Ode to Family. And Carlos.

My family was in town all last week for their Spring Break to come hear Kenji play at his recital. We had a grand old time, but I failed to take a single picture. Lame. I know that Mika took some, so I’ll have to have her email them to me.

They arrived on Sunday, and we played a game of Jeopardy. (The old board game. We found it at a thrift store for $3.00. Swish.) The highlight of the game was when one of my siblings got confused, and, instead of reading the “answer” portion in Jeopardy fashion, they read “What is a solar eclipse?” out to everybody. We laughed a lot.

On Monday, we did some heavy-duty shopping at Cabela’s, IKEA, and Old Navy. I always get excited to take people to IKEA and then I get paranoid that they will think it is lame, but I should know better by now that IKEA never disappoints. Then, we all ate corned beef and cabbage for a yummy St. Patrick’s Day dinner. And of course, we played the Wii. You can just assume “we played a lot of Wii and watched several episodes of The Office” for all of these days.

On Tuesday, we found coordinating clothes and got ourselves all ready to take family pictures. We haven’t had professional, non-wedding related family pictures in several years, so we needed to document the arrival of the all the in-laws and Dane. They turned out really well, I think. I’ll pick them up later this week.

On Wednesday, we decided to take a “slow day.” But it didn’t really work out because we kept going shopping or something. Mika got her hair cut. What else did we do? Lots of Wii. Kenta and Kendall and Brady all were able to visit some of their other relatives and friends. It’s nice that so many people have connections in Utah.

On Thursday, we had our most eventful day. We had a bit of a time crunch because Kenji’s recital was that afternoon. We rode the train up to Joel’s office so we could have lunch with him. Haha, it was more expensive than driving, but it was fun. On the way up, my mom and sisters happened to look out the window right as someone was throwing up into a trashcan. So it was like we were really in New York, haha. Then we met up with Joel at Chili’s. The service was really slow, but we didn’t think too much of it until the waiter brought out TWO molten chocolate cakes to apologize for how slow they were. TWO!! We were happy. Then we got on the train to ride back. It was more crowded than before, so I was standing in the back with Kenta, Joel, and Dane in the stroller when I smelled the distinctive, alcoholic smell of a man who was drunk too early in the day. Then he started talking to me:

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Excuse me?”

“You didn’t have to do that (motioning to his eyes).”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand…(catching on that he’s talking about my makeup)…oh. Thanks.”

“You’re a every beautiful woman.”

“Um, thanks.”

“Whats’ your name?”

“Ami (oops, I probably should have used a fake name).”

“I’m Carlos.” Then he holds out his hand to shake hands. I reluctantly shake hands with him. Then he pulls my hand up to his mouth with a dramatic pause and kisses it.

“Hi, Carlos. That’s my husband right there.”

“Oh, d--n. He’s going to kick my a--. I’m sorry. I’m just saying you’re a lucky man.”

The next five minutes comprised Carlos apologizing over and over again and trying to explain himself to Joel by using various slang terms popular in the mid-90’s to describe me, such as “ ‘da bomb”, “all that”, and “fine lookin’ woman”. Finally, Joel reminds him that he’s already repeated himself several times. So Carlos turns back to me and says, “You need to remind him.”

“Remind him?”

“Remind him that Carlos is out there.”

“Sure thing, Carlos.”

Then he kisses my hand again and slowly moved his way down the train and away from us. Of course, my entire family was watching and laughing at all this take place. At one point, Carlos sat down next to Mika, and my dad planned out the most effective series of punches to take him out, but it was unnecessary. He eventually went all the way to the other end of the train car. But just when we thought our adventures were over, Edward Scissorhands stepped onto the train.

This guy seriously looked like him, minus the scissor hands. The hair, the outfit, the creepy face. He was only on the train for a couple of stops, and he snapped his fingers as he stepped off.

It was an eventful train ride.

Then we set off for Kenji’s recital. Before we even got on the freeway, my dad’s car ran over a piece of metal that completely ripped a hole in his tire (we were following behind). He tried to pull over into a parking lot but failed to see another little car in the other lane and there was almost a collision. But we made it into the lot to survey the damage. It was crazy how much it thrashed the tire. Joel went and retrieved the piece of metal so it wouldn’t cause further damage. I brought it home, simply so I could blog about it:

I included a ruler and one of Joel’s shoes to help with comparison. It is big and heavy. Luckily, the car had a full sized spare, so we changed the tire and were on our way again. My mom and I madly found refreshments at Sams’ because Kenji requested a little reception after the recital. But we got there and found out that food is not allowed. Someone hadn’t passed on that little bit of information. But Joel happened to know one of the employees there at the Covey Center for the Arts, and he allowed us to have the reception. There were a good number a people there, and Kenji played very well. I haven’t heard him play by himself in a long time. I was impressed.

Friday, we did more shopping, played more Wii, ate more food. It was a relaxing but very fun week. Then they headed out Saturday morning, and we miss them. They all loved seeing Dane. It was cute to see them all interact with him. We’ll have to plan another trip to see them soon.

And remember: Carlos is out there.