Eating and Watching Bernadette Peters Eat

Context: This post is about the fourth day (and third day in the city) of my third New York City trip.

Are you wondering about the title of this post?

It's pretty simple, really. On the Saturday of our trip, we ate a lot of delicious food. Older Sister had signed us up for a morning walking tour of Greenwich Village (a cute place). We grabbed breakfast at Lenny's Bagels on the way. I had a delicious bagel with cream cheese and lox, which I sadly do not have a picture of.

Lunch: After the tour, Older Sister had to rush off to an event her work was putting on, but Little Brother and I had a nice sit-down lunch. Turns out that Greenwich Village has an abundance of good Italian food, so I enjoyed tasty chicken piccata, my favorite Italian dish, at Trattoria Spaghetti. My chicken came with a piece of...what seemed to be...cornbread? But not exactly cornbread. Polenta?

Chicken piccata with potatoes and some cornbread-y stuff. There was also some garlicky spinach, not shown here. All very good!

We then grabbed gelato at a place called Grom. I had a flavor called crema di grom, which included chunks of cookies made from corn. Which also tasted like cornbread. Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up. Never have I ever had Italian food with so much corn!

Dinner: After Older Sister's work events and our matinee of Hello Dolly (more on that in a minute), we met up at Bann Restaurant, where we had a reservation. Guess what? Bann Restaurant serves Korean food! That's right. Older Sister, who has hated all "Asian food" her entire life, took us to not one but two Asian restaurants while we were visiting her! And they say people never change.

Older Sister ordered us a barbecue meal that we cooked ourselves over a tiny little grill.

Pork bun appetizer!

Rice and veggies and grilled beef, salmon, and shrimp! The meat was pre-marinated and so flavorful and good!

Older Sister grilling up some beef.

We ordered these pretty chocolate molten cakes for dessert! One for Little Brother and one for Older Sister and I to share.

What I'm trying to say is that we ate very well on Saturday.

And the Bernadette Peters part? Well, she ate very well on Saturday, too.

See, Little Brother and I had decided that our second Broadway musical for the trip would be Hello, Dolly. It featured Victor Garber (whom I knew from several made-for-TV musicals) as Horace Vandergelder, Gavin Creel (who was the original Jimmy in Thoroughly Modern Millie) as Cornelius Hackl, Charlie Stemp (a Broadway newcomer) as Barnaby Tucker, and Kate Baldwin and Molly Griggs (both of whom I know nothing about) as Irene Molloy and Minnie Fay. It also featured an actress named Melanie Moore as Ermengarde. Upon reading the playbill, I discovered that I have accidentally seen Melanie Moore in every one of her Broadway roles! She was Peter Pen in Finding Neverland and Chava in the revival of Fiddler on the Roof. I guess I'm her biggest fan or something?

But above and beyond all that, the show featured the one, the only Bernadette Peters as Dolly Levi herself! If you think you don't know who Bernadette Peters is, I promise you that you do. Find a clip of her voice on YouTube, and you'll likely recognize it. She's a mega star. Among all the other things she's done, she was a guest star in the first season of The Muppet Show and she played the voice of Sophie (the lady who sings "Paris Hold the Key to Your Heart") in the movie version of Anastasia. What a fun tie-in to the previous two days of our trip! In short, we were feeling pretty good about our choices because wouldn't seeing Bernadette Peters perform live be so fun?!

Yes, it would be! The show was great. The costuming was delightful. I thought the actors did a great job. Barnaby and Cornelius were classic Barnaby and Cornelius while Mrs. Molloy and Minnie were played as less uptight and less stupid, respectfully, than usual. Bernadette Peters and Victor Garber did a good job with their characters as well. My only real complaint was that apparently the director had asked them to be over-the-top and campy in places where it wasn't really needed. A funny line should be funny without too much of an affect.

The worst offender was a scene toward the end of the show. Dolly and Horace are eating in a a restaurant when a brawl breaks out. Horace leaves the table and joins the rest of the cast in a transition to a courtroom, but Dolly aka Bernadette Peters remained seated at the table and kept eating the stage food. I'd assumed the food was made out of plastic or cotton or something (some bits seriously looked like cotton balls), but she devoured every scrap while the rest of the scene went on behind her. Midway through the scene, Dolly is supposed to offer her services as a lawyer and join the rest of the characters, but even after the judge called for a lawyer, Bernadette Peters kept eating for, like, seven to ten minutes while the other actors waited.

It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life (and that's saying something). Some folks in the theatre were laughing hysterically, but I didn't find it funny, just odd. I found myself thinking things like, "Did something go wrong?" "Is Bernadette Peters messing with the rest of the cast?" and "Does Bernadette Peters have it in her contract that she has to eat a certain time?" and "Did we really pay $49 to watch Bernadette Peters eat lunch?" Finally, though, she finished eating to thunderous applause, and the scene continued.

Little Brother looked this up and confirmed that it was a director's choice and not some kind of mishap or joke. Ummmm okaaaaay director person!

The last thing about Saturday that needs to be discussed is the shower at Older Sister's apartment. Remember how we went on a tour of Greenwich Village that morning? We saw lots of interesting things on the tour, like the theatre where Barbra Streisand got started, New York City's skinniest house, the apartment building where Benedict Cumberbatch stayed when he was on Broadway, and the Stonewall Inn. One of the most intriguing, things, though, was the Hess Triangle.

When the city wanted to widen the streets, this fellow Hess, who owned an apartment building on one of the streets in question, refused to cooperate, so the government ended up seizing his land for the public good. However, Hess retained a tiny triangle of land. Being the Saltiest Person on Earth™, he decided that the only appropriate course of action was to put a plaque on the tiny triangle stating he never donated his land to the public. (At least, the tour guide said it was him. The Internet disputes this by saying it was his heirs. Who I guess would then be the Saltiest People on Earth™.)

This thing is tiny. One person can stand on it comfortably, and that's it. It's probably the most American thing I've ever seen (I say with affection).

Guess what? There were two showers in Older Sister's apartment, and one was the size of the Hess Triangle!

Well, I'm exaggerating. Slightly. It was about the size of three Hess Triangles put together. There were no walls or anything; just a shower curtain. I couldn't even have the shampoo bottle in the shower with me because there was no room.

The Hess Shower was the only shower available after 11 p.m. by the agreement of the apartment tenants. (The other shower, which was a more normal size, activated pipes that were too loud for people to sleep through.) Apart from that, because it was the less-preferred shower, it was more likely to be free in general during target shower times.

I first used it on Friday after we got back from Brooklyn. I was careful to keep the shower curtain tucked, but imagine my dismay when I exited it and discovered that I hadn't done a good enough job and the entire bathroom was flooded.

Granted, the bathroom was tiny, but there was still a couple inches of water spread uniformly across the floor. I did my best to mop it up with my towel and all of my clothing before humbling myself enough to leave the bathroom, trek past one of Older Sister's oblivious roommates who was doing laundry right outside the bathroom door, and approach Older Sister.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: So...the bathroom is flooded...

Older Sister was gracious in not hating me and in letting me take another of her three towels to mop up the floor.

So on Saturday when I had to use the shower again, I kept my body completely vertical so that I didn't nudge any of the curtains out of place! When I dropped something and had to pick it up, I was forced to do a very careful squat to recover it.

I made sure to nab the big shower on Sunday night.

The First Day Is Always the Worst Day

I needed a vacation.

I hadn't gone on a real vacation since Disneyland eighteen months ago. I've gone out of town, sure, but always for reasons fraught with family obligation. I've taken days off work, but always for illness or holiday or church reasons or special events. I never get a chance to recharge or relax, and my ability to hold myself together has worn thin.

In January, I was investigating a possible trip back to Europe; I'd been tentatively planning to go in spring of 2018 for a while. So I didn't vacation at all in 2017, and I saved...and I saved...and I saved. I had plenty of money to go on a trip! My plan was book and pay for the trip in January...go in the spring...and buy a new car in the summer. I couldn't find anyone to go with, but I wasn't giving up; there was still time.

I ended up buying a new car in January instead, and I was hesitant to dip any more into my savings for an expensive trip. I felt like Heavenly Father was saying, "DON'T GO TO EUROPE THIS SPRING" because nothing was coming together. So I didn't book anything, though I was still toying with the idea of going later in the year. Then my appendix had to come out, and I had to pay the people who took it out, and it quickly became apparent that this year was just not going to be my year.

Little Sister and her husband went back to NYC around the same time I bought my new car, and she could only gush about the awesome Jim Henson exhibit that I'd wanted to see in New York City three years before. So when I was weighing the idea of going on vacation, I decided: what the heck? Why not go back to New York City so that I could finally see the dang exhibit, eat whatever I wanted, and spend time with Older Sister? The idea appealed to me, particularly because Older Sister would be working, so I could do whatever amused me. The subway system is easy to use; I could get around with no trouble and generally have a good time. And I could stay with Older Sister, which would be very inexpensive.

So (after several weeks of hemming and hawing), I finally committed to Older Sister to come and visit. However, after I'd done so, my mother cornered me and said that I should take Little Brother with me.

That kind of killed the point of the vacation, especially since Mom wanted me to take him to the Statue of Liberty and to Trinity Church and to her favorite restaurants and generally do a bunch of things that I had no intention of doing. So I laid it out straight for Little Brother: this was my trip, and while he could come, he would more or less have to do whatever I wanted.

He said okay, and the plans commenced.

Now, before you think I'm a mean older sister, let it be known that I made sure to include Little Brother in the plans. I made room for the things that were non-negotiable for him: going to the Times Square Disney store, going to the 9/11 Memorial, getting dim sum in Chinatown, a museum called the Museum of Jewish Heritage. He also wanted to go to the Jim Henson exhibit as much as I did.

The flight was booked and the musical tickets were purchased, and in what seemed like no time at all, the day of the trip had arrived and Little Brother and I were waiting at the airport late, late at night.

A few things to know about Little Brother:

• He loves Disney and knows the most about it. Of anyone. On earth. Probably.
• He loves theming.
• He loves beautiful things.
• He loves our Jewish heritage and taught himself to make delicious challah bread. Unlike me, he looks like a full-blooded Jew.
• He loves most of the things I love, except for Harry Potter, and his appreciation for Jim Henson has turned him into an accomplished amateur puppeteer.
• He secretly kind of wants to be YouTube famous.
• He has about a million original stories, musicals, and TV shows hiding inside his brain. They come out if you listen to him talk long enough.
• After our sibling date where I introduced him to sushi, sushi became his most-favorite food.

While we were waiting, he showed me a bunch of his Snaps from Snapchat, something I've never used. It would appear that Little Brother mostly uses it to send droll pictures to his friends.

As usual, we were red eyeing it out to New York. The flight was uneventful, but...odd. First of all, when we were loading onto the plane, a man with an accent I couldn't identify asked me (I think) to check one of his items in my name. He said (I think) that he and his wife and his two kids had too many items to check even though the flight had just announced complimentary checking since there was plenty of room.

They were a cute family, but they were strangers, so I refused. I felt bad, but it's basic airline safety not to accept things from people you don't know! Luckily, we saw later that the flight had checked their extra items with no fuss.

The other odd things about the flight were as follows: 1) The plane was abnormally loud. Little Brother was sitting next to me, but I could barely hear him all night. 2) The flight attendants were weirdly sneaky. I was half-asleep the whole flight, so I barely remember, but I seem to remember that they...didn't really talk? They just communicated with a series of gestures mostly, so that they didn't wake up passengers, I guess. But it was really hard for me to see said gestures since I was trying to sleep and wore no glasses or contacts! 3) The girl sitting next to us promptly fell asleep about as soon as the plane took off and barely moved all night. I even climbed over her to reach the restroom, yet she didn't stir. (Note: I went to the restroom barefoot. That was a mistake. The floor was gross.) Then, just moments before we landed, she woke up like clockwork. ???!

Neither Little Brother nor I slept well. I don't know about Little Brother, but I'd gotten up pretty early the morning of the day we'd left, and I was miserable and exhausted. I do know that at one point I accidentally squirted hand sanitizer in his eye, and he screamed at me. But it was a controlled scream. No one heard it but me. Not even the sleeping girl; she didn't move an inch.

I was adamant that we book our flight to JFK so that we could utilize the air train. Once we'd disembarked and gathered our luggage, we took the train, no problem, to Jamaica Station. Then we took the E Train to Times Square, walked a very long time through the subway to get to a connecting station, and took a 1 Train uptown.

Finally, we made it to the Upper West Side, where Older Sister lives in a beautiful 100-year-old building with 11 roommates. Yup, count 'em—11.

A few things to know about Older Sister:

• She's crazy ambitious. She took a double courseload and finished her six-semester graduate school program in three semesters, something that had never been done before.
• She's always wanted to live in New York City.
• She's always claimed to hate "Asian" food, saying it all tastes the same and is gross.
• She works for a non-profit that teaches underprivileged kids to dance.
• She, too, looks like she could be full-blooded Jewish. When she first moved to the city, she did some babysitting for a Jewish family and would sometimes be mistaken for a relative. On Saturdays, she wears her Sunday clothes to the Manhattan temple for a shift as a temple worker, and on the streets she's often mistaken for a Jew from a more conservative sect.
• She, too, secretly wants to be famous, but not YouTube famous.
• She loves the finer things in life and has never cared much for discomfort.

So even though I knew that she was living in a crowded apartment with no space to herself, it still amazed me. It's a testament to how much she loves New York City, because she's always been the kind of person who's always wanted to live somewhere that was nice and cutely decorated and very much her own.

Not that the apartment wasn't not nice, it just barely had room to exist at all. The whole thing, square-foot-wise, surely didn't exceed the amount of space I share with my two roommates. And her bedroom, which sleeps two people, is about the same size as my bedroom minus the closet. My bedroom is okay, but on the small side, for a single person; for two people, it would be pretty cramped!

The roommate had kindly stayed elsewhere so that Older Sister could have us in her room with her. I got the top bunk of the bunk bed. Little Brother got a cot-type bed on the floor. We could hang out in the apartment, but we couldn't wear shoes while we did so. We could shower in one of two bathrooms (except if it was after 11:00 p.m., in which case we had to shower in a tiny little bathroom—more on that later). Before she left for work, Older Sister presented us with a brassy-looking set of keys. One for the apartment building; one for the apartment. We were cautioned to be very careful not to break the lock, which had apparently happened before.

We crashed for an hour or so. Then...the city.

I gave Little Brother a first day similar to my first day on my first trip. First, the Disney store, which was everything Little Brother had dreamed of. Then lunch at Junior's. I'd heard that the food was better if you ordered something Jewish-style.

Sadly, it was still kind of meh. However, it pleased Little Brother to order a brisket sandwich with a latke and applesauce.

After, we took a subway downtown. At this point, we discovered that while the subway was easy to use (seriously—this was the first trip where I was the subway navigator, and there were hardly any bumps), our smartphones didn't seem to operate properly on the streets. (Over-saturation of people sucking up data?) It took us approximately six million years to find the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

The museum was not what we were expecting. The lady at the front desk asked us how we'd heard of it, and I breezily said, "We were just looking for a good Jewish museum!" But whether it was a good Jewish museum is...up for debate. There was some good stuff, but it wasn't very well-presented, and they kind of brushed over the Holocaust, mostly focusing on Jewish culture before it and how said culture recovered after. There were some cool artifacts, but I didn't learn very many new things. The most interesting tidbit was the fact that in some countries during Hitler's regime, Jews who didn't have "Jewish" names were required to take on the name or middle name of Israel or Sara.

Following the museum, we crashed. I was incredibly exhausted: dead on my feet and barely aware. I had no idea how I was going to stay up to watch Anastasia that night. But after lazing in Older Sister's apartment for a bit, I summoned the energy to arise, dress, and lead Little Brother to Tonn Ramen.

Older Sister, she who hates all Asian food, picked Tonn Ramen for dinner. She'd tried it and actually liked it! However, she ended up staying at work late and then babysitting afterward, so she didn't join us for our first taste of restaurant ramen.

Tonn Ramen is one of the more eccentric places I've been in New York City! Little Brother described the restaurant as "in a garage." It was below street level, tiny, and crowded. Everything about it seemed to be designed to make diners as uncomfortable as possible so that they would order, eat, and leave. The whole front of the restaurant was open, so we could feel the breeze from the street. The bar stools were difficult to keep a seat on, and I could never quite get myself into a position where I didn't feel I was about to fall off. The waiters whisked from place to place, quickly collecting orders which were then assembled in a matter or minutes. Not that anyone was rude or made us feel unwanted—but there was a slight feeling of, "Oh, we're very busy, so you should be glad we could squeeze you in!" Coupled with the fact that the restaurant was open during limited hours, the general air was one of exclusivity.

In any case, we quickly ate our ramen and paid. Mine is pictured below. It was tasty, although it was still ramen.

The vegetables and spices woke me up a bit. By the time we got to the Broadhurst Theatre, I was feeling much more excited about taking Little Brother to his first Broadway musical!

However. While Anastasia was delightful, it was rough. They completely rewrote the plot and dialogue, losing a lot of what made the animated movie so good. There also was a nice opportunity for them to tie up one character's philosophical qualms (his father was one of the guards who shot the royal family to death, so he is committed to making sure Anastasia is actually dead; his turn of heart would have been more realistic had it been revealed that his father actually helped Anastasia escape), but they passed that over for some unconvincing mumbo-jumbo. Overall, the movie, with its magic and demons and sold souls, actually seemed a lot more realistic than this historically accurate version. The special effects were dope, though, and the performers did do a good job with what they had.

We briefly stage-doored so that Little Brother could get a quick video of Christy Altomare for his friends. Then we took the subway home, utterly exhausted. (Confession: I'd fallen asleep for several seconds during the show.) As I showered (in the big shower) and hauled myself up the bunk bed ladder, I was wondering if this trip was a good idea or if I would regret it.

In Which I Gain Another Mother

It's catching up to me.

My penchant for over-scheduling, that is. It's catching up. Nay, it's caught up, and it's keeping apace of me.

Since I moved out, there have been four times where, instead of buying groceries and then cooking my own food, I have spent the week's grocery money on a large quantity of food at a Chinese or Indian restaurant, which I then eat all week long.

The first time was a year ago. The other three times...have all been in the last two months.

I'm working on making time to do normal things like cooking and grocery shopping, I swear. Things are working out so that hopefully I can actually have free time. As soon as next month, I expect to be able to do things like write stories, bake blueberry muffins, clean my room and the apartment shower, and put all of my photos from 2015 on Facebook. You know. The good stuff. But I'm not there yet, so yesterday after work I went to Hometown's second-best Chinese restaurant.

I am a frequent visitor at Hometown's second-best Chinese restaurant. The manager knows me on sight although (as I think I've mentioned before) Etch-a-Sketch and I bear a passing resemblance that confuses some. Etch-a-Sketch used to go to this restaurant with Best Friend Boy fairly often, then she and I started going there together occasionally, and Best Friend Boy and I went there together shortly after he got home from his mission. This has caused the manager to seemingly mix up me and Etch-a-Sketch somewhat. No matter, though—whether he thinks I'm me or whether he thinks I'm Etch-a-Sketch, he's always happy to see me and greets me warmly.

He was the one who took my takeout order yesterday. First I ordered a sweet and sour pork combo, a dish I often get there because it's delicious not as expensive as my favorite dish. The manager knows that I often order the pork, so he didn't seem surprised, but when I also ordered a combo with lemon chicken he jokingly said, "Who's that for?"

"Me," I said.

He seemed taken aback.

"I don't have time to cook this week," I explained, "so I'm buying food instead."

"Are you sure you don't just want to come back tomorrow?" he said doubtfully.

I said it was all right, and then I also ordered a strawberry chicken combo.

"Who's that one for?"

"Also me," I said. I felt like I might be blushing. He just seemed so concerned that it was making me feel embarrassed.

Doubtfully, the manager rang me up. He asked if he could at least put the sauce on the side so that the food wouldn't get soggy. I told him that was fine, and I paid for my meal. When I got my change back, I noticed that I'd been given a small discount.

As I was waiting for my food, the manager approached me again to ask if I was sure I wanted all that food.

"Have you done this before?" he asked.

I told him I had. I assured him that I had some vegetables at home to eat with the food, and that I'd be all right. Seeming mollified, he headed to the kitchen.

A minute later, he came out with a styrofoam box. He flipped up the lid and showed me the contents.

"Steamed vegetables," he said.

"Yes," I said, unsure of what was going on.

He told me that he was going to put the vegetables with my order, if that was okay. I thanked him, a little amused and completely astounded.

When my order was up, I noticed an extra takeout container in the bag. Sure enough, when I got home, I found not only strawberry sauce and steamed vegetables on the side, but also extra fried rice.

 

I was charmed. I had been, dare I say it, mothered to death, and it had been adorable. I'm a big girl who can take care of herself, but it's from time to time it's nice to have someone unexpectedly look out for me.

On the other hand, my days of living off Chinese takeout are apparently over. I can never order three dishes from Hometown's second-best Chinese restaurant again if it's going to grieve the manager so. Next week, I'm going to have to start cooking again like a real adult.

The Genetic Makeup of an Obnoxious

Like most LDS people, I am obsessed with my ancestors. I constantly ask questions about them, such as "Who were they? What were they like? Where did they live? Why did some of their parents name them Saloma Bisbury which is not a good name?" and so on and so forth.

My dad's brother recently submitted some of his DNA to an ancestry company. For a fee, the folk at this company analyze DNA to figure out a person's racial makeup and where their ancestors come from. Here are the results for my dad's brother (and, by extension, my dad):
25% - Ireland
20% - European Jewish
18% - Europe West
12% - Italy/Greece
10% - Scandinavia
7% - Great Britain

Before you begin to judge the company on its math skillz, I should explain that each estimate is +/- 4%.

This pretty much matches what I've always known about my dad's family. My dad's grandpa is Jewish, so my dad is a quarter Jewish. +/- 4% of 20% goes right along with that, especially if some of the Jewish ancestors chose to intermarry with other members of the Roman empire (uncommon for faithful Jews but not impossible; that could be where some of the Italian/Greek comes in).

The Irish was a surprise. And then, at the very bottom of the image my uncle sent my dad, there was a little note explaining that trace amounts of East Asian ancestry was found in my uncle's DNA, adding up to less than 1%!

That means that I am half of less than 1% Asian! Which, actually, is still less than 1%. But no matter. All of those times that I joked that I should have been some kind of Asian persuasion because I love so many types of Asian food, and it turns out that I actually was, somewhat, all along.

Anyways, I found this to be pretty marvelous. I'm hoping that someone in my mom's family will choose to also try it so that I can get a full picture of the other side of the family. We'll see.

The Dragon Dance

Usually, when my roommates and I go to dinner, we go to the second-best Chinese restaurant in Hometown.

I call it the the second-best because it is, and it is on account of there's another Chinese restaurant in town that's better. Their food is fantastic, but so are their prices. And so are their lines because they're only open a few hours a day. If I were feeling wealthy and exclusive I would go to the best Chinese restaurant in town, but I hardly ever feel wealthy and exclusive so I usually go to the second-best Chinese restaurant in town.

Best Friend Boy and his family goes there a lot and knows the manager fairly well. Etch-a-Sketch used to go with them a lot, so she also knows the manager fairly well. And now I go there so much that the manager knows me as well. Or he's confusing me with Etch-a-Sketch, since we've gone there a few times together and people commonly mistake us for each other due to similar hair and body structure.

Whether he thinks I'm me or whether he thinks I'm Etch-a-Sketch, the manager usually comes to personally talk to me whenever I'm in the house. A few weeks ago, when Pepper and I came for dinner, he encouraged me to come to the restaurant for their Chinese New Year's celebration.

Since I'm a sucker for Chinese food and celebrations and interesting things that I've never done before, I agreed, and on the night of the celebration I showed up for a 6:30 reservation with Pepper, the Seamstress, and Goldfinger in tow.

The restaurant was pretty crowded with couples and families. Little red envelopes hung from the ceiling. There was one near our table that was hanging alongside a bunch of lettuce.

We ordered from the special New Year's menu and settled in to wait.

Pepper was excited because her grandmother is Chinese and used to take her to a Chinese restaurant for a similar New Year's celebration. She was so excited that she brought us all gifts for the occasion: notebooks!

PEPPER: Read the words on the front, because they mean something.

The Seamstress's notebook said, "Reach for the stars." Goldfinger's notebook said, "Make mistakes." This is what mine said:

Obviously, Pepper knows me well.

Shortly after our food came, a drumming started within the restaurant. It was a compelling, steady drumbeat, and everybody started moving in time to it. I kept bobbing my head back and forth because I just couldn't help myself. Goldfinger was bobbing his head, too. The waiters were stepping in time.

Then the dragon came out! We all craned our heads eagerly to look... buuut this lady from the table next to us stepped in front of us so that she could take a video. So we were left in suspense while she videoed. But then finally, finally, she moved, and we could actually see the dragon.

It was the real deal, too. The dancers in the dragon costume pranced up and down and all around the restaurant to the beat of the drum. They were accompanied by a dancer wearing a mask and carrying a fan, and another dancer in a monkey mask and costume. It was just like in Fraggle Rock when they dress up as the Weeba beast and dance and shout "Weeba weeba!" Except nobody shouted "Weeba weeba!" Not even me, even though I really wanted to.

The kids in the restaurant couldn't get enough of that monkey. I couldn't get enough of that monkey. He hopped around, crouching on the ground and poking his head through the cutouts in the partition walls. He monkeyed his way through the aisles, which we enjoyed watching... buuut then the lady from the table next to us stepped in front of us again so that she could take a video. Again.

After about twenty minutes of this, the dragon began a different kind of dance. It lifted its head up to one of the red envelopes hanging from the ceiling, close its giant dragon mouth around it, and gulp it into its gut. Envelope after envelope it swallowed, even the one hanging next to the lettuce. In fact, in its haste to eat the envelope, it also swallowed the lettuce. And then it danced around the restaurant and threw the lettuce up onto the ground. Because apparently, dragons like red envelopes but not lettuce.

All the while, the drums kept beating. They made me feel like I had to get up and do something, but there was no room in the restaurant to do anything. The only thing to do was to keep eating, even though I was stuffed with food from the very filling special New Year's menu.

Soon the whole thing was done. We applauded, paid, boxed up our food, had an obligatory conversation with my BFF the manager, and left. I couldn't help feeling kind of hopeful because a) the excitement of the drumbeat had gotten into my soul. Also b) Pepper had said that we should use our notebooks to make New Year's resolutions because, as far as she was concerned, it was like New Year's all over again. And since this was a lot more exciting than what I usually do for New Year', I liked the idea of starting 2016 over with this other beginning.

Then we got home, and the Seamstress looked up our zodiac signs.

THE SEAMSTRESS: (to Awkward Mormon Girl) Apparently the year of the monkey is supposed to be really bad luck for you!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: ...NO.

On a Roll

When Baby Brother was small, he was severely allergic to several kinds of meat, nuts, and fruits and vegetables.

One day, before she realized her son was allergic to everything, my mom gave him some carrots and told them they were good for his eyes.

A while later, Baby Brother came to her. "You were right, Mom!" he said excitedly. "I can feel my eyes growing!"

What he actually felt was his face swelling in an allergic reaction to the carrots.

Needless to say, Baby Brother existed basically on a diet of dairy and carbs and that's it.

There were two kids in our neighborhood Baby Brother's age with bad allergies. One was allergic to gluten. The other was allergic to dairy. I used to picture them eating lunch together in the elementary school cafeteria. Between them, they could consume napkins and some lettuce.

Eventually, Baby Brother grew out of his allergies. But, having eaten only dairy and carbs for so long, he had a natural suspicion and dislike of meat, fruits, and veggies and refused to eat them. Thus the world's pickiest eater was born.

Now, over the past year I've made some strides with Baby Brother. He now enjoys naan. And in July, he even tried a piece of calamari and found it tolerable. Still, I don't really know why earlier this week Little Brother and I decided to take him with us while we got sushi.

I wasn't expecting Baby Brother to eat anything, so I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to order some calamari. He ate a piece or two of that. Then, suddenly, Little Brother was challenging him to eat a piece of sushi.

I thought it couldn't hurt, so I gave Baby Brother a piece of the Vegas roll. You can't say you don't like sushi if you haven't tried a Vegas roll. They're not what people typically think of when they think of sushi, but boy, are they magically delicious!

Baby Brother tentatively picked up the sushi with his chopsticks. He dipped it in the soy sauce as directed, then brought it to his mouth.

Then pulled it away.

Then brought it back.

Then pulled it away!

Then brought it back!

Lather, rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

LITTLE BROTHER: YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY! JUST TRY IT.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Hey, trying new foods can be scary!

Finally, Baby Brother took a small bite of the breaded exterior of the roll.

BABY BROTHER: Hey, that's good!

A few minutes later, he took another bite! And another.

He was actually consuming food with nutritional value! It was a miracle.

We praised him. We told him that this was a basic roll he could get at any sushi restaurant.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: The sushi restaurant near our house puts fish eggs on their Vegas rolls.

It just so happened that one of our raw rolls had some fish eggs sprinkled on it, so we scraped off the eggs and gave them to Baby Brother.

BABY BROTHER: That's good!

He started scraping fish eggs off my share of the roll.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Okay, that's enough...

After we paid, Little Brother and I chewed some bits of ginger to cleanse our palates.

To our surprise, Baby Brother wanted to try some ginger, too. And he liked it!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: You're on a roll!

BABY BROTHER: Ha! Sushi! On a roll!

To conclude the story on a slightly different note, as we left, we thanked our waiter and said goodbye to him.

LITTLE BROTHER: Bye! Love y--

We laughed at him.

LITTLE BROTHER: IT'S HABIT!

Celebrating 2 Years of Awesome

Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary of my first blog post aka the beginning of this whole entire blog aka the beginning of an extra dimension of my life.

It would be easy to flatline at this point in my life. I'm done with school, I have a job, and I'm out of my parents' house. Marriage, kids, my own house--all that is ahead of me, yet currently unattainable. So what do you do when the next big steps of your life cannot be reached?

You make stuff up. Specifically, you ask your roommates if they want to have a party on a Saturday night to celebrate your blog with you.

And then they say yes. So you make plans to go for Chinese food at Hometown's second-best Chinese restaurant.

And you're excited to surprise your roommates with the party favors you made for them.

But then your roommate Pepper surprises you with your very own custom t-shirt, which is even more exciting.

And then you go home and play games and introduce your roommates to Fraggle Rock. And then you all eat a delicious ice cream cake your roommate the Seamstress bought that you name your blog post after.

And now that you have actual blog merchandise, you know that you have to keep going for another year at least. I have some exciting stuff planned for the upcoming year, and I look forward to sharing it with you.

Happy two years, everyone!

It's Fantastic

Little Sister brought me a decorative fan from Chinatown in San Francisco. Add this to the two fans Porch gave me this past summer, and I have a rather nice collection of fans.

A fan.

Burning Question: What is it about me that makes people want to give me fans?

Not-So-Burning Answer: My secret Asian-ness, of course.

Other Burning Question: What can I do with these fans, anyways?

Besides the obvious use of fanning myself, or wafting oxygen over a fire, or using it as a defense mechanism against the Huns, that is.

 

 

 Apart from those things, what can I do with a fan?

 

I thought long and hard about this question, and came up with a rather exhaustive list of things I can do with a fan.

 

-Watch FANtasia with it.

 

-Bring it on the bus and insist on paying its FANfare.

 

-Take it to the opera. Now it's the FANtom of the opera.

-Write a FANtasy story about it: it's FANfiction.

-Show it the segment of Zoom about how FANnee Doollee loves apples but not grapes. And puffins but not penguins. And Harry Potter but not Ron Weasley.

 

-Take it for a ride on an eleFANt.

 

-Kill its parents and make it an orFAN.

-When it whines, tell it to stop being a baby--an inFANt.

 

-Teach it to dance the FANdango.

-Buy it a nice drink of orange FANta.

 

-Put it in a little dress and tell it that it looks FANcy.

 

-Put it in a little suit and tell it that it looks FANdsome.

 

-Watch a movie together that stars Dick FAN Dyke.

 

-Bring it a fruit basket with FANteloupe and FANgerines.

 

-Throw it in the air and yell, "You can fly, Peter FAN!"

 

-Get it a religious television show. Now it's a televised EFANgelist.

 

-Recruit it for a gang and give it a gangster FANdana.

 

-Apply for a scholarship for it because it's a disadFANtaged student.

 

-Tell it to make me a FANdwich.

 

-Take it on a steep hike up a mountain and chant, "I think I FAN, I think I FAN!"

News Flash: My Life is Boring

I may have misled you.

You may read this blog and think, "Whoa--praying mantises, travel to Europe and Disneyland, unfortunate incidents of violence! Awkward Mormon Girl has a really exciting life!"

Let me set you straight. My life actually is pretty blah. I just don't write about the blah things. I write about my exciting adventures and not the ordinary things I do each day, such as getting the mail and reminiscing about cartoons from the 90s.

Today, for example, I watched General Conference, went to work, dropped by College City for a group project, did additional homework, and completed household chores.

After that, I ate ice cream and showed Baby Brother movies from my childhood. That's the part where I reminisced about 90s cartoons. You probably thought I was being random when I mentioned that earlier but it's actually like a biweekly activity for me.

Nothing turned out remarkably exciting, unusual, or awkward. There was a ton of other stuff I could have done, mainly more homework. Had I done that homework, though, it probably would have been just as boring as everything else.

...okay, now that I said that I'm starting to wonder if my homework would actually have been very exciting. Maybe I would have severely wounded myself with a paper cut. In which case I have mixed feelings about missing that particular event.

You Wear What You Eat

Every summer, Hometown throws an international fair featuring dancers from all across the world.

I love, love, love this fair. Apart from the dancers, there are crafts and delicious food. This summer I convinced Porch to go with me.

This is the line I used to convince Porch to go with me: "It'll be a multicultural experience!" I guess it's either a good line or he just has nothing better to do, because this is the second year I've gotten him to come to the fair.

This year, after carefully studying the merchandise at every booth (wooden shoe key chains from Holland! Hibiscus-print dresses from some Polynesian Island! Silverware wind chimes made by local artists!), we decided it was time to eat. We studied the food selection even more carefully than we studied the merchandise and finally chose Thai food.

I purchased red chicken curry with bamboo, fried rice, and a spring roll. Porch got the curry and the rice and some cashew chicken. We sat down at a table beneath a tree to eat our delicious food and drink tiny free cups of water, accompanied by some unknown women and a prepubescent boy. All was well. Except for the annoyance of the wind, that is. The wind persistently snatched up our napkins and ruffled our hair. It made eating the amazing Thai food a little less enjoyable.

Just when Porch cleared his plate of almost everything except driblets of sauce, fwap! His too-light plate overturned in the wind. The cashew chicken sauce and the curry sauce and little bits of food all splattered artistically on Porch's t-shirt.

I tried not to laugh. Really I did. I succeeded, too. Mostly. At least I didn't all-out bust up like the prepubescent boy at our table did. As we excused ourselves, we could still hear his laughter and the scolding from one of the ladies, "It's not funny."

I finally busted up once we got to the parking lot. So did Porch.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I kind of want to tell this story in a blog post, but I can't think of a good way to end it. 'And then, Porch was covered with sauce!' Is that funny?

PORCH: (examining his shirt) I think there's some rice, too.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: 'And then, Porch was covered with rice!' Is that better? Rice is funny, right?

Porch never did respond to that. It was almost like he was avoiding answering the question to spare my feelings. I don't know why, though, because obviously rice is never anything but hilarious.

And then, Porch was covered with rice! The End.

See? Hilarious.

Fortunately

The fortune said, "You will have many friends when you need them."

"And when you don't need them, they'll be nowhere to be found," snarked Best Friend Boy, who has returned from his LDS mission to South America and who came with me to fill my habitual craving for Chinese food.

He took the other fortune cookie, the one that I hadn't selected. The fortune within complimented him on his storytelling abilities.

"I think you took the wrong one," Best Friend Boy said.

"No," I said thoughtfully, reading my fortune a second time. You will have many friends when you need them. "I don't think I did."

A while back, my pal Shutterbug started dating the future Mr. Shutterbug. She invited me and Etch-a-Sketch over to meet him. Etch-a-Sketch was soon to be engaged, and Shutterbug and her man were getting pretty serious as well.

My friends were chatting excitedly about their men. Shutterbug told us more about her relationship with her boyfriend and praised him lavishly. Etch-a-Sketch expounded upon her upcoming engagement and bemoaned the brief separation while she was at Shutterbug's and her future fiancé was at work.

"Well," I said. "My imaginary boyfriend is a doctor."

Etch-a-Sketch and Shutterbug promptly responded with, "Ohhh, awesome," and "Tell me more," and "He sounds great!"

Shutterbug's boyfriend was confused by my use of the word 'imaginary.' "So... then are you guys just not really dating yet, or-"

"____," Shutterbug addressed him in the kind of delicate voice usually reserved for discussing terminal illness, "he doesn't exist."

"Ohhhh," he said, adopting a similar tone. In that moment I was reminded of how bizarre I can be and how many friends I have in spite of that and how my friends not only put up with me but learn to adapt to my quirky personality and isn't it kind of amazing?

Believing in my imaginary boyfriends is the least of it. Best Friend Boy deserves a medal for his superhuman kindness and support. I've cried buckets of tears during heartfelt conversations with Viola. For years the Fearless One has let me ride on the coattails of her assertiveness when I can't find it within myself.

I collect true friends like other girls collect shoes. At every turn in my life where I needed someone to help me take the next step in becoming me, I found them.

I've been very fortunate. I've been very blessed. I see the hand of God in each and every friendship that I have, for how else would I be able to always find exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it? Even when I didn't know what I needed.

Even when I didn't realize I needed it.

Slowly I'm coming to terms with the fact that I can't get many places worth going on my own. Companionship is key to progress. Without it, I'd stagnate and get so frustrated I would spontaneously combust.

Thanks, everybody, for helping me avoid spontaneous combustion.

Sushi Problems

Remember how even though I'm European-Jewish-Slav aka ethnic white, I'm secretly also an Asian? I know this because I crave Asian food way more than I crave European, Jewish, or Slav food. And everybody who doesn't live under a rock knows that the type of food you crave aligns with your racial background. It's genetics, people. Even monks who spend all their time growing pea plants know about genetics.

One of the Asian foods I crave most often is one called sushi. There are many great things about sushi. Sushi is Japanese. It usually involves seafood. It's delicious. But. There are dreadful things about sushi, too. I have compiled a list of the ones that bother me the most.

Problem #1: You have to use chopsticks to eat sushi.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Why is that a problem for someone who's secretly Asian, like you? Aren't you a chopsticks-using whiz?"

And I'm thinking, "Excuse me? Don't you know anything about genetics? Genetics clearly prove that secret Asians can't use chopsticks. When secret Asians try to use chopsticks, we look like schmendricks. Schmendrick being a Yiddish word that here means, 'more like a European-Jewish-Slav aka ethnic white than like an Asian.'" But in addition to the wrong genetics, I have other problems when it comes to chopsticks.

Once upon a time when I was in elementary school, I was unable to hold a pencil properly. Yes, that's right, I was unable to correctly use a pencil, one of the simplest utensils in the world. I don't know how I managed to accomplish this feat, but I did. In order to make it possible for me to use a pencil, my mom had to buy me this little doohickey:

Behold, the corrective pencil grip. Mine had little diagrams and stars engraved in them to guide me in proper finger placement. Eventually, I was able to hold a pencil the right way without deep thought and major confusion, but it took years of the pencil grip, the training wheels of writing instruments.

Aside from pencils, I was also unable to hold scissors properly. Sadly, there are no corrective grips for scissors, so that's something I struggle with to this day. Now you know my shameful secret: I can't fulfill the basic dexterity requirements of kindergarten. Also, I can't jump rope.

Using chopsticks is kind of like using a pencil. Or maybe more like using scissors, because there are two chopsticks in a set just like there are two blades on a scissor. Except scissor blades are attached, and chopsticks aren't. Each chopstick does something different yet works with the other in harmony. It's very confuzzling to my poor, uncomprehending fingers, who have the wrong genetics and just aren't good at this kind of thing anyways.

Problem #2: The world is divided into people who love sushi and people who are afraid of sushi.

If you don't believe me, go and watch the news. They're always covering the Great Sushi Divide. And if they're not, they should.

Whenever I talk to people about sushi, I almost always get one of two reactions: "I love sushi!" or "I've never tried it." And the people who've never tried it cite their fear of raw fish, or of seaweed, or of wasabi, and so on, all of which clump together into one big fear, the fear of sushi. Sushiphobia.

Why does it matter that like half the population suffers from sushiphobia? It matters because in the sample size of my friends, like half of them suffer from it also. So when I want to go grab some sushi, I can't just call up a bud. I have to call up one of my buds who isn't a sushiphobe, like Porch or Viola. Porch and Viola, though, aren't always available. That seriously inhibits my ability to get sushi as often as I would like.

And no, I can't go get sushi by myself. On account of The Neediness. Getting sushi while suffering from The Neediness is like putting butter on a burn: it's a terrible idea. And it just makes things worse. And what about all the mashed potatoes you could have made with that butter if you hadn't rubbed it into your skin? Bet you didn't think about that, didja?

Problem #3a: Sushi is expensive.

It's very expensive. A plate of sushi costs some serious moolah.

Now, I am more than happy to spend money on food. I love food. There are some types of food I would never get if I didn't buy it myself, of which sushi is one. However, I am less hesitant to spend that food money on, say, some coconut chicken kurma at an Indian place or some honey walnut shrimp from a Chinese one than I am to buy myself some spicy tuna or Vegas rolls at a sushi establishment. The reason?

Problem #3b: Sushi isn't very filling.

It comes in small portions. In order to get full, I'd have to spend a fortune. And I'm a college student. A fortune is something I simply don't have.

One fine summer evening, my BFF Viola and I went for sushi together.

VIOLA: (looking at menu) This is pretty expensive...

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: How many pieces do you think we should get?

VIOLA: If we get three rolls, that will give us each twelve pieces. That's enough, right?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Definitely.

Talking and laughing, we ate our sushi, savoring each bite and sopping up every last bit of spicy mayo. It was truly delicious, and happily I only dropped my food, like, six times.

The check came to the equivalent of one dollar per piece of sushi.

VIOLA: It's totally worth it, though.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: For sure.

VIOLA: I feel pretty full, don't you?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Oh, yeah.

We paid the bill, left a tip, and drove to the nearest Arctic Circle, where we then proceeded to blow ten more dollars on shakes and value menu chicken sandwiches.