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April 21, 2000 |
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I got an e-mail from my friend, Gwen
today. Her father passed away; she sent a picture of the obituary over
e-mail. It may seem that I know what to say since I've had so many years
to adjust to my father's death, but I really
don't. If anything, the years have taught me that each relationship is
different, and what she's feeling is going to be different than what I
felt. I really didn't know my father when he died and even now I can only
piece together parts of who he was.
Gwen's relationship with her father was different. She developed a
relationship with her father through adulthood. She never talked much
about her father; I was only able to get a impression of what her father
was like from little tidbits of information. I last saw him about nine
years ago, during her wedding where I was best man. This seems so long
ago.
To tell Gwen that I understand what she is going through would be a lie.
To tell her that I could try and sympothize would also be a lie. I'm sure
it's painful and I'd be lying if I said that I wanted to feel her pain.
Certainly, there's a part of me that wants to comfort her, but I'm
selfish.
When is it that we become adults? Is it when we can finally see all stages
of life? I've seen a number of marriages, divorces, children, and even
some deaths. I don't remember these when I was younger. It was so
strange. Life didn't change all that much, and yet it seemed to speed by.
Maybe it is the nature of children being egocentric. I don't know. It all
just seems to much different now. We carry on through life and we do our
day to day things, it is no longer simply about us anymore. When does that
change?
I do sympathize for Gwen and wish her the best. I wish there was something
I could do, but this is something that I know she must endure. There are
few words that I could say that could make a difference, and I'm not sure
how I would word them. I think I'll wait until I come up with the proper
words.
I had some plans with Pam tonight. Nothing big, just dinner. I was pulled over on the way to her place. I wasn't speeding. I wasn't tailgating. My tags on my plates were expired. It really a little game I play. I did renew them, but I always wait to put them own the plates? Why? I don't know, there's a part of me that really wants to know just how important it is for the Seattle police to pull people over for something as trivial as this. My take on it is that the police is here to protect and serve, forgive me if I don't find violations like expired plates as inclusive. I suppose that the way I look at it, is that if there are enough police where they have spare time to pull me over for such a violation, there are obviously too many of them employed. The additional revenue that is made from such violations is offset by the number of additional paychecks. Naturally, I don't know the actual numbers, but I'd be interested to see them if someone did run them.
The police officer didn't issue me a ticket, since I showed him my renewed registration, but he did pull me over. Get a life!
After exchanging rather amorous greetings, details of which I won't disclose, we went to dinner at Tup Tim Thai.
We went there just a few weeks before. Since this is on Queen Anne, there's naturally no parking nearby, which is the case for most of Seattle. Detestable city! It was within walking distance from her place so we endured the cold while we made our way to the restaurant.
I suppose that there's still too much waiter in me, since I still don't like walking into a restaurant while they near closing. It was still quite populated when we walked in, but it thinned rather quickly. They sat us on a rather small table.
For a while it seemed a bit awkward. It seemed as though we were too fixated on the other's expression. It took us some time to figure out that we normally sit side by side. During dinner, we're not used to seeing each other's reactions or expressions. She suggested that we don't sit across the table again.
We had this interesting appetizer, the stuffed chicken wings. They were stuffed with thin noodles. It was quite tasty. For dinner she ordered the Chicken with Cashews and I ordered the Chicken Panang. She noted that I was tired, and I was, but not as tired as I had been the past couple of Fridays. The dinners were good, although I was mildly disappointed with (lack of?) number of cashews in the cashew chicken.
We ended dinner with the coconut ice cream, it had some small chunks of pineapple. It was pretty good, I would've liked more coconut, of course, but it was good nevertheless.
We got the wrong bill, incidentally; the bill we got had neither the appetizer nor our beverages; which naturally was substantially less. I suppose that I'm not very forgiving when it comes to this. If a waiter or waitress is careless enough to make this mistake, they don't need me to point this out to them. As it so happens, since we were the last table in the restaurant, chances are that someone else had already paid for our bill. I wasn't going to sweat it.
Oh, and for those of you who think I'm being dishonest… Deal!
April 21, 2000