2004-12-06 - 5:10 p.m.

It's December...it's getting cold...this is the first time in a long time that I actually need a winter coat!It was real exciting for about 5 minutes. I wrapped myself up in scarves, gloves, sweaters, legwarmers, earmuffs, my ski cap with Flash Gordon wings (it's not below freezing or anything I'm just a baby) and then the exciting part was over. Wind finding its way up, into, and around all my pretty winter things is not exciting. I am not a fan of cold weather...
Remember how I said the people at the corner bar love Mike? Mike and his friend Levi suggested they have a grand opening party and the next day they had banners up for the party and huge bouquets of flowers lining the sidewalks. The flowers reminded me of a funeral, but when new businesses open, the custom is to fill the street and siidewalks with these huge flower arrangments. When we first got here I thought there were an awful lot of funeral parlors...It was too dark to get a picture of the floral chaos outside, but here's Mike,Frank, and Joe at the party. They all work together. The party reminded me of a bizarre junior high school dance. For a long time everyone clung to the walls for fear of getting caught moving to the music. Just as I was about to save these wallflowers from certain boredom, some real real real cute and real real real drunk girls came in and started dancing. Hooray! I love dancing people. Then the 'I'll only dance if someone else is dancing' troupe (who were just moments ago examining their drinks) jumped up and started boogying. Who knew they had it in them? I was impressed.
Here's Mike and me not dancing.

I think Shanghai is great, and most people are nice, but I met a mean lady at the corner store today. And I met a rude man. Lines at stores are much like the subway here-survival of the fittest. If you even partially appear to be not be in line, people will shove you out of the way. Sometimes it seems like people do it for sport. Don't feel like waiting in line in China? Just cut in line, and yell at anyone who dares question you. (only works if you yell in Chinese) I tried yelling "Cutter Cutter Peanut Butter!" at someone who got in front of me, but he didn't even turn around!Back to my story...I was in line, holding about 7 items. The customer in front of me left and mean man stepped right in front me with his one pouch of milk. Being so nice and friendly, I let it go. He walked away, and I put down my items. Here comes extra mean lady with a pack of gum. The cashier had already started ringing up my stuff, but mean lady persisted-she was reaching so far over me trying to pay for her gum that her chin was on my shoulder, her face right next to mine. I could have kissed her (or bit her, but I'm nice.)Cashier ignored her, I ignored her, but she kept saying something and holding out her gum. She was so close to me that she got a strand of my hair in her mouth!!! She backed up and started spitting and pulling at the hair, and had she spoke English I would have asked her how it tasted. Instant karma-what a lovely concept. I left the store giggling. And for days like today, China offers lots of little moments to make up for it, like this little booty...

?lt;/P>

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