Friday, I had lunch with a woman whom I had first met in college. We were in the same initial architecture studios at MIT as cross-enrolled students while at Wellesley. We'd actually graduated in the same year, 1993.
Katy is now a practicing architect, working primarily as an interpreter (of sorts) between the engineers in her firm and architects and builders with whom they work. Her firm specializes in the design of energy- and resource efficient building systems. She is currently working part-time in order to spend time with her son, who just turned two years old this week. She said that she's looking at daycare for him because he's at an age at which he's ready to interact with more people, and Katy and her husband are, in a word, workaholics, in the sense that they love what they do, and they are good at their jobs. Her husband, whose name is Dirk (I think), works part-time as a bartender at an establishment in North Park at the corner of 30th and Upas.
We actually did quite a bit of introducing ourselves because we had not known each other very well as college students. The studios we were in had a fair number of attendees (probably about 40-50 per class). I asked her if she remembered Liz, and she said didn't remember. So it might have seemed atypical for me to have remembered her by her name, perhaps.
I learned that Katy is a fourth-generation Wellesley grad, and that her (and mine, if I'd attended) 15th reunion was the 70th or 75th reunion for her grandmother, whom she escorted, with her mother, to the gathering.
She told me a little about the end of her first marriage, finding someone with whom to have a child, and entering into her second marriage. It all sounded very logical to me. I suppose if, somewhere along the line of courtship, one finds out that one's partner does not share a life goal (like having children), it becomes impossible to compromise on that. I think it must have been a difficult decision, indeed.
At any rate, she is happily married now and has the role of mother-to-a-toddler, which is distinct from mother-of-an-infant, a role which she is leaving and building upon. She and her husband believe that at this age, the boy is able to have what for lack of a better term is a social life, or at least interacting with (or playing adjacent to) other children. She often needs to remind herself that she needs to pay attention to her relationship with Dirk, as well as that with the child. I told her that Kat's father lives on the East Coast now, in the "Triangle" of North Carolina made up of Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh, and that she sees him thrice annually. I told her a little bit about Peter.
Katy has three siblings: an older sister, who is also a Wellesley graduate, and two younger brothers. Unfortunately, her sister is the one who lives nearest (also in California), but has yet to see Katy's son. Very strange. She is probably so involved in her own life, I assume, that she gives very little thought to keeping up with her birth family, especially now that she has her own nuclear family unit. Katy told me that her sister "found god" (was he lost under a sofa cushion?), and that she's homeschooling her children. I cringed, voicing my concern about christians who homeschool. Katy reassured me by saying that her sister is teaching her children evolution. I made reference to Christopher Hitchens, and she asked me, quite innocently, who he was. I replied that he was a writer and perhaps editor, I'd thought, for The New Yorker (I later learned that he was not; he was a writer and editor at Vanity Fair). I described both Hitchens and Richard Dawkins as "outspoken atheists," both well-known for their views on religions and their effect on Society. Katy said that she is agnostic. Her parents are both mildly religious (their family went to church regularly on Sundays while she was growing up).
I asked Katy about her work, and she said that she essentially "translates" between the engineers in her firm and the architects and builders with whom they work. She keeps touch with the office on the days when she's not in, and is always on call if something should come up. She'd spent the first ten years after graduating college working on her career. She said that at first, she felt strange about going to college reunions with a baby in tow, but then met another alumna who was pregnant, so there was (yes!) another older mother, thankfully.
Katy asked if I attended Wellesley alumnae functions, and I said that I'd attended a couple of them, though not recently (I'd missed the Christmas tea, which I almost regretted). She said that she will be more likely to go to future events, especially if she knew I would be in attendance. We agreed to meet again for lunch (or something else) in the future. I told her that since she's the one who has a job, it is more likely that we will need to find a way to carve some time out of her work schedule.
We said goodbye just outside the Veggie Grill. Katy left through Macy's, having parked her car on the other side, and I walked through the mall and parking lot to the bus stop at Genesee and La Jolla Village Drive. I was able to catch one of the Rapid buses, the 237, to Miramar College. From there, I caught the 20 heading southward so that I was dropped off at the intersection where my condominium is located. I hurried home and started preparing dinner:
Simple and Fast Coconut Curry
1 1/2-2 c. coconut milk
10 curry leaves
2 cu. inches fresh ginger root, thinly sliced
1 t fish sauce
1 t shrimp paste
2 stalks lemongrass, cleaned and sliced
1 T. grapeseed oil
10 oz. shiitakes, sliced 1/4" thick
2 Anaheim chilis, sliced about 1/4" thick
4 medium carrots, sliced
2 green onions, sliced
1 1/2 c. brown rice
1 1/2 c. coconut milk
1 c. water
Heat the oil in a wok or similarly-rounded bottomed pan, swirling to coat. Add ginger root and lemongrass. Cook until fragrant, then add curry leaves. Cook for one minute, then add mushrooms and carrots. Cover and allow to cook for about 2 minutes. Add onions, chilis, shrimp paste, fish sauce, and stir to coat everything. Lower temperature to cook through while the rice is prepared.
Put rice, coconut milk, and water in a pan. Bring to a boil, then lower temperature to a simmer until rice has absorbed all the liquid and can be fluffed up prior to being dressed with the curry.
No comments:
Post a Comment