the culinary wonders of novi

Obligatory big Christmassy shot to the left.

The morning began with a flash of deja vu as a vacuum cleaner roared in the hall at 8:30 AM. Determined not to let my family's attempt to rouse me before my 8 hours of sleep were through (see Kathy? I'm trying...) I rolled over and slept till 10. After a shower, I spent an hour making my room look like no one lived in it for our house showing.

People will do funny things all of a sudden when they're about to sell a house. They'll clean fastidiously, as if necessary to paint the illusion that it's self-cleaning. They'll replace carpet to remove stains that haven't bothered them in years. They'll go on decorating binges to buy crap they haven't felt a need for at any time since moving in simply because of the appearance it conveys.

This showing was conveniently scheduled at lunch time, so we fled to the mall, Novi's principal Thing To Do. Six days before Christmas, this was a big mistake. The first warning sign was a line of cars spilling out onto the right lane on Novi Road, all waiting for a car wash to get rid of that winter grime that coats everything and slowly turns car bodies to rust.

Next came the fight to get down the little boulevard to the ring road encircling the mall. Then the parking. Oakland County is famous for gargantuan parking lots that would bring a Californian to tears, but most every space was filled.

As we entered we were contemplating one of the sit-down restaurants. The line extending out of Olga's put an end to that. Instead we made our way to the food court, where long lines greeted us everywhere except Shish Kabob Express. One of the few things I miss about this area is the relative abundance of Mediterranean food. So long since my last lamb shawarma... even the fast food version was tantalizing.

Grandpa insisted on taking us out to dinner one last time before we headed to Connecticut. So we ended up at the China Cafe. This is one of those places where less than five percent of the customers are Chinese, they only give you chopsticks if you ask, and they specialize in dishes with white wine sauce. (The term for this is "Asian-WASP fusion". I say Asian because this restaurant also serves a limited array of Korean food. Thus you can say there are 3/4 of a Korean restaurant in town.) The food's not bad though; I'd just been spoiled with two trips to Cupertino in the last month.

When we got home Grandpa declared it time for bed at 7:30, so I settled down with a book. Yes, a book. Not a textbook. And I started reading. For pleasure. The novel? Arthur Clarke's 2061. Yes, I'm a dork. But hey, it's pretty good for long-winded Clarke.

Revelation of the evening: Will Farrell's been in some pretty dumb SNL sketches.