Diana's Blog: Quirky Words and Book Reviews

November 12, 2008
I don't drink. But that doesn't preclude me from meeting a friend for Happy Hour at Sinju, a restaurant in the Portland suburbs. We sit comfortably between the roaring fireplace and the tinted red windows, eating the most divine shrimp tempura I have ever tasted. Cindy Anderson, my friend, is introducing me to just one of the more than 200 fully-rated restaurants and bars in her HAPPY HOUR GUIDEBOOK. It's the third edition, and this one has free coupons and maps, and it's slim enough to slip into a guy's back pocket.
Sinju is not a place I would naturally venture into, but Cindy's description makes it inviting, and I know the neighborhood, so I meet her there. That's exactly the point -- the emphasis is not on the drink, but on the quality of the food and the drama in the environment, and the adventure of trying new places with new friends, or with people you've known a long time.
Cindy tells me that Portland is unique -- it's one of the few cities that has Happy Hour, grown out of a competition between restaurants like McMenamin's and Stanford's.
When I first met Cindy about four and a half years ago, she posted that she was testing Happy Hours and was welcoming assistance. I was dubious -- how could anything around alcohol be good, I wondered. My little joke to guys I date who wonder if they should drink around me is "as long as they stay vertical in their chair, I'm okay with it."
But Happy Hour can actually be happy. It doesn't have to be abused. People don't have to get mean and drunk, and break glass and shove holes into walls and bleed. That typical scene from my childhood is a 180 from the lovely ambience and spectacular food on tidy little plates that Cindy rates in her HAPPY HOUR GUIDEBOOK 2009.
It is a pleasure to re-script, and create new memories.
Although I'll stick with my Diet Coke.
No ice.
No straw.
Salud!

Labels: alcoholism, ambience, book review., Cindy Anderson, HAPPY HOUR GUIDEBOOK 2009, transcending the trauma

October 11, 2008
One of the books I treasured when I was a kid was Alan Paton's TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE. Set in Paton's South Africa, we see a white policeman fall in love with a native girl. The affair is discovered and he is betrayed and reported. The book broke my heart open. I was too young to understand about romantic love. But I did know injustice. My real dad -- and everything about him, stories, pictures, his name -- were severed from my life when I was five -- forever -- by my mother and stepfather. I understand the reasons why my mother and stepfather did what they did, so my heart forgives them -- but I am not sure that I can forgive what they did -- the rapes, the violence, the alcoholism, the suicide attempts, the abandonment, the neglect.
What I find most amazing is I've been thinking about forgiveness lately. So I looked up the word Forgiveness in the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS, 3rd. Ed. There were a handful of choices, and I immediately went to the one in the index marked "until we f." It was a powerful quote by Paton -- marked an unrecognizable PATO in the index -- and it was from TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE:
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."
As I write, I am also assimilating the first visit of longer than a half-hour I've had with my younger brother -- born of the same father as I -- in probably fifteen years. We talked for nearly six hours today, sharing stories, filling in the gaps, and finding puzzle pieces that fit that one had but the other didn't.
I was filled with fear as I drove to meet him -- the child fear -- because to see him would mean all the old energy and the old scenes would come flooding back. I promised myself I would be real and I would stay in that vibration of light.
One wonderful thing about my brother. He has played the piano since he was three. And, he has been living in my parents' home for the last year and a half, giving classes to people in piano, yoga, Spanish. I said to him, "You are immensely talented and all that violence and abuse kept you from sharing your music with the world. " And I burst into loud, gasping tears. Not pretty in a restaurant, but very real.
And then he got it. I have always loved and treasured him -- we were trapped apart by the violence. Not any more.
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."
I am gently moved into a place of forgiveness.

Labels: alcoholism, brother, forgiveness, mothers, OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS, rape, stepfather, talent, TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE, transcending the trauma, violence