You Are What You Eat

 

Happy Pandemic Anniversary! My kids just finished up Spring Break, and it was nicer than I expected to have them home for a week. We went through quite a steep family adjustment when they came home and stayed home for nine full months shortly before Spring Break last year. They’ve only been gone for ten weeks, so I wasn’t sure if they would have had time to recover from such a recent and severe case of Parental Overdose. We couldn’t do much more than hang out at home, watch movies, and bake cookies. I’m feeling super grateful that my kids are all so pleasant to be around.

Now that vaccinations are in full-swing, I’ve been dreaming of dining in restaurants and travelling again with a fresh new perspective and appreciation after being cooped up for a year. There is a museum in Sweden that checks all of these boxes in a most unusual way. The Disgusting Food Museum is in Malmo, Sweden stretches our perspectives of how view food. What’s the difference between a delicacy and utter grossness?

Eighty foods have been chosen for exhibit based on taste, smell, texture, and “background.” The background of a food considers how it was made, particularly how animals were treated or manipulated in food preparation, such as force-feeding geese for foie gras, factory farming, and an extra unnecessary dish called Kiviak from the Arctic. Kiviak is made by gutting a seal and filling its body with 300-500 tiny auk birds, sewing it back up, then leaving it to ferment for about 18 months to preserve and tenderize the bird meat. Kiviak must be eaten outside due to its pungent odor and is said to taste like a cross between licorice and a very strong cheese. Cooking AND sewing? JUST WHY, ARCTIC PEOPLE??

The museum features one of my dad’s faves, durian, which is interesting but not surprising. Durian is a fruit that legit smells like poop but tastes kind of creamy and sweet. Century eggs are also exhibited, and I love me a century egg in my porridge! These are eggs preserved in tea, lime, and salt, which turns the egg black and delicious. I grew up eating these uniquely flavored eggs, and I understand why some might not love them. More for me! Nom, nom, nom!!

Also featured at the museum are Twinkies (not Chinkie Twinkies), Pop-Tarts, and root beer. Super weird, right? I mean, Twinkies and root beer were some of my ultimate pregnancy delights! One time I ate FIVE Twinkies over the course of an afternoon picnic when I was pregnant with Alex. Not even kidding. It probably will not surprise you that I gained fifty pounds over the course of those nine months. And while it makes me kind of queasy to think of this, I hardly think that anyone might find a Twinkie “disgusting.” Apparently, many Swedes think that root beer tastes like toothpaste.

There’s even a new temporary exhibit featuring unique alcohol from around the world. My grandma used to ferment rice wine in the closet, adding special, weird ingredients that smelled like poison, but (as far as I know) she never added live (but not any more!!) two-day-old baby mice. 

Even a pandemic quarantine would not tempt me to imbibe South Korean poo wine or Icelandic sheep-dung-smoked-whale-testicle-beer. WHO THINKS OF THESE THINGS?? Of course, this beer comes from Iceland, the land of confusion.

“Dude, I think I’m going to try my hand at home brewing. I’ll start with some sheep dung. And then….maybe I’ll add some testicles. What kind…there are so many choices! Oh, I have some leftover whale testicles in the freezer. That’ll do. But I think I’ll SMOKE them first just to make this interesting.”

Here is a gallery with pictures and descriptions of some of the food exhibits. I hope they don’t make you hurl.
Thank you for reading, my friends!

Evolution of Thought

 

Did you guys like when movies were shown in school? On the one hand, it was better than work! On the other hand, the educational movies were mostly boring. Not exactly “Saturday Night Fever.” High schoolers are notoriously sleep-deprived and don’t like listening to teachers, so sitting in a darkened, warm room watching a boring movie selected by an even more boring teacher was practically an engraved invitation to a nap.

But every once in a while, one of these movies stuck with me, and I recently remembered a movie called “Inherit the Wind.” The movie I watched in high school was a black-and-white produced in 1960. I was excited that a remake was released in 1999, and that is the one I watched this week.

“Inherit the Wind” is a dramatization loosely based on the Scopes Monkey Trial which took place in Tennessee in 1925. A high school teacher is arrested for teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in school, “a violation of Public Act 31428, Vol 37 of the State Code which makes it unlawful for any teacher of the public schools to teach any theory that denies the creation of man as taught in the Bible and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”

It’s this progressive teacher against practically the whole town of Heavenly Hillsboro, the Buckle of the Bible Belt. A couple of Yankees, an attorney and a journalist, come to fight for the teacher in court. It’s a story about stubborn resistance to change and growth, fueled by violence and fear mongering.

The good people of Hillsboro know in their bones that God made man in seven days as stated in the Bible. How does this Northern attorney stand a chance in fighting this case? *Spoiler Alert* In the end, the attorney uses the Bible to fight the case. Here is the timeline of Creation as stated in Genesis:

Day 1: The Heavens and the Earth

Day 2: The sky

Day 3: The land, seas, and plants

Day 4: The sun, moon, and stars

Day 5: The birds and sea creatures

Day 6: Land creatures and man

Day 7: Rest

So this attorney concedes that God did create all these things, but that the length of the days were not defined as we know them before Day 4 when the sun, moon, and stars were created. The attorney argued that Days 1 through 3 could have been 25 hours, 30, hours, 10 years, or a million years long! Creationism and Evolution don’t have to be mutually exclusive!

It was all just a big misunderstanding. Our narrow, limited human minds could not wrap our heads around the greatness and limitlessness of God, creating a ton of defensiveness and inhibiting our ability to appreciate the wonder and opportunities that we have been graced with. Religion often has nothing to do with God.

It breaks my heart that the Catholic Church has refused to acknowledge same-sex marriages because I know that this causes a great deal of pain. It isn’t lost on me that the Methodist Church is also battling with this issue that seems to be a no-brainer to me. A lot of Christians don’t accept LGBTQI folks, and that is super hurtful as well. Because what if we have had a misunderstanding? I can’t believe that any of us beautifully flawed and vastly different people created by a loving God are “not right.” It doesn’t make any sense to me.

Here’s what the Bible says: “He who made them from the beginning made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.”

We currently look at genitals to define male and female, but what if wieners have nothing to do with anything? What if we were supposed to be counting arm freckles or nose hairs to determine who’s male and female? Or maybe male and female is defined by something that we can’t even see or haven’t discovered yet? We humans have gotten things totally wrong in the past, like when we thought that the flat Earth was carried on the back of a giant turtle.

Just something to think about.
Thank you for reading, my friends!

The Agony of DeFeet

 

Daylight Savings Time always throws me for a loop. I feel disoriented no matter whether I’m Springing Forward or Falling Back. I can’t tell whether I’m coming or going.

However, I’m clearly not as turned around as this woman who was born with backwards feet. Wang Fang is her name, because OF COURSE SHE IS CHINESE. Like, do My People REALLY need any more animosity and weirdness right now?? Good Lord. It’s kooky enough that Chinese people read from left to right, but this back-to-front nonsense is just taking things TOO FAR.

Wang Fang comes from….not even kidding….Chongqing China. English speakers would pronounce this “Chong Ching.” As in, the thing kids used to say to taunt my brother and me in elementary school as they pulled their stupid eyes back.

So Wang Fang from Chongqing China is born with these freaky backwards feet. She’s offered a disability pension but refuses it, because she doesn’t consider herself disabled. She works as a waitress and claims that she can run faster than anyone she knows. The only way she considers herself different is that she wears her shoes backwards. How do you like that?

That, my friends, is pretty damned impressive. *I* certainly can’t run faster than everyone *I* know. I probably can’t even run faster than MOST of the people I know. Perhaps the only people that Wang Fang knows are very slow runners. Or maybe she really CAN run that fast. The only problem is that she never wins the race because she always runs in the wrong direction.

Damn, can you even imagine trying to tie your sneakers with your feet put on backwards? That would require a great deal of flexibility. I researched Backwards Feet People and really couldn’t find any information. Countries like Turkey, India, and Brazil have lots of stories about ghosts with backwards feet.

But I couldn’t find stories about other people with this disorder. I suspect that it is a severe manifestation of Club Foot, a condition that causes the feet to turn inward and downward. If you look at Wang Fang’s weet feet, you’ll see that her toenails are on the bottom, so she’s actually walking on the tops of her feet. This makes pedicures exceptionally complicated.

While researching this backwards feet phenomenon, I found this 2 minute video of a man who can turn his feet backward and walk. He explains how his body allows him to do this and holds a Guinness World Record for "Fastest Time to Walk 20 Meters with Feet Facing Backwards." How many people do you suppose were in the running (GET IT??) for this record? It made my knees feel super weird to watch this video. Check it out.

It must be challenging to walk when your feet can just flop around any old way they want to. I think I’d be moonwalking as much as possible with those backwards feet.

Everybody have fun tonight. Everybody Wang Fang tonight!
Thank you for reading, my friends!

Wash Your Hands Like a Boss

 

Since getting my second COVID vaccine almost three weeks ago, I’ve been excited to start taking care of things I’ve been putting off: teeth cleaning, mammogram, and haircut. OK, perhaps “excited” is an inaccurate description of my feelings. I’ve been learning from Dr. Susan David, who was recently interviewed by Brene Brown. She’s got this lovely South African accent, so her “T’s” are super duper crisp and her short “A’s” sound like “eh.” Excited definitely does not eh-ccur-eh-tely describe my feelings. But, hey, I’m getting it done.

This past week I had two appointments which began with a greeting and a squirt of hand sanitizer. When I visit my orthodontist, I am also asked very politely to wash my hands before sitting down and before leaving. I appreciate this! I could see this eliciting some feelings of resentment in some circumstances, but everyone has been super polite about it, and I totally respect a request to wash hands when entering someone else’s space. They have no idea where my hands have just come from.

One of the best bits of advice was given to me by my kids’ pediatrician shortly after we moved to Oregon in 2004. It is so interesting that this same simple advice became so popular once again more than fifteen years later. “Wash your hands often and keep your hands away from your face.” So revolutionary and ahead of his time, right?

But better than that, he was specific. “Wash your hands every time you come back into your house.” Ok, as health care professionals, we had already been doing that for years. But here’s the brilliant addition: “Keep a bottle of sanitizer in your car and use a squirt every time you get back into your car.” Those were easy steps that even 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds could follow. It could be my imagination or coincidental timing, but we all got sick a whole lot less frequently after adopting this as a family habit.

When my kids were in high school, I used to drive some of their friends to rowing practice after school, so a whole bunch of kids would stream into my house after getting off the bus to change and have a snack before piling into my Suburban to head to practice. My kids headed right to the sink to wash hands, and I asked all the other kids to do the same. After a few reminders, all of their friends were great about remembering to wash before rummaging for snacks and taking over my kitchen. I always appreciated that they didn’t make a big fuss about it.

Kids are often much more cooperative than old people. When Alex was first born, the nurses instructed us to wash our hands before handling the baby and to ask others to do the same. His little immune system was not ready for the big time yet, so this was super important especially for the first month. “You’re the mom now, so don’t be afraid to ask people to do this.”

So when my parents brought my grandma to visit my new baby, I bravely asked her to wash her hands before holding Alex. She got so mad. She told us that her hands were not dirty. Why would we think her hands were dirty? She held lots of babies without washing her hands ahead of time. There was so much arguing.

Finally, my dad convinced her by saying that the doctor said everyone should wash hands. There was a lot of huffing and frowning, but whatever. Once she got her washed hands on my little baby, she noticed that Alex had a bump on his head. You see, the day Alex was born, I didn’t know how to push out a baby, and the doctor had to suck his squishy head out of me, leaving a bump on his little noggin. Grandma started to take off her slipper to rub onto his head.

According to Grandma, it’s important to get rid of a bump on a baby’s head by massaging it with a rubber-soled shoe. OK, I ate pig feet stew and fish head soup to make my milk come in, but I’m DRAWING A LINE at rubbing shoes on my newborn baby’s head.

This is the same grandma who was so dismayed that I brought a Mexican friend to our house. She later told us that she only begrudgingly shook his hand and that she left to wash her hands right afterward. Why so racist, Grandma?? Her name was Ka Nauk, but everyone called her Karen.

No, just kidding. Nobody ever called her Karen……to her face. (Honestly, for reals, nobody ever called her Karen.)

When learning how to wash our hands more frequently and regularly, Dr. Rosenbloom also recommended that we wash hands after using the bathroom. OBVI. But I understand why he mentioned it. Surprisingly this isn’t as common a practice as you might think.

When Albert and I were newly married, an insurance evaluator came to our house for a health insurance interview. Is this still a thing? Where people come to your house or office to weigh you and test your pee and ask you questions? This fellow was waiting outside our house just as we arrived home from running errands.

Albert: "I just want to wash my hands before I sit down."

He: "OK."

Albert: "I pumped gas before we got here, so I just really feel like I need to do this before we get started."

He: "Yeah, I guess I should probably wash my hands more often. I wash before I eat. *thinking* I probably wash my hands twice a day."

After the interview, we all shook hands. I don’t know about you, but I hope hand-shaking never comes back into style. As soon as we saw this fellow out the door, Albert and I immediately headed to the sink to scrub our hands. But we weren’t being racist, I promise. Albert also cleaned the kitchen table where we sat for the interview. TWICE A DAY this guy washes his hands?? And at least one of those times is BEFORE HE EATS? We DEFINITELY had some of his poop and wiener molecules in our house now and probably some boogers and who knows what else??

Wash your hands. Keep agile with your feelings.
And don’t be a racist.

Thank you for reading!

Drink, Drank, Drunk

 

You guys, I am SO VERY EXCITED! You have probably heard of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, the ICCA’s, right? The Barden Bellas and the Treble Makers? I LOVE Pitch Perfect and have probably watched the first movie at least 20 times over the years. I never get tired of it. The singing! The dancing! The overt misogyny and underage drinking!

Did you know that the movie Pitch Perfect was loosely based on an A Cappella group called Divisi from the University of Oregon? True story. This group was responsible for inspiring a change in the judging protocol for the ICCA’s to prevent cheating and corrupt scoring practices. I have been assured, however, that the barfing scene was artistic license and didn’t actually happen.

My Audrey is unquestionably the tiniest Fu, but she has the biggest set of pipes. That girl can SING. So it probably won’t surprise you that she nailed her audition to Divisi in her freshman year. She sang with them for two years before switching to a co-ed A Cappella group this year called Mind the Gap.

The group hasn’t been able to perform much these days. The pandemic has forced a lot of creative changes, which is not all bad in my opinion. One of the changes this year is that the ICCAs have moved to video submissions rather than live performances for this year’s competition. So this year, Mind the Gap put together a music video and I was lucky enough to have a chance to preview the video with Audrey!

Audrey was home for the weekend, and we had just dropped Albert off at the airport for a work trip Friday night before scooting home so Audrey could join her Zoom party.

Me: Can I watch the video with you?

She: I think it’s just the group and it’s not officially released yet.

Me: I will be very quiet. I just want to see the video.

She:

Me: I bought a bottle of George Clooney’s tequila. Want to have some with me?

 

All it took was a little patience and a few margaritas and she was super excited to have me join her Zoom party! Well, kind of…

She: Will you kind of sit on the side?

Me: Yeah, of course. Nobody will see me. I just want to watch.

OH. MY. GOSH, YOU GUYS! These young men and women are so talented and beautiful and creative. I wish so much that I could share the video with you today but I’m not allowed. The good news is that the ICCAs will be livestreamed for free on Saturday March 13 at 7pm. This round is the quarterfinals where eight groups compete within their regions. There are 135 groups all together, and the top two groups from each of these quarterfinal competitions will move on to the semifinals in April.

After a little Zoom time, Audrey felt pretty confident that I wouldn’t mortify her at the release party by busting out loud Mom jokes or inappropriate booty-shaking. Her friends are lovely and they even let me be in their party picture at the end. My favorite part was after the party when Audrey and I talked late into the night. We two girls did a pretty decent job on that bottle of tequila. Thanks for being so smooth, George Clooney.

Before Audrey left on Sunday morning, my father-in-law invited us over for brunch. He has a monthly food budget to spend at his senior living community and regularly has trouble spending it all. He’s constantly worried about having leftover food money, but he also really loves to attend daily happy hour to indulge in the free appetizers.

With his excess food money, he buys wine from the community market which he also likes us to help him drink when we visit. So Audrey and I also enjoyed red wine with our Cobb salads at 11:30 on a Sunday morning before she headed back to school. My FIL drinks his wine from a tea cup with a cover “so you can’t see how much I drank."

Now that my children don’t need me so much, I’m really savoring the time we spend together. They are excellent people, and getting to know them as adults is truly one of my greatest joys. I know that I have made a ton of mistakes—all parents do—and I’m also confident that they have the fortitude and ability to overcome my parenting bungles.

I hope you always have enough tequila and red wine on hand this week!

Thank you for reading!

Edit: Here's the video!