Shoe Swans

Today, determined to eat, I went to Shoe Swans, which is the English spelling of a particular style of Chinese cooking that is spelled Szechuan but sounds like shoes swans when we say it.  I don't know what it sounds like when a Pennsylvanian says it.  I can't remember if any of them have said it in front of me.  UNESCO, which is some acronym for united nations education science and cultural organization, anyhow, they named the city Ugendo in SW China the 2011 city of Gastronomy because it is such a good place to eat.  I knew that!  Mainly we go to Main Moon or Hong Kong as a congregation.  Now that they can say normally, although I still get a kick out of the words length and strength.  Even when Abel would say it sometimes I would think you can't seriously think about eternity listening to that.

Well, so my new sister Laura wrote me that I need not feel bummed out that it looked like I was chasing Abel to Wendy's last Thursday and talk to them if I can't get past it.  I actually think I'm past it, but I'm so glad someone understands that I got over this man and his strength of accent.  Here's something that would have made me mad if I was invested in the topic, but as it is, it just made me tired.  I mean, you know how that works, right?  I used to fight all the time with my husband, knock down drag outs, and then we stopped fighting like that.  He would try to pick a fight and I would not rise to the bait.  I didn't want to fight anymore.  It wasn't worth it.  I was tired of all the drama.  And that is when it was over for us.  I was no longer invested enough to fight for a relationship to work.

The same thing happened with my mother.  I told my students today, when we were talking about how everyone has different shoes to fill, hats to wear, roles to deliver, that when I am with my mother I am 12 years old again.  I haven't seen her since I was 46, but I was 12 that day.  And it is so sad.  She started a fight with us, she even pushed Kim at the top of the stairs to her den (only four steps, but brick!) and we just calmly packed up and pulled out.  She is never ever going to see that I am an adult or have a lick of sense, and she is always going to believe she has the only right viewpoint, and I give up trying to make her think anything else.  One of my students gave me a sticker that says something like there comes a time when you realize you may love someone with all your heart, but they cannot be part of your life.  Well, that's my mother.

And that's how it is with Abel now.  I get enough of something and I pull out and I'm done.  So they don't need to tiptoe around me in fear I'm going to start hanging on their every word anymore and think someone over at their place hung the moon.  Besides, I am moving either this summer or the next, so it's all moot.

Anyhow, when we were at Bethel, the view at Paterson out the big glass doors facing the gardens, well, they have this waterfall, four slabs with the water tumbling so smooth, so pretty it nearly put my eyes out.  Our guide said that they had a Bethelite get married and take all the pictures there.  They did the vows at the hall, but the pictures were all taken there, and I tell you, that would be the most wonderful backdrop for wedding pictures on this planet.

So the brother from our congregation who was leading my group looks at me and says, "there you go.  You could take your wedding pictures here."

To which I promptly snorted and said, "not happening."

He said, "oh it could happen."

How many Watchtowers have commented on singleness for our sisters and brothers and respecting their wishes?  I wasn't really mad because my wish two years ago was for a husband.  But now, I wish just as hard that nobody bothers me because I got things to do and I do not want any responsibilities but these girls, and I look forward to light at the end of this tunnel of love

So I brought home Chinese food to my two little dependent baby girls, and on the way I went to Wal-Mart and got 50% off candy.  Kind of our tradition, haha.  This sister in Arkansas named Pat who had about seven kids and is somehow married to a nephew of my little Ruth, something like that (because just like this place, everyone back there is related to either the Copelands, the Oxfords, the Billingsleys, or the Walters.  Here, the names are strange but they are all intertwined on some serious family tree branches) anyhow, once Pat's youngest son, Ty, was going through this Spiderman phase, and he would hold out his hand flat and make this sound.  Pat explained that it was the sound of his web spinning out of his hand.

So on this day about eight years ago I went into Walmart and there were Spiderman gloves leftover from the most pagan of the pagan celebrations, and I got a pair for Ty but I wasn't sure Pat would approve.  When I asked her (being smart despite my mother's opinion, haha, take that Mom! because I was smart enough to check with Pat before letting Ty know about the gloves) if he could have them, she said:  "Of course.  After the sacrifice, it's just meat."

We have a lot of candy tonight and I have just eaten four little dark Hershey bars as I sat here writing you.  I let each one melt down slowly, savoring it, and then proceeded to the next one.  I made a deal that I could write till the chocolate wore out, and then I had to grade the rest of a stack of papers.  I wish now I had brought five or six little bars.  I am making myself eat dark chocolate because no one else likes it and it is supposed to be healthier.  Some kind of antioxidant.  By the 4th one, they were tasting pretty good.  I might not go back to milk chocolate.  Yeah, I got mostly Reese's because I don't like peanut butter.

So now my chow-meined dark chocolate bellied self must bid you adieu and try to explain for maybe the 826th time why you cannot pass on a paper with no thesis statement, but you can blog like mad without one.