Tom’s Birthday
October 21, 1998
Wednesday
Tom Skikibu’s Birthday...#28. Big day for the big guy. What do we do about it? We celebrate in the old-fashioned CCP way: BOWLING. The graveyard techs arranged this festive event and invited me, the honorary graveyard guy, to join in on the fun. I happily obliged. The itinerary: dinner, bowling, and possibly Bride Of Chucky. Sounded like it was going to be a great evening...and I needed it, after such a horrible day.
My streak of bad luck continued to hit me down in media prep. I had made another stupid error on my documentation, so the whole day my head was in a dark and toxic cloud. Had Lourdes stuck the environmental monitoring probe on my head, it would have picked up some negative particles. Over the past couple of weeks, a series of careless mistakes have dumped my way, grossly slaughtering my credibility. Here I stand in my blue lab coat, blue head, and shoe covers with a giant blue “L” for loser on my forehead. All morning long, I felt as though I was being drowned in 1500L of phosphate buffered solution. This vision continued to haunt me as the day progressed, and the only way to exorcise it was to think about Tom Shikibu. Ironic, isn’t it? Who would have thought that Tom would have that ability to suck out the demons which lurked within my psyche. Nonetheless, thinking about his birthday bash soothed my shaky nerves somewhat.
The day dragged on and on. When the quitting bell finally rang, I eagerly zoomed out of CCP like Fred Flintstone jumped off that dinasaur to punch out. I wanted out of there so bad. I rushed home to pick up my bowling ball and drove straight back to Genentech to meet Marie, Jonathon, Minh, and Tom. When everyone arrived, we decided as a group to go to dinner. After much debate, they decided on The Hot Pot, a cook-it-yourself kinda place. I car pooled Marie and Kelly through the dense Daly City fog, getting lost a few times. Kelly admitted that he is not much of a navigator, so it somewhat felt like Ray Charles telling Stevie Wonder where to go. Of course, it didn’t help to have Mariah Carey on helium sitting in shotgun position picking at her scabs. We drove around a bit, and finally made it.
The dinner itself was pretty good. We coughed up $12 but ate a lot. There were some really funky things on the table, but I was diplomatic about the buffet of international cuisine. I must admit, though, that I felt a bit out of place. It was my first time at this establishment, so I had expected surprises to come my way: and that, indeed, is what I got. The graveyard guys have obviously been there before, for they displayed such dexterity in their cooking skills. Minh, especially, took over as head chef. He amazed me with his ability not only to prepare the food, but to serve it in exquisite fashion. To Minh, it seemed, presentation counts for 2/3 of the cooking experience. When all the food was on the table, all six of us dined away. After 40 minutes, we all achieved gastronomical satisfaction. Ahhhhhh. We paid the bill, and wandered out to the parking lot.
Once again, I car pooled Kelly and Marie through the cold streets of Daly City--and once again, Ray Charles took the wheel as Stevie Wonder navigated while Mariah sat in shot gun position telling stories about her boyfriend. The dense fog dissipated the familiarity of the city creating difficulty for me to find my way around. Nonetheless, the three of us tried our best. As I moved forward, my car trembled, and the unthinkable happened: I ran out of gas.
I didn't finish that journal entry, but if I recall correctly, Kelly, Marie, Luis, and Tom pushed my Nissan Sentra to the nearest Chevron. We all had a great laugh, and I thanked Luis and Marie for being the Calgon that took me away. Unfortunately, the very next day, I received my pink slip :-(
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