More to see than can ever be seen

2003-06-24 - 9:46 a.m.

Between phone calls I've been passing the time by reading journals from my buddies list. Yesterday I was reading journals, especially Cathieanne and Lionfish, when I realized that everybody else in the world has already read the new Harry Potter book and I don't even own a copy! Of course Cathieanne's journal entry for today would tend to disprove that assumption, but nevertheless, when I got home I immediately set to work remedying the situation. I convinced my mom that taking a trip down to Barnes & Noble to use a giftcard she had on the new Harry Potter book was a good idea. In all honesty, I didn't have to do any arm twisting.

So we got the book and then my mom wanted to have dinner at a relatively new (at least to us) restaurant called Pick Up Styx. It's an incredibly gringo-ized Asian fast food restaurant. For some reason, recently when I get home from work I've been in really grouchy moods. My mom told me that my dad had seen a Pick Up Styx out by Redrum Burger so we decided to go out there. It's not exactly close to home and we have to drive through a big area of construction to get there. At one point, three lanes of traffic had to merge into one. Everyone was doing a fairly decent job of taking turns when this dude zoomed by everyone else and tried to crowd in in front of me. I wasn't in the mood to stand for it so I stuck to the back bumper of the car in front of me. The dude finally gave up and cut in behind me, blasting his horn. If my parents hadn't been in the car I probably would've shown him another token of my appreciation, but instead I very kindly kept both hands on the steering wheel. And meanwhile Lee Greenwood was singing "God Bless the USA" on my radio. We finally arrived at the little shopping center where Redrum Burger is and there was no Pick Up Styx to be found. My dad said, "Did I say it was here?" I remember when my paternal grandmother began to succumb to dementia my dad was very impatient with her and I couldn't understand why. Now, although hopefully my dad isn't succumbing to dementia, I find that I have very little patience for his "senior moments." I think it's because I can already see my memory waning and I hate to see that I might have a genetic predisposition towards forgetfulness. We finally found the restaurant several miles from Redrum Burger. When we got inside we discovered that the way they work is that you get one entree to be shared by several people. So my parents decided that we would get one entree and an order of California rolls for the three of us. I was really annoyed by this because my dad has dietary restrictions which make everything he eats relatively bland. But instead of being mature and gracious about it, when asked what I wanted to eat I answered snidely, "What does it matter what I want?" I make myself so angry sometimes. Why do I act that way? It turns out that what we had to eat was actually pretty good, although their California rolls were nothing compared to Sho Mi's. Speaking of California rolls, I've often wondered, do they make these in places besides California?

Anyway, last night I got home and had a serious dilemma on my hands. There I was with a copy of the new Harry Potter book. That's all very well but my quandary was do I blast right through it or do I take my time and savor every moment? I'm also thinking that I should've reread at least the fourth book before I started this one. I can barely remember what happened in that one. Who was Cedric, anyway?