What a fun day!!!! I woke up this morning without a care in the world (despite the fact that I owe a few different credit card companies a whole bunch of money and I still have no job to speak of). That will probably change soon...I've decided to go back to my old overnight stocking position at Target. Mindless work is just the way to go sometimes.

It's been a Father/Daughter afternoon. Pops came home early from work...we were gonna go to some boring banquet for something rather (I was supposed to step in for the Moms, who left for California this morning for a weekend getaway), but I convinced him that we should stay home and watch the Laker game instead (it wasn't too hard), so I'm killing time in anxious anticipation.

We decided to go to Boston Market for dinner (because my Ma has a problem with mass-produced chicken products, and this was our chance to grub on some for a night), and my Dad did this thing there that was SO typical of my Dad, and cute in that way that it can only be when you're no longer in middle school and embarrassed by this sort of thing. We were ordering, and I ordered this meal that comes with chicken and two sides. My Dad ordered chicken and three sides, and when he saw the plate the guy was gonna put it on, he goes, "when you order three sides are the plates just divided into smaller sections?" (Pops LOVES food! :) He said it in a really serious way, cuz he was, and he sounded just a slight bit upset. The kid who was shlepping the grub looked confused, and my Dad added, "because they looked like the same sized plate." The funny thing is that I was thinking the exact same thing, I just don't think I would have said anything about it. I was asking myself what my Dad was expecting to happen from the exchange (like, the kid couldn't possibly change the size of the plate right then), and then the kid said, "I could give you more of everything," in this way that sounded like he was totally scared. I forget sometimes that my Dad is a 6'4" 220-pound intimidating figure to those who don't know whatta gentle goof he really is. So I guess he got what he wanted out of the deal. The kid rung us up and asked if we wanted drinks in this way like he was expecting my Dad to reach over the counter and grab him by the collar, screaming that "NO, we don't want any damned drinks!!!!!" But we totally wanted drinks, and we just smiled politely.

Sometimes it's nice to eat with men because they don't mind if you're more interested in your chicken than conversation.

Don't get me wrong, I love talking and joking with my Dad, but it's a very low-pressure sort of relationship. And to explain the chicken part...I finally realized why I've always liked that "Swingin'" song so much (the one I mentioned about two weeks ago). It's because of the line where John Anderson says, "Mama's in the kitchen cuttin' chicken up to fry." When I was a little girl, fried chicked was my favorite food in the whole world. Every birthday I wanted to go to this restaurant near Anaheim, California called the Big Yellow House. It was a chicken place made out of this old victorian-style house, and I just LOVED it. There's a picture of me with a big plate FULL of chicken bones sitting in front of me on my 5th birthday. Of course, everybody had been using the plate, but it was a funny picture. Come to think about it, my parents really seemed to dig on that kind of humor. My Dad used to always fall asleep watching T.V. in the evenings (still does, actually). One time, he was lying on the floor on his back in the living room, and my Mom took all these Twinkies out of their wrappers and put the wrappers on his chest and all over the floor around him and then took a picture. It was like he passed out cuz of all the Twinkies or something. Those wacky Konrads! So anyway, I think that when I was little and heard the part about the Mama cuttin' up the chicken, I just let my mind wander and imagined that I would get in on some of that. Cheap cheap, cheap cheap thrills.

Anyway, it's about time for the game, and my Dadio's saving a spot for me on the couch. Go Lakers!!!