For some traditional, real-feel Japanese-style dining, one of my favorite places is Kyoto Japanese Restaurant on South Tacoma Way in Lakewood.  Not only does Kyoto serve some damn extraordinary sushi and sashimi, but also the atmosphere is incredible.  My friends and I were lucky enough to snag one of the “private rooms” in which Japanese-style doors enclose a table where guests dine à la floor seating.  Only, it’s not really floor seating when there’s a place for your legs to go under the table.  This definitely makes it much more comfortable to get your sake buzz on. 



The sweet, sweet server bows respectfully and gingerly tends to our every beck and call. She is polite, helpful, and doesn’t let us go a minute without being pampered.  As I take a sake break in the ladies room, I notice there are lotion, spray, and other small toiletries in which a woman might feel it necessary to indulge.  I’m happy and for once feel as though I lack nothing.  In that moment I don’t “need” anything.  I don’t have to ask for anything, and I don’t have to guess my next step.  Kyoto has anticipated my next step and my every need.  Life is not usually like this, and I recall a recent chain of events in which I was enlightened concerning this very same issue.



Last week Mr. DeRosa and I decided to escape on a mini-Thanksgiving vacation to Las Vegas.  We wouldn’t be attending the family dinner here in Tacoma, but I naturally felt a yearning to anticipate the family’s Thanksgiving needs while I was gone.  We have a friend who raises organic, local, free-range turkeys just for fun.  She offered to butcher one and sell it to us at an extremely low price.  Hell yeah!  Who wouldn’t want this?  I immediately called the family member who was supposed to be hosting the dinner and offered her this amazing deal.  She is a huge health-freak, and I was sure she would jump on such a great idea.  I didn’t have to do this, right?  I wasn’t even going to be here. But I tend to always think of other people and what they might need or what would make them happy.



The family member declined the turkey offer claiming she’d “rather buy a frozen one at the store.”  Wow.  Just, wow.  Seriously?



So then another family member (different person) decides to host the dinner and is off to the store to buy a frozen turkey, not knowing that I had this fresh bird waiting to be butchered.  She of course ends up spending an incredibly stupid amount of money on a frozen organic turkey.  “How did this happen?” I wondered.  I told the frozen turkey purchaser that I had a cheaper, fresher, better turkey that I could’ve given her.  She had no idea I had this turkey; the information was never passed on, and she was simply aghast.  So then I felt bad that this person wanted the turkey, but what was I supposed to do?  I had already gone out of my way to the original turkey buyer who turned me down. 



Jesus Christ.  I gave up. I was done anticipating the needs of those yahoos.  Let them eat overpriced frozen turkey that they have no idea where it came from or where it’s been.  Not my problem.  I was going to Vegas.  I was outta there.



On the way to Vegas and in Vegas, we ran into situation after situation where we had to baby-sit our own needs as often as your grandpa needs his diaper changed.  So many follow-up calls were made on our part confirming flight times, gates, hotel reservations, show tickets, seats, and dinner reservations.  No one was going to follow up or confirm shit for us — It was our duty to take care of ourselves and make sure nothing changed last minute. 



As I was on hold one evening in Vegas (confirming seat locations to a show) I asked my husband, “Why the hell do we have to do this?  We bought the tickets, and it’s our job to call and confirm our seats?”  He answered me with a statement that I’ve heard a million times, but it’s never hit me like it did last week.  “You have to take care of yourself and take care of your own needs.  No one is going to do it for you. It’s not like it was growing up in Texas.  People aren’t like that anymore.” 



Just look at television.  Drug companies want you to diagnose your own illness; lawyers suggest ways you should fight back, and reality shows intrigue people to become a celebrity in their own right.  If you aren’t going to do it yourself, no one else will.  Right?



Why does it have to be this way?  Life doesn’t anticipate my needs like they do at Kyoto, that’s for sure.  Even if that’s the case, I will never stop anticipating the needs of the people I care for — my family, my friends, and members of the community who need it most.