I love sushi.

Like a race track, a movie theater, or the lottery, a sushi bar is a place of possibility. The unpredictability of the sushi conveyor belt, the impossibility of knowing what will pass your seat next, seem to promise even the most unlikely. At any moment, you could aim for a dish of sashimi but grab a pair of arctic clam sushis by mistake, and find that you like them much more. A particularly flustered waiter could bring you a hand roll you never ordered and end up catching your fancy.You could discover that the mayonnaise-laced prawns look quite revolting up close and be caught in the act of sneaking them back onto the conveyor belt. While ordering you could be told that the restaurant had run out of salmon, only to watch several plates of it parade past your table just as you are about to leave. 

In truth, there was much we did not forsee that Friday, even before we began ordering sushis and sashimi. I did not expect to find Ann wearing mismatched slippers as she proudly showed me her spotless living room. Karen did not expect to walk up several flights of stairs before realizing that she could not find the right door because she was in the wrong building. And who would have thought that as several batches of cranberry oatmeal cookies shriveled in the oven, we would be too distracted by Scrabble troubles to notice?  

When spending time with family and friends, you often come to expect the ordinary. Because these are the people you love most, they are also the people you often find most predictable. Daddy will always do something absentminded, like wear a bib out of the dentist's office or try to force his way into a restaurant that has already closed. Mommy and Emily will never agree on which clothes are fit to wear, but will always manage to reach some sort of compromise. Ann, Karen, and Christine will never mention rabbits without adding some sort of derogatory comment involving "unwashed" and "disgusting." 

The patterns you observe become, in your mind, established facts, and you become grow certain that things could never happen any other way. You learn to anticipate their reactions and take precautions. (ex: Baby Rabbit should mentioned minimally in conversation.) And yet, somehow, even when all patterns have seemingly been noted and mapped out, the unexpected happens. Mommy and Emily actually decide on a dress for Emily's junior prom together. Daddy sits through a doctor's appointment with me without once asking me a question about personal hygiene or the last time I washed my hair. My friends overcome their phobia of rabbits and kidnap mine, only to return her to me, several hours of frantic questioning later, in a sealed sandwich bag. 

One of the things that surprised me most this Friday was the discovery that there are people who care what I write in my blog. Who leave comments so I can experience the thrill of getting feedback. Who read my posts and remember enough to discuss them over miso soup and sushi, if only to debate whether my latest story is about a cockroach, or if watermelon really can be eaten from the bottom up. 

Eating watermelon

When eating a slice of watermelon, it is necessary to start from the bottom and work your way up, even if this means gnawing though several inches of tough, tasteless rind. This way, when the white flesh and stringy fibers have been digested, there will be left a single tip of perfectly orchestrated sweetness. The pinnacle of your watermelon experience. With this, all the sour bits, the disappointing bits lose meaning, and you can no longer remember when things were not so sweet, or you were not this content. 

To think what life would be if this phenomenon could apply to all things. A difficult semester, a new job, a rocky romance. What if all the best parts, the worthwhile bits, were saved for the end? What if you could wallow into the mire with the conviction that it was only going to get better from there? Not only do you get your custom-made happy ending, but it becomes something you have earned, something not merely bestowed or stumbled upon by chance, but planned for and now savored.

If only life could be eaten like a watermelon slice.

Half-eaten

Half-eaten snacks are the usual fare around here-at least when I attempt to bring home anything remotely edible. An bag of chips already opened, a sandwich with most of the ham and cheese missing.To most, receiving a half-eaten sandwich would be anything but a sign of affection, but Emily has come to speak this language of "leftovers." She knows when I say, "I brought a something for you" and uncover a slightly flattened doughnut with teethmarks in it, I mean "I thought of you today while sitting in Mister Donut, so I left half of this for you."And when I rummage through expired coupons and loose change after a day out to fish out a crumpled bag of grape gummies from the depths of my purse, she knows that it is an apology of sorts, for not spending the day with her.

Of course, if given the choice, I would choose a chocolate eclair untouched in its wax paper wrapping, every sprinkle still in place. Emily would probably do the same-I cannot flatter myself into thinking that every unwrapped, half-eaten pastry I bring home is somehow worth an entire bun to her. Even the waitress gave me an incredulous look when I asked her to pack the few strands of pasta left in my plate into a takeout box. But in collecting these tidbits of food and snacks, it is as though I am collecting bits of my day to share with her-the lemon ice tea I bought at Hi-life after shooting hoops at school, the sausage I ordered from a vendor near the thrift store, the bit of penne with meat sauce I saved from dinner with friends at the Italian restaurant downtown.

I may be hopelessly possessive when it comes to food. I may often find myself absentmindedly munching on whatever I happen to be holding, and may be addicted to gummies, doughnuts, and sugary snacks. Perhaps I bring home half-eaten snacks because I can do no better. But I like to think that, in bringing Emily half of a doughnut or a few rolls from dinner, I am somehow telling her that I wish she could have been there too.   

The Dragon's Hoard

There is something inexplicably comforting about knowing that there is a bag of candy waiting for you in the refrigerator, right behind the jar of peanut butter and yesterday's leftovers.

The summer after sixth grade, my Sunday school teacher handed me a parting gift, a paper bag. In it was the most colorful, most varied assortment of candy I had ever seen. There were gummy bears, chocolate bars, raspberry-flavored candy canes, jelly beans. There was even one of those gummy ropes with rainbow-colored nerds embedded in them. I understood immediately that this bag was something to be cherished, something to be preserved and savored slowly, colorful package by colorful package. Candy was meant to be admired and gloated over, not gobbled down at once. Determined to protect my hoard, I hid the bag in the furthest corner of the refrigerator, and over the next few months, though I peeked every so often, never touched the lollipops, the jelly beans, and certainly not the nerd rope. I congratulated myself on preserving this undiminished supply of sweets, and guarded it as jealously. My uneaten candy somehow made me superior to those who had none, and I was sure my candy starved parents were waiting for the chance to make off with a gummy bear or two.While I eventually did unwrap some of my sugary store, I made sure to leave most of it untouched. It was my greatest fear that I would one day crave a Hershey's bar and realize that the paper bag was empty.

The paper bag was far from empty when I finally took it out from behind the assorted bottles and boxes that had accumulated in the refrigerator just before we moved. Just as I had shaken out the jumbled contents of my drawers to pack into cartons, I eagerly emptied my treasures onto the dining room table. Only then did I realize the consequences of my hoarding. My treasures had been polluted. Most of the candy was no longer edible--some candies had frozen into tasteless lumps and somehow merged into one misshapen mass, others had absorbed the scents of raw fish and meat and were no longer fruit-flavored. The nerd rope was gone.