Dinner Conversation 101

So I went to Katie (my girlfriend)'s grandparents' house for dinner last night. It's always an enjoyable time, as they're fun people with whom to spend an evening, and the food is always delicious.

They live in Orinda, CA, which is the West Coast equivalent of Greenwich, CT, where I grew up. And now that I live a very Left Coast SF urban lifestyle (tm), visiting Orinda makes for a pleasant reminiscence of my formative years. And seeing as how I have absolutely no other reason (or desire, for that matter) to visit Orinda, it serves the purpose. (Note here that Katie's family is rather conservative and staid by most standards ... and terrifically so by mine. They put a premium on being proper, and I very much appreciate them for that.)

During dinner, it came up that I'd gone on a solo around-the-world trip in 2003, which led somehow to a discussion of my adventurousness during the journey ... and they requested an example. Katie -- I'm not sure why -- mentioned the snake story, which, of course, everybody wants to hear once they hear the subject matter, and won't be denied.

So I kinda ... um ... told my story about eating the still-beating heart of a bamboo viper snake in the back streets of Hanoi with some heroin-addled street kids. Yeeeeah.

The shock was palpable.

Note to self: next time, pick a less gastronomically-distressing story for dinner conversation, or relate a heavily-abridged Reader's Digest version ... at least until after coffee is served.