visit with my astrologer

My astrologer had a meeting in the building across the street from me, the same building that houses Project Greenlight. His next meeting wasn't until late afternoon, so he came over to hang out and drop some wisdom on me. We only had a few hours, so we quickly formulated the agenda for the day's activities: get Mexican food, get trashed, and play with my new robot.

We stick the yummy yummy $4.99 bottle of Yellow Tail Chardonnay (on sale at Sav-On, #3 on the map) in the cooler and make our way to Ye Olde Taco House (by the Grand Central Market) for the best nachos in town. They'll probably do it for you too, if you ask, but for me they double the amount of veggies and cut the chips by half so the end result is a monstrous taco salad and much healthier, even though I have it with carne asada instead of chicken like my astrologer does.

On the way to Ye Olde Taco House, we stop by my astrologer's car to feed more coins into the meter. A woman was trying to park her car in front of his and a homeless woman was helping her. We rummaged through his car for more coins as I only had one quarter. The homeless woman asks if I have any bills to spare since it was obvious we needed the coins. As I pull out a dollar bill, she whips out a paper clip and says, "Let me take care of this for you." Faster than I can say, "Whaddya mean?", she punches the meter with the paper clip and we're set for an hour. Holy shit, I had no idea you could do that.

"I could get arrested for that", she informs me. I hand her the dollar and pick my jaw up off the sidewalk. "But don't worry, I'll watch the car for you and if it runs out, I'll take care of it."

My astrologer emerges from his car with an assortment of nickels and dimes, "Do you think these will be enough?" He looks at the meter, looks at the homeless woman, turns to me slack-jawed and asks, "What just happened?"

"Don't ask, just give her the coins." I replied. Quietly and obediently, he hands her a fistful of coins.

"You go ahead," she assures us, "I'll watch the car and the meter."

We don't talk about this, we just walk east on 4th to get our food. After we place our nachos order, we sample the tamarindo beverage. The owners are behind the counter today and Carlos tells us that the tamarindo is good for our liver. "We'll take two," says my astrologer, then to me, "Our livers need all the help they can get." He is wise.

Back at the penthouse, we sit at the bar and realize that we're being watched by several office workers across the street. I pour the chilled wine and my astrologer waves at the people at work, realizing that he was just in the same office a half hour ago. They watch us as we finish the bottle, chow down on the best Mexican food downtown, and make my robot dance for our entertainment.

This is the coolest robot. It can slide forward and backward, march, turn its head all the way around, dance in synch with the music, and SHOOTS FRISBEES OUT OF ITS HEAD. I think his name is Dante, we're not sure. It has great sound effects for all actions and says things we can barely understand in a sing-song Japanese-accented young boy's voice. When you press the red button he introduces himself, "Hello, my name is Dante. I can move like this (marching sounds), shoot like this (laser-blast sounds), and can teach you how to dance (techno-music snippet)." Every action has a corresponding and hilarious sound effect but I love his comments, "Let's dance together, it's lovely" and "That was great, do it again, please." If you don't command him to do anything in minutes, he says, "I will take a rest. Bye-bye!" and shuts down. Dante rocks.

After a while, we stop playing with Dante and finish our food and the bottle. We talk about what's going on in both our worlds, what my concerns are, etc. and then my astrologer makes his recommendations on the best course of action for me in the next few days. Drunk and full, we spy on the people in the building across the street spying on us. Then mindful of his next appointment, he looks at his watch, "Do you think that woman is still by my car?"