Painting the Town Red

Last night was date night. We ate at a neighborhood Thai place that we decided to try on Jeff and Tami’s recommendation. By local standards, the food was delicious. I ate myself nearly sick on spring rolls, chicken satay and ginger duck. Eva had the red curry.

The décor could have used some work. The building looked more like a bank or some type of retail outfit converted into a restaurant. The ceiling was very low where we sat and the red walls were mostly bare except for a few sandstone seminude Buddhist dancer sculptures. Eva thought the cheap carpet was tacky and recommended wood floors with Asian throw rugs.

I enjoyed the meal so much that I asked the Asian-American waitress whether they cater for parties. She gave me this frightened look and said, “You want me party with you?” I guess she thought we were some creepy couple asking her to go out with us. My Zagat grade: food 20, décor 10, service 17, price $30.

After that we saw a play at the local community college. It was my first time there and I was pleasantly surprised. The campus was to the west of town across the river on a ridge surrounded by pine forests. The architecture was a unified modern Northwest style and like most community colleges there was plenty of parking. We saw “Rabbit Hole”, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a family coping with the death of a four-year-old boy. All of the actors were local and pretty good. Eva thought of recruiting some of them for her first local film.

I am not a theater critic and I can’t remember the last time I ever attempted to write about literature or art (probably undergrad 13 years ago). But for the sake of my new blog and for the enthusiasm of blogging, I offer a few thoughts to my audience of no one.

The “rabbit hole” in the first half of the play seemed to represent an escape from the world where the awful tragedy occurred and from which they start to emerge by the play’s end. Also there was a reference to the sci-fi idea of a worm hole or “rabbit hole” to another universe or an alternate reality, a place where happier versions of ourselves are living out happier lives. One of the most compelling parts of the story for me was the way the main character, Becca, copes with her son’s death as an atheist.

I found myself wondering as a parent how I would handle it. Even the act of imagining it was enough for me to practically breakdown. I also rememebered the loss in my family and what my parents went through. We both left feeling a bit sad but maybe a little more grateful for our little family.