Driving Home

It's been a long Saturday with my mom helping her buy groceries and hanging out with my grandparents in North Beach. We park in front of the delicatassen across my grandparents but the owners don't give us trouble so we leave it there for a bit. Then we repark it a few blocks away up.

My mom and I venture into Chinatown. It's hot, strange for City weather and so I'm wearing my green GAP fleece, a book under my arm that I've been wanting to read called "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pusch.

As I read and wait, a stranger waits as I adjust my gaze from the book to her eyes. She's wearing a red sweatshirt and is hesitant. I ask her what she needs and she's deliberating whether or not to take a box among the heap alongside a Chinese bakery. It's a typical take out place with hot dim sum piping hot from the racks; the steamy aroma of mantou buns waft around, they wander out and find themselves within my nostrils. It really bugs me that find this dirty, crowded, and smelly place delish in its food offerings, unique in the eavesdrops of everyday chatter, a smattering of different languages, and the different denizens who frequent the long stretch of road that's Chinatown

She and I talk for a bit, and then she decides to locate the manager. My mom returns from her errand and she sets off for another store. I part ways with this female acquaintance and wish her luck in procuring a box for her stuff
I situate myself inbetween two vendors and think about how often I've been here growing up and in the recent years.

Maybe its the old Chinese guy who asks for a nickel in Chinese/English in case you don't know either. Or its the suburbanites like myself who stay with their parents cuz they're forced to. Perhaps its the locals who live in the area or the City and are just doing some groceries for next week's meals.

Regardless from the old stock of retired, aged Chinese immigrant or the young, cosmopolitan foreign exchange student these people intermix. It's a world of shuffling, buying/selling, and getting where you wanna go.

As I am about to continue in reading my acquaintace takes a brief moment to greet me; the wooden pallet attached to her stowaway impresses me. She told the clerk behind the counter at the bakery that she would compensate her a dollar for the pallet which she then handed over to the boss. Success!

A few moments go by and I'm breezing through me read, waiting for my mom and guarding my mom's parcels. Then all of a sudden two Chinese women bark at each other. I cannot understand a word they're saying cuz they speak a different dialect than I but its so commotional. Spectators' reactions vary, some pass by indifferent while others smirk. They find amusement in this? This altercation lasts for another ten-fifteen minutes. An African American male sticks his head out of the car and is puzzled, trying to locate the ruckus. He darts ahead, cuz he knows the traffic behind him will get upset.

And so they take their drama, and the move down. Loud exchanges back and forth. Fingers pointing and spit flying around. The argument subsides and everything's back to the good ole hustle/bustle.

As I'm finishing the last chapter of the book, my mom arrives. We walk back to Grandma's and call it a day. After checking my email and trying to figure out the name of the HK Drama I used to watch back to back on my Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings, I'm disappointed I cannot locate it at the library. I'll have to watch it streamed online i suppose if i can find it.

Dinner is my mom's specialty, baby back ribs on sale from safeway glazed with bbq sauce, my uncles famous ginger and onion coated dungeness crab, some snow peas and a dollop of white Thai jasmine rice. At the end of the meal, I'm licking the sauce off my hands which are pruny and wet with all the crab meat I've consumed.

As my mom and I go home, I think about times on this hwy when this one time my mom got lost on the 380 going back home. She had to stop and ask someone to guide her back. Or the last time my dad promised to treat me to innout after fixing the integra at my uncles shop but we ended up going home to eat. Perhaps it was the last time I took Caltrans when the semirig turned over and a clean up caused the 101 to shut down.

These memories are resurfacing and pervade my thoughts as I look at the passing yellow street lamps. And the radio plays my favorite song by Journey as I converse with my mom. There's something about driving, the music, and these thoughts that arise. It's like I'm processing it all yet at the same time I am still here in the present. Quite trippy yet it is cathartic.

Tonight was a good night. It's good to have relations in the City. I'm glad I live close enough to visit yet far enough to not get caught up with all that pressure. Allows me to be sane.