The Woman from Mundania

It's pineapple alley in my neighborhood again. And all those pineapples got me thinking about upside-down cake, of course. So, I made one. And while I like a nice piece of cake on occasion, I rarely ever eat an entire cake. My cake is my department's gain. It was delicious, of course, and was quickly devoured by the staff.

Fast forward to last night. I went out to dinner with one of the other teachers at my school. She isn't directly part of my program, so I don't know her very well, but she laughs at my jokes, so I figure she's worth getting to know.

Earlier in the day, she had a piece of cake, and she asked me if I learned how to cook as a child. I explained how both of my parents were good cooks and we never had mac 'n cheese from a box or spaghetti sauce from a jar. "In fact," I said. "I used to bake bread with my dad when I was 6."

You could hear the words hovering in the air for a moment.

"You mean with a bread machine?"

"No, like by hand and stuff."

Pause.

"Wow, I think I've just described a Norman Rockwell paining."

You know, I've never thought of my childhood as particularly idyllic. I mean it was a childhood, not the cover of Life magazine. It was rather mundane, but there it was. Hanging in the air.

After a good laugh, she asked if all my family members are good cooks. "Sure," I explained. "Although we all have our specialties. My brother, for example, is good at making candy. Back when we were kids and we had a snow day, my brother and I used to make candy together..."

Again, the words hovered for a moment. She looked at me. And laughed. "You made candy with your brother? Where did you grow up, anyway?"

"Maine. We lived in the middle of nowhere, so there was nowhere to go when we were stuck home in the snow. So we'd make fudge or penuchi or candy apples. My mom would get the strangest phone calls from us, asking what the 'hard crack stage' was. It was all perfectly normal."

The look on her face might have been a hint that it wasn't as normal and mundane as I thought.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beijing, China

An Open Letter to My Sisters --

And Anyone Else With Children

Over New Year's, I traveled with my good friend E, also known as TC3, to visit her brother in Tokyo. Yes, both TC3 and her brother are expatriates. At one point, the conversation turned to what it is that brought each of them to their respective countries. Brother told this story:

When he and E were children, their parents hosted an exchange student. The student was from Germany, and it brought all of the outside world to their rather provincial Saskatchewan town. Here was a person who spoke differently, ate differently, dressed differently, and wore funky socks (why is it that Europeans wear crazy socks?). And he was an active guy, so this six-year-old boy suddenly had a big brother to play soccer and hockey and any other game with. Brother was, to be honest, in love. In the way only a six-year-old who idolizes a teenager can be, of course. The love and wonder of the experience was still evident in his voice 30 years later.

His parents sponsored a number of exchange students over the years, and they were all wonderful experiences, fraught with the occasional argument or tension though they were. Each exchange student brought his or her own unique perspective to their small(ish)-town.

And as they grew up, both he and E became exchange students themselves. It was his experiences as a high-schooler in Japan that brought him back to the country to study and then live and work as an adult.

I'm not sure, really, what brought me only own expatriate adventure. I always find it difficult to put into words. We had an exchange student, once, for a few months. It was a good experience, but aside from the odd reference to rubbers, she was an Australian, so it wasn't such an eye-opening experience. She was a lot like just one more big sister.

But I do know this: my world is definitely bigger for living in a different culture. I admit I'm pretty hard-core. Not everyone, especially not everyone with kids, is prepared to pick up and face the challenges and the unknowns of life in a foreign land. But exchange students are out there, and you can bring the world to you.

More importantly, you can bring the world to your children.

P.S. This post was not sponsored by my friends who work for exchange student companies.

Incidents and Accidents

After three weeks and a few days of blissful non-work, I thought it might be nice to reflect on one more trip to foreign lands.

As with any trip of mine, planned largely at the last minute and great expense (or at least a higher expense), things didn't always go as planned. I have some regrets; there are some things I wanted to do that I didn't.

Top of the list is my aborted visit to Laos. Based on things said to me by fellow travelers last year and strong suggestions from a Beijing friend, coupled with the rumors of the best silk in SE Asia, and I was in. Or so I thought. TC3 and I were splitting up after about two weeks so she could go meet with her family, and we hadn't worked out all the details in advance. So by the time I had dates set, there were no more flights to Laos at an appropriate time.

Then there all the little things. If we had taken a bus instead of the train to Da Nang. Maybe I shouldn't have had those dresses made on such short notice. Maybe I should have had the work dress made instead. Did I really need that necklace? I didn't play tourist enough. What the hell did I eat to make myself sick, again? I should have gone out more in Thailand. I should have been more careful on the trail. I wish I'd gone climbing. I should have done more work. I wasted too much time doing nothing.

It's enough that a girl could almost get lost in the self-pity.

But then I consider the things that I did do over my holiday.

I did a lot of nothing. For three and a half (ish) glorious weeks, I didn't have to do anything. It was very relaxing. But the nothing included some rather wonderful things.

I bought many meters of fabric. Most of you know about my fabric fetish by now. While driving across central Vietnam, the rice paddies inspired a quilt design in me, and I bought some silk to make it happen. I had purchased some fun Thai cotton prints last year, and when I went to use them over the summer, I realized I was missing a critical contrasting fabric. So this year, I took a day trip back to the same city to fill in the missing piece. There was an unmistakeable grin and feeling of joy as I walked into the shop. Here was a definite accomplishment of a goal. And a delightful goal that promised hours more of pleasure (and some consternation, sure) with a rotary cutter and a sewing machine.

I read a lot. It's not that I don't read during the school year, because I do. But I seldom get to read with such focused attention. I rarely spend so much time planning where my next book will come from. I don't always have the opportunity to really savor a book and consider it's implications for me as a human or as a writer. (What? You don't think this blog is all about keeping you informed, do you? I consider myself a writer, whatever my students think.)

I started writing my blog again. Maybe you noticed, but my posts were few and far between from November on (maybe even during the whole year). It's not that I didn't have things to write about, I just didn't have the patience, time, or energy to put my thoughts into words. (Note, I'm typing this on the iPad, so typos are common and I just wrote "swords" instead of "words". Telling, no?) But I suddenly found myself with the time and inclination to let you back in on my thoughts.

Back when I was living in North Carolina, I took a trip south. I spent a couple of nights in Savannah, and to save money, I stayed at the hostel. I remember talking with the other travelers there, and there were rumors flying about regarding one woman. She kept to herself and she spent a lot of time on her computer. "She's a writer for Lonely Planet" one German girl said, "She doesn't really talk to anyone else." There was such an aura of mystique around here. The rest of us couldn't help but be a bit in awe of her. I admit that I tried to cultivate the same aura of self-imposed, studious aloofness, albeit without the cool rumors of my job.

One evening, while sitting on my bungalow's balcony with a pint and a Stephen King book, something clicked in my head. I'm not even sure exactly what combination of elements (the lowering of my affective filter, the various short stories I'd been reading, the author's note at the end of the book, time) combined in my head, but I suddenly solved the problem of my own short story. I've been working on this things for a good ten years, if not more. The problem has always been two-fold: how to begin and and how to frame it. The opening, of course, leads into the framing. You can't have one without the other.

That right there was worth the price of admission.

And, of course, I got a tan, which is no small feat in itself. I'm not a natural tanner; I'm a burner. So to spend that much time (including six days in the ultra-strong Thai sunshine) on beaches and escape with only minor, patchy burns and a good even tan on my face and shoulders is nothing short of miraculous. That, or a testament to my slavish devotion to coating every square inch of my body with 50 SPF sunblock. It took me a good half an hour every morning to fully coat myself. And the 50 has so much zinc in it, that it doesn't easily soak into skin: it sits on the surface with a brilliant white residue... Which I'm always afraid will them sweat off or wash off into the pool. But, it must have worked at least a little bit.

I'm back at work now. And I can no longer laze away my mornings, afternoons, and evenings. I'll have to get back in the habit of actually accomplishing daily tasks. At least now I'm rested and ready for the challenge.

Or so I'm telling myself.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beijing, China

I've Never Seen One of Those There Before

Many years ago, I was a waitress in a wonderful establishment, Elmo's Diner. It's a small, locally-owned chain (of two) diners that specialize in all-day breakfast and square meals with an emphasis on a regular clientele. As a server, I was encouraged to make a personal connection with my tables (within reason); the personal touch is part of what makes Elmo's great. I contend it's where I really learned how to flirt. Not nasty, dirty flirting, but building a positive connection with a stranger based on light jokes and a charming smile. (You have to tell me if I was a good student.)

It's been years (7? 8?) since I've worked there, but it's still the first restaurant I visit whenever I'm in Durham (when I was there two summer ago, I ate at Elmo's at least once every day). And there are still some customers that I remember: Pet Fashion Woman and Her Husband, the Man Who Ordered the Big Salad, the Mother Who Said Her Asshole Son Liked Me (In a He Listened to What I Said and Didn't Get Angry at the Help kind of way). And then there was the man with the injured knee.

I've been thinking of him a lot recently, since I injured my own knee in Thailand.

Let me tell you something: I'm a peeler. I could blame my mother for letting us kids peel her burnt back all those years ago, but I think she was just working with what already existed. I was one one those kids who let Elmer's glue dry on her finger so she could peel it off. I spent many a rainy Saturday afternoon that way. I still try to peel my own burns, but I use a lot more sunblock than my mom did back on the early 80s, so my peels never quite reach the same legendary levels that hers did. (To be clear: I draw the line at popping. I'm not one of those people who love popping other people's zits. I might take secret pleasure in a particularly well-popped zit of my own, but not someone else's. Eugh.)

So, I've been a bit infatuated with the growing scab on my knee. I know I can't pick at it, because that would lead to ugly scarring (and I'm also a particularly nasty scarrer), but that doesn't stop me from watching it.

At first, I was obsessed with signs of infection. I did get this injury in a non-Western nation, of course. When I kept the wound covered, the oozing, weepy bit was all nasty-looking. It looked like, well, pus. I knew better, but until I took off the bandage and let it dry out into a scab, it was going to look really bad.

Which brings me back to my story. It was a particularly busy Wednesday night at Elmo's. It's not usually busy on Wednesdays, but my section had been slammed, non-stop. I walked up to one large party of 20-something's. "Ask her," I overheard.

"No way!"

"Ask me what?"

"Well, my friend here injured his knee, and he was writing an email to a friend of his about it. There's a lot of pus on his knee. When he wrote her about it, her response was, 'I've never seen one of those there before.'"

I have to interject, because this is really an aural joke. When you try to make a word an adjective, you often add a "y" or "ie" at the end. Of course, if it's a short vowel sound, you double the consonant before adding the -y or -ie, So a knee covered with pus becomes... A pussy knee.

I originally said that you need a dash to make the word work: a pus-ie knee or even a pus-y knee. I've since decided that it just can't be written. Your knee is either "covered in pus", or it's not.

Now that I've taken off the plaster, my knee no longer looks like there is anything related to pus near it. It has developed a highly pickable scab, however. Here's hoping my Thai tan (read: moderate and controlled burn) starts peeling enough to distract me from picking at it.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beijing, China

Some Days, We Don't Let the Line Move at All

-or-
How I Almost Missed My Flight

Clever girl that I am, I got an early-morning flight to Krabi from Bangkok, effectively giving myself an extra day at the beach. It also meant getting up at the ass-crack of dawn to get to the airport. So maybe I cut it a little close, but it was a domestic flight meaning there was no immigration to deal with.

I easily flagged down a cab at 5am. That would get me to the airport at 5:30 for my 6:35 flight. Perfecto.

Well, Mr. Cab Driver was nice enough. He was so nice, he drove to some place with a guy he knew spoke English just to make sure that "airport" meant Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Of course, I had to look it up, because at 5 am, I can tell you "BKK", but not "Suvarnabhumi". They also pronounce it "Savannah-boom", like we were discussing some American Civil War battle in pidgin.

Mr. Cab Driver also drove with the gas light on the entire way. I've already mentioned what a nervous traveler I am, and going the whole trip with the threat of running out of fuel didn't help. And then there was his speed. I've been in some break-neck taxis before (once rushing to catch a train), but this guy was off the hook, going 100kph (or more) down the freeway. I have no idea if he thought he could drop me off before he ran out of gas if he went faster although all he was doing was using up his fuel at a much quicker rate. It didn't help my nerves. Or maybe the model race car and helicopter on his dashboard were the tell-tale hints to his speed racer pesona.

But, I got there in one piece, and still had a fat hour to check in. I checked for the ticket counters for my flight, and then stood in line.

When I say "stood", that is exactly what I mean. There was no forward progress in this line whatsoever. The lines were all jammed up against each other, so I might have cut in front of some lady, but she kept on line-jumping with her friends, giving me no reasonable way of knowing which line she thought she was in.

The clock kept up its inexorable ticking towards my departure time. And the line did not move at all. The people around me were all leaving at about the same time, and they started making noise. Finally, I asked an airline employee about the situation and was told to go stand in another line on the other side.

It was shorter, but that line, too, wasn't moving at all. After commiserating with the people around me, who were all getting nervous, I saw that one lady was holding a sign with my flight on it. "Hey! That's me!"

"OK, stay right here."

"But shouldn't I be checking in right now? You have the sign for my flight..."

"Yes. Stay here."

So I stayed there, in a line that continued to not move, until she came back from trolling the lobby with the sign. I jumped at her again because that was my flight. Suddenly, the women all jumped into action. They weighed my bag, printed a boarding pass, and scurried me off to security.

Why I had to stand in line for 40 minutes when they could have been doing that exact thing with everyone else in the line ahead of me is beyond my comprehension. I knew that in 5 minutes, they'd come around with the sign for the next flight, and another 10 people who had been standing around me waiting for someone, anyone to do anything remotely related to checking them in would also be whisked through the check-in process. But without that pressure? Nothing.

Fortunately, security was a breeze. Since everyone was standing in the check-in line, there was no one in my way at security. I raced through the airport looking for my gate, passing little old ladies and lazy teenagers alike. In Bangkok, no one even pretends to stand on one side of the walkway and walk on the other. I had to vocally get the people to move.

It's a good thing I did, too. I made it to my gate and was pointed to a bus. I got on the bus with the other passengers. In thirty seconds, I'm guessing when they confirmed I was the last passenger they had checked baggage for, they closed the door and drove us to the plane.

It's not quite as dramatic as having them close the airplane door behind you, but in the land of stair-cars, that doesn't usually happen. I certainly haven't been that late for a flight since it took my mom and me three and a half hours to drive an hour and fifty minutes in a snow storm and the gate agent suggested that I not go to the bathroom because they just might shut the door on me. Needless to say, I didn't stop to use rest room this time, either. I didn't even ask.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok, Thailand

Restless

Having learned my lesson after my last Air Asia flight, I got to the airport with two hours to spare. Also, due to dumb luck, I got a free ride. The man at the hotel desk in the morning said there would be plenty of taxis at the dock where the free long-tail boat lands. When I got there, a nice Portuguese couple had booked a van through the hotel. The driver didn't quite understand that we weren't all in it together, so I hitched a ride for free. Score!

Of course, things at the airport are as vague and confusing as ever. The check-in line actually moved though, and I found a decent cup of coffee. Security was a breeze (it's not a very big airport). So, I sat in the gate waiting room and, well, waited.

Around 7:10, I started perking up for my flight announcement. We were scheduled to board at 7:15. But it's a small airport, and there were no staff members to check with.

I took a turn around the room, and I noticed a few things: 1) the computer was showing that the flight was boarding, 2) there was only one waiting area for the three gates and we were there, 3) there were definitely no staff members present and 4) there was no airplane.

None of this is particularly good, but it's also not the end of the world. At least I could be fairly certain that I wasn't going to miss the flight because I was in the wrong place; there was only the one place to be. Still, I have a flight to catch at the other end, and while I know that I'm landing three-plus hours prior to departure and they won't even open up the check-in counter until two hours prior, giving me a good hour and change to cool my heels in the most boring part of the Suvarnabhumi Airport (I know because I showed up early last year for the same flight from the same carrier and that's what happened), I still just want to get there.

Now, I knew I wasn't the only Nervous Nelly in the crowd which was strangely comforting. If I was missing my flight, so was everyone else, and the chances of that happening are fairly slim. I could recognize the signs: people were looking up, they were "casually" strolling the perimeter of the room, they were looking at the monitor with some alarm. But I knew they'd come to the same conclusion I had: no one was going anywhere without an airplane. That, and this woefully backwater "international" airport had its computer on auto-pilot, showing a departure for a flight that was clearly delayed.

With 10 minutes to go before our scheduled departure, a woman in a red Air Asia shirt came walking towards the counter. Half of the passengers waiting in the terminal jumped up and formed a queue. I stayed sitting because I knew the secret: we still didn't have an airplane.

Sure enough, she made an announcement that our flight was delayed due to the late arrival of the aircraft. Big surprise there.

Ooh, I can hear airplane noise. So did everyone else. It looks like our airplane has arrived. They'll need a few minutes to deplane and give it a cursory clean, but I can't imagine this is anything than our plane.

I was right; our plane it was. They threw us on that thing lickity-split and had us off the ground in no time. Of course, I was sitting next to a giant. This dude was tubby, yeah, but he was also tall and broad-shouldered. Big. Poor man was obviously uncomfortable, uncomfortable enough to lessen my own sense of consternation for being stuck next to the guy. He was a jolly giant, too. He talked to me in a little broken English as we were landing and he noticed I was looking out the window.

And, I made my next flight with plenty of time to spare. No need to get nervous at all, as usual.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Krabi International Airport, Krabi, Thailand

Oh, China

Yesterday, when I got home from my trip, I found out I had run out of toilet water. No, not perfume, but the stuff in the toilet that you use to flush your, uh, waste.

Let me back up for a moment: there are three kinds of water in my apartment. 1) There is the cold water. This water comes out of my faucets and it is the one utility bill I get each month. 2) There is the hot water. I don't have a water heater in my apartment (some owners have installed them, but my landlord hasn't), so I buy my hot water from the building management company. I buy the water in advance and then insert a credit-card thingy into a meter under the sink to release the water. 3) The reclaimed water that flushes the toilet. Like the hot water, this is pre-purchased and the card is inserted into a meter in the bathroom wall.

So, it seems that I have run out of water. The stuff is cheap, dirt cheap. But when it goes, the only way you can flush the toilet is to fill up a bucket with cold water and dump it in the tank.

This afternoon, I took my card and 20 kuai and went to top up my card. Except, the woman wasn't able to put any money on the card. What the? She passed me a note in English, which was a completely meaningless jumble of words. After much confusion, I called my Handler and gave the phone to the water lady. She was at first nervous (how would she speak?), but she quickly realized I was handing her off to a Chinese speaker.

It turns out that you can't put more water on the card if there is too much water on the meter (more than two tons) or no water on the meter. Yup. If the meter is at zero, you can't buy more water until the maintenance man goes up to the meter and does something magical with the magical maintenance card. THEN you can put more water on the card. The meter is supposed to beep when you get down to two tons, and I don't recall a beeping, but who knows? Enough strange things happen around here that I wouldn't know what was up. And if the toilet was still flushing and the beeping stopped, I'd chalk it up to one more thing I didn't understand.

So, she called the maintenance man to my apartment and I walked back home. Along the way, I passed by an old woman enjoying the sunshine and flapping her arms like a bird. Seriously.

Once the maintenance man showed up, he rather quickly discovered the problem. It wasn't that there was no water on the meter, it was that the connector from the wall to the toilet had broken. Like, snapped in half, broken. Yeah, that would do it. (It seems I'm still above two tons, hence not remembering a beeping from my meter, because there'd been none.)

I did notice some odd things when I got home yesterday: the books on top of my washer were water-logged; the hose for the washing machine was pulled out of the drain; the spare garbage bags in the trash can were soaking wet. I thought maybe Cleaning Lady had accidentally knocked something over when she had been in to clean, but I think not. The water had been spraying around the bathroom, soaking the aforementioned items. She turned off the valve and pulled out the tube to allow the water to drain quicker. I guess. It would have been nice if she'd mentioned the broken pipe to my Handler so he could have told me and we could have dealt with it sooner when I got back, but...

My Handler and I went down to the Alley and bought replacement parts (the nice maintenance man unscrewed everything for me and was very clear about what I needed to purchase and to call him back when it was taken care of). I'm now waiting for maintenance man to come back and replace the parts (we're in between the shift change, so it'll be a new maintenance man unfortunately -- I like the day-time one, he's nice).

I expect to have nothing to report when he leaves except that my toilet is once again flushing normally. But still, that old woman was walking around the fountain, flapping her arms like a bird.