H. Hsu Word Salad

How fantastic, my cousin is a writer! And a paid one at that (gasp!) quite unlike myself. (Actually my cousin John in Taiwan is also a ‘real’ writer, but in Chinese, so I have no ability to comment on his works whatsoever).

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cover/2006/cover0303b.html

As the only Hsu woman among a couple generations of boys, I’ve always felt a bit odd girl out.  Ben and I played with Huan when he was a toddler living in Hayward (I beleive he used the term "picking on me", but I go with "played") & we first came to Cali.  But then they were off to some boonie state my folks were never gonna take us to visit, and that was that.

No updates on my 4 Hsu boy cousins for years except the occasional photo from my Uncles. And lots of photos from my youngest Uncle who had no bio children but raised a brilliant Orangutang for many years .

Then one day I’m in my teeny grad school apartment and I get word that cousin Huan is coming to the Bay Area, could he crash for a while at our place ’til he’s settled?

Of course.  I love playing host to wandering souls.

Within days of his arrival, this oddly familiar, near-stranger, blood relative, my roomie has decided we have some "REALLY good looking genes" in the family & my future husband has decided "you’re all (Hsus) brilliant and totally arrogant".

Hmmm. Should one be flattered or insulted…?

It was fun having Huan awhile.  He was so like and yet unlike my own bro, and we got to talk smack and crack up about the fam in a way that I can’t with anyone else. Plus it’s always fun enjoying the bounty of SF food and fun with a newcomer.

I think all of our dads have published books and articles as well, so I need to get off my duff and uphold this particular family tradition. After all, it’s one of the few traditions I WANT to uphold- unlike say, flagrant mood swings balanced again Spock-like emotional suppression.

This sure doesn’t happen every day…I’ve officially added someone to my short list of admired humans/role models:

http://www.citizensforethics.org/

So the name to watch out for boys and girls, is Melanie Sloan.  I had heard her being lambasted by Tom Delay for her filing of multiple ethics complaints against him (hmmm…those who have nothing to fear wouldn’t be so defensive…) 

But until I read more, I hadn’t realized that she took on Delay at a time when the Citizens for Ethics  in Washington (CREW) office was a one woman show.

Meaning: Melanie, an office, one year’s salary. Now, go take down corruption in D.C. (and I thought I had an impossible job description!)

Hah. Possibly one of the most corrupt cities on the face of this planet, but she brought some mighty big boys down in the past few years. (mostly Republicans, but some Demos too. All’s fair…).

Even now, with a staff of 13, half attorneys , it’s a tale to savor indeed. Imagine, a mere 13 people bringing down some of the most corrupt and smug politicians that may have ever lumbered across those halls.  At last count we seem to have an awful lot of congressfolks who haven’t accomplished as much as this crew of 13…

Of course, I can never lose sight of the fact that my top heroine of all time is still not in good health nor walking a free woman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1950505.stm

Even her enemies refer to her as "The Lady".  She has demonstrated a power of will to both fight and inspire akin to that other Nobel Peace prize honoree, Mandela.  U2 among other rock/pop stars have raised attention to the cause of the Burmese people.

So when it’s time to toil along in the hopeless coal mines of martyrdom AKA non-profit work, I oft remind myself of what kind of character it takes to actually foster change. And of hopeless  situations worn down by the feistiness of your common woman.

Sheesh. I seem to be cursed as of late with a series of completely lame, yet thankfully transitory, health problems.  My apologies if this blog is starting to read like a geriatric litany of physical woe! 

But in sharing, one hopes that others will learn to proceed with caution.  I suppose all one learns from my sepsis-flu experience is to wear biohazard gear when weekending with toddlers, and not to run 6 miles if you suspect that perhaps you are coming down with something.

But we all must eat,right?

Friday past, all the supervisors at clinic treated our colleague "W" to a nice (organic, not Chinatown) lunch for her 60th birthday.  Within 20 minutes she felt unwell. By the time she walked the 3 blocks back to work she felt faint to the point that an ambulance was called.  Obviously, we were all stunned, and very concerned.  Strangely, no one else felt the slightest bit ill - not even the woman who split the meal with W and therefore consumed the exact same beet salad, fries, coffee, and chicken sandwhich.  By 4:30 I was growing alarmed that no one had heard if W was hospitalized or what.  I notified her family of what happened and our subsequent ignorance of status.  Later W called and said she was better, "I still don’t know what happened", and that Kaiser was insensitive enough to discharge her at 1:30 in the morning.

"At 1:30 they unplugged my IV all of a sudden and said ‘take a cab”, is how W described her disorienting and rude hospital discharge.

Making ill people go home alone in the middle of the night falls under my definition of poor patient care.

The next day is Saturday, I am thrilled to bits at attending a 6 hour writing workshop.  Afterwards, P and I have a reservation at Plouf.  The meal was lovely, featuring mussels in white wine and garlic, chatty diners at the next table conversing about my Beijing 2008 Olympics backpack and travels to Argentina (our past trip and his planned one).  Creme Brulee to die for and profiteroles in caramel and chocolate sauce.  P teased the waiter about his suspiciously transient french accent, which he then obligingly emphasized or did away with on cue.

Perfecto.    

I dozed off in the car on our voyage back to the suburbs.  Woke up feeling funny.  Within the hour realized I was in for some serious hurtin’, dimly familiar sensations from years past when my stress levels had rendered stomach pains a regular occurence.

Yet again I’ll spare the gory details. Suffice to say that I am 100% sure I could never be bulimic because I find the entire food purging experience to be so…revolting. (Ok, so what if its redundant.)  Saturday night I awoke almost every hour for the ‘ol heave ho. 

In an abstract way I pondered how much fluid one could lose, like how much blood loss one can sustain before it becomes life threatening?  How does one know when it’s time to visit the hospital and get fluids?  Normally I ponder such electrolyte and fluid equations in relation to long distance atheletic events and endurance levels, but here that knowledge base seemed relevant. 

Come Sunday, I quickly ascertained that the tummy was still ticked off as all hell, and not accepting contributions. 

Presently it’s Monday and I have survived the weekend on about 1 mug of peppermint tea and a glass of watered down "high endurance formula" gatorade. The gatorade seems to be from another life! One in which I vaguely recall feeling quite strong & even a tad bit smug.  Not at all like this little aching ball curled up with a book (BTW Bohjalian really is worth reading, fantastic.)

My relationship to shellfish & french food is now permanently tarnished by trauma.  sacre Bleu, indeed.

Near midnight my Dad called to chat about life, the whereabouts of my 3 uncles, and his Bipolar cat Yuanyuan, whom I love.  I explained to him my little Plouf drama. 

"Ah, seafood", he said, "there’s so much we don’t know about what goes on in the seas, it’s really a mystery sometimes how maybe just one bad mussel can kill a person."

Tell me about it, I think.

"Do you remember Master Liu?"

Of course I do, he was my father’s teacher, and someone quite respected. 

So Dad managed to completely distract me from my own travails by sharing Master Liu’s food woe legend.  Following a fairly typical Chinese banquet with friends, Master Liu felt ill and went to bed.  They had enjoyed all sorts of seafood- fish, shrimp, shellfish and he didn’t quite know what was bad.  Yet none of the other banquet companions got sick.

Here’s where the story becomes qualifiable as a bizarre medical case study.  He’s lying on the pillow and begins oozing liquid from his head.  It’s clear, but it’s not sweat. It’s thick, but it’s not pus.  As he is pondering what on earth is going on, his pillow has become all wet and he decides to get up.

(I must interject, at this point, with mystery ooze on my head, I would have run screaming to the hospital, dignity be damned)

He spends the night sleeping downstairs in an upright position on the couch. Armed with a box of tissues and a wastebasket. Periodically he has to wipe off the stuff before it drips onto his face, and toss it in the wastebasket.  After some hours, and a full wastebasket, it finally stops.

Then, his hair begins to FALL OUT.

Oy vey, now this tale of food poisoning is starting to sound like radiation poisoning.

I ask my Dad, "are you SERIOUS!?"

"Oh yeah, first a little bit, then almost all of it, especially on top.  That’s why for awhile he was wearing a hat everywhere he went." 

I laugh involunarily at the utter bizarrness of it.  If men knew that seafood poisoning could cause hair loss, that would probably be the salvation of sea fauna across the oceans worldwide.  Seafood sales would plummet.  Environmentalists take note!

"Well, after a long time his hair did come back.  All white at first.  Then…kind of yellow, like a foreigner! Finally some black. But he was old anyways so it’s OK if it’s not all black."

So. I will re-evaluating my long love affair with hamachi sashimi and raw oysters. 

But I was distracted and relieved to learn that my food poisoning was far from the worst case scenario.  And the functions of the human body impress and amaze me all the more as it works to expel invaders.

Eat with care and appreciate the wonders of your bod!

In the late 1800’s, there was as short story published by Charlotte Perkins Gilman titled The Yellow Wallpaper.

I alluded to this in a previous blog. The super-duper abbreviated synopsis of this story is about a woman who is confined to bedrest and banned from thinking or, god forbid, writing.  She lays there in forced bedrest and begins to lose her mind, and the story takes you through what she sees, and the horrors that begin to be seen within the patterns of that yellow wallpaper.

Here is the wikipedia slightly more informative cliff note summary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wallpaper

Certainly there is much there I can relate to. If one was to confine me indoors and deny me my writing utensils, It would only take a brief confinement to have me go postal.  You wouldn’t even need just 1 room nor the awful wallpaper to erode away the civilities of my frontal lobes, boy.  In desperation to write out the burning thoughts in my head I have written on labels torn from canned food, my skin, other people’s skin, mirrors (with make up of course), tables, asphalt, sand, my food (don’t ask), and of course ever-handy napkins from various dining establishments.

I’ve never really liked the expression that "artists must create", for while I believe it, I don’t like how it sort of categorizes us all into "artists" or "not".  I think we ALL must stay creative and dynamic to thrive, evolve or die, hey.

What’s truly ironic is how I came to know Gillman’s story.  Back in the day when Jerry Garcia was still rockin’ and I was buyin’ Purple passion at the local liquor store- I was 16 years old, newly at started community college. 

Within 2 weeks I met a man with long dark hair, tall black boots, and an intense gaze focused squarely on me.  We shared a perverse over-enthusiasm for Star Trek (no exaggeration-his car was painted with a "starfleet academy" logo & the man bought me an Uhura red dress), writing, reading, and drawing excessive attention to ourselves in manner and dress ( if I recall correctly, his self described preferred look was "cyber-punk").

I’ll spare you the melodrama of delving into the detials of that "learning experience" but the fiasco flailed along for about 2 educational years before I outgrew this man who had once seemed so worldly, bold, and sophisticated.

I couldn’t know it then, but he would be first in a series of many, many men who claimed to love & admire indepedence and brains in their women- but who would morph into controlling, neurotic, narcissitically wounded maniacs when I became a little too successful or uppity.  Take note.  Gentlemen, be veeeery careful what you ask for. Ladies, just ‘coz he claims to lofty ideals doesn’t mean he means it.

So that is one very positive thing that came out of the disillusionments which punctured the relationship: The Yellow Wallpaper (And he did also enlighten me to Flannery O’Connor. So gracias for that).  Little did he know, that in that story published in 1892, there would be powerful advice for a girl in 1992, to get the hell outta dodge, leave the man, the parents, the suburbs, the addictions, for good.

http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/whyyw.html

Thank you Charlotte, for writing about madness and power (or the lack theroef), as a means for guiding legions of others out of the wallpapered rooms of those well meanings types who would destroy us with their cures.  Art needs no real "point" and yet, it does serve a function, to reveal truths and realities, perspectives both fleeting and permanent.  The captured moments of an imagination in 1892, sounds like the Stepford Wife realities of many a woman in 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wallpaper

Today,

my appetite finally returned, surely this means that my voracious self is nigh.

This morning, I melted local Madrone & thistle honey from a Half Moon Bay Apiary into the Chrysanthemum tea my herbalist friend recommended.

I thought about how touching it was when a client, a bright man my age who had lost more than 16 years (and counting) to severe illness suddenly smiled when he saw "Half Moon Bay" on the map.

"Is it a real place?!" he asked.

"Yes, it’s real!" I said, "not far from here really."

He smiled and looked so wistful. "It sounds very….romantic. Like not a real place."

He repeated the name softly to himself and I encouraged him to take a bus there someday and see for himself.  In my head the memories of Dad taking us there to shop, eat ice cream, and play on the beach, of going to Pumpkin festival with Mom and family and beaus over the years, dinner at Moss Beach Distillery, of P and I finding hundreds of beached jellyfish like breast implants across the sand…

It made me sad that this place less than 50 miles southwest felt like an ocean away for this brilliant, ill, young man.  I’ve been a part of his recovery for 7 years now.

I drank my tea & peeled tangerines, and fell in love yet again with the birds at our feeder.  So small, yet so perfectly beautiful.  They ate heartily and I found myself wanting more too.

Out come the crumpets & marmalade. Later are the Chinese BBQ pork buns.  This must be some kind of brunchtime cultural fusion food blasphemy!

Today, I sang. 

Almost always I sing when I drive, but today it was as if meeting a stranger.  In the worse throes of my "sepsis" I could barely muster the energy to mumble.  And I couldn’t bear going outside or speaking to another.

Leaving someone like me indoors for too long always foments some sort of mood disorder I think.  I could ruminate until the apocalypse if you let me…

There is that sign in my office, the quote from Isak Dineson:

The Cure for Everything is Salt Water, Sweat, Tears, or The Sea.

My preferred sanity savers are sweat (run, Forrest, run) and the Sea (Half Moon Bay sounds attractive, although I will gladly take the Carribean).  But lock me indoors long enough and I guess all that leaves is to weep.  What a mess. (please see "Yellow Wallpaper" incredible short story. More on that later.)  I need to get outside…P will be ticked off if he catches me running again anytime soon, and I don’t have the strength anyways. 

Surely I still look a fright, but I pulled myself together to take care of the post, and get a bit (and I do mean one measly bit) of work done at Peet’s. I bought a cream current scone for no reason other than it is my Dad’s favorite scone, and normally it is all sold out, so it felt like sharing a moment with him.

When I burst into song, I knew I was better.

"I’m gonna clear my head,

I’m gonna drink that sun.

I’m going to love you good & strong

while our love is good and young" 

Ah, Indigo Girls! 

I’m not nearly 100%. 

But recovery is just ’round the corner now, and I do want to get back to being social, being functional, having my voice, my appetites, and to guiding those who need some help just getting 50 miles away to a happier sounding place.

Last month I forwarded the Wild Thornberrys’s song by Paul Simon to my friends with or trying to be with child(ren).  Another one that I loved the minute I heard it: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tHaGlTDYJw

Like so many of us, I am hitting that barrels of fun age where my peers are having astonishingly beautiful  babies (Congrats to K&D! You are a Superwoman - 49 hrs!!!!), yet our parents and grandparents are falling gravely ill. 
My custom is to donate to SPLC or Make a Wish Foundation in honor of those who have passed…and in recent years there have been too, too, many losses to commemorate.

Existential crises and opportunities to prioritize abound.

One of the most moving essays I have ever read was written by a woman past mid-life who had never regretted her decision to be childless - until  her mother passed away.  I could so relate.  While lacking that procreative drive, I know that there is no relationship on earth like that exasperating one with one’s parents (assuming you are well-parented. I know not all of us had such luck).  No one else is as interested in the lame mundane details of my life as my folks. (for the most part, thank goodness).

Thanks to S for giving me this song yrs. past. 
It’s so simple and lovely, "Lullaby" and it takes Billy Joel 2 tries to get through it here, but be patient, it’s worth it.
And if you’re a parent, all the better!  (those who accused me of making you teary-eyed at work -consider yourselves warned)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nprteZX80tk

Many of you are familiar with this little gem which circulates across cyberspace from time to time.  I’d read it years ago but today my sister in law send it ’round again.  I’m extra disgruntled as of late, so it seems particularly relevant:

IN PRISON………you spend the majority of your time in an 10X10 cell.
AT WORK………..you spend the majority of your time in an 8X8 cubicle.

IN PRISON……..you get three meals a day.
AT WORK………..you get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON……….you get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK………..you get more work for good behavior.

IN PRISON………the guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK…………you must often carry a security card and open all the doors for yourself.

IN PRISON……….you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK………..you could get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON………you get your own toilet.
AT WORK……….you have to share the toilet with some people who pee on the seat.

IN PRISON……….they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK…………you aren’t even supposed to speak to your family.

IN PRISON……..all expenses are paid by the taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK…………you get to pay all your expenses to go to work, and they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON……….you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out.
AT WORK ……….you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.

IN PRISON ……you must deal with sadistic wardens.
AT WORK……….they are called managers.

This also reminds me of the years I spent BARTing in a mad rush from Alameda to downtown SF after classes, to my part time job which paid my rent and fed me through graduate school.  (those piddly grants and even the loans only covered tuition/books). 

As I was approached my countless pandhandlers, it occurred to me that ironically, they had more money than I did.  Because maybe they had nothing. Or 2 bucks. But as for me, despite bearing the trappings of economic security (a job, a car, nice enough clothes) I was IN THE HOLE. And we’re talking like 60 grand in the hole, so actually a person with $0 would be LOTS better off than I.

Having actually been to juvenile hall and a prison or two, I choose the indentured servitude of gainful employment over taxpayer supported imprisonment. But the parallells are not to be overlooked…

I was walking by the library and city hall last night- thought I was alone with my clamorous thoughts & the landscaping.  I was startled by the sight of a person, a lumpy shadow that I realized was another being.  A lady, judging by the hatstyle, a woman with a blanket and dragging a rolling carry on suitcase.

Hardened to homelessness by my years working in downtown SF, I walked briskly onward to my appointment at city hall.  Important things to attend to, I had an interview with the Mayor and city council.

Hours later, I emerged into the now quite late blackness, it was cooler, quieter, and suddenly that woman from the shadows was right beside me and said "excuse me, can you tell me where the police station is?"

I told her to keep walking around the building thataway and she would find it.  She went in the direction I pointed.  I wondered if the police would be of any help. 

I kept speedwalking towards my car, checking my numerous voice messages as I went, and as I was about to start driving it occurred to me, it suddenly registered: that was a very pretty lady.

I took the short drive to my home, a modest townhome, yet with more than ample room for another 4 or more people.  There actually is room at this inn. I don’t know why it mattered, why it struck me so that she was younger and lovelier than I had expected, as if it would be somehow better if she had been a ‘typical’ older bag lady?!  Maybe because she was closer to my age, I could relate to all the paths that might have taken her with that suitcase into the park by city hall.  Maybe she was fleeing an abusive spouse, or had been laid off, or had catastropic medical bills, or lost a nasty divorce case, or had no family capable of taking her in, all scenarios which have hit myself or my peers in recent years. 

And I thought to myself, how deeply sad a commentary on the state of our society that one cannot offer shelter to a lonely stranger on a cold night.

Because we are afraid of one another. She would not know if I’m a homicidal maniac and I don’t know if she is a thief or some kind of addict.  What happened to the good ‘ol days when random families would regularly take in a weary traveler?  I wanted to offer a bed, blankets, soup or tea…but in this day and age we are all too afraid.  I felt helpless, quite guilty, but still cautious, still afraid.

(the above blurb from notes I made to myself on 10/24/06)

Some interesting takes on this, all is not lost.

Move On (yes, those liberal upstarts) created a "hurricane housing" website following Katrina- and many, many kind souls offered shelter to complete strangers, from single individuals to entire extended families.  They created a photojournalistic book in fact that profiles many of the matches made of people offering shelter and those evacues who found it with new friends in other states.

One of my fellow commissioners met with a similar conundrum. She had an idea to invite homeless individuals come to her home once in a week or so to enjoy a good meal and take a hot shower.  Her family felt she would be ‘crazy’ to allow such people into her home.  "We are very religious", she said, "and it kind of surprised me that they said ‘no way’. I thought it would be something small, but nice that we could do, but everyone feels it’s not safe."

We had a holiday gathering of high school friends post-Christmas and I found myself apologizing for not owning most normal staples. "Sorry, we don’t have any soda. Or ice. Or chips".

" I decided not to order pizza as planned, but I have roast duck, chicken curry, tofu veggies, salad & green tea muffins…"

my amigos commented that,

"Helen can’t just have Orange Juice. It has to be volcanic organic Italian Blood Orange juice."

The lemons couldn’t be normal lemons, they were organic Meyer lemons, chocolate has to be ScharffenBerger, whiskey has to be the aged-12 years-buy-it at-Duty-free kind, hot cocoa is organic free trade chocolate, beer must be imported, and tea is organic and/or imported and you can choose from 7 kinds.

Upon reflection, I realized it was actually a tad embarassing.

One of our favorite little put downs as Jana would say is "Ooooooh. I see, you’re one of those SPECIAL people".

’nuff said.

"HM" is the codeword I like to offer male friends as advice.  As in: "Flee for your life (or pocketbook) that woman is totally HM - High Maintenance."

I prefer to see myself as anti-HM, I like to think being a tomboy who grew up reading comic books and climbing stuff cured me of any latent princessa tendencies. 

But I suppose we all have our moments of "specialness" and mine oft hit me while shopping for food.

Or like tonight, after spending 2 full weekends with snotty, drooly, beautiful little neices…I am feeling alarmingly unwell.  I am downing tangerines, Airborne tabs, hot tea and Advils madly. 

My spouse is not particularly sympathetic since he points out I am the wierdo who chose to run a 10K by the water in SF this morning despite the threatening germies and scratchy throat.  I take total responsibility for that choice, and hey, I had a fantastic time.  I showed up in the morning nursing hot green tea & clad in my lumpy head to toe fleece, 2 pairs of pants and my wild womyn mittens. 

The usual swarm of tourists were there bundled up in gloves, coats, hats and it felt amazing to run in sight of both bridges, and to work up enough heat to unearth the running bras which are my preferred gear (maintaining that belly tan through the winter is one of my completely pointless & vain goals. Uh-oh. starting to sound HM…) 

However if you think B and I are nuts, you should have seen the half dozen or so hardy souls diving off the pier in speedos and swim caps! Wow. 

The tourists looked at all us runners like we were nuts. A woman running next to me glanced over at the near-naked swimmers and said "now THAT is just insane."

So hey, that sort of thing is all relative!

That over-read hypochondriac in my head currently whispers that this is no regular, normal flu.

No- surely it must be Sepsis! Sepis, yes, that must be it.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000666.htm 

Good bye, cruel world it would serve me right to go out in history as some total freak medical case study…

but ’til I absolutely drop I’ll keep seeking those special treats and experiences…(and fighting the most unglamourous, non HM fights!)

An uber-foodie named Andrew used to work at my agency.  I interviewed him near the time of Chinese Moon Festival, and I remembered him as the white guy that we made fly all the way in from Boston, and who bought moon cakes from the bakeries nearby after the interview…and he was sharp.  And was more literate in Chinese than I am.  I wanted him hired.  Sure enough, he accepted an impossibly complex job from us.

Dang, that man could COOK.

He made anise seed pressed holiday cookies for all 100 staff before the holiday party, and created a knockout multi-course vegetarian "Fall harvest" theme menu dinner that Heddy and I savored after a long day trolling around Green Festival.  His stuff was far too fancy for those who had become acclimated to ‘PMS’ (Poor Man’s Sandwhich- the $2 Vietnamese sandwhich) and $3.00 2 item combos.  Our colleagues didn’t know what to make of his rose (yes, the flower) flavored cookies.  I don’t think he could understand why the mostly Asian immigrant staff didn’t like his idea for a high-class dessert tasting social as a fund-raiser.

"They’re more from the giant aluminum foil tray heaped with chow mein and fried chicken" approach I explained.

We’d talk excitedly about Taiwan food, and about my stubborn conviction that if there were too many steps in a recipe-I would refuse to participate, either skipping the step or skipping the entire effort altogether.  He’d get as stupidly excited as I would about the Kaffir lime tree in my backyard because its dark & shiny leaves imparted subtle yet incomparable flavor to Thai cooking.  We’d lament the challenges of raising food plants and herbs in fickle SF weather on his balcony up in the elements.

He’d explain patiently how transfering from a pot to the food processor back to the pot and the other half dozen or so steps were SO worth it, and his system for photocopying recipes out of entire library wall sections and organizing the keepers in binders.

Only Andrew truly related to my whining about how Chinatown style chinese food was too crude, crass, oily, unrefined.  And I knew what he meant when he said he couldn’t bear going back to visit Taiwan again until he lost some weight. (Mind You, at about a size 2, I am considered a hefty gal in Taiwan. And this is culture where people see nothing remotely rude about declaring "you got so FAT!" in your face).  And he was good natured enough to dress up in a Santa suit and pass candy canes to our clients.

After a particularly frustrating day in an Oakland middle school, as we doled out mental health services with an eyedropper into a place that had mental health needs like the Mojave desert,

I took him to a Tango Gelato in Oakland (Sadly, I think that site has now perished, too chichi for that particular district in Oakland).  Around the corner from the scary-ass McDonald’s (Ok, in fairness the McD’s itself was not scary but the drug dealing loiterers sure were) and boarded up Albertson’s, behind the smoky Jamaican bar, one could find Argentine owned Italianish gelato: chantilly cream, mango, pistachio, espresso, pear, chocolate hazelnut…

This was before I’d been to Argentina.

Andrew went bonkers when he saw a pyramid of little jars/cans behind the counter and immediately asked if they were for sale. 

The proprieter sold him 2 cans, and Andrew looked at me in disbelief when I revealed my ignorance about Argentine Dulce de leche.

"You HAVE to taste this",

Straightaway he sat me down in the shop, asked for plastic spoons, pried the lid up, and extended a spoonful of drippy, beige, caramelly, stuff.

It came out of a non-descript jar.

Didn’t look too great, really.

“You want me to just eat it straight!? Shouldn’t it go on ice cream or top something?”

“NO”.

…and he was right.

This was no Americanized, over-processed, white sugar, wanna-be caramel. This was creamy, flat-out,  XXX, lusty Dulce de Leche in all its buttery tongue swirling glory. Whew.  Those Kraft caramel cubes, Cadbury Caramello bars and See’s chocolates of my youth were now blown outta the water forever.

And I was converted. 

I think being a foodie is somewhat akin to having an odd, more or less socially acceptable fetish.  Only certain folks can relate, and y’all find yourselves congregating to share secrets and methods and pleasures.

Years later P and I finally traveled to Buenos Aires.  They served hundreds of variations of dulce de leche, and they offered it at every meal in pots or drizzles and at every shop or newstand in alfajores cookies.

Andrew had long ago fled the particularly ass-backwards chaos of his job with us (save yourself!).  But I think of him fondly as I peruse my Chef’s catalog and the Haute Chocolate website of Vosge’s…