Walk this way

Having won a $25 gift card for PF Chang's at work (because I'm just that awesome), Edgar and I decided to have ourselves a little date night. Because date night for middle middle class citizens like us entails having dinner at a restaurant in the vein of PF Changs, Olive Garden, Chili's, Outback Steakhouse, etc. You know, those havens of good worker-bees. We're good little faux-yuppies pumping cash flow into the economy.

The PF Chang's at Shoreline Village is about a three-quarter mile jaunt down the street from our apartment. There's a part of the sidewalk that goes down a hill at a fairly steep grade. So la la la, there we go, walking down the street, going about our business in totally sensible shoes, and then all of a sudden BAM my left foot slips out from under me and I fall with my right knee behind me and my left leg sprawled in front of me. And besides keeping a hold to my hand, Edgar just starts laughing and I had to be all "Need I remind you about that time earlier this week when you almost died because you choked on your Diet Coke in the middle of a Jack 'n the Box? A JACK 'N THE BOX? REMEMBER THAT?" So after limping the rest of the way to the restaurant I discovered that I had torn a hole in the knee of my jeans and scraped my knee to shit.

So, you know. Awesome.

Forget the food. Get this. On the way back, walking home, all full of Dan Dan Noodle-y goodness, we passed on the street....

...you'll never guess.....

.....THE MOTHER OF MICHAEL PHELPS. That's right, the lady that pushed out of her vagina the Dumbo-eared boy (I'm thinking they used forceps) that would one day become an Olympic, no, scratch that, an AMERICAN hero that won eight gold medals in the land of China. THAT'S RIGHT, TAKE THAT COMMUNISTS. And his sister was there too. And the reason I recognized them was not because I'm a Michael Phelps stalker but because when the Summer Olympics were on in 2008 Edgar and I were glued to the events for a lack of other things to do and how many freakin' times did they show little pre-recorded segments of interviews with his mama and then show him giving his sister the flowers after he got yet another gold medal draped around his neck.

And no, just because I live in Southern California, I don't see celebrities on a daily basis. Or, in this case, people with shared glory that bask in the glow of said celebrities. So it's kind of still a big deal to me in that "girl from the Mid-West that dreamed of being a star as a child" kind of way. I think that the only celebrities I've seen since living in California were Magnum PI and Carrie Ann Inaba at the Revlon 5k in 2008.

Oh, Pine Avenue, I never know what you're going to throw at me.

What an eventful evening.