Monday

Tonight Sunshine's parents swung through Falls Church and joined us for dinner. This weekend Bet and Cecil attended a wedding in New York, and in some strange way we are apparently located right between Brooklyn and Kentucky. I had been thinking of catching the tag-end of this weekend's ignored Chinese Film Festival* in Silver Spring, but I was ambivalent about it. I'd already missed the really interesting movies screened Saturday and Sunday, and I could take or leave the two previously unknown films being screened tonight. The surprise dinner with Cecil and Bet provided a much better alternative, and meant that I’m home by ten pm instead of close to one like the nights when I have to make my way all the way back from Maryland. Dinner was at Four Sisters in Eden Center, where I had fish soup with thin egg noodles and caramelized tofu in a clay pot with lemongrass and chili. And imported 33 Beer. And the traditional after-dinner iced coffee. Bet ordered the most interesting-looking thing: a Vietnamese crepe, about the size and thickness of a deflated football, filled with pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts. Sunshine has gotten to the point where she comfortably and effortlessly orders food, by menu number or title, in Vietnamese. Often, the waiters will ask her questions in the language, and a conversation will ensue. This is always most impressive. Tonight, we tried to ask a bus boy something in English--Cecil wanted the 33 bottle caps--and he couldn't understand us. Bet asked Sunshine if she knew how to say this in Vietnamese, but it's a little too difficult. I noticed that our bus boy was likely Salvadorian, however, and Sunshine had no trouble asking in Spanish. The bus boy seemed surprised, but brought us the caps. [Cavin]