Friday, February 16 - Being American

Why is it always about bugs? This fine specimen entered my lovely home recently and startled me real good. I don't know about you, but it's the biggest dragonfly I'VE ever seen.
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This evening, Bible study was cancelled because of Chinese New Year - lots of people go back to their hometowns ("balik kampung" - Malay for "return to village") for visiting with relatives ("pai nyan" - that's Mandarin for "yearly visit"). I'm so multicultural. :-)

So instead, I went out with Ray and Aaron, two guys who go to this church I visited last week. Aaron is the one who invited me to the church (we met at the Christian bookstore up the road), and Ray is his friend who lives just a couple streets away from me. I'll be carpooling to church with Ray, I hope.

Ever been nuzzled by a lion? Me neither...well, not a real one, anyway. These Chinese New Year liondancers gave onlookers a show when one lion decided to get a little too cozy with me and "lick" my arm. I do wish I had a picture of that...
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Well, Ray and Aaron turned out to be quite a riot. We ate at TGIFriday's at The Curve (one of the malls nearby), and they kept asking the waiters really stupid questions, like "Can you open the windows? It's so stuffy in here" when clearly the windows don't open, and "Why aren't the tomatoes red?" (actually, they made me ask that one - me and my big mouth...I just wanted to know why it's so hard to find ripe tomatoes in Malaysia...).

Then Aaron told them it was my birthday. So I had to stand up on my seat and make a speech (using a ketchup bottle as a microphone), and then they all sang happy birthday to me. It was the best almost-my-half-birthday song ever. Then we had free cheesecake. :-) (Don't worry, Mom - it wasn't nearly as good as yours.)

Workin' hard or hardly workin'? Looks like neither to me!! I just had to snap a photo of this stall owner in downtown Singapore snoozing away the afternoon. I can't imagine that'd be good for business.
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Later I noticed an Indian waiter wearing this cowboy hat (oddly enough, all the waiters were wearing hats), and I said the hat was something I would wear, so they asked the guy if I could!! And he agreed to it!!! I'm not sure how happy he was about it, but I figure it's because I'm foreign, and maybe foreigners can have whatever they want. (That's a scary thought.) Ray and Aaron said I looked really great in it, and I replied, "Well, I AM American."

They teased me most of the night about being from Ohio, saying that Ohio is really boring and that there's nothing to do there and that they had met this guy from Ohio who said it's really boring and that there's nothing to do there. Naturally, I protested. Then they asked what restaurant I would take them to if we went there, and I said "Nazareth Deli." They teased me for that too. I think they were expecting me to suggest something more American...

We walked to one of the upper floors to play some pool, and I played terribly because I haven't played for, like, a YEAR. Every time I missed an easy shot (which was just about every time), they would cry out "Aiyoh!!" and crack up. So I earned a new nickname: "Ohi-yoh." :-)