Appreciative Males Exist the World Over

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Mock Spaghetti

Being an expat parent can be trying at times. As a single working mother I never solved the dichotomy of being in two places at one time, even when I worked at my daughter's school. I also faced the challenge of keeping her Canadian-American cultural literacy intact--ie, she needed to know about poutine and candy corn and April Fool's and REAL Halloween (my favorite holiday.)

One of my traditions is to make "mock" food on April Fool's Day. Sure as shit, every year my daughter would forget that those weren't real cupcakes being served at breakfast, but rather mini-meatloaves frosted in blue mashed potatoes. Spaghetti was sponge cake (not Twinkies--you can get excellent fresh sponge cake here pretty much everywhere at any time)  with frosting piped all over it. The sauce was strained raspberry jam, thinned with a bit of brandy. To assemble:  Freeze the sponge cake, pipe the frosting all over it (I prefer home made cream cheese frosting) and freeze that solid. Strain the jam, thin with a bit of brandy, and warm gently. Let it cool, then pour over the sponge cake. Add malted milk balls as "meatballs" (I work them over with a little screen first to give the right texture) then serve to a child who is thrilled to have spaghetti and meatballs--and then starts wailing when she realizes mean ol' Mommy tricked her AGAIN.

Note: I have pulled this stunt every April Fool's Day since she was three, and she still forgets. And she still cries.  The third traditional trauma prank is a simple "fried egg" which is really a pool of whipping cream, half a tinned apricot, and "salt and pepper" made up of grated nutmeg. I traditionally serve the meatloaf cupcake at breakfast (WAAAH!) with the egg chaser (dessert) and the spaghetti is served as dessert after whatever reconciliatory meal I have been forced to whip out of my ass to keep her from going ballistic again.

Semi- Homemade my ass! That's real cream cheese frosting!

Why, do you ask, why do you TORTURE your POOR DAUGHTER like this? Simple. Because every 2nd of April, she stops crying about it and says, "That was pretty funny, huh, Mommy? Will you do it again next  year, PLEASE?" And lucky little Mommy takes taxis all over town the last week of March to find Whoppers and cream cheese and all, spends hours in the kitchen mixing it up in secret, only to be greeted with fresh wails and "OH, not AGAIN! WAAAAHHHHHH!"

Getting Around in Beijing

Rad, bad, and dangerous to know

As I have mentioned before, I am NOT here on some swanky ex-pat package and in my 18 plus years I never have been. I don't get a car and driver, and I can't afford a car. In fact, my respect for Beijing traffic being as high as it is, I didn't even have a bicycle the first fifteen years. Then I moved onto a university campus, stuck straight in the middle between the major gates, and I found I had to have a bike. First of all, taxis were not, at that time, allowed to enter, so I had to be dropped off with all my shopping and hike into the campus, gallon jugs of milk cutting off all circulation. Second, visitors who are too much of a pussy to bother to learn a few words of Chinese had to be picked up at the gates and escorted in least they get lost. No laughing, here--I have field phone calls from frantic would-be visitors who sobbed, "Tell the cab driver where I am! Tell the cab driver where I am!" to which the reply, "Uh, well, where ARE you?" seemed incendiary to say the least. Third, I developed plantar fasciitis AND a bone spur in my heel at the same time and gained about 40 pounds in a month from the combination of lack of activity and heavy-duty steroids shot one agonizing cubic centimeter at a time into the ball of my foot. A bike meant freedom and some mild cardio and it felt wonderful to feel the moist air ruffle through my badly cut fringe.

However, not all visitors have a bike of their own, and Lulu found herself, more than once, either in the driver's seat of her tiny bike, or perched daintily on the back. This is a photo of our friend The Rose with Lulu in the back. They are pretending to flash gang signals which are, perhaps, really gang signals in the Emerald Isle for "Where's me fewkin' pint, laddie?"

Hint: if you DO have one of those great ex-pat packages that come with car and driver, remember that your driver is NOT a baby-sitter and he gets time off. And for God's sake, when he attends his weekly English lesson, let him finish the damn lesson before you call  and ask him to buzz you over to the other side of the compound where you live. It's always the ones who interrupt their driver's lessons who complain about how bad his English is...

Duck! (And Proud of It!)

The title of this piece, Duck! And Proud of It! comes from the ill-fated Howard the Duck  movie which, quite frankly, I thought was funny at the time and would like see again sober and with the vantage of my 20+ years.

This is a shot which I am putting up to deliberately humiliate the asshole who, on my last trip to the US, claimed he had made Peking Duck for dinner for himself, the wife,  and the two kids. "Oh, it was hard," he said, "I spent hours in the kitchen, and used a ton of ingredients. But it was delicious."

I'm terribly fond of Peking Duck and eat it as often as my missing gall bladder allows. However, it is a tricky dish to "fill up on" and I can't imagine any child willing to sit and roll slivers of duck meat and duck skin into crepes when they could just as easily have French Fries. It is the grace note to a meal, not a hot dish like Tamale Pie which can BE the entire meal. "Really," I said, warming up to the task of goading a jerk, while my mother shot me warning glances that resembled not so much disapproval as trans-ischemic attacks, "You didn't have a problem with the plum sauce?"

Final step in three-day process

"Nope," he said confidently. "It was tricky, but I did it."

"What about the part with the pancakes?" I asked innocently. 

"Waffles," he replied hesitantly. "Like chicken and waffles."

"Wow! How did you get it to roast over a fruitwood fire? I don't recall that you have a fireplace,"  I asked.

He replied, "Any more coffee in the pot?" and headed off to the kitchen.

No Pooh

Some people just can't read (or wait.)

A lot of people ask about the toilets here. I must say, due to the careful planning of the Olympic Committee, the number and cleanliness of the public toilets in major cities shot up about 1000 percent, and it is  possible to find a clean place to pee just about anywhere. In fact, many places have state-of-the-art Totos which shoot clean water at your bits followed with a gentle blow-dry and final misting of deodorizing droplets, thus rendering the need for toilet paper obsolete. However, in older buildings, such as long-established restaurants, the standard squatter with limited ability to handle solid waste is not unknown, even today. One of the biggest shocks of my life was going to a fairly well-known and hip joint and seeing a sign in the ladies' which said, "No Shitting." I thought they were kidding. They weren't. A sieve was thoughtfully set into the toilet just in case.

There are many parts of the world--hell, even parts of California--where the plumbing can't handle toilet paper. But solid waste? And by that, I mean poo. I guess you just have to hold it. But considering the large number of tourists who, at any time, might explode into spasms of gastric distress, you'd think  the touristy restaurants would make more of an effort to handle the effluvia.

The above picture was taken one delightful summer evening last year at what is arguably Beijing's most famous Duck Restaurant.  No shit. 

I don't look like my father's side of the family...

Why I don't go home that often.

Back But Not Bitter

Well, first of all, I have to say that I have returned to my tiny apartment in one piece, although my love affair with United Airlines is definitely over. Yes, I know it was a flight to China filled with Chinese people but really---do you HAVE to lock up the toiletries before the flight even begins? And the food--disgraceful. One flight attendant, seeing my moue of distaste as I rolled back the aluminum foil, said, "I know what you mean, honey, we have to eat that too." Shite, badly seasoned, in small portions. This does not make me happy.

What did make me happy: The Dick's wild joy at seeing me. (Again, folks, that's the dog, not the boyfriend.) What did NOT make me happy: my landlady putting nails in the wall and "hanging" my artwork for me. But what the hell, she did fix the leaking air conditioners, so I should just be grateful. Another unhappy: my cell phone charger died, and since I couldn't find a replacement, I had to buy a new cell phone. And the little f@*ker at Carrefour sold me a phone WHICH TEXTS IN CHINESE ONLY. So today's triumphs will include marching down to Carrefour and making him eat it, while also picking up a lot of wire shelving. Did I mention that my new pad has no furniture and no storage--not even a closet? I am consolidating two big apartments' worth of crap into one much smaller place. I never realized before the importance of a linen cupboard to my sanity. Since I have seen--or spoken--to no one since I returned, the only thing keeping me half human is the DVD my sister thrust into my hands at the last moment. Yes, folks, I have watched half the first season of Here Come the Brides with deep enjoyment. I watched this show as a child with Sissy and she, in her eleven-year-old wisdom, would throw hissy fits about the women's hairstyles. "They didn't wear their hair like that!" she'd scream. Oddly, she never mentioned their heavy black eyeliner--it was the backcombing and bangs (particularly on Bobby Sherman) that made her insane.

Sissy has always been like that, a bit of a critic with an eye for anachronisms. Her comments on The Student Prince once made my father leave the room screaming in outrage, which I remember clearly as his screams of outrage usually made us scatter like leaves before an evil wind. But in this one case, he did the fleeing. It's just something that's in her, a deep-seated need to make sure everything is properly labeled. Upon seeing the first episode of the second season of The Partridge Family, she commented judiciously (again, age about 11) "Well, THIS particular episode was funny, but overall, the script still lacks depth." If you wonder where I get it from, well, I've just revealed the source.