"Appetizers" at Chili's

appetizers: \ˈa-pə-ˌtī-zərz\ noun food and drink consumed in the presence of friends combined with chit-chat and banter enfolding various discourses regarding current events (from personal to world-wide), education and educators, politics, religion, culture and the arts, and and the cures for all that ails us


When my friend Molly lived in Germany, she and some teacher friends would head to La Cantina, a local Mexican restaurant, for appetizers after school once a week. When a Chili's opened on base here at Yokosuka, Molly reinstituted the tradition, and pretty much once a week Molly and I would meet at Chili's after school. Sometimes Jennell or Tamara or Stephanie or Sherri or Lee Ann or any combination thereof would show up too, but Molly and I became the committed core of the event: if for any reason either of us couldn't come, we would reschedule.

For Molly and me, "appetizers" meant dinner, and a 3:30 in the afternoon time frame never deterred us. Molly drank iced tea--upgraded to a real Coke on a "hard" day--while I guzzled Diet Coke any and every day, and we both evolved into diners ever loyal to the same order: Chili's Guiltless Grilled Salmon served with steamed brocolli and a cup of Chili's black beans. (Chili's recently downsized portions for this order--it no longer includes the cup of black beans--and upsized the overall price!)

At least half the time Molly and I did "appetizers" with just us. After debriefing our day, our week, and the current status of our lives--discussions typical of any of the gatherings for "appetizers"--the two of us would launch into discussions of current events (we both follow the news) and the politics entangled in those events (we both have opinions, too)--discussions not so typical when others were in attendance because that addage about discussing politics and religion seemed to come into play as others would become visibly uncomfortable. By the time we left, we pretty much had all facets of life and the world analyzed and potentially "fixed" ... nevermind our extraordinary deficits on the power scale.

Last July Molly took a job on a military base stateside, and before I returned to Japan in August, she was already packed out and gone. Still, about once every week to ten days, I head to Chili's after school on my own. I sit in a booth--never at the bar--and I order a Diet Coke and the Guiltless Grilled Salmon (believe it or not, nobody else does salmon quite as good as Chili's). Then I read--my current destresser/debriefing technique--sometimes a book but usually a magazine: The New Yorker (I bought a subscription this year), Runners' World (I have kept an ongoing subscription since my brother Dan recommended this magazine to me when I agreed with trepidation to coach cross country that one year) or Time (I sporadically purchase a copy at the NEX).

Miss you, Molly!

A (Generic) Day in the Life

Just prior to the holidays, the six siblings in my family agreed that Christmas 2009 would conclude our gift exchange tradition, and with 2010 we would commit to commence a regular practice of correspondence instead, one with a minimum frequency guideline set for monthly. Since for me right now, blog trumps letter, I shall attempt to attend more consistently to my space in the blogosphere.

People tend to assume that exotic location equals exotic life. 'Tain't necessarily so! No matter where one dwells, a lot of life is shaped around rituals and routines fashioned by expectations, practicality, and habit. Nevertheless, here is a glimpse into the patterns of my life Monday through Friday, the days I teach school.


5:00-ish: I arise. In January, Japan is still dark at this hour* and, might I add, COLD—even if the temperature has yet to drop below freezing (last night's temperature slid to 35)—because houses lack insulation, and as soon as any room's heat source is shut off (no central heating system here), the chill re-invades quickly. I attend to my morning ablutions, get dressed, and collect the stuff I deposited the previous evening in the foyer to haul with me to school. These cold mornings I have taken to coddling my vehicle more so than in the past, allowing the engine to warm up a bit before I shift into drive. At fourteen—yes, I own a 1996 model—my Mitsubishi Pajero Jr. functions better with some accommodations made for its geriatric status, and I really want my car to survive until June. (In June I can either ditch it totally because I have a transfer or ditch it to invest in a somewhat newer model for another year in Japan.**) My commute to base usually takes me 15-20 minutes because I leave before the traffic mass can congest. I generally arrive at school by six.


6:00-ish: I ascend the stairs to my third floor classroom (since I only allow myself to use the elevator when toting heavy and/or unwieldy loads), stash my stuff in the closet, log-in to the computer, and begin breakfast preparation. I keep cold cereal in a cupboard and milk in the frig—fresh blueberries, too, as much as possible—but my preferred breakfast is hot oatmeal, the steel-cut variety that requires cooking, not nuking. Recently I’ve actually become quite proficient at cooking up a large pot of steel-cut oats at home and then dividing it into individual serving containers that I can heat up in my classroom microwave oven before eating. When I don’t breakfast in my classroom, I drive through the McDonald’s on base, which conveniently opens at 6:00, and order an orange juice and a sausage/egg McMuffin. Other years I averaged a McDonald’s breakfast run almost once a week, but this year not so much.

With breakfast I indulge in some computer time: First I do read my school e-mail, then I click through all the blogs listed in my “Favorites,” checking for updates and reading comments, and after that I scan my personal email sites. From there I move into a more “teacherly” mode, depending on the extent of what the computer can provide in the early morn to engage my attention, sometimes by 6:10 and sometimes not until 6:30 or so. The first bell permitting students to enter the building rings at 7:15; classes begin at 7:25.


7:15 – 2:10: School time with students. This year I teach five sections of 8th grade English/Language Arts and oversee one section of 8th grade Advisory/Seminar.


3:00-ish: Contract time for teachers officially ends at 2:45, but most remain in the building beyond that. Unless I have a meeting, I often leave between 3:00 and 3:30, usually heading toward one of these three scenarios: (1) exercise…as in water aerobics or a run, (2) errand(s), or (3) time-out. After any of these scenarios, I may choose to return to school to do more preparation and/or grading, especially if I’m headed to one of the two movie theaters on base for their first show of the evening; one theater begins its first show at 5:30 and the other theater’s begins at 6:00. Or I just might head home

For this post, only the time-out scenario shall warrant elaboration. My time-outs are unwind sessions, generally accomplished with a Diet Coke to sip and a Stars and Stripes newspaper to read and usually with a Fleet Recreation Center snack bar setting…because their fountain drinks include Diet Coke instead of Diet Pepsi, they offer fresh fruit for purchase, and they actually bake and sell their own cookies. When I need a cookie (and some weeks I seem to need one almost everyday), I can buy a really good one there—ONE at a time (think portion control). I used to buy only oatmeal raisin because they have an amazingly good oatmeal cookie—chewy, moist, and flavorful—even if I have to pick out every single raisin for later disposal. This last year, though, they introduced a sugar cookie for which I have developed a hankering because their recipe includes almond extract and I love that flavor addition in a sugar cookie. They have chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies for sale, too, but I never seem to “need” one of those.


After 4:00: Experience has demonstrated time and again that a quicker and less stressful commute home occurs with a main gate exit strategy scheduled before 4:30 or else after 5:45.


5:00 – 6:00: If I make it home somewhere within the proximity of five, I usually dine—a term certainly applied loosely here—at home. My microwave is my cooking appliance of choice although I have done better this year with more regular attempts at traditional types of cooking, sometimes even twice a week.


7:00 – 9:00: After collecting all that I believe I will need to haul back to school in the morning, I deposit the stuff in the designated spot in the foyer. After deciding what to wear the next day, I bring the clothing and accessories downstairs to my main living space—the space next to the bathroom and the space for which I know how to set the timer to start the heat source without me having to turn it on manually (such a blessing on cold mornings to have the room already warm!) I log-in to my computer, click through the blogs again, check personal e-mail, scan the digital version of The New York Times that arrives daily to one of my accounts, and then peruse both Facebook and Twitter—two sites banned by the filter on my school computer. Some nights I watch something from Netflix and some nights I putter at what one can putter at while in one’s own home.


by 9:00: I am usually reading and most often ensconced in the comfort—and warmth—of my bed. Lights out generally by 9:30 unless I am totally bewitched by a book and suppressing the harsher facts of my reality in Japan. Morning comes early!

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*By June, though, the sun will rise by the 5:00 hour; in fact, in summer the eastern horizon begins pushing at the dark just after three. Japan truly is the Land of the Rising Sun, and, in my opinion, ought to be on Daylight Savings Time year round—although Japan has no Daylight Savings Time ever—or else it needs to establish a different time zone for itself. By summer there is full daylight by five in the morning and full nighttime dark by 7:30 in the evening.

**Don't get me wrong. I love my car: It has this unique, funky-cute appearance, and it is way skinny--a definite asset in Japanese-style traffic and on the narrow lanes near my house. The vehicle just suffers from advanced age and the diminishing reliability that accompanies accumulating years. However, if I end up in Japan another year, I want another skinny car!

Hong Kong Reminiscence

Of all Asia's large cities I've visited so far, Hong Kong is my favorite. In July of 2006 a connection made between Frankfurt and Tokyo at Hong Kong's airport graced me with a sneak peak early one summer morning. Sunrise had illuminated an eastern portion of mainland China below the plane, then a coastline, followed by a bit of sea, and suddenly Hong Kong emerged--islands with peaky hills draped in tropical green encompassed by sandy beaches and plunging cliff-lines or else marinas and "serious" harbors. The vertical lines and elongated rectangles of skyscraper cityscapes glistened in the crytalline morning light, stretching skyward from an array of valley pockets. By the time the plane touched down on the runway, I had added Hong Kong to the list in my mind of places to go/places to see. Still, not until November of 2009--Thanksgiving Break--did I finally arrive in Hong Kong for a true visit. My first glimpse of Hong Kong took my breath away; my first authentic experience with Hong Kong rendered me a devoted fan.

• How can you not love a city where a building structured with a lengthy horizontal expanse must have a hole designed into the middle so the dragon that dwells in the mountain behind it has unencumbered access to the sea in front of it! For, don't you know, in China all mountains have a dragon, and certainly common logic would suggest that messing with dragons is surely a fool's game. (A guide shared with us that feng shui informs the layout of Hong Kong and the design of its buildings.)
  
  
• Hong Kong is hustle-bustle and in your face, a style I find exhilarating. And Chinese--both Mandarin and Cantonese, apparently--is often spoken heavy on volume. "Dulcet-toned" would not generally apply as a descriptor for street conversation in Chinese, a fact I first noted the summer I taught English in mainland China.
  
  
• Hong Kong today is a facinating hybrid, fashioned by its traditional Chinese heritage, by a lengthy British occupation and its influence, and by its place and history on the world stage.
  

• In addition to the kinds of markets typically found in many Asian cities, Hong Kong has a gold fish market, a place where one can purchase goldfish--and other aquarium varieties--on display already packaged in a take-away plastic bag! There is a bird market, too... and I'm not talking about the market where one buys fresh poultry for consumption. This bird market sells birds to house in these cool bird cages that include porcelaine food containers. (Never a real pet-bird enthusiast, I was more enthralled with cage design and dishes than birds.)

• Hong Kong boasts cuisine to satisfy any palate (hey, I even found Mrs. Field's Cookies near two different underground transit stations), is easily navigable with a rather fun range of transport, offers lots to see and do both city-style and grand-outdoors-style, and has this amazing setting--resplendent and memorable.