Iranian Food

Have you ever been so tired that you don't really care a flying moose whether anyone sees you acting tired? So tired you become grumpy and you lose your good manners, and for once in your well-brought-up life you decide YES! I AM GOING TO BE RUDE AND GRUMPY AND A TOTAL ASS!

This is a story about that kind of day, and about redemption for someone, although she was much older and probably much grumpier than I could ever be, even on my worst day.

Leo and I were taking a fast trip across Italy. It was my first time and I wanted to make the most of it, so I planned a bunch of cities in a short amount of time. And each city offered many attractions. It was also our first time travelling overseas together, and we were both very excited. We arrived in Florence, Italy early on our fourth day of travel and we were eager to explore the city. Of course we pride ourselves in being adventurous...yes, we are PRIDEFUL of being adventurous... and when you are PRIDE -FUL that means you have to be adventurous even if you are very, very tired.

Late in the afternoon, after climbing the 423 steps to the top to the Duomo, after crossing the old-town city twice, we set out in a new direction, determined to have ourselves a true little Italian moment. Way over there. Away from the other tourists. Over there. Waaaaaaay over there.

Yes. We got lost. About three freaking hours later, we found our way back to the area near our hotel. We were both famished.

Now one thing or another can be said about eating in Italy. You will probably hear something different from everyone who has been there. I can go both ways, good or bad, but this is not the time for that story. The truth is...when you are tired you want things that are like home. Leo sensed that after four days, maybe I needed a little America. He insisted he saw a restaurant that catered to American tourists.

Florence is fairly easy to navigate if you have been there before, but for two American whackos who spent most of their day wondering lost around BFE... my GOD, Egypt is another continent!...the city was incomprehensible. Road after road after alley after alley and we were just going in circles.

The major cities of Italy have a restaurant EVERY FIVE FEET. And here we were walking for hours looking for the restaurant Leo saw early that afternoon. I wanted to stop and just get something to eat, anything to eat, can we sit down, can we just stop anywhere to sit down and eat? About 9:30 that night, we found it. Two blocks from our hotel. YAY.

Too bad the new waitress hired that day to fill-in for the night didn't speak a word of English. And she hated Americans. Of course we didn't speak a word of Italian either, but I was too tired to even care.

Luckily a woman next to us intercepted our waitress and took care of our dinner order. She overheard our conversation and she spoke both fluent English and Italian. She was an expatriate from Iran living in Germany, so she also spoke fluent Farsi and German. And she also spoke French. On top of all of that, she was beautiful.

Her dining companion, not so. It was her mother of Iranian descent, beaten down by years of oppression, then forced to flee the country with her daughter. Yes, she may have been on vacation in Italy, but she was as tired and ready for bed as me. And her daughter had her out late at this restaurant. HMMPH! (We learned all of this from the young woman. The old lady never looked up from her dish.)

The wine and Leo married in some sort of boisterous Heaven, and he and the Iranian beauty began to have a great conversation. I could feel my life force ebbing from my body. I swear my spine was drooping and eventually I was going to eat my knees for dessert. The old lady to my side wasn't doing much better, but as her aches began to take their toll, she began to tell her tale of woe in some fairly loud ways, all of which her daughter ignored.

At some point in the conversation I realized the vixen was flirting with Leo. Of course he had no idea and was just fixated by the attentions of this international woman. Suddenly she said something that finally clued Leo to the situation, and he replied with "Oh. My partner and I are here together." And he reached across the table and grabbed my arm. My eyes went to him, then to the Delilah and then to the old woman. Who was now staring at ME. Who then smiled. Who then laughed. And I realized that this old fart understood English as well as Mark Twain. And I laughed too.

And right then she and I shared a moment which only two very tired people who are patiently waiting on two very silly people could possibly understand. In any language.

What I great moment.

Stop bugging me!

Back in the late 1980s, my mother and I worked in twin office buildings in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. She was the secretary for the Director of Advertising for Radio Shack, and I worked in Accounts Payable for the same company.

My wife and I rented a house on the Southside of town. As a young couple, we only had one car which she used to drive back and forth to work, dropping off and picking up the baby from daycare. I rode the bus.

One beautiful summer morning, just after sunrise, I emerged from the house wearing a new suit I had acquired over the weekend from T.J. Max, a pimp suit if there ever was one, the jacket short-waisted and the pants pleated, all a delicious mauve. My hair had a slick part to the side held in place with a liberal dousing of Aquanet from my wife's beauty table. It was a wonderful day, and my spirits were lifted higher when I saw our collection of rose bushes in full bloom. I decided to surprise my mother with a bouquet of the finest.

Fifteen minutes later I approached the bus stop near my home, flowers in hand. The large crowd of people turned to watch as I neared. The warm Texas sun on my skin matched the warm sense of self-conscious pride I felt inside: looking good and carrying flowers to my mother, what better combination?

The crowd and I filled the bus to capacity. I sat next to a large African-American woman, who turned only briefly to take in the sight of this fine white boy before taking her gaze back to the window. The ride proved uneventful for the first few blocks, and then it happened, a small itch, almost a tingle at the back of my head.

I reached behind me to scratch gently, not wanting to disturb the coif held in the thick hair spray, and when I pulled back my hand, there sat an enormous green grasshopper, finally freed from its Aquanet prison.

Now it proves the point that every single person sitting behind me had been watching this bug since I boarded and took my seat, because when I flicked my hand and that bug went flying, the screams were enough to make the bus driver swerve. I looked back to see people pressing against their seats and windows, all of them making one sort of noise or another. Finally, a Hispanic man about five rows back stood and squashed the poor bug.

Silence ensued. The bus slowed for a red light, and the dead bug's body rolled toward me in accusation, but then the bus accelerated, causing the carcass to retreat toward the back. Blushing and hoping a big Hispanic foot would come down and crush me, I stole a glance at the black woman next to me. Her eyes stared boldly into mine. "I hope nothing crawls off of you onto me", she said and the scowl on her face showed her disgust.

That grasshopper rolled back and forth during the entire ride.

I took an earlier bus for the remainder of the summer.