05.03.07

Last Sunday, D and I trudged across the region to go to the only Cheesecake Factory restaurant in Oregon. Turns out that it's less than 10 minutes from my mother's house. Which made it all that much easier to drop in on Mom and StepPater for the Meeting of D. It wasn't my idea, D brought it up. His unexpected gallantry surprises me--mostly because I'm so unused to someone thinking of me before himself.

The restaurant was Something Else. Attached to one side of a shopping mall, it was little slice of Las Vegas. The same pseudo-antiquity. The impression that little expense had been spared to give the illusion that no expense had been spared. The inside crashed together a mish-mosh of Egyptian-esque columns, Venetian glass, Tuscan palatte, and Florentine false fresco work on every available surface. The walls had artistic, distressed plaster effects that mimicked an ill-kempt hacienda from a Clint Eastwood movie. And then, incongruously, a Parisian patisserie of the Belle Epoque sprouted from one of the walls. Its confections displayed with decadent grandeur on a confection of wood, glass, lights and mirrors.

My amusement at the decor notwithstanding, the food was quite good. I had seared tuna with a salad dressed in wasabi vinaigrette. D had chicken and biscuits...weird, huh? Could the menu be much more extensive? Of course the big draw, the one thing that pulled us across the river and to the other side of Stumptown was the cheesecake.

I grew up on North Jersey and New York cheesecakes. The kind that spend their short, delicious lives spinning on glass shelves in octagonal 'fridges right next to the cashier in every proper diner. Cheesecake is one of my favourite foods, and I've despaired of ever tasting acceptable cheesecake on this side of the country. However, the cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory was quite delicious.

In Xatonia, to fully appreciate cheesecake, it must be eaten plain. Nothing must mar the holy synergy of cheese, sugar, butter, vanilla, and graham cracker crumbs. The slice I had last Sunday was creamy, sweet (but not too sweet), heavy (but not too heavy), and the faint buttery ginger snap of the graham cracker crust contrasted well with the filling.

Sated, we paid the bill and headed out to Mater's.

Mom greeted D with a hug. Yoshi nodded. KaliHellKitty deigned to let him pick her up. At one point, when Mom went into the kitchen, D breathed a sigh of relief. When I asked why, he said, "I'm so relieved." "Why? Because now that you've seen what a goof my mom is, you're not worried about me meeting your mom?" "That's it, exactly."

Phew.

We left, after a short visit, everybody had to get up early Monday.

D thinks Mom is a funny woman. That she is. When I went over Wednesday evening, she asked what he thought of her. I told her, and she laughed.

I've started dragging a box or two over to D's every time I go over. It'll make it easier--to have the luxury of time. This month is turning out to be a very full one. At the end of the month, I'm going back to DC for my *gulp* 25th high school reunion. We're having some sort of shindig in my old stomping grounds of Bethesda. It'll be weird to be back there in a place haunted with memories of my marriage. I do wish that D could come with me; it'd lend me strength. (And how unsettling it is to feel to desire to lean on someone else's strength.)

As I'm packing, I'm uncovering treasures. My favorite so far? A plushy, stuffed snake that a certain someone who now lives in Japan got for me before I left for LA. It doesn't make me cooler, but a stuffed toy snake is hella-cool. Already my walls are almost bare. I've been spending so much time at D's that WahferThin Manor doesn't feel much like home.

Oof. I'm scared and eager and worried and happy. Gah, it's enough to make a sane woman mad.

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