I spent this weekend going back and forth between Elon and Cary. On Friday I glazed some platters and made my way over to Cary for delicious Lebanese food at
Neomonde. Dinner with David included a falafel sandwich, beef kabob with tabouleh and fattoush, and two namoura for dessert. The evening was spent watching
Curb Your Enthusiasm while playing scrabble a little too competitively.
You should know that my days are scheduled around good food. Waking up around noon on Saturday, we finished our scrabble game and headed over to
Bosphorus for Turkish food. A late lunch with David included an Adana Kabob, Yogurt Kebab, two Turkish teas (refilled many, many times) and baklava and Krem Karamel Custard for dessert. Leaving around three o'clock, we were able to make it to Elon by four to see Topher's play*. In a change of pace, late night cravings for steak led us to Outback Steakhouse. Almost-midnight gluttony with David included 14oz ribeye and 14oz prime rib courtesy of server Bo (who failed to bring us the pumpernickel bread we wanted).
On Sunday**, I woke up and went to work where it was babies, babies and more babies. Snack time with babies included butter cookies, animal crackers, honey-nut cheerios and apple juice (for the lucky ones). Then, David and I headed back to Cary around mid-afternoon and discovered that an Indian restaurant, in celebration of mother's day, was putting on their buffet special all day long. Another late lunch with David included Alu Gobi, Butter Chicken, Tandoori Chicken, Palak Paneer, something goat, various curries, samosas, lemon rice and rice pudding w/ mango puree, Gulab Jamuns and Rasmalai for dessert.
Afterward, we went to a nature park,
Hemlock Bluffs, to ease digestion. It was nice and shady and bug-bite free. If I had had my camera, I would have a picture of a really intense spider web to show off. But instead, I have a story to tell...
In front of David and me, on the creek side trail, was a couple. They were moving very quickly and we soon lost sight of them. For the remainder of the trail we referenced them in jokes about walking too fast. Then, once we had reached the car, we saw them pulling out of the parking lot. Since we had no good ideas about how to spend the rest of the day, I suggested that we follow them in the fashion of the Zen Method of Navigation, as detailed by Dirk Gently in DNA's book The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. Before you begin to judge me, you should understand what exactly this method of navigation is:
... he had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his "Zen" method of navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.
"... my methods of navigation have their advantages. I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
-- Douglas Adams. The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soulpp.35, 156
And, so, we followed them with an allowance of 3-4 cars in between( a precautionary measure modeled after the type of espionage I've seen on the once-popular spy drama, Alias). In the beginning, I threw out ideas about where they might be going. I reasoned that because it was 5:30 pm on a Sunday that they were probably going home to spend the rest of their night in. Because: who would get all sweaty in a park for an hour and then grab dinner someplace? Also, a lot of places are closed on Sunday or close early.
If you're still disturbed (but not disturbed enough to have stopped reading by now) you should take comfort in the fact that we were only following them because they seemed to know where they were going. We, however, never knew where we were going/have gone/are going, etc. So, by the Zen, we thought that this couple might lead us past someplace exciting or cause us to think of a better place to be.
They took a very scenic route and they drove for a long time. This puzzled us because we figured they would have lived close by to the park. They also drove very quickly and we lost them many times. David was not too keen on the idea in the first place, but by the middle of our journey he started saying things like "This is exciting!", "Man, we lost them!", "I feel like Sydney Bristow!" and "There they are! Up ahead. You're not getting away that easily!"
Basically, we drove for 40 minutes (in a square-ish route, which seemed illogical) until I said "This is going to end at the next red light or if we lose them...whichever comes second". So, we lost them accidentally (they were just too fast) and then we were stopped at a red light. Nothing really happened after that. We drove by the mall and thought about going in, but then we realized that we were just really, really tired. So, we got on the highway and went back home. In the end, then, I guess that's where we needed to be.
Love,
Monica
*Topher is writing an original play for his honors thesis. At this event, we got a preview of three of the songs he had written and composed with his partner. They were absolutely amazing. I knew Topher was talented, but I had no idea that he was at such a superb level. Now I know why we haven't seen him at all this semester. He's been working so hard!
**As for Mother's Day, my Mother had lunch at Roy Rogers (I just wanted to add this in to go along with all my food mentioning).
