Taking time to make time + lessons from the last 24 hours

Punch drunk or sleep-deprived here, can't tell which. Gotta wake up in five hours for a trip to Tahoe to watch Rich and his chinoise/au zhou lady love slide occasionally headfirst down a rain-slicked snow-inflected mountain slope in waterproof clothes that they will likely use only once in their sun-drenched lives in the Silicon Valley-Bondi Beach Lexus nexis. Which is to say, bitches spent too much money and time today - and too much of *my* time - looking at the size tags on insulated elastic waterproof pants at the Big 5 Sporting Goods store, and while they ski Sugarbowl or Northstar tomorrow I'm just gonna relive 1995 by opting out of family time, chicken scratching in my well-loved journal, reading foreign fiction I doubt I'll understand, and avoiding all the well-heeled ruddy cheeks that will doubtless be elbowing me aside in the ski lodge for space to swap Ferragamo boots for Rossignol bindings - it's Palo Alto, in the high Sierras! I'm excited and confident that I'll make it through at least 3/4ths of Baron in the Trees before the need arises for me to look at anyone other than Italo Calvino, in spirit.

So last night was family time. [I'm loathe to write now because I just finished half a journal entry about this exact same topic, and the public-private collusion now takes the shape of writing ambidextrously, the right hand scripting out extremely illegible purple prose about the state of my household in a $7 black notebook and the left hacking out a semi-intimate blog entry about the same damn thing. It's is simultaneously redundant and incomplete, and it ruins my lifelong quest for one-stop shopping.] Anyway, long story short...I made what one might euphemistically refer to as an "apple pie," with improvised crusts that turned out to be sinusoidal in two ways - (1) lumpy up-and-down profile and (2) first high, then low, then moderately high, then extremely low, then decently high expectations/fruition - and ultimately tasted like a shortbread-apple sandwich. Not too bad, in the end. We stuffed our faces with all manner of unvegetarian animal matters. I managed to eat animals from all dominions, including a mysterious orange fish whose eyes I depressed firmly in the supermarket while whispering kaddish, a couple of squibs of beef that I could not be bothered to remove from the winter bamboo stir fry, and chicken in the form of clear amber broth for the daikon and glutinous fish balls. [Today at lunch I blithely jawed through a couple of broccoli beef flaps, having all but given up on the idea of vegetarianism while in the vicinity of my merrily carnivorous family.] We chatted amicably and I attempted to describe, to glazed-over eyes, exactly how clinics function in the context of a legal education, and Richard attempted to convince us that the "Two Buck Chuck" sauvignon blanc we were drinking from Silicon Valley software company logo-emblazoned demitasse glasses had a "nose" of pineapple. I greeted his wine snobbery with utter class, saying things like "It all tastes the same" and "It all comes out the same in the end anyway" and sabotaging his attempts to blind taste test the Two Buck Chuck against another bottle of muscat dessert wine by holding the platter of fish under his nose while he did it. I've reserved a special place in my heart for the bullshittery that is wine tasting - did I say "heart"? I meant "heart of darkness," the antipathy heart, my hater's heart, the heart that I keep around for things like wine tasting, antiquing, conversation with most Harvard alumni, Rapture forecasters, that disgusting condescending snaggletoothed Frenchman named Boris that another friend forced me to meet one forgettable night in Montmartre, Harry Potter, and - for the 355 days of the year that I am not driving - all cars everywhere.

Anyway, sorry for the tangents. Long story short, right...eating, chatting, wolfing apple pie, watching Simpsons DVDs, and walking over a little square of apple pie for my grandma. I stayed up too late manipulating words in a variety of incomprehensible ways then paid the price for doing so this morning at 7-something, when my mom woke me up to plunder the outdoor malls of the mid-Peninsula. I finally bought the law-talking lass's obligatory black pantsuit, the absence of which earlier in the year prompted my lawyering professor to pointedly comment "You looked nicely business casual" during a critique session for which biz cas meant frayed black Goodwill sweater, frayed blue Goodwill shirt, frayed gray Goodwill pants + home haircut + scribblings all over the back of my left hand.] I also learned today that at Nieman Marcus a mink stole (she says, pretending she knows what a "stole" is) will set you back $675, but a diamond encrusted Minnie Mouse watch will cut a $2,750 hole in your pocket. We went into Nie Ma only on a lark, not to actually buy $675 mink (which is actually dyed golden retriver fur) stoles. Mom pointed out that Nieman Marcus is referred to in Chinese as "Ni Ma," Walmart is "Wo Ma," and Target is "Ta Ma." This translates, roughly, into "Your Mom," "My Mom," and "F*k Your Mom." I also scored the bourgiest clothes (pink, lime green) I've ever owned besides that tennis-whites sweater I got on the discount rack at the Gap in 1992 when I despaired to sartorially ape the soccer-playing Rachels and Jessicas of Jordan Middle School.

Blah, blah, blah. BLAH. The only thing I really want to remember of this day is taking my grandma to see The Chronc - What? - Cles of Narnia at the Century Googleplex in Mountain View. I noted that she had The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on her bedstand last night and invited her out to the movies. The last one she saw was "The Lion King," which meant that it had been eleven years since she'd been inside a movie theater. I'm always bugging my grandma to go out - the joke that I attempt everytime I see her involves me saying, "Grandma, I know you want to go dancing and get smashed with me" and Grandma chuckling in return...seems like it would be mean to say this to an 83 year-old woman with low-to-no mobility but she knows I'm just teasing. Anyway, so I bugged her to come to the movies and she happily assented despite my parents' protests that she would be too infirm to go. But grandma is not an infirm woman just because she has a faulty hip. This belief was reaffirmed by the fact that, when we got settled into the theater today, she methodically and gleefully demolished a quarter of the bushel of popcorn that we bought. The movie itself was a wash - I stretched my Chinese to the limits (remembering the word for "Bible" but forgetting (or never knowing) the word for "allegory") in my attempt to explain that the movie's plodding pace and uninspired direction might've been a result of its origins as Christian fable. As in, how many gawdam times must we watch little Lucy cry? But the experience of watching the movie, with my dad leaning over to say "What a great choice of movie!" and my grandma leaning over to say "The lion looks so real!" was so novel and fantastic that despite all my anti-sentimentality sensors I'm going to call it beautiful.

Sorry, dear readers, this blog has been roughly 1,300 words of bilge. I am now officially hallucinating from sleep deprivation. I'm going to put a coconut husk over my head and press on my eyeballs until visions overtake my mind. No more blogging until I get back from the Nevada excursion. Dear readers, wish me luck and pray that I don't accidentally pitch headfirst off a steep snowy slope or get strafed in Las Vags. GAAAAHHHHHHH