Friday

They arrived on Friday (after I had a networking lunch- ooo, fancy!) and they dropped off some of the things I had requested from home (some messages didn't go through: "where's my gray suit jacket?" "o, I brought you the funky blue suit jacket instead- can you wear that to court?"). Mum made her obligatory your-room-is-a-mess reproof where she gives me that "you will never change from the messy little child that you were, and yet I will keep hoping" look. Frankly, my definition of clean is different from her definition of clean, and i like to keep boxes, so sue me, but i will not involve you in this. If Mum would ever show up and not criticize the cleanliness of my room, I would die of shock. That reproof is my old friend these many years.

Then we went to Legal Seafood. Why are there Red Lobsters everywhere when Legal Seafood is a vastly superior product? Lovely decor, delicious fish, attentive waitstaff- exactly what Red Lobster is not. And yet Red Lobsters litter the nation, while Legal Seafoods are few and far between. O, the unlitigable injustice. Anyway, I found out that a) I don't like raw tuna that much and b) Legal Seafood serves a mean Mojito. mmmm mojito. I exited the restaurant in time to see the White Plains Friday Night Fountain Show featuring Kenny G playing "My Heart Will Go On" (I plugged my ears so that they wouldn't start to bleed profusely, but the dancing fountains is quite lovely if you play Claire de Lune in your head a la Ocean's Eleven).

My parents stayed in Greenwich, Connecticut (the lack of a "w" in the pronunciation makes me and my dad tease my mum about her disasterous pronunciation of "Southwark" when we were riding the tube in London [Mum: South-waark. Actual Pronunciation: Suth-ick. Since my mum is our resident geography expert and pronunciation expert (Taught us all how to say Machu Picchu, and also where it is), it was quite hilarious.)

Their Hotel was Wedding Central this weekend, but they get free Starbucks in the morning and there's a great exercise room, so I went to stay with them. It was nice to get away from the jutting springs of my dorm mattress for a little while.

That's it for Friday, but I shall tell you 3 amusing Mom Dad & Me stories that I remembered due to our visit:

• When we were in Paris last summer, we stayed in a hotel where they served breakfast in a cavernous but nicely finished basement of the hotel. The French Maids (sans sassy little uniforms that one usually thinks of in association with them, which is really better for the serving of breakfast) would take your coffee order, as long as you gave it in french. Luckily, most coffee names are pretty international, so it's hard to screw up. Or so you'd think. One morning, Dad went down early armed only with his "Bronx Street French" and flagged down a waitress. (this is the man who in Quebec ordered a "Jam-bone Crape"- the word "butcher" comes to mind when you hear his french acccent). After she politely asked what he would like, he said "Une cafe au lait..." and then frantically searching the archives of his brain for the french word for 'please.' He came up with "pourquoi." Which translates in the mind of the average french speaker to "A cafe au lait, why?" Like my pater was proposing an existential coffee question- why do we drink half coffee, half milk? What is the point, since we are all empty vessels? Why do we combine the caffinated beverage which signifies our ascension into adulthood with the very symbol of a mother's link to her infant? Is the cup half-filled with coffee, or half-empty of milk? Or, alternately, that he didn't know why she would want to know what he drank in the morning- "a cafe au lait- what, are you taking orders or something? O, you are, are you? Why? What's in it for ya?" Needless to say, the woman gave him a puzzled look, and my father gave her a puzzled look back, as he thought he had just politely asked for a cuppa joe. When Mum and I finally came down, he repeated the encounter to figure out what had just happened. We fell off our chairs laughing. The waitress got a large tip.
  

• This was not my father's first interaction with the French. Our flight from Dulles to Paris was chock-full of 'em, and Dad ended up next to a particularly amusing one. They had talked a little bit about whether to have the little airconditioning vents on, but had restricted their conversation to plane events. We all got our in-flight dinners with a wee bit of laughing cow cheese (la vache qui ri) and my Dad, being the friendly gentleman he is, turned to the man next to him and said "This cheese isn't bad." The man gave my father a look which said "ignorant american" and said, in a voice that sounds like Triumph when my dad repeats the story, "In France, we have a thousand cheeses.... better than this one." It is rare that you discover the trip's catchphrase within the first couple of hours.
  

• I've forgotten the third story, but I will in time to share our Saturday excursion with you. Damn swiss cheese brain.