October 28th: thursday blur

Day 41

Woke, deliberated getting out for the comfy bed for Chinese breakfast, decided to saw a few more logs. Taught the Halloween lesson, drank tea, (which every class was fascinated by, the third class to the point of asking me top open it so they could look inside.) The last class (the infamous cakeaters) I ran through quicker than I had anticipated and had to stall the last five minutes of class: “Uh, here’s that picture again. This was taken in Utah. Do you know Utah? (drew the U.S.A. map) Here’s Utah. This woman is wearing a Pac-man hat eating the state of Utah. This woman was almost Mr. Willis’s wife. She is wearing a Queen Amidala costume from Star Wars. Do you know American film Star Wars?” And so on.

Lunch was underwhelming, only to be undereclipsed by dinner. After lunch I ran an errand for Erin since her bike now has two flat tires. She entertained the idea of riding mine, but shortness aside, I am missing my right front brake pad altogether, so I just went for her. I picked up 56 toothbrushes and 56 lollipops and two bottles of wine (my fee) and pedaled on back.

After dinner, I went out to get a VCD to watch. The first place I went to had a limited selection and no matter where I stood, “Sexy Movies” were always in front of me. I left and went to the department store a few doors down. The sales girl who approached me rattled off some Chinese.

I retorted, “Uh, ni hue shou ienwan ma? (Do you speak English?)”

“Bo hue.(Cannot)”

“Ah. VCD?”

She led me to a nice big shiny row of VCD…..players. I gathered a horseshoe of salesfolk immediately extolling the virtues of the players in ebullient Chinese. I thanked them (Xie xie) and left hastily. I just wanted to watch a movie, not be a freakshow again.

I pressed on to NGS, the supermarket next to KFC, and went to the fourth floor, selected a VCD of “Master and Commander: Far Side of the World,” a fine impressive film, one that haunted six or seven of my dreams afterward, a film rivaling “Jurassic Park” for subconscious synaptic leftovers.

I got it home and #1 it was not widescreen. #2, it was all in Chinese. I decided after viewing to donate it to Steven as he was kind enough to lend me “Spiderman 2” without even seeing it himself. I hope he doesn’t already have a copy of it. Erin came over and watched pieces of it, in between wine runs and checking on email pictures from her brother. I drank my bottle of Tibetan dry red wine and afterwards looked up “swashbuckler” and “tomfoolery” on thesaurus.com, glad that we were fully able to appreciate the hysterical words of the English language, and once again amazed how fast Friday had arrived. (Tomorrow, already!)

I blogged, turned in, vowing to attend Chinese breakfast, lest my bowels go too long without their regiment of bean paste.