Random Tamara Stories #1: The time I met Father Guido Sarducci (Don Novello) & fed his chihuahua sushi in his Lexus.

So… where to start….?

• I was 24 years old.
• The year was 1994;
• I think it must have been October or November.

…I had gotten married (to my first husband, who I had been living with for four years) on May 8, 1994. I lost the baby – we had a miscarriage of our daughter – in July [my miscarriage happened mostly in flight (on an airplane) 30,000 up between San Francisco and New York — but that’s another story!].

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Ten days after we lost the baby, my new husband asked me for a divorce. I was devastated. I think the divorce was finalized in the fall of 1994 (I cannot remember exactly, it was a long time ago!). I buried myself in work to keep my mind off of things.

During the many many many (seemingly endless) months following the separation, when I wasn’t working (doing box office management, event coordination and fundraising for Berkeley Repertory Theater Company, Marin Shakespeare Company or The Mountain Play – and trying to finish my graduate thesis at USF) I spent most of my free time alone (in my new studio apartment) crying and being utterly despondent over losing my husband, our child, and my home in such a short time. 

The day the divorce was finalized, I decided to try to cheer myself up. I thought taking myself out to dinner would be a good idea — and for my favorite food, Sushi! At that time, I loved sushi so much that we even had had one of the top sushi restaurants in the Bay Area  – Sushi Ran, of Sausalito – cater our wedding! [As I understand it. this was the first – and also the last – wedding Sushi Ran ever catered! Lol! And that’s also another story!]…

There was a new sushi restaurant that had just opened in San Rafael [on 4th Street — “Sushi to Dai for”];  it was a tiny little hole in the wall, with a handful of tables and a sushi bar — and it was incredibly popular (in part because it was in such a small place)! My friend, Emily told me it was the absolute best in Marin now (she knew Dai, the owner personally), so I decided to go there for my “celebration”…

Since I was there alone, I decided to sit at the bar.

I ordered some green tea, and a seaweed salad, and then picked out some sushi and sashimi choices from the menu. I was sitting there at the bar – sort of just staring at the sushi in the clear glass case in front of me, drinking my tea, and feeling a little sad for myself that my marriage was over (yadda, yadda, yadda). I wasn’t really noticing the other patrons at all, because it was easier — and fairly entertaining, in a mesmerizing, meditative kind of way, to focus on watching the sushi chef perform his culinary ballet. 

As I sat there (and after I ordered), two men sat down next to me at the bar — one immediately to my right, and the second to his right. While watching the sushi chef do his thing, I found myself inadvertently tuning-in to the conversation going on between these two men. There was something seemingly familiar about the man sitting directly next to me, but I couldn’t quite place it…I was just listening – not really registering what was familiar about him; It was more his accent, and intonations, and speech rhythms that seemed really familiar (like one might recognize an old friend, upon hearing the familiar “music” of their speaking). I wasn’t actually paying any attention at all to what was said – and I didn’t want to be rude – so I did not turn and look at him (plus I still felt quite depressed, and was not feeling particularly social!)

I just continued to stare at the sushi chef, and the lovely sushi case as I sipped my tea…

So these two guys next to me ordered some beers and appetizers, and then my sushi was served. I had just ordered a few of my favorite things, not a big dinner — as the intention here was more about just dragging myself out of the house. [If I recall correctly, it was a sashimi appetizer selection plus probably a couple of pieces of maguro sushi.]

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The sushi chef reached over the glass sushi case and set my plate of sushi in front of me.

I took one bite of the first piece…then, as I stared at the sushi case in front of me while I chewed, I saw a two-inch long cockroach speed across the sushi on the inside of the case — and I sort of loudly squeaked [like “EEK!”], dropped my chopsticks, and tried not to regurgitate what I had just swallowed!

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I turned to the guy sitting to my right (the one with the familiar speaking cadences) and said, “Oh My GOD — did you see that?!” I don’t remember if he responded, “yes” or “no” (or anything at all), but he seemed to understand me (& believe me) when I (in a sort of panicked way) told him I had just seen a cockroach! I then said to him, ”Well, I guess I’m not going to eat the rest of this sushi!” And he looked at it — it was probably $20.00 or more in sushi back then — and said to me that, even with the cockroach in the equation, he was still planning to stay and eat dinner with his friend (I think he humorously quipped that he had seen bigger cockroaches in his day), and then said something like “Hey, since you’re not going to eat it, can I give your sushi to my dog?” And I said “sure” – kinda laughing at the absurdity! He then asked the sushi chef to take it away and box it up for his dog…

It was at that point (as I was present to the absurdity of a total stranger wanting to feed my fancy-restaurant-sushi to his dog after a cockroach had crawled across it), that it dawned on me that I was sitting next to DON NOVELLO (Saturday Night Live’s beloved “Father Guido Sarducci”!) — and that his dog would be eating my sushi; THAT’s why I recognized his voice! [Even though he wasn’t doing his wild character accent, he still had that VOICE!}

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He then offered to buy me a beer – in thanks for giving my sushi to his dog – and we sat and chatted a bit while waiting for the literal sushi doggie bag to come back from the kitchen. I’m sure (because I am me) that while we drank that beer I told him that I was there alone because I was just divorced…and that I was not feeling so great, and that it was sort of a highlight and fun to meet him…as I grew up watching Saturday Night Live!…

Anyway, when we had finished our beers, and the sushi doggie box had arrived, Don offered to walk me out to my car [he was still in the middle of having dinner with his friend]!

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He then told his friend he would be right back; he grabbed the sushi box and we went outside. Then he turned to me and said, “Hey — do you want to come feed my dog?” And (GOD KNOWS WHY!?), I said “Sure!” So we walked across the street to his fairly new, very fancy gold colored Lexus, and we fed my cockroach-trampled sushi to his chihuahua (who was eagerly waiting for him the front seat of his car!)

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He then walked me to my car (which was right by his), I thanked him for the beer, said “good night”, and I went home.

And that surreal adventure succeeded in taking my mind off my divorce that night! [Baby steps! One foot in front of the other!] It also became one of the legends of our family that my kids think is hysterically funny (their context for Father Guido Sarducci is knowing him from the live-action Casper-the-friendly-ghost  movie!)

Thanks for reading this silly story about my past. I look forward to sharing more of them with you in the future. And – hey, Don… if you read this… next time you come up to Portland I’d love to take you out for sushi and a local craft beer!

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

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Sharing my personal stories with you all…

My family is familiar with most of my odd/funny stories from my past, but I thought my readers might also find them entertaining – if only to see how colorful and wild my life was before the invention of social media! IF ONLY selfies had existed during some of these moments, I am SURE they would have gone viral. #LOL!

I tell my children these stories and they always get a kick out of them…“Oh – remember the time Mom took an axe-murderer to the prom?!” And my friends…“Oh – remember the period when Tamara was a backstage masseuse for the Grateful Dead?”) and they speculate about how many actual past lives I must have had in addition to the overly-full current life I have lived this round… it all seems too weirdly cinematic to be true.

In that I hope this website will persist long after I am gone – I also think it will be fun for my grandchildren to read these stories some day – written by the hand of the eccentric ancestor who experienced them.  

I sincerely hope you enjoy this series as much as I love writing these stories down and remembering all the details! [Note they each may be updated and appended/expanded over time, as I remember or discover additional documentation of more details to add to illustrate what happened in each of these unlikely and/or ridiculous vignettes.]

Please let me know if you have an questions! … and if you are someone mentioned in one of these stories and want to add something  – please comment below… AND if you have photos – OMG – please share them with me (lost all my photos from before 2002 when my house burned down!)

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama