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body in the river
Friday, September 17 1999
In the morning there were a number of helicopters circling about the office building, an odd enough circumstance for some in the office to verbally inquire around as to what was going on. Some time later one of my correspondents sent me an email telling me a body had just been pulled out of the San Diego River. Just the other day I wondered if there'd ever been any bodies thrown in this river. Being unusually observant, I might well have been the first to find this unfortunate individual.
I didn't have a radio handy and decided to turn instead to the internet to find out the details of this late-breaking story. I guess I've been too sucked-in by the new-media whirlpool. It's not so bad that I have to ask myself whether or not Rolling Stone still exists in print form, but I discovered that it's still impossible to get late-breaking local news via the internet (except, of course, via e-mailed personal correspondence). As late as 1999, local news on the internet is still never less than a day old.
I ventured down to the river at lunchtime to eat an unusual meal of Jumbo Jacks from Jack in the Box. Sure enough, two police cars were still at the corner of the office park parking lot, apparently still looking for evidence. The only other sign that anything was amiss was a solitary pissed-off seagull shrieking his dissatisfaction with the fact that his lunch had been carted away.
For the evening, Kim had (in her usual excessively pro-social way) arranged dinner in Old Town. We'd originally expected there to possibly be more people, but all who ended up coming along with us were Lisa and my co-worker Al. Before anyone showed up, I went out and bought the makings for margaritas. Al described the margaritas I eventually made as "tequila sours."
We took a cab into Old Town. Kim thought the cabby might be muslim and tried to conceal a margarita I'd mixed up for the road, but when it turned out his name was Vladimir, we all knew we were in the clear.
The place we went to was called El Agave, a restaurant that features no less than 500 brands of tequila doubling as decoration on shelves lining its walls. We sat out on the second floor balcony with two other tables of diners, one of which featured a couple whose male half was clearly trying too hard with his attractive 30-something brunette date.
Our waiter recommended a $10 shot of a certain brand of tequila which Kim accepted. She could have done worse; there were some shots costing as much as $140. I had a sip of her particular shot and found that it tasted like dilute (but somehow thickened), slightly sweetened vanilla, in the best sense.
The food wasn't your typical Americanized Mexican cuisine; there were no burritos or tacos on the menu. The dishes had more of a Spanish feel, appropriate to the class of their average customer. We're not talking cyclone-fence-jumping wetbacks here. Their specialties included plenty of seafood along with conventional meats smothered beneath rich sauces, one of which contained detectable quantities of chocolate. It was all excellent stuff, and (considering the elegance) not even all that expensive. My favourite dish was the calamari, which Lisa had ordered. The bill for our table came to $130. Though it would have cost less to go to Roberto's in Normal Heights, it just wouldn't have been the same.
We were the last people in the restaurant as we left, but we met another party as we descended the stairs, and they asked how we'd liked our meal.
Another cab ride later, we were back home hanging around my computer with Lisa checking out weird body modifications on the web and Al playing my electric guitar without amplification.
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