Signs Of The End?

Intended to treadmill my ass off last night, but for some reason, come 8.30, I was exhausted - ended up going upstairs to bed and sleeping nearly twelve hours. Clearly snoring is my new exercise of choice.

Today, we almost had a day off from the business of healthcare centre visiting - apart from a couple of calls from social workers and pastors, we were out and about with Lori and Dominic in Buffalo. Right from the start, the day had a slightly surreal sense to it. We arrived at the Galleria Mall in Buffalo, attempting to pull into a parking space that was being vacated. I blinked at the license plate.
"DIED4ME" it read.

So that's that cleared up - you can call off the CSI team. Apparently Jesus the Gallilean wasn't killed for inflammatory speech and rabble-rousing, or for blasphemy against the Sanhedrin, or for any of the...y'know...potentially real reasons why it might have been in almost everybody's interests to get rid of an apocalyptic preacher trying to overthrow the established order. He was killed for some dick in a Buffalo car park. Good to know, eh?

While walking around the Mall, we spotted a classic indictment of the American school system at a fast food stand. A sign invited passers-by to take advantage of its crazy one-day offer - "$1 offal smoothies."
If that wasn't appetizing enough, we saw the flipside of the same sign when we came back through. "$5 -Pepperoni pizza and a small sod," if offered. I realise of course the last word doesn't have the same import in the States as it does in the UK, but even with its ordinary meaning of "a clump of earth", it was difficult to see the offer enticing too many passers-by.

On the way back to the house, Dominic was overtaking a truck in the rain, when there was an unfamiliar flashing behind us. No, not a naked man in a raincoat, but a State Trooper, pulling us over. You've seen it a million times on TV and in the movies, but when these guys John Wayne up to you, it's still waaaay more intimidating than it would be if some spotty 12-year old gangly British youth knocked on your window.
"License and registration please," said the Trooper, and Dom handed them over. "Let's see some ID," added the paragon of local law enforcement. Dom handed over his Sheriff's Office ID.
The Tropper frowned.
"Does this belong to you?" he asked. Dom affirmed that it did. The Tropped frowned some more. "Where d'you work?" he asked.
"Sheriff's Office," said Dominic, a little redundantly, given the ID he'd handed over. The Trooper coughed, a little embarrassed.
"Don't be shy to whip that out," he instructed, handing all the documents back and touching his hat. "You have a good day now..."
And with that, we were free to go. A particularly cool kind of blag, that one.

We went out for dinner, to a place called the Texas Roadhouse, where, because it was Michael's birthday, I was commanded to utter only the second "Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaa!!!" of my life. For those still following the dietary aspects of this blog, that means for the second day runing, I've only eaten two meals and only taken two of the lethal little Xenical pills. My blood this morning was 6.3, and I'm still holding to the idea of not putting on too much over these two weeks, and then returning to my disciplined routine and hopefully pushing the weight further down again...

It's entirely possible of course that I'm making this theory up as I go along. On the other hand of course, we could all be dead by Saturday, if the lunatic group of Christians here in the States who have prophesied "as an absolute fact" that Judgment Day is kicking off on the 21st of May. I mean, don't get me wrong, it would be an extreme weightloss plan...but thankfully of course, they're mental.