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July 16, 2000 |
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Today was relatively simple and relaxed. We would be having brunch at
another cousin's place. This time it would be Helen's. Helen runs a
restaurant, so today we would be meeting at her place. Although it wasn't
quite as simple, since Christina had to meet up with some other folks that
morning and we were already separated. That's okay, many of us had cell
phones.
Oh, and did I mention that we didn't know precisely where it
was? We pile into the car and head off, it must've been around noon when
we left. We had a general idea where this restaurant was, at
least which major cross street. It was still about half an hour away, so
we had plenty of time to figure out. Fred was driving. Aileen was deciphering the directions. I was
there for emotional support. And the others, well, some of them were still
catching up on sleep. As you can plainly see…
As we approached the place, we got the phone number for the restaurant and
called it for the exact location. They answered, "we're at [location],
but we're not open yet… we're having a special party". Yes, I
explained that we were part of that party. We arrived a few minutes
later.
The place was a small and cozy place, where anyone in the dining room was able to see anyone else. We got there and we all started helping out with things. Some of us set the tables, others peeled snow peas, and other still fetched ice and glasses. It's endearing to see all of us working together to help each other. I suppose that I haven't been used to this kind of teamwork at home for a while. I miss it.
Incidentally, this is my first time meeting Helen. There were going to be many of us, all the cousins from the night before… well, except Susan and Rob, since their flight was this afternoon, and still a few more. Naturally, Helen would be there, her immediate family and thus at least one of the "uncles". There were at least four younger kids (as in pre-teen) and a couple of elders, including Fred's father, who I had also not met until today. The rest of my immediate family was also showing up: my mom, Terry, Ling, her brother, Wayne, and naturally my nephews. It would be quite the brunch.
Brunch was phenomenal. Although, it was too much food. Whenever we get together we have this nasty habit of doing that. It happened last night too, at Kyoto, and we ended up eating some of that sushi for breakfast. I would normally enumerate the dishes, but there were way too many for me to remember. It was Chinese cuisine, of course. Done quite well. There's a part of me that misses Chinese food, I don't get to have it enough. I suppose that I've been living the life of an Asian-American (who leans closer to American) for many years now. There's a part of me who misses being Chinese.
We all chatted for a while after brunch. Some of us played
with the younger ones, watching the kids dance to the tunes of Christina
Aguillera or Britney Spears. Others watched and held the babies, both
amused and fascinated by them. David sketched some, he brought his
sketchbook and was drawing during brunch. I wandered around and took
pictures. I suppose that we did what families do.
We simply had to pose for another picture… since there were some different people from last night's festivities. This was towards the end of brunch, and we had to head to our next activity, which was… an arcade. Not just any arcade, one that is alledged to be the World's Largest Arcade, though I'm not sure if it still qualifies, this was some years ago. The place is Grand Prix, and it really is very big.
Naturally, we ran into the same dilemma, only a couple of us knew where it really was. We split these folks up, and exchanged even more cell phone numbers. The weather had been warm and sunny all weekend, so naturally it was time for it to rain. The rain wasn't that bad really. It did make it a bit more difficult to follow each other around, but it wasn't catastrophic.
As soon as we got there, we all got tokens and went off playing video games. Many of us are still kids, and many of the others are kids-at-heart. I still love playing video games. I remember when I was in middle school and parts of high school spending way too much time in this place. It's changed now, of course, and they had even moved the place. It was about a half an hour's bicycle ride from my house.
Even Terry went to Grand Prix (and my mom, Ling, Michael, etc.). I can certainly understand Ling, she plays arcade games. Terry does not; she used to, but I haven't seen her play any video game for years. Michael aspires to, but doesn't really… What do you want? He's five. Thus I didn't really understand precisely what they were doing there. I suppose in a round about way, I can't really blame her. It's not fun thinking that you've outgrown something or maybe she simply wants a sense of belonging. Normally I would ask, but I'm not sure she understands either.
I called Pam and chatted with her for a bit. Or more accurately, I tried to call her, but we kept getting cut off. It was very frustrating. Eventually, I gave up and decided to try to call back sporatically. With any luck, the service will be back up consistently after a while. No luck.
If you're curious as to which games I played? Well, I'm a sucker for the older games. I think I spent most of my time playing Tetris, Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man. Yes, I understand these are games that many of you may have heard of, but have never played. Well, these games are still around. In fact, I have a Pac Man machine in my condo at home, so I'm really not sure why I'm paying money to play this game.
We took a break from the arcade games to go to the Go-carts. Well, most of us did. I love going go-carting, but not in the rain. I can just imagine having my pants all soaked from the ride. The wipe-outs would've been spectacular though… [Sigh]
I continued looking around until I ran into the Soul Calibur game. Ironically, I had played this on Len Sega Dreamcast before I ever saw the arcade game. This ended up being what I played for the remainder of the day. Several of the cousins passed by. David joined in a couple of times, and for the most part he beat me into oblivion, but I managed to win a game against him. Slowly we spent all the tokens we had. Towards the end, we kept splitting the tokens we had so that we could all finish at about the same time.
We all gathered towards one end of the arcade. Many of us were flying out tomorrow, some out of Fort Lauderdale, others out of West Palm Beach. Which meant that we were splitting up. David, Christina, and Melody were staying at Jeff's since he lives near Fort Lauderdale, and the rest of us were staying at Fred and Aileen's.
I suppose it's a bit silly to feel sad in an arcade, but I did… a little. We exchanged some handshakes, hugs, and kisses. Who knows when I'll see them again? Hopefully, next reunion, but you can never tell. I'll miss them. I also said goodbye to Terry, Ling, and my mom. I know this is going to sound terrible, but I won't miss Terry.
While some of us where chatting in the parking lot, David managed to get himself stuck in a Chinese finger puzzle. I simply cannot make this up. It is a little piece of tube made of straw that has openings for two fingers, and once you insert your fingers you can't pull them out… well, you can but you have to apply pressure in a particular way. If you are a trekker, you may remember Data getting stuck in one. It was a bit amusing watching David trying to wiggle his fingers out of it.
Tino, Lily, Bruce and I were staying at Fred's. We drove north on I-95 towards West Palm Beach. Lily expressed some interest in seeing the beach, and possibly take some pictures, so we took a little detour as we drove by the beach. It was evening now and we were growing pretty hungry, so we decided to stop by a sports bar near Fred's on the way back.
We sat down at this restaurant and got a long booth near one of the waiters' station. We ordered some appetizers before our meal. I simply had to order meat; we have had so much seafood over the course of the last couple of days that I was starting to grow gills. Yes, the seafood is exceptional here, but I can't have it every meal. We also took turns going to the restrooms; we seemed to be going in shifts.
Our waitress was bordering on incompetent. She had a surly disposition. She was forgetful and neglectful, forgetting things that we requested and never stopping by to check up on us. And she questioned the availability of a certain wine, when Aileen and Fred frequently order it there. I waited on tables for a number of years; I'm not sure if that makes me more or less tolerant than the average person.
We talked about renting a movie for tonight. The video rental place was right nextdoor and it would be easy to pick up, with the possible exception that they were closing in a few minutes. I suggested we see American Beauty; it is a funny film with just the right amount of dark humor to appeal to me. I had seen it with Len before and enjoyed it. I just figured that this is a movie that would be agreeable with everyone. Aileen sneaked out the restaurant and went to rent the movie.
We had a tough time fitting everything on the table, though we managed. I don't remember much of the food; I remember the company. People asked me what I thought about John Rocker, the controversial Atlanta Braves pitcher. I suppose that my take on it is simple. Yeah, he's an idiot. I think he still has the right to believe what he believes and not be persecuted. I'm not sure precisely when it was where we became so politically correct. If anything, I don't find it alarming that there are bigots; I find it alarming that people are actually surprised that there are bigots. It doesn't matter who you happen to be, there exists someone out there who doesn't like you, and it doesn't even have to make sense. It might be your shoe size… who knows? Get used to the idea, it will make life much simpler.
Fred started talking about their more distant ancestors. He mentioned some things about their grandfather that none of us really knew. It not only gave us a sense of identity and origin, but also a sense of history. I enjoyed listening to the stories flow from his lips and seeing the rest of the people at the table suddenly have a different perspective on who their grandparents actually were. It was endearing.
We went home after that. It was only about five minutes away.
I immediately grabbed a shower. I just wanted to wash away much of the past day. Florida can be humid and sticky during the summers. The rest of them had ice cream …except Aileen, she waited until I got out of the shower so we could eat the ice cream together. It is the small gestures like this that make my little sister so special. She had to take a ton of Lactaid pills to join me, but she did it. And we even got MagicShell. Woo Hoo!
Lily and Fred were not even going to attempt staying awake through the movie. They both went to bed. The rest of us tried to watch the movie, but eventually everyone else succumbed to slumber. Well, everyone else but me, and I had seen the movie already. I suppose really am a night person.
I did however go to sleep immediately after the movie. I too was very tired.
July 16, 2000