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Saturday evening at an Italian restaurant.

Ernie: Alright, since no one will admit to having paid for the $20,000 dinner, I’ll confess. I paid for dinner.

Bert: I know that if you carry more than $10,000 in cash into the United States you have to declare it. I paid for dinner.

Kermit: No, I paid for dinner.

Grungella: No, I’m Spartacus, I mean, I paid for dinner.

Ernie: I paid for dinner.

Bert: I paid for dinner.

Grungella: And the painful part is, we did pay for dinner.

Look. Just give us one rational explanation (instead of several contradictory evasions) for these huge restaurant bills (or show us incontrovertible proof that we heard wrong) and we’ll shut up (about the dinner/s). We like to eat out! Give us a little credit (haha, pun). Talk to us as if we were intelligent life-forms, not the raging cretins we are always taken for. Occasionally we are reasonable.

Here, we could all use some of these.

Macarons by Sadaharu Aoki.

Using recently-acquired psychic powers, I looked into the future and saw this headline: DINNERGATE.

I would use BER-CIRQUE!

Look into my eyes. You are getting sleepy. Your eyelids are getting veeeerrrry veeeerrrry heavy. You are sooo sleeeepy. You can’t keep your eyes open. Now you are in my power. You will do exactly as I say. Bring me treats! Treats! More!

Happy Birthday, Matthias Eomer!

A Plaza resident we do like: Eloise.

My fabulous friend Stella can’t even relax by watching the Travel Channel. While viewing a feature on the most expensive hotel suites on earth, she remembered someone who stayed at the $15,000-a-night presidential suite of the Plaza Hotel in New York last year. It’s not darling Eloise, it’s…your favorite diner!

Now I know what the plan is. The plan is to give everyone a coronary when they see the bills.

As to whether we are overreacting to the presidential expenditures, all I can say is:

P.S. Here’s an idea. Let’s judge our leaders by the standards of personal behavior set by President Cory Aquino.

Hahaha! Everyone will fail.

Through the NYT’s Happy Days blog I discovered the work of Tim Kreider. The prose first, and then the cartoons for which he is better known. He’s Brilliant.

“My Desk” from The Pain—When Will It End?

This piece about how we only realize we’re happy after the fact kills me not just because it is beautifully-written but because it’s absolutely true.

Averted Vision
by Tim Kreider

In 1996 I rode the circus train to Mexico City where I lived for a month, pretending to be someone’s husband. (Don’t even ask.) I remember my time there as we remember most of our travels — vivid and thrilling, everything new and strange. My ex-fake-wife Carolyn and I often reminisce nostalgically about our honeymoon there: ordering un balde hielo from room service to cool our Coronas every afternoon, the black-velvet painting of the devil on the toilet that she made me buy, our shared hilarious terror of kidnapping and murder, the giant pork rind I wrangled through customs. Which is funny, since, if I think back honestly, while I was actually there I did not feel “happy.”In fact, as mi esposa did not hesitate to point out to me at the time, I griped incessantly about the noise and stink of the city — the car horns playing shrill, uptempo versions of the theme from “The Godfather” or “La Cucaracha” every second, the noxious mix of diesel fumes and urine, the air so filthy we’d been there a week before I learned we had a view of the mountains. . . Continue reading Averted Vision.

The problem, I think, is that we now view the pursuit of happiness as a competitive sport. “How come she’s happy and I’m not?” “Why is he happier than I am, what am I doing wrong?” “Is there something I could buy or ingest to guarantee my happiness?” And that, people, is the path to unhappiness.

Saffy and Mat have already had their shots, thank you.

Not take them to the veterinarian, though some of the prospective candidates for the 2010 presidential elections sound like they could use a rabies shot. I mean put them through a critical examination: who are they, what have they got to offer, why are they running for president, why should we believe them, and other questions that are strangely left out of their campaign ads. Let’s start with their campaign ads. What are they saying, do you buy it, would you vote for them? And if you want to discuss production values and efficiency at delivering the message, I can’t stop you.

Critiques! We want critiques! If possible, please include a link to the political ad you are discussing. Yes, I am making you write my blog for me. Yes, we’d be happy to invite you to the think tank thingy. You will need plenty of caffeine to overcome the ill effects of exposure to political ads.

From the Reliable Source blog at the Washington Post (as in ‘more reliable than the New York Post’):

Heartburn Over Two Big Meals

The Philippine Embassy did not return calls for comment Tuesday.

One of the great things about the Filipino World Domination campaign is that we have moles in just about every restaurant on earth. We know what you’re eating, who you’re eating with, and who’s paying (Usually, us). Sticks in the craw, doesn’t it?

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Stella Arnaldo points out that US President Barack Obama has no problem eating at fast food joints. And if you’re hard at work in New York, dropping by a hotdog stand makes perfect sense. The Malacanang apologists really should find a new schtick.