i survived christmas '08

having the world's quirkiest extended family can be a blessing and a curse.
here's what i'll remember this year:

- playing a great game with the cousins-in-law we like to call "what
if this were my hand"
- using aubrey's remote-controlled "cyclone robot" to shoot foam
discs at the cat
- scrabble tournaments
- daddy's toffee
- paul's tamales
- watching taryn's new hamster "wonder princess" crawl
backwards up its hot pink tube
- driving for hours to get to aunt betsy's and singing real loud
because the car stereo doesn't work
- bundling up in icelandic christmas sweaters to watch heima
- paulette's traumatized account of growing up in alsace, living in
constant fear come christmas of "le père fouettard"
- uncle john's collection of statues of hindu deities
- mommy's armenian novelty wine
- the "knifty knitter"
- playing "paralyze!" on the kitchen linoleum (it's every bit
as fun as it sounds)
- pretending elvis' "blue christmas" can actually pass as a carol
- cousin billy... is he related?

i love being home.

baklava.

ah yeah. you watch your back, papa stell.
i won't let my pasty whiteness keep me from baking ethnic.

there's still some in the fridge. if anyone wants to come over.

soul food.

there it is, in all its glory.
"cornbread dressing", yams, collard greens, sweet potato pie. what the picture fails to capture is the table littered with cans of Colt 45 malt liquor and orange soda. also newport menthols.

thanksgiving '08: a uniquely cross-cultural experience.

cynthia, tommy and i have been taking t.y. out for breakfast/lunch/barbeque ribs every thursday for the past few months. when cynthia and i met him in september he was doing what he always does: panhandling on the corner of 2nd and yesler, monday-friday, 7:30 to 1:00.

that first day we had lunch curbside. surrounded by pigeons and bustling business professionals in the heart of pioneer square, we shared a meal with a 54-year-old black transient and heard about his journey. he has a rock-solid faith, a hard history, a sound mind and a humble heart. the next week we brought tommy, and now we just can't quit.

last week found the four of us sitting snugly in our sticky red booth at the planet java diner with our friend josh, a young-urban-professional who works in the building above t.y.'s corner. we discussed the pros and cons of recruiting josh's hollywood-producer friend to make a movie out of t.y.'s story and formulated a game plan to find him permanent housing this winter. in the midst of a heated debate about whether or not t.y. should star in his blockbuster, his estranged little sister called.

she invited him to spend thanksgiving with her, and to bring whoever he wanted.

and thus we ended up spending our turkey day in an apartment in renton with our wonderful big black homeless friend, his oldest son, his little sister, his best friend/his little sister's boyfriend, his son's mother and her two daughters, his son's sometime-girlfriend and her baby nephew, etc. etc. etc. a truly beautiful dysfunctional family.

p.s. in the picture, you will observe that there is a notable lack of "chittlins" on my plate. when i learned that t.y.'s euphemistic term "slave food" was actually code for hot festering hog guts, i opted out of that particular dish.

tommy took one for the team, though.

and i bet he can still taste it sometimes.

happy thanksgiving.

jeudi.

there are days when all we need on earth is french food and yann tiersen.

recently

http://www.wiserearth.org/

http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

http://www.trekearth.com/

http://www.economist.com/

alfredo

"hey hhohney. you lookin' beautiful tonight. how's things goin'?"

"hi fredo. things are okay. i mean, i don't really want to be here. it's my birthday, and i'm at work, but you know. other than that. things are good."

pause.

"wait. wait a meenut. you here on your burtday?"

"yeah. see, i..."

"hhhhohney. why. why. why you here on your burtday? they tell me, they say, 'fredo, you come in tonight,' and i say, 'HELL no. ees my burtday. an' my mowther, she buy me a bottle a tequila, an' i am going hhhome, to be wid my mowther an' my browthers on my burtday.' hhhannah. why you here on your burtday?"

"you're funny. fredo, i can't just skip work. i can celebrate after. no big deal."

"no. no. you leesten to me. you gimme, you gimme just ten meenuts, just TEN meenuts, after you clock out, an' you come back to the keetchen, cuz alfredo make you something veryvery special."

...i'm twenty now.
it's kinda a big deal.
mostly because never before, and never again, will my birthday cake say "feliz compleaños" across the top in blueberry sauce.

gracias, alfredo.

stay.

"if this is a dream, the whole world is in it."

live.

narayan is pike place market's resident hare krishna.
he wears traditional ochre paint smeared on his forehead, and expensive, frameless glasses: a seamless blend of ancient eastern ritual and corporate-american affluence.
after twenty minutes of conversation, some tips on travel in india and a quick sanskrit lesson, he fanagled me into an $11 copy of the bhagavad-gita.
which should have only cost me $10.
he didn't have quite enough change.
the e-mail address, copy of the tract "beyond birth and death" and the temple flower he threw in made up for it.

reza is an effulgent middle-aged iranian who speaks english a little too fast for one whose native tongue is farsi.
the day we met we ate gelato together and became steadfast friends.
i pop in to caravan antiques every now and then to receive a delightfully suffocating hug and a very un-american kiss on the cheek.
we talk about his daughters at school in africa and france. i examine his newest crop of imported persian rugs.
today he accompanied me to the flying apron bakery and bought me something made with apricots and a very good cup of tea.

julie is the woman employed by campus housing maintenance to wake me up very early in the morning to change the lightbulbs above my vanity.
they don't burn out much, so i don't see her often.
but it's a pleasure when i do.
i sit up in bed, bleary eyed and unattractive, and try to make conversation.
tuesday morning she came in. i don't remember much except my initial, hazy idea that someone was playing a practical joke.
i do remember though what she said as she was leaving.
she said that i am a missionary wherever i go.

like she is. like reza. like narayan.

antoine de saint-exupéry

"Good evening," said the little prince courteously.

"Good evening," said the snake.

"What planet is this on which I have come down?" asked the little prince.

"This is the Earth; this is Africa," the snake answered.

"Ah! Then there are no people on the Earth?"

"This is the desert. There are no people in the desert. The Earth is large," said the snake.

The little prince sat down on a stone, and raised his eyes toward the sky.

"I wonder," he said, "whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again... Look at my planet. It is right there above us. But how far away it is!"

"It is beautiful," the snake said. "What has brought you here?"

"I have been having some trouble with a flower," said the little prince.

"Ah!" said the snake.

And they were both silent.

"Where are the men?" the little prince at last took up the conversation again. "It is a little lonely in the desert..."

"It is also lonely among men," the snake said.

The little prince gazed at him for a long time.

"You are a funny animal," he said at last. "You are no thicker than a finger..."

"But I am more powerful than the finger of a king," said the snake.

The little prince smiled.

"You are not very powerful. You haven't even any feet. You cannot even travel..."

"I can carry you farther than any ship could take you," said the snake.

He twined himself around the little prince's ankle, like a golden bracelet.

"Whomever I touch, I send back to the earth from whence he came," the snake spoke again.
"But you are innocent and true, and you come from a star..."

The little prince made no reply.

"You move me to pity-- you are so weak on this Earth made of granite," the snake said. "I can help you, some day, if you grow too homesick for your own planet. I can--"

"Oh! I understand you very well," said the little prince. "But why do you always speak in riddles?"

"I solve them all," said the snake.

And they were both silent.

blind.

lerin stopped to ask her if she needed help with her groceries.

i hadn't noticed. i hadn't noticed the brown oldsmobile, its trunk full of plastic bags. i hadn't noticed the lady, elderly, tired, breathing a little unsteadily.

we carried her groceries into her living room and left them. she saw us out, and told us we had made her day.

i would have walked right by.
why hadn't i noticed?
we were walking. i was talking. what about, i can't remember.
probably myself. i do a lot of that.

i'm glad that lerin's eyes were open. she saw a need and met it.

there have been times when i have too. and each time i am receptive to the whisper, something blooms inside of me.

but it doesn't happen often. walking home i thought about what paul really meant when he praised a quiet spirit.
maybe my spirit is too overwhelmed by the clamor i create myself.
i can't hear. i don't see.

how much will i be awakened if i let myself be still.

rain.

in seattle i feel as though i'm always waiting for the other foot to drop.

this afternoon the clouds were so heavy they seemed to absorb even the sunlight above them, rolling it around inside themselves and releasing it, battered and bruised, to tinge the air with a kind of sickly pallor. if we'd been in kansas it would have been tornado weather.

now the droplets are spattering against my window with a force that reminds me of the way a driving ocean gale tosses sand across a beach.

and for some reason, i am frightened.
it's the things i find beautiful that frighten me the most.