Three Other Ventricles

The Mrs. asked if we’d bring some dinner home for her.  She needed to keep working.  The older one was at the track and field party.  This meant the little one and I were to set out on our own.  “What dyou want?”  “What dyou want?”  The mind begins the drive around the neighborhood.  There are calzones to be had.  Shag panir at the Pakistani joint.  We consider a half a dozen places and decide to just go over to one of the plazas and walk around to choose one. 

Parking will be a drag by local standards.  In San Francisco on a Friday night, I’d be circling around for twenty-five minutes.  “Park there.  No!  Around there.  It’s better!”  “OK.”  “What dyou want?”  “You see that sign?  The Blue Elephant?”  “What?”  “Right there!”  “Blue Frog?”  “No not that place.  The Thai place.  Let’s get Thai food.”  “No.  I don’t like it.”  “Come on its awesome.”  “Let’s go to the Hong Kong place.” “I totally don’t want to go there.” 

Coming up on restaurant row we pass a place that seems closed.  The second place has an odd name and is uninhabited.  The third place is the Vietnamese restaurant.  “Let’s go here.” My daughter suggests.  I abandon Thailand.  A spirited table of young professionals calls for the bill as we turn the tight corner and grab a seat by the window, next to a solitary young couple who seem to be moping. 

You gotta get the summer rolls.  This chicken with the lemon grass looks good.  But so does the beef salad with the lemon grass.  Something without lemon grass please.  I’m not gonna have seafood in here.  A curry?  That sounds good.  She’s getting the calamari.  “Remember, it might not be the way you like it.”  “I know.”

A bit greasy but it wasn’t so bad.  And we talked about how she made her sister a rice crispy cake with the words “track and field” on top, written in chocolate.  And she explained that some of her friends were starting a Youtube channel chronicling they're daily adventures.  She’s eleven.  I wondered about eleven year-olds unleashing their creative impulses on Youtbube.  One ventricle cheering to support her creative impulse, to do something even cooler than these folks, and three other ventricles flushing blood red: “no way.”  “Let’s talk about it with mom before you upload anything, alright?”

There’s a Baskin and Robins across the street and that will mean we’ll be going there next.  It’s almost like being home.  “Do you take a foreign card?”  “No sir.”  “How much is a cone and single scoop?”  “Thirty yuan”  “I’ve got sixty in my wallet.  We’re cool.  She gets cotton candy flavor.  I take a bite with the cone and it has a synthetic cotton candy after-burn.  I stick with mint chocolate chip so it can be even more like home.