the last thing i said was "happy new years"
Earlier this week I had a series of dreams that took place in Target. I even had class there. Stools were lined up in the aisles and we faced the merchandise. It was all perfectly logical. It probably didn't help that I had fallen asleep last night with my pillow crushed over my ears -- Tom (cat no. 2) was curled up on a folded quilt nearby, bathing himself so that moist slurps and sucking noises filled the darkened room. A few days afterwards I had a dream that Pat's brother was confiding in me that he was broke. It seemed like a juicy tidbit of secrecy at the time, but I wouldn't have even blinked in surprise had I heard the same slice of information while conscious.
I still wish I hadn't have come back from California last Saturday. While there, Pat and I visited an array of stores native to the area and purchased odd candies and ordered a German chocolate cake for Christmas. On the day before Christmas, Pat's family (sans his dad) and I drove for two hours to spend the evening at his grandma's house -- Pat and I baked sugar cookies, watched part of a Steve Martin movie on television, and then later ate dinner. Come Christmas Day, we lounged around his parents' house after opening gifts. We idly watched some of the anime I had given Pat for Christmas, and experimented with the bow and arrow Pat left behind. I somehow managed not to kill anything. The day afterwards Pat and I drove to San Jose and visited Nickel City, where we popped nickels into arcades for a few hours before dining at El Pollo Loco. We found a movie theater nearby and waited over an hour for the soonest showing of The Lord of the Rings; I would have liked to play Dance Dance Revolution, but it cost a dollar (as opposed to seventy-five cents here and somewhere around twenty-five cents at Nickel City). While we were waiting in line for the theater to be cleaned, two ten-year-old boys behind us engaged in a conversation about cars that almost made me cry, even though I do not profess to know anything about cars, not even the difference between a Camaro and a Corvette. "All cars are automatic," one of the boys declared. "You only have to turn it on, and then it drives for you. All that's left is to step on the brake when you come to a stop sign." His friend seemed skeptical, so when his father returned with items from the concession stand in hand, he blurted, "Dad, aren't all cars automatic and all you have to do is brake?" His dad squinted in thought, shoveled a handful of popcorn into his mouth, and replied with a hesitant "No." His son was indignant: "Yes they are!" I could see his world crumbling around him. Meanwhile, a man in front of me was weaving a story of lost wallets and DMVs and now having two driver's licenses. He casually mentioned that his once-lost driver's license was now lended to friends who wanted to sneak into clubs -- "but only if they're over seventeen or something," he added hastily. He promised this boy who couldn't have been older than thirteen that someday he would sneak him into a bar via his extraneous driver's license and buy him a drink. I could see the cloud of testosterone that surrounded him; for the next ten minutes he boasted to a woman who was playing "Snake" on her cell phone that he wouldn't share his alcoholic beverage of choice with her, despite the fact that she was probably of age and didn't need his meager offerings of pity.
Anyway. I loved the movie, though I felt they could have clipped a few scenes. I felt groggy afterwards, not to mention my ass, which was completely dead to the world. Once it began to regain consciousness I felt like that candy that explodes once you put it on your tongue.
On Friday, Pat's mom took us to Monterey to see the aquarium. I loved it, especially the sleek otter gripping its little rubber ring and the children's play areas. There was one area where you could pretend you were a sea animal. There was a basket of stingray puppets and sea horse costumes -- I chose the sea horse costume. Pat's mom took our picture. I got to see some penguins, too. When we visited the gift shop, I found a hat that was made to look like a penguin clutching your head. Pat and I both put one on and we had our picture taken again.
Before we had entered the aquarium, we had called Pat's dad and it was arranged that we'd meet him for dinner at a rustic seafood restaurant famous for its clam chowder. Instead of driving straight there as we had promised, Pat's mom dropped Pat and me off at what I've concluded is the best playground, possibly ever. Pat told me stories of eating bag lunches there after visiting the aquarium on field trips for school. We stood in line to use that handle on a track that you slide across, and a little girl in front of me spun around and chirped, "Hi!" I returned the greeting and told her I liked her shirt -- it had a fuzzy penguin on the front. She had me touch the fabric and kept looking back at me and grinning. Her mom helped her and her sister across, and after Pat and I had gone as well, she slid across herself. I decided I liked her. Both because I wished my mom hadn't been such a curmudgeon when I was young, and because, despite the fact she was an adult, she still possessed the ability to play like a child. Sometimes when I run around on playgrounds children cast me bewildered stares and tell me I'm too old to play, but they're wrong. Childhood is a gift, and there are few aspects of youth that you can take with you into adulthood, or that you'd even want to take with you.
We only stayed at the playground for ten minutes. The restaurant was delicious, and I purchased a slice of tiramisu. I only had a few bites of it at the time, and only later did I realize that I had forgotten to finish it.
On Saturday I hurried to take pictures of Pat's five indoor cats and an stray that my dad bonded with last March, along with his chickens, even though they were huddled together and sleeping peacefully. We had orange chicken at the airport. It was the only time I had eaten orange chicken I didn't like. Pat's dad had popped us two or three batches of popcorn earlier that morning, so we snacked on that on the plane. Which brings me to where I left off in my previous entry.
Yesterday Pat and I went to the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis to see a select screening of About Schmidt. I liked it a lot; it was hard not to break into sobs at the end of the movie. Pat even pointed this out to my mom, for reasons unbeknownst to me. I cry at the end of most movies.
But I digress. I have to get up early for school tomorrow.
Happy New Years!