A candle's fickle flame
To think I loved you yesterday
Your love was just a game.

Cake, "Never There"
---
September seems to be flying by like my youth. I've spent it enjoying the sport of kings and in the company of strangers. Let's begin by discussing the $20 cover charge at Crown & Anchor last Wednesday at lunch when a coworker and I decided to enjoy some sort of permutation of sausage, gravy, and potatoes.

I would later speak to the bartender about how a buddy of his visited LA from England, where the buddy worked as a scout for Everton's youth team. He said that Everton had some 14-year-old kid named Wayne Rooney who was more advanced at his age than Michael Owen was at 14.

On Wednesday, England beat Lichtenstein 2-0, whose capital is Vaduz (pronounced va-DOOTS), which basically means you paid $10 to see a goal by Michael Owen, and another $10 to see a goal by some 17-year-old kid named Wayne Rooney. My coworker wondered what the population of the country was during an away game.

I finally finished reading Joseph Epstein's deliciously blunt book, Snobbery, and from here I move on to some Heinlein, or possibly Ayn Rand. I realize now why I like buying books I don't read: eventually, with them on my shelf, I just might read them. Therefore, visiting my own bookshelf is like having the perfect bookstore with only books I like.

Feeling rather silly about having a new fridge that was empty, my trip to Vons ended with me making a lovely dinner for one in front of Sunday Night football. I have apparently jinxed Ladainian Tomlinson with the purchase of his jersey, so I will now go out and purchase a Rich Gannon, Trent Green, and Clinton Portis jersey. Dinner was pork loin sauteed in sesame oil, encrusted in hazelnuts, and served with Asian noodles. The wine was a malbec given as a gift to me by a friend of mine whose father is an importer of Argentine wines. Dessert was One Sweet Whirled, a DMB-inspired offering from Ben & Jerry's. This is comfort food in the Ron household.

Very recently, the wife of a coworker gave birth to a gorgeous and healthy baby girl named Natalia Maria. I can totally imagine myself being a doting father, but the wife, in my imagination, is faceless, and the wedding doesn't even exist. This is an important development, I think: for a while I felt like I was hitting my quarter-life crisis and so it's kind of nice to be able to forsee a future, faceless or otherwise.

I was about to write a scathing review of a terrible restaurant here in Thousand Oaks, but instead, I thought it would be more fun to describe my perfect restaurant: the waiting room from Lawry's, the vaunted interior of The Madison, the balcony of The House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, the appetizers of Prince of Wales, the entrees of Blue Ginger, the dessert of L'Opera. The lemonade would come from Les Sisters. Sushi would come from Brothers. The clam chowder would be a fight between The Union Oyster House in Boston and the Hungry Hunter right here in Thousand Oaks. The patio of Michael's in Santa Monica, the garden at Saddle Peak Lodge in Malibu Canyon, and the view of La Valencia in La Jolla and from SkyCity at the Space Needle are great, but I wouldn't mind a city location like The Metropolitan Grill in Seattle or Chez Josephine in Manhattan. The piano player would be from J.J.'s. The wine list of Pamplemousse Grille is fantastic, but it wouldn't matter with Chris from The Madison and L'Opera being the sommelier. Michael from Chez Josephine would be the server. The bartenders would be from Crown & Anchor. The waitresses would be from The Kitchen, or from Saladang, or from Kings, or from Piatti, or from Fins, or from Ragin Cajun, or from Hooters. The go-go dancers would be from Velvet. And for the hell of it, how about that host from the restaurant in Munich where Dale got sick, the living room of the house-slash-fondue restaurant in Switzerland, and the daughter of the owner of the restaurant in Florence to calculate the bill.