This and that

Or ceci and cela for all you Frankophiles. I don't think it's really spelled that way.

We ate at a large restaurant the other night and the waiter brought us the wrong appetizer, and when we complained the maitre d' walked over quickly and pulled a red card out of his pocket and called out "carte rouge!" like he was ejecting someone from a soccer game. He said he keeps it around for whenever a waiter makes a mistake.

All the pharmacies in town have condom vending machines outside.

I've been aware of what I call the inflation of superlatives. Once, "great" would do as a superlative, but it was eventually eclipsed by "amazing," "incredible," "awesome," and more recently "sick." Now what I'm hearing is "insane," as in "there's an insane number of calories in this dessert." I don't know where this trend is heading but I'm fairly sure it's nowhere good. It was bad enough taking the credibility out of incredible and the awe out of awesome, but now we're taking the insanity out of insane.

Finally, in the realm of all conversation leading to obscure music references, earlier today during one of out "Friends" mini-marathons (the apartment owners generously left seasons 5 and 6 on DVD here) we had a small technical problem and the dramatic child called out "Why?" and Ronnie and I both replied, "Why, because we like you." Many people would not know that reference but I won't spoil it for those who can enjoy it in peace.

Didn't do much today, but minimal drama. It's late. I'll put some more photos up tomorrow, especially since I'll be touring a famous cemetery in the morning while the girls are asleep. And then we'll be doing the Louvre.