Bahía At Bay

“I see an eagle!” screamed one first grader. “I do, too!” screamed another. I had doubts if an American Eagle escaped to Lima, Peru, in spite of the divisive week in politics. But the week of birdwatching with the elementary students inspired me to do a bit of my own at the Paracas National Reserve, an easy safe bus ride […]

Purple: Mes Morado Month

In Lima, there are no red states or blue states. Everything is purple. Well, at least today. Since I’m too lazy to google what the purple parade and celebration is about, I’m guessing it’s not to honor Barnie the Dinosaur or the Late Great Californian Raisins. It’s Mes Morado, or the Lord of the Miracles Month (I asked someone). This […]

I went to America for a week and all I got was a lousy concussion?

“Ginger! Ginger!” I heard my friend call. I was by my luggage ready to go to the airport, luggage that was bulging with fifty pounds of “Can’t Get This In Peru” whatnot. Chocolate covered cherries. Maple Syrup. Barrels of Costco vitamins, wash clothes, Good N Plenty, and Expo White Board Markers. Except I wasn’t standing by my luggage, I was […]

Why I Walk

Seventeen thousand four hundred steps. That’s enough to work off the calories consumed from a grilled banana. That’s also the number of steps I walk to and from ICSLima (the school where I work) and my abode in Barranco in the Smirnoff Vodka building, formally known as the Pepsi Sabor Building. How long is the walk? About fifty-five minutes each […]

A plumber and a prayer

Life in Lima can be just as ordinary as life anywhere. Sure, there’s occasional earthquakes to shake things up in Peru, buses lit on fire during a city-wide transit strike, parents of students getting kidnapped, and dogs better dressed than their owners. But the daily grind? It’s no more exciting that what you’d experience in Schaumburg. My hiking group is […]

Comfort Zone

This week, I moved out of my comfort zone. Actually, I sold it. I got the text from while I was sharpening pencils with my first graders in Lima, Peru, that someone wanted a second showing of my condo in Chicago, USA. I didn’t even know that there was a first showing. But by the time I had walked home, […]

Beleza (Beauty)

Vincent Van Gogh It was about four AM in the morning in Madrid, me with a backpack my sister in her long- haul yoga pants. We are middle aged flowers in a city full of beautiful people, wilting like one of the still-life paintings in the Prado museum. Old ladies in dresses hobbling on cobble stone streets (not in Costco […]

Transformation

Life repeats itself. Ten years ago, I was Madrid, Spain, waiting for a train to Alicante, my life at its lowest. My mom just died, my husband just left me in China, and my life was condensed down to one hundred pounds and a carry-on. I was in Spain to visit my nephew to make sure he was actually studying […]

Why do I hike?

When I find myself literally at the end of a rope in China, hiking is the ultimate brain eraser. Either I’m concentrating on the beauty or not slipping, totally forgetting that the snack I purchased for my cat was freeze dried baby birds (I will spare you the photo).

Nails

Hopefully, someday, Easter will be restored to a holiday where I can enjoy going to church, biting the heads off chocolate bunnies instead of eating frozen pea-sicles, and thinking about the nails of the crucifixion, not mine.

Tombs and Brittle Bones

It’s sad. Folks spending eternity in a cemetery really are forgotten. We have don’t even have a word for them. We have words for the grounds (cemetery, necropolis, catacombs), words for the urns and burial stones, words for that stupid piece of plastic on the end of your shoelace (aglet), but no word for our collective of loved ones that left us their Hummel collections.

Rice 饭 Fàn

his year for Christmas, I travelled to Xishuangbanna, where rice is anything but a bland side dish. There are rice stuffed pineapples, purple sticky rice, speckled rice dumplings wrapped in Bamboo leaves, and rice stuffed bamboo shoots.

Local Color

I went to Kunming’s Museum of Contemporary Art this weekend and viewed what I thought was an abstract poodle. While I enjoyed the art, I found the streets just as colorful. This bean lady at the market reminded me of my mom. I really think it was her. She didn’t have her own booth or her own QR code, but […]

Paperwork

Working at an international school, I have been trained for fires, earthquakes. Hostage Takeovers. But what if a student gets stuck in the bathroom? It was photo day and my class was right after the snapping of pictures. Mars’ bow tie was next to the crayons. Albert’s jacket was on the back of his chair. But Yael’s kitty cat ears? […]

An American in Wuhan

Oh yes I did! I have just completed the Covid 19 Triple Dog Dare. I went on a cruise, ate at a buffet and ended up in Wuhan, then lived to blog about it. Actually, it’s not as insane as it sounds. Since I’m “land-locked” in China this summer, I thought I’d finally see the country. It’s not like I’ve […]

Pokes and Probes

So what’s an expat to do when it’s time to get back on the saddle again–wait–I mean back in the stirrups? Make an appointment at Women’s Angel Hospital for a pap smear and mammogram. Considering China makes more babies than any other countries, maybe it’s time we trust them with other female needs.

Temple Attire

So, just what do you wear to a temple or monastery, even if it’s one for chickens in Shangri La? It depends on if it’s a Buddhist temple, monastery, or the Hundred chicken temple.

Yak and Hack

Does anyone know of a good wine pairing for yak? That’s what you eat in Shangri La. And don’t laugh. Yak is where it’s at. I was referred to this little hole in the wall, a Tibetan version of a blue plate diner. I ordered Diced Yak with noodles and Yak Meat Pie. The crust was amazing. Plus, I had […]

Born to be like ginger

In America today, I officially turn into human wallpaper. It’s my birthday, or 生日快乐 shēng rì kuài lè, in Chinese. But no Barbie dolls or pin the tail on the donkey games this year. I turned sixty. The big Six-O. In dog years, I’d be dead. In America, childhoods that pre-date Google means you have become as desirable as panty […]

You Care Too Much

The three words silenced my room: “What the hell?” They weren’t from a junior high student, because the utterance would have been in Chinese. The slip of the tongue was from a second grader. From the same kid who doesn’t know his sight words. I looked at a coworker, who heard it too. While I was thinking about school policies […]

Smoke

There is a famous Chinese proverb: 不到长城非好汉. He who has never been to the Great Wall is not a true man. And after he visits the Great Wall, he picks up a pack of cigarettes.  Smoking is huge in this country, even with doctors, including my “no chicken, no OJ, drink broccoli juice” acupuncturist. Before the young doctor light his cigarette, […]

Flipside Bound

The rumors are true. I’m heading back to China for a couple months. I guess I need to catch up on my diarrhea. Actually,  I’ll be doing a special courses at a Chinese school, turning Chinese tweens into writing rock stars, or at least decent better wordsmiths than the person who wrote these: I’ll be blogging about my experiences in […]

Pickle Bucket Pancake Warmer

It sounds like one of the gadgets you can only buy at Christmas time along with  a Chia Pet. A pickle pancake warmer. No batteries or assembly required. All you need is an old pickle bucket,  bubble wrap,  hot leftovers and a heart for the homeless. We had the idea today in the kitchen when we had a surplus of […]

Kitchen Bitchen

  There are a few phrases I hate muttering in the kitchen. Today it was this: If you drop a spoon in the coffee grinder, don’t wait a week before getting it out.   Here are a few other gems I hope I never have to say: #1. No eating out of the compost bucket. #2. If a clean plate touches your armpit […]

Chinese-American Test Kitchens

The four letter word terrifies me. Rice. Every time I pull a pan out of the oven and peel back the aluminum lid,  I cringe. Will it be fluffy or mush? Rice is the standard by which cooks in our kitchen our measured. There are roughly seventy two hundred grains of rice in a cup,  and in our industrial size kitchen,  we literally […]

SWIPED!

  These guys are slick. They swipe your ATM card info on Monday,  then wait until the weekend to use it. That way, the banks won’t be monitoring suspicious activity. And you won’t get the SUSPICIOUS ACCOUNT ACTIVITY alert in your inbox until  Monday…or two thousand dollars worth of withdrawals later. And of course, the phone number on the email in your inbox […]

Off the Grid

The words were stuck in my mouth like a dry piece of dressing. Not even the green Jell-o could help out. “No,  I don’t live in a shelter. I live with people who operate the shelter.” “Are they homeless, too?” “None of us are homeless,” I tried to explain. “We live in an intentional community…by choice.” I thought about the weird […]

The Best Recipe I’ll Never Eat

As a cook for a Motley Crew that serves the homeless in Uptown,  I have come across a lot of recipes that I’d never eat. They include Indian curry using beef scraps from an Italian diner. I’d always be afraid I’d find a pinky ring in the scraps…still attached to a pinky. Then there’s the recipe for roasted Brussels sprouts […]

Weeping Flowers

I love flowers. They are hard to come by in Uptown but when you see them, take your breath away. Like this petunia growing out of the cracks in an alley behind Friendly Towers. There are also a lot of flowers in the private garden, like this purple  blanket of color, thanks to our resident gnome,  Ted. He’s responsible for keeping […]

Eight Cents a Toe

There were more shoes in his cart than a centipede had feet. “Dang,  sir,  ” I started, eyeing the blue platform pumps hanging over the push bar, “What are you going to do with all of these shoes?” “What I do, no business to you,” he snapped in a thick Belizean accent. You think I had asked if he was wearing women’s underwear. The […]

W!

The fall night couldn’t get any better. The air was crisp. The trees looked liked someone dumped a bucket of melted crayons on the leaves. The Cubs won the series against the St. Louis Cardinals. I had to walk down to Wrigley field to witness the event, cialis buy stuff at least them raising the “W” flag. W for Win. […]