Spicy!

Ohmigosh.

Monday night the Sexy Beast and I had nothing to do, thankfully... or so we thought. First, SB's brother, who lives a block over, was having a friend and collegue from India (Dell) for dinner and had requested SB make her quite delicious salsa.

SB's brother had picked up parsley instead of cilantro (ick, imagine THAT salsa) so SB gets cilantro for him -- and we walk over, or rather, have Zeta drag us, as her onleash manners are terrible right now. I had to stop every three or four steps so she would sit and NOT pull! I can't believe a teensy little seven pound bundle of Schnauze can pull so hard -- she thinks she's a Samoyed!

Alright, so we finally get there, me fifteen minutes behind the SB... SB's brother mixes me a delicious drink -- an alcohol free concoction of orange juice, Sprite, Margarita Mix, a pinch of olive juice in a salt rimmed glass garnished with an orange stuffed olive. Yum. You might not think so, but it works!

Salsa gets made, we wait, I walk Zeta back home, I come back, we wait. You can imagine, again, with Zeta's leash manners that this is a time consuming event!

By now, SB's brother's guest is super late and in fifteen minutes I'm going to have to pick up G-Man (our youngest) from rehearsal. It's 8:45.

I schlep the Zeta Dog back home and go pick up G-Man. I return.

Still!!!! When I do, Sexy Beast's brother's guest has arrived. Two hours later. I'm figuring with no opinion or criticism whatsoever, this tardiness is not a big deal to those who are acclimated to the culture in India. It's dark by now, though.

Here's the fun part. We're eating on the patio. It's really lovely and all but -- for reasons beyond the Sexy Beast and me -- SBB (Sexy Beast's Brother) will NOT turn on the patio light. (Maybe it will attract too many bugs?) Hence, we eat by the dimmest of candlelight. I do mean dim. The Sexy Beast and I exchanged the use of long utility gas match lighters and candles to forage for vegetables to place on our tortillas.

SBB's Indian guest forages as well, and just as he has managed to get a good bite of his fajita, I hear what sounds eerily like a cat coughing up a furball. OOf! There I heard it again! The SBB has no pets, so what could it be?

SBB's Indian guest has encountered something hot in the vegetable mix. It's so hot he's over there coughing up a furball! Of course, how could we have immediately known what the sound was or where it was coming from, it was too dark!

As we say in Texas it was a flavor hot, not a temperature hot. You gotta ask that question when you stare at (if there's enough light) the victim of an attack of hot mouth. If it's a temperature issue, usually, you can count on being able to see the victim jiggling around in their chair, gingerly tossing the offending hot object from one side of their mouth to the other with their tongue, attempting that blowy, panting sorta thingy with their lips. It was a bad flavor hot, though, hence the furball simile. SBB got up to provide something for balance, finally settling on a few pieces of chocolate.

Just as SBB sat back down, I get hold of the same flavor bouquet. What the hell? While I provided no furball noise, I did offer the requisite response. A shake of the head, dousing of my mouth with beverage, craning of the neck, watery eyes, and a lively, "WHEW! What is IN these vegetables?" SBB couldn't fathom what could be so hot in his recipe.

While I held a candle to the platter, the Sexy Beast, brave and sure, once again foraged in the vegetables attempting to find the offending ingredient. She never did figure it out, but she did taste it. In a cool and collected and almost a macho fashion, the heat extricated from her a calm, "Yeah, I can take hot, but that's pretty hot." Of course, this is exactly what people who think they can take hot say when something is hot.

Well whatever. By this time it's nearly ten o'clock. The Sexy Beast and I had had quite a long night of it the evening before and we retired to our own house, SBB's Indian guest a little curious about our rush to go home.

That's ok, we'd been there since 7.

The rest of the night was uneventful -- well, at least for the Sexy Beast and me.