Tryptophan Began the Stand

Gin was already in our dining room by the time I got home, roughly an hour and a half early. It was, after all, the day before a long weekend and employers are more apt to suggest or be open to the idea of shortened days just before an extended leave. I have yet to quite parse the logic of that, but on the other hand I’m not sure I want to know since that would be uncomfortably close to biting the hand. I was rushing when I arrived; my early exit from work was choreographed with one purpose in mind: Get in some exercise before the food-oriented weekend.

Unlike most lunch hours, I had spent Wednesday’s noon break doing laundry and anxiously waiting for an important phone call that never actually came. But the early exit had left an opening prior to my normal quitting time and still before the scheduled dinner with HB and Gin. I raced to get my gym bag together and sprinted out the door, even overtaking Gin and Nik as they ambled out to make another bold attempt at shopping before dinner.

I met Doza in the parking lot, with unusually perfect timing, and had the foresight to double check about reserving a racquetball court at the front desk which helped since all but one were filled and several times during the match I caught some forlorn looking would-be player peering in through the small window in the door. The games were interesting; close, competitive and see-sawing back and forth in score. I won the first game by a single point after surrendering a fairly comfortable lead. The second game Doza won although it was my turn to rally back from a deficit. By the third game we’d played through 57 points, including a lot of long rallies and quite a few sideouts: We easily split 125 serves. I did manage to win the third game (and the match) with a startlingly simple realization that I tend to hit the ball too high up on the wall and give my opponents plenty of time to recover. By aiming a little lower I was able to score more points on the rally.

Still, it was a great match and I left feeling more than a little tired and more than a lot hungry. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant Gin and HB love called Jorge’s Tapatio. They have decent food, all you can eat hot tortilla chips and salsa, generous combination plates and pocket-friendly prices. Our town isn’t big on the dining selection, but if you want Mexican food, you have plenty of good options ranging from full sit-down fare like Jorge’s to little hole-in-the-wall Taquerias. Many of them are very good, too.

We got up fairly early on Thursday to get ready for the day. Nik and I called our respective parents on the drive over to HB and Gin’s place and then piled into Nikki’s Civic for the trek to San Jose and Thanksgiving feasting with Lister, Whimsy, RR and others. There were around 15 people there most of the day and long into the night. The dinner featured a Turducken (turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken) and a 12-pound prime rib infused with enough garlic to stun a yak. In the end I think Turducken is a better concept than actual dish since duck is kind of an acquired taste (although I happen to like it okay) and chicken and turkey are sort of indistinguishable when cooked together and placed on the same serving platter. Which is not to say it wasn’t good, just that I was sort of expecting to see slices of turkey/duck/chicken hybrids and once I saw Lister trying to carve the thing I realized that was simply not an option.

As usual my favorite part of Thanksgiving was the side dishes: Green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, squash and buttery sweet rolls. I ate enough for several men my size and sort of regretted it the rest of the evening as we sat around and grunted at the TV while the Sharks managed to lose another game. Later we played Gang of Four in which I, of course, lost horribly but did manage to pull the GoF-equivalent to the Royal Flush: A Gang of Six Tens. There is no higher hand in the game, and I used it to hilarious effect against Lister’s smug Gang of Four Sixes. A momentary triumph, perhaps, but worth it all the same.

I drove home rocking to The Killers’ Hot Fuss which I’ve even managed to get Nikki rocking to and finally made it to bed around 3:30 am. Friday was supposed to be a much more productive day than it was. In fact most of what I got accomplished was a thorough cleaning of the house with Nikki’s assist and a lot of TV and video gaming. I certainly wasn’t about to go shopping, but I had sort of intended to do some other productive sorts of work that ended up not really getting done. Saturday Nik and I went to breakfast at Nation’s and then packed up for the overnight trip out to her mom’s surprise birthday party.

Surprise parties are a little baffling to me. On one hand, I see the appeal of having a big shindig in an unexpected way. On the other hand, people don’t seem to do them right, I don’t think. For one thing they always plan surprises for significant milestone birthdays. In this case, Nik’s mom turned 50 on Friday. As part of the act we had to make ourselves scarce that day, which made Thanksgiving up at their place a little impractical (hence the San Jose trip). But in order to pull all this off, we had to leave her feeling quite upset that we were “ditching” her on her 50th birthday. To me, nothing spells suspicious like having your whole family act like your milestone birthday means essentially nothing.

Also, the party was set up at a country club restaurant which HB’s dad (who is married to Nik’s mom) rented out for the night. In order to prepare the event, he had to convince her to go out to dinner for her birthday (a day late I might add). As of an hour before her extremely elaborate party she was begging her husband to just let her stay home and be low-key for the night. This seems like a pretty significant roadblock and one that is bound to throw more monkey wrenches into plans than people like to admit. You’d think that just including the guest of honor into the fact that there was going to be an event would alleviate some of these issues. Perhaps let the scope of the event be the surprise.

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