Peanut Butter Reconsidered

Never a kid with any real affinity for peanut butter, my lifetime peanut butter consumption might fill ten standard size jars. Entire years of my life have elapsed without me swallowing the stuff. I don't hate it and never have; I just never developed any pressing desire for it. As a child--when my mother still made lunchtime sandwiches for her children as per their request--I ate the tuna or bologna or cheese or other savory option, never the "straight butter, honey, peanut butter" sandwich my siblings often petitioned for. Although I think I did sample a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a weak and frivolous attempt to be at one with popular elementary school lunch culture, even PB&J failed to lure me into the fold of peanut butter devotees. Any sandwich I carried to school for lunch purposes held animal protein between the bread.

In the dorms my freshman year in college I finally learned to eat and somewhat enjoy peanut butter--on crackers (I preferred saltines to grahams) and even in a PB&J sandwich prepared in the dorm cafeteria when the proffered main course lacked requisite edible traits. Before I graduated, a roommate introduced me to a peanut butter cookie recipe that I still keep on file--and occasionally bake--to this day.

Once I began teaching school, peanut butter sporadically figured into plans and activities with students. I remember one time when a lesson included a tasting activity, and my students informed me that the peanut butter sample provided tasted OLD. I had no real measure in taste memory to evaluate the freshness of peanut butter, and I had never before considered that peanut butter might have a shelf life! No doubt the culprit peanut butter came from a jar dating back to at least the previous year's tasting activity!

Over the ensuing years I have consumed--and enjoyed--a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on certain rare occasions. I eat peanut butter cookies--those baked according to the instructions on the recipe from that former college roommate and those other people bake with a Hershey's Kiss pressed into the middle. And I absolutely love peanut sauce (especially with chicken sate and other Asian entrees) which, even I must admit, has a close relationship with peanut butter.

In December I skied three days in a row. On days two and three, my ski buddies and I chose to carry sandwiches to the slopes instead of paying premium prices for sub-standard fare at the ski lodge. And, yes, we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! I can't remember anything about my lunch on day one except that it cost a shocking amount and was utterly disappointing gastronomically. But I do remember lunches on days two and three, and they were supremely satisfying: PB&J sandwiches, apples, water, and Coke Zero.

I got sick in January, had little appetite, and wandered the commissary aisles in search of something that might tempt me to eat. And, yep, I ended up buying peanut butter, grape jelly, and bread! In the last two months I have eaten SIX peanut butter and jelly sandwiches--likely at least five more than I consumed in the previous decade of my existence, especially considering I had never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich since moving to Japan until the two I ate while skiing in December. I suspect I probably lunched on at least one peanut butter and jelly sandwich sometime during the eighteen years I lived in Germany.

Then, Thursday night of this last week I arrived home with a mean craving for those no-bake cookies made with cocoa, peanut butter, and oatmeal. (Truly, the fact that this kind of no-bake cookie showed up for refreshments at a church youth activity a couple of weeks ago and the reality that I currently have a jar of peanut butter residing in my home have to bear some of the blame.) I looked up a recipe on the Internet, cooked up a batch, and could scarcely contain my nibbling to allow them sufficient cooling time. Such a divine assuaging of rapacious desire!

Addendum

I commenced the previous post on January 22 and never completed it. Feeling poorly all that weekend, I surrendered to Season 3 of House, courtesy of Netflix. The following weekend was the end of Quarter 2 and Semester1 for me; grading and grades demanded my attention. So, I finished the post today, but the auto-format of Blogger maintains that "Appetizers" at Chili's is a January 22 posting.

"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!

------------------------------------------------------

*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.
  
  

A Report on Reality--My Reality, That Is . . .

Mostly I teach school--preparing lessons, face time with classes, evaluating student work. Still, there are spaces of my reality configured with other activities and different interactions.

(1) When the movie offerings on base fail to engage my interest, I resort to Netflix, and this autumn's on-base flick options have turned me homeward more often than not. Consequently, I have finally viewed a goodly number of the selections that have languished in my Netflix queue, selections selected over a year ago for the most part, I might add. At some artsy moment I lined up quite a number of foreign films, and the last few months have become the time frame for their arrival. Now, as foreign films tend to be filmed in foreign languages, these movies have generally required the reading of subtitles to make any sense of them. Believe you me, when one must read subtitles while viewing a movie, there is no other successful multi-tasking going on. I even had to abandon folding clothes! Peeling a pomegranate and consuming the seeds--a current craving--is tricky, so mostly I stick to microwave popcorn while watching those of the foreign genre. And truthfully, I haven't been all that impressed with most of the foreign fare. (The only one I would recommend is a French one, Au Revoir Les Enfants.) Many seemed kind of preachy or else designed by agenda. I liked the Spanish ones mostly because I could listen to spoken Spanish while reading subtitles! And I confess, at the end of October I scooted some fluffy, escape-worthy flicks to the top of my queue--Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Clueless, and Ten Things I Hate About You--for a little respite!


(2) On Monday and Wednesday afternoons the base fitness center with the Olympic-size pool offers a water aerobics class at 3:30, a time I can usually manage. No fitness class works for me, though, unless I like the teacher's style, which usually means he/she has to mix-it-up because I get bored easily. I started attending this water aerobics class last April with Angela, a friend from church. She assured me "Norway" was a good instructor. Now, despite the image his name might conjure, Norway is Japanese, and I have no idea if "Norway" is his real name or not. Although small in stature, he is noticeably fit, has boundless energy, and owns a glowing reputation as an excellent instructor for both kick boxing and yoga, too. (He teaches those classes during morning times, so I have never attended.) I did enjoy the water aerobics class last spring, and, even though Angela moved during the summer, I decided to continue with the class on my own this fall. Class numbers vary, and on a couple of occasions I have been the only one in attendance. I felt awkward at first, but, man-oh-man, did Norway give me an amazing workout--one he developed and tweaked especially for me moment by moment in real time. It became an hour for me with a personal trainer for the price of attending a class...like about $2!

The other day while lotioning up--swimming pool water and the house heating systems here dry out my skin big time--and sliding the slick across my stomach I experienced a momentary shock: My abs were hard! In water aerobics class Norway is all the time reporting that we are working our "core" with such-and-such a move or with this-and-then-that particular alignment of the body, even as we do the main aerobic portion of the class. I have not fully believed how much core work indeed we have been doing...until now. I may no longer have 20-something musculature or 20-something skin, but, boy-howdy, I bet I have the fittest abs of my entire life!


(3) Having finally read the complete Twilight saga--commencing with Twilight last May and finishing up with Breaking Dawn in September--has provided source material for some entertaining, and sometimes revealing, conversations with my students. A majority of my female students have read the books and some of the guys have, too. However, even guys who haven't read the series tend to pay attention to girls who have read the series, and a lot of these guys have seen the first two movies, so we all can talk! And we do: Team Jacob or Team Edward? Werewolves or vampires? And any stated opinion must be supported well enough to withstand the challenges presented by the opposition! My students are currently in the midst of an astronomy unit in their science classes, and this last week during my Advisory/Seminar class, five of us--four students and me--explained the scientific definition of "eclipse" to a female student by including analogies derived from the third book in the series, Eclipse!


So here it is December--Thanksgiving gone and Christmas before us. All the boats harbored on the navy base wear extra lights, strings of lights, in holiday fashion, and the tugboats are still my favorites.

Mt. Fuji frequents the horizon more often in this season, too--a study in blue.

Michael Jackson's This Is It

On a very rainy Veterans' Day afternoon, I viewed a matinee showing of Michael Jackson's This Is It.

I recall being aware of the Jackson 5 and liking some of their songs; I also remember stand-out songs from Michael's early solo career. Yet, not until I witnessed him dancing did Michael Jackson hold my attention. The ways he could move on a stage, in place or across it--I was entranced.

The same holds true for this movie: I enjoyed the music; I loved the dancing...Michael's and his back-up dancers. Okay, the back-up dancers were young, beautifully bodied, and certainly talented--eye candy extraordinaire. And Michael seemed fragile--noticeably thin and shoulders slightly stooped--but, oh, when he moved, the magic moved in him. It was amazing to watch how a 50-year-old Michael could still steer all eyes to him. For the last two numbers included in the movie, Michael performed on stage alone. Whenever a camera angle cut to his back-up dancers as they watched him from the pit in front of the stage, enraptured adulation shone on their faces. I wasn't the only one mesmerized.