happy merries

Woah...it's Thanksgiving already. Where'd the year go? Blah blah blah.

I think that's becoming the new holiday jingle. No one knows where years go. They don't go anywhere. They just kinda happen.

I'm going to save my 2004 reflections for another blog, I think. You know...to build suspense. Mostly because I haven't really thought about it. I haven't had much time to think about the year, really. I've been too busy.

I went to my Chinese restaurant today. I like the place a lot because of its food and its atmosphere. It's a basement restaurant; you have to take a flight of stairs down to get there. It looks like it might have been swanky in the early '80s or late '70s or something. It's still nice, but it's got that lived in shabbiness that I only find appealing in Chinese restaurants. The woman who owns it--I assume she owns it--is really fascinating. I don't know why. I've never really spoken to her, but she just exudes this matriarchal vibe. To me, anyway. She's probably in her 50s or so, but she could probably pass for much younger and maybe she actually is. You can just tell by looking at her that she's in charge; not because she's curt or stern, but because of the way she holds herself and the way she walks around that restaurant. Like she could find her way around it even if it was pitch black.

Helping her run the place are people who I believe are family members, whether they're direct family or extended. I'm not sure, but they have a rappoire like they are family. There are also an assorted cast of non-family workers and waitpersons, but they're usually in and out. Among the family (if they are family) are the matriarch, a man who is usually in the kitchen, a young girl (I thought fourteen or so) and a young boy. He's like eight or something. The young boy doesn't really do anything, but he's usually hanging out in the dining room playing with his toys. Some times he's running around, but he's not annoying. He's actually kinda funny.

The young girl fills up water, but lately she's been taking orders also. She took mine today. She just got a new hairdo that looks really nice on her. She speaks fluent Cantonese and English. The matriarch speaks some English, but mostly communicates in Cantonese. The guy in the kitchen hardly says anything and the youngest boy seems to speak English only. I'd always figured that the matriarch was the mom, dude in the kitchen was dad, and the two others were their children. This may or may not be the case. I go in there enough to be a regular. I can tell they recognize me when I come in; especially the matriarch and the young girl. I usually go in there by myself and order the number 2 special plate because it has sweet and sour pork and they make the best I've had. I usually go in there right after payday as a treat for myself. They play this really mellow Chinese folk music and that and the muted light make the place really relaxing. It's really cozy.

Anyway, I think they recognize me, but not enough to know me. I don't get "hey James" or "would you like the usual" or anything like that. I go in there enough that I'm pretty familiar with them. I can tell when they get new hairdos, or hire a new staffer. Things like that. However, I don't know the first thing about them. I don't even know their names. I just see them all the time. As such, I've created a story for them--that they're a family--to better classify them, I guess.

I think there's a point to this.

Today, I began to think that my assumptions about their relationship was wrong. I saw the young girl and the little boy interacting in a way that looked more mother to son than brother to sister. I can't explain why I thought this really. And then I realized the apparent age difference between the young boy and the matriarch. She would have had to have him late in life, and years after the girl. This isn't farfetched, but it led me to create a new fiction for the proprietors of my favorite Chinese food in town. Perhaps the girl had become pregnant at a young age, and to avoid scrutiny from their town, they decided to move to America, where such things are more accepted. (That really isn't true--those things aren't accepted--but the objectors are more subtle and insidious.) It made me wonder which story was true, if any, and how I don't really know them, even though I see them more often than I see my parents.