Weekly, Weakly

Has it been a full week since I arrived home? I've been in a daze, time-and space-lagged, slowly divesting myself of one of China's major exports (phlegm) and exiting from a job I've held for four-and-a-half years. I somewhat theatrically emailed a resignation notice from Beijing on Bob Dylan's 70th birthday, ceremonially played Maggie's Farm a few times on my iPod, treated myself to a Chinese "hurts so good" massage and cupping therapy, and ultimately came home to an open-ended situation. A new opportunity begins, auspiciously, on the Summer Solstice. Some folks assumed I was retiring, but it's not dark yet.

In the meantime, I am trying to process the events of the past month, with little photographic evidence, but some journal notes. I really didn't go anywhere I'd never been before, but even so, revisiting revealed new lessons and new teachers, the kind who present themselves when you are ready, doors that were always there mysteriously opened. And just like when you leave a job you didn't really much like, saying, "But I'll miss the people," so too, part of the pleasure of a pilgrimage is the fellow pilgrims and priests.

One morning in the mountains, where I usually awoke at dawn with birds who may also have been restless during the full moon period, I took my tea and journal to the rooftop of the hotel to watch the sun rise over the very landscape which is the banner of this blog. After some stretching and breathing in first light and fresh air, I seated myself along the railing to make some notes about the previous evening when the group had been entertained by a charming literati type who sang some Chinese opera and folk songs, spontaneously, when we were enjoying the full moon.

In the dawn, the same young master emerged on the roof from his own little apartment with his tea and began a morning qigong routine. His back was to me, so I watched for a few moments and then realized he was doing movements I was familiar with, so I quietly began to follow him. At some point, he turned to acknowledge me. "I know some of this, it's eight brocades," I said, hoping he did not object to my energy, and he told me, yes, but what he was doing was a mixture. And then proceeded to demonstrate. Then he offered to teach me the Five Animals exercise.

Before I left home, I had been enjoying a 2009 Chinese TV series, The Shadow of Empress Wu, in which the five animals is a plot point -- a clever and manipulative Taoist applies the ancient routine to cure the sickly young prince (though the Taoist's elixirs were not for the good of the dynasty). I had been interested in the exercises, and it seemed uncanny that the master brought them up. (And I just discovered there is an earlier series about the Empress which also features my muse Vincent Zhao as Tang general Li Zunxian in a fictional romantic role...well, why not?)

But back to the exercises. After tiger (no tiger mom) comes bear, oh my...when we did that one, young master said to me, "Now you are a happy bear," not knowing then that my Chinese name is Xiong Shan Di (which a Chinese friend at home says may be interpreted as Empress of Bear Mountain, something like a Baroness). Later he began to call me Madame Xiong. A happy Madame Xiong. (Xiong=bear, which is in fact, my family name.)

We continued over the next few days, early morning before breakfast, on the roof, to complete instruction in the five movements. It was an unplanned program, one of many spontaneous happenings off the itinerary and schedule, but linked to full moon and sunrise. To be practicing while the sun and moon were both in the sky, together hovering over the mountains, was magical.

And now after a week, I am 95 percent well, 5 percent weak ---the phlegm is almost gone. I hope my memories linger longer.

What Goes Up

...will come down, eventually.

So today, I finally attack the chore of undoing the Solstice/Christmas sacrifice (in preparation for Year of Rabbit and Lent). What in early December was a pleasant task (even if I didn't quite throw myself wholeheartedly into it) now is just another tedious housekeeping job. (The lazy part of me just wants to torch the whole thing, but that would be so arsonistic, and I do love the ornaments, some of which are nearly personal antiques.) I AM glad I didn't put ALL the accumulated holiday crap on it. But in the end, we did get our money's worth out of the tree, to say nothing of considerable light and joy. Which is the point.

So I thought I was finished, poking around in the branches to make sure I didn't leave something sentimental behind, and there it is.

The pickle!

Tucked away in a hollow of the branches, a green glass dill, looking a little like a curiously diseased limp penis, that I bought maybe 20 years ago in "Germany" at Epcot Center, locus of world culture and commerce (by Disney). It was referenced to some legend (likely of the urban variety) that my Bavarian friend insists he never heard of --who would hang a pickle on a Christmas tree? And why? (Amanita mushrooms I get, but pickles?) I predict someday a Disney Christmas animation, to rival Polar Express, The Sour Legend of the Christmas Pickle. Or The Pickle vs. the Mushroom. A walking talking holiday pickle. Sounds obscene. As out of touch as I usually am, I suspect it has already been done. If not, I am conceiving a screenplay* and copyright for the concept. I had another one of these silly dills, probably acquired at Wal-Mart, given to me by my German/Druidish mother-in-law, but I passed it on (I think) to my son in a tradition-building sort of way.

Still, the dill has become an odd little element in my personal Christmas tradition and makes me recall the whirlwind Epcot ersatz trip to Germany, England (where I drank several pints of Bass), Morocco (where I ate a nice couscous), Canada, China (where I bought some tea), France, and the Global Future (where I got kinda sick on some crazy ride--shouldn't have drunk all the Bass followed by the couscous). I see Epcot "Theme Park" continues as a perpetual Disneyfied world's fair.

But wait...undoing the tree, I'm wrong, I'm not finished...I find yet another ornament tucked away, a hippie-style love bug****, another German artifact, more or less. The Volkswagen done up in a transformed tradition. (I never had a Volkswagen, not my style really, British roadsters** are more me, although I have a friend who has a new VW and it's a nice enough car. It has a vase for a flower on the dashboard.)

The VW and the Pickle.*** The Christmas tree is a German tradition after all.

Froeliche Weihnachte

*The plot for which is pickling. Any child who ever lived remotely near Pittsburgh, home to Theresa Heinz, the Pirates, the Steelers, the Penguins (but with no team ever named the Pickles--maybe a debate team in my screenplay), got a field-trip to the Heinz 57 catsup and pickle factory. And came away with cute little larval-looking pickle pins. These petite plastic pickles were my son's, but I think, as a child, I got cute little tin ones. Next year, these go on my tree...should send to him, but he doesn't do a Christmas tree. But now I think, they might make nice earrings. For a pregnant woman.

Pickle Larvae

**Speaking of which, I saw an old right-drive Morgan, dill-pickle green, in the parking lot at Starbuck's the other day. I walked around it, looking at the wooden dash, the tiny windscreen, the way Bob Dylan circled around Johnny Cash, and said "Yeah."

***Which also recalls to me an obscene limerick a friend and I concocted concerning a nun and pickle. Since she really deserves the copyright on it, I will not quote it here except to note the rhymes involving "dilly," the nun named Millie, whose affection for God was quite silly. It also involved jerkin' gherkins.

****Which is the name for some annoying insects which splatter on your windshield and radiator at a certain time in Florida; I had to scrub their remains off after that visit to Epcot in 1990-whatever.

Musical Christmas Spirit

Been trying to catch the Christmas wave, but it's not that easy in Hawaii.  (Well, some waves are, and we've been having some BIG ones.)  The commercial shopping stuff fails to light my candle,  there are no strong seasonal weather cues, except maybe the big waves...so I turn to music.

Amazon just delivered Bob Dylan's Christmas album to my mailbox, so fast, the appearance of which I predicted (like John the Baptist predicting the Messiah) many years ago...just wait, I said, someday he's gonna...and he did.  I think it fits in the baby-boomer nostalgia spectrum somewhere around Polar Express. (If I wasn't deep in a TVB drama, I might watch that movie tonight. I'll save it for Christmas Eve.)

But back to Dylan, hearing all these old classics by someone whose acid laryngytis is even worse than my own is kind of heartwarming. Sometimes he seems to be channeling (some might say ripping off) Leon Redbone.  (Really though, who did what first anyway?) And the packaging of the album (a charity fundraiser) has some funny surprises.  Front image, a kind of Classic Coke-style/Currier and Ives Christmas sleigh ride; back image, three camels (loving it); and inside...a Christmas pinup of Bettie Page (red-bordered silk stockings, a Victoria's Secret image of the '50s)!  The album cover pretty much covers everything Christmas.

I put it on the CD player, along with a new Verve jazz Christmas collection, and Vol. Three of Christmas Cocktails (included in the Amazon shipment, shipping three for the price of one, please do not tell me I should have downloaded them). And pulling from the library, our very favorite favorite, Aaron Neville's Soulful Christmas (someone once said to me at a party I was spinning music for, "That's not Christmas music!"). And our second favorite favorite, The Christmas Collection, with a whole lot of versions of The Christmas Song, with deep-throaty jazz saxophones and Hammond organs with Leslie speakers, the kind of music you would hear at 3 a.m. in a really sleazy bar on Christmas Eve/Morning.

Maybe all this music--five albums I might just keep in the CD changer through Epiphany, despite a collection which includes everything from Gregorian chant to medieval Hungarian carols, Handel to Bing Crosby, and every Windham Hell Solstice album ever issued--with a glassbottle of my favorite cheap cabernet, will get me in the mood.  And tomorrow we search for a pre-sacrificed Oregon Noble Fir.  It seems like a chore, but then, so does every ritual until you accomplish it.

So, Bob Dylan singing Little Drummer Boy, how bizarre and lovely, starts the holiday, and will see me through it.  My only quandary will be when it's all over...do I shelve the Dylan CD with the other Zimmie stuff or store it with the Christmas albums?  It doesn't really matter: it'll be available anytime on three iPods and my laptop.  It will be a delight to hear Christmas Blues turn up in a shuffle.

He jumped a string bean*

The Yellow Emperor has become a vegetarian.

Last night while I was preparing a nice dinner of marlin, some veggies, and rice, he leapt to the counter (he is the Emperor after all), I thought for a scrap of the fish. But he snatched a green bean and bounded off with it to his lair. He toyed with it all night, tossing it in the air, hiding it under things so he could find it again, laying on top of it. I think he mistook it for a lizard. The demure Fifi ignored him; she is content with her red and green and blue tiny fur faux mice that she brings to our bedroom in the middle of the night.

This morning he was still at it with the bean. It was ragged and the stem was gone. He's been a little off his feed of Fancy Feast (he is the Emperor after all) and since he seemed to be saying "Give me a string bean, I'm a hungry cat,"** I tossed a nice fresh one to him before I left for work. He pounced on it and resumed his bean-foolery.

All of the 11 cats of my life have had perverse little pleasures --one loved hose washers, another had a Santa that he would attack if you asked him to "Kill Santa," there's Fifi and her mouse preferences, the big silver tabby who had a thing for purple pom pons, the tuxedo cat who would knock over milk cartons, lick all the milk up and give himself diarrhea. And all of my male cats have liked to eat papaya and cantaloupe. (The Wizard thinks it's because these fruits smell musky, like female cats in heat. I don't know how he would know that.) But never before have I known a cat who liked to play with string beans. He may be channeling Bob Dylan. (See quote note below.)

The meal turned out great: I coated the marlin with a special hot curry mix and sauteed it, then deglazed the pan with a splash of vermouth to sauce the rice, a microwaved leftover mix of basmati and Uncle Ben's, weird and not half bad. (Someone on one of my China retreats was horrified that I might nuke leftovers--he said the microwaves "stick to the rice." He also lamented that during the retreat he was required to forgo his daily bong hit.) As for the string beans, I sauteed and briefly steamed them with some sliced pearl onions, a bit of red bell pepper, and seasoned with a melange of pepper and fines herbes. Delicieux!

Notes about the quotes: Bob Dylan refers to string beans twice on the "Freewheeling" album, in the sung (but not necessarily written) lyrics of *I Shall Be Free, and ** Talking World War III Blues. What's with Dylan and beans? Remember the great scene in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid"? Knockin' on Heaven's Door is what everyone remembers from this movie, but I loved the scene with Dylan's character, Alias, reviewing the cans of beans while trying to ignore something really awful happening behind him. "Beans...beans...pork and beans...kidney beans...beans." This movie is worth it just for that moment.