So Monday rolled around, and it was a rough wake-up call that real life had returned. I had a great weekend, and I wanted it to last forever, but the calendar waits for no man.
Sunday was my birthday, but my mother and older brother took me out on Saturday, a more festive day, to celebrate at a great sushi restaurant named Mido on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
I ordered the sushi and sashimi combination, and geez was it incredible. The thing arrived on a boat, a freaking boat, with bamboo shoots sticking up from it.
And the fish. Oh the fish. It was just so fresh, so succulent, so absolutely freakin’ delicious that I could eat it forever. It consisted of five large pieces of sushi, 12 generous pieces of sashimi, and a yellowtail scallion roll. It ranged from tuna to salmon to mackerel to albacore to scallop. Holy holy holy of most holiest it was like heaven on a plate, so rich and buttery and sweet and briny and salty. It tasted like the ocean, is what it actually tasted like.
The rest of the evening went well, the conversation flowed nicely, and I returned home relaxed and feeling good. At home I watched some boxing, I pet my cat Copper, and I just generally chilled out.
Sunday arrived, and I slept late. Then I did a little work on my blog, genxchronicle.com, in the afternoon. We cover news, culture and lifestyle through a Generation X lens. For the past few days I’ve been doing mostly computer stuff for the site, like inserting the code that lets companies run ads on the site, organizing the articles and essays by topic in addition to date, changing the header, and changing the theme.
So I haven’t had as much time to write, which is both good and bad. Good, because writing is hard and stressful. But bad, because writing is also fun and cathartic. I miss that.
In the evening my friend Mitch, who lives across the street, came over and we ordered Vietnamese food. When the food arrived we dug in, and it was absolutely fantastic. The restaurant I ordered from is called Lotus 1, and it’s my go-to Vietnamese place in my neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. They rarely disappoint.
Mitch and I shared a grilled pork banh mi and a shredded chicken banh mi, which are Vietnamese sandwiches. Typically it’s a meat of some kind, be it chicken or pork or beef, accompanied by shredded pickled carrots and daikon, along with a sauce, usually mayo or butter and sriracha, sometimes with jalapenos thrown in to take it to that next level of spice heaven.
We also got a shrimp summer roll, which is a rice paper roll stuffed with shrimp, rice vermicelli, shredded carrots, and herbs. You dip it in peanut sauce, and it’s totally delicious. Mitch and I devoured our food in about ten minutes. Then we sat back, looked at each other, and laughed.
“Man, was that good,” he said.
“Damn freaking right,” I replied.
Vietnamese food is one of those cuisines that just has so much depth of flavor, and so many layers and textures to it, that it’s hard not to completely fall in love with. From the rich flavors of pho, the classic beef noodle soup, to pad kee mao, wide flat noodles served with meat and vegetables and drenched in chili peppers, to Banh ran, which are delicious fried sweet rice balls from northern Vietnam.
The country is really a paradise of great food and deep flavors, and I’ve promised myself that eventually I’ll make my way there for a visit.
I’ve actually been to the Southeast Asia several times, including Thailand, Singapore, Bali, and a summer spent working in Jakarta. But I never made it to Vietnam. Every friend who did told me it was one of the best trips of their life.
So I’m going. Case closed. It’s just a matter of when.
After we ate, Mitch and I watched some boxing on YouTube. He’s a big boxing fan, and he used to cover the sport professionally. I’ve always liked boxing, but over the past six months I’ve gotten really into it. I even went to a whole “Fight Night at The Barclays Center” in Brooklyn with Mitch and watched like 5 hours of boxing. Which is a bit much. But still, it’s a great sport, and I plan to keep watching.
Mitch left around 11, and since he lives literally across the street, he was probably home in around 30 seconds. It’s so crazy that we went to junior high school together, then barely saw each other for 30 years, and then we ran into each other in Astoria one day and it turned out we live right across the street from each other. Who knew? All I know is it’s cool, because we get to hang out a lot, and just pop by each other’s houses for a little while.
So Mitch left, and I was by myself at the end of a long birthday weekend. But I didn’t want it to end just yet. So I texted Mitch like five minutes later and asked him to recommend one more boxing match. He texted back Lennox Lewis vs. Oliver McCall.
So I popped it on YouTube. I’m a huge Lennox Lewis fan. I think he’s underrated, and I consider him to be one of the best heavyweight champions of all time. In this particular fight Lewis was still up and coming. Shockingly, though, he got knocked out by McCall in the 2nd round. It was a big upset.
YouTube then loaded up Lewis vs. McCall II, which was fought two and a half years later. It turned out to be one of the craziest fights I’ve ever seen. Soon after the opening bell rang, McCall starting acting weird. He was dropping his hands, clowning around, not throwing punches and not defending himself.
As the fight wore on, McCall refused to return to his corner during breaks between rounds. He just paced the ring with a confused look on his face.
Then, get this, around the fifth or sixth round, he started crying. Just bawling. It was actually sad to watch. The guy literally had a nervous breakdown during the fight.
Eventually they stopped the fight because McCall was too messed up, and Lewis was declared the winner. But this one went down in history as “that fight” where one guy just completely lost it mentally during the match. Crazy.
It was getting late now, and even though I wanted my birthday weekend to last forever, prudence got the better of me and I climbed into bed. It was 3:30 in the morning, very late, and I had plenty of work to do tomorrow.
But what a weekend it had been, filled with good food and great family and friends. As I drifted off to sleep I felt happy and content, like I had done all I could to celebrate my birthday the right way.
Contentment must be an elixir, because I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
So thank you family, thank you friend, and thank you Japan and Vietnam for making my birthday weekend great.
Until next year.
