Who are you and what are you doing on my property?

During my delivery rounds for Amazon, I meet a lot of dogs and cats.

The dogs love me.

Cats?

Hmmmm.

Check out the expressions on these three cat greeters from last week:

Notice the black spot on the forehead of the first cat. It’s more than just a black spot. It was a tumor. I so wanted to take the poor thing to a vet and have it looked at but the cat had a collar on and was hanging out where it lived, and who am I to assume that the cat didn’t have a vet appointment scheduled for the next day or so. Still felt sorry for it, though.

On a side note, I believe I am very close to returning to daily blogging. Everything will hinge on these next couple of weeks, but it could be even sooner. Here’s hoping!

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It’s upside down. So what?

One of my goals for delivering people for Uber and delivering packages for Amazon is to discover the nooks and crannies of San Diego County, the places where I have not been and probably would not go under normal circumstances.

With Amazon’s Prime Now service, I get to go to restaurants and stores that I definitely would not have gone to because I’m so stuck in my rut of a routine.

Yesterday, I had some pickups at Northgate, a Hispanic food market.

As soon as I walked in the door, there they were, two of them calling my name, begging me to take at least one of them home.

But I was working, on a time-sensitive delivery, and the register lines were long long long.

I couldn’t take time out to buy one.

Well, this morning, I went back to Northgate.

There they were, about forty of them, each wanting to go home with me.

Well, one did:

Trust me when I say it doesn’t look like that anymore.

25% of it is gone. Poof! Like magic! Gone, gone, gone….

….and good, good, good.

As they might say at Northgate, “Bueno! Bueno! Muy bueno!”

I’m not a big fan of cakes, for the most part, me being a pie person. But I do love my pineapple downside up cakes.

My question, though, is, Why does a Hispanic food store have forty pineapple upside down cakes while regular grocery stores like Vons, Albertsons, Ralphs, Kroger, Food4Less, etc., have nary a one? Does Northgate buy them all before the other stores wake up? Do Hispanics really eat pineapple upside down cakes like that? Hmmm. Maybe I have some Hispanicity in my background that I’m not aware of….

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Obviously named after me

Back ca. 1993, I was sitting in Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans, during Mardi Gras, with my brother, sister, and mother. I had not seen my mom in 25 years at that time. As we were drinking Hurricanes, my mom said to me, “Russel, I have to tell you something.” Ears around the table perked up because it sounded serious.

“What?” I asked.

“I misspelled your name on the birth certificate,” she said.

“Huh?”

“It was supposed to have two L’s.”

I was 38 at the time.

I had never met another Russel using only one L.

Met a lot of people named Russell, though.

Well, yesterday, one of my Uber riders was going to an address on Russell Road.

Wrong!

He was going to Russel Road!

Proof:

Obviously named after me, yes?

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