anniversary bets

Oh, but I'm a lazy child of a mongrel ferret. Tired as I was of converting old files into new, reformatting, adding tags in manually and catting headers and footers together, I finally gave in and perl scripted the entire HTML formatting process. Now all I have to do is write a text file and run a command-line utility, and bang. One journal entry, ready to go. Boom boom boom, I'll be able to knock these babies down one after another. As Flamingo says in her journal entry today, "I will sit alone in the corner with my geek bravado and be very happy, so there."

Habits are hard to break. Once more, out of sheer habit, I started out a line with a paragraph tag. Well, I don't have to do that anymore. Hah. Nobody may care but me, but hah. HAH.

Okay. Moving on....

Ironically enough, it's The Guy who's been most addicted to the Playstation now residing in my apartment. I loll on the couch in Greek splendour, while he mumbles to himself, dips, sways, kinesthetically involves himself in Castlevania. Me, I watch the pretty graphics on the screen and enjoy the adventure with none of the stress. "Go back to the chapel," I urge. "I like the stained glass windows." Feeling guilty over not spending quality time with me, he obliges, and gets hammered by a giant floating sword while I chortle happily.

We're a very domestic pair, The Guy and I; lately, I've been the one doing the cooking, while he loyally supports my attempts by asking for seconds and aborting advice before it reaches the useful level. A conversation in the kitchen usually starts with him watching me do something over high heat. A little wrinkle will appear between his eyebrows.

"Why don't you--" he'll say, and break off.

"What?"

"Never mind. I'm not going to interfere. You're doing fine."

'You're doing fine,' as everybody knows, is passive aggressive slang for, 'what are you smoking?'

"What? What?!"

"Nothing. I'm going to play Castlevania. Can I do anything to help?"

"No. What were you going to say?" At this point, usually due to my distraction with The Guy's unspoken criticism, whatever is on the grange will start to burn.

The Guy's nostrils will flare a bit, and he'll repress some other comment. I'll be able to see it hovering on the tip of his tongue.

"Chu," he'll say winningly instead, and escape into the living room.

Last night I made yakisoba, Japanese stir fried noodles, with portabella mushrooms, bean sprouts, and pork. I've had better. He kept sending me positive reinforcement in between whacking monsters in Dracula's castle. "Wow. It smells amazing." And, "How's it going in there?" And, "It's smelling really, really good in here." We went to Costco and bought twenty pounds of ribs. I was having a craving. Tonight I'm going to eat meat.

A few miscellaneous things:

The last night my mom was here, we went to the Delancey Street Restaurant, one of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco. The Delancey Restaurant is one of those rare creatures, a charity that fully funds itself. It's sort of a half-way house for people who have been 'in the system,' drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals; everybody who works there has been on the wrong side of society and is trying to rehabilitate himself or herself. The Delancey foundation offers them food, clothing, shelter, and vocational training; they learn how to operate the restaurant business from cooking, bussing, and waiting tables. The food is great. The service is even better. Never, in all my life, have I ever been to a restaurant where the waiters and busboys served with such style and willingness to please. All proceeds from the business go straight back into the foundation, including the tips. How could you not admire something like that?

That's not really what I was aiming to talk about, though. Actually, what I was more interested in was the bet that we made at dinner.

My mom, like most Japanese, -- like me and my sister even, sometimes -- suffers from a cultural condition called 'no-ism.' Anybody who has ever had a Japanese person over for dinner, or even to a party, will notice that that person never says 'yes' to an offer of second helpings, crackers, tea, the first time around. Or even the second. Or, sometimes, the third. Somewhere back in the dawn of Japanese history, some masochist decided that it was impolite to jump on an offer of food: it lacked dignity. (Or maybe he was just testing the sincerity of the host's willingness to serve food to the guest?) Anyway, since that time, generation upon generation of Japanese visitors to American homes have gone hungry because with Americans, one "no" means "no." With the Japanese, the fourth "no" means "no." "No"s one, two, and three mean: "Maybe. Ask me again?"

The problem arose with The Guy's knife. Dammit. Even when I want to, I can't keep him out of a story, these days. The Guy, anyway, bought a cooking knife from Macy's the other day; it's a gorgeous thing, made in Japan, and made of a single piece of steel from hilt to blade-tip. My mother, who cooked for us on Saturday, fell in love with it.

"Let's get you one," I urged. She agreed happily.

Thus, on Sunday, we wandered through Macy's in search of knives -- and incidentally, I managed to sit her down to have a makeover at the Lancome counter, where I bought her lots of expensive make-up. She was appalled. I was triumphant. The knife, when she found it, turned out to be more than her frugal soul was willing to expend on a knife, at least for now.

"Let me buy it for you," I urged.

"No no," she said. "It's too expensive. I'll get it some other time." No number one.

"No, really, it's no problem. It's on sale, too. I'll get it for you."

"No, I don't need it right now," she protested. "I have other knives." No number two.

"I've seen your other knives," I argued. "They're pathetic. They're falling to bits. The handles are worn clean through. Let me get it. It'll be your birthday present."

"I can get it in Seattle, maybe. There's a knife store in Pike Place," she said.

No number three.

"Bah. I'll get it for you."

"No. You've spent too much money on me already, today. I don't need it."

No number four.

Later, at dinner, I brought up the subject again, in case she'd changed her mind.

"You spent so much money," mom said mournfully, while trying to sneak her credit card past us to the waiter.

"I like spending money," I declared. "I enjoy spending money. I love spending money."

My sister interrupted. "You could spend some money my way."

I bought her a kayak for her birthday. What possible right does she have to complain?

The conversation turned towards exercise, and the fact that in silhouette I vaguely resemble an overinflated pig's bladder. "If you'd exercise more....we should make a bet," my sister decided. "I bet you, um...."

"Four weeks in a row of solid exercising, five days a week," I concluded. "And if I win..."

"Six days a week."

"Five."

"Six."

"More than five days a week is unhealthy," I objected.

My sister, the triathlete, snorted. "Six. And if you win, then what? I'm poor."

"If I win, I get to buy you something," I decided, smugly. My sister eyed me askance.

"And if you lose?"

"Then I have to buy you something."

My family blinked at me. My sister's boyfriend inhaled great, joyous mouthfuls of dessert while my sister was distracted. "Exactly how," asked my sister, more curious than objectioning, "do I lose in this deal?"

Eventually, we talked it around to my getting my mother the knife. Should I win the bet, I get to buy my mother the knife. If I lose....

"Exactly what happens when I lose?" I asked my sister in private, later. She grinned, toothily.

"You have to buy mom the knife."

Either way, I win.

Mom doesn't know this. Last night she called. I'll swear there was a trace of anxiety in her voice when she asked me if I'd been exercising. I knew she wanted that knife.

More miscellaneous stuff...

My father died seven years ago today, around two p.m. Hi, dad. Are there ramen shops in the afterlife? Posted by yhirata at July 12, 2001 11:25 PM