Beijing Beauty Tip

It's that time of year when the humidity is so low that any dust mites have long since decayed and turned back into dust (and now you only have to worry about internal parasites.) Newbies to China find themselves waking up with painful cracks in their heels: Old China Hands can recognize that this has happened by the distinctive Newbie limp. Yes, the lack of humidity is a bitch to deal with: you can only do so much with draping wet clothes over the radiator, keeping a crock-pot full of water turned to low, or even using a humidifier. That's all helpful, but when you go out into the cold, all unprotected parts of your body desiccate  immediately upon contact with the air. The office can be even worse, as it's usually cold to boot. You will be grateful for the chilly air in the office as it helps to combat the smell of long underwear on some colleagues which has been worn a tad too long.

Solution: Vaseline. If not Vaseline, then oil of some kind--even hair conditioner. Rub it on your feet, put on a pair of slouchy sox, go to bed. Do this nightly until the humidity begins to rise above 40 percent. Make sure to rub some on your legs, your shoulders, everywhere. Otherwise, when you peel off your clothes, it will look like a snow storm. Yuck. 

Solution number two: exfoliate. I not only use a handful of sugar or salt mixed with a bit of oil when I shower, but I use a pumice stone on my feet. 

Solution number three: for those heels, this is the best: go to a beauty parlor and have them take a straight razor to your feet. Yes, they will use a new blade and sterilize it with alcohol as you watch. They're usually quite good, and use a cutting tool with just enough force to shave your heels down into the smooth pink beauties you remember from your teen years (unless you were, like me, a dancer, and had blackened nasty patches from toe shoes and barefoot jazz routines.)

 Having written all that, I must concede that I haven't had a trip to the beauty parlor since October and I sport the nastiest-looking pair of heels this side of Hell--however, they are delightfully soft thanks to the Vaseline, which is available at most drugstores, Jenny Lou's, and the grocery section of finer department stores. Another note about Vaseline---some of my friends from Kenya use it in their noses to help them deal with the cold and lack of humidity. They put a thin smear on their nostrils and up inside their nasal passages and claim it reduces the amount of nosebleeds they get from the dry cold air. I have used it on the tip of my nose and it's good. Haven't had to lubricate my nasal passages yet but what with sex getting even kinkier  now that the formerly forbidden stuff has gone mainstream, I will no doubt be reading from my financial advisor that "Nasal is the new anal." God help us all. If it does, I am investing in Vaseline.

Comfort and Joy, My Ass

Today's brief conversation with Mom:
ME: Merry Christmas!
Mom: Yeah, I suppose it's still Christmas. (Long, long pause: can't tell if she's pissed off about something or Lost In Space. I mean, some of the comments about Christmas Carols might have come across as harsh...)
ME: So, the Christmas Party at my school was awful. I wrote about it.
Mom: You wrote about it on the email thingy?
ME: No, on my blog.
Long, long pause. Seriously, like half a minute. Finally:

ME: Have you read my blog lately?
Mom: What's a blog?
ME: It's a journal I keep on line. You know, I started it this summer when I was staying with you and Dad.
Mom: What do you mean, online? (This from a woman who still doesn't use an ATM card because--and I quote--"What if the machine asks me a question I can't answer?")
ME: On the computer.
Mom: Well, you know how I am with those things. I didn't even know you had a blog, whatever that is.
ME: It's an online journal.
Mom: Whatever. You know I can't keep up with that stuff.
Consider the following: My brother in law is a blogger. I started the blog under my mother's watchful eye and READ THE FIRST FIVE ENTRIES aloud to her. (Her comment at the time: Too bad a person can't make money off that internet thingy, then you might really have something.) I changed the original name of the blog (Food Ho) to the one she suggested. So, all this time while I was worried that I wasn't hearing from her because she was upset about something I had written, in truth, I wasn't hearing from her because she didn't want to call. Nice. 

So now I can write about the Lord of the Cock Rings and the time a group of students found me at Watson's with a vibrator strapped to the back of my head, and what her comments were on our weddings, but... I find I don't really want to: they're good stories and all, and I will enjoy writing them, but there's a part of me that's so sad because my mommy doesn't remember what I do, and would rather sit and feel whatever she feels instead of picking up a phone once in a while and calling.

Chirstmas Party, Chinese High School Style

I entered the basement cafeteria of the school and immediately drew in my breath with a long, low, "Oh, fuuuuuuuuuuuuck." My female students were dressed up like a hooker prom court--some wearing tight short dresses and six-inch heels (with little bows on the back) and others were dressed up in long formal gowns: more than a handful wore white fur chubbys as well. Virtually all of them looked straight off a certain street in Amsterdam. In order to access the room where the party/performance was to be, a red carpet had to be walked, with requisite paparazzi. The girls clutched the arms of their dates--thankfully rather more traditionally dressed in suits and ties--and waited for their turn to act as if they were movie starts being stalked by paparazzi. No provisions for the exit/entrance of lesser mortals, such as staff and teacher, had been made, so we had to gallop past the overexcited whore-bedecked children in the glare of lights and haze of loud loud music boom-boom-booming. Once inside the main part of the cafeteria--normally a place so cold I keep on my down jacket and down coat and sometimes gloves and hat as well--I found that it COULD be heated--it just usually wasn't. Inside the cavern, a red carpet had been laid, chairs arranged, and we foreign teachers were told in no uncertain terms to sit in the front row directly in front of a five-foot high loudspeaker set at maximum decibel. Yes, what better way to celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus by hearing Eminem shout "Yo Motherfucker!" in verse? Clement Clarke  Moore would have rolled in his grave, had he been there. Of course, just a few minutes of booming profanity and most of us were mercifully deafened and had to resort to shouting through the rest of the long, long evening.

The party, scheduled to begin at six, had been pushed back to seven, and began promptly at 7:28, with the explanation given that "the children had been working so hard to make it nice." After the serenading by Em  we were treated to other songs the Lord taught us, each accompanied with an extra track of kittens meowing and dogs barking on various notes, some of which were horribly discordant with the tune being played (or the words being shouted.) Still, we preserved, and we finally handed a bulletin listing that evening's entertainment, sixteen separate acts, including "Hey Jude" sung by the economics teacher everyone foreign or Chinese avoids. (I kept saying, "Wouldn't  'Hey Jude' go down better at Easter?" but no one got the joke.)  The number rehearsed by the teachers--"Good King Wenceslas"--evidently failed to make the cut. This was promising to be a night of quality entertainment.

The music begins: four of my female students dressed in knee-high black platform boots with seven inch heels, silver bustiers, and black ruffled mini skirts and ripped high-high fishnet stockings held up in place with garter belts stride on to the stage and began a dance which lacked only a pole to be illegal in most states. Five male students, wearing considerably more clothing, accompanied them. Dance moves included a simulation of  standing rear entry, hair pulling, face slapping, spanking, and (drum roll please) a little light fellatio. The audience went wild with glee and the teachers behind me commented in happy tones how "merry" it was. I sat in shock and horror: the head of our department rose to her feet in a rage and walked out, not caring if anyone saw her or her look of disgust. "They're making a mockery of Christmas!" she said as she gathered her coat.

My own feelings were running high: these same students had missed 90% of their English classes the past month, ostensibly to "rehearse." All had skipped English that afternoon, and all had failed their pronunciation final exam the day before, being unable to recite ONE SINGLE LINE of "Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly" (even without the uber-difficult line, Fa la la la la, la la, la la.) As an educator I was outraged, as a person of taste, no matter how questionable,  I was seriously offended. Oh, it gets better: just to make the mockery complete,  a student gave a seriously wonderful rendition of a Mongolian cowboy song (truly good) and a handful of students did less objectionable material. And then it stopped. After 8 acts, it stopped. We were all counting--eight down, eight to go, then we're OUTTA here!--but no, it was a dance too. Yes, that's right: intermission. The students ran screaming to the area behind the audience and began hip-hop dancing--again with loud and pounding music. They were NOT performing the waltz, fox trot, or other social dances most Chinese do very well, nor were they dancing swing dances, which they had roped another teacher into teaching them for free after school. This was nasty: this wasn't pop-and-lock so much as cup-and-cock grinding. Did it stop after one or two? No, no, no, it kept going on, and on, and on...desperate for a drink of water, I circled the floor and found a station serving "traditional Christmas snacks" which consisted of hot water, slices of plain white bread, a few trays of sliced cake (replete with that white shaving-cream "frosting" Chinese people use) and a platter of strawberries, hulled, next to a tray full of entire unpeeled bananas. (The latter more or less in keeping with the general theme of "Thai-Ladyboy-Hooker" that seemed to prevail.) I wouldn't have been surprised to see a tray of ping-pong balls, but perhaps that was later in the evening. I had a blinding headache at this point, the combination of a late evening, stress, and that hideously loud music, so I thanked the Principal and  the Academic Team Leader and snuck out.  By the time I got home, around ten o'clock, my ears were still ringing and I thought wistfully of the simple and tasteful pageants of my experience, where the only vulgarity of the evening was the unfortunate choice of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" as sung by Mrs. Brutka's fourth grade class. (My mother is such a traditionalist she won't even have "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" played at home. Yes, she's a WASP.)

I understand that after some time, the "acts" resumed, and it ended as scheduled at 9:30 or so. My Chinese co-teachers can't understand why some of us were upset and offended: they claim when they see movies or TV shows about the US, the Christmas dance is exactly like that. How do I tell them that we don't combine the Snoball with stripping? That a dance is a dance and a talent show is a talent show and a Christmas pageant doesn't come with the Dance of the Seven Veils, no matter how sexy? Taste, people: taste! It's not my job to "explain" the "right" way to do things, but still...what's my responsibility in letting this sort of thing pass without comment? Would I have been less judgmental and pissed off if my own skipping students hadn't opened the party with that vulgar act? Perhaps. In hindsight, it may have been that tray of white bread slices that made me run, but I like to think the educator in me was more offended than the gourmand. (Yes, I know the difference between gourmet and gourmand.) Merry Chronnukah, y'all.

NIcknames and The Truth

I've always been bad with names, probably as a result of spending my early years in Navy housing where all the girls my age were named Debbie. Then I moved here, and found that virtually all the women my age or older were named Helen or Jane, which didn't help any. I tend to use nicknames for intimate friends (particularly those I wrote about) and endearments such as Sweetie, Honey, and Dearest with my students (largely because I have NO CLUE what their "English" name is.)


I write most frequently about my sister Sissy, my daughter Lulu, and the dogs. Only the dogs' names are correct. Sissy is a nickname for my sister because as a child she despised the character of Cissy on Family Affair so deeply that it was fun to torment her by calling her that. (Note: if you tend to overact, small horrid brothers and sisters will quickly hone in on that fact and dance around like imps taunting you for it.) The last thing she'd want is to outed on a blog as being My Big Sister, hence the moniker. Lulu is Lulu: she always was and always will be a Lulu, only sometimes I spell it Lou Lou after the perfume I work in college. It's also her milk name in Chinese. A milk name is the name given an infant, usually a play on their name, like a baby name in the West: it is often abandoned about the time they're weaned or by first grade, whatever comes first. The Rose, aka The Irish Rose, is my drinking buddy: he's from Ireland, and the first piece I memorized for the piano was "My Wild Irish Rose," so there's that. In fact, my cell phone doesn't list his name--just "The Rose." "The Rose" was also a terrific movie starring Better Midler, and there's enough of that character in him to warrant the name. Mr. Magic really uses the name Mr. Magic in daily life, although I shorten it to Magic or even Madge, which I hope doesn't feminize him. Did you ever see Barbie's ugly friend Madge? Not an intentional commentary on my part, just a coincidence. There are a handful of other characters floating around with equally impossible nicknames,such as Howard the Duck, Rosie Oh, Totsy, Little Man, Mose, Oh Julien, Chinese Oprah, and Little Dummy. While I use these terms in daily conversation, I seldom write about them (except maybe Totsy, my maternal grandmother and the cheapest person on the planet.) However, a conversation with The Rose a few days ago went like this:

Me: Are Oh Julian and Coco back yet?
The Rose: I don't think so. I had to record with Mose.
Me: Is he coming to Mr. Magic's? I hear Howard the Duck will be there.
The Rose: I don't think so. Shit! I dropped my Dirty Snowcone! Is Chinese Oprah coming over or do you have to clean it up?
Me: (Heavy sigh.) Just shut up and let me clean it up before the dogs get drunk off the Limoncello.

As for the second part of the post--The Truth-- you won't get it. Or rather, you won't get the version of the truth my mother calls "The Truth." For example, the Christmas Carol post: the deafening silence on my family's part implied disapproval for a) criticizing Mom by suggesting her disapproval of Silent Night is in any way a character flaw and b) for perhaps artfully staging the "Fall On Your Knees" incident for the ease of the reader. Basically, stories only happen to people who can tell them, as my old English professor Mr. Sewell used to say, and most writers just flip the facts around to suit their purpose. Emily Hahn put it best when she wrote that writers are liars and "they can't help it."

However, the nicknames are real and in use  and they are there to protect the far-less-than-innocent (not to mention to save me from asshats who think they've been vilified and wish to sue.)

Dirty Snowcones: Crush some ice quite fine and put it into a Martini glass. Drizzle Limoncello in one spot to look as if someone has peed in the snow. Serve. You can also make this drink even stronger by blending the ice chips briefly with a shot of vodka, then staining with the Limoncello. I can't write my name in this snow but my friend Art can, using an eye dropper. Disgusting, but good.

Christmas Potluck

I work for a Chinese school, albeit in a program designed for students who will be going to an English-speaking country for their university education. Many of my colleagues speak English--a few fluently--and one or two have been abroad as students themselves. However, this does not mean that the school is remotely Western in its pedagogy: in fact, the bulk of classes are still taught in Chinese language, with students required to memorize huge amounts of facts rather than engaging in higher-level or critical thinking. Pardon me, but how does memorizing a list of 2,000 vocabulary words for SAT spell success? Particularly when the word is translated incorrectly into Chinese? Why learn the word "fund" with only one meaning or definition and yet be totally unable to transfer the meaning to other forms of the word, such as "funds" or "funding" or "fundor"? Why recognize this one word and yet be unable to write it, speak it, use it in conversation?

Right now I am frankly pissed off at the mandatory attendance policy for school events. I dutifully show up at a potluck, two dishes in hand (neither very large) and am confronted with this: a large room, three rows of chairs pushed back tightly against one wall, two walls spread with a variety of Chinese food (kept hot  in chafing dishes) and a large cleared space--about 90 % of the room--directly in front of the chairs where people are singing karaoke badly and loudly. (The two terms are not mutually exclusive over here.) What they lacked in talent was more than made up for in volume. Sometimes TWO different KTV tracks were played at the same time, which doesn't seem to bother the young or the Chinese but which I find unsettling. What is it about the way Chinese people's brains process sound that allows them to hear two different tracks blasted loudly without sending them into a schizophrenic panic? I certainly can't handle it: as the music got louder, and two, three, or even four songs were blasted simultaneously, I found myself getting crankier and crankier.

Oh, yes, the food: as usual, the Chinese hovered over the Western desserts, effectively blocking anyone else from reaching them, and as they shoveled in each piece of fudge, cake, or cookie, they complained loudly that everything was too sweet. Too sweet? Then stop eating it. When the dessert table was laid bare, they allowed foreigners access: my plate of Mocha Fudge Cake was barren except for a chicken bone someone had thoughtfully behind (because yes, at Christmas I WANT to clean up YOUR garbage) and the few peppermint fudge squares remaining had FINGERPRINTS all over. Ugh. Here's what the school offered as Christmas fare: sweet and sour pork which was made of ketchup and pineapple, about six meat dishes, three dishes of rice noodles with cabbage and dried shrimp, fried wonton skins, and about twenty different platters of sponge cake, fruit, steamed buns, and a cauldron of rice. As a meal, good, as you could pick and choose, but as Christmas fare, not quite what Western people new to China would expect. I am not stating that  they were in the wrong--hell, the Australians would have expected rather different fare--it's just that a sweet gesture such as throwing a party for Christmas can easily set off a wave of homesickness and culture shock among the expats. Fortunately, I serve with a more hearty lot and they were very happy with party. (I have in the past taught with foreign teachers who would have turned up their noses and walked out haughtily.)

I had a headache and I was in a lousy mood following a phone conversation--more of a excoriation by phone--with my daughter Lulu who was in a pissy mood herself. What better way to deal with it than by phoning your mother and reminding her how she's failed you, eh?

Chinese potluck: expect Karaoke. Expect to be forced to sing or dance at some point. Expect the music to be very, very loud. Expect one person to sing beautifully--so beautifully you can't believe this person bothers with working any job except show business. This one person will sing once then melt into the background modestly. Then someone else who sings badly will sing a LOT and you will have the pleasure of seeing how the Chinese deal with subtly wrestling the microphone away from that person and giving someone else a turn--not quite as baldly as Mr. Bennett does in Pride and Prejudice but certainly as amusing. One foreigner at least will get very drunk and act disgracefully and only his colleagues will be embarrassed come Monday morning. Oh yes; there may be a speech. There may be several speeches by Very Important Personages who may have never seen before who turn out to be your bosses. At least one speech will be given to a soundtrack of stirring military marches, heavy on the strings. Expect everyone's eyes to dart nervously at you to see if you are showing the proper amount of respect at this powerful oration. Me? I cry prettily, so I let tears slide unchecked down my cheeks. It's probably the only reason I keep the job. 

More notes: there will be a Christmas tree. There may or may not be a life-sized Santa, and if there is, it is likely that Santa will be flanked by two deer which the local taxidermist stuffed himself. If you choose to sing, "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" and you're drunk, do not use the life size Santa and his two deer companions to set up a tableaux illustrating the story: you will be canned, no matter how prettily you cry on cue. (Trust me on this.)

Christmas Carols

I do love Christmas carols: I love to listen to them and I particularly love to sing them. I have a deep fondness for "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" as it is the first song I became cognizant of knowing all the words to...I was five, it was California, and I was standing on a pipe in front yard, twisting around by pushing my foot against the pipe, singing the song softly, when I realized that I had sung the entire song straight through: the knowledge that I had sung an entire song was electrifying: I have seldom felt such a sense of accomplishment and pride in myself since then. I also love "On the First Noel" but for different reasons: I just like the tune.

These two songs are on the list of songs that can be sung at my mother's house, but God forbid anyone sing from the List of Forbidden Songs. It's not that they're forbidden, it's just that daring to hum as much as a single bar will bring a load of shit down upon your head that you will never dare to even think of the melody again. Oddly enough, both are innocent, popular songs: the wildly inoffensive Silent Night, and O Holy Night.

 I have loved Silent Night since I was a small child singing "Round John Virgin." My older sister Sissy gave me a lot of crap about getting the words wrong, but it's my mother who still goes ape shit when she hears this song. Normally the nicest woman on the planet, something about this song forces her eyes into tiny slits contorted with rage while she hisses, "Silent? SILENT? What the HELL is so SILENT about it when all those damn people are SINGING!" Despite the propaganda TV mustered on the origins of the song--come on, we've all seen the creepy black-and-white Story of Silent Night either at school or late-night TV--the beauty of its inception eludes Mom. I have tried to explain: snowy Christmas Eve, a little candle-lit church, a  choir of small boys singing to a single guitar, the hush and stillness...however, the point escapes her and I dread being in public when the ubiquitous tune begins to play. Mom will be doing something charitable and kind--say, writing Salvation Army a big ol' check to drop in the bucket--and suddenly she'll hear it--the song, her nemesis, her Kindness Kryptonite--and her eyes will narrow into tiny slits while her face contorts with rage and she begins the tirade, "Silent? SILENT? What the HELL is so SILENT about it when all those damn people are SINGING!"

The other song I love but don't dare sing aloud is O Holy Night. There's a background story: to cut it short, suffice to say at a holiday gathering, when one of our talented lot was singing O Holy Night to her own accompaniment on a grand piano, Sissy began to feel ill: she dashed to the bathroom and in her panic neglected to shut the door, and the family was treated to the simulcast spectacle of her falling violently to her knees in front of the porcelain throne and vomiting noisily and copiously just as the lines, "Fall on your knees/O Hear the angel voices!" were being warbled by a trained soprano...Naturally we fell into hysterics at the sight. (We're kind of mean that way.) Sissy has loathed that song ever since, and as a sort of cosmic revenge, the singer (deeply offended) went on to fame and fortune and Grammy nominations while Sissy married someone who, when he vomits, sounds as if he's channeling  Satan. I still love the song, though.

I've loaded up the Ipod with lots of Christmas tunes and I keep the ear buds in around the clock. I learned the necessity of having holiday tunes around the Christmas I had no music except for an Amy Grant tape which was on loan to me for a few hours. (The horror! The horror!)  I have Karaoke versions too, so I can warble at will. I don't have my favorite carol, the Shepard's Farewell, or other old favorites, such as Hark Silver Bells, but I do have Santa Baby and I'm cooking up a version of it for a staff Christmas potluck which, if successful, will ensure I never have to coach the school drama club or choir again. Wish me luck.

Airplane Snack

A quick note: for those of you who wonder what sort of snacks are served on Chinese airlines within China, the answer is simple: crap. Sometimes it's a cup of instant noodles (usually seaweed flavor) or rice with a side of congealed chicken meat and fat flavored with soy sauce and salt. If you're lucky, you get a breakfast which consists of a bundle of aluminum foil tossed on your lap which contains an extremely good hot flat bread, made of whole wheat, and stuffed with the scrap ends of pig. Don't shudder, once you spit out the gristle it's very good eating. Far too often the snack---pronounced "snake" around here--is three pieces of white bread with a single piece of florescent pink pressed meat by-product resting lightly on a two-millimeter wide stripe of fake mayonnaise. Last night a new low was reached: the flight attendant heaved a foil-wrapped bundle at me and I drooled, happy thoughts of the whole-wheat flat bread in my brain, and I opened it to reveal the most unlikely scenario ever: pigs in blankets. One pig, one blanket. One smoke-flavored hot dog, charred and yet flabby, indifferently stuffed into a fluffy white bun. No mustard, no condiments, no taste, no hope of reprieve. How hungry was I? I ate it. I didn't even save the meat for the dogs. The Chinese have the reputation (usually among themselves) for being gourmets with a 5000 year old tradition of exquisite cooking, blah blah blah. And yet--they eat this pure crap without a single murmur and some even asked for more. Of course, the men doing the asking were the same macho idiots who spring to their feet the moment the plane touches down and start rummaging in overhead compartments. Five did this yesterday: a flight attendant made a couple of ineffective shrieks at one and then gave up. Within twenty seconds of landing--while still taxi-ing at a furious rate across the tarmac--ten people were lined up in the aisles, pushing and shoving, determined to be the first off the airplane. Six carried leftover Pigs in Blankets. My seatmate had vaulted over me--crotch in my face--shouting "I Impotent Men!"--perhaps as his excuse for getting into the overhead bin. I wished a malevolent wish that my suitcase would bonk him on the head but no such luck... perhaps some people really are Lucky Guys and if I were impotent hell yeah I'd try to make up for it by being first off the plane. The ones off first were Important Indeed and I am sure everyone was suitably impressed when they texted before the all-clear, thus endangering everyone, extra Pigs in Blanket in hand. From the rich, you can learn how to save money: from the Chinese traveler, how to be a complete ass.

Food Ho Ho Ho

The Food Ho had a new gastric experience last night: Game Pie made with Wild Boar. Deee--lightful! I had no idea that Wild Boar was so tasty--I usually date bores, not eat them. My oh my--there was mouthgasm for sure. Although the chef claimed he made the pickles as well I noticed that the jar still had a label from Crosse and Blackwell which was perfectly intact--no sign of having been boiled off--so that's a bit suspect. However, the combination was intense and flavorful. If only all food could be like that. I'm about to hop on a train for Mysterious Job Number Two, going to the far frozen reaches of the frickin' freezing North, and trust me, for the next two days, will be dining on salt, instant noodles, MSG, and more salt. I loathe train travel, particularly here, but am Taking One For The Team  (Ah, the Job That Doth Not Dare Speak Its Name!) Yes, I'm pissed off about it, but memories of last night's Game Pie have soothed most of the ruffled feathers of my soul (but not all.)

The Food Ho Has Spoken

Is it unfair that people--particularly men-- who are the size and shape of jockeys,  should be able to eat like horses.

Food Ho

You know you're a foodie and your friends are not when you bring a pan of brownies to a party and proudly announce they're "Magic Brownies" and your friends jump on them like a Lacrosse team on a three-way party girl and then are disappointed an hour later because they're not floating or seeing pink ponies swirling through their cocktail glass and you're bummed out because nobody noticed that by "Magic" you meant they are 1)baked in honor of Mr. Magic, whose birthday it is, and 2) "Magic" because you managed to bake whole marshmallows in without any of them melting. I bet no one even noticed the delicious hunks of mint-flavored white chocolate or the lovely pink and white swirls or the fact I TOASTED the damn walnuts first, either. Damned drugged out Philistines! (That's oughties-speak for "drugged-out hippy freaks."

This post brought to you by Food Ho. Most postings--and the brownie recipe--later.

Podcasts

One of the many challenges of being an expat is the limited opportunity for English language conversation outside of the normal sphere of colleagues and immediate family (immediate as in "live in the same house with you.") In the US, I can have a nerdy conversation about DS9 while waiting in line at the local 7-11, whereas any attempt at conversation at the local Carrefour will soon be reduced to a painfully-conducted English lesson. ("Your Chinese  very good!" "No, no, your English is very good!") When I go to Mysterious Job Number Two, I take a taxi and the only way the hour-long ride is bearable is the judicious use of my Ipod in conjunction with a light nap. The Ipod is loaded not only with music but with podcasts.

Podcasts are a godsend to the lonely expat who is starved for jokes, banter, and themed conversation that has nothing to do with The Pen of My Aunt or Please Invite Xiao Ding to Sing. So what if you're a fly on the wall and can't comment along--you're hearing actual authentic human voices spewing forth actual authentic conversations and damn, some of it is funny too. I subscribe through iTunes (because I am a Good Girl who believes artists shouldn't get ripped off by file sharing) to a number of podcasts which are FREE, people. They are: Trekcast, Gleeful, Prairie Home Companion (It's just the News from Lake Woebegone, not a conversation so much as a dramatic monologue) Escape Pod (science fiction stories read aloud--again, not a conversation) and About Heroes. I prefer the West Coast version of About Heroes for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the Hate Mail Haiku. If you're going to diss them, at least do it with class and use an English-language Haiku to frame your comments. Word.

Without these podcasts, I would never know about Comic Con, which is rapidly replacing the Sweet Potato Queen float at the Saint Patrick's Day Parade in Jackson, Mississippi, as the dream destination of my adolescent heart. I wouldn't be up on the latest slang, I wouldn't know that Green Lantern can be rendered inactive by wood or the color yellow (thus making a Number Two pencil a deadly weapon, as one of the commentators stated) and I wouldn't be grinning when I arrive at my destination, having been engaged and challenged and opened to a slew of new ideas and information. Podcasts are fun, and for an expat, a wonderful way to keep in touch with home culture. Fluency in Klingon not necessary to enjoy listening. Qapla', y'all.

D and D

I attended my first (and probably last) D and D game on Friday. For those of you who remember the 70's, it's one of the first role-playing games to make it big world wide (besides the usual courtship rituals.) I will write more about it later, but it DID strike me that D and D games are the Nerd equivilant of literary saloons, where fantasy elements from a number of different ur-text (LOTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, TNG, just to name a few) can mix together freely without fear of censure. For example, not only was I a muscled street rat in search of three magic foods (nor surprisingly, one of them mushrooms) but I had an Elvish blade that glowed blue in the presence of Orcs as well as a phaser set on stun. It's guided conversation: our Master strummed his guitar and made the game up as he went along. The other players--a director, a playwright, and a stockbroker--were familiar with the game and one had brought a seven-page script with his background story. I quickly realized I was outclassed big-time and kept my snarky comments to a minimum. What did surprise me was this: cast as a street thug with muscles, each time I was met with a challenge---"What do you do?"--I automatically thought not of what I would do, but of how this character would think. Interesting, as this alter ego made choices I would not normally consider...could this game be addictive? Anything that brings together lonely and/or creative people will create a certain bond--the strength of that bond may well lie in how badly you need it to tie the rest of your life together. More on this topic after I channel my Inner Goddess to help me rearrange the furniture again...

Ride 'Em, Cowboy!

I've had some amazing experiences in Beijing taxis--I've been ripped off, lied to, treated with the greatest of courtesy and respect, had lunches shared, directions given, advice sought: I've been serenaded, and once was almost driven off a freeway by a driver who was too busy showing me pictures of his Chihuahua on his cell phone to bother to steer. (The screams of terror from the four white guys in the back of the taxi make me chuckle to this day.) Oh, yes, I was abducted once, but since I didn't report it (long story why, including a dead cell phone and a TV show) I won't go into details here. After almost 20 years of taking taxis, I had a first: all I can say to sum it up is "Cowboy."

It's almost impossible to get a taxi from the front of Job Number One: taxis barrel by frequently but they are driven by off-duty drivers on their way home for lunch. I was trying frantically to get a taxi and had been flagging them down and begging them to Take Me To The City for a good twenty minutes while a group of san lun che men sat on their bikes and chuckled at my efforts. San Lun Che are those three-wheeled taxi cabs which are a combination of bike and godawful motor: think of a rickshaw peddled by a bike with the additional va-voom of a coal-burning engine (ok, maybe not coal, but you get the idea). These guys are usually pretty tough customers--some are chatty, most are cheerful, and all would love nothing better than to see some overprivileged fat cat--ie, me--fall flat on their face. So, after providing them with fodder for chatter and gossip, I was starting to get a little testy. I understand Chinese pretty well, including the local dialect, and their comments were not always kind. Finally one came forward and explained to Little Missy here that no one was going to stop but he could drive me down the street to a place near the subway station where I was sure to find a cab. I said the hell with it and jumped in the back of his san lu che, one whose cardboard floor actually boasted a Hello Kitty floor mat.  Off we went: we had gone a few hundred meters when the real experience began.

 We were on the extreme right hand side of the road: the inside lane had faster-moving traffic. A taxi shot past us on the left:  my driver's head snapped up and he gave a shout not unlike the Master riding to hounds: tally-ho! And he was off: he tripled his speed and tried to get the attention of the taxi which was now up ahead of us and to our left about ten meters. His feet pedaled furiously as his hands gripped the controls and fed more diesel or kerosene or fuel to the smoking straining engine. We gained on the taxi slightly: then our driver took out what appeared to be a small rope and started lashing out at the taxi with it, exactly like a cowboy roping a doggie.  I had interned in Cowboy Country and had seen students mutton busting, roping steers, and riding the broncs. This was far more exciting, especially as I was the recipient of my cowboy's skill in separating the taxi from the other cars, shouting it into the lane in front of us, and persuading the driver to pull over to the right side of the road so I could mount, so to speak.

I was laughing too hard to discuss the fee: I handed the driver about 20 kuai (generous) and thanked him for his courtesy and kind help. The taxi driver grunted as I got in: I asked him if he was often accosted in that manner and he shrugged. "Who cares," he said, "As long as I get the fare."

World Peace and Other Anomalies

Some day I will be able to write freely about That Other Jobs I Have which involves listening to non-native English speakers speaking at great length about a variety of topics--few of their responses actually matching any of the prompts I give them. Well, when that day comes, I will share freely the joys the sitting with a serious expression  while someone informs me solemnly that they have "a god heart, "  the image of Jesus of the Sacred Heart leaping into my mind. As I've written before, I'm not supposed to admit I judge these contests, even though I appear annually on TV on one of the bigger events, but there you are: I spend an inordinate amount of time listening to people engage in  English-language debates while looking grave and interested in every utterance. I am a Phonic Whore, paid to look pleased and impressed while my mind is miles and miles away. David Moser--probably the most famous American in China right now--said it best when he said, "I sat with a straight face while a contestant spoke about his only desire--World Piss--for a full three minutes."  It was, no doubt, the hardest money he ever earned.

Books, Friends, Lack of Library

I have started to purge my library: I have waa---aaa-ay too many books for someone who moves as frequently as I do, and worse, they do no one any good if they just sit on a shelf. Books are like people, they need to move around and strut their stuff and work their magic across a community rather than sit at home unloved. The Ladies' Detective Agency series I'll bring to school and put on the book shelf for my students--no sex, good morals, lovely simple language--and there are others that can join them. However, there are some series I can't bear to break up or give away. For example, even if you took all the "fuck wits" out of any Jennifer Lancaster books, there's no way my students would comprehend ANY of it. A lot of the people I work with don't get it either, however excellent their English. I am deeply attached to the books for a variety of reasons--Bright Lights, Big Ass was my first Jen and I still remember buying it at a large chain book store, just tossing it into my basket at the last minute as part of a buy two, get one-half off deal. I don't even remember what the other two books were: I do remember giving a yelp of surprise and delight when I read the first paragraph: I felt like I was coming home. As divergent as my background, beliefs, and values are from the author's, I still had a connection with that marvelous sarcastic voice. I scooped up the other books as soon as I had access---hell, I WON a copy of "Pretty in Plaid" in a contest on Betty Confidential--and I am waiting for the next to hit my hot little hands. Give them up? You'll have to pry them out of my cold dead hands first.

My liberal, hippy, DINK vegetarian sister expressed it best: Jennifer Lancaster is the only Republican she'd ever have over for dinner. Considering what an exquisite chef my sister is--What, you homemade chapatis with fresh fig chutney from figs picked an hour ago from a tree in the garden? No problem!---this is high praise indeed. (To be fair, she usually just serves me Nachos.)

Then there's my Cheryl Peck: I have in my possession right now only one of her books. Revenge of The Paste Eatersis currently in possession of my mother. If you haven't read any of her books, you are missing out. Her explanation on where bad explanations comes from should have been read at my grandfather's funeral--it would have expressed so clearly why we all suffered the trauma of his god-awful responses. As adults, we realized the stress and strain he must have undergone living with my grandmother Totsy, but as kids, all we knew was NOT to ask his opinion on anything. If you haven't read Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs, you are missing out, that's all I'm saying. No one I know deserves this book, so it stays here.

Ah, Laurie R. King! When my friend Diana tried to give me the first of her Mary Russell novels I sneered. I SNEERED! I wasted two years of my life by not reading this book. Once I got over my snobbery (I was dating someone who belonged to an Arthur Conan Doyle society at the time, more's the pity) I was thrilled and haven't put the series down since. I did give away the Kate Martinelli series--somehow, I didn't warm up to that one, although they are beautifully written and plotted and keep me guessing 'til the end--but I am waiting, waiting, waiting, for the other book in the Folly line, and hoping another Russell novel comes along. I have, sadly, given away The Beekeeper's Apprentice to an unworthy bitch, the crazy Valerina (her opening line with anyone is, "I was abused as a child and I HATE China!") who later told me "I didn't get it." Uh, what didn't you get? "Why someone with all that money wore glasses when she could have had Lasik!"  (Hello, Anachronism! Goodbye, Common Sense!) Also unworthy: the house guest who took my copy of Sahara Special and never brought it back. If she had at least acknowledged what a fantastic book it was and sped it on its way to a new reader, I'd understand. As it is, I am fearful she tossed it.

My books are pets, friends, companions, teachers: I'd hate to think of any of them leaving my hands and ending up in a trash heap somewhere. I can't break up my Sweet Potato Queenseries, or wonderful Celia Rivenbark: I have to know that at the end of the day I can come home and dip into one and reassure myself that someone else on the planet thinks you should "Stop Dressing Your Six Year Old Like a Skank." 

Clearly, there's a reason I've chosen to hold on to these books: the protagonists are women of great strength of character, and I am in search of the same: large-hearted, funny, kind people. The authors are largely female, the lovely Alexander McCall Smith the lone male voice--but then again, he's writing chiefly from a woman's perspective, and a "traditionally built" woman of size as well. Good for him. The sacks of books I have to give away are full of deep pieces, Big Ass Prize Winners, lots of translations of Latin American authors, all of which I have enjoyed, and even wept over (Kite Runner, anyone?) but those that stay on the shelf are my home girls, my chorus, my (forgive the reference) Pieces of Me.  A note: there is a lending library here, the Book Worm, but it's too damn far away for me to visit regularly and the books are most annoying arranged: you have to push past patrons eating at tables to access the shelves where the books are stacked up in some order the logic of which escapes me...I am grateful it's there, but it's not a practical option for someone like me with limited time and even less patience. My dream job? Sitting somewhere and reading and then telling everyone what I read...in theory, as I used to teach literature (and have better literary terms up my sleeve than "lovely", such as "verisimilitude") this would seem a perfect fit, but in truth, if you're teaching a bunch of snotty sophomores The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole for an entire term and come final exam time, they still haven't cracked upon the damn book and write their final paper on "A Drain and a Mole" it's not quite the same thing as reading, writing, discussing, and then moving on to the next paper delight.

I must be feeling rebellious: I didn't italicize or underline a single title. Naughty.

Thanksgivings

Another Thanksgiving spent here..this time, instead of ignoring the holiday (which I don't have off) or going to an all-you-can-eat buffet at a hotel with friends, or microwaving stuffing and boiling a chicken at home, I went to the home of friends. When I finished teaching at 3:30 I jumped into a taxi and had a snooze while on route to the opposite side of the city--from SE Beijing to NW. Ah--delightful, particularly as I was listening to Gleeful Podcast on my iPod. I am stuffed--so nice to see old friends, and especially those who set a traditional and bountiful table. Menu: roast turkey, stuffing, gravy, corn, a mixed vegetable cold salad (think Waldorf salad with crunchy steamed broccoli) mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes with a pecan crust, salad, and two types of cranberry sauce, the whole jellied mess still in traditional can form, and the whole berry type. Don't ask about the desserts--nine variations of chocolate, cheesecake, and pumpkin goodness.  No worry about the vegetarian dish, no screwing around with "but we GOTTA have that overcooked stinky brussel sprouts!" It was a miracle--plenty of food, beautifully cooked and served, and no extraneous dishes like my grandmother's chutney salad (which she insisted on pronouncing "Choot-ny." If corrected, she'd sniff and snip back at you, "Sounds better that way!")

On the way out--as I went down the six flights of stairs trailing behind a young and nauseatingly nice, in love couple with three small children (I was the back-up in case anyone dropped a shoe or a rattle) I got all teary-eyed. They are truly nice people with a nice happy family and they're both spectacularly great parents. He is one of the most tender, in-tune, take-charge Daddies I have ever seen and I felt my heart swell and burst with gratitude that Daddies like this existed. I love my father but he made it very clear when we were small that he despised small children---especially those who made noise, made demands on Mom, or who crossed his line of vision. His outlook did not much improve as we got older, although as adults he doesn't despise us totally, and he is, without a doubt, the World's Best Grandpa, as loving and kind to his granddaughter as is humanly possible--but still---this is not the experience of fathering I had, and it is not the experience of fathering my daughter had. In that moment of heart-swelling, or heart-expansion, or raised consciousness, or whatever you can call it, sure, there was a twinge of grief for myself and my daughter, and also for my parents because THEY didn't experience fathering like that, but overall, a feeling of relief to see the love so patiently applied. Sometimes you don't have to be the recipient of love to be its beneficiary. I can read by a light which was flipped  for someone else, after all.

I am grateful for my friends: I am grateful for my enemies, of which I do have a few. (The bastards.) I am grateful for the challenges thrown at me--way more than most people born into my situation would have, but manageable. My daughter is healthy, smart, and being educated, and when I leave this world she'll have the resources of inner strength, intelligence, and kindness to carry her forward. I'm even grateful for that drunken text message from The Rose at 1:36 a.m Now let's see if this feeling of gratitude lasts the day through--I have to teach my toughest group this morning and it would serve them right if I lay down on the floor, pretended it was my grandmother's green and gold press-apply shag carpet, and took a long Thanksgiving nap, replete with turkey and gratitude quickly turning lukewarm and lumpy.

Error

Ever make a mistake at work that is so jaw-droppingly awful that you can't believe you did it? It's bad enough when YOU are the one who catches it: far worse when it's your boss's boss's boss...such a thing happened to me today, twice. Yes, twice: once for each job. I think the moon must be in feces or something. I will of course deal with the consequences but still---OUCH! Will not curl up on the sofa in fetal position and frantically stuff Tim Tams down my throat--will NOT curl up on the sofa in fetal position and frantically stuff Tim Tams down my throat--will take dogs for nice long walk and cook a healthy meal but still---OUCH!

Bag It Yourself

The local Carrefour hit a new low, one I did not know was possible. To my surprise and delight, there was no one in line at the cash registers and there were even TWO cashiers there, one to ring up, and one, I reasoned, to bag. The local Carrefour is especially deficient in courtesy and common sense--for example, people form ONE queue for FOUR cash registers which are jammed together so tightly there's no room to bag the groceries-- but I thought hey, no line, TWO cashiers, this could go well. I placed my items on the tiny lap-top-computer size shelf to be rung up by Cashier Number One: she scanned each item and handed it to Cashier Number Two, who held the two grocery bags I had purchased. I thought--being a reasonable person accustomed to some form of customer service, no matter how cursory--that Cashier Number Two was placing my items in the bags. No. When I finished putting my items up on the tiny shelf (not even a conveyor belt, thank you very much) I discovered that Cashier Number Two had put a shopping basket INSIDE MY CART and had simply thrown my groceries into the shopping basket--and the cart--willy nilly, with the two shopping bags thoughtfully placed on the bottom underneath the bacon, eggs, sugar, toilet paper, eight plastic buckets, four dozen doughnuts (par-TAY!) and other assorted items. I squawked a bit--where the HELL was I supposed to repack this shit? After all, the end of the check-out line was the hall connecting the store to the rest of the mall. No tables or surfaces were provided. I was supposed to burrow down past all of those groceries, retrieve the bags, and reposition all the groceries into the bag from the bottom of the cart WHILE  STILL STANDING IN THE LINE. Uh, Chinese people? You know something? You're the people who stand in the middle of a doorway of a crowded store and check the time on your cell phone--or pause at the top of a moving escalator to send a text message--or block the entrance to an airplane with your sudden need to pull out a piece of toilet tissue from the far reaches of your wallet. Well, you frickin' geniuses of time and motion study need to know this: a person cannot BAG THEIR OWN GROCERIES AT ONE END OF THE LANE WHILE THEY ARE STILL PUTTING THEM ON THE SHELF FOR THE CASHIER TO RING UP, PARTICULARLY IF YOU WANT THAT PERSON TO PAY FOR THEM AS WELL. Cashier Number Two? You're full of shit. Would it have killed you to place the items IN the bag, instead of dropping the eggs on top of the loaves of bread and thoughtfully dropping the bags of sugar on top of them all? Frustration, thy name is bored worker from Hell.

True Confessions (Family Members, for God's Sake Don't Read This)

I've never gone commando on a glass-bottom boat, but I have done something just as bad. My friend Juju bumped into me today at Mysterious Job That I'm Not Allowed to Write About Number Two (so to speak) and whispered a tale of horror to me: evidently she went to a going-away party for a co-worker which inadvertently turned into a wake for another co-worker who had been buried the day before. There she was in a red sparkly top, ready to launch a colleague off into the wilds of China, when she was seated at a table full of dour-looking people who were, she quickly learned, the relatives of the deceased who had heard about the 'do and had assumed it was send-off for their dear departed--rather than a send-off for a colleague who was not headed Upstairs but down South, as in "Guangzhou,"  not as in "Hell."  (Same difference, if you ask me: I don't want to be anywhere hot enough to grow bananas, but I digress.) She fortuitously had brought along a black blazer and she grimly kept it on while people told soft sad stories about the deceased. She kept the bottle of Moet tucked away in her handbag and slipped it into the hand of the colleague just before she left.
"Worse thing ever!" she said. "I sat at this table and was saying, 'Hey, everybody, why the long faces, it's not like we'll never see him again' and then someone on my left kicked me and whispered, 'Shut up, you're sitting next to the wife of the colleague who was BURIED yesterday!' "

This reminded me mightily of something that happened to me years ago which truly outshone her experience in awfulness, and being a sweet person, I told her my story. Big Daddy, Sissy, Lulu, if you are reading, STOP NOW!!!!!

I'm from a small-ish city and I went to university in small towns, hence a few details will be changed. The long and the short of it: many years ago I had a brief and very sweet affair with an older man--not a colleague, and not a professor of mine. He was smart, sophisticated, very funny, and really supportive of me and my collection of neurosis. We had a very short fling and then as usual I finished what I was doing in the US and packed up my stuff and returned to China. I figured we may--or may not--see each other again. I didn't have email at the time--or even a computer that worked--and I moved a bit so I wasn't surprised by not hearing from him. I took the good from it and moved on and as time passed I dusted the memory off and felt happy to have known this nice, nice man. Well, after a few years I did get a computer and had email again and lo and behold, I received an email from him asking if this person was indeed me...it was. We corresponded a few times, progressively intimate and sweet emails, and agreed to meet when I came back for summer vacation. His last email was unmistakably flirtatious and we set up a lunch date with a promise of, shall we say, more to come...I flew home, took a nap, went to the beauty parlor, borrowed a car, and drove to his office.

There I was, clad in his favorite color (pink) with my hair freshly blonded looking like I just fell off the top of a Christmas tree...and there were all these people in and around his office, some openly weeping, some red-eyed, a few white-faced. I walked up to the receptionist's desk and said, "What the hell?" and was immediately cut off by a familiar voice saying, "Zanne? Zanne, is that you?" I turned around to see the guy I had a HUGE crush on in school. He had obviously been crying and was very confused to see me. I was equally stunned. I had not seen him since that summer night in the 80's when we graduated and I barely recognized him. Something in my head went bong-bong-bong--something was not right. People were leaving and I was staring at this man, and he was staring at me, and after a long time he pursed his lips and said, "Well, I see you must have known my father." Ah---so THAT'S why they had the same last name!

Ok, it gets worse. At the funeral--actually, just a memorial service--I noticed quite a few women staring daggers at one another. Many were dressed in the same shade of pink that I was wearing (although I guessed they hadn't just had a wax and were probably wearing panties) and all of us were of a type--short, snub-nosed, golden haired, with knockers. I was somewhat relieved to see I wasn't the eldest. One of the speakers at the funeral--excuse me, memorial service--mentioned The Deceased's dedication to the feminist movement and I thought for a moment I would laugh. Various jokes in extremely bad taste about stiffness etc ran through my head--but through it all, a profound feeling of gratitude for having known this lovely man. There was no way I could lean over and tell his son--the one I had SUCH a crush on in school-- that his dad had been the nicest lover I had ever had, the one by whom I set the bar, but it has occurred to me that really, this was the most comforting and kindest thing I could have said. I've never met anyone who appreciated me in quite the same way. I know that, had he been there, he would have been rolling in the aisles at the delightful inappropriateness of it all--my groomed and naughty self with her empty stomach and fierce jet lag, the clones I sat with, the sidelong looks and pursed lips among his groupies--in the wildly horrible setting of rampant grief.

In the midst of life we are in death and as he once said, sometimes in the midst of tragedy we stumble upon something so damned funny that we just have to laugh.

I finished telling this story to Juju and mentioned that I would post it later. She said, "I shouldn't admit this, but your story was WORSE than mine and I feel a LOT better!" Well, that's what I'm here for, babe: I live to serve.

Antici----SAY IT!!!! --- pation

I seldom write about my mother, not because she reads this blog (trust me, she doesn't) but rather from the fear that she'll hear about something I wrote about a woman, ANY woman, and think I mean her. I could write about the alcoholic neighbor we once had who named her children after the tipple she imbibed in during her pregancy (Meet the girls: Whisky, Brandy, Sherry, and oh, the little boy there in the corner's Drambuie) and somehow my mother would twist this into an attack on her. Mom is one of the most determinedly kind people on the planet, and it kills me not to write about her, but there you go. Today I'm breaking the rule and writing about one of her traits, one that drives me insane and which I have tried to rid myself of, the inability to answer a simple question simply.

An example: I will, on my rare trips home, ask my mother if the mail has arrived yet. Her head snaps back, and shakes from side to side. Words begin to form on her lips: her eyes dart back and forth. Finally she draws a deep breath, licks her lips, and begins her verbal assault. It usually goes like this: "WELL, I was in the back yard and The Fatties' dogs were barking and I thought, HELL, I should just tell Big Fatty that it was her OTHER daughter that called the cops on her for sanitary violations and not me, and did I tell you the one who lives with her is gay, but the friend she has living with them is NOT, which is interesting, they're just friends and there's nothing going on or Big Fatty would have noticed and trust me, she would have told me. So, I was in the back yard, and we have ants. Again. Why we pay an exterminator, I'll never know. This house was built on a giant ant hill." At this point I break into the tirade with a gentle, "The mail?" and she replies, "It's usually junk or sometimes packages for you come but usually UPS and the driver leaves them with the Kings." I then scream, "HAS THE MAIL ARRIVED?" and my mother gets offended and says, "I was telling you about that." I then lose it and stomp out to the mail box to see if anything's there and she follows at my heels saying, "I told you about it already." Nothing is in the mail box which means either it hasn't come, or else Mom got there first and put the mail "somewhere safe" in that happy place where she hides things which never re-emerge into the light of day.

"For fuck's sake, " I snap, "Did the mail COME or NOT?" She draws herself up to her full height of five foot two--still taller than I am, and positively towering over Lulu--and she says in  very hurt, dignified  pure-WASP tones, "I told you, I don't know, I was in the back yard."

The mail is a sensitive subject for me. My parents serve as my US or permanent address and things of importance--teaching license, for example--- are sent there. However, my parents worry about the safety of these articles, and Mom will get crafty and "hide" something so "thieves won't find it." Since they never leave the house and Dad doesn't sleep except in a recliner during the day in front of the TV, the chances of a break-in are minimal. What the hell a thief would want with a teacher's certificate is beyond me. Still, she protects me, and hides the mail. Sadly, she doesn't remember where she hides it,  exacting revenge on me for the time I was four and hid the key to the freezer, thus forcing the family to go vegetarian for a month until they figured out a way to spring the 60 pounds of ground beef in frozen exile at the back of the garage. When I do go back "home" I spend a lot of time on the phone with call centers in Bangalore, having a conversation that goes roughly like this:

Rajeesh: Hello, Ma'am, my name is Rajeesh and I am with Global Credit Financial Services. How may I help you?

Me: Hello, Rajeesh, it's Zanne.

Rajeesh: Oh, Miss Zanne, did your mother hide your new credit card again?

Me: Yes. (Sigh.) I gave her the tumeric-coated pickles like you told me but it's not helping. Hey, do you need my security code so you can issue me a new card?

Rajeesh: It's already on the way. Try to beat your mother to the mail box this time, will you?

Me: You're on. Thanks, doll baby.

Rajeesh: My pleasure. Try to relax, you're only there for a few days! Chill. Thank you for using Global Credit Financial Services, and have a good day.

A note: last week I received a call from a dear friend in India and after I got off the phone I started to laugh: it's probably the first time a credit-card holder/abuser has RECEIVED a call from Bangalore.

If you ask me if I love my mother, I can answer quite simply "Yes." But if you ask me how I am, you may well receive the rambling, "Well, after the dogs ate my brioche that I left on the table and got wired off the caffeine because it was dipped in coffee before I went to answer the phone..."     Genetic? Environmental? The desperate subconscious plea of someone who doesn't get to talk enough with rational human beings? You tell me. I am, after all, very much my mother's daughter.

The Cat's on the Roof and She Won't Come Down

It was Lulu's birthday last week and I dutifully called, hoping she was having a good time and yet hoping also for a chat. I got the best of motherhood thrown in my face when she hissed into the receiver, "I'm WITH people at a restaurant and I CAN'T TALK!" I tried to pin down a time to talk and she said something along the lines of "Later, whatEVER," and I rang off feeling old and sad. There are times when I feel my age and position most keenly--hello, rapid aging in a foreign country!--and times when it rests lightly. Trust me, it wasn't resting lightly on me. I called her back the next day--there was a quick conversation. There was no usual daily email from Sissy, and the usual silence from Dad. I felt odd, and wanted to call home, and yet I didn't, I didn't want to make some sad call home just because my precious baby girl was spending her first birthday ever away from me. (Folks, I know: she's 19.)

  Then, on Tuesday, I received an email from Dad stating he had had but yet another heart attack and had a procedure over the weekend--"Roto-Rootered" as he put it. My whole family, including Lulu, knew but decided not to upset me. Lulu's not able to keep anything from me, which explains her terse attitude and her decision to get off the phone as quickly as possible. My brother in law, the magnificent Miguel, argued in favor of telling me, but Dad convinced him not to say anything. (Considering the hot water he landed in when he told another family member about one of Dad's other trips to the ER, he wisely folded.)

I feel odd about the whole thing: Dad's ticker is largely dead tissue and he could go at any time--or he could live to be in his 90's like HIS father. Dad's only 76, one of those tall thin people with killer legs (which my sister inherited) who didn't have a weight problem until AFTER his first heart attack. But hear me out--I'm glad the thought of "sparing" me meant sparing them, but on the other hand, due to this Living-In-China thing I have missed the following: my sister's wedding, the death of my darling grandfather and the subsequent wake, the death of my less-than-darling-but-still-missed grandmother, the unexpected death of our dear friend Elaine, my mother's 75th birthday (although I sent her best friend a ticket to be there for the event when I could not be) the passing of my great-Aunts Bess and Mary, who were the kind loving people my grandmother was not...do you get the idea? I go home for vacation and the first day I ask, "Where's so-and-so?" and everybody starts crying and saying "She died the week after your last visit but we didn't want to tell you!" and they've moved past their grief and I'm just entering it. (Some v-kay, eh?)

Plus, I kind of hate to mention this, what with the holiday season coming up, but my family ALWAYS die or have heart attacks or trips to the ER on major holidays. One year at Easter, and I am not kidding when I say this, my grandfather had a trip to the hospital for Congestive Heart Failure. He was out just in time for my father to have a major heart attack on Father's Day. A few days after HE got out of the hospital, he capped off the Fourth of July with a truly spectacular second heart attack to be followed by a quadruple by-pass.  Hearts were popping like champagne corks that year...Labor Day saw Dad back in the hospital, Grandma's birthday saw her in the ER, my birthday saw Grandpa back in the ER for CHF, and then Dad topped it all off by slicing off part of his thumb for Halloween. (Quite a trick for the neighborhood kiddies.)  I could go on: Grandpa died on Halloween (it's also the birthday of my lesbian niece, as well as my great-grandparent's wedding anniversary, two other stories entirely) and of course, when did Daddy have his heart attack? Lulu's birthday. Because that's what every girl wants, calling her grandfather on her birthday and hoping to God that this man who has been the only father figure she has pulls through but yet another surgery. The fact it was Veteran's Day also puts paid to that. (Daddy was a Navy man and served in two "conflicts.")

It's Thanksgiving next week: usually one of us is in the ER for something on that day, like a wad of toilet paper stuck against an eardrum (it was me and no, don't ask) or a slip of the carving knife or rather spectacularly one year, a broken toe from kicking a soccer ball barefoot through a plate glass window---and I'm hoping if I don't celebrate, if I don't bring a pie to work, if I just hunker down and do my job and if my students aren't crying from my bitch tongue by five, perhaps this means Daddy will be all right, and I'll only have to hold my breath through Hanukkah and Christmas and New Year's and...

If he's sick, tell me. You know the old joke about "The cat's on the roof?" So true. Right now my six-year-old friend is recovering from leukemia, my friend Gill is back in chemo, another two friends are pregnant.  Life goes on. Shit happens. Dad, I want to spare you worry and grief, but I'd rather know and hope and grieve in real time  than to be told after the fact. Who else is waiting to tell me something?

  

Post Script: When I fell through my sliding glass door onto my balcony, it was on Saint Patrick's Day, three years after I first wrote this post...

Quick Note: How To End The Date You Didn't Want as a Date

This is a tip from my gorgeous sister's swinging bachelorette days. She's happily married now to the Magnificent Miguel, so I think it's safe to divulge this one (which, incidentally, she never used on him. We know a keeper when we see one.)

Say there's a guy. You like him, but he's not boyfriend material (for whatever reason.) You enjoy his company, you just don't want him to stay over. You don't want any scenes, and you're hoping he DOESN'T make a move. (I've never had this problem, but then again, I never dated like my sister did.)

Here's what you do: instead of a big fancy date that almost promises a struggle along the line somehow (if not a struggle, then Frank Talk) invite him over to dinner instead. Then feed him  gas-enducing food. Since Sissy is a vegetarian, that means pretty much anything in her normal repertoire would do. A meal of Lentil Loaf, whole wheat bread, curried black bean pate, homemade beer, followed by home made ice cream, is enough to make most men run to the hills, if not further. They seldom make it through the last spoonful of ice cream before grabbing their coats and running out the door to vent in the truck (or in Portland Oregon, a racing bike.) Sissy sits in a romantic pool of candlelight, a seraphic smile on her Mona Lisa lips, serene in the knowledge that by bolting out the door the man has pretty much sealed the lid on the Just Friends pact, and she never had to say a word.

As for me--well, I've never tried this myself but I must say I understand that it could work very well.

Killer Curried Cauliflower

I think I've posted this recipe before, but I am re-posting. First of all, this is delicious. Second of all, it is incredibly good for you, fighting cancer and inflammation and being practically the lowest-calorie delicious food on the planet.

Break up a head of cauliflower into florets and boil with several tablespoons of curry powder until it's done crisp-tender (slightly mushy if you want to make it into dip.)  Drain thoroughly, then marinate in a homemade French dressing for several hours in the fridge. Overnight is better. Toss occasionally to ensure the dressing saturates each piece. Serve cold.

My French dressing consists of olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, salt, mustard, a good pinch of sugar, and whatever herbs I feel like using. Some like a 1:2 vinegar to olive oil ratio. It's different for me every time, depending on what type of curry I used and the age of the cauliflower. If you cooked the cauliflower to the well-done or semi-mushy stage, whirl it in your blender for a moment or two after draining off the marinade and you have a delicious low-fat dip which is also a good sandwich spread. (No kidding.) Otherwise, drain and serve. You may have to stand back as even people who don't like cauliflower or curry will dive for these bright yellow gobs of goodness.

The tumeric fights arthritis and inflammation and evidently is pretty potent in knocking the onset of Alzheimer's to the curb. Olive oil may help to reduce cholesterol. Cauliflower is a cruciferous vegetable that fights cancer. Garlic is good for everything. I sometimes add small chunks of carrots to the marinade as well as currants as I think it looks pretty and they taste delicious, but some object. Oh, yes: red pepper flakes. Those are good too, especially if you make this dish to be served with ice-cold beer.

Epiphany: Sight, Taste, Sound

I've had moments of clarity, moments of perfection, where my senses perceived the rightness of something and were overwhelmed by sheer beauty and balance of the thing itself that I was momentarily lost--and yet, somehow, more myself than other. You can call it a Zen experience, I suppose, but that doesn't quite cover it.

The first was a visual experience. I was at a friend's house for a bachelorette party: about 16 years ago something kept drawing me out of the room where we were blowing up naughty balloons into a quiet study. I was directed, as it were, while something in my chest went boing-boing-boing. On the wall, a simple print by Dali, a musician blowing a horn, sweet notes dangling mid-air. It was perfect: the notes seemed to swim and dance (as real as anything you'd see on TV, as I thought) and I was stunned. My friend mentioned casually they had bought it at auction and it was purported to be "real"---ie, a print made by Dali himself and not of the goon printing companies that mass produced his work.

The second experience was one of taste: ten years ago I was mid-relationship (or mid-break up) with an Old Friend Turned New Flame and it wasn't going well. I left him in the US and flew home to China to start a new job. My daughter was appearing in a TV show that week and I camped out at the hotel with her at night and went to the new job during the day. One morning at breakfast I was served a dish of green beans cooked Chinese style with soy sauce and strips of fatty bacon. The dish was perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned: my mouth recognized immediately that I was in the presence of something without fault. Each bite was a revelation of perfect balance, and a wave of misery washed over me. This dish was without flaw, the real deal, simple but right, and my relationship--tortured, made-over, largely a thing of conversation and long-distance longing, was a sham. It was shite: it was false. This dish was what it should be, and that relationship could never hope to be anything but tawdry and shopworn at best. I knew then that it was over, and the misery was compounded by the thought that I had lost my friend in the process: a foodie like me, I knew I couldn't share the green beans, that moment of stillness and perfection, with him. He wouldn't want to hear it, all he wanted to hear was my declaration that he was nothing to me when indeed he was far too much...I have not eaten green beans since: even to look at them brings that wave of misery and sadness.

The third experience was auditory, and not as strong as the first two. In fact, I hesitate to put it into this category, except that it was a moment of delight if not perhaps perfection. Several weeks ago I went to a concert at the Forbidden City Concert Hall for a concert by the International Chorus Festival (or is it the International Festival Choir? I forget.) All I can say is this: I expected something very good, but I was blown away by the sweetness and perfection of the first piece. I was sitting next to a drunk who had been spitting over the edge of the balcony and shouting rude things about the conductor's sexuality, and even that asshole shut up. The first piece passed in what seemed like seconds. I detected no flaws (and wouldn't be able to anyway, except for the most obvious). But it's the first 30 or so bars that I remember clearly--so balanced, so in tune, so sweet. It was a lovely moment. 

Ironically, I bumped into the conductor last week at Jenny Lou's. I was wearing scruffy clothes and had wet hair and no make-up: he was shopping with his buttoned-down "don't approach me" look. (Ah, that look, appropriated by many a celebrity: for all his faults, The Rose does not have it.) I was tempted to walk up and say, "Nick, that concert was tremendous," but I hesitated. For one thing, turning down an aisle, I literally bumped into the man, and the look of shock and horror on his face was enough to keep me silent. We are acquainted, I sang under him for two years some time ago, and we were neighbors in the same compound--having spoken to one another using first names for quite some time, you'd think I felt comfortable giving this man honest praise. I was: but I was also aware that he did not want to hear anything from me (lipstick or no.) How sad is it when an artist doesn't want praise from anyone they consider unworthy. Worse, the more I attempted to avoid him in the shop, the more often I ran into him. I finally headed for the check out line and guess who was in front of me...I put my stuff on the check stand, stone-faced, and looked away.

So there they are: perfect visual, perfect taste (and smell, really, which is the largest part of taste) and perfect sound experience. If I'm lucky enough I suppose the next will be a perfect sense of touch:  silk? Cashmere? The touch of my godson's apple-like cheek? Have I ever created anything that was perfect, or gave anyone the sensation of perfection? Has anyone ever breathed in me and found something that resonated in their own soul? Has anyone else felt this--they must have, we must all have that experience, that Zen of recognizing rightness and feeling it call to your spirit.

Rock of Love

China is a place full of contradictions: for example, Facebook is blocked, but you can watch free porn on R#$ Tube (name slightly scrambled so no one googling it will be directed here.) In fact, if you are, like me, a parent concerned with exactly what sort of crap your child can expose herself to through the internet, you may well be horrified to learn that you can access ALL of R#$ Tube through the local internet even though your computer is turned on to "safe search." Even in China.

Not being that familiar with porn in this progressive age, I decided to look at the content of "amateur" porn, figuring it would be badly-shot home camera images of faintly unattractive people humping on sad-looking bedspreads. Oh, sadly, that was right to a tiny percentage, but what I found was far, far worse.

First of all, the sort of porn on R^& Tube is often violent and very abusive. The majority of the titles of the flicks were of the "Stupid Whore Gets Damaged Severely in Highly Sensitive Area" genre, eg, Bitch Gets Wrecked in Three Holes. That's a mild example: most followed the pattern of  (Bad name for Women or for Women's Genitalia) Gets (Receives the Abusive Action of Some Thing or Some Other Person) in  (Name of Body Part). Categories include Asian, Big Titted, Lesbian, Gay, MILF, Granny, Japanese (isn't that a subgenre of Asian?) Hentai (ugh, Japanese animated) and Barely 18 and Wrecked. I kid you not. Note: in not one of the categories save Gay were the MEN referred to--and even then it had the honorific of "Gay" as opposed to, say, "Fudge Packing Faggots."

Second, production values varied. Some of the German porn, for example, was indeed the grainy hand-held camera with bad lighting and might I add extremely unattractive lumpy-looking people, usually two chubby men and a woman who looked less than happy to be there. Some of the videos on offer featured very lovely people, beautifully made up and with exquisite lighting and camera work. Most were fairly standard, an ok set, ok lighting.  As for the people--the American porn tended to use male actors who were clearly recruits off a freshly docked Naval ship ready to earn some cash while on shore leave (and definitely not of the officer class.) Most had tattoos, were pierced, and had enormous members made preternaturally stiff with the use of pharmaceutical  enhancements--trust me, no lover that bad lasts that long (although it may seem like it at the time.) As for the women---the lower the quality of the video overall, the less attractive the woman. As the Rose put it, "The longer the nails, the bigger the skank." Fake nails of the talon variety seemed to be the lower-middle class version of "classy" and I watched in horror as skanks sank their  Lee Press-On Nails into one another's most tender bits. Ouch. Plus--and this is the former nurse in me--the HYGIENE, people! Many of the women were in real pain, which is no turn on. In fact, most of the "grunts of pleasure" I recognized as signs of extreme discomfort and real anguish, particularly in the younger women. The louder they yelled, the more bruises on their bodies, an indication perhaps of what was really going on behind the scenes. I will comment on couple of girl-on-girl sequences which featured tasteful French manicures and overall excellent hygiene, but they were few and far between.

I won't comment on the "sex slave" stuff--I was horrified beyond belief to see one of the sweetest-looking young girls I have ever seen dressed in chain performing miserably on her "boyfriend" in what was clearly their house, one that was painfully clean and tidy, furnished with the most basic of cheap goods. What was she running from, I thought, that made THIS a viable alternative? Many of the "slave" scenarios were carefully scripted and clearly part of a larger pay-per-view but a few seemed to be homemade by stupid jerks who had no idea of normalcy.

As for the plots---people, I have said it time and time again. For women, Sperm is The Enemy. Bukkake is a male fantasy. Shooting your wad on your partner is yucky and not sexy. Women do NOT like to use it as face cream. I have never sat by a pool playing with three dildos and wishing I had a REAL man. I have never had a friend over and confessed that I've never had a Lesbian Love Fest and could she help me out. As for the anal stuff--I can't believe how standard this seems to be. In fact, the money guru I read on MSN once wrote casually about how she had a boyfriend who wanted to try it and "so she added anal to her repertoire." Oh God--talk about your dirty money. I cannot read her financial advice now without thinking, "Yeah, but you take it up the a##." This is hardly empowering all the women struggling to get ahead in business now, is it?

Maybe truth is the ultimate weapon to empower ourselves. Maybe these people who are setting up their home cameras and recording themselves are just trying to capture a moment for posterity. Well, let them. Screw it. I don't have to watch. As for the professional film makers, they're out to made a buck. So what' s the harm?

Well, as a woman, there was little there I found uplifting, gratifying, or educational. I felt dirty, disliking to see my gender as a whole reduced to--well, a hole. (Or even three.) Second, the basic biological facts were ignored--women do not continue to have orgasms once the stimulus is taken away. You stop, they stop: they don't continue  to writhe shouting "MMMMM, yeah, baby" for half a minute while being flipped into but yet another silly but camera-friendly position. Third, I have never fantasized about ANY of the content I found there. I've never, ever used a dildo, much less pulled it out and licked one. A gay friend of mine confided that what turned her off about lesbian porn the most was the emphasis placed on two women licking a dildo at the same time. "As if!" she huffed, and couldn't understand why I laughed in agreement.

The real harm in pornography, I think is two fold: first of all, a lot of teenagers or sexually inexperienced people access porn for information, and they're shown an unrealistic and graphic depiction of something far more akin to rape than lovemaking. It's not exactly conveying the mystery and beauty of intercourse as communication, as love, or even as a biological function. It's violent image of women as holes, whores, hos, and bitches is as unacceptable to me as referring to our current political leader as a --well, you know, the N word.  Second, it's far too easy to access, and yet  impossible to control. Part of the advertising on this particular site has some of the most disturbing visuals I have ever seen, pornographic images of cartoon characters (Family Guy, Shrek, the Flintstones) actively engaged in intercourse complete with monster-sized genitalia. One of the first things I learned in Psych is that a child being groomed by a pedophile is often shown this type of material in an effort to convince the child that this is normal--if Shrek does it, so can s/he. Here's my thought: by looking at the site which advertises this link, do I somehow encourage the site to keep this link up? (Under no circumstances would I ever click on it.)

However, did I learn anything? Yes; there are a few "pornographic" videos which I found interesting and educational and not offensive. They may have been explicit in content but they focused on communication, love, trust, technique. I'm not particularly offended by anyone's genitalia on the screen but I prefer not to have terms thrown around like the C-word unless I'm using it to describe my sister-in-law. A video of a man performing a Tantric Yoni Massage with Oil on his partner, while extremely explicit, does not offend me. God knows I wish some of the men I've known had bothered to model themselves on this, rather than the "Give it to me you stupid bitch" school of love. I adore my godson and I hope he never has to turn to the internet for information or stimulation but given the prevalence of the Net in our lives, if he DOES look there, I hope he finds something natural, kind, and loving: yoni massage, rather than GlassA#$ dot com.