NaBloPoMo Day Two Post Two -Taiwanese Toilets

Mac and cheese, or rather some tube like noodles and cheese is what I'm having for dinner. I'm a lousy cook but can bake fairly well. I'm left brained and it's obvious. I'd like to be less nerdy, but I can't, never could really. Some people claim to like it and think it's cute...but some how I suspect "cute" really means something equivalent to "look at the girl who can't walk but tries so hard, you can't help but adore her effort"...I'll take what I can get I guess.

Anyway, as I promised, a blog a day. I'll give you some words and a story and be on my merry noodle eating way!

Taiwanese Toilets

I'd been out of the country before...Mexico, Ireland, and now Taiwan. It was a school Fellowship to see the earthquake damage of Chi-Chi Taiwan. It was a treat to go, and I had almost decided not to even send in the application. But I did, and I was accepted, and I went. I was nervous as anyone could imagine, going alone to a country that was of Chinese language, nothing of which I could speak or understand.

I was alone, did I mention that? I was meeting a handful of other students in Taiwan. Fortunately for me, I managed to meet one of those students in Detroit before heading into Taiwan. Thankfully I didn't have to be scared alone! We could be scared together. Anyway, cut to the chase, we had a crazy driver that got us to our hotel, then I realized I'd left my money at home. Luckily I had just come from Ireland less than 24 hours before, so I did have money on me! I'm certain I cried for about 2 or three hours before I passed out from exhaustion. Then the adventure was on!

The trip was all in all, very cool! I learned a lot, met really great people, became adventurous with food (you'll eat anything if you are hungry enough), and got to see some very unique things in a part of the world I may have not seen otherwise.

The part I want to tell you about is the toilets. In many of the places we traveled (with the exception of hotels/rest stops/finer dining establishments) the men's restrooms/bathrooms/water closets/what-ever-the-hell-you-call-it were traditional toilets with a seat and tank and a lid and a flusher. I know this because of the conversations we had with the boys. In the women's restrooms/bathrooms/water closets/what-ever-the-hell-you-call-it were holes in the ground. Yes, a simple pipe that came up to collect waste. Imagine my surprise when I walk in to use the toilet and open the stall door and see a hole! I walked back out and saw the universal "chick in a dress symbol"...yep girls in here. I stood and looked. A girl walked in, went into the stall, I saw her squat, I saw her "waste", I cringed. Really? This is how I have to do this? Camping style? Well okay...only had three beers by now and have to squat. Okay, I'm used to hovering, how hard can this be? Well about five minutes later I braved the stall, I squatted, I wasted...it was a toilet experience I'll never forget!

Words...

feeling fist:The fist used to express deep or extreme emotion during a song, in which the singer extends a fisted hand and brings it back in towards the body with intensity of emotion.

In Use: When singing Hungry Eyes on the karaoke machine, Joe impressed us all with a perfect feeling fist.

pitching wedge: Someone who only looks good from far away.
ride on dubs: To drive a car with 20-inch or larger rims.
lappy: Short for laptop computer; especially old and outdated models.
midnight gardening: The act of passing out or falling over in foliage after large amounts of liquor have been consumed.
no homo: Phrase used after one inadvertently says something that sounds gay.

In Use: His ass is mine. No homo.

Snow Banks

I always begin to wonder on days like today if I can get crabbier. I know I can, it’s silly to think otherwise. I’ll rewind for you so you can see why I’m crabby.

Yesterday started out good. We had snow, I wore my cute snow boots, I started a new blog.The day was fair enough; cancelled lunch plans so no one had to walk in the snow, but I hung out at my desk and read blogs. I sent out a set of shop drawings and started the next set. My friend lost her job and got a new one all in the same day. My sister is getting back online. The day started to go downhill at about 3:30 pm. I had to leave early (I came in early to do so) to catch the bus so Chris could come pick me up before the washing machine delivery guys showed up at the house. I had somehow managed to lose my bus pass on my desk. It costs $2.00 to ride the bus home from St. Louis. I had $1.00 in my hand and told the bus driver I needed to dig the change out of my purse, so he kindly let me stay on the bus. After feverishly digging in my purse I could only find half of what I needed. With tears welling up in my eye sockets I asked the other bus passengers if they could spare me $0.50 cents to get home. Some very kind man gave me the change (probably couldn’t handle watching me cry). I paid my fare and sat at the back of the bus where no one would see me sniffling. I dug through my purse and found the rest of the change that I couldn’t find earlier and stumbled along the moving bus to pay the nice man back. Once we arrived in Collinsville, I gave Chris a call to tell him I would be arriving at the bus station only to learn he wasn’t giving me a ride home in case the delivery guys showed up. I think he could have spared the 10 minutes to get me, but instead, I walked home. Normally a brisk walk would be fine. We have 6+ inches of snow on the ground so I wasn’t so ‘fine’ with the situation. What could have been a potentially fun walk was miserable. I was stepping in unshoveled snow banks that came up to my knees or higher. In some cases I was barely straddling the snow bank to climb over. This let snow and ice into my shoes which in turn made my toes numb and wet. I slipped twice and fell once; fell really good. A car finding so much humor in this honked and waved as I was sitting on the ground. The tears that had once only welled behind my eye balls were now pouring out at an alarming rate. The tears froze on my eye lashes. The runniness of my nose also froze. I was pissed that people won’t shovel their sidewalk. I was pissed at the people that thought it was funny. I was pissed at Chris for not sparing me 10 minutes. I was pissed at the snow plows that piled snow so high I had to climb it like a mountain. I was pissed at the salt that melted the snow that turned it to ice. I was pissed at my knees for hurting so bad. I was pissed at my toes for being numb. I was pissed at my tears for freezing. I took some deep breaths before walking in the house to calm myself so I wouldn’t breathe fire at Chris. I stepped in, and slipped. I was at a delirious point in the night where instead of crying I laughed. This is a dangerous moment, when sadness and anger turn to laughter, it means I’m at my breaking point and will hit as hard as I can and not recall doing any of it. I removed all my wet and cold clothing, dunked my feet in warm water in the tub and then sat and laid by the heat register. Feeling slightly warmed I put on warm pajamas and sat at my computer, the one thing that can soothe me. Weird things happened there, but I’ll skip that part and fast forward to the delivery men finally showing up. It was about 7:30 or 8 pm. I took the dogs to the bedroom and let Chris handle everything. Fast forward to after everything is in place and installed. Chris ran a test wash, it worked. HOLY CRAP! It showed up and was working. But alas, as one might guess, still a problem. With this new fangled washer, there is a tray for detergent that is missing. Yea, missing, as in not there, just NOT THERE! I couldn’t take it anymore, I went upstairs to take warm shower so I could promptly drug myself and cry myself to sleep. Chris, not realizing he was an idiot at this point, started a load of laundry (yes, it is possible to do laundry without that tray, but that’s not the effing point here). This made my warm shower cold. I let my warm tears warm my face to finish my shower. I got out, barely dried myself, threw on pajamas, took a lot of Tylenol PM and quickly cried myself to sleep. I don’t recall anything of last night except waking a couple times glad to see a warmed half empty can of Diet Coke to drink from. So here I am today, with no major problems, a bus pass, and more Diet Coke. One might venture to guess I would be in a better mood, but, the bad one carried over, so let’s hope for less negativity, more Diet Coke and good picture for my newest blog. I’ll be nice and apologize to Chris for calling him an idiot, I do know that if he had come and picked me up, the effing delivery guys would have showed up then, and he didn’t know the washer was going to suck all my heat, it never has before! He did at least heat up some Arbogast Cheese dip for me!

And now onto the urban slang word of the day:
fake take: Pretending to enter and store someone's phone number into your moblie phone after they generously offer up their phone humber and say "Take my number and give me a call sometime."

In use:
Girl 1: Why did you take that loser's number and tell him you would call him?
Girl 2: Don't worry, it was a fake take!

Mmmm ...... Lions choice cheese fries