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...