I Suck At Minado

on saturday, karen and i met up with a few friends. my friend (aimee) had organized the little get together with everyone since she has not seen many of us in quite some time. from time to time, aimee will try to get everyone together just to keep everyone in touch. after all, friendship is important... especially when things look glum... so it's good to just hang out now and then with friends. (and i should know.)

anyway, aimee is great. i remember when we were in high school, aimee was in utter tears in our school cafeteria. we had gotten our yearbooks and were signing them like crazy. "have a wicked pissa summer"... "you're a great kid, don't change"... "keep in touch". at the time, i thought aimee was a little too emotional... being in tears because it was "the end" of our high school days. i figured, after all, that we would still keep in touch after high school. and for the most part, we have. and interestingly enough... every one of us have pretty much kept in touch... which is probably unusual for a high school.

needless to say, aimee got a bunch of us together to sample the fine cuisine of minado located in natick. now, i suck at minado. for anyone curious, minado is a japanese seafood buffet restaurant... aka sushi. (well, they have other things beside sushi...)

with the restaurant being located in natick, karen and i were able to car pool with my friends (marc, kelley and cass). the meeting point: cass's house. after getting stuck in line for a funeral procession in quincy literally one block away from cass's house, karen and i still managed to be at cass's on time. (yes, i find it odd that a funeral procession would drive through a residential neighborhood... but that's just me.)

speaking of driving, the car pool ride itself was actually quite comical. it seemed like we had hit every single red light in quincy... and believe me, there are a lot of red lights in quincy. there must be lights at every single intersection in quincy... and we hit them all... or at least it seemed that way. in the past, i've joked with cass before about how he should run for mayor of quincy so that he can abolish all that is unholy about the red lights at every intersection. and saturday definitely proved to be a good example of why the lights should be abolished because we ran late meeting everyone else at minado. (driving through quincy is awful.)

luckily, all of us in the car had a fun time. i sometimes enjoy the car rides more than the actual event because the things we talk about just crack me up. plus, in the car, all of us are a little more unfiltered in what we say. it's just more humorous. i'd divulge the topic of conversations that we have... but what is said in the car stays in the car. that is not to say all of us are filtered in public... after all, for some reason we generally are "that group". but i think we do try to tone it down a little.

anyway, because of quincy traffic, i had to call aimee to let her know we would be running a little late. when i called aimee, i thought aimee sounded a lot like her sister (angela). thinking nothing of it, i continued to tell her that we were running late. it wasn't until angela told me that she'd let aimee know that i chuckled... because it was in fact... angela who i was talking to.

needless to say, we finally arrived at minado... only about 15 minutes late, which is not bad considering. plus, as a whole, all of us are generally punctual if not early... so being late this once was not too bad. in addition to all of us in the car, my friends (garv, leeann) were there with aimee, angela, and aimee's children (rio and amaya).

and then... the feasting began! generally, sushi is not something i crave. don't get me wrong. i'll eat it. i'll eat anything. but as i was starving by the time we arrived, i consumed a few plates of sushi.

i think sushi gets a bad rap... or bad "wrap"... just kidding. like most things, i think people get put off by the idea of the meal, as opposed to actually tasting the meal. after all, the idea of eating raw fish does not sound too appetizing or safe for that matter. there are, however, other types of sushi that do not have raw fish... like california rolls, which are quite good. yet, i think people will swear sushi off all together just because of the idea.

needless to say, i had a good time at minado. it was fun to hang out with everyone... and even do some shopping afterwards... at... of all places, the christmas tree shop. i am generally not a big fan of the christmas tree shop, but being there with a group of friends definitely made the experience fun. garv was a sucker for the sham-wow ripoff: the sham-eze.

anyway, it was fun. i hope aimee and angela enjoyed the time as well.