Here’s an update on the garden, if you’re into that sort of thing. I had thought that it hadn’t grown that much in a week, but when I looked back at the old picture – I could see the growth.

Grow Garden Grow!

I was a little too happy to find this tomato.

This little cucumber must have been growing for days, but I didn’t see him because he was hiding under a leaf. He’s about two or so inches long.

My blackberry bushes have flowered and are now starting to produce berries. They are all green berries at the moment, but they’ll turn red and then black soon. I can’t wait. I love blackberries.

My little kitty, Morgan, is always hungry.  She climbs the screen on the door when she’s starving.

Another self portrait. I think I look better in black and white.

I thought I would go ahead and put up some of the pictures of the garden that Phil helped me put together. Well, help is an understatement. He practically broke his back getting the soil prepared for my baby plants. Gardening is hard work, that’s for sure. It took us the better part of two days to get the garden up and running.

Phil keeps reminding me that this whole garden idea was supposed to be a few plants on his patio, not a freaking farm. My response to him is that he shouldn’t have encouraged me as I held three greenhouses capable of holding 216 seeds(and then some) in Lowe’s one Saturday afternoon. 🙂 Everything I do, starts small and then grows into something completely uncontrollable. I know this, and so should he. It’s all a part of being Gabe and in some cases, knowing Gabe.

Phil dug and that entire plot of land and then decided that a tiller would be a good idea. We rented ours from Home Depot for four hours and it ended up costing something like $40.00. Not too bad really. And had the tiller died, I would have only had to pay $3.00. Also, not too bad.

I don’t work him hard to kill him. I work him hard to make him strong! You should have seen him working that tiller. It shook him like he was a rag doll. His muscles hurt for a week.

Ah, everything is planted. Well, the plants that would fit that is. When I took this picture, there were probably another 100 plants sitting behind me. Yes, 100.

A few weeks later . . . I was afraid that my plants might not do very well in the clay, but I think they’ve done okay. I’m sure next years crop will do even better.

This is where some of the extra plants went, but I still have some more, about another 30 or so. If you live near me and you want some tomato plants, contact me and they are all yours.

Morgan Rose Ireland Yvette DeWitter. I love my kitty! She won’t eat dry food anymore. I’ve now got to shell out the money for gourmet wet food. She’s 15 years old, she deserves it.

This is Dopple, one of Morgan’s boyfriends. She has two more that visit her pretty regularly. Dopple is an enormously fat cat that reminds me of Garfield. He’s very adorable and loves to get his belly rubbed. I just hate that he constantly tries to steal Morgan’s food.

Me. I think I look a lot like my father in this picture.

Today I did something that I’ve never done before.

After discovering the six Hershey candy bars that my brother had just purchased from Kroger were missing, I hoped in my car and drove back to the store. I wanted to see if I could find the bag that we had somehow left in the buggy. I went back to where I had left the cart, but it had already been moved. I knew that I had to go inside to see if any kind soul had returned them, but I was hesitant. Why? Well, I was wearing my pajamas.

I stared at the store for a minute and then said, “What the hell, I’ll just pretend I’m back in China and that wearing my pajamas around town is totally normal. It will only take a second, right?”

Wrong.

I ended up spending a good 10 to 15 minutes standing in front of the store in my Joe Boxers, Freddy VS Jason t-shirt, and an old pair of sandals. Hey, at least I wasn’t wearing my gigantic Cookie Monster slippers.

People looked at me strangley as they checked out. I expected it, but you would have thought I was dressed like a hooker instead based on their wide eyed expressions. I’m just glad I don’t embarrass that easy.

Finally, the manager showed up and asked what I needed. I explained how my candy bars had flown the coupe and how sad I was. She was very nice and let me get six more even though it was all probably my fault. I really don’t remember leaving anything in the buggy, though. I doubt Wal-Mart would have done the same. Wal-Mart has horrible customer service.

With my candy bars in hand, I walked back out through the parking lot, and drove back home.

And you know what that means . . .

Beans, beans, the magical fruit.
The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel.
So eat your beans with every meal!

Aren’t they just precious.  I think they are the cutest beans I’ve ever seen.

I’m such a proud mother.

This picture shows just how small they are.

Our plants are so small, it isn’t even funny.  I don’t think any of them are more than a foot tall.  Perhaps we bought midget plants or something. I think it has to do with the lack of light that they get. We have to put them outside soon or else I’m quite certain they are going to bite the dust.

I want to build a little garden area in my backyard, but I don’t even know where to start, and my brother informed that I am probably going to have to spend a few hundred dollars on soil.  How depressing.  Also, my backyard sorta sucks – there is really no good place to build a little garden.

I guess I’ll figure things out eventually.  I’ll have to, or the 80 tomato plants chilling on my back steps are going to run off in protest and plant themselves elsewhere.  I never intended to have 80 Beefsteak tomato plants, but since I have such awesome “greenhouse” light in my office, every single seed I planted in my grow kit sprouted.  I really don’t remember planting 80 seeds, but I guess I did – or else they were magic seeds and they multiplied.  Hey, anything is possible.  🙂

One evening, in Fuyang, Phil and I were invited to attend one of Phil’s student’s birthday party. For the life of me, up until 5 minutes ago, I couldn’t remember the name of this student. I’m sure that you don’t care, but it was about to drive me mad. I hate when I can’t remember stupid stuff. Anyway, the student’s name was Alan, it was his 16th or 17th birthday, I can’t recall, and he wanted his two new foreign friends to celebrate with him. We gladly accepted the invitation, of course. Alan was a good student and actually seemed like he wanted to be our friend, unlike many others who just wanted to tote us around and show us off like we were an exotic breed of dog.

Alan told us to meet him at the school gate after class. He didn’t live too far away, so we all decided just to walk to his parent’s house. When he finally got to the school gate, he looked very troubled and sad. Apparently, he had somehow lost the 200 yuan(RMB) that his parents had given him to use at KTV – Karaoke TV – later that night. He thought someone in his class had taken it, but since he didn’t have a clue who, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about it. We offered to give him the money, but he politely declined. Some of his fellow classmates, who were also going to be in attendance at his party, were going to help him out. He made us promise not to tell his parents.

We first stopped by his grandmother’s house – at least that is who I think it was. She was old and they seemed related. We sat there for a while basically staring at each other. She didn’t speak any English, and our Chinese was limited – conversation was almost impossible. Alan translated a little for us. She gave us some tea, and when we were done, we walked a few more blocks to his house.

We arrived to find Alan’s father cooking in the kitchen. If I remember correctly, his father was a cook in a local restaurant, but don’t quote me on that. His parents, like his grandmother, spoke no English – besides hello. They greeted us with huge, happy smiles on their faces. Phil and I sat down on the couch and started sucking on some sugar cane that we saw cut up in a bowl on the coffee table. I always expected sugar cane to be more, well, sugary, but this kind wasn’t. I wonder what they call a coffee table in Chinese since many of them don’t drink coffee. Hrm, I never thought of that before now. 🙂

Phil had brought his computer with him so that he could play some American music for everyone. Music always makes a party better, didn’t ya know? Well, the music that Phil played was a bit different than what they were all used to. A lot of it was harder than the typical music played on Chinese radio. If you’ve been to China, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you haven’t, most of the music, at least what I heard, is very soft and slow. I’d say a lot of their songs have a rather strong lulling effect. I tried picking out some softer music for them, and they seemed to like that a bit more.

After Alan’s father finished cooking and had all of the dishes placed on the table, both of Alan’s parents said goodbye and left. I was very confused. I asked Alan why his parents were leaving, and he said something like his parents didn’t want to bother us. Phil and I shrugged our shoulders and started digging into the feast that lay before us. All and all, it was an okay dinner. I wasn’t particularly fond of any one dish. Like at most birthday parties, the one thing I couldn’t stop thinking about was the birthday cake.

Birthday cakes in China are a little different from what us westerners are used to. The cake is more spongy, and the icing just tastes different. I don’t know exactly how to explain it. Also, a lot of the cakes come with fruit on it. Is it good? Yeah, it’s alright, but I still prefer the western cake a little more.

Well, soon after we polished off our table of food, someone brought the cake out of the refrigerator. In Fuyang, every time you bought a cake, you got a cool ass Lotus candle. (I’ve got a video of the one that was on my cake. I’ll post that soon.) It starts out closed up like a bud. A wick sticks out of the top. You light the wick and when it burns down, it lights all of the other wicks on fire. There are wicks on each of the petals. When all of the wicks catch a flame, It opens up like a flower blooming and sings Happy Birthday to you. It’s absolutely awesome and looks very pretty with all of the lights off. I haven’t seen anything like that here in the States before. Well, the flower bloomed, we sang, and the when started to cut the cake.

There is a tradition in my family, or rather, a cruel joke. Whenever we eat something that is mushy, like cake, ice cream, or mashed potatoes, we like to get a little bit silly. I’m sure everyone reading has probably seen it done. It goes like this. You hold the mushy substance close to your nose, smell it, make a face like it smells like something died, pick a target, and have someone come smell it for you to make sure that it really smells as bad as you say. When they lean in for the sniff you shove said substance up their nose. Laugh. Laugh. Laugh.

Well, more or less, that is what I told Alan, who had just cut himself a huge piece of cake. For a second he let the words settle in and then without any hesitation, turned and shoved the entire plate into one of his party guest’s face.

I was shocked. Phil was shocked. Everyone, especially the person that just had cake smashed into his face was shocked. And then war broke out.

The boy that had just been creamed, picked up what was remaining of the cake and threw it into Alan’s face. Alan took what was left and threw it at one the girls in attendance. Her silky black hair turned white and she started to scream. She retaliated and threw her piece back – not caring who it hit as long as it hit someone. Cake was flying everywhere. It was madness. All I could do was laugh and watch. I had tears rolling down my face. The apartment had been trashed.

“Oh, his parents are going to kill us, ” was all that I could think.

This must have gone on for several minutes before it finally calmed down. The girls had locked themselves in the bathroom – 1) to protect themselves from further attack and 2) to clean themselves up. They hadn’t looked so hot going in.

I had been smart, and saved my piece of cake. When all was said and done, I ate it.

We made sure to clean up the place a little bit. I really didn’t want his parents coming home to see what the Americans had let unfold in their absence. I’m sure they would never have been able to understand. I made a mental note to never tell a person who didn’t speak English as a first language my family’s little joke ever again. 🙂 I found it funny that he skipped the whole, “Hey, smell my cake,” and just threw it. You really had to be there. It was crazy.

Once we had everything cleaned up, we left the apartment, hopped in a cab, and went to a local KTV to sing for the next several hours. Nothing else crazy happened that evening, besides seeing a woman fall flat on her ass as she walked over a bridge. It was old and slippery – made of marble or something like it. Poor thing broke her tail-bone I think.

And that is the story of the birthday cake. The moral of this story? Be very careful if anyone ever ask you to smell something. 🙂

I knew it would happen one day, but really, I didn’t think these sort of feelings would surface for a good long while. If you ever read My Chinese Headache Part 1 and 2, and many of you must have in order to make them my top two posts of all time, then you know why I didn’t think I would miss China, for a while – anyway.

Let me explain.

I don’t miss the crap I went through to get back home. Not in the least. Yeah, it made me wiser and stronger , and all that jazz, but I never want to have to go through something like that ever again. Ever. Nor do I miss the way I was treated by some of the people in charge of me, mainly Richard Guo, AKA Yuli Guo. That man is the Anti-Christ. My blood boils when I think of him. And I don’t particularly miss my first batch of students – except one or two, and I’ve mention them before. I don’t miss the dirt or the pollution either, but who does? Oh, and the lies. All of the lies and deceit were enough to make me go mad.

What I do miss . . .

I miss the daily excitement. Everyday was a new one in China. I could never expect the same thing to happen twice once I walked out my door. There was always a new obstacle, a new challenge. Yeah, it wasn’t always easy, but they sure made life interesting. And if I ever just wanted to get my heart pumping, all I ever needed to do was hop in a taxi and ride across town. A taxi ride in China was like riding a roller coaster, except without all the steep inclines and loops.

I really miss the street food, even though I’m sure some of it made me ill – very ill. I can forgive the street vendors though because they made some very tasty, cheap snacks. I had some awesome fried banana in Beijing. God, that stuff was tastebudalicious. Yes, I just made a new word. Also, I really came to love corn on a stick. I can’t think of a better way to spend 5 yuan. Well, maybe 5 yuan on lamb sticks. I could spend 5 yuan all day on that. There are many more street snacks, but if I went into detail about all of them – you’d be here all day. 🙂

Cheap DVDs – even if some of them didn’t work quite right – were awesome. I will never forget the hours I spent watching season after season of Smallville, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and House – just to name a few. To watch those back home would have cost me a small fortune, unless of course I pirated them, but I would never do that. 🙂

I miss being the center of attention. Yes, I’m an attention whore – hate me. Even though, at times it could be a bit annoying(all the hellos and what not), it was kinda cool to feel famous. I think I had my picture taken a few million times and I now have a few more crease lines on my cheeks to prove it. Hehe. On one occasion, someone even asked for my autograph. I’ll never understand that one, but hey, it was cool. And I can’t count how many free dinners I had in China. When I was taken to a banquet or even a simple dinner at a restaurant, I felt like a Queen. I have never seen so much food.

I miss how complete strangers would welcome me into their home and offer me tea and sometimes fruit, just because they could. Half of the time we couldn’t understand each other, but we didn’t have to.

So, I imagine one day, Phil and I will have to go back. I don’t know when that will be, though. And hopefully, China won’t change so drastically that we won’t be able to recognize it when do.

Ok, I know that having things made in China and other countries like it can save a business money, but sometimes someone just needs to draw the line.  Let me explain.

The other day, Phil and I were walking through Kroger – a southern grocery store chain. Lately, we’ve been buying the Simply brand of juices because they’re so good, but they also can cost a bit, too. So, Phil decided to save a few pennies  this time around and bought one of the other brands – I can’t remember what brand it was off the top of my head and I don’t think that it was a Kroger brand. I could be wrong, so don’t quote me on that.

Anyway, he picked it up, stared at it for a second and said, “I don’t think so.”

I rolled my eyes because I thought Phil was saying no to it because it looked like it was old or had been tampered with or something like that. He does this with almost everything he buys – especially frozen or cold food items. I would say that this is because we spent a year in China and we had to do this regularly, but he’s done it for years.  He’s eccentric.

“It looks fine, Phil. Buy it,” I said.

“Nope,” he replied, “it’s from China.”

“What do you mean it’s from China. It’s juice.” I looked closer at the bottle, and sure enough, this is what I read: Concentrate: Product of China. “Well, I’ll be, it is from China. Since when did they start putting that stamp on stuff?”

Even after I argued that it was just the juices of a stupid apple and that he should buy it anyway, Phil still refused. He said something to the affect that we weren’t in China anymore, and that we had a choice on whether we wanted to eat or drink something that was from China.

“But we didn’t die from eating apples in China!” I exclaimed.

“I don’t care,” he replied, and that was the end of that. Back on the shelf it went.

All I have to say, is that it is a sad day when America can’t freaking juice their own apples. I mean, really, how expensive can that be?!

And that is my rant for the day.

Last night, Phil and I went to a restaurant that one of his co-workers suggested we should try out. It was a Greek/Italian place called Santorini Grill, and since we didn’t have anything else better to do on a Friday night(yeah, we lead boring lives, I know), we decided to go and have a taste.

We had to drive a bit because it was all the way over on Hardscrabble Road. Isn’t that just a weird road name? I didn’t even know it was a real word until just a second ago, but apparently it is. This is what Dictionary.com tells me . . .

hardscrabble \HARD-skrab-uhl\, adjective:
1. Yielding a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty.
2. Marked by poverty.

You learn something every day, I guess.

Well, completely off topic, sorta, I saw a pretty amusing road name out in Eastover when I was looking for that stupid DSS building that Google maps or any other map couldn’t direct me to. That one was named Chain Gang Road. I had a good laugh at that one. I kept expecting to see a row of inmates picking up trash or something with all of their legs attached by a long rusty chain, but I didn’t. I didn’t see anyone on that road. I was out in the middle of BFE.

Ok, back on topic, sorta.

We found the place without too much trouble, which was surprising because Phil only drew a map of the roads, but not which way to turn or which side of the street the restaurant was on. Men. 🙂 When we walked in I knew immediately that it was a fancier, more expensive restaurant than I would have chosen because I am such a penny pincher. The restaurant had a nice atmosphere. We were seated at once at a big booth and the waitress quickly brought us some Italian bread and ordered our drinks.

Phil ended up getting the special, which was an alfredo pasta with scallops, shrimps and an array of vegetables. I got another alfredo pasta dish with chicken and vegetables. We both ordered the 5 onion soup, which was excellent. I wish I knew how to make it. I could eat that everyday for a year.

After the bread and our soup, I started getting full. I have a very small stomach. I keep saying it is the size of one double cheeseburger from McDonald’s and a small drink. I was hoping that their servings would be small, but then I remembered that we were in America, and that that would not be the case. Sure enough, the waitress plopped down our food, and I knew instantly that I would not be able to eat it all. It tasted good, what I got to eat of it before my stomach exploded. We decided to get the rest to go. The waitress took our food and said that she would put it in a box for us. I thought that was a bit strange because usually we are brought the boxes and we have to transfer the food ourselves. “Maybe this is what they do in fancier restaurants,” I thought to myself.

We sat awhile and chatted and then we sat and chatted some more. About the time I started thinking that it was taking a long ass time to put our food in a box, this man came over and stood at our table. He looked like the manager.

“There has been an accident with your food,” he said.

“What kind of accident?” Phil and I asked at the same time.

“Well, your waitress sat it down for a second, turned her head, and when she turned back, it was gone. A bus boy was trying to help out and threw it away.”

“Threw it away?”

“Yes, and because we are so sorry that it happened, we want to give you a $10 gift card to make up for it.”

That was a nice gesture and all but the bill was $40 something and they threw out 3/4 of our food. I think we lost out somewhere. The waitress come over and apologized, and then quickly disappeared.

I’ve eaten at a lot of restaurants in my life, but I don’t think I have ever had the food I wanted to take home thrown away. Phil and I laughed it off, but it did sorta suck. That could have been our dinner tonight. That is how much was left over. Oh, well, I guess. At least we have enough money on that gift card to get some more of that 5 onion soup.

p.s. Phil wanted me to say that he has awesome internet.

Another week, another set of pictures of my baby plants. This week, I actually have some pictures of the green pepper plants. I have no idea why it took them three weeks to sprout. It was only supposed to take about 7 days like all of the others. Of the 18 that we planted, about 14 of them are now visible. Phil’s watermelon seeds sprouted, too. I didn’t think that they would for some reason, but they proved me wrong. I can’t wait until the plants grow up and start yielding a crop.

Cucumbers

Week 3

Snow Peas

Week 3

Green Beans

Week 3

Tomatoes

Week 3

Cantaloupe

Week 3

Green Peppers

Week 3

Watermelon

Week 3

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17yBGdWHJRY[/youtube]
Well, as promised, I cooked my fudge cookies this past weekend and had Phil film me. This is my first attempt at a “cooking show”, so bare with me and don’t laugh too hard. All the thanks goes to Phil. He filmed and edited the entire thing. I hope you enjoy watching it. Oh, and even though the cookies look like little piles of poo, they taste like anything but. Heh. Now get in your kitchen and try making it for yourself! I will try to think of something else to cook for you guys soon.