Sei invited me over for a barbeque tonight. It was cold, and foggy as anything, so naturally we fired up the brand new grill. Northern California summers, mmm mmm. She laid on shrimp and mushroom kebabs, sausages, and a big rack of outrageously good pork ribs. I brought a fairly indifferent cabernet sauvignon (I really must learn more about red wine), and some of my Japan photos to show her and the Boy.
Afterwards, we ate one delicious square of Valhrona apiece and sipped cappucinos with the most perfect foam I've ever had outside of Italy. I feel that I've really bonded with Sei and the Boy, and I'll tell you why.
I burst into the tears when the Boy opened the door tonight. A buzzer to the apartment that didn't work, a bizarre interaction with another resident who refused to help me contact Sei, a truly rotten moment at work I'm dreading dealing with tomorrow, and boom! The sobs tore out of me from sheer relief that someone was actually home. Yikes, what an entrance. Sei was really great about it. The Boy slunk away after determining it was nerves and not something dire, and played interactive computer games in the bedroom until it was time to eat.
But that's not the only reason I feel we all have a special relationship. No, indeed. Why, we've gotten down the the nitty gritty. We've exposed ourselves fully. We have peeled away the layers of civility and sophistication.
We admitted what the first record we ever bought was.
Even more humiliating, we admitted what our first concert was. I'm not saying who saw which act, or bought which album, but the names Donny Osmond, the BeeGees, Three Dog Night, and the Village People came up. We laughed ourselves insensate. My face still hurts from laughing.
On a side note (ahaha, I kill me), I went to see the New World Symphony last week as part of the American Mavericks series. We heard the jangled and hilarious "Dupree's Paradise" by Frank Zappa, two ensemble pieces by John Adams who conducted (one of which, "Shaker Loops," actually caused me to fall asleep), and a surprisingly lyrical "Study No. 6" by Conlon Nancarrow who composed in astonishingly inventive combinations of tempi. I can't get the two piano parts out of my head, one playing in 4/4 time and one in 5/4 time simultaneously with a bass playing a note now and then to demark some internal break in the canon. In the background a few woodwinds play in 3/4 time. Strangely beautiful, as is Louise M. Davis Symphony Hall. It was my first visit.
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