Being There and Being Square...

I remember the day this portrait was made of my family. It was in Madison near Harvey's, right off Gallatin Road in Nashville, TN. We walked in to whatever portrait studio it was and then downstairs and to the back of the room where everything was set up for picture-taking. I'm estimating that I'm around 6 years old, my brother 9. My mother will probably remember. I distinctly remember having this photo taken. And I remember seeing the final result weeks later and seeing my lips with red color on them. Yes, they "painted" my lips and put color in my cheeks. Most likely they did the same to my mother. Don't we look like the perfect little family? And, come one, you gotta admit it. My late father looks a little like Ben Affleck in this photo, right? Yep. He does. It doesn't take a genetic scientist to see how my brother and I were blessed with such wonderful ears. :) Incidentally, my mother made me wear my hair in this style for many, many years. I always detested it. And my head looks like a square. But I'm not square. I swear.

Thankful in '06!

We all had a great time in Nashville for Thanksgiving Day dinner! My brother smoked delicious turkeys injected with some kind of chipolte something and there was a spiral-sliced ham (yum) and all the "fixin's." My mother makes a delicious stuffing and my sister-in-law's mother makes a wonderful stuffing as well (the best part is that she also stuffs mushrooms with her stuffing and they are excellent). It was my friend Hua's first traditional American Thanksgiving meal and he acted like a true American. He ate a few plates of food and then stretched out on the couch for a nice little sleep. Actually, we all did. A couple of us went to see Flushed Away (which was pretty good but I liked Happy Feet better, as far as cartoons go) and then we all headed to my mother's house for sleeping (but only after more leftovers, of course). Friday morning brought breakfast at Shoney's, shopping at Opry Mills and a tour of downtown Nashville which included a short jaunt down Second Avenue. It was a short but enjoyable trip to Nashville.

Underneath the Willow...

My parents believed in corporal punishment (although my father was usually not the one to conduct spankings as he was always working). I believed in corporal punishment, although now I have regrets about spanking my son (some would use the word "hitting" but "spanking" sounds better). I’ve told my son that I will never, ever lay a hand on my grandchildren and I don’t think he should either. It’s what I now believe. Did getting spankings as I was growing up damage me in any way? Nah. In fact, they provided some killer negative reinforcement. Likewise, I don’t think my son has been damaged psychologically or emotionally, but still. There are other ways to discipline children. They don’t have to be hit or spanked. In fact, I’m a huge fan of the "naughty step" or the "naughty corner." The most memorable of the spankings were with the switches from the willow tree in the backyard. Sometimes we were told to go choose the branch ourselves. We (my brother and I) soon learned that the smaller branches stung the most on our legs. We got wiser as we got older, even if we didn’t misbehave any less. :) I also enjoyed playing under the willow tree. It was like a little natural tent with the branches weeping all around. We used to like to run our thumb and forefinger down a branch, forcing all the leaves off and into a "flower like" bunch. Then we would go up to someone and say, "Oh, just smell this flower" and when they put their nose to it we would let all the tiny leaves go in a shower of green leaves. Yeah.....we were big pranksters back in the day!

Gettin' Happy Over the Weekend

This weekend was good. A friend and I went to see Happy Feet. We may have been the only folks in the theater without a kid in tow but no matter. We loved the movie. Historically, I’m not a huge fan of cartoons but lately I’m reconsidering. I saw Cars and liked it. Happy Feet was very good and Robin Williams (doing the voices for several penguins) was his usual zany funny self. He delivered lines such as, "What’s the matter with you people? I’m speaking plain Penguin!" and ". . . as much as penguinly possible." It really is a good, funny movie and I can guarantee you that sales of stuffed penguins will skyrocket this holiday season. Heck, I wouldn’t even mind having one myself. So in addition to Cars and Happy Feet I also plan to see Flushed Away on Thanksgiving Day night with some friends in Nashville. Again, no kids. Just adults. Charlotte’s Web will be another must-see for me when it comes out. You know.....they say you’re born a baby, grow into an adult, and then slowly revert backwards to child-like before you die. Hmmm.



Sunday night a friend of mine invited me to enjoy her first baked turkey, along with other friends. When I arrived, recalling my own inept skills at preparing a turkey for the first time, I made sure she had removed the bag of innards stuffed inside the turkey. She had. I looked around wondering, "Where's the dressing, the green beans, the mashed potatoes and gravy?" ha ha They had prepared two tofu dishes (one with pork and one with cabbage; I always opt out of the tofu dishes) and later a dish of combined rice noodles, mushrooms, cabbage and dried shrimp. I whipped up a pan of boxed au gratin cheesy potatoes and we all enjoyed a very fine meal that was partly American, partly Asian, but 100% delicious.

Food and Fashion!

Last Friday my friend Tracy prepared four delicious dishes and asked me to eat dinner with her. Her husband was helping a friend move so it was just the two of us. These dishes are my absolutely favorites: steamed broccoli with pork, fried bean sprouts with pork and scrambled egg with pork over rice. It was a heavenly meal! :) Later, Tracy tried on several maternity outfits that she had received as a donation from an organization in Jefferson County. The red coat is perfect on her and looks great!

Sisters, Aunts, and Mothers

In the photo above I am in Changchun, China (January, 2006) which is my friend Yeheng's hometown. I call her by her western name, Tracy. Her sister, Mao Mao, took me and Li-Yin to an ice and snow festival in a local park. It was very cold, as you can see. This structure, by the way, is built on the frozen lake of the park. For about 25-30 RMB (around $3.00) you could lug an innertube to the top of the structure (No, thank you. Did I mention it's built on frozen water?) and slide down the ice slide. Yes, ice. How fun this would be.....if I were 20. In the photo above the slide you see Mao Mao, Tracy's sister. Right now Tracy is here in Knoxville with her husband. She's almost four months pregnant. Her sister, who lives in Changchun with her husband, is two months pregnant. Tracy is due May 4th. I believe Mao Mao's baby is due around the first of July. The Li sisters will become aunts about the same time they become mothers. Pretty amazing, right? Tracy's mother must be absolutely overjoyed. It will be exciting to see whether they both have boys or girls or one of each. I'm trying to convince Tracy that Teresa can be a perfectly acceptable Chinese name!

I Hate Being in Time Out!

Max has been a good and faithful companion to me and my son for almost 13 years. He has hyperthyroidism now so he has to take medication daily. Unlike other cats who can live into their late teens or even early 20's.....sadly, I don't think Max will be one of them. Lately, he's been constantly "in my face" so to speak. For the most part, he's quit sleeping in my bed but sometimes he still hangs out on top of my dresser while I'm sleeping. I think he's just growing tired of climbing the stairs to the second floor. However, when I'm downstairs in the evenings watching television he jumps up on the coffee table and just sits directly in front of me, staring at me. A lot. For long periods of time. I will pet him and scratch him, of course, but he seems to never be satisfied. Eventually, after I remove him from the table several times he'll settle in on the arm of the couch. Sometimes, if I'm laying on the couch, he stands on the floor next to the couch and stretches out one of his front paws to my face. I read somewhere that sometimes animals will keep close tabs on their owners when they are about to experience a health problem; that they have some sort of sixth sense about such things. I hope this isn't the case with me and Max.

Apples, Apples, Apples.....

Yeah.....so I was taking a little stroll in the neighborhood when I came across this incredible bounty of apples.........
I think this might be my doppleganger. ha ha ha
Sometimes, you just have to laugh!

All the Leaves are Red, and the Sky is Blue!

The big trees have shed all their leaves and it's time to bust out the rakes!
This weekend I rented some foreign films (Chinese, Italian, and French) and two of them are very good, both Chinese films with English subtitles. One is "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress" (also a great book, by the way) and the other is "Farewell, My Concubine" (starring famous Chinese actress Gong Li, who was most recently in the Miami Vice movie). I learned a lot about Beijing opera in the film "Farewell." I don’t care for opera music or opera performances. I might feel different about the Beijing opera, however, as the music and costumes are very exotic.
Sunday afternoon I took a walk around the neighborhood with some friends and we stopped by Panera’s for a little coffee and conversation. It was filled with students bent over their laptops or textbooks. Just another average weekend in the life of Lucy Blue.
Reading: Just finished The Summer Guest, by Justin Cronin and almost to the end of In The Country of Last Things, by Paul Auster. Both pleasant reads (although in Auster’s case, I would describe his fiction with words like "intense, bizarre" and "how does this guy think these things up?").

Perfect Rice, Perfect World

Last night I made some perfect rice in my perfect rice cooker, cooked up some ground pork, scrambled a couple of eggs, added some soy sauce and presto, my American version of a Chinese dish. I ate it with my chopsticks.......and pretended I was living in Beijing.
There’s been other times in my life when I’ve had a strong desire to live in another country for a while. After visiting Haiti three times, I really wanted to live there. It’s an incredible country, full of life and happy, generous people. Yes, it’s one of the poorest countries in the world. I wish I knew how to explain it but there’s an air of struggle, of challenge, that is intoxicating for me. Life, and the things necessary to sustain life, are not taken for granted. At the end of each day I spent in Haiti I felt something I do not feel at the end of every day spent at home; that of accomplishment. I haven’t been to Haiti in 10+ years. The desire and hope of spending an extended amount of time living in Haiti is like a distant fire. I can see it but I can no longer feel the heat. I don’t want that to happen to my desire (really, it’s more a craving) to spend an extended amount of time in China. In a perfect world, with everything falling into place and all kinds of logistics being worked out, I would leave for China late August, early September, 2007. I would teach and live in Beijing. I would travel throughout China on the holidays, and I would enjoy the wonderful chaos of being in an international city during the summer Olympics (August 8-24, 2008) before returning to the U.S. Anyone in China interested in hiring me to teach English?
So in the meantime.....before the perfect world comes along.......I will continue to harness the discipline necessary to learn Chinese, continue to make my American version of Chinese dishes, and above all, try to stay close to the fire.

A Marvelous Night for a Moondance

Moonrise, Knoxville, Saturday evening
During the UT/LSU game I decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Although there are an overabundance of cars parked everywhere, it’s a fairly quiet stroll during the game (except for the fireworks denoting a score by UT). As I was standing on my street corner, contemplating my direction, an older gentleman came walking towards me carrying a cat carrier. I’ve seen him before. There was no cat in his carrier this time either. So I decided to follow him. I wondered if he was stealing carriers off porches (I’ve been known to keep mine on the front porch). I walked behind him for about a block and then he went between and behind two old houses so I skirted around the house and came up through the alley. He had set the carrier on top of a heating and air unit and suddenly there appeared from under the houses 8 cats, 5 of which were kittens meowing loudly at his feet. Inside the carrier he had 12 cans of cat food and paper plates and bottled water. I introduced myself and then Jerry, with white beard and missing teeth, told me his story. He lives about 5 blocks away but used to live just 3 houses away. He’s been feeding "his cats" every single night for a while now. The cats are wild, of course, just like the ones I feed, but they will walk right up to his feet waiting for the food. He said he does yard work in Sequoyah Hills and then takes the bus to Kroger’s to get the cat food. I asked him why he didn’t buy dry food which is much cheaper and he said, "Oh, the cats really like the canned food!" Twelve cans of cat food for 5 kittens and 3 adult cats seemed like too much but he set out four plates of food for them and then when they had eaten it all, they received second helpings. Twelve cans. I don’t see how he affords it. He said to me, "Now I might have a cold one at the end of the day but I make sure my cats are fed first." Sure enough, when I was up at Sam’s Party Store a little later, there was Cat Man Jerry.....buying himself a Forty.

Feline and Foliage!

My handsome son and his feline friend at the vet hospital where he works.
Some flowers for Mom's birthday.....




The everlasting torch of "The Torch Man" on campus.
Beautiful ginko leaves.
Not much going on this weekend; maybe my last weekend of freedom for a while. I may be taking a weekend job. Yeah, it sucks.....but so does not being able to "play" every now and then (otherwise known as "taking trips, going to concerts/movies, going to see my son, etc."). UT plays LSU so there will definitely be a little action around my house tomorrow afternoon.

These are the students that I "converse" with every week as a volunteer at the English Language Institute. From left to right is Renato from Peru, Mega from Indonesia, Kayo from Japan and Juya from South Korea. They all get along very well and unlike my students from the summer months, these guys are much more informal, a bit older, and really just want to sit and talk about whatever comes up in conversation.
They invited me to the Halloween party at the ELI and it was really a lot of fun. There were many, many students there and about a fourth of them dressed in costume.


And, well, it wouldn't be an American party without pizza! :)

Happy Birthday To You!

Today my mother is celebrating the 33rd anniversary of her 40th birthday. When my mother was 40, I was 12 years old and she had no clue of the grief I would eventually cause her! ha It’s true what they say: what goes around, comes around and my son would probably tell you that he’s provided me with his own little version of grief. :)
My mother is an honest and good person. She knows how to care for people and she’s an excellent friend to those fortunate enough to know her. My mother spends a good portion of her time "doing" for others. I have said to her on many occasions that it’s time to enjoy life, take trips, experience new things, etc. But in reality I have a lot of admiration for all that my mother does for others. I, too, enjoy helping others. I learned that from her. My mother.
So if you know my momma, give her a call today and wish her well.
Happy Birthday Mom! Your favorite daughter is thinking of ya! :)