Meat and Vampires

I experienced two things this past weekend that are ordinarily well-liked: Texas de Brazil and “Twilight.” As usual for me, I couldn’t get on the excitement bus.

I have to thank RVAblogs for my trip to Texas de Brazil. Someone else blogged about going to the restaurant's website and entering personal data and getting discount coupons. So I did that, and sure enough, for my birthday the restaurant sent me a free entrée ticket, as long as I arrived with someone who was paying full price. Otherwise, I would never pay this much for a meal. Not without winning the lottery.

Yes, the salad bar is delightful with an unusual assortment of vegetables, breads and cheeses that are not your usual salad bar fare. We both forgot to even try a soup. As for the meat, it almost makes you turn vegetarian. There is something unseemly about guys walking around with long skewers of meat. It was hard not to think about the Amazing Race All-Stars edition where the teams had to eat a bucket of gnarly looking meats in Brazil while whooshing away flies. The clever Rob of Rob and Amber fame figured out a way to pass on it and take the penalty, as long as he could convince a team behind him to do the same. It was almost like I now had to figure out how to get out of this meat-eating competition at Texas de Brazil to save myself.

Instead of a bucket of meat with a side of flies, they slide off one small piece for you as each skewer goes by. This way you don’t get stuck with too much if you don’t like it. There are no doggie bags at Texas de Brazil. You either eat it then or it gets trashed. Our server told us, yes, they waste a lot of food, but the alternative is to be taken advantage of by the evil conniving people among us, and if you don’t believe they exist, read the Check Out Girl’s blog.

The garlic sirloin was very salty, not surprising since everything is cooked in rock salt. The Parmesan chicken was thigh meat, which I find gross. This almost ended the meat-eating competition for me. The flank didn’t have much flavor, and neither did the regular sirloin. None of the other 10 or more meat choices ever came by our table. Garlic sirloin came back three times. After I declined a second piece three times, our server came over to ask, well, what do you want? Like Oliver Twist begging for more gruel, we timidly asked for filet mignon wrapped in bacon? But the next meat man to come by said it’d be five minutes before any was ready, and by that time we were full anyway and just wanted to leave.

But, now that I’ve survived it and know a little better what you have to do (plan to be there a long time waiting to meet the meat of your choice), by the time my anniversary and another coupon rolls around, I might be up for it again.

As for “Twilight,” this silly teenage romance is a metaphor for every teenage romance. At 16 or 17, what does any girl know about choosing a lifelong companion? Nothing. We haven’t even figured out a hairstyle yet. But we are mightily convinced a boy we hardly know is “the one” we want to spend the rest of our lives with, when they’re really not even worth spending the rest of our teens with. We just can’t see beyond the moment. It’s sad and tragic. I know the vampire I met when I was 15 should have been stabbed through the heart right away. Instead I clung to him until I was 20, and he left me with a baby to pursue his Peter Pan existence. What about my Peter Pan existence? Why do I have to be Wendy and the responsible one? You know how hard it is to finish college and launch a career in a demanding field when you’re a single mother? In the 1970s?! It’s hard. It is a game-changer that impacts every job and relationship you have in the future, and usually not for the best. Damn high school vampires.

So I’m watching moody Bella insist that yes, she wants to spend the rest of her life with cold-skinned, deer-sucking vampire boy and his unusually friendly vampire family playing superspeed baseball. Bite me! Bite me at the prom because it’s a prom moment. Vampire boy, on the other hand, is totally entranced with Bella only because he can’t read her mind. The fact that he can’t figure her out makes her special. So he will protect her forever, except if he wasn’t hanging out with her, making the out-of-town vampires jealous for her blood, she wouldn’t need protecting.

Maybe the book is better. I am tempted to put it in my Amazon cart, except I am afraid it will change me somehow. Everyone I have talked to who has read “Twilight” is insanely crazy about it and has read the whole series about this goofy girl and her pasty lover and they talk and talk about it like it's an addiction. I don't want to be one of those women.