“I never liked fortune cookies before the operation,”

...caught our minds almost as much as they fornicating lobsters. We all looked and laughed, delighting in our ability to mock the establishment and boast our youth.

Mouth cancer? Extreme dental reconstruction?

But our minds soon returned to a pair of lobsters seemingly caught between mating and tumbling for a view--accomplishing neither.

And so we sat Tony Chang’s Mongolian/Chinese restaurant, two blocks off the MCI Center in Washington, D.C.

Naturally the four of us laughed, though I also winced. I had just read my own fortune from a cookie:

‘You will be successful and overcome many hardships.’

Granted, Sarah P. getting a duplicate fortune relaxed my stress. (Well, the attention-grabbing effect of two pounds worth of Cashew Chicken indigestion played a part as well)

Belch.

But what this was a day in Washington DC with Charlie, Rachel and Sarah.

We went to see the Folk Life festival. I mainly floated around. Naturally I was attracted to two spectacles:

1) that of smelling whiskey barrels

2) hearing old drinking stories from Northern Irish octarians

But I also learned about the Virginia tobacco industry, some river in China, and fish traps—a favorite of Rachel.

Sarah, naturally, was drawn to the horse. Unfortunately it turned out to be plastic.

We also watched some children frolic and fall to a traditional Chinese dance. The men took mental note of the ills of children; the women yearned for a family.

There was also deep discussion on family structure, relationship augury, a little awkward meta-relationship discussion, a gazing at a Sandra Day O’Connor-filled room.

(Okay, okay: That last one makes sense—it happened in the portrait gallery)

My favorite moment: Dashing across a DC street in China-town like a somewhat drugged, childlike fairy-creature.

I also learned how mundane the site of old, wrinkly penises can be. Watching daily colonoscopies must put a crick in one sex-life—if not other things.

But back to the overview: Keith and Charlie met Rachel and Sarah at the Freer Gallery. Rachel had just gone to the bathroom; Keith and Charlie were hungry; and Sarah was recovering from a fire.

Decorum demanded a culinary focus.

Oh, yes—the girls (young women/human beings of female gender/[insert PC term here]) had been waiting over three-quarters of an hour.

Bites follow us everywhere. But then there’s always portrait gallery disclosures and aspiration recovery.

But the most delightful image of the day was this: Sarah relating a small child falling off a horse, and uncharacteristically, balling their eyes out. I could only image the frequency of the vocal barrage entering Sarah’s skull—how many memories it diluted; patience it erodes; and heartbeats it etched out of her. (It helped that at this very point I visualized pushing the Chinese-dancing children on the ground in a series. I figured it would be like chopping tall wheat with my head. The stacks would go down, and then come back up, only to be swayed again to my will.

Granted the wheat would be balling their eyes out, and I couldn’t comprehend my bread out of the mayhem—but I still found myself spiritually food.

Oh, and in a brief, blustering bolt of dialogue, Rachel may just buoyed self-confidence.

Lessons from the portrait gallery:

Hush Toned Exchanged on Oil-Smooth Benches

‘Did you know subjects of portraits born before 1950 are markedly uglier? Also, the nobility seemed to birth a disturbing magnitude of defected children.’

Thank god for SPAM.