Kimchi Mamas Meet-Up (Post 1 of 3: Anticipation)

I can't believe it has been a whole week since my last post--school has begun, which mean Cub Scouts is organizing, and so is the annual Cub Scout Popcorn Sale. If anyone in the SF South Bay wants some, let me know, I would be happy to deliver!

In the meantime, end of quarter is coming, work is piling up on top of my evenings and weekends, and I've just been plain old BUSY.

Not that this stopped me from meeting up with out-of-town friends when I get the chance! The Kimchi Mamas Blog group had a Northern California Meet-up, which I attended, and I am GLAD I did! If you want to see pictures of the AWESOME food we ate while we bonded, click here.

I'd been looking forward to this for a while, ever since it was proposed weeks ago. I have been reading the blog for months, and even started reading a few of the affiliated blogs, like Julie Kang's Geisha School Dropout. I found her through her hilarious post on Kimchi Mamas, and discovered a really humorous, witty voice.

As I left the house for the hour long drive to the designated restaurant, I ran through a mental checklist of preparations:

• Shower, hair, & make-up? Check
• Clothing: nice enough to look like I cared, but not like I was trying too hard? Check
• Shaved pits, legs below the knee? Check
• Brushed teeth? ooops, not since the morning...but hey, we were going to be eating kimchi, who would notice?
  
• Energy level? doing OK...DH made me some coffee to perk me up on the road...I think I'll keep him.
• Friendly, open attitude? Check
• Ready to meet some new people? As an extrovert, GOD, Yes!!

OK, so setting aside the pressure of being charming and witty to a bunch of gals I've never met before, but who I think I kind of know a little bit from stalking...er...reading their blogs, I started to wonder what the dinner would be like.

A table full of a dozen bloggers...several scenarios came to mind:

• We might be loud and boisterous. Some of the Mamas write brash personas, I read "balls to the walls" in one post. Would we all be loud egotists (blogging requires some narcissism), each person trying to top the next in funny stories? And where would I fit in? I can certainly be loud, and know how to verbally elbow my way into a conversation to grab some spotlight if I feel like it. Would I be the loudest? Funniest? Or would I say something really stupid, insensitive, or just weird? Would the person sitting next to me move her chair closer or further away as the evening progressed?

• We might be really intellectual. We are mostly writers (and some readers) after all--we must be a wordy bunch.

• They might all be way more Korean than me. I think I was the only adoptee that responded to the invite, so everyone at the table would have a more authentic Korean upbringing than I do. Korean parents, perhaps even Korean in-laws. While I have lived in Korea for a year as a language student, my childhood was pretty white. I thought I had immersed myself in enough Korean culture that I would fit in fine--some yellow dye for the twinkie/banana inside, but there are certainly cultural parts of raising a Korean child in the US, that my Irish/Newfie upbringing did not impart to me.

I pulled up at the address, 25 minutes early, and looked around. It did not look that impressive from the outside. I waited, and waited. By 5 minutes to the hour, still alone, I suddenly realized they might all be on "Korean time." Just as I was thinking that, the first couple of arrivals showed up. Whew. I went in to join them at the long table, and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a very nice restaurant once inside.

More about who I met, and why I had a wonderful time, in my next post. Soon, I promise!