2003-03-06 - 10:25 a.m.

I went home to Memphis over the weekend to visit with my parents on their thirtieth wedding anniversary. I arrived Saturday night, just in time to be invited out to dinner at a fancy French restaurant, La Tourelle. I don't know what that translates to, but I like to think that it means "yeti".

It was a very nice dinner indeed, with beautiful and expensive food and champagne that actually tasted good, and very fine slivers of onions and peppers serving to ornament the food. Dad said, "Your mom and I have been happily married for twenty-five years. And out of thirty, that ain't bad."

I went to church Sunday morning at the church from my adolescence. It was kind of strange to me, with everyone I knew being a little older, and no longer knowing everything about me, and the priest being different, and not as open-hearted as the priests from my days. He didn't pray for peace. He only prayed for resolution.

I decided that I needed to figure out what pieces of Catholicism I've held onto. I've said for some time that I've held onto many, but I realized that morning that I'm not sure of the specifics. So I'm set on figuring that out. So far, I've decided the fasting, the abstinence from meat on Fridays, and the preparation of your soul during lent are all good ideas. I've given up chocolate, and I'm going to try to do something pro-peace every day for the next forty.

We went to dinner after church at my sister Anna's apartment. She made some awesome eggplant parmagan and we drank wine and jasmine tea. We gave gifts of DVD player and movies and gift certificates. Then we went home.

Dad and I talked about German and Spanish for some time. He gave me a German textbook that starts from the beginning. It also uses the international phonetic alphabet as a means of pronunciation guide. Fantastic. I think we'll probably start writing emails back and forth in Spanish, for practice. He's learning, and I'm rusty, so it'll help us both.

I went out with Anna to Perkins. We ate dessert and drank coffee and talked about many things. Then we went back to her place and watched a little TV. Then I headed home.

.

I left Monday morning with time enough to chill out a bit before I had to go into work at Wing Zone. We were dead slow that night, and after four hours, I had only made ten dollars. A man came in- forty-two year old white trash- and he was in a state. He was talking to Anthony, and Anthony said no, so he appealed to me. He said his wife was in the hospital up in Nashville and he needed fifteen dollars for gas money so he could go get her. He said he'd leave his driver's license with me.

I really thought he was having me on, conning me if you will, but I finally decided that I'd rather go to bed feeling I'd been conned than feeling I hadn't helped someone who maybe really needed it. I told him I had only made ten dollars so far that night, so that's all I could give to him. He said that would do.

I handed him the money thinking I was being lied to.

I gave him my phone number so he could call me the next morning to repay me.

He called back up to Wing Zone an hour later and said that number hadn't gone through. I said my roommate was probably online. But then I realized he wasn't lying to me.

I'm hungry.

to be continued, again...

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