If Wishes Were Horses, I'd Get to Ride

I grew up lower middle class, and this meant we despised the people immediately above us as well as those below us, namely people with horses.   Horses were, I was told, nervous animals and people who loved them were crazy. In fact, all animal lovers were nuts, and people with exotic pets were not only crazy but probably neglectful of their children as well. I can attest to some extent on the last one--I have yet to meet someone with a pet monkey who was a good parent or even a decent pet owner, and I recently dated someone with a snake. (Not a code word here, he really had a snake. And I wouldn't have gone out with him but I had recently met a kind of interesting co-worker who had a tattoo and snakes but was versed in Anglo Saxon poetry, so I thought, what the hell, give the guy with a snake a shot.) For those of you who care, it was a python and he raised it from a tiny snake from an exotic pet market he found here in Beijing. He made the mistake of bringing it to my house and threatening to feed the guinea pigs to it. I am not that fond of my guinea pigs but I am their owner and treat them very well and was not going to see them being terrified and teased and turned into dinner, even if it would relieve me of spending over a hundred bucks a month on guinea pig feed. So out he went. Both guinea pigs are now about half the size of a football and getting bigger by the second, so perhaps it was my loss after all--but I couldn't bear the thought of Squeaky and Snowy feeling panic or distress or pain. BTW, the dogs were out getting groomed so they missed the excitement, although they freaked out when they got home and smelled his patchouli that lingered in the air like the image of a  bloated corpse burned into your retinas. (It's still there.)

As to horses, well--in truth, I loved horses and when I had enough money together would try to organize a trip with other friends to rent a horse for an hour. I didn't have enough money for a lesson, mind you, so most of my time on horseback was spent trying to giddy-up, but I felt the most tremendous guilt for liking horses, a liking that began well before I read National Velvet or Misty of Chincoteague.  I still like them, I still wish I could ride properly, and I still hope that some day I will learn how. I boosted myself into middle class with the dint of my college education, and I lifted myself out of middle class morality by dint of having absolutely no money, no social security, and no social status in the form of a husband or even at this point family. I get to like what I like, and if that means taking in rescue dogs and a rescue guinea pig (and getting that one a guinea pig of its own so it wouldn't be alone) then so be it.  I'm not neglecting my child--hell, she's in a good university and doing well--and my dogs don't have more clothes than I do, although I do kind of envy one of her this little pink coat that has the sweetest pink bones embroidered on the collar. Here's the benefit of being the crazy single lady on the block: I can do whatever the hell I want, and like whatever I want, and there's no one here to look down their nose for my doing it. Yay me.

My Life As a Singer

I've been blessed with the ability to perform and to carry a tune, which means at some point I've been on stage singing, either with a band or as part of that divine thing, musical theatre. Musical theatre is a lot of fun to do, but excruciatingly awful for most to watch. I'd rather NOT see Starlight Express, thank you, nor do I ever want to hear One Rock And Roll Too Many ever sung again, particularly by that chick from a past season on American Idol who also did that creepy baby wail.

At one point in my life I sang professionally, not as a diva on some operatic stage, but as a regular feature on a sleazy nightclub circuit in Tokyo. I started out as a bar girl, meaning I sat at tables, wiped the fingerprints off the clients' glasses, and stirred their heavily watered down whiskey and water for them. Since it had a KTV component--hey, it WAS Japan in the 80's--I was also paid to get up and sing for the customers, their choice. This evolved eventually into a regular gig with a regular set list and my very own eight-track cassette tape which traveled with me from club to club. It didn't occur to me until years later that I looked a lot like a prostitute, as I jumped from one waiting car to another, with different clubs sending different drivers out to pick me up and get to me the next gig. I have sung "My Way" more than any other white girl living, but I have never sung it cold sober and I hope I never have to. (Must write sometime about the Soapland gig which gave me such a severe case of self-worthlessness that I didn't sing again for twenty years.)


My newfound life, post-Baby Girl leaving for college, has sent me the opportunity to get back up on stage again. So, I've formed a few groups to do a few numbers, and we've had the usual discussions on what to call ourselves. I'm usually good at names and I proposed the ones we're using straight off the bat. No, I'm not telling you what they are. But I then came up with some of my favorites, which I will share with you:

An all-girl, over fifty years of age band called Iron Maidenhead. We never smile, and we play hard rock.

Another all-girl rock band, Nine Inch Nail Salon. We play a fusion of New Romantics and Death Metal.

And, the last one in honor of my friend's truly horrifying wife, Skank. Perhaps Skank can open for Iron Maidenhead sometime. (About the truly horrifying wife: I stopped by their house one day to drop off a yogurt maker and she answered the door in a bondage outfit and said, "You here for threesome?" and I said no, just dropping off the yogurt maker for your husband and she replied, "He not here. You have five hundred kuai, I let you watch." So yeah, Skank. Could be so much worse.)

Another note: in a country where no one can use English correctly to identify even and odd numbers (even big-ass theatres refer to seats as "single and doubles" when they mean odd and even numbers--and your tickets have all the evens clustered together in rows on the right, and odds in rows on the left--everyone seems to know how to use the term "threesome." Why, God, why? 

Perfect Hostess Brownies

I believe Perfect Hostess is the name of a song by the Korgis, and it's one of my aims in life. I have thrown some very dismal parties, but I have a knack for throwing together good jam sessions. It's easy: get together some musicians, throw in food. Alcohol not needed.

I strive to serve something nice to each guest, whether it's their favorite diet root beer, or a choice of iced green or black tea. At a jam session at my house the other night, which followed close on the heels of an 11-hour work day, I had soup, grilled pastrami and cheese sandwiches (because I was starving) and brownies for anyone who didn't want soup and sandwiches. I also had hot green tea with honey and I periodically floated out of the session whenever my vocals weren't needed and heated up more hot water, filled tea cups, passed out napkins, and all that. You know, hostessy stuff. One musician left around nine, the other around ten.

The next day the guy who left first asked me with a smirk if my brownies had "done the trick." I was sort of puzzled--done WHAT trick? He then asked if the other guy had "thanked me for the brownies by staying over," i.e., dick for brownies. This is incredibly offensive to me---I bake to release stress, I set a nice table because I have that sort of background, and I feed people out of good manners. I had grandmothers and a mother who would have died of shame if someone left the house without having had at least a cup of tea and a nosh. Poor people always feed you anyway. I  packaged up all the brownies and sent them home with the second guy as he's super busy, not feeling well, and also, I don't like to have brownies around the house where I will eat them. I've had a bit of a relapse, not quite out of remission but not feeling well, and I've been on huge amounts of medication which makes me retain a lot of water and cough like a chain-smoking house madame. My joints hurt, my elbows are so swollen I can't wear my button down shirts,  and I can't keep to my usual exercise regime although I do move a lot. The last thing I need is to sit and eat my feelings with a pan of brownies. (Although reading through this tempts me to do exactly that.)

Anyone who thinks brownies are all I have to offer as bait doesn't know squat about me. However, the brownie recipe I've come up with is divine, and is the icing on the cake of anyone who really DOES get my overall vibe.

You can  microwave these--six minutes, full power (I have a 700 watt oven) in a square 8 by 8 cake pan does the trick nicely.

First, melt a half cup of butter and let it cool for at least five minutes.
While that's going on,
beat the crap out of three small eggs (two large ones)
Add one cup of sugar, and a big teaspoon of homemade vanilla (brandy works just fine)
Beat until quite thick and fluffy and smooth.
Dump in 3/4 cup flour, 6 tablespoons of cocoa powder, and the half cup of butter. Yes, it can be self-raising flour, but plain baking flour is best.
Stir just long enough to combine the ingredients.
Pour into a square cake pan, and bake as directed above.
You can stir in other things, such as toasted nuts, crushed peppermint sticks, etc. A light sprinkle of mini-chocolate chips does it for me.

These are simple, but simply delicious. Just like me. (Especially the simple part.)