My Neighbors

I love my neighbors.  They help us out when we're in a bind by: tracking down lost packages, giving us the occasional cup of rice when I run out and guests are already on their way, reading Chinese characters on text messages, finding repair men's phone numbers, etc.

Today one of our neighbors stopped in and we talked about Chinese classes, tones, grammar, and of course, who's Chinese is better - my DH's or mine.  Why people always feel the need to tell us which one of has better Chinese, I don't know.  But for those wondering, my DH won the prize.  He was the perfect student with his sparkling grammar, great tones, and wide vocab.   And for those of you who know my husband well, you better believe that that's the truth!  It shouldn't actually surprise you though.  I felt like I stumbled through saying easy things after his amazing performance.  I don't know how he does it.  I can understand a lot, but he just has an ability to put things together a lot better than I can.  But I'm definitely not competing with him, so that's that.

On her way out, our neighbor put her hands on my shoulders and started to tell me how thin I am.  (I hear this probably every day).  No one seems to believe me that I am always the same weight, I'm just built this way.  It does drive me a bit nuts when I get told this all the time, it would just be easier to be a more normal size.  She was startled to feel how much my collar bone sticks out (it always has. It's not something I worry about.)  I convinced her that my man would still say that there are parts of me that aren't thin (Really.  I don't know why, but he seems to think that it has something to do with a bit of baby weight in my mid-section.)  I told her about this and she was just wouldn't believe me.  But then, I stood up straight and showed her the area of concern.  Suddenly she looked at me and asked, "are you pregnant?"  No, I'm not pregnant.  (I seem to get asked that question quite often too.  People look me over and then stop when they get to my middle.  A second later they ask when we're going to have our next baby.).  She asked me twice.  I think she left our house with serious doubt.  It was too funny!    

And on a disastrous note, my oven is having some issues.  I was very pleased with my oven (most Chinese kitchens don't have an oven so I'm extremely grateful to have found one online) until the door hinge broke.  We tried to temporarily remedy it with masking tape since we couldn't find all the parts to fix it.  Today it crashed open so I put duct tape on it (I know, bad move, but I didn't have a lot of options.  The oven was on, my food was ready to be cooked and dinner was awaiting).  So I have half melted duct tape on it at the moment.  My pot was too heavy so the tray kept crashing through to the bottom.  I think oven-repair men are probably rare around here, but if one exists, I will find him!  (After all that effort, can you believe my little man wouldn't even try my food.  If it's not rice or noodles and doesn't smell like Chinese food, he often won't touch it.  He had yogurt with bananas for dinner since I wasn't going to make him anything else).

Well my little guy's asleep, my DH is out getting his hair cut (it's great having the barber shop open to about 10pm or so) and I'm going to go read one of my books!  Good night!