Cashier: What adorable Spiderman band-aids! Your kids are going to love them!
Meg: Kids?
Does Whatever A Spider Can
Posted in Raleigh
Tagged Comics, pretending to be an adult, Raleigh, things I'm not good at
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Ex-Expat Thoughts
I was listening to Obama’s Cairo speech on NPR the other day when the radio cut out and it went to static. My first thought was not that I was driving through a radio dead zone, or that NPR might be having difficulties, but that Obama must have mentioned Tiananmen and gotten censored.
I am more apt to criticize my life among strip malls and highways than to praise it, but there are some great things about being in the US.
Posted in Raleigh
Tagged be more Chinese, Beijing:Raleigh, driving, ex-expat, NPR, Raleigh
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Liu Gong Island
I have no idea how I went from running to the mailbox each afternoon in hope and expectation, to utterly forgetting to mention this, but… I have a travel piece in the March-April issue of Adventures For The Average Woman. It’s about my trip to Liu Gong Island with Dave, and it looks much better on paper than on my blog.
Besides, accidentally trespassing on a Chinese naval base is way better in hindsight.
Bradford’s Ordinary
I once had an English professor who told us that foreshadowing, symbolism and irony are literary terms, and by definition, can not happen in real life. It is our desire to see our life as a coherent story, he believed, that made us look for such things in hindsight. I disagree, but then, I think I’m the protagonist.
I recently learned that the city of Cary, NC was originally named Bradford’s Ordinary, which seems to disprove Professor Harris’s theory. Ordinary is just too apt. I often feel like life here is generic, flavorless American, a landscape of interchangeable strips malls and industrial parks and the highways leading there, the lifestyle I wanted to escape by moving to China.
But summer has arrived, unlike any summer I’ve seen, with long, lingering twilights. The light fades so slowly I only realize it’s nighttime by the appearance of lightning bugs.
Reading about North Carolina’s extra-long growing season doesn’t describe the gardens here, bursting with larger versions of familiar flowers of Massachussetts and New Jersey. In patches between concrete convenience, I find wild vines with glossy green leaves and delicate white Southern flowers, or huge blossoms with almost tropical petals and sweet, heavy scent. Even our balcony basil and mint are touched with the wild growth here.
Evenings bring lightning flashes on the horizon from distant thunderstorms. Summer storms arrive, they come with the intensity and suddenness of the Kate Chopin story, a golden sunny day turning to wind-tossed trees and heavy, fat raindrops in minutes, and clearing just as quickly.
Posted in North Carolina, Raleigh
Tagged cary, China, e3, Eric, garden, Grace, moving, New Jersey, North Carolina, Raleigh, reading, tech, Twilight
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Now Boarding
For my trip back to Raleigh, I had an awesome check in at the Continental counter. When the woman at the check-in desk spoke clearly, in complete sentences, and then cheerfully wished me a good flight, I wasn’t sure how to react. Where are the mumbled commands and eyerolls? Maybe this is that Newark renaissance I keep hearing about! Awesome!
There was no line at security, ether, and I started to wonder if maybe my dad had dropped me off at Bizarro Newark by mistake. I know everyone hates flying, but I secretly love the feeling of possibility in airports, the light-up signs with exotic destinations, and the mythical magic of looking down at clouds.
There were just two other women were taking off their shoes and pulling out their laptops with me. One woman went through, and as I was putting my plastic tray with my purse and sandals on the conveyor belt, the other one pushed in front of me.
“Howbouchoo waityer turn?” she said, putting her tray over mine and into the X-ray. “God, so rude.”
Now, I don’t think I’d gone Beijing-subway on her, but I wasn’t really paying attention. She was standing behind me when we started putting our lotions and other contraband in the little trays, but maybe if you touch the trays first you get cutsies going onto the belt? Is there some kind of airport-line etiquette I don’t know about?
But that’s more what I was expecting from Newark. Old dog, new tricks, and so forth.
Posted in Beijing, New Jersey, North Carolina, Raleigh
Tagged airports, awesome, New Jersey, North Carolina, Raleigh, subway
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Out of Town
“I hope what happened to Barbie’s plants doesn’t happen to our plants.” Stick said.
“Why? What happened?” I asked.
“She went out of town for a few days and left me in charge and they died.”
Bluestone, Red Face
My dad and I drove back to Montclair from Middletown last night. This morning Scep and Katie came to get me and we went to the Bluestone Cafe in Watchung Plaza.
![[Sugee+montclair+watchung.jpg]](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vFZAfe3GuA4/Shtwn5k17RI/AAAAAAAABYs/eHmbrWBCMxI/s1600/Sugee%2Bmontclair%2Bwatchung.jpg)
We walked past Watchung Deli as we waited for a table. When I talked about my love for Hunan House, my high school friend Roy, who now lives in Japan, mentioned missing Watchung Deli when he’s living abroad. (Roy’s been in Japan for several years now, with occasional visits home, and if you’re keeping score, our friends Garan’s moved to Korea. I asked Scep to move to Indonesia to round out the gang of our friends now in Asia, but he said no.) Oddly, the Watchung Deli is now next to a sushi joint, a salon offering Japanese hair straightening*, and a corner shop full of anime fashions, brightly colored mini-sushi erasers and more novelty Asian imports. Watchung is ready for your return, Roy.
Since it was a holiday, there were plenty of other late-morning brunchers at Bluestone Coffee. Menus were coffee-stained unlaminated paper, listing two flavors of chai, coffees, teas, and a variety of yummy entrees, featuring ingredients that could not be altered or substituted. But the food was good, and the company was even better! I missed those two!
Our waitress made sure we didn’t linger, though, she literally took my plate away as soon as I lifted the last bite towards my mouth. By this time, it wasn’t crowded anymore, but it was uncomfortable lingering where the staff clearly didn’t want us to be, so we went back to my parents’ house.
It was great to catch up with Scep and Katie. We talked about the time my granny grilled Katie to see if she was worthy to be dating her now-husband Scep, and about Katie’s possible new job in the fall, and summer plans, and general catch up. Also, Scep and Katie pretended not to notice my ridiculous hairline sunburn. Although I diligently sunscreened myself with SPF 6.2^8 at Bethie’s graduation, I guess I didn’t get quite up to my hair and I have now a half centimeter of crispy red around my face.
Maybe Bluestone has a No Weird Faces policy, and that’s why we got the bum’s rush.
*I’m not entirely sure what that is. Do you know?
Posted in New Jersey
Tagged Bethie, coffee, dating, e3, Garan, General, Grace, Katie, Montclair, New Jersey, Scep
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Swiftriver
I’d like to direct you all to my friend Tricia’s new webcomic, Swiftriver. Swiftriver started a couple months ago, so start with the first comic and follow the story of Bowie Swiftriver. Check it out, leave Tricia a comment or two, and when you start seeing people walking around in Bowie Swiftriver t-shirts, remember I told you about it right in the beginning!
Visiting Bethie
At Wesleyan, visiting my sister’s lab.
Montclair, The Land of Hunan House
Every time I came home from college or from traveling, the first thing I’d want to do in my hometown of Montclair is go eat Hunan House Chinese food. So yesterday, when I flew in from Raleigh to my parents’ house (en route to my sister’s graduation), I went to Hunan House with my dad.
Hunan House is my absolute favorite food in the world. I was so sad when I got to Yantai and found out that real Chinese food was not just like eating Hunan House pork fried rice, chicken lo mein and wonton soup every day. Partly because it turns out I’m not a fan of the authentic Chinese seafood in Yantai, but also because a year of Hunan House everyday is still not enough!
Service at Hunan House is not great. Waitresses wish you weren’t there to bother them, and they make that clear by pointing vaguely at a table, slapping some menus down, and walking away. But who cares if you have to fuwuyuan for attention? (I haven’t actually tested this, my family always prevents me) It’s Hunan House Chinese food! I’d go into the kitchen and help myself if they’d let me! I think there’s some kind of addictive chemical added.
Hunan House is down some steps behind the A&P parking lot, which backs up my theory that the harder-to-find and less attractive the outside of the restaurant is, the better the food is inside.
As we were leaving, my dad pointed at the Hunan House name painted on the concrete wall. “Remember when you were in China and I sent you a picture of that?”
“Yeah. It made me hungry for Chinese food.”
Posted in New Jersey, North Carolina, Yantai
Tagged China, chinese, Chinese food, family, Montclair, New Jersey, North Carolina, Raleigh, travel, Western food, Yantai
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