Hey there,
Day 4. Breakfast was a repeat of day 1, so maybe meals are in a 4 day rotation? Will be sure to share. A regular feature of breakfast here is congee. They love it. Betty loves it. It is odor and flavorless and simply do not understand the appeal, but it has to be similar to American prisoners of the Vietnam War craving a soup they ate in captivity made of fish, vegetables, shrimp, coconut milk and 4 kinds of rice. "They just can't get the spices right! Let Seymour Skinner explain.
The rest of the breakfast was edible after it was doused in ghost pepper sauce. Last night's dinner on the other hand was the epitome of all that is wrong with Taiwanese food. I think they think that this was the grand meal as it had all of the things they love. Wet fatty slivers of pork over plain rice and a pile of completely flavorless tofu and veggies. I'd say they taste bad, but they taste like nothing and all of it has that chewy oily texture. One thing that I should have expected is that my farts smell different. All those trips on the crowded subway here make a lot more sense now.
Moving on...this summer was a pretty big year of transitions for our clan. Betty and I bought a condo in the States and our situation is evolving. More on that another day. The Boy graduated from UVA in May and Babydoll entered the same Uni in August. I made two trips back there this year...one to drop her off at school and the second for Parent's Weekend in October. This entry is an amalgamation of those two visits.
For both visits, flew to Raleigh, North Carolina as The Boy lives in Durham and works for Big Pharma. I tell people he's building a better dick pill but is really doing something with a new production line of some vaccine. HPV I think. By all measure, he's got it good. A job he likes, things to do in a city that is young and growing and he has some fun hobbies. We went there first to see him but also that he wanted to come up for the UVA trips to show Babydoll around and just hang in his old stomping grounds.
Babydoll struck gold with her dorm assignment. She is in the athlete's dorm, so they take good care of the building. Not only that, but for some reason we could not discern, she got into a handicap room. Not only is the room itself a bit wider to accommodate a wheelchair, but they have their own on suite bathroom for just her and her roommate, and the bathroom is almost as big as their room. I geeked out about it more than her, but not having to use a community bathroom, especially at a college where weekly puke fests are common, is gonna be a godsend. Her roommate seems OK and is a neat freak. B-doll is neat and organized, but this roommate is next level. Liked her immediately as she insists on people taking off their shoes before entering, but she exhibits OCD traits like wiping everything down with bleach regularly. I've heard of worse characteristics in a roommate.
Our time at drop off weekend was spent shopping and eating. The Boy has places he likes to eat and made reservations for us. As for shopping, Betty had pre-ordered bedding and some things, but I was there basically to fill in the blanks. I bought her some booze and some school supplies, but by far the worst for this dad was the trip to Costco. I like to think that I have a decent rapport with her and have had talks about the opposite sex. We're at the Costco and I'm pushing the cart (cart pushing and card swiping were my only two responsibilities). She disappears for a bit and comes back and tosses a box of condoms into the cart. I mentioned this was Costco, right? A box of condoms there is mega and comes in a variety pack. Ribbed, extra large, etc. What can I say at that point? The answer to that is absolutely nothing but to suffer in silence.
On Sunday morning, I am up early as usual , and the kids had gone out the night before so we were getting a late start. I thought that since I had time, B-doll needed some stamps so went to the CVS to buy some. I haven't bought stamps in ages but used to get them at the drug store. It's empty and I'm walking to the register and stop for 5 seconds to look at something. In that instant, a lady walks in and gets in front of me at the register. She is making a return, which flumoxes the cashier. That painful transaction over, the lady then asks if she can update her on-line CVS account with a new email or something, and the lady says that needs to be done on line. The lady is crushed and says "So I need a login?" except this is the South, so she drawls it out as lah-geen. I know, funny just for me, but still...say it in your thickest Southern accent and tell me it's not funny. And she's not done...next she needs some nicorette, but not just any nicorrette, she wants the blue kind. Of course that is behind the counter in a locked case and of course, where is the fuckin' key? It is in one of the 3 cash registers and I can smell an episode of Let's Make A Deal breaking out. It's not in the one she is working with, so she had to lah-geen to the next one. No dice. Lah-geen to number 3 does the trick and then we get a tour through all the kinds of nicorette that CVS sells. You would not believe how many shades of blue nicorette comes in but we went through the whole color wheel with the intensity one might buy a wedding ring. I was looking at my watch since I was to meet the kids in a bit and this all took 15 minutes. Well at least I am gonna get some stamps. The cashier lifts up the cash drawer where they keep the stamps and of course...no stamps. We then go through another round of Let's Make A Deal, looking behind drawer #'s 2 and 3 and they were all Zonks. No stamps. The cashier, as well as the people in the now long line behind me, are surprised at my exhortation of "You have got to be shitting me".
We took out one of The Boy's buddies for dinner one of the nights (tacos...I ate a ton of tacos this summer), and got loose with a couple of margaritas and we shared some college stories for B-dolls benefit. The Boy and his buddy shared a couple that were entertaining, but they can put those in their own memoirs. I shared my graduation day story.
Due to being in a study abroad my senior year of high school, I started university in January and graduated in 4 years, so my ceremony was in January as well.
Quick seque...when I left for school, my folks put me on an airplane with my suitcase (they didn't come with wheels in those days, and a stale bag of chips. Not only that, but to save on airfare, my flight was into BWI, which is a good hour north of DC, so had to manage an Amtrak train and then the fuckin' metro bus to school by myself. No internet in those days and I have no recollection as to how I actually did it. All these kid drop-off rituals are therefore a bit over the top in my opinion. I checked with my sister, who went to my dad's beloved Princeton, and they didn't accompany her to drop-off either...she still has ill feelings about that. The joke is that they didn't even give me a bag of chips.
So my graduation is in January and most kids don't graduate then. I did have a friend that took 4.5 years to finish, so we went to the ceremony together and our friends all came along to support us. Side note, my folks didn't come to that either. I was already living back in LA by this time and had to get back to work, so I had a flight outta town the next morning, and that night we all went out to booze it up. Many drinks were had. I found some photos in storage this summer from that night and it is as ugly as I remembered. Conga lines, necktie used as headband, all of it. The next morning I was so sick and spent nearly the entire flight puking in the toilet. Some would call it a successful send off.
About 6 months later I get a call from my friend Laurie. We had gone back to her house on graduation night to finish the party and she tells me that she just got the pictures back from that night. Do I need to mention we took photos on film in 1988 and that they had to be developed, etc.? She says, "That night of the party, why did you pee on my vacuum?" I saw the photo later and I am in her bathtub, wearing no pants, and you can clearly see my pee stream arcing onto her vacuum. All I could offer as an explanation or apology was that I was blind drunk. Then she screams, "I've been using that vacuum for 6 months!" Ah...college life.
Have been asked a few times if it was hard to say goodbye to B-doll at the end of the weekend, and our hug was nice but didn't get all teary eyed. After the weekend, I took the train up to DC, and as I'm sitting in the station waiting room, a couple comes in with their little girl. 3-4ish. Watching them entertain her and such and thinking about those days with mine, that was when I lost it.
Parent's weekend was two months later and was a good chance to see how she has adapted. In a word, great.. Friends, activities, parties...she had never been to a football game and before the first one she tells me she got invited to a Gate party or something. "A tailgate?" I ask. When I ask her about parties and such she says that due to Covid, or maybe due to some drugging of underclassmen scandals, that frat parties are now invite only..."not everyone gets invited" she says but that she has been a few times. Gee, a cute girl got invited to a frat party? Shocker
Took one of her new buddies out for breakfast one of the morning. Nice girl from Richmond (1/2 Malaysian and 1/2 Taiwanese), we liked her immediately. Talking to the kids alone, they don't share stuff, but get them with a friend or two and all the info gets shared. I asked the friend if she had a boyfriend and she said no, and then asked if B-doll had one and she hesitated before saying/asking the crowd "Not yet?". Apparently Zach and B-doll are circling one another and I heard just this morning that they are attending some formal together. The good news is that she didn't buy any more condoms at the Costco. Or is that bad news.
For better or worse, The Boy has some of my traits. He talked of having a "vendetta" against some restaurant or something. The sad part for him is that he bristles when I express vendetta like tendencies. At dinner at a fancy place that served southern food, we order and the lady goes away. She comes back and says they don't have any more of the jalepeno corn bread. A bit sad as that sounded delicious, but whatevs. Then she comes back and they don't have one of our entrees too. Humph. Me and a friend of Paul's that joined us both order the hot chicken sandwich that comes with Dynamite sauce. This sandwich has all the spice of a Taiwanese congee...none. It wasn't necessarily bad, just not what was advertised. I could tell the waitress had had enough of us as I may have made some wisecrack about her not having the food on the menu, so I sent the place a note about it later. But don't you think they should have comped our desert or something?
The next night we are at a place and the Boy swears he knows the waitress and never does figure out from where. She is one of those that spews their restaurants philosophy during the ordering process. Like, "this is our chef's take on shrimp and grits". Do people really want a dialogue with the waitress? I order a Jameson on the rocks and they serve it with crushed ice? I ask if this is the bartender's take on 'the rocks'? She doesn't get it.
Parent's weekend was fine but too many parents. We went to a football game and that was a hoot. Seeing them sing their songs and all the pageantry. During the Good Ol' Song (UVA's theme song), which they sing after every score, at one point everyone says "Fuck Tech". They are playing Georgia Tech that night and I ask what do they say when they play Clemson or something, and they always say Fuck Tech for Virginia Tech...just a happy coincidence that they are playing another Tech. At the east end of the stadium, there are no seats, just this huge steep lawn where the students go to mingle. We went there for a while to see the shenanegins and it is a meat market. So fun...
The best moment of the weekend for me was the last day when all of the errands were done, the three of us got family pedicures.
One more story to share. The Boy and I drive back to Durham Sunday evening and my plane out is Monday AM. We're in his pad and his roommate is there too. He is living with a guy that he's been friends with since Freshman dorm that also got a job at the same Big Pharma place as he and they got this place together. We're talking about apartments at UVA since B-doll is in the stage of looking for one for next year, and the roommate tells us about their group house Senior year. There was no doubt in my mind that it was a shit hole, and he tells us about the rats. Some of the people in their group house, there were 6 or 8 of them, all guys, thought they can just put dishes into the dishwasher without rinsing them off. The rats would chew through the drain line to get at the tasty bolognese sauce in the dishwasher trap. The food waste water would then leak into the basement room that one of the guys had and by second semester, black mold had covered one of the walls. He said they went through 3 dishwashers that year. Gross. But then he tells us that they once caught a rat on one of those glue traps. I ask if it was a mouse or a rat and they both emphatically said in unison with hands about a foot apart, "It was a rat". Roommate says that The Boy put it in a bag but it started thrashing about violently, so The Boy goes and puts on his boots and stomps on the rat till it thrashed no more. Ah, college life.
Up with miniskirts
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