Realizations...

Me + travel + expense account + desire to try everything edible at least once = overstuffed.

I've been totally living it up...ordering multiple entries for lunch and dinner, buying a box of krispy kremes for the Chandler, AZ lab I'm working in, chalking off my late night smoothie at a hip coffeeshop to "dinner"...just because I can. I adore finding new places that 1) aren't chain restaurants and 2) come with recommendations, because it leads to 3) needing to try everything on the menu. (I'd never been to a Krispy Kreme and been given one of their free "hot now" donuts, so that was the chain restaurant exception.)

It's a complicated guilt trip: on one hand, compared to the cost of the hotel/car/flight down here, the food expense is a drop in the bucket. They're working me hard, and I'm under enormous pressure to deliver results before the end of next week. On the other hand, I stopped at three places that I found on Chowhound last night. Add in the complication that I always feel guilty wasting food, yet feel guilty finishing large quantities, and you've got one tormented mental state.

Thank god I woke up with a sore throat today. I've only been able to slip three mugs of hot/sweet tea, two donuts, an order of spicy green beans, and a crab/shrimp/tomato noodle soup down my greedy gullet. I think I'll try that Italian place for dinner...

My one consolation is that I went to a Chinese-Mexican restaurant last night. Chino Bandito, I kid you not, their panda mascot wears a sombrero, mustache, and sports a mean gun and ammo belt. I now believe that I have seen everything.