Day 45

Commands I planned to teach my dog:

Come
Sit
Stay
Heel
Drop it
Down
Go get it


Commands my dog actually knows, and what he thinks they mean:

Go: Get out of the way, mom's annoyed.
Sit: Maybe I'll get a treat.
Stay: Not going with you outside...again!
Off: But you can sit on the bed!
Stop it: Mom's mad.
Leave it: Chew it up before she gets it.
Move: Mom's annoyed.
Heel: ???
Kennel: Hide behind the couch.
No: Uh-oh.
Max: could mean food is forthcoming, she wants me to go home, or I am in big trouble, depending on tone
Whosa Maxie poo poo nuts?: She's happy.  Thank goodness!

Day 46 part deux

So Peter's job is safe (see previous post).  Apparently a teacher just told the students that that they weren't having any more classes with Peter without knowing if that was actually true.

I saw Amy again this afternoon and we had this conversation, while reviewing adjectives:

Me: Who is terrible?

Amy: My math teacher.

Me: Who is beautiful?

Amy: Michael Jackson.

Me: Who is unhappy?

Amy: Michael Jackson.  And my mother.

Me: Who is---

Amy: She’s a big, big pig!

Me: Who?

Amy: Lady Gaga!

Don't tell Peter.  Gaga is his newly-declared favorite singer.  Sigh.

And of course you're all dying to know about the Blue Rocket Debacle.  So I finally got a chance to ride in elevators 4 and 5 today.  That was up to my apartment after work and back down to go get a soda (more on soda in a minute).  There were no Rocketships in either elevator, though elevator 5 has something inside the light fixture, maybe wadded up newspaper or something like that.  Apparently I haven't been taking advantage of all the storage capacity of my light fixtures.  I am not super sure the wads in the elevator are new.  Apparently it requires someone to put a Blue Rocketship up there to get my attention.

Elevator 4 has nothing in it, but the light fixture is cracked. The fixtures in the Rocket elevators, 1 and 2, are also cracked, but again, I can't be sure if this predates the Rocketships or not.  After I got my soda I went back up in elevator 1 to see if it still had a rocket in it.  So there are Blue Rocketships in elevators 1 and 2, and none in 4 and 5.  I haven't had a chance to check elevator 3, the haunted one.

Also a weird thing happened when I was riding elevator 5.  I live on the fourth floor, and when I got in the elevator in the lobby I happened to get in with two girls who were also going to the fourth floor.  They had already pressed 4, so of course I didn't press anything.  After a moment of silence one of the girls asked me (in Chinese), "What floor are you going to?"  Perhaps I am overthinking things, but the web of assumptions behind that little sentence baffles me.  Let's take them one by one, unlike Noah's Ark.

1) She spoke to me in Chinese.  This shouldn't be surprising, but it is.  After long and careful consideration I have started teaching my students to address obviously-not-Chinese people in Chinese first.  After all, we are in China, so it's not unrealistic to assume a visitor might know a few words of the language.  That's not what happens in reality, though.  Many are the times I've entered a place of business only to hear a buzz of people asking, "Who speaks English?" "You go talk to her in English!" "My English isn't good enough, you do it!"  without even attempting Chinese.  They won't make eye contact with me until they sort it out, either.  Everyone's so terrified of making a mistake and looking bad in front of others.  Anyway, props to elevator girl for addressing me in her mother tongue.

2) The further assumptions are more confusing.  If a person gets into an elevator and doesn't push a button, the only three rational conclusions, in order of likelihood, are A) she's going to a floor whose button has already been pushed, B) she's forgotten to press a button, or C) she's never used an elevator before and doesn't understand how it works.  It amazes me that she blew right past A to either B or, heaven forefend, C.  

3) There are plenty of foreigners who live in this building, but I think this girl assumed I was staying in the hotel, on the top floors of the building.  I have less evidence for this than for the others, but I still think it's true.  I think she assumed I wasn't going to the fourth floor with her because she thought I must be staying in the hotel.  But, if so, why speak to me in Chinese?  A visitor is far less likely to speak Chinese than a resident (by far the most common reason for going to the non-hotel floors).  Maybe she didn't want to speak English so she took a shot in Chinese, because she felt like she simply had to do something to help the Foreigner in Distress.  

4) Foreigner in Distress is perhaps the most irksome assumption.  A lot of Chinese people assume that I am in some kind of Distress when I am not.  Why?  Am I exhibiting distressed behavior?  Nope.  Just existing in public is enough to provoke many a Chinese person into assuming you are a Foreigner in Distress.  Read a bus sign?  Clearly you need help getting where you're going.  The thought that I might have given some thought before leaving the house to how I will get where I am going doesn't cross anyone's mind.  Hail a cab?  Certainly a Chinese person is better at raising their hand in the air than I am.  Stand in the street hailing a taxi?  Why, you could be killed!  Hurry up and get on the sidewalk!  Never mind that no one is ever successful at hailing a cab from the curb, and for that reason no one does.  Clearly my death by smashing is imminent.

Anyway, I'm getting snippy, and, as I said earlier, overthinking things.  Let's move on to my Find of the Day.  

I hope you won't think that because I wrote about Craigslist today and am about to write about online shopping now that that's all I am up to.  I'm not entirely consumed with pre-sepeding my paychecks from a job I don't have yet.  It's just that I'd like to get started on the whole project of setting us up in the US right now, and I can't.  Emailing resumes is depressing because no one answers them.  It's too early to pack and I've thrown out everything that we aren't going to use in the next 46 days and aren't taking with us.  So I good around online, and today I found a link for a thing that's very silly but we would totally use ALL THE TIME.

It's a Soda Stream machine that carbonates water at home.  It uses exvhangeable, refillable bottles of carbonation to carbonate regular tap water.  Then you add syrup or whatever flavor you want and Bazinga! soda for .25 cents a can.  Less, because you know I'm going to be buying freaking koolaid and Chrystal light to flavor it instead of their syrup.  Though I'll probably use that too.  Their syrups have no Corn Poison (HFCS) or aspartame, supposedly, but they do have a generic Coke Zero and Diet Dr. Pepper.  They're also supposed to be lower calories than regular soda.  I don't know if it tastes as good as regular soda, but also not drinking so much soda might not be the worst thing for us.

And oh yes, it's for us. I might not bother for just me, but my hubs will literally drink ANYTHING other than plan water, even---plah!---milk.  And he goes through it like a madman.  Part if it is that, when we're in the US, he's still a little freaked out by drinking tap water.  (So why do you think he'll drink carbonated tap water?)  I'm glad you asked.  The Brita pitcher is our friend.  BTW if you are ever in need of a Brita pitcher, do not buy retail!  Go to Goodwill.  They have tons of them, we got ours for $3.  Anyway, he's weirded out by plain water but genuinely hearts carbonated water.  He drinks it plain or puts juice in it, because most juices in the US are too sweet for him.

Anyway, does anyone have one of these?  Did you like it?  We will be doing some more reviewing, but it may be a completely awesome idea.

That's the thing.

Day 46

Last night I dreamed I was dressing up as Santa Claus to escape prison.

Amy (thriteen years old): What did you have for lunch teacher?
Me: KFC.
Amy: Oh no!  That stuff is dangerous.
Me: Yeah, it unhealthy, but there's only three restaurants near here.
Amy:   My mom won't let me eat there. They have chickens with ten wings.
Me (I know from experience that I can't talk her out of this): It's okay, I like to eat monsters.
Amy: You do?!!

Update:  Oh, I forgot to tell you, Peter got his job back.  He was supposed to take a two week sabbatical while the students went to another province to complete an engineering project.  That took longer than expected, and we had pretty much given up on the students coming back.  However, finally they are back and Peter is going back to teach them today for one month.  For those of you playing along at home, that's what precipitated the surprising automobile search.

Another Update:  I should never tell anyone anything.  As soon as, literally as soon as I started typing this, one of Peter's students called and said, "The teacher just told us that you won't have any more classes."  This is news to us!  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Day 47

It's 47 days until we blow this chicken hut.  47 is a prime number and prime numbers kind of weird me out.  Especially large prime numbers.  It seems arrogant of a number to be so large and yet refuse to be indivisible.  Uncharitable.

It's also day 4 of the Blue Rocketship Adventure.  4 is not a prime number but it is the Chinese equivalent of 13.  The pronunciation of four sounds like the word for death in Chinese, which unnerves Chinese people.  I advocate that simply renaming the number would get rid of a lot of problems, but so far no one agrees with me.

Actually I'm not really sure if the Blue Rocketship Adventure continues because I haven't been out today.  It was still going on in elevators one and two last night.  Last night when I got home from work I wanted to check and see if they had spread to the other three elevators, but, get this---all three elevators were shut down!  So, first the rocketships come, then the elevators shut down.  Things are starting to get freaky.

So I'm a bit scared to go out and find out if the rocketships are still there, but I'd bet a not insignificant amount of money that they are because of the interaction I had last night with the security guard.  I came home from work last night and saw that three of our five elevators were shut down.  I started walking down the hallway towards them before I realixed they were turned off, and as soon as I did the security guard was on his feet calling me back, gesturing with his hand the same way people do when they're telling a truck it can keep backing up because it's not anywhere near hitting the fence.  Apparently even approaching the sacred resting elevators is strictly off limits.

To be fair, I guess I know why he doesn't want people rummaging around down there.  In one of the buildings where I work there's an elevator for odd-numbered floors and an elevator for even-numbered floors.  Even though this is clearly posted on bright yellow signs outside the elevators, people get in the wrong elevator all the time.  When you aren, for example, in the Odd Elevator and you push a button for an even-numbered floor, nothing happens.  It doesn't light up.  People get confused, try to push it again.  Me personally, I'd do a maximum of three standard puses before I gave up.  But I've seen people push the button literally dozens of tines in increasing intensity, from tapping to pushing to punching to pounding.  I've been in elevators with broken buttons before and wondered how an elevator button gets broken, but the answer is the age-old answer that answers most questions: People are nuts.

So the security guard is truly and rightly concerned about people coming along and beating the beans out of the elevatory buttons which is actually pretty dern likely.  Seeing that the lighted panel of the elevator is dark is sufficient for me to get the message, but not, sad to say, for others.  A good Button Pounding is in order.

So I came back to the front and got in the first elevator when it arrived.  The Blue Rocketship was of course present, staring at me.  I almost let it go, but at the last minute I stopped the elevator door from closing and shouted, "Excuse me!" and pointed to the glowing bloe object hovering, like a UFO, in the light fixture.  "Oh," he says to me in Chinese, "Don't worry, that's not a problem."

So apparently his security guard duties include constant vigilance to safeguard the structural integrity of elevator buttons, but apparently spending 10 seconds removing a phallus from two elevators that service hundreds of young children is apparently outside the scope of his work.  The hotel portion of the building does sell rooms by the hour...no, I refuse to go there.  That way ends only in tears.

So, the unremovable Rockets are still there, and may or may not be causeing elevator malfunctions. In othere news, I have been spending a lot of time on Craigslist.  Since no one (so far) has responded to my resume and coverletter explaining that I will be available for work in October, and that I can only be interviewed over the phone or via Skype (I know, it's a shicker that employers aren't falling all over themselves.) I have migrated over to the for sale section.  I CANNOT WAIT to have an apartment in the US.  Our place here has served us well, but it's small and there's very little I can do to decorate it.  Decor items are absurdly, amazingly, ridiculously overpriced, and any that are not look like they came from the home of Hyacinth Bucket.  No good.  And I can't make stuff because there are no craft stores here! 

Anyway, there's some seriously good stuff on there.  In the past when we were looking for a couch CL was a wasteland of distirbingly stained and torn upholstery, but now that we have no buying power there's tons of great stuff.  I hope that trend continues until we actually get our own place.  And appliances!  I've wanted a Kitchenaid mixer for years, but I've never thought to look on CL.  It may be because it took me so long to get over my jealousy of my mom, who found one at a garage sale for $15.  Yes, not $150, there's no zero missing there.  FIFTEEN.  That woman is seriously lucky.  Never go with her to a party at which you're hoping to win the door prize, because she's gonna win it.  Sometimes I, the fruit of her womb, can wheedle it out of her.  But not with the stand mixer!  Oh well.  When we get back to the US I'll just spend a couple weeks living on rice and PB&J, and then buy one off of CL. 

Now if you're reading this, please don't go onto Craigslist and buy up ALL the awesome stuff.  Okay, you can now, but save some for me this fall.

That's the thing.

Day 48

Round One: A student wants 24 classes with me, most of them in August, but some in September are okay.  No problem.
Round Two: She wants 24 classes all in August, but only in the morning and no classes from the fifth to the seventeenth.  A squeeze, but if we switch some of her classes with another student, we can make it work.
Round Three: She wants 15 classes to take place on August 2-4, 17-22, and 29-30.  She wants classes only in the morning, and only one class per day.  For those of you following along at home, yes, that's 15 classes in 12 days, when I can only have one class per day.  Please no one else tell me about how the Chinese are beating us in math scores.  On top of all this she wants to schedule this at the last minute in the busiest time of the year.  I don't think this will end well.

Day 49 (grown-ups only)

I once posted something that had a mention of condoms toward the end and someone (I forget who) got mad because they'd looked at it with their kid.  Come to think of it, this may have happened to someone else.  But it's still relevant.  So here I am clearly stating: don't read this blog post with your kids.  And, if you are rattled by my mentioning condoms, you may just want to scroll on by even if you are a big person.

For those of you who are still there (anyone?) I want to tell you that...Peter made Thai Chicken again.  I had to borrow money from my boss.  Peter got the AC fixed, and Max got a new rawhide.  That's what I did on day 49. 

It is not, however, why chased away the condom people.  The reason is this: in my building there are five elevators, all with drop ceiling lighting.  Right?  So there's a translucent plastic panel, and behind it, a light.  Well, starting not today but yesterday, soneone has started cutting a particular shape out of blue paper, lifting up the panel on the drop ceiling, and sliding this shape behind it so the light illuminates this shape.

Now that, by itself is amazing.  Why do it?  Why choose blue paper?  Why the elevator?  Why why why?  The amazing part is that not only is Blue Rocketship #1 in place, and has been in place ever since yesterday, in spite of hundreds of people riding the elevator, but now Blue Rocketship #2 has appeared in another elevator. 

Anyway, without further adieu, here is Blue Rocketship #2:

Photo quality is not great...but do we really need it to be?

Anyway, why don't I step up (literally) and remove the offending Rocketships myself?  Well, for one I am too short, and I am not interested in bringing my dining chair into the moving elevator and climbing on it.  For another, I don't want to touch the rocketship because who on earth has any idea who made itand where it's been.  But finally a most importantly, I want to see how long the hundreds, yes hundreds of occupants of this building (25 stories, 5 of which are hotels and some of which are businesses or offices) will collectively tolerate the Invasion ofthe Blue Rocketships.

Now that you are sufficiently traumatized, here is a gratuitoous picture of my puppy to re-equilibrialize you:

Aww, isn't he sweet?  Minus 1,000 points to anyone who thought "puppy" was anything other than a baby doggie.  Titus 1:15 on you!

That's the thing.

Day 50

We spent all our money on plane tickets, so even though I had the day off we couldn't afford to do anything other than cook and eat fried rice, vegetable curry, and spam soup, and then sit and pretend we're not yet while we run the AC as little as possible.  The AC repaid us by breaking down about a half an hour ago, well after it was possible to get it repaired today.

Peter fussed with it a bit, standing atop a percarious stack of furniture, to which I strongly objected, but he did it anyway and I used all my puerpwers to resist nagging.  Whenever he doesn't heed my warning the next best thing that works is for whatever he does to fail.  Eiter fortunately or unfortunately he did not fall down and damage himself, and his explorations did not further break the AC unit.  He didn't fix it either, though, so now it just drips water all over the futon and wall while we run it, and it's seriously too hot to even think of not running it.

The worst is that the AC broke in this exact same way last year, and we replaced the hose.  Now, a mere 12 months later, it's broken again.  Am I the only one that thinks a thing should stay repaired for more than 12 months?  A part that fails after a year?  Seriously?

So now i have to find someone to hit up for money or sweat for the next 12 days until I get paid.  That's gonna be awesome and not akward at all.

There are 50 days until I get out of here, and they cannot go by fast enough.

Day 51

Me: Do these flowers look like bacon?
Peter: Yeah, I think it's time we got you some dinner.

Days 53 and 52

Last night my boss invited me out to dinner.  Peter wasn't invited, because that's how they do things in China.  He took me to a candlelit Portugese restaurant.  When I came home, however, the Portugese had apparently decided to take revenge on me for ordering Italian, and I wasn't able to come to the phone, so to speak. 

Today this happened:

Me: ...and we need to pay the rent, and the electric, and the shipping, and eat Bejing Duck at least one more time, and you wanted to go to the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet again.
Peter: Maybe I just want to eat seafood when we get back to the US.
Me: We could stop by the fish market before we leave Seattle.  Or we could go back to Joe's Crab Shack.
Peter: Yeah.  I don't know which one I want.  Look up the menu for Joe's crab shack.
Me: Okay...hey, look, this is the couch I want to buy if we ever have that much money to spend on furniture.
Peter: Okay.
Me: Do you like it?
Peter: I don't care.
Me: You think it's too expensive.
Peter: No, I just don't care.
Me: Just tell me if you like it!
Peter: I don't care.
Me: Well, do you hate it?
Peter: I don't care.
Me: I get that you don't care, just tell me if you will hate it if I ever buy it. 
Peter: I---
Me: Remember, when we go to Joe's I order chicken.  Now tell me that you like this couch and I'll show you a picture of shellfish.
Peter: I quacking love it.


The couch in question is the Tidafors corner sofa in dark brown, because I know someone's reading this and wondering about the couch.  I don't know if we'll ever be the kind of people who pay retail for furniture, but if I were to pay retail for one piece of furniture it would be a good couch in a neutral color.  Also a mattress.  Probably the mattress before the couch, but that's just because I'd prefer to sleep on a marshmallow and Peter thinks concrete has too much give, so we will, one day in the future, probably buy a sleep number bed.  (I'm still hoping he will spontaneously decide he likes memory foam, though!) Or go all Lucy and Ricky.  (If you enver want a giggle, ask Peter to say, "Lucy, I'm home!)

Why am I couch shopping?  We're still almost two months out from the US and probably four to six months out from having our own place, but a girl can dream, can't she?  I've had almost no say over my home's furniture or color scheme for three years, I want to make something pretty, dammit.

Later tonight we are going to watch the olympic opening ceremonies.  I am a little afraid, because Peter showed me the olympic mascot last night, and it's terrifying! 

Right now, however, I am applying for jobs online and Peter is telling me how awesome low-riders are and how much he wants to have one.  Yeah, I'm so ridiculous with my couch.  At least he found a low-rider the color that I want to do our bedroom in.  Because it's best when your urban transportation matches the bedroom drapes.

54 Days

For those of you playing along at home, the cliff's notes version is that I am leaving China in 54 days, and I have decided to post something every day until I go, for no other reason than that I want to.  This may turn out really boring, but we'll see.  It will probably be good for one of us.

The first thing I should tell you is that you shouldn't be OCD about the day count.  We leave September 17th, but because of the international date line we actually arrive in the US before we leave China.  We travel into the future a few hours, and that is just one of many things that makes international travel awesome.

So today I had the day off.  We are, erm, financially handicapped thanks to the price of plane tickets, so we couldn't afford to do much.  Plus I spend my workdays running around in the extreme humidity, so I don't feel like conquering it when it's optional.

Today I woke up from a weird dream at 8:30, which is exceptionally early for me.  I have since forgotten the dream, which is okay with me.  I once started a dream journal because I read that it can help you remember more of your dreams.  However, I have always been afflicted with weird-ass dreams; so yes, a dream journal does make you remember more dreams, and no, that's not always a good thing.

If, upon waking up I rehearse what I dreamed a few times by imagining I am telling others about it (or actually tell others: see about 30% of my Facebook posts) I can usually remember it, but if I don't it's gone.  Sometimes it will come back to me during the day in a random flash, and sometimes not.  For example, the other day my dream about Woolite came back to me on the bus.  In the dream I was somewhere in someone's basement and saw a bottle of Woolite and thought, "Aha!  Just what my homemade laundry detergent needs!"  This proves that I read Pinterest too much. 

I can usually figure out the associations of my dreams.  The other dream from that night was the dream of flossing a mosquito and a tiny, tiny baby shrimp (which often goes in soup around here) out of my teeth.  That one came from the other day when I thought I had something in my teeth during class and I tried to use a piece of my hair to floss it out during the class break.  That's also something I read on Pinterest, but it didn't work because my hair is really fine like a baby's and is not interested in multitasking.

So the thing that happened today is Peter made his So-Good-I-Want-to-be-a-Better-Person Thai Chicken.  Also it's my mom's birthday, so if you know her you better call her or wish her a good one on my dad's Facebook wall, because my mom is vintage and doesn't mess around with social media.  Now Max is asleep on the floor with a rawhide beside him, like when a binky falls out of a baby's mouth.  Peter and I are arguing about whether we should spend the evening playing Chinese Checkers or play poker for Monopoly money.  Yes, I have Monopoly money with me in China, yes that is one of the many reasons I am awesome, and yes, poker is the obvious choice because I can never ever beat Peter at Chinese Checkers.  I suspect it's rigged.

Ta!

Respawn

Since I am going back to the US I decided a little bloggety update was necessary, since I can't be China Excerpts when I'm living in Portland.  Also I have slacked off shamefully on writing any excerpts, so now is a good time to start in anouther direction.  The first confession I will compulsively make is that I titled this post "Respawn" not because I know a whole lot about video games (it's video games, right?) but because it is the title of an episode of 30 Rock and that's where I know it from, and ism't that just a little telling and a whole lot sad. 

So I went ahead and changed three things: the title, the background picture, and one of the fonts.  I left the blog title font alone because when I think yes it does come out in text and yes this is pretty much what it looks like.  So that's a win.  Changing three things qualifies as a relaunch, right?  That's what they keep doing with the iPhone.  (Okay, to be fair, every cell phone.  And every reality TV show.  And Windows, too.  Damn, things are getting telling again.)

So for me the time is going both quickly and slowly.  I tried to explain this to Peter and he laughed at me.  He can see my brain-font, so he sometimes laughs.  Anyway it made no sense to him, but it's about to make sense to you when I tell you that I feel like each day goes on for-ev-er, but that I keep saying things like, "Wow, June's already half-over!"  I have a day countdown written in dry erase marker on my ridiculous sliding glass kitchen door, and I feel like I update it often, but there are still so many days lurking on there!  I have no energy when I am at work, but tons as soon as I manage to wangle a day off, like today.  So I write spastic blog posts and choose background images that are, let's face it, disturbingly bright and pink, even though they kind of work. 

To be short, my dear chickens, I have shorttimer's disease.  I'm sure you've diagnosed me already.  I am getting a bit of shorttimer's goggles (aww, soon I won't get to do this awesome thing anymore) but mostly I am ready to go and start a new chapter.  So I decided that, starting from 50 days to go, I would post every day about something that happened, banal or amazing.  Then it was today and I was bored so I decided that 54 days is good enough.  However, since I am a little OCD, I will be ending this post here and starting another so I can title it 54 days.  Watch out, here it comes!

geAUGHgraphy

I've been administering self-tests in geography to students and teachers as a way to emphasize the importance of learning geography.  I don't mean to be be pot calling the kettle black, but I've noticed these mistakes. 

Apparently...

...Montana is really Washington
...California is actually a state known as San Francisco
...New Jersey is a city, not a state (I had to work hard to convince this guy otherwise)
...Mongolia is really Russia
...the Yukon Territory is actually Alaska
...Greenland is actually Canada and Canada is actually the US (on the map of a guy who is planning to go to the US next fall to get his Master's degree...not sure he'll be able to find his way there)

---and my favorite---

...New England is now located in Oklahoma

Just thought you should know.

Chicken and Dumplings for China

I've never eaten chicken and dumplings before, but as I was browsing recipes I realized that I had all the ingredients to make this.  It turned out really good, so even though I've never eaten this dish before, I think I'm on the right track.

2 or 3 chicken breasts
1 cup frozen peas
1 carrot diced
1/2 cup onion diced
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp rosemary (leave it out if you don't have it)
2 bay leaves
1 tsp fennel seeds
salt
pepper
1 liter water + 2 Chinese chicken jello shots
or 1 liter chicken stock
2 cups diced potato, yam, or sweet potato

For dumplings:

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil or butter
2 tsp white sugar
4 tsp baking powder and one cup milk
or 1 tsp baking soda + 1 tbsp white/rice vinegar + 1 cup milk

Dice chicken and cook in a pan with oil until cooked through. 
Remove the chicken and set it aside. 
In a clean soup pan melt 2 tbsp butter. 
Saute onions in butter over low heat until translucent. 
Add garlic and cook just until fragrant. 
Pour in 2 tbsp flour and stir until it is all absorbed by the butter. 
Turn up the heat and add one liter of chicken stock or water. 
Bring to a boil and simmer until thickened. 
Add cooked chicken and sweet potatoes and add the rest of the chicken stock. 
Add bay leaves, rosemary, fennel, and some pepper
Simmer until potatoes are tender.
If you like your peas overcooked, add them now.

If using baking soda in the dumplings:

Pour one cup milk into a bowl and add one tablespoon of vinegar. 
Let the milk stand to sour for five minutes.

Dumplings:

(Don't start on these until your potatoes are cooked through because you have to add the dumpling dough to the soup as soon as it's mixed up)
In a bowl mix 2 cups flour, baking soda or powder, salt and sugar. 
Whisk until combined.
If using butter, cut butter into flour. 
If using oil, slowly drizzle oil into flour while whisking.
Add milk/sour milk until a dough forms that is wet but not runny.
Check your soup.  The dumplings soak up a lot of water, so you might need to add some more.
 Drop dumpling dough by spoonfuls into briskly simmering soup.
Don't stir after the dumplings are added.
Reduce to simmer, cover and leave it alone for at least 10 minutes.
Uncover.  If a toothpick comes out of your dumplings clean, it's ready to eat.

This turned out really well.  I would upload a picture, but we ate it all already.

Eeew

At the vet...

Peter: We have to give Max half of this pill tonight.  If he poops worm tonight, we give him the other half in a week.  If he doesn't, we give it to him in a month.
Me: Boy, I hope he doesn't poop worms.
Peter: Me too.  They can really be harmful for dogs.
Me: Yeah...
Peter: And of course, our neighbors' dogs could get them from him.
Me: Yeah...
Peter: They're probably bad for the environment.
Me: Yeah.  Listen.  That's true and all, but the only reason I don't want him to poop worms is because it would be really, really gross.
Peter: Totally.

When you assume...

There's an erroneous deductive leap that my Chinese coworkers sometimes make that I find disturbing.  I'm not gonna lie.  There's a McDonald's in the building where I work, and they serve delicious white fluffy soft-serve ice cream cones that taste like America.  Often I stop there at the end of my munch break and pick one up, so I'm eating it in the elevator when I run into a coworker, who more often than not says, "Oh, you're eating ice cream for lunch."  


Now, this is not a case of lost in translation.  Further questioning reveals that they actually believe I am eating ice cream FOR lunch, not after lunch or as a part of my lunch.  FOR.  It's lunch time, and I am eating ice cream, therefore I must be eating ice cream FOR lunch.  This faulty syllogism worries me.  If I were in the hallway at  two am would they think that I sleep in the hallway?  See?  Disturbing.


Anyway, I haven't written about this faulty deduction yet because so far there's been nothing to tell but what I've already told you.  But today, the faulty leap was combined with...well, this:

Me: Hello.
Random Coworker: Ice cream is too sweet.
Me:  Uh...
Random Coworker:  I would never eat ice cream for (FOR) lunch.  It's very fatty.
Me: I'm not eating ice cream for lunch.
Random Coworker: ...
Me: It's lunchtime, but just because I am eating ice cream doesn't mean this is my lunch.  I just finished my meal, this is my dessert.
Random Coworker: I don't usually eat ice cream at all.
Me: I don't usually walk up to people and criticize what they're eating.
Random Coworker: ...

And for a bonus, this puzzling exchange, which took place just after...

Me: Hello.
Another Coworker:  Lucy, do you know who this guy is?
Me:  No.  Is he Chinese?
Another Coworker: He's an ABC (American-Born Chinese).  He's a baseball player.
Me: Oh, I'm not a big sports fan.
Another Coworker: He plays for the New York Knicks.
Me: That's a basketball team, not a baseball team.
Another Coworker: I know.  I just like calling it baseball.
Me: I can see life is going to be rough on you.
Another Coworker: What?
Me: Nothing.

Death Becomes Us

We took a long walk today and discussed...

Peter: Stinky stinky stinky!
Me: Hefty Heft Hefty!
Peter: What's that from, a Geico commercial?


Peter: Whitney Houston is dead!
Me: I know, it's so sad.
Peter: Steve Jobs, Kim Jhong Il, Whitney Houston.  Maybe the world is going to end this year.
Me: Since it didn't end when Michael Jackson died, I think we're okay.

How many air miles do I have, again?

So, we all know that my name is Christense, but I also sometimes go by Lucy because it is easier for people to remember and pronounce.  Upon learning that I had two names, my new manager said:


Manager: So we can call you Lucy-Christense.
Me: No.  You can't.
Manager: Why not?
Me: It's not a name.  No one would ever be called that in English.
Manager: But it's cute!
Me: (ignoring the inappropriateness of the "cute" comment)  It's not, it's ridiculous.  Please don't use that name to refer to me.
Manager: But...
Me: Really.  I don't like it.



A month later, upon learning that I didn't have a corporate email address:


Manager:  So, we'll get you one.  You can be lucychristense@domainname.com
Me: No, no I can't.
Manager: Of course you can!  It's surely not taken by anyone else.
Me; First of all, I asked you not to use that name for me.  Second of all, since all the other email addresses are Chinese names, then christense@domainname.com and lucy@domainname.com are probably not in use by anyone else, either.
Manager: Yeah, well, we'll get you an email address.



And then today:


Manager's assistant: Our manager got your email address done.  It's lucychristense@domainname.com.
Me: But I specifically said I didn't want that email address.
Manager's assistant: You did?
Me: Yes.
Manager's assistant: Did you tell our manger?
Me: Yes, I did.  You were standing right there.
Manager's assistant: Well, this is your email address.
Me: I'm not going to use that.
Manager's assistant: But our manager wants everyone to use a corporate email address.
Me: Then this one needs to be changed.  That's not my name.


Note: This wasn't name censoring, Assistant really does always refer to him as Our Manager, not by his name.  All this shuffle occurred after Our Manager came to the department, introduced himself using an English name, then suddenly asked everyone to stop using it (because he looked it up and realized it wasn't a name).  Now he insists on being referred to only by his Chinese name, )which is fine).  He also insists that I learn all employees' Chinese names and only use Chinese names when I talk to him about employees...no English names allowed, he says it's too much trouble for him to learn them (whatever, also fine).  But apparently he also wants a similar degree of control over what I call myself.  Oh well.  I can out-stubborn any Chinese man...just ask poor Peter!

Achoo At You!

Peter has a condition called the Photic Sneeze Reflex, which means he usually sneezes when he's first exposed to bright light, especially sunlight.  It also apparently damages his memory since, for the first three years I knew him, he explained after every Photic sneeze, "I'm allergic to the light."  After awhile, it drove me bonkers, which I think he mistakenly interprets as disbelief.

Peter: (walking into the bright bathroom from the dim living room): Achoo!
Me: You're allergic to the light!
Peter: That's right! You Google it! (These sentences all have exclamation points because we're shouting across the house)
Me: I believe you!  I don't need to Google it!
Peter: You Google it!
Me: Fine!  (fake typing) I Google it!  I believe you!
Peter: You never did anything that fast in your entire life!
Me: Fine! (Google) Okay, it's on Wikipedia, it must be real!

I am with a student who is interning as an MD.  He's got some famous quote he wants to translate into English.

Deak: How does this sound?  "Life is the hymen between matter and spirit."
Me: (cough) Um, you need to look up that word again.
Deak: Which word?
Me: Hymen.
Deak: ...oh.  Well, ah...
Me: Never mind.


And finally, I saw this sign on the back of a car the other day.  I wasn't quick enough with my camera, but someone else was!  Thanks to Asia Insider Photos for this picture!

Watch where you step!  Happy New Year!

Day Six

God rest you merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay,

For Jesus Christ, our Savior,

Was born upon this day

To save us all from Satan's power

When we were gone astray.

Refrain:

O tidings of comfort and joy,

comfort and joy;

O tidings of comfort and joy!

In Bethlehem in Judea

This blessed Babe was born,

And laid within a manger

Upon this blessed morn;

The which his mother Mary

Nothing did take in scorn. Refrain

From God our heavenly Father

A blessed angel came,

And unto certain shepherds

Brought tidings of the same,

How that in Bethlehem was born

The Son of God by name. Refrain

'Fear not,' then said the angel,

'Let nothing you affright;

This day is born a Savior

Of virtue, power and might,

So frequently to vanquish all

The friends of Satan quite.' Refrain

The shepherds at these tidings

Rejoiced much in mind,

And left their flocks a-feeding

In tempest, storm and wind,

And went to Bethlehem straightway

This blessed Babe to find. Refrain

But when to Bethlehem they came,

Whereat this Infant lay,

They found him in a manger

Where oxen fed on hay;

His mother Mary, kneeling,

Unto the Lord did pray. Refrain

Now to the Lord sing praises,

All you within this place,

And with true love and brotherhood

Each other now embrace.

The holy tide of Christmas

All others doth efface. Refrain

Day Five

My all-time favorite Christmas Song!

Silent night, holy night,

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon virgin mother and Child.

Holy Infant, so tender and mild,

Sleep in heavenly peace,

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, holy night,

Shepherds quake at the sight;

Glories stream from heaven afar,

Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!

Christ the Savior is born,

Christ the Savior is born!

Silent night, holy night,

Son of God, love’s pure light;

Radiant beams from Thy holy face

With the dawn of redeeming grace,

Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth,

Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.

Silent night, holy night

Wondrous star, lend thy light;

With the angels let us sing,

Alleluia to our King;

Christ the Savior is born,

Christ the Savior is born!