Underrated movie!

Cleveland

Had a wonderful afternoon and evening with my friend Sara.  We saw the new movie Paul and went for dinner afterwards. 

Paul is a movie about a couple of British nerds who stumble across a real alien and try to help him, well, go home.  Sounds hackneyed and overly familiar, I know, but I was surprised how much I liked it.  It’s full of well-done references to popular science fiction movies.  There’s even a moment when Blythe Danner gets to say to Sigourney Weaver, “Get away from her, you BITCH!!”  I loved it.

Sara and I met in Beijing.  We were both there working on a roll out for the Client.  We ran into each other at, Pizza Hut.  Yes, they have Pizza Hut in Beijing.  Thank goodness.   [PHOTO]

Robert, Sara and Ray on the Great Wall. I was the largest human in China.

I started out eating the meal alone.  I sat near the All-You-Can-Eat salad bar.  While I waited for my pizza I saw one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed.  A young woman was turning her salad plate into an art piece.  She must have spent thirty minutes building the tallest, most beautiful, most soundly structured tower of raw vegetables the world has ever seen.  I swear it was twelve inches high.  It looked like an art project.  This chick was going to by God get her money’s worth from the salad bar.

Sara spotted me and joined me.  We both watched in awe as the Tower of Salad grew taller and more complex.  It was like watching someone build the greatest sand castle you ever saw.

We got to talking and it turned out we were both in Pizza Hut for the same reason:  We didn’t much care for the food in Beijing.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Chinese food.  And by that I mean classic New York Americanized Chinese Food like God intended it.  The food in the capital of the People’s Republic was just a bit . . . dodgy.  Sara and I bonded over a mutual need for the familiar comfort of and American franchise restaurant.

We have been fast friends since that night. 

My last night in China I took her to a Tex-Mex place I’d found that made a surprisingly respectable chicken fried steak, and then had a harrowing rickshaw ride back to the hotel.  Harrowing not for us, but for the poor rickshaw dude, who nearly had a heart attack having to move the two of us (this was when I weighed quite a bit more than I do now).  The whole thing became unreasonably hilarious to both of us.  It was a good send off. 

 (You can read more about my adventures in China and see lots more pictures from that trip in the following articles:   At Last!  Photos From My Beijing/Tokyo Trip!, Favorite Chingrish Signs in Beijing, Tradition?  Feh!,    Baffling Asian HBO, 15 Million People CAN Be Wrong, Grotesque National Product, Size Matters, Driven Up a Great Wall, The Flight, and Beijing Diary.

So.  I always look forward to getting together with Sara whenever I’m in Cleveland, which is her home base.  It’s a shame she’s not going to any of the other offices I’m heading to.

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