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...