Jan. 22: “Forks” is somethin’ different to me

You’ve met my friend Random Sunshine™, right? She’s adorable and funny and if I didn’t love her I’d have to hate her, because the girl’s got it ALL. Ever since we met last spring, we’ve said to each other, “No way! You do that too?!” lots of times—LOTS of times. She loves Zac Efron just like I do (shut up, Sheila). We text back and forth during TV comedies. We quote Liz Lemon (our hero) to each other. We laugh a LOT. Being friends with Sunshine makes me feel like I’m not all alone in my weirdness, and possibly that I’m maybe not all that weird after all.

We’re a lot alike, Sunshine and me, but we’re not identical. For instance—and this is a big’n, folks—Sunshine is a Twilight fan or Twilighter or Twi–head or Twerd or Fan-pire or whatever they’re called. And I am sooo not one of those. (If you’ve been paying attention, you know that I have an extraordinary fear of vampires and vampire accessories.) When I discovered that Sunshine is a fellow blogger, I was thrilled… until the first time I read one of her posts, which was the first of what ended up being three friggin’ entries about how she went Twilight-scouting. (I know you’re totally clicking through to read it, Jen E… I’ll wait.)

Several scenes of the Twilight movies were filmed within a couple miles of where we live, though most were in the farther reaches of the Portland area and beyond, even up into British Columbia. This makes Twilight-Scouting a super-popular activity for those wacky Twilight fans who think the many locations around here that were at one time meant to be Forks, Washington are the most romantic places this side of Full-of-Freaks-Crazytown, USA.

And I am friends with one of these freaks. Gah.

Alright, well, in spite of her fixation with all things vampire, Sunshine and I continue to hang out. And I read her blog faithfully because she sometimes posts non-Twilight things. There might even be nut-job stuff about me that she suffers through too. Probably every time she says goodbye, she thinks “How am I supposed to put up with this girl’s obsession with perfect hair skin teeth posture punctuation?”

After our PTO board meeting this morning, Sunshine and I went out for coffee. That was our intention, anyway. By the time we’d run a couple errands, we decided we were not just in need of coffee, but food too. We threw a bunch of restaurant ideas around, and finally settled on Carver Café. I’d never been there before but Sunshine promised it was yummy. I like yummy.

Carver Café is not very far from where we live—within a couple miles, in fact. Can you guess where I’m going with this story?

Just as we walked in the door to the restaurant, Sunshine said, “Maybe we can even sit at the Twilight table!” and all of a sudden it hit me where I’d heard of Carver Café: it played a starring role in Part Deux of her Twilight-Scouting blog featurette. I was all NO WAY I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU BROUGHT ME HERE WTF?

But don’t worry. I totally forgave her and we’re still friends.

We ordered really unhealthy food and it was delicious and I’m definitely going back when I’m hungrier so I can eat more just like it. Because look at this:

That is the sausage-iest country gravy EVER. Sooo good.

And here’s Sunshine’s order. That bacon is thick and meaty and, like, right off the pig! (Pssst… I like when breakfast is so gravy-laden that it spills over the edge of the plate. It’s good luck, right?)

We didn’t sit at the Twilight table. In fact, Carver Café didn’t even seem like a very Twilight-y place (I don’t know what a Twilight-y place would be, exactly, but my guess is it would involve lots of teen girls taking turns sitting IN THE CHAIR EDWARD ACTUALLY SAT IN OMG! and asking the waitresses to take their pictures.) There were Twilight Barbies on display and I asked Sunshine if she needed a moment alone with the Edward Barbie—she didn’t. Big, grown-up girl… I’m so proud of her… <sniff!>

The most Twilight-y thing I did in the Carver Café was use a FORK to eat my delicious meal. (Ha! A FORK. Get it? I’m hilare.)