trailblazers vs. wizards
Last night I went to a Portland Trailblazers game with Peter. Despite playing for the JV team in middle school, I have very little interest in our pro basketball team. But I went because: 1) I am a Portlander and it seems like something that I should do. A guilt complex, if you will. 2) Peter is very into the Trailblazers right now, and - as a good wife - I should go and try to experience this with him.This is not to say that I had the best attitude throughout. I was feeling sick (which may have been due to the fact that I had ice cream cake for dinner) and was, in short, a grumpus. But I ended up sitting next to an elderly man from Greece who was there with his son-in-law, who seemed to prefer telling me about his various family members rather than watching the game. He also went into a long spiel about linguistics ("astronaut" comes from the words astral (star) and nautilus (of the sea) - combine them and you get astronaut: Sailor of the Stars) before we looked up and realized it was the end of the fourth quarter. The Blazers were down, 99-98, with one minute left. More at stake than us losing the game was the fact that if the Blazers score 100 points in a game, then everyone in the arena gets a free chalupa from Taco Bell. Now I was interested, because it looked like free food may be in the cards. Sure enough, we scored - which not only put us ahead, but guaranteed a free chalupa to all the spectators. At the risk of being cliché, but the crowd went wild, yelling "FREE CHALUPAS!!! CHALUPA!!! CHALUPA!!!" in a way that only Americans can. The son-in-law of my gentle Greek man grabbed him by both shoulders and screamed into his face "CHALUPA!!!!! CHALUPAAAAA!!!". The old man gave him a startled look that was somehow excited but confused and a little frightened all at the same time.
And then it was over and we didn't even get to say goodbye.
We're saving the chalupas for when a rainy day meets a transfat mood.
posted by jessica @ 11:13 AM
1 Comments:
I love Greeks. They're so proud of their culture and language. I have a Greek friend at school named Aries, named after whatelse but the Greek god of war. And he's a shameless ladies' man. Perhaps your gentle Greek man was also the same in his young days.
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