a dancing monk

its beginning to smell a lot like christmas

the promotions just came out, and philipp (my boss) is now an MD! yay! he insists that deep down, he's still the same old philipp, but just in case, i've taken to sir'ing him. "would sir like a coffee?" and so on. one never knows how careful one should be. jk. i only do it b/c it makes me feel very charlie brown and somewhat southern. yesterday he tried to make us stop sir'ing, to which we began sire'ing, and now we can sir to our big bald heads' content (who says hearts are the only organs seeking content? p.p.s. it's weird that content means happy but contention means strife).

hold that thought. i just lost a food challenge, and my face is covered in chocolate donut (not to mention egg). a bit of background: brian bought me a rice box from the congee place. as soon as he gets back to the office, a broker turkey arrives. keep in mind that i already have a box of half eaten lobster penne in the fridge and that i'm leaving for a 5 day vacation tonight. now. what would you do? hmmm? of course, you'd do your darndest to give both meals the respect they deserve. so. i eat all the beef and veg and egg from my lunch box. spurning the rest of the rice, i go whole hog for the turkey (mom would be proud--all those years of buffet meals has prepared me for just this moment in my professional life--its all about priorities). i can only describe free turkey meals at work so many times, but i guess once more can't hurt: cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, two types of gravy, sweet potatoes, nutty, mushroom stuffing, and of course a ham+turkey. i'm digging in with both hands, turkey bones hanging from my mouth, crunching on the cartilege, chewing the fat, wiping my brow, and carrying right on. finallly, i'm sated. full. i even say no to the proffered wing (what's the difference between proffering and offering? probably the same as between a raven and a writing desk). and then, as i'm taking a stroll around the floor (another tip taught by years of all-you-can-eating--when the pain sets in, a stroll around the floor always helps), drew (another new promotion) shows me the donuts.

the chocolate cake donuts are the only ones left, but those are my favorites anyways. he bets me i can't eat 3 in a minute. we line up a few more people on his side of the bet, so the stakes are: if i can swallow 3 in 1 min, i get HKD 800. if i can get 3 in my mouth inside of 1 min, we're flat. if i can't, i owe them all coffee. well, i couldn't. i got thru 2, and the last one sat soaking in my cups of hot water. i thought that would be an ingenious idea--presoaking them. turns out, i should've brought a spoon if i was gonna turn em into sludge. the coffee cost me HKD 160.

people kept asking me afterwards if i felt alright. they were concerned i would puke. but in all seriousness, folks, its only 2 donuts. i can eat 2 donuts in my sleep with both hands tied behind my back while yodeling. the only real after effect is the jitteriness. maybe its the sugar rush, more likely, its the adrenaline rush. i think i did alright for my first speed eating contest. normally, i'm a volume girl. aw fuck it. there's no graceful way to sign off from an entry like this. see yall later.

a memo to my adult self re disciplining future children:

1. make the suckers jump rope for punishment (thanks minwah)

2. have family bouncing circles to recount daily news (did you enjoy school today? (bounce bounce)). it'll be our version of family prayer or whatever it was that families normally did together (before tv, video games, and slim shady ruined the american youth).

3. serve up chocolate cereal as dessert (always plan for dessert).

as outraged as always

did you know (not that you care) that i can only see my credit card history for the past 60 days? anything beyond that, i have to pay HKD30 per month (!!). isn't that bordering on criminal? don't i have a right to my credit history? this is almost as bad as when i found out we have to pay for water. man, was i outraged. doesn't water seem like something one should get for free? just for being and breathing and living? the pre-germ theory me sure thought so (i mean, it doesn't grow from trees, but it sure does fall from the sky). anyways.

2 weeks till christmas! jon and i are going to lijiang, china. we're gonna ride horses, pick tea, and eat yak milk, all at the base of snow mountains. maybe we'll even see some tibetan monks (altho i'm told they're an endangered species). we're also spending a day in shangri la. (speaking of lovely things: i'm eating falafel and it is de-li-cious. my breath will no doubt smell of onions for the rest of the day, but i'm willing to make the sacrifice. how devoted are you to your falafel?).

what else...we got the wii mod'd so now we can play downloaded games. jon surreptitiously bought me ddr (dance! dance! revolution!!!) and pads, but i found him out. downside: no xmas surprise. upside: DDR!! hurrah for immediate gratification. (i can see the end of the falafel, and i'm sad about the upcoming dearth).

oh, and last weekend, i saw pink dolphins. they're actually called chinese white dolphins, but their blood circulation makes them pink. the wwf guide defended the name by saying they turn white after death. as in, they've found carcasses and the carcasses are white. oh my, how macabre. i wonder if the same naming mechanism applies to (white) people. ahem. we actually saw quite a few dolphins, and they swam right up to the boat--mommas with their babies (which are gray), friends swimming side by side, lone dolphins chasing fishing boats. i was very pleasantly surprised, since at the beginning of the journey, there's all this hedging talk about "we don't guarantee that we'll see any dolphins, pls keep all your eyes peeled, etc etc" (there goes the last falafel...sigh. remember that scene in ice age where the last female taekwondodo fell off the edge? that was awesome. TAE KWON DO DO!).

enough randomness for one day. now back to your regular scheduled programming.

he's on my list

every time i touch my forehead, i think of mike ying. mike ying is the bastard who winged a disc into my forehead on sunday. we had just finished talking about how we should throw to the wide open people, regardless of their field position. i was cutting in, and i was wide open. i guess subconsciously, at least, he remembered our talk. he wound up for a HUGE backhand, released in some crazy ass bladey way, and the disc ended up embedded in my forehead. actually, i managed to raise my left hand in time, so the disc hit my thumb really hard and only glanced off my head pseudo-hard. but still, hard enough to bruise. i got up and tackled him. but still. fucking mike ying.

(incidentally i touch my forehead a lot more than i realized)
(what is it with me and backhand injuries? my elbow is still crappy in a way that won't let me straighten completely. dr laura, pls help).

(jon and i (think we) saw the bat signal the other day. they're filming the new batman in hk, and there was this huge crane with a huge skylight right outside my apartment. so we didn't see the actual bat signal in the sky, but we could've seen the thing making the bat signal! wouldn't it be cool to be a movie set engineer? you've got 3 days to make something that makes the bat signal: ready, steady, go!)