Tuna Buna

Ahh...family. The holidays are a crazy wonderful weird time especially when they involve one's kin. Really this year was no exception...banner year indeed. But I want to discuss more of the minute details (of course)...for example my grandfather (Papa), who is quite ill but shows barely a sign of this, likes to be of aid to the whole family and their endeavors mostly by making suggestions as what or how we could accomplish our goals (or what he sees as our goals).

He is a little tidbit:

Papa: So - Mark I was thinking about the drawing thing you want to do.
[Mark is my step-father and he is a free-lance illustrator]
Mark: Oh yeah?
Papa: Yeah - I was thinking...Do those people that you want to work with know that you have one of those tables?
Mark: My Drawing Table?
Papa: Yeah...you know I think they would be really impressed if they knew that you had one. So, you should send them a picture of it when you apply for jobs..you know, that way they would know that you really know what you are doing.
Mark: Ok Papa - thanks. [yes my step-father calls my grandfather Papa]

(Later....the phone rings)

Mark: Hello
Papa: Hey Mark - I had an even better idea...let me take a picture of you drawing at the table and send that. That way they will know it is your table.
Mark: Um Ok...
_____

I hope this does not sound as if I am mocking my Papa. I love him and he is so loving and so funny often without realizing it which of course makes it funnier. But - he is also right - sometimes.

After the previous interaction, My mom and I were discussing Papa and his many follies and my Mom was like well it really all goes back to Tuna Buna. And I looking incredulously at my mother - questioned what the heck she was talking about (you are actually not allowed to swear/curse even when reciting stories about your mom - I believe that is the rule)?

So my mom tells me this story about back when my parents where still together and my Dad was opening one of his Sandwich/Pizza shops (he was quite the entrepreneur there for awhile). So, of course, Papa wants to help with this business venture.

And says. "Bill (my dad), you know what you gotta do? You have to give each sandwich a special name and that way people will remember it and come to your place. Like if you are going to serve Tuna sandwiches...you call the sandwich something like Tuna Buna. Now, Bill I know what I am talking about - so, you should do that."

Well I don't recall any Tuna Buna sandwiches in my youth at my Dad's place but I do know that my Mom refers to Tuna as Tuna Buna as does my Dad and my step-dad (somehow I only became privy to this recently). And although it sounds super goofy and it is...watch next time you order a tuna sandwich...you'll smile and say or at least think) Tuna Buna as well.

Burnt Sushi

a.k.a Drinking Whiskey with the father of old high school compatriots.

So I finally leave the house on Friday night due to a series of text messages and phone calls that got project 'Rescue Nikki' off the ground. I now realize that I have a serious problem of never having a car and thus not having a ride places. This made sense in SF - but now I just think I must have some sort of genetic deficiency. I mean I used to be the taxi for all my friends now I am "that guy" who is always begging someone to come pick me up.


Anyway...so the rescue party arrives...in the form of a kid that I have known for years. So we head to the Union Brew House and drink and catch up and start plotting the suburbia gathering for the eve. Who do we know lurking in these snowy windy streets and how do we get them out of bed? We manage to round up two other fellas...and head to The Snug (which closes at 11:30 pm - last call at 11pm). So two become three...and PJ, Matt and I having managed to close down The Snug (not that hard) head to Stars to meet up with Mike and now we are 4.

I start to feel a bit creepy because this is the bar where all the folks I went to high school with generally hang out at and I do have that fear of unexpectedly seeing ghosts from the past - so to speak. I also feel that it is a bit incestuous or weird just how long I have known these guys and my other high school friends and how similar we are (in some respects) at/near thirty to our younger selves (at least when we get together). Someone still gets too drunk and we are still forced to drink late night at people's parents' houses...ouch! We do dress better and drink better liquor. Here - I have realization number two...I hang out as the only girl in a group of guys - a lot.

These guys are funny and we have known each other forever so - there is high hilarity looming around every corner. Somehow I end up driving my slightly toasted buddy's car and racing Mike and his truck to Matt's mother's house. The race is funny and I feel sixteen as we zoom by the harbor and the patina covered statue of Paul Revere stares at me and the gazabo that was built near the town center still stands erect and proud (after what 20 years!!). Mike and I are giving each other the bird and yelling nonsense out the window while our booze filled pals smile and laugh - a laugh laced with the unspeakable fear that comes from the knowledge that we are too old to be doing something this stupid and naive.

We end up a four pack (me now happily with a car - a x-mas miracle! - OK I will have to return the car to PJ tomorrow but for now it is nice) in non-urban suburbia calling the father of a kid we went to high school with because we spy him up late paying bills. He answers the phone while we scream into it and we wave and jeer until he realizes what this madness in his earpiece at 2am really is and starts laughing.

This evolves into an expedition of sorts undertaken by my buddy Matt and me. We scale the fence separating us from the late-night bill paying paternal one. I am in heels and get stuck...but luckily Matt is tall and I am little so this just ends up with Matt having to hoist a giggling, heel cladden, slightly upside down me to safety. So this brigade of dumb drunk adults (!?) finally arrives at the door of the (un)suspecting neighbor who finds this experience as amusing as it is and invites us in for a drink.

Bushmills is consumed and I end up staying up for hours talking to our older and wiser friend about Ireland, the ICC, love, getting older and dying. I really like whiskey...but the next day was a bit rough. I am learning some things about life here in the shadows of my past...one of them is that I need to grow up (perhaps). Others are: the real value of love; that people really want me to have a baby (Obviously this makes sense due to my maturity level shown in the aforementioned activities of the evening and what not); that lots of people that I used to go to school with are bald, married and/or have children; and that I have developed the nervous tick of holding my belly (or making sure it is still flat?) while enduring any such attempt to influence me to "move back to New England and have babies". (I got nothing against babies...but 1) I am not moving back to suburbian new england and 2) I would really enjoy being in love if I am going to be pregnant..I am just saying)....

OK - that was the night off from studying...otherwise - I generally do like the last blog said and study a lot - a real lot - a ridiculous amount - and take photos (which has become a full time creative outlet for me).

Lost and Found

I am getting after it...really I am getting Mother F*cking after it baby. I will eat this exam for lunch even if the dean of Stanford Law School failed in July.

Here in the snow - studying my ass off (well no - not really - it is still there - maybe it's gonna be a bit rounder when I return to SF - but I hear guys like that ;-)). But really I am studying 12 hours a day. I have left the house only once...but I am thinking of starting running - so that may change.

This solitary time is proving that sometimes you need a little time for yourself with yourself. At least if you are me. I mean I miss SF and my friends dearly every day but I think I am gettng a glimpse of what it means to stand on my own two feet. Not just because I can or because they are there, but because I want to...and that may sound super cheesy - but I am cheez wiz baby... I am going rock these feet and die dancing if I have my way.

Realize - this life is going to be very long and fly by and the best we can hope for is to enjoy it, learn from it and grab what we want while we can. I think this is always a battle. I look at the world and it tears me apart and breaks my heart and drives me crazy. Sometimes I feel like I can see the edges fray...the illustators marks on the city skyline...and I feel like a child...like a drop of water. I used to spend hours just looking at the ocean and being jealous...really truly jealous...like I could never be that important - that awesome - so what was the point?

It is immobilizing - fear - right? But not everyone sees the moments when art and reality collide...really try to talk to some people about frayed edges of reality and they will just look at you and start speaking really slowly.

So - I figure - I may never be the ocean but...I have got a lot - riches so intangible and so vast that I know I am truly lucky. Ahh...well 30 ain't so bad after all ;-) I promise less drooling nonsense next blog. I just thought I'd start with the mushy stuff and then tell y'all what I think about Clemens possibly returning to the red sox - next time.

It is cold and lonely here but my mind is crisp and my heart is warmed by thoughts of San Francisco. Soon I will figure out how to add my fun snowy pictures...perhaps with diagrams of how to make a snowball for all you funny sunny westside folks ;-) This is the dorkiest blog ever...but hell if the shoe fits. Luckily I am not on the prowl right now. Oddly not many men pass through this abode - so I can be a dork. And it is cold as a nun's titty here - but yet it is ok to sleep alone. Nuns and implied sex (well implied sexual thoughts) in the same sentence - Am I going to hell? Just joshing - these arms are enough for me right now and that is really good - since I am sleeping in a twin bed.

OK - truth be told - I am sleeping in a TWIN bed in a very very pastel room with lots of ceramic things which I still can not find any use for and pictures of babies in like insect costumes. Really - little babies as butterflies and daisies or some shit. My feet hang off the edge of the bed and I am only 5'5" - so I keep wondering who this bed was made for? - perhaps one of the darling little butterfly kids. So - it is somewhat bizarre.

In closing - report thus far is: Brain = top notch, Feeling = better than I should given the fact that I spend a lot (like 20 hours a day) in the pastel happy baby egg land made for elfs...but at least I realize how much I think babies in butterfly costumes on walls are kind of freaky and I will never take my queen size bed for granted again. End of report...carry on...