"Where did March go?" Part 3: Jeannie's Birthday at Wasabi

Bringing my March misadventures to a close (I have to hurry and be up to date because roller derby returns tomorrow! I'm watching "Whip It!" right now to get in the mood, because roller derby makes my heart sing.), I managed in the middle of the busiest time of the semester for my end of the department to put together a ten person birthday dinner for Jeannie at Wasabi, a Japanese steakhouse that she requested.

I'll go on record right now as saying I have no idea how authentic the "Japanese steakhouse" experience is here in America, or whether it bears the slightest resemblance to the way the Japanese prepare and serve food at home. I mean, it looks kind of Japanese:



but it's the same way that EPCOT looked kind of Japanese:



Either way, it's a fun show. There's a lot of fire, and a lot of food flying around.

It started with the vegetables:



First he was chopping the vegetables, then there were vegetables in the air, and then William, Elizabeth and Ben's toddler at the end of the table there, was throwing vegetables in the air, too. Somehow in the middle of all of this a peice of onion ended up in my coke, but I politely continued drinking it until the refill came. Besides, I was too enthralled watching the chef build the onion volcano to really care about the coke.

First he cut the onion in half, and then, using just the knife, he began to stack the rings on the grill:



I'm not sure I'd be able to do that even if I could use my hands, but he just kept stacking:



and then he squirted something in the middle and all of a sudden OH MY GOD, THERE WAS FIRE!



SO MUCH FIRE! IT WAS AWESOME!

After the fire there was rice:



And then he started making rice balls and throwing them at people. Elizabeth caught hers:



but mine bounced out of my mouth and landed in Kristin's salad. It was like some sort of horrible food related gym class moment.

After the rice throwing, most of the show was over, and he got down to grilling the proteins:



That little corner of the grill there:



is my dinner:



It was pretty good, but by the time we got to the chicken I'd already had soup, vegetables, and rice, so I barely ate any until the next day. Everyone seemed to have a really good time, though:



Everything was fine right up until we were all splitting up to head for our cars and the inevitable happened:



Baby rage, made all the more entertaining by Kristin and I standing on the sidelines with our cameras out yelling, "Turn him this way!"

You know what's even funnier than baby rage, though? When one baby is in full tantrum mode, and the other baby wanders over to point at him and laugh:



William is totally my favorite baby that I see regularly.

Sorry, Jeannie.

The Rubber Duck Race

Every year our city has a rubber duck race to benefit the Boys and Girls Club, and every year I end up buying a duck or two. I never get to actually see the race because it's usually on the same weekend that we have opening and the kids moving in, but this year our schedule is off. Opening was last week, the duck race was this week, and Jeannie invited me to go down and see it with her.

We didn't get to actually see the race, though, because of this:



I'll get to that.

The day started out well. We left on time, a rarity for the two of us, easily found parking, and headed down to the riverwalk, which was packed:



I had no idea so many people actually came to see this, especially since the river moves extremely slowly and some years it takes as long as five hours for all the ducks to make it from one bridge to another. We got there about a half hour before the ducks were dropped into the water, which gave us time to see real ducks:



inflatable ducks:



and for the kid to start crying:



because some other kid shot him with water from his ass:



The crying there was understandable, as being sprayed with ass-water can be traumatic for anyone. We gave him a cookie, strapped him back into the stroller, and looked for a spot to view the race. Unfortunately there was no good way to get the stroller down onto the seats in the stands besides carrying it:



We ended up down under the bridge, where it was shady and we could see the riverboat go by:





Unfortunately, that's right where the kid started crying. We had no idea what he wanted, but that's the problem with kids: you never know what they want. You have one, and then until they learn to talk you're just a hostage to the noises they make and are willing to do whatever you can to make them stop. I, for example, figured we could just wheel the stroller under a tree and ignore him for a while, but Jeannie for whatever reason decided we needed to take him back to the car and go home. I guess this is the difference between having children and being childless. Anyway, that's how we went to the duck race but didn't get to see the race or the ducks.

On the way home, I mentioned to Jeannie that having kids seems to pretty much ruin your life, which she shared with Brian. He let me know that it doesn't really ruin your life, but instead makes you question what you're doing, what your goals are, where you can go, how spontaneous you can be, what plans you can make, where you can eat, what you can eat, what you can spend money on, what's important to you, what you care about, etc. etc. etc. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that sounds pretty life ruining to me, but I'm a selfish person with no biological imperitive to reproduce and am clearly not meant to enjoy parenthood. Everyone who has kids must see something I don't, but I get to see a movie without calling a sitter. I'd call it an even trade.

Oklahoma, Tauntiest State in the Union

I have this book my mom gave me back in 1999. If it wasn't mad of cardstock, it would probably just be a pamphlet, but instead it has firm covers with plastic holders on the inside for you to press state quarters into.

I didn't ask for this book. I thought it was kind of lame, actually, but my mom gave it to me and she'd already put a couple quarters in the slots and really, how hard could it be to pick quarters out of your change?

It turns out to be pretty hard. I've been carrying this book around since 1999. I have lived in three different cities and had three different jobs in that time. I've also had three cars, earned a degree, moved off campus, and the whole time I've been presing quarters into this book. I carefully analyze every handful of change, and this morning I was wildly excited to discover New Mexico.

Finally, I can stop pushing quarters in my little book. I ignored the friends who told me that there were quarters for Guam, or Washington, D.C., or Puerto Rico. My book says "50 States Quarters", and I now have all fifty states. Screw you, territories, protectorates, and districts.

When I got home, before I even took off my work shoes, I went straight to my bookshelf and got down the quarters book, and took out my New Mexico quarter, and made a shocking discovery:



I never had anything bad to say about Oklahoma, ever, before now. They have that musical, the people were friendly when I visited, it's the only state I've ever purchased a pornographic magazine in; until today I had nothing bad to say about them.

Now I wish the whole state would secede. Then I wouldn't need to fill that last slot.

Maybe if they were holding the reunion at 'Ducci's

It’s nice having a job you like that makes you happy. When I come home now I feel things, emotional things, things other than “enraged” and “drunk”. It’s a nice change.

Speaking of drunk and ragey at places I used to work, I got a booklet for my ten year college reunion weekend today.

It opens with a photo of the new Alumni house, which my friends and I used to refer to as the Playmobil house when we were students.

It’s a great house, but it looks pretty plastic.

The next page is a welcome from the Alumni Association President. I don’t know him, but he wants me to reflect on what was special about my undergraduate experience. That’s a great idea, but I don’t think that bar is open any more.

There is absolutely nothing on the first page of the program that interests me. It lists a golf tournament (I don’t golf), a boat cruise (I don’t boat), a bunch of dinners for classes other than my own, and a happy hour for the class of 1992, which isn’t my year. I guess they figure 1992 is the only year young enough to still be interested in visiting a bar rather than munching on clams casino or the vegetable and cheese mirror at the country club.

Side note: Mirror? Does that mean it’s served on a mirror, or that there are two platters that mirror each other, or is it served in front of a mirror, or what? None of my cookbooks list a vegetable or a cheese mirror.

Saturday offers a lot of breakfasts and some amusing tours. First off there’s an open house in one of the buildings that was closed for renovation during the entire four years that I went to school there. No one from my class, unless they came back after graduation like I did, remembers this building as anything other than a fenced off darkened ruin. There’s a library tour, too. My senior year I knew a senior physical education major who had never been in the library in his entire college career. While his second senior year, after we graduated, was probably of great benefit to him, a tour of the library while he was still a student rather than an alumnus might also have been helpful.

In the same vein, the guided campus tour fills me with glee. When I came to campus, I was given a map and a schedule, not a tour, but now that I’m an alumnus and already spent four years and four summers figuring out where the building are, I can preregister for a campus tour. I guess my degree really has gotten me something. The day continues with luncheons, more tours, and then the weekend wraps up with farewell breakfasts.

Flipping through it, the one thing that really stands out to me other than the opportunities for scorn is that there is not a single event geared toward, sponsored by, or even named after my class. The classes of ’62, ’72, ’77, ’67, ’87, and ’92 all have at least one thing to do. The class of 1997 has a class picture at eight at night on Saturday.

Screw you, alumni weekend. I’ll think about showing up when someone bothers to make it look like they actually want my class there.