Koo
Vida and I started our afternoon at the dentist. Happily she has been doing a fantastic job taking care of her teeth—or alternately I have been doing a great job of harassing her into brushing well. I love our children’s dentist, Dr. David—neither Vida or Victor has been traumatized by a dental visit. I’m the only one that is nervous since my visits to the dentist were never pleasant. Their more modern approach is allow the parents into the room with kids—rather than sit in the waiting room listening to them scream. Thankfully neither of my kids will likely require Valium before a dental visit as I did. Vida only has one more baby tooth to lose and Dr. David joked that she was going to have to get a job since the tooth fairy wouldn’t be coming by anymore. Vida has been losing so many teeth lately so she shared with him the amount of money she had gotten for each tooth and our favorite story of the L.A. tooth fairy who, in typical L.A. style, left $20 instead of the usual $5.
Vida and I had planned to go out to dinner together. After dropping Victor off at B’s we made our way across town yet again to Koo on 5th and Irving. I had read that they do a great job of hamachi kama or “fish chicken” as Vida still likes to call it. They also had some happy hour specials that sounded good. Vida was very excited to see the “Zagat Rated” sign in the window and the fancy atmosphere with lots of dark wood and orchids. Vida ordered her usual shrimp tempura, avocado roll and hamachi kama. I ordered a seaweed salad for us to share, a vegetable tempura roll in a soybean wrapper and a tempura hamachi roll. As we started to get our food frantic people intent on happy hour prices started to pour in. With more of an audience I attempted to keep Vida from picking up seaweed salad or sucking up soy sauce with her fingers—its been an ongoing battle to instill table manners into her. I got her to put her napkin on her lap only after pointing out the many other people who had done the same. She complained that it made her feel like she had a skirt on.
We ate and chatted and the conversation went back the dentist who also told us that her teeth were looking pretty good and that she probably would not need braces if all went well with the new teeth coming in. At that point Vida looked me in the eye and asked if there really was a tooth fairy—before I could answer she said that she knew, of course, that there weren’t any leprechauns that they were just little green men. Although I wanted to continue to assert the existence of the tooth fairy my face gave it away. She saw just the slightest uncomfortable smirk and she answered her own question. I have felt a little awkward lately because I felt like most of her friends knew and that it would soon be embarrassing if she continued defending the ruse. It had already come up last year at school with many kids arguing against the existence of the tooth fairy and by extension Santa Claus. She asked me to explicitly say whether I was the tooth fairy and whether there was a Santa Claus when I hesitated she told me not to worry that it wouldn’t ruin her childhood. Vida also brought rainbows into it acknowledging that one could not find the beginning or end of them.
She started to get kiddy with the excitement of the knowledge. She announced that now that she wasn’t a kid any more and that she couldn’t wait to blow it for any other believing children at school. I tried to calm her down and realize that it wouldn’t be nice to ruin it for smaller children, including her brother. With that last baby tooth ready to come out I guess she was ready to know. I’m certain that I need a break from being the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy racket is a very stressful operation. Teeth come out unexpectedly and I am rarely prepared. Once didn’t have any cash and I had to borrow some from a neighbor, and one time from B. Usually I just recycled Vida’s money from her moneybox, which strangely she seemed aware of. I did not go so far as to admit that. While on vacation in L.A. I just didn’t have any bills smaller than a $20. At one point the tooth fairy was handing out actual presents instead of money to some of her friends to I tried to prepare for that once but it was just required too much planning. And then there was remembering to get the money under the pillow, many times I would wake up in a panic having forgotten but only once did I actually forget. Happily she didn’t seem to remember that happening.
As we walked out of the restaurant Vida turned to me and asked if the tooth fairy wasn’t real whether there was any magic in the world at all. I could with an entirely straight face assure her that there was.
Restaurant Total: 272
