denver lebanese style

So after I dropped off my piece of shit new laptop (turns out the image they loaded on it was corrupt, which is why I was having so many problems - it was a known corrupt image but they loaded it anyway - and I won't get my computer back until today at the earliest because most of the routers in my company's IT building are down and it's taking forever to download the new image - oh, and of course, no loaner laptop - I've said it before, we are an IT company) and met some sales people for lunch. They're in town for a data conference for the intell community.

Afterward S and I went back to his hotel so he could change. We were going to go to the botanic garden. So I waited in the lobby for 30 minutes but S didn't come down. I texted him and he said to order a glass of wine.

I hate waiting.

Then, right after I got the wine S showed up. But he still hadn't changed so I brought the wine up to his room so he could change. Then he decided we should go see the gym of the hotel. I poured the wine into a coffee cup and we went to the gym, which was like a real gym and not a crap hotel gym. S insisted I go into the men's room with him to see how nice it was. It was kind of weird walking around a men's room in a gym carrying a glass of wine.

We headed back to my house, got into my car, and went to the botantic gardens. Because S had fucked around for so long we only had 30 minutes until the gardens closed. Sami tried to argue with the woman at the ticket counter that it should stay open longer for us. Lebanese people are like that. So she told us to walk a certain way around the gardens because security walks the opposite direction and it would give us more time.

We made it around the gardens in record time and then I wanted to show S the poison frogs, lollipop plant, chocolate tree, and orchids. But the doors to the green house were locked. S saw a security guard and knocked on the locked door but the guard ignored us. Then he opened another door for a group of three women. That totally pissed S off so he started banging on the locked door. I was like "dude, let's just go in the open door". Then he tried to argue with the guard for not unlocking a door for him. I distracted him with the orchids.

We were finally thrown out by security who wouldn't even give us two more seconds to see the poison frogs.

We went back to my house and had a glass of wine. It was almost 7 o'clock so we walked down to 16th street mall to find a restaurant to eat in. S always says he isn't picky and then he's super picky when I suggest a place. We went to writer's square but he didn't want to eat there. So we walked down to Wazee because I was trying to find this indian restaurant I like. But I couldn't find it and S was accusing me of taking him down a dark street, like what, I was going to mug him?

He decided we should walk back to this steak place named Willie G's. We were seated but there was a large table of drunk obnoxious people and he said they gave him a headache so we had to leave because the waitress wouldn't seat us in a booth in a quieter area of the restaurant (he argued with her for like 10 minutes). He made the waitress look up the address for the indian place even though I told him I could look it up on my blackberry. She seemed pretty pissed by the time we left.

So we walked all the way back down to Blake Street (not far for me but S doesn't like to walk). We found the indian restaurant but it was closed for some reason. Then he decided to go to a restaurant we had seen that was even further down 16th Street. But there was a 45 minute wait.

By then I had the impression that if I didn't find a place soon S was going to kill me. We ended up eating at this asian fusion restaurant. Thankfully it was good and S was happy. It was 9 pm before we got our food.

He wanted to know exactly how far I made him walk...

Then we went back to his hotel and met up with Cosmo, who's from Jamaica, and Bill, who works with S and is also a friend of mine. Cosmo told me where to visit in Jamaica and then revealed his plans to leave his girlfriend in Denver and move to NYC. I was like "why don't you tell her your leaving?" Oddly, his response was "because she's just not feelin' the city." Also, he told me a story about a Jamaican artist who he admired who's work he wanted to buy. But before he good the artist was shot and killed in Kingston. The robbers got $30 and a watch. A gallery in LA hoarded the artist's work and the price skyrocketed and no one could afford to buy it. Cosmo was pissed. Then, 5 years later, a friend of his lost his home. Cosmo went to help him pack and found out all along the friend had been hoarding two of the artist's paintings. Because he had no money he sold them to Cosmo. There was a cleverly phrased moral to the story but I can't remember what he said. I should have written it down.

Then we all piled into Bill's car and he drove me home.