OK, if my family is reading this one, I am going to be the laughing stock once again.

Tonight, after a 10 hour work day, I was feeling a little grody. Days like this, when you failed to shower in the morning because, well, um, OK there are no good excuses. Well, anyway, the oil field I call my scalp and I wanted to go somewhere that I could just sit down in virtual anonymity and enjoy a good meal. On my way to work, I went to Dunn Bros for a cup of Joe. Across the way, there is this place called the Indian Ocean Restaurant. I had NO CLUE what kind of food they served, figuring, well, OK, it's probably Indian. That sounded all right.

So....on my way back home, I decided to give this place a try. OK, it was NOT Indian food. It was Somalian/Middle Eastern/sort of Mediterranean. But mostly Somalian.

This is where the flashback comes into play, where the jokes all began.

Back in the summer of 2002, I stopped by a Somalian restaurant on my way back from work. I ate some goat meat which seemed, oh, I don't know, OK. Never really having had goat meat before I didn't exactly have a baseline to judge it.

Well, the next day I felt like absolut CRAP. Total food poisoning. Went home completely pale. Took some immodium when my gut seemed empty to stop the spasms. Woke up in the middle of the night with a pain in my gut that seemed like, hmmm....could this be an appendicitis?

Went to ER next morning b/c pain was still there, though milder. They went from ruling out appendiciits to suggesting an ovarian cyst and then back to ??? huh???? when I got the ultrasound done and they found NOTHING. They could "FEEL" something upon palpations, but could not locate the source of the pain/lump in any of their tests.

Figured, hey, perhaps it's just food poisoning. Mom and dad got word that I ate goat and just thought, "Oh, that's such an Erika thing to do, eat goat."

Pain still lingered mildly and gut still seemed sensitive. Had a colonoscopy in October of 2002 because this localized PAIn in my lower right GI section was still coming and going. Nope. Nada. Nothing found by scope. Frustrated. Decided on my own that this is probably an IBS thing I'll have to live with. The colonoscopy was so PAINFUL. Despite the fentanyl and midazolam they shot thru my hep lock, I cried the entire time. But I wouldn't let the doc stop until she got to the ileocaecum valve. I wanted to know it wasn't Crohn's! Thank goodness it wasn't...

The best part of the colonoscopy was getting to keep the photos of my colon at the end. Even through my grief and confusion from months of not knowing what was wrong with my body, I was a happy little medical nerd at heart.

OK so that brings us back to today in 2005. My how time flies. Tonight, at the Indian Ocean Restaurant, I again decided to eat GOAT. And the goat was very good. It was served with a little saffrony, jasmine rice. And a side salad w/iceburg lettuce, tomatoes and cukes. No dressing. Nummy dinner!

There was this big TV on the wall and a foreign channel was streaming in sloppily via satellite. Arab songs with overly made-up Middle Eastern divas repeating, "Habibi, blah blah blah balh habibi, habibi, habibi,....blah blah blah blah habibi"

(From what I remember from my undergrad Middle Eastern history class, that's an affectionate word for "my love". Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this...)

We'll see how I feel in the next 48 hours. I'm hoping that not all goat is bad goat for my gut. This goat hit the spot!

And speaking of goats, a wonderful book I bought from Lux Eterna (the bookstore at the Basilica) entitled "Good goats." I will tell you more about this book when I'm done reading it. Till next time, my so far happy colon and I wish you a good night and a pleasant remainder of the weekend.