Yesterday while we were out running a bunch of errands, we stopped at Chili's for lunch. I ordered this combo meal where you pick any two entree items off a list; I chose garlic-and-lime grilled shrimp and firecracker tilapia. When they brought my plate, the tilapia fillet looked awfully dark to me but I figured it was merely that the "firecracker" sauce was darker/browner than I expected, more like a jerk sauce, so I didn't question it. After I ate a shrimp, I cut into the fillet and was thinking something was up just as Alan said, "That's the darkest tilapia I've ever seen - are you sure it's okay to...wait a minute, is that a sirloin?"

I took a tentative bite and replied, "It's cow tilapia."

I didn't complain or anything because the sirloin was very good and hey, it isn't like I don't like steak. Later on at the grocery store, I said, "Let's take a look at their cow tilapia. If they have any pretty cuts, let's get some." So I suppose a new goofy term of HelSpeak has been added to the vernacular.

Adding to my personal vernacular reminds me of something I was telling Alan yesterday. The Boss has a number of colourful, quintessentially Southern expressions and this is one of them. When he's talking about a person who is very much the opposite of physically attractive, he says that (s)he is "ugly enough to haunt a two-story house from the backyard".

In other sports news, I have uploaded a bunch of new pictures to Flickr. I've been taking pictures about as much as ever, but I've been slack at the uploading. It's partly because uploading takes so long - like just now, it took over 12 minutes to get one set of 6 pictures uploaded. I mean no disparagement to Flickr, it's more that I seem to pick times when 10 million other people are also trying to upload, and after sitting in front of a computer all day long at my job, I'm not particularly inclined to do more of it when I get home in the evening. But I had some good pictures so I took the time today. I'm proudest of this one; Sarah says it would make a good album cover. There are a couple more like it, but that one is my favorite. Writing of favorites, I have a new fave picture of my baby brother. Isn't that a great evil grin? And this is a good one of my miser cat, counting his monies. He saves his allowance and usually has a lot of cash.

Do you have fun plans for the 4th? We're only off that one day, not taking any additional vacation and so aren't planning to do anything much - but that's a good thing. Our lives have been so topsy-turvy lately, and Alan has been working an odd schedule to cover for other people being on vacation, so 'not much' is perfectly fine with us.

P.S. Leigh-Ann, Heather & Afton: Happy Canada Day!!!