you get the best shots. Eventually I want to pick up a better zoom lens but right now I think I need to focus on getting the settings down and making sure I have the correct filter on the lens. heh

Today: They changed our productivity rates at work and instead of getting LOWER numbers I’m like, WAY OVER. I hit 155% at 10:00AM and have been having a hard time motivating myself to get anything done since then. Usually I count down the minutes till 2:30 but today I’m willing them to take longer.

Cassidy got in trouble at school (talking in class) last week and didn’t give us TWO papers the teacher required us to sign so she’s managed to dig herself a pretty deep hole. That means I have to stay after class to talk to the teacher today. I hate that. I feel like I’m the one in trouble and there’s that feeling of impending doom of when I get home and have to tell my mom. Except I DON’T have to tell my mom (well, I will because I’ll call and be all “Remember that time I was supposed to bring you a note home to sign and I didn’t tell you and you got really mad and grounded me? Well I didn’t tell you this but I called you mean names when I got in my room and rolled my eyes 180 degrees in my head and I’M SO SORRY BECAUSE YOU WERE SO RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!”).

Instead, I have to BE the mom. And that’s SO MUCH WORSE because I’m totally not the disciplinary one in the relationship. That generally falls to Ben. He’s very good at sitting down and explaining things and making sure Cassidy understands consiquences and why punishment is necessary. I just get frustrated. It’s become pretty clear though that Cassidy has learned to manipulate that situation and will come to me instead of Ben if she’s trying to “pull something off”. I need to stop being such a pushover and start putting my foot down more because the only person I’m hurting by NOT doing that is her. It just kills me to see her upset or that look on her face when she knows that she’s disappointed me because I can tell it hurts her and it REALLY hurts me. Like, makes my heart physically ache.

See, they should use that as ammunition for abstinence and birth control for teenage girls. Diapers and sleepless nights and 10 extra pounds of baby fat: Cake. Having your heart broken by doing the right thing when they lie to you: TORTURE.