The Worst Movie Ever, and Milk Names

I realized last night as I was getting ready for bed that it had been a very long time since I'd written a post. This thought was almost immediately confirmed by my mother, who sent me a message in Words With Friends saying that I needed to update the blog. Through the week I compose posts in my head, only to find that the words have deserted me, or the inclination to type them out, or worse yet, the time in which to do it. But it's Sunday now, and I'm lazing about.
So here I am, dutifully typing away as I try to remember what all we've done these last few weeks.

Super Husband has rejoined the Pub Quiz team, and was instrumental in our coming in fourth last week. We could have tied for third, but I couldn't remember that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island. I got as far as Robert, but couldn't pull the last parts out of my brain in time.
Two weeks ago Super Husband and I co-authored, and co-hosted a guest round at Quiz for Cinco de Mayo. I'm fairly pleased to say that it was challenging without being one of those rounds where you just stare at the person on stage and think "Are you sure that you and Wikipedia aren't the only people that know this stuff?"
This week I'm going to submit a round on "Literature in Film" so we'll see if I get to guest host another round.
The three day weekend that followed that hellish seven day work week was relaxing. A group of people met for brunch at American Steak and Eggs, where the grits are actually how grits are supposed to taste, the biscuits and gravy is yummy, and the poutine is pretty darn good. From there we hailed a taxi to SanLiTun (pronounced SanLiTour, if you're from Beijing) where we sat on a patio and sampled Prince's (whisky ginger ales, with a fancy name) and Mostreetos (mojitos from a little shop on the street).

ASIDE: My friend Korey is actually good friends with the Mostreeto Man, and due to their friendship I got to meet the newest addition to the Mostreeto family, a bouncing baby boy who has yet to be named. 

This is very common in Chinese culture. Naming a child immediately after birth is considered very strange to them. One of the foreign teachers at American House just had a baby and when she announced his name all of the Chinese teachers were very surprised that he already had a name, being only two days old. In China, and much of Asia, you wait until you have an idea of the baby's personality, who s/he is, before giving them an official name. That's why children here all have what we call "milk names", names that they'll grow out of, or that only their immediate family will ever use for them, like XaioNu (little cow), DaNu (big cow), YaYa (rustling noise), XiaoBe (little shell)... These are all milk names of children I've taught here. Of course, by the time they reach kindergarten age they already have their official names, and most even have English or Western names already. 

So, back to SanLiTun... from there we took still more taxis to Korey and Zach's apartment and watched the single worst movie I have ever seen. The Room, with phrases like "You're tearing me apart Lisa" and "Oh, hi ______"it's a gem. Especially if one makes a drinking game out of it. Which is necessary, because watching it at all is a little torturous, and watching it without a drink is a nightmare. Tommy Wiseau is a madman, and he looks like SheHulk. All in all, it's bad. 

After watching The Room we also watched Episode 5, Season 3 of Game of Thrones. I spent a good chunk of my lunch breaks during the previous seven day work week, and a large portion of the weekend watching seasons one and two, and the beginning of season three. Now I'm hooked, although I have to say that episodes five and six were both a bit of a letdown... I'm tempted here to geek out and just devote a couple of paragraphs to Game of Thrones, but I'll resist the urge. 

That was all two weeks ago. This past week was a much quieter one. A group met up once more at a friend's apartment for the weekly showing of Game of Thrones on Tuesday nights, where we ate macaroni and cheese, courtesy of my recipe, which is my mom's recipe, which is her mom's recipe, and so on. It was delicious of course, because really, have any of Nana's recipes ever steered anyone wrong? Towards a coronary event, maybe... but wrong? No!
Wednesday was the aforementioned quiz nights, where we came in fourth. Still nothing to sneeze at. Competition is stiff as we near the end of the ten week leader-board. I'm pretty sure one of the teams is using their smartphones to cheat, but proof is minimal, so I'll keep that to myself for now.

It's started heating up here, with temperatures in the high 80s most of the day. I'm desperately trying to figure out how to order a fan off of Taobao. We moved one step closer to this goal yesterday when we found out that you can order a Taobao rechargeable card online, and then put money on it at the post office. I'm not sure if it's exactly smart to give myself unlimited access to Taobao, because it's a little like Amazon on cocaine. They have everything, from Minnetonka moccasins, to puppies, to live caterpillar kits. (Confession - I know they have the moccasins and the caterpillar kits because I plan on buying both... the puppies I heard about from a friend).

Yesterday, Saturday, we did gloriously nothing. Apart from walking to Ito Yokado to buy some pantry staples like Tabasco sauce, peanut butter, and the yogurt drink that Super Husband likes.

Speaking of peanut butter, a PB&J sounds like a yummy late morning breakfast... Mmm.