Maybe I shoulda got da spinach

I am way too full and sleepy after going out for sushi with my pal, Hap, who is visiting from out of town.

A little background on Hap:

1. He's the spitting image of Bluto from the Popeye cartoons.










2. We have the same last name, but we don't think we're related, at least not closely.  Because he is huge and I am relatively little, we liked toying with people who knew us.  We'd tell people that Hap's dad was my mom's first husband.  People who knew my mom was even smaller than me would wince.  (We also have this overdeveloped taste for salt and a weird thing about pickle juice that we share with other Barneses we've met, but I won't go into that here.)

3. He is a MONSTROUS overeater.  It's fascinating to watch. He's not particularly messy or disgusting-- he can just put away an enormous quantity of food, and with a surprising amount of grace.  We went out for sushi tonight with my husband before he went to see a show at a local theatre with another friend.  Hap got TWO entrees. (He's known for this-- particulary for ordering two entire breakfasts. I'd never heard the word 'breakfast' used in the plural until I met Hap.) He put away more rice tonight than most Asian communities do in a week. He asked the waitress for more wasabi, and perhaps to make a point, she brought him a dish of wasabi the size of a golf ball. He was not fazed.  At one point, my husband and I both feared he was going to pick up and just eat the wad of wasabi on his chopstick.  Hap is not just a member of the Clean Plate Club, he should apply for ownership.

Despite all this, which I'm sure is rather unseemly and unappetizing, Hap is a lovely friend.  We liked him so much that when we got engaged, we asked him to get ordained over the interwebs so he could marry us.  He did a fine job, even if he did dress like Forrest Gump. (Those were some magic shewwwwws....)