Monday, July 28, 2003

I Hate Driving

Despite going to bed at 10:30, I am completely exhausted this morning. Warm nights must just not be conducive to actual rest, even if you're passed out in bed.

I had a very long weekend. It involved a lot of driving, a lot of family, a lot of food, and not enough seeing Christine again.

I took pictures, of course.

Josie and I left Friday morning around 11:30. We'd hoped this would help us avoid major Portland traffic. We were wrong. Taking 205 to her house, traffic was backed up for miles just after crossing the Columbia. The radio said there was a three-alarm fire south of us that was causing traffic to be re-routed. She instructed me to get off an exit early and directed me through Oregon City to West Linn, to her dad's house. She and her dad gave me directions back to the freeway that would hopefully avoid the fire. I went for miles through country roads and encountered more stop-and-go on a curvy, hilly two-lane road just before the freeway. I was afraid it would take me hours to get to Tigard.

I talked to my mom as I sat in that mess. She sympathized and said she'd leave the hotel keys at the front desk for me while her and Koko went to my brother's house for food and monk stuff. They'd expect me in about an hour.

Almost as soon as we got off the phone, however, the road cleared up, the freeway entrance was right there, and there were about three other cars on the road. Traffic on the other freeways was great, too. I found where I was going and got there in about 10 minutes. Mom and Koko hadn't even left yet. I put on the one skirt I brought and followed them to Sua's house.

It felt very strange, driving for the first time this route that I grew up knowing so well as a passenger. Margot later expounded on this strangeness. She wanted to drive by our old house, too.

Grandma and Grandpa were already at the house and food was out. I got a little bowl of chicken green curry with some thin rice noodles and cabbage, which was tasty. I talked to Yan, who is all of 17 these days (!!) and graduating in a year and my grandparents a little before I had to pick up Margot from the MAX station. Grandpa showed me the many scratches and strange marks on his hands and forearms to which he was prone because of medicine he takes.

After my sister arrived, we pushed our niece and her cousin Monique on the swings. They were cute. Another little girl their age ran in Kanhya's swing path while she was up in the air and I had to grab the swing so Kanhya didn't kick her on accident. Eep.

Saturday morning I got up, ate breakfast, and went shopping for something dressy to wear to the wedding and reception. Target had a knee-length pinstripe skirt for $20 that I liked well enough, but no shirts I'd wear with it. Meier & Frank had a big sale, so I wandered for a long time. I hate, hate, hate shopping department stores. I get very lost. They are, of course, *designed* so you get lost, but still. I found a skirt marked at 33% off $21 and a pretty blouse marked at $12.99. I decided they matched well enough (red shirt with a patterned skirt that had some red in it) and took them to the register. They rang up as $8.99 and $9.99, respectively, so I was thrilled.

I took them back to the hotel and Margot and Koko said they didn't match well enough and asked if I had another shirt. I didn't. I said I wished I had a plum shirt, which would have matched much better. Margot was wearing a plum shirt with her black lacy skirt. My red shirt fit her okay, so we decided to switch. This worked well enough, except I only had one outfit for the wedding and the reception, and apparently I was supposed to have separate outfits. I just didn't have time for more stupid shopping.

The wedding itself was pretty interesting, what I saw of it. Koko and I watched, digital cameras poised, for the candle-passing and the tying of red string around the wrists. Koko said weddings in Japan are much quieter; the Cambodians were talking loudly the whole time. Two guys convinced us to go have our picture taken with the bride and groom after we tied red string and wished them luck. After all the pictures were taken, we threw palm seeds on the new couple and followed them up to the bedroom for the symbolic fruit-eating. At this point, the wedding was done. It was about one o'clock.

This was when Christine called. We decided to meet at the Saturday Market MAX stop at 2. I figured this would be just fine and dandy. But first, Koko and I needed to return to the hotel to change. Then I needed to get lost and take half an hour to find a damn MAX stop where I could park. Then the train needed to take at least 45 minutes to reach our destination. Then Josie had to call to ask what was up and my cell phone had to be crappy so she thought we got off in Pioneer Square. After all this, we only had about two hours to hang out. Koko went off to explore the market and Christine and Josie needed food, so we went to Taco Del Mar and had takeout in the park. I just had a lemonade, since I was full of delicious beef red curry, eggrolls, chow mein, and fried rice.

At this time, I will point out that yes, I eat vegetarian. For the most part. So stop being confused that I ate meat; I'll explain. My reasons are health and environment, essentially (Diet for a Small Planet, anyone?), but I make occasional exceptions. Big Cambodian weddings--especially since they don't exactly *serve* remotely vegetarian or even pescetarian dishes--are a deserving exception. I will also eat meat if/when I travel the world. I was avoiding meat-only dishes this weekend, but would eat meat in dishes. Anyway, end explanation.

After lunch, we had some more time to kill, so we hung out in Coffee People. I had a medium (16 oz., yeesh) black coffee and biscotti. Christine and Josie got milkshakes. Wonderful milkshakes. Did I mention I had a milkshake (okay, "smoothie" made with fresh berries and nonfat frozen yogurt) at Burgerville on the way to town? Because I did, and it was amazing. Anyway. Josie bought gummi bears and played out a little drama in which one bear fell into the shake and the others jumped in to "save" it, but they all perished. Bwa ha ha.

It was great to hang out with both of them again. Christine is back!! Christine!! She should come to Seattle soon or we'll all die. Well, anyway, Josie and I were super happy to see her, of course, even if no one else could make the effort. We're the originals, anyway.

Koko and I had to get back to Tigard around 5. We were almost on time to the reception, but I took a wrong turn on 99 and ended up in Tualatin instead of the restaurant. Whoops. The sign said Tigard was right! My directions said turn left! I thought I was being smart, but really, I was being dumb. Oh well. We were only about 15 minutes late, and the party didn't actually start for another hour or so. Mom and Margot showed up half an hour after we did, in fact.

A live band played most of the night, very loudly. I ended up putting in my ear plugs because it was so loud. My brother sang two songs for the couple's first dance that his wife said were very romantic. I asked if he ever sang to her, and she was quiet for a minute. I said, "Oh, never, right?" She laughed and admitted that he did; she seemed kind of bashful. It was unusually affectionate for her, and I told her so.

The food was all right. There were about a million courses; I can't remember them all. I particularly liked the fish and the mixed vegetable and seafood stir-fry served in a fried taro root bowl. They served shots of Hennessey to all the Cambodian men and left a two-liter each of 7up and Coke on every table, but no water. I asked for a pitcher of water early on, which was taken away when it was only half empty. Alas! The waitstaff was too busy to give us water.

The way to give gifts at these weddings is not to pick silver and china from a registry, but to write a check, put it in an envelope, write your name on the envelope, then give it to the couple when they come to your table at the reception. Then they bow and thank you.

Sunday morning, a film crew had invaded the hotel as we were trying to check out. Our chaotic morning involved separate trips to get breakfast, separate trips to Target, broken keycards, broken TV guest services, busy elevators, and an unusable lobby. A woman on the elevator told me supposedly Matthew McConaghey was filming there and agreed with me that it was inconvenient timing.

The route to West Burnside and Powell's was a confusing one. My directions told me to get off the 405 at a NW 14th St. exit. We saw no such exit before 405 merged into I-5. We realized this was totally wrong when we saw the Jantzen Beach exit sign, which is the last stop before Washington. We got off the freeway, turned around, and headed south again, this time taking the exit to Burnside, going right when we should've gone left when we finally got there, but getting parking and arriving in front of Powell's just in time. Christine was waiting. We found the two Thai places she'd suggested we go, but they were both closed. So was the pizza place.

We ended up going to a nice Japanese restaurant with good food and kinda high prices, but still in the affordable range. I had a bowl of excellent teriyaki salmon. Mm. Christine and Koko talked a bit about being in a foreign land, going home (Koko is leaving in a week), and cultural differences. Christine brought me a McLenin's t-shirt and Cold War propaganda poster from Russia. Neat.

The drive to Olympia was mostly speedy. There was a slowdown around Centralia, but we still made good time. Bad traffic started just north of Olympia and continued through Tacoma, where it's expected, and made me want to bang my head against the windows. Overall, it took half an hour longer than it should and put me in a terrible mood. I was exhausted when I got home, but I got to see Kevin.

Speaking of which, the new Ave falafel place, Bella Rosa? Good damn falafel sandwiches. Mediocre burgers, but excellent falafel.

No comments: