Sometimes you just have one of those days when all of the
stars align to form a big middle finger and flip you off. It’s a China Day.
Something only made in China.
It started at Friday night at dinner. A friend brought me
out to a restaurant that’s the Chinese euqivalent of Old Country buffet, minys
the fat people. It was called Island. The placewas clean with regular size chairs instead of wicker stools and knee high tables. The display of dishes went included everything from boiled peanuts and fruit pizza to spicy tofus and cold pickeld vegetagles.
Being a typical american, I overloaded my plate. My eyes
being bigger than my stomach and a bit out of foucs. What I thought was a black savory mushroom salad was really dark pickled entrails.
No thank you.
I decidednot be be a member of the clean plate club that
night. But to make matters worse, it was pointed out to me that the
restaurant would charge a fine of 50 RMB for wasting food.
So , I got the cheapest thing on the menu since my friend
was paying, but ended up with the highest bill on the tab. I was so
embarrassed.
So then I go home and deal with the water shortage in
Kunming.
Water has been mandatorily turned off during the days in
our xiao qu, to force people to conserve. I usually forget about the shortage
until I turn the knob and get a hissing of a snake instead of a stream of
water.
Anyway, my better half, now nickednamed Mr. Niagra, turned on a bathroom faucet, stopped the sink and waited for it to till.
Well, the water went on, he went back to playing angry birds, and forgot about the spicket.
That is, until about 4 am.
I hear what sounded like rain. The
wierd thing was that it was coming from inside or our apartment.
Our place was flooded. I got Mr. Niagra out of bed, who
mopped up the mess in the buff, getting attacked by mosquites where no man
wants to be attacked.
We had visions of the Chinese Police Aqua Force Unit knocking at our door, armed with billy clubs and scuba gear.
They didn’t show up …yet.
So of course, we go back to bed and when we got up, no
water.
I rode my bike to the health club to take a class and
shower up. Upon retreiving my bike, I pulled a peewee herman and knocked over a
row of cycles.
Luckily, they didn’t belong to motocycle gang.
Just this old lady who looks like she’s had a tougher day
than I did.
So then I tried to get on fb to rant about it and am
blocked, only to discover someone in Miami has been trying to log on to my
account.
Don’t you have anything better to do in Miami?
At least Jeff didn’t end up here.
So if you get a ticket for parking in loading zone, don’t
feel so bad.
You could be having a China Day.
Jeff and I celebrated recently our fourteenth wedding anniversary. In dog years, it would be dead. In human years, it would be going thru puberty, sprouting hair in weird places and beginning to smell weird. To celebrate, we did something that most teens would approve of. Instead of having a romantic dinner, we got dressed up and went ice cream hopping.
Bing sheng (ice cream) is the one commodity China imports from every place else.
First, we had mango sorbet at Haagan Daz. Next, we bypassed a 3 RMB cone at McDonald’s (about thirty nine cents) and contemplated getting a Blizzard at DQ (they serve them upside here, too). The line was too long so we followed our tongues to the Gelato Stick Hut.
If the Italian version of Good Humor wasn’t intense enough, we got to roll the ultra rich flavor of our choice in decadent toppings. Jeff picked chopped pistachios and white chocolate.
After that, we went to meetfresh, and experienced frozen treats from Taiwan. Gobs of people were slurping bowls of chewy gooey things smothered with sweet corn, dessert style soups and unusual elixirs. I got a chewy goobers coffee drink. I sucked up the jelly like floaters with a supersized straw, letting them spank the inside of my mouth.
So that’s what we did for our 14th. No cake. No regrets.
A little bit smaller celebration than last year, when we invited 150 of our shortest friends to renew our wedding vows…
..and eat cake.