So anyway, we were invited to MM's cousins home for a Sunday afternoon family dinner. When we pull up to the apartment complex, the security guard (alias Gestapo Lady) approaches and writes down our license plate number, asks us who we're going to see then calls him to confirm we are not enemy spies. Then we are given a set of 'rules and regulations' for the complex, and MM has to sign it... all the while, the security camera is trained right on us. I was very tempted to make faces at it but didn't want us get us kicked out so very stoically eyed the thing instead. (OK, I stuck my tongue out at it, but only once.)
Then, to add a little more indignity, we were told we could not take our vehicle to the apartment but could park it at the gate and walk up (yes, UP!) to his home. I should've worn my hiking boots.
This check-point debacle made our host J very annoyed and he vowed to "bash them" later. I wouldn't like to get on his bad side. He's a Marine.
So, we had a nice quiet dinner with J and his son and girlfriend and room mate and her boyfriend and another couple of friends and various children... did I say quiet? No, this was unmistakably a BBQ 'party' complete with ear bleeding music. Did I say music?
Wrong again.
I was about three million miles outside my comfort zone. This is not how I envisioned spending my sabbath. MM and I looked at each other then each dove in. We were going to make the best of it. We were there for J, to meet his baby son and his girlfriend and that meant we had to be in his world for a while...
So, I ignored the "music" and the alcohol and the abundance of skin and ink on skin and just started talking to whoever would talk back.
Just before we left, one of J's friends (griller extraordinaire) told us the recipe for the steak marinade that we all wolfed down. Soy sauce and beer.
Oh....beer you say....oh.
"I could really taste the beer." he says.
Oh.... right.....uh huh...hmmm.
On the way home the kids said, "Now we know what beer tastes like!"
Meat.
