The Answer.

I don't really like potato salad, however, I once considered it an American dish. How wrong I was! A few months ago we attended an "International Dinner Party" and Ryan brought potato salad (what's more American than picnic food and BBQ, right?) only to have Katherine, a German, bring another. The more people I meet, the more I realize that potato salad is the international dish.

Last night we were at a small Christmas party at Phillipe and Francisco's house, when I realized that potato salad might be the answer. Americans pride themselves on our differences from Europe; how we refuse to socialize medicine, vote for socialists, pay attention to soccer, and allow unions to gain power. But we all eat potato salad! (minus perhaps Asia, although I think Russia has a version as well). And as I looked around the room at my international friends eating potato salad (a Czech Christmas specialty) it occurred to me how different things could be. Currently America has a bevy of political candidates vying for who can be the most Reagan-esque or, alternately, liberal but not dynamic. And above all, we are afraid of other countries and becoming like them.

What's wrong with France sitting on the couch, hitting on the Czech Republic? Or Spain, Bolivia, and Australia debating the responsibilities of Europe to the post-colonized Africa? Why does America pride itself so much on its Americaness that it sacrifices learning from other countries? We need to accept their potato salad might be better than our own.

Did you know?

Many children don't even know there's a cooties vaccination available. Think it doesn't affect you? I didn't think so either, until I found out my own husband wasn't vaccinated. It could happen to you or someone you love. Talk about it.

Do you believe in ghosts?

I woke up at 3am Monday, as someone was trying to force open our bedroom door. (Our house is shared and there are locks on individual bedrooms as well as the front door) I grabbed Ryan's arm and he went to the door. The knocking/shaking continued for a moment, then we heard slow, heavy footsteps down the hallway. Ryan waited a moment, then lifted the latch and cracked the door. He saw a large, heavy-set person standing on the landing above the stairs. "Dorothy?" he called out "is that you, Dorothy?" The figure stood there, not responding. Ryan groped for the hall light, keeping his eyes on the figure. But when he switched the lights on, no one was there. The hall was completely empty-- not even a coat rack to confuse the eyes.

Visibly shaken, Ryan closed the door, turned on our lights and climbed back into bed. "I think I've just seen a ghost." I told him there was no way, but I was scared too. We hashed and rehashed the situation for a few minutes, all the while hearing slow, heavy footsteps coming back toward our room, then past, upstairs to Dorothy's room, then stopping. We lay in bed quietly. No more sounds came. After about an hour, Ryan fell asleep. I was drifting off when I heard the downstairs door open and two people rushing up the stairs. One was talking loudly on a cell in the hallway. They walked in and out of Tekla's room next door, carrying on all sorts of activity. It sounded like moving furniture, music on and off, walking up and down the stairs, banging on doors, ringing the doorbell, all sorts. Although they were loud, I was a bit relieved to think that if there was some ghost, those boys would be scared off. After an hour or so, I fell asleep again, only to be startled awake every 30 minutes or so by another loud noise.

When the alarm finally rang at 8am, there was another knock at the door, this time a visibly upset Angel. She was ranting about "Tekla's friend" who apparently banged on her door, came into her room, and stood over her bed in the middle of the night. He was now sprawled out in an arm chair in the living room. We agreed to talk to Tekla. After she left, Ryan asked "do you think it was the ghost?" The figure had not spoken when Angel screamed at it to leave. Also, she did not have her contacts in. Either way its pretty weird-- who goes into someone's room in the middle of the night?

The boy, who I think is Tekla's brother, had his legs sticking into the middle of the living room. Ryan and I walked past to make breakfast, not taking care to be quiet. After banging about in the kitchen I went back upstairs to get my stuff together for work. As I was leaving the boy was banging on Tekla's door, but she wouldn't let him in, only cracked it to tell him to go back downstairs. The boy followed me down and begged me for a fag. I told him I didn't smoke and left for work.

The Newest Addition

One Boyer Street has a revolving door for loonies. Last week our semi-normal roommate, Erica, moved out, and in her room now lives Tekla. I met her a few nights ago when Ryan and I were fixing the internet connection in her room. From her belongings I gathered that she is a fitness buff with a passion for Eddie Murphy movies. Also, she has a copy of the Kama Sutra displayed by her bedside. She's going to be a fun neighbor, I thought.

Two nights ago she came into the kitchen when I was cooking and I asked her where she came from. She has moved from southern England to be near her boyfriend, which is always a fool-proof idea, especially when he gives you the choice: move here or I'll break up with you. Tekla has my sympathy for her misfortunes of living at this property and from having an asshole boyfriend, whom I later met.

The boyfriend parked his bike in our minuscule entryway and came in while we were eating to ask us about "a lighter, you know, for fags. I want to have a fag." I told him we didn't have one, but offered up our bounteous supply of kitchen matches, which are our only means of lighting the stove/oven. He promised to bring them right back.

An hour later I was reading in bed whilst Ryan worked on a lab report. We heard shouting and banging on Tekla's door; she had, for some reason, locked him out. He cussed at her and she eventually opened up. The smell of pot leaked out of her doorway and we heard a loud chanting for the next hour or so. We didn't get the matches back.

Ode to the Security Guard at Somerfields

Head back, hands on his belt, he saunters into the store almost daily. After surveying the premises, he calmly makes his way to the back. No chillies today. He takes two bananas from the "fresh" section-- no second-rate bananas for this man.

Even at the cash register he does not focus directly on the person serving him, but keeps alert to all the shoppers-- one never knows when shit's about to go down. Just two months ago some teen girls nabbed a pensioner's purse as she set it on the ledge to look at the Royal Galas.

Yes, technically Atkinson's Fruit Shop is not his responsibility. But a mere two shops down, one can never be over-vigilant. If crime struck this small fruit shop, the reputation could quickly spread and topple even the mighty Somerfields. It's his job, dammit, and he takes it seriously.

There is talk amongst the fruit-shop employees that the gravity with which he treats his job, as well as his insatiable desire for hot chillies and bananas, is due to some inner doubt that his toned physique and manly strut can't fix. Do these phallic foods hold the key to his psyche? Or will we learn more from his carefully buzzed sun-whitened hair? You truly are a mystery, Somerfields Security Guard.

The Voice of an Angel, pt 2

Ryan and I really couldn't believe it when, on Thursday morning, Angel walked in to the kitchen while we were eating breakfast and invited us to watch her at a karaoke competition Saturday night. What was she singing? You guessed it, Avril Lavigne's "Complicated." Practice makes perfect, I guess.

So last night Ryan and I found ourselves in a crowded club where we were the only non-Chinese speakers. When Angel invited us to be her guests, I felt pretty flattered. The few days clicked by and I hardly gave a thought to the fact that her hair is clogging every drain in the house, or that we are once again almost completely out of gas. We started some pre-cooking for our Thanksgiving celebration last night, and Angel sauntered in dressed to kill to hand us a note in Chinese.
We handed it to a table of ticket-takers like 2nd graders with a note from their mom. We couldn't read it, but guessed what it might say "Don't roundhouse kick these outsiders, they are my flatmates." After being admitted, having to leave and get in a huge queue, and then being readmitted, we spotted Candy who we met earlier this week at the pub. She welcomed us and handed us programs, then the guy next to her asked "Can you read?" And realizing the entire program was written in Chinese, handed the programs back.

We found our seats, there wasn't room for Angel and her friend Tom to sit with us, but she came by often to check on us and remind us to vote for her. (She even pre-filled out our ballots for us.) There were 20 acts, and while Ryan and I are used to karaoke being high on drunken showmanship and low on actual singing, we found the opposite to be true. People were taking it really seriously, singing ballad after ballad with plenty of emotion. Also, people kept running up and handing them things on stage, like a bouquet of roses. The best was this guy who was really into his ballad-- a girl ran up on stage and gave him a Winnie the Pooh bear, and he continued to gesture and sing full-force with what looked like Winnie the Pooh for a hand.

But the hands-down best was the girl (? Ryan and I argued this one) who rapped in Chinese while twirling nun chucks around dangerously fast. Like most acts, we hand no idea what she was saying, but we managed to catch on to the call & response. "[When I say] quai [you say] ha! Quai ...ha! Quai ...ha!"

Angel was second to last in the running order, and although she could've won on outfit alone (micro mini and fishnets) sadly, her singing was not quite up to the high standards of the karaoke competition. It was nice to hear something upbeat, and also in English, but it wasn't her year. Nevertheless, I did feel an odd sense of pride watching her pump her fist in the air on that tiny stage.

A Good Wife

On a completely unrelated note to my previous blog (nothing if not disjointed, are we?) I thought I'd relate an interesting conversation I had last night.

Not many people came to the pub, due to a huge and confusing lab report due tomorrow. Oliver, Antoine, Katharine, and a new girl named Candy joined Ryan and I. Candy was discussing her difficulty in deciding to pursue a PHD. The way she explained it "There are 3 types of people in China: female, male, and woman with PHD." Which is really a shame, and also rather a blunder on the part of Chinese men, if you ask me. Oliver suggested she marry a Westerner, I said she doesn't have to get married at all, and we stumbled on to the complex topic of marriage.

Oliver complimented (?) me by saying that Ryan was lucky to have a wife that is not an engineer and is willing to follow him half way around the world, not worried about her own career. This is partly true, but not entirely. I do care about having a career, I just don't know as what; and in the mean time travel seems fine. Ryan said he was surprised to hear someone outside SPU espousing a love for (what Oliver deemed) a housewife. Its certainly not seen as the American ideal.

Housewife can be a sharp word. On one hand, I think its a lovely idea to stay home and care for children, the house, the cooking, etc. I think housewives generally don't get enough credit for the complex task of running a household of people. On the other hand it seems to imply a dullness, as if all the interests and hobbies one would have would revolve around groceries or laundry. Also there is the idea that she is "the little woman" acquiescing to her husband's whims on slightest demand, not an active manager of her family's affairs. Would the same be thought of a house-husband?

We certainly don't have it easy deciding amongst marriage, family, career. I reject the notion that people must fit gender roles, but now comes the task of carving out our own roles-- sometimes it seems almost easier to accept the standards of another time. But when I come home from a long day of work to my husband doing the laundry and dishes, I know that this hemming and hawing is worth it. Roles must be continually negotiated and re-negotiated, but if it means me missing out on the dishes, it's all worth it.