Mix up all the fancy ingredients you want.  Ship your cheese from Holland and your beef from Kobe.  Have a pig ferret out your mushrooms and have a virgin stop on your wine grapes.  

You still can’t beat the best meal ever:

Macaroni and Cheese (with bacon and those crumbly bits on top)

Tomato soup (with a bit of basil)

Salad (and a few extra sunflower seeds)

And a PEEP for dessert.  

That’s as fancy as I need.

*Courtesy “Quaint” in Sunnyside, New York

I’m used to New York.  I’ve been here, I’ve lived here, I know the town and it’s native inhabitants.  I am not one of them.  I just couldn’t let go of that last small shred of manners and politeness.  

For instance: To me a locked bathroom door usually means that someone is inside the bathroom.  Probably peeing.  More than likely half way in their lower clothing.  The locked door probably, in my opinion, means that they do not want you in there while they are peeing/taking off their pants/etc.  Wait patiently and you too will have a chance to pee/take of your pants/etc.

Unless you’re in New York in which case a locked door means that you start yelling “Why the f*** is this door locked!  Who would lock the f*****g bathroom door?  Open this s*** up now.”  And when the door locker says “Um, just a minute.” in response (probably because she is peeing AND has her pants around her knees) a good New Yorker will demand that the waitress unlock the door.

See, it’s that kind of stuff that made me move to Maryland.

We were taking an after-dinner walk when we stumbled across a huge street fair happening just a few blocks from our place.  Sweet.  I love stuff like this. There is something kinda magical when the place you live in suddenly pops up hundreds of tents and new foods.  I adore walking through the crowds to see what everyone is getting excited over.  I get excited over it too.  

Because we live in Korea the stuff they get excited with over here is a little different than the stuff we get excited about back home.  So we taped it.  

I played hostess/narrator and ran from booth the booth.  We both wanted to get film of the different foods you can get over here.  Shark, chicken feet, stuffed squid, and then there are the beetles.  

I found a booth that was firing some up.  Hundreds of brown, slimly looking beetle-like things getting cooked in a big skillet.  They were being fried in hot, brown oil and they danced and oozed and wiggled like they were still alive.  Which they could have been.  They didn’t smell very good either.  Imagine frying your used gym socks in dirty peanut oil.  Yeah…that’s what this was like.

A few weeks ago D. and I, in an surge of adventure and curiosity, tried some of these treats.  They tasted about as great as they smelled.  Only a little nuttier.  We both gave them a shot, shrugged and declared that we probably wouldn’t eat them ever again.

Until we were standing in front of a vat of them with a video camera and a nice Korean man was holding a freshly skewered one on a toothpick at me.  From behind the camera D. chuckled:  ”Go on.  Try one.”  The Korean bug-man giggled too.  

So I took it, blew on it, and popped it into my mouth.

And it popped in my mouth, squishing and spilling all over my tongue as I chewed it’s squirmy little exoskeleton.  

“So how was your first bug?” D. asked over the camera in his interviewer voice.  

I shrugged and because I’m classy and have no willpower, I was filmed making a face as I tried to get the gritty bug taste off my teeth.  

“It popped in my mouth.” I critiqued.

Out of the side of my vision the Korean bug-man laughed again and then pointed at me while he motioned his cupped hand at his crotch and said something I couldn’t translate.

“And I think he just said I have big balls.”

It as swimming day for kids at the base.  I was treading water in the deep end, poised to strike should any military-brat suddenly go down or decide that poking one another in the eye was fun.  

We had the typical games going.  Some went diving for the penny.  Some were playing water basketball.  And of course the biggest-splash contests where they’d take turns jumping in feet first to see who could cause the most commotion.  Only on a military base filled with kids whose Fathers and Mothers go to work covered in camo and packing gas masks in their “briefcases” the game took a different spin.

“Let’s play dead soldiers” one of my girls said gleefully.  

“Okay!  You shoot me.  And I’ll die first!”  

Those were the only rules.  Each girl took turns shooting one another and dying, rather realistically, into the pool.  While my other students got bored with the penny and the ball game within five or ten minutes, the dead soldiers game lasted a good thirty minutes – and attracted more kids as it went.

Over and over I watched children die of various bullet wounds.  Some took a guerilla approach to their attack.  Some simply aimed and shot.  They all died well.  None of them cried out for help dramatically or pretended to draw out the final death moments.  They all took the bullet happily and died with silent splashes.  Over and over.  

I can remember as a child having my own morbid games.  We had cops and robbers.  My father had indians and cowboys.  There are always variations to the games.  But I recall, in my own childhood, thinking that death was an automatic “out”.  Something to avoid.  Even when we were clearly shot we’d dispute it.  I recall arguing my way into hopping around with a missing leg and two missing arms (all shot off) all because I refused to accept death in the game.

Is it because so many of these children know their parents are facing their own game of dead soldiers?  Is it the hours and hours of real-life footage kids see, followed by patriotic music and narrated by proud voices?  Is it the lack of funerals?  The lack of a sense of sadness surrounding dead soldiers that let them all accept play death as stoically and enthusiastically as real death?  

Or is this just the new mutation of childhood morbidity?  Are we at the point now where death is an automatic rather than an automatic out?

I find that as a woman, handshakes become more and more complicated.  I often envy men who can simply give a good firm shake and be done with it.  More do I envy the ease that they can keep their hands locked while they chat, seemingly unconcerned that a second hold too short or too long casts you from friendly female to dirty slut.

And then there is trying to judge if he’s going to hold your fingers, or kiss them.  Hug you, or simply squeeze your hand.  If I smile, am I flirting?  If I go thumb to thumb will I come off as too aggressive.  If I offer first do I look like a confident woman of the world…or a bumbling child imitating the rest of the grown-ups?  

Sometimes I think I should just kiss everyone I meet on the forehead and be done with it.  

However, as much as my anxiety goes up when the handshake comes, I often forget how weird it must be for the men.  

Late last night I found myself eating bacon in barbecue sauce in a small shop down from my apartment.  The shop was pretty empty and most people were asleep in their beds.  Except for Tony and his student, Mr. Kim.  Tony is from California.  Mr. Kim works for a dog food company.  Tony was drunk, friendly, and obnoxious.  Mr. Kim was handsome, quiet and shy.  

Upon meeting there were handshakes all around.  My name, his name, his name, my name.  Tony pulled Mr. Kim up to us and said “Here, shake her hand, shake her hand” in the same tone one tells a reluctant child to give Aunty Lipstick a big smooch.  I was disturbed both by the tone Tony used and the idea that in this scenario I’m Aunty Lipstick.  

Mr. Kim shook my hand.  They left.  They came back.

Mr. Kim shook my hand.  Again.  This time without prompting.  While Tony and the boyfriend chatted in English Mr. Kim and I exhausted our mutual language skills.  I said “Annyeong Haseyo”.  He said “Nice to meet you.”  Then we sorta stood there.  

Tony said “Shake her hand, shake her hand!”  Mr. Kim and I looked at each other like we were gearing up to hug gorillas.  We shook.  

Tony said “You can shake girls hands when their American!  Shake her hand, shake her hand.”  

We shook…again.

Tony said “He likes to shake hands of pretty girls.  Shake her hand, shake her hand.”

We shook.  I was only mildly happy at my promotion from Aunty Gorilla to Pretty Girl.   

Tony said something in Korean that made the women laugh and Mr. Kim turn from a handsome asian olive to a bright shade of pink.

“Shake her hand, shake her hand”

We shook.  I don’t know about Mr. Kim…but I felt a little dirty.