Free Villy

My parents got a divorce when I was five (I think) which made Salma three.  We were so young, I don't think we really understood what was going on.  Plus, our parents handled it so well and made the transition so...unnoticeable, that really, it never became an issue for us.  We weren't those kids who had to suffer through divorce drama and get messed up in the head because of all the strife their parents put them through.  No no.  None of that for us.  It was good.

When my dad moved out, he got a townhouse near a park called, "Garden of the Gods."  The rocks are red and beautiful, and from a distance it looks majestic.  Truly a garden for the gods.  The townhouse was nice and spacious.  Two levels.  The first level, the master bedroom, bathroom, a random living room type thing, and the kitchen.  The lower level, a huge room we called the living room, and an extra bedroom.

The bedroom was intended for us, Salma and I, to sleep whenever we went over to our dad's house.  But, we never made through the nights in that bedroom.  Sometime during the night, we would wake up, go upstairs into our dad's bedroom, and sleep there.  So after a couple months, I think the bedroom downstairs sort of became a storage room for random things my dad never used.  

I don't remember if our mom dropped us off at our dad's house, or if my dad picked us up.  I mean, most of the time Baba was at our house anyway, so I'm pretty sure he would just take us over there.  The first weekend he lived there we went and bought him a HUGE television, one of those huge screens, you know?  And Salma and I just thought it was the coolest television set.  He didn't have a lot of furniture.  A futon couch thing, a yellow chair, a little table that sat close to the floor.  I close my eyes now and I can see the way the room was shaped.  The window at the end, overlooking the park with the white sand.  Right?  Or am I confusing it with our other house?

After a while, we had ritualized the nights we spent over at dad's place.  We would go over to his house, and he would either make REALLY spicy spaghetti with salad shirazi, chicken noodle soup, or sometimes he would make rice and...chicken?  Only his rice was always too salty, or a little burnt.  So, our favorite became the spaghetti.  He would put so much pepper into it, and we would struggle our way through each plate, but it was sooooo delicious.  My mouth waters just thinking about it.

We would sit at the little table on the lower level, by the television set and watch tv while we ate dinner.  Our movie selection was as follows:
--Indian in the Attic
--Free Willy
--It Takes Two

My dad also had "Pulp Fiction", which we weren't allowed to watch EVER.  Even though I was always curious because Uma Thurman looks so scandalous on the cover.  And he also had, "Sports Illustrated:Swimsuit Edition 1992"...or something like that.  Salma and I would always look at the cover and start giggling as we hid it beneath all the other movies so that my dad wouldn't know we were looking at it.

Most of the time, we watched "It Takes Two."  Or "Indian in the Attic."  Those were our two favorites.  But the nights we watched, "Free Willy,"  maannnn afterwards, we couldn't get Salma to shut up.  BECAUSE:
At the end of "Free Willy," there was this advertisement for dolphin adoptions.  And it would give a bunch of information on how to adopt dolphins, and it was always Salma's DREAM to be able to adopt a dolphin, only you had to be 18 years old.  But Salma was OBSESSED (this was pre-Selena, so she still wasn't asking why Selena had to die)*.   Each time she would meet someone who was 18 years old or older, Salma would say, "OH.  DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN ADOPT A DOLPHIN?"  And the kids would go, "uhhhhh....noo.."
But Salma would get so excited.  Because they could realize the dream that she couldn't.  For them, it was possible.  She would ALWAYS talk about how she couldn't wait until she turned 18 so that she could adopt one.  The funny thing is, I don't even know why, because it's not like Salma was particularly interested in dolphins, or showed any interest in underwater creatures in general.  In fact, she didn't even like "Free Willy" that much.  BUT, this dolphin thing stuck.

When I turned 18, the first thing she said to me was, "Oh, Ran, now you can adopt a dolphin."  And yet, when she turned 18 herself, she didn't adopt one?  Por que, Salmanca?

Why didn't we?  I don't know.  Never really thought we could do it anymore.

Except tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Salma found the link to a website offering to let us adopt a dolphin.  It's only 25 dollars, and we can be the proud adopted parents of one dolphin.  So I think tomorrow we're going to do that.  Yes.  I think tomorrow we are going to adopt a dolphin.  

Why?  BECAUSE WE'RE 18 AND DID YOU KNOW THAT WHEN YOU'RE 18 YOU CAN ADOPT A DOLPHIN?

Get on it, folks.





*I may have mentioned it before, but when Salma watched "Selena" for the first time, it really affected her life in a really negative way.  She would go around asking people, "But why did Yolanda have to kill Selena?"  And my mother would curse my dad for letting us watch the movie at such a young age.  Salma would ALWAYS sing the Selena songs, and when the rest of us tried to sing (rest of us=me) she would scream, "BUT I AM SELENA!"  She would literally have nightmares and wake up because she was so tormented by Yolanda killing Selena after being so nice to her.  Bichareh, woor woor.