Cooking for Poochie and Little Doggy Rockstar

 Because of my love of large, fluffy things, Poochie has been declared overweight by her Veterinarian. And as such, she has been on a diet since November. For the first couple days, she was upset that her snacks consisted of baby carrots, apples, and ice cubes. Gradually, she grew to accept and even enjoy these healthy snacks.
But she knew with the special canine knowing that dogs know that she had a whole bag of small, multi-colored bone-shaped cookies in the pantry. Over the years, she has conditioned me to open the pantry door when she stands there and scratch at it. She really is very smart. But so am I! After a few weeks of cringing and apologizing to her that I couldn't give her snacks for just being cuddly and adorable (I mean, come on, at least fold the laundry or shovel the walk - that's worth a cookie), I finally got rid of the whole bag.
 Now it's not there to tempt me. I mean her.
So far, she has lost three whole pounds. Yay! Let's celebrate with a REAL dog snack! Wait, I just got rid of the whole bag!
Lady K to the rescue!
For Christmas, Lady K gave Lil' Sis a doggy treat cookbook. So, this morning, I pulled it out and we got cookin'.
After a few minutes of rummaging through the house (I will be the first to admit that organic and all-natural are not commonly  used when I go grocery shopping), I found we had the ingredients for the "Ohm my these are good" cookies.
Poochie, always very interested when I begin cooking, remained close at hand as I measured, mixed, and rolled the pumpkin-y goodness into balls and placed them on the cookie sheet. I don't have oat flour, so I dumped rolled oats into the blender and blended that up. I don't have brown rice flour, but by golly, white rice flour is an acceptable substitute, right? (Make it easy on me and just agree.)
Little Doggy Rockstar, who wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but was going to stay just in case, sat in the kitchen and watched for anything that dropped.

Finally, after twenty five excruciating minutes, the cookies came out of the oven. I am proud to say that they turned out rather well. Little Doggy Rockstar gives them two fuzzy paws way way up.

The only complaint Poochie has is that I only gave her one.

I'm still trying to resist her cute, floofy, hypnotic stare.
Only one, Poochie. Just one, Poochie.
Shoot.
Okay, here's another.

Day 2: Our Lucaya Beach and Golf Resort

Eep and I disembarked and breezed through Bahamian customs. The only question they asked was, "Do you have any beer, alcohol, cigarettes, or liquid?" We said no, and they packed us onto a bus. After a short trip through town, we arrived at the resort.
Holy cow, this is a nice hotel. It has three pools. Three pools. THREE POOLS. How awesome is that? With all that crystal blue water waiting, we did the obvious thing.
We took a nap.
Then, we changed into our bathing suits and spent the day in the pools. That is all.

Day 1: Cruise

No, I did not throw up on the cruise ship. It was a struggle, but I managed.
I had heard stories about the buffets on cruise ships: stories about people gaining thirty pounds in one night after eating everything on the menu; stories about waiters loaded like donkeys with dessert trays on either side; stories about the mountains of food you could climb up and slide down into a giant tub of chocolate pudding.
Needless to say, I was excited.
We ate in a restaurant called the Crystal Room. Wearing my newly-purchased evening-ish gown, gold sweater shrug, and carrying a borrowed evening bag, I readied myself for an evening of over-eating. Eep and I settled into our blue and chrome chairs and looked at the table. I had never seen so much silverware at one place setting. Three forks, two knives, two spoons, and a little butter knife stared up at me, as if in challenge.
"Oh, yes," I muttered, eyeing the silverware, "I will use each and every one of you."
I did my best. I ate a potato tart, two rolls, conch chowder, carrots, broccoli, herb-marinated chicken, apple crisp, and sugar-free cheesecake. At the end of the meal, I glared at the salad fork and the dessert spoon, smugness painted on the silver tines and concave bowl. However, I was not yet defeated. Before the waiter whisked them away, I picked up each of them and licked them.
That counts, right?

Post Script: Eep and I stayed in a small, inside cabin with no windows, two creaky twin beds, and a thermostat set to exactly 16 degrees Fahrenheit. The apparent thought process behind the freezing temperature was that to compensate for the balmy 88 degrees outside, everyone had to turn into a human Popsicle overnight. Luckily, we woke up before that happened and were able to thaw outside.

Post Post Script: Follows is a short video of the entertainment: a talented singer by the name of Tricia Kelly. Enjoy.

Post Post Script: I will upload the video when I have access to an internet service that will let me upload. 

Heartfelt Confessions

Roughly six months ago, I discovered that the bigger grocery store here in town will deliver your groceries to your door if you spend more than 10,000 won. I also discovered that the delivery boy is a cheerful, good-looking man. After that most welcome of revelations, I began buying water, juice, and milk (i.e. the heavy stuffy) at that store and having them delivered. My usual practice is to bike to the store, buy my groceries, dump them in a box, write my address on said box, and then hustle back to the apartment before the delivery guy arrives. That way, I can be there to open the door and gush about how thankful I am that he delivered them for me.
Today, I was in a good mood. I had spoken with Lil' Sis on Skype, and PJ was scheduled to come down from Incheon to visit this weekend. After school, I pedaled over to the grocery store, bought two cases of water, lemonade, apple juice, mango juice, grape juice, and milk. I boxed them up and whistled my way back to the apartment. I propped the front door open, as it was terribly hot, and set about making dinner. I pulled a carrot and a cucumber out of the fridge and began cutting them into sticks and circles, respectively.
A few minutes later, I heard the thump, thump of purposeful footsteps and looked up to see the delivery man at my door.
I smiled. "Annyeonghaseyo!" I said, putting down the knife and wiping my hands on a towel.
He smiled back (swoon!) and put the case of water and box of juices on the floor. Then he turned and lifted the second case of water off his dolly.
"Kamsahamnida!" I beamed.
He nodded, still grinning. "Mashiketuseyo," he said ("Enjoy your meal.")
"Kamsahamnida!" I said again. "Annyeonghikaseyo!"
"Annyeonghikeseyo," he said back, turned and exited.
I listened to the thump, thump of his footsteps and the creak of the dolly wheels getting softer as he walked down the hall.
"You're beautiful!" I called. "I love you!"
The footsteps stopped and then returned at a much quicker pace.
He appeared in my open doorway. "Mwoyo?" ("What?")
"Uh . . ." My face was bright red from a sunburn, but I knew I was blushing. "Thank you? Kamsahamnida?"
He laughed and I knew I wasn't going to get out of it that easily.
"Sarang e?" he teased. "Sarang e?" ("Love?  Love?")
"Yes," I admitted.
Even though I was so humiliated, I thought my head would burst into flames, I laughed. I couldn't help it. We both stood there laughing and smiling like idiots.
"Okay, okay," I said, flapping my hands at him. "You can go now. Thank you. Bye. Kamsahamnida."
"Goodbye," he said in English and turned. With one last amused look over his shoulder, he left.
I heard him laughing all the way to the elevator.

Good, Clean Fun

"One, two, three . . ." M&M trailed off as he counted the photographers. ". . . thirty four, thirty five. Thirty five of them! They're like locusts! They just keep coming!"
The participants of the photography contest had corralled us against the water, their huge SLR cameras aimed at us like rifle scopes. The clicks of the shutters was just background noise to the pleas of "One more, okay? One more time, okay?" We four westerners stood in the sun, striking pose after pose and (most of us) struggling to keep smiles on our faces.
"The photographers," our host, Isaiah explained, "are in a competition to see who can take the best photo. That's why they all want to take a picture of you guys; you're interesting and different."
And, we were. Myself, M&M, Lemonade, and Lord Oswell Firewine were the only Westerners there (other than two ladies that we saw very, very briefly). As such, we were bestowed celebrity status complete with camera-armed paparazzi. We dodged the cameras as best we could and took in all the sights of the mud festival.
That is, we saw stuffed squid, mud, robotic puppies for sale, mud, stuffed pork intestines, mud, lots of hats and umbrellas, mud, free beer, mud, colorful statue-type people, and mud. Did I mention the mud?
I only mention the mud because I fell in it.
Twice.
Sunday, July 17, 2011 was the first annual Mud Festival of Goheung County in South Korea. There were booths of food and more booths of food and drums and dancing and singing and . . . you get the picture. There were also mud-olympics.
They had a mud footsal competition, which is sort of like soccer, but in knee-deep mud. They had mud wrestling. They had mud tug-of-war. They had mud platform tug-of-war, where each team of five participants stood on a Styrofoam block. They had mud-board races where a person would lie on their stomach on a long, broad, ski-looking board, and push themselves through the mud with their arms. They had a bicycle relay. Yes, they had a bicycle relay, and yes, we signed up for the bicycle relay.  Despite his skill with the motorcycle (hey, balancing a bicycle should be easy after riding a motorcycle, right?), I couldn't convince M&M to join our team. And Lord Oswell Firewine insisted that because of the shockingly ungentlemanly behavior of certain people in his childhood, he never learned to ride a bicycle. So, Lemonade, two Korean girls, and myself made the four-person team.

Let me preface this next bit by saying that I can ride a bike. I can ride a bicycle like nobody's business. I can ride a bike and talk on the cell phone at the same time. That's how good I am.
However . . .
I cannot ride a muck-covered bicycle on a wooden plank 18 inches wide that has been smeared with slimy, slippery mud.

I sat on the bicycle, pushed off, and slid right into the mud.
As I sank hip-deep into the muck, I couldn't help but think that Lord Oswell Firewine would have done as well as I in this competition.
Lemonade came to my rescue and hoisted me out of the muck. I scrambled back onto the bicycle, pedaled, and slid off the board again. The third time, though, was a charm. I pedaled to the end of the planks and hopped off. I handed the bike to my Korean teammate and she pedaled across the plank to give it to Lemonade, who also fell off the board several times. He made it to my end and our fourth teammate pedaled to the other side like she was pedaling through the flower-dotted countryside instead of a huge expanse of limb-sucking mud.
So, thanks to our Korean team-mates, we made it to the semi-finals where we were given the bicycle with the crooked handles. Fortunately, I noticed the crooked handles right away and managed to get across the board without falling in once. Yay for me! However, trying to quickly explain to my Korean teammate that we had drawn the short-stick, bicycle-wise, proved difficult. She fell in twice. By the time we picked her out of the mud the second time, our two competitors had already completed their runs.
We had to be content with third place.
And bronze medals.
And prize money.
And the warm, fuzzy feeling that we were all going home as champions.

Crash Like You Meant It

I've fallen off my bicycle three times in the last week. The first time, I was attempting to avert a collision with a car that appeared to be most comfortable when swerving all over the road. I jumped up on the narrow sidewalk, but my back wheel caught on the curb and I crashed. My audience of elderly Koreans stared with fascination as I untangled myself from my bicycle and stood up. Then they all smiled and nodded at each other, as if to say, "See? I knew she wasn't hurt. No need for assistance." The second time, I barreled off the edge of the road into some gravel. The truck that had run me off the road honked, loud and long, and sped by.
This last time, I fell simply because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going.
I pedaled to my apartment building after school, hot and tired. Three 2nd grade boys were playing cops and robbers (or the Korean equivalent) with toy guns. They saw me and started waving and yelling, "Hayna! Hayna!" I waved back and, with their expectations fulfilled, they began shooting at each other again. I smiled at their childish antics, promptly hit the curb, and fell off my bicycle.
I remained on the small patch of weeds I had (thankfully) fallen into, listening to the shouts of alarm around me. The three boys ran over to me, expressing various levels of concern. I stared at them for a moment, and then inspiration struck.
"I've been shot!" I clutched my side. "I've been shot!"
They looked at me in confusion so I pointed at their guns.
"Owwie!" I groaned. "Owwwwieee!"
One of the boys examined his neon-orange, plastic gun.
"Yes," I said, nodding. "The gun."
He furrowed his brow and pointed the gun at my face.
"No!" I said, suddenly panicked.  "Andae!"
I didn't know what kind of toy gun they had. Some of them have actual foam pellets or, worse, bullet-shaped plastic shells.
He pulled the trigger and a stream of water hit my forehead and ran down my nose.
"Sonsangnim?" he questioned.
"No, no, I'm fine," I sputtered. "Teacher is fine. Sonsangnim gwenchanayo."
He nodded, beckoned to his friends, and they took off.
I wiped my face on my sleeve and limped away, musing that I probably deserved what I got.

My Mother Loves Lilacs

It began with the scent of lilacs breezing through an open window. I turned, fully expecting to see a lilac bush in full bloom. Instead, I saw the parking lot, the rooftop of the butcher, the first four stories of an apartment building, and the radio-like spire of a church. I refocused on my hymnbook and struggled to sing the familiar tune with the unfamiliar words on the page. I paused to draw a box around "norae" and "Yesu", two words that I recognized as "song" and "Jesus", respectively. The wind carried the scent through the room, capturing my attention and drawing my gaze back to the window. I was vaguely aware of the song ending. I closed my hymnbook and placed it on my lap, my eyes still searching for lilacs in this concrete-laden city.
I miss my mother.
I can get through most days without falling to pieces. The grind of the workday, the distraction of the children, and dealing with all of the things that are Korea serve to distract me from any personal pain. But, once in a while, I will come across something small that pinches my heart and emotionally incapacitates me for the rest of the day. While out on the town with my friend V, the curious and perfectly understandable question of "Hayna Mother?" from the natives will slide like a needle under my skin. The casual reference by coworkers of their mother's upcoming birthday will cause my breath to hitch. The reminder to do something special for mothers on Mother's Day serves as nothing more than a reminder that I may not have done enough for my own mother while I had her here.
My usual reaction to these innocent comments is to smile, nod, and force myself to respond pleasantly.
But, the lilacs - oh, the lilacs! I had no defense against this completely unexpected assault. My eyes flooded and I blinked rapidly to prevent any tears from falling. Memories crept like bright shadows in my mind; Mom placing a lump of bread dough in my childish hands to knead and shape into my own mini-loaf; Mom pinning a seam of my hand-made baptismal dress; Mom handing me her own violin so I could join the seventh grade orchestra; Mom reminding me over and over again to count the beats as I practice the piano; Mom carefully selecting clothing from the sales rack at the store, teaching me that money is better saved than spent; Mom naming my new puppy; Mom listening to me list the pros and cons of going to London for six weeks; Mom at my university graduation, her proud, beaming smile like a beacon; Mom supporting my decision to come to Korea; Mom standing in the carport, the headlights of the car illuminating the myriad of motherly emotions crossing her face as she waved goodbye.
Somewhere, lilacs are blooming right now. This very minute, lilacs are blooming like jewels and releasing their intoxicating smell. And barely a year ago, my mother walked the perimeter of our back yard, pausing at each lilac bush to breathe in their scent. And just like every year, she called Lil' sis and me out to enjoy their beauty. Usually, Lil' Sis would clip a few bouquets and place them in the kitchen and their scent would fill the house.
Now, sitting thousands of miles away in a small church in Suncheon, South Korea, the sweet scent filtered through my skin, seeped into my veins, and knocked on the walls of my heart.
I managed to get through sacrament meeting without breaking down completely. On the way downstairs to the Gospel Doctrines class, I peered out windows, searching for the source. Nothing presented itself as a lilac bush or anything that could pretend to be one, so I hurried into the classroom.
Our topic that day was The Atonement of Jesus Christ. I halfheartedly listened to Elder S's translations as I skimmed the chapter. The teacher began asking our small class how we felt about the Atonement. When he asked me, I thought that I had gained control of myself, but apparently I hadn't.
"How do you feel about the atonement?" Elder S translated.
I swallowed a few times, struggling to find the words to describe the relief, profound gratitude, and the utter joy I felt with the knowledge that Christ has provided a way for me to see my mother again.
I spoke around the lump in my throat. "I'm very grateful for it."
If anyone was surprised at my emotion and relatively short answer, there was no indication. Class continued and I tried to surreptitiously wipe my newly freed tears and quiet my sniffles. When asked, I struggled to read Alma 40:23 aloud in a steady voice, while the thought that Mom will no longer suffer the pain that plagued her through all these years floated in the back of my mind. We ended class by singing I Need Thee Every Hour. I sang the English words quietly, partly because I didn't want to distract anyone, and partly because my eyes were too blurry to read the Korean.
All the while, the scent of lilacs hovered, a painful yet comforting reminder of my mother.
As I walked to the bus station an hour later, it lingered in my hair, in my clothes, and in my thoughts. I could almost see Mom lifting a sprig of lavender blossoms to her nose, inhaling their heavenly perfume, a smile spreading across her face.
"Hannah, come smell the lilacs," she called, turning towards me. "They only bloom for a little while. Come smell the lilacs."
Perhaps she is enjoying the lilacs right now.