Summer Highlights Cont.

Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles / Santa Monica Pier: I have been craving Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffle’s pretty much ever since Tim reviewed the restaurant in The Gamut, but lack of transportation and general laziness had delayed my satisfaction. Finally the wingless streak ended when Brian invited me to have lunch at the Los Angeles location with Peter and another friend.

As usual, the L.A. traffic was horrible, and we arrived at Roscoe’s about an hour and a half later than we had wanted. That meant I was feeling extra hungry so I went ahead and ordered two waffles with ½ chicken. Peter did the same. I hadn’t seen a real chicken in so long I didn’t realize how big they could be. I’m sure they didn’t really bring me ½ of a whole chicken, but considering the portions were large enough to warrant a tray the size of a small pillow, the difference must have been pretty slight.

To be honest, the chicken wasn’t spectacular. And I don’t blame the chicken. I had been building up so much hype about the chicken for the last two years that it could not possibly live up to my expectations. But the waffles? Quite spectacular. I tried the first waffle with generous servings of syrup and butter, and it was great. I did without the condiments my second time, and it was even better. The round crispy buttermilk waffles don’t need a sidekick, just as Rick Pitino… well, never mind.



The lunch turned out to be more entertaining than we expected when Peter took it upon himself to finish his entire meal. By the time I stopped eating, I had one piece of chicken left, a gargantuan monstrosity big enough to contain the chicken’s soul and moral compass. Peter faced a similar workload and still had a good chunk of waffle on top of it. But he insisted on plowing right through, though his breathing was noticeably heavier and his hands showed some of the tremor that is so natural to me. It was agonizing for the rest of us to watch this ordeal. His pace of eating had considerably slowed, as if he himself were swimming in that thick pool of syrup, and watching the endless sluggish routine of his hand made me dizzy too. To fight the boredom and nausea, I began videotaping the scene, and Peter’s expressions are hilarious in that they seem to capture the broad spectrum of emotions present in the human experience. Anyway, Peter finished everything except for the skin of the chicken. A pretty impressive but completely unnecessary feat.



After lunch, we headed over to 3rd Street Promenade and Santa Monica Pier. I’m not sure if it’s because there is an Urban Outfitters store in that area, but people there were dressed very.. distinctly. Some street performers we saw were a trio of dancers that talked more than danced, a Mexican breakdancer who claimed to “fly” and hardly got off the ground, and a pacifist playing some mutant guitar. We mostly sat on the beach and talked. Then I discovered an avocado seed and proceeded to throw it at pigeons that walked my way. I am usually very kind toward animals, but pigeons sometimes piss the shit out of me. I hit one on my second try, and to my surprise, it fluttered helplessly for about five seconds as if its wings could no longer support its weight. Again, I was reminded of Hau on the basketball court.

One note of caution about Brian’s ipod: It has nothing but Euro trance and Jack Johnson.

Elementary School Friends Hangout: I got to meet up with two friends from elementary school, both of whom were in my second grade class (with Kendra) and lived in my apartment complex (Kendra did too). It was a pleasant surprise because I never expected to see them again after elementary school. Especially the friend who moved to the East Coast after sixth grade. But rather miraculously, I was able to keep in touch with her via AIM and Myspace throughout high school. Then, I hadn’t heard from her in about two years until this summer, when she found me on Facebook. She told me she was visiting California for a little while and wanted to meet up. These social networking utilities are pretty amazing if you think about it.

I was pretty nervous about meeting someone I hadn’t seen in seven years, but once we saw each other, neither of us acted surprised. Her face certainly hadn’t changed. She said the same about me. There was a sense, though, that too much had happened during those years of absence for us to ever become close friends again. We were strangely distant though as far as I could tell, our personalities hadn’t changed much. I guess life does that to you sometimes.

After eating at Guppy’s, the two of us – and a sidekick from Oxford I will not name – went to pick up my other elementary school friend. Then the four of us went to Long Beach Towne Center to talk. It was well past 11 p.m. The one memory that’s come to stick out most in my mind about my second friend is the two of us eating lunch together during a 3rd grade field trip to a local museum, and her proceeding to eat most of the kimbab my mom had packed for me. This I shared with her, and we all had a good laugh about it. As we started reminiscing, we realized how much we remembered of our elementary school years. It’s strange I can’t recall my junior high and high school years with the same sharpness. We sat and talked for about an hour before heading home.

I think I will always remember that night – a sort of dreaminess crept up on me that I hadn’t felt before. I suspect it was mainly a feeling of having grown ridiculously old. Yet I seem to have been comforted by the sight of my old friends, knowing they have been safe and sound all these years and that they all have seen enough good things in life to keep fighting and pushing on.