If you give a girl a chopstick: A messy food parody

If you give a girl a chopstick, the first thing she'll do is panic as there are no other cutlery options. After all, this is Hong Kong.

Panic will remind her that she came in panicking over hunger, which will turn her attention back to the savory, steaming food in front of her. 

She will pick up the chopsticks and spend a solid two minutes just trying to get what she hopes is the correct finger positioning. 

Once she's relatively sure she's ready to eat, she will surreptitiously glance around and sure enough, the girls next to her will be stifling giggles while the businessman across will look on with barely concealed amusement. 

She will begin her meal by splashing around the giant wonton in her soup attempting to get a firm grip with the effing chopsticks. This will lead to anxiety induced upper lip sweat. 

Once she has a good grip, she will realize she'd like a knife or some other useful utensil to cut it smaller so she doesn't have to shovel the huge, somewhat mutilated, yet somehow no smaller, wonton into her mouth. 

Not wanting to fill both cheeks with wonton, she will attempt to use the chopsticks and tiny soup ladle to cut the wonton in half. This will result in much of the filling floating around her soup and lots of broth all over her entire hand and the table. 

She will finally have smaller bit of noodle firmly grasped. She will be eagerly anticipating that first bite, but just as she's about to bring it to her already open mouth, the slippery chopsticks will suddenly slide into an X and the wonton will splash back into the soup, spilling broth all over the table. All diners but especially the staff, will no longer try to conceal their mirth. She will no longer care. 

She will scoop up what she can with the tiny soup ladle and proceed to finish the soup by stabbing one chopstick into each wonton and using the ladle to bring it to her mouth. There will be quite a bit of broth, wonton filling, and pieces of noodle around much of the table.  

She will finish what she can in this manner, thinking about all the people not raised using chopsticks who opt for them, eschewing readily available western cutlery. 

She will conclude said people are pretentious and overcompensating, or are competitive eaters never missing an opportunity to smugly prove their dexterity. She will judge said people. 

She will pay her tab and look for the nearest bar, which will remind her that she needs a drink. 

The end. 

*She will realize after taking this photo that a wider lens is necessary to capture all the detritus. 

Hair salons save lives

Today is not the first day a hair salon saved me. When I decide i want a hair cut,  I want it done two days ago. Today was like my first haircut after being bald from chemo. 

After nearly two years of a bald head, when my hair was finally just long enough to need some shaping, during my inaugural birthday trip to Atlanta (that instantly became annual), I had a spontaneous  cut and blowout. It was life changing because after two years of invisibility to the world at large, I was instantly fabulous. 

Today, though I've thankfully not been bald  for many years, I had a similar experience. I got a spontaneous shampoo and blow dry.

I know, I know- millions of women do this daily or at least regularly, yet not I.  I schedule my hair cuts around events for which I want "good hair". My manicures and pedicures are non-negotiable but paying $50-60 to get my hair washed and dried? Not in my teacher budget. 

During my nearly five miles crossing most of Hong Kong island through intermittent showers with an overcast glare requiring sunglasses and an umbrella, I had passed some salons and noted the cheap price of a wash and blowout- like $10 US. Since it was actually late enough to segue day into evening, I realized my crumpled, torn and soggy map resembling the Magna Carta was a metaphor for my hair. 

I began craning my neck in search of salons, peering in windows like a fat kid looking for cake. The salons on this part of town were more like Westchester prices- at least $75 US. For half a second I considered backtracking a few miles. 

Just when I'd nearly given up, I spied one within my budget- equivalent to $15 US- and it was a hair dream come true! After a solid twenty minute scalp, neck, forehead, shoulder, and temple massage during the shampoo process on a fully reclining chair, my hair got all fluffed and fancy. The workers all broke into song singing, "You're out of the dark, you're out of the woods, step into the light..." a la Dorothy in Emerald City. As I walked down the street my hair swung in slow motion like a hair commercial. 

After that and a quick stop at MAC for a little makeup reboot, I was ready for the night. I am salon fabulous! 

I'm going back tomorrow. 😊

Here's the before/after:

Ugly American traveler strikes again

Traveling as a kid, getting anywhere was half the fun, especially plane trips. Despite the twenty hour journey my flight to Thailand involved, I was fully prepared and properly sedated to snooze through it, and I did sleep a solid ten of the first fourteen hours. When I stoppped to change planes in Beijing, I felt as though I was in an underwater dream sequence. In my bleary-eyed confusion, I got on the immigration line as if entering China for a visit. 

The kind young man asked me for some sort of visa, which I of course didn't have so that was panic #1. Then he saw my boarding pass and pointed to the departure time, which had passed five minutes ago while I waited in the wrong line- panic #2 and I was instantly alert. In broken English he said something and gestured to transfer signs pointing in the opposite direction, toward which I began to race at mach two speed, hair on fire, dodging and weaving past weary travelers, waving my boarding pass and racing by. 

I paused momentarily at a monitor and noted the flight had not left (!) but was flashing final boarding call. I needed gate 57 and was only at 30! To my relief a Chinese guy driving one of those golf cart-like vehicles stopped and told me to hop on and we zoomed past several gates.My hero! I said gratefully, "Thank you so much!" to which he replied, "Twenty dollah." I explained I only had Thai bhats. We started haggling and then I was all, "Stop! Let me off!" He said, "Ten dollah." I truly didn't have any dollars and nearly jumped off the moving vehicle until he stopped and off I fled while he muttered (presumably) Chinese curses. 

There was another security line where once again I was the ugly American pushing past, my face sweaty and frantic, until I came upon some laid-back Aussie gentleman who, after glimpsing my waving boarding pass, said in that delightful accent, "That's our flight too, love. I hardly think they'll leave us all behind." As I glanced around I noticed others from my NY flight and realized he was right. I would not be stranded in China!

In my next life I want to be a laid-back Aussie. 

Photo courtesy of RichardDeverill.com