Writing Envy

I wish I had written this:
"But my husband has seen me at my worst, at my most vile. And he has seen me at my best. He knows the things I don’t tell anyone, and the lies that I tell everyone but him. I have made sacrifices for him and been angry about it. Sometimes his flaws are so egregious, so blatant, they are all I see. And sometimes his kindness is so stunning that I am humbled."--Sarah Healy, "When the Words Don't Fit," New York Times

And this:
"I must learn to love the fool in me--the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool." -- Theodore I. Rubin, MD

Chasing Chitlins: A Thanksgiving Folk Tale

A couple years ago, I worked on a travel story for a local magazine. I had always wanted to attend the annual Chitlin Strut in Salley, SC, and this offered the perfect opportunity.

The chitlin, for the uninitiated, is the intestine of a pig. Rinsed, scrubbed, this white rubbery organ (I hesitate to call it meat) still is never quite released from the pungent odor that you might imagine it would hold after being intimately associated with, let's face it, pig poop. Yet, roughly 25,0000 people descend on Salley (pop. 398) every year at Thanksgiving time to ride carnival rides, shop for arts and crafts, and eat literally miles of the stuff.

As Asians, you can imagine we've dined on our share of innards. My aunt and mom have served us pig stomach (tripe), chicken feet (with the fingernails still on!), deeply burnished ducks that stared back out of one glaze-covered eye. My mom once gave my husband, who is not Asian, a pig tail in soup, and like a trooper, he ate it.

So the whole family caravaned to Salley to try our luck at chitlins. As we crept along downtown Salley's narrow streets, narrowly missing striking pedestrians, my husband rolled down his window and shouted out to the crowds filing past, "Where are the chitlins?" And they shouted back, "This way." "No, over there." "Try that church over there, they're the best!" We were surrounded by hordes of helpful tourists who seemed to know what they liked and were eager to initiate us.

We soon found ourselves standing on a crowded lawn ringed by food vendors of all description, but classified in that category known as fair food. Where were the chitlins? While my husband and brothers went to investigate, the rest of us scoped out and staked our claim on a patch of green grass.

Success! in a rectangular styrofoam box! And terror! as my sister exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, I thought that smell was the port-o-potties, but it's the chitlins!" Yes, the rank smell that we had caught a whiff of every now and then was eminating from the innocent and attractive box of deep fried nuggets (with a side of hot sauce).

My sister, my brother and my husband all made it through one bite and one hard swallow. I spat out my mouthful after two chews. My second brother on the other hand, snacked his way through an entire chitlin nugget and even went after more. My sister, looking at the photos later, said, "He smiles his biggest smile ever...while he's eating a chitlin?"

Yes, the fair food was there to wash down the taste once you tried the chitlins. Yet we couldn't tear our eyes away during the first annual Chitlin Eating contest, where contestants were given small buckets of boiled (yes, not even given the helpful flavor and crunch of breading), bare, hideously white chitlin tubes, that they shoved down in massive quantities.

The Salley Chitlin Strut is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity--not to be missed, for the bragging rights alone. But the takeaway? Know your limits, always carry hot sauce, and when in doubt, don't stand downwind.

The 46th Annual Chitlin Strut takes place in Salley, SC, on Saturday, November 26. The event features a parade, bands, carnival rides, tractor show, chitlin eating contest, hog calling contest and strut contest. For more information, visit their website at www.chitlinstrut.com.

Happy Holidays!

Even though it's still pushing 90 degrees here in Augusta, I'm unabashedly embracing fall, pulling out my sweaters, thinking about soups to cook (already made my first bouillabaise!), and looking forward to the holidays.

Two of my favorites--which you won't see on any calendar--are "Leaf Day" and "Bird Day." I was so thrilled when I found out my husband had already found out about these holidays. There's always one day every fall when suddenly the air is full of falling leaves. I've been lucky enough to be outside for this day only a few times in my life...at the house where I grew up, at recess at school, even at college. But it's been years since I've caught that day.

The second is the day when birds flying south for the winter decide to make their pit stop in Augusta, and suddenly our yard, our neighbors' yards, and the grassy median in our section of Olde Town is full of roosting, calling black birds.

I'm full of anticipation--maybe this year will be the year that I'll get to enjoy both! Do you have any special traditions or "holidays" you celebrate this fall season?

A Year Full of Happiness

Last year, I read "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, a popular blog-become-book chronicling Rubin's pursuit of happiness. One idea I took away from her experiment was the importance of chronicling and really experiencing those happy moments that happen each and every day, but are so easy to forget.

About a week later, I was at the Country Living Festival in Stone Mountain, Georgia, where one of several freebies was an adorable pink and purple Remember Book, a mini daily journal, from Dress Barn. It felt a little like fate when I opened it, and read, "Memory is how we hold on to the things we love, the things we are, the things with which we never part." I started that weekend to collect those meaningful moments in my daily life, beginning with "Taste of Atlanta!" and "Country Living Fair, Stone Mountain" and "my new typewriter key necklace."

Over the past 11 months, I've jotted, crammed and sometimes struggled to fill each daily line with a true moment of happiness. Some days I can only work up to the happiness of "Coming home...and porkchops," while other days are gems of memory: "Laughing with Sean in the water at the lake," "Everyone loved the caramel cake," "Snow day!", "Finding Adam and Morgan the perfect wedding gift", "Laughing with Jamie and Becca; with Chris and Andy." And some sad, rollercoaster times: "No more pain for Uncle Robert," "The girls...during a stressful day," "The struggle to be good!". During this year, I also went through the stress of a reorg at work, an outside job offer, doubts, and second thoughts. While I made my choice, it wasn't without regret at any pain I caused, especially when I read, "I do like the girls!" and "R.S. and S...they're so nice!" and "Nice conversation with A.W."

I still have a month left before my little Remember Book is complete. And I find myself asking the same question that Gretchen Rubin did at the end of her Happiness Project: Am I any happier? Some days the answer would be a loud No! But I think I've come to the same conclusion she did: I'm more aware of my own happiness, and when it comes, I take the time to revel in the fullness of that feeling, be it something as simple as "The rain smell" or as complicated as "Little boy who looked like Harry Potter--I told Sean, 'Look, there's Harry Potter,' and he looked down all pleased."

I wonder what I will do now, without my little pink and purple friend on my bedside table? It's become a ritual, me laying on my belly, propped up on a pillow, thinking over the day and jotting down the one--or three--things that filled me with joy. As I look for replacements for my little book, I think--I hope!--I will keep it up. Because even on the bad days, now I can look back and remember, at least there was that smell of rain.

It's Fall!

The other night as we were walking to the car to head out to dinner, I stretched out my arms and spun for the sheer pleasure of feeling the cool air. Have you felt the chill in the mornings? (can you believe it?) It's fall! I'm ready to luxuriate in sweaters, the rich smell of fall leaves raked on a Saturday morning, and crisp days punctuated by blue skies behind orange trees.

The perfect fall outfit:

Where I'd love to visit this fall:

So welcoming!

Even more than spring, fall to me feels like the start of something new. Can you feel it?

DIY: In Which I Craft a Birthday Gift for Sean That Will Make Half of You Go "Awww" and the Other Half Go "Urgh"

It's always hard for me to think of great birthday gifts, especially for Sean. But I recently signed up for Pinterest and came across an idea I loved. I'd always wanted to do some sort of scrapbook illustrating all the reasons I love Sean. This was a scrapbook in miniature, using a deck of cards as the base. I also used images that I printed from the web, clippings from magazines and stickers to illustrate the "52 Things Dani Loves About Sean."

The end result: Sean was thrilled and I was happy to give him a unique and memorable birthday!

What You'll Need:
* Deck of cards (52 cards plus the two Jokers to be used as covers)
* Hole punch (I punched one hole but you may want to punch two...just punch one card and use as the template for the others)
* Binder ring (I recycled one I already had) or ribbon
* Resume paper (just something a little nicer than plain ol' computer paper)
* Color printer (if you're grabbing images off the web), magazines, stickers, photos, scrapbook paper...anything that you could use to illustrate
* Glue stick

The Process
Coming up with 52 things to say can seem somewhat daunting, but you'll be surprised how easily it flows once you start jotting them down. I did a mix of serious and sweet, silly and fun. Just depends on the "tone" you want for the book.

Type them up and play with the fonts until you find one(s) you like. I used 20 pt Copperplate (title) for the cover, and 18 pt Perpetua (bold) for the reasons.

Note that a deck of cards is roughly 2.5 by 3.5 inches, so size your images and the length of your lines accordingly. I also did at least a double space on my reasons so they'd be easier to cut out.

Stumped on clever ways to illustrate what you're trying to say? Just Google search images based on your reasons for ideas...for example, for "You're green," I used a comic book image of the Incredible Hulk.

Finally, have fun! This doesn't have to look perfect...in fact, I think the rough look of it adds to the charm!

Eat Me: Pho Bac

My friend Grace has a million friends, always wears the prettiest dresses, and has the most adorable daughter on the planet. So when she said that we had to try a new restaurant called Pho Bac, I knew it had to be good.

This Vietnamese restaurant, tucked just off Washington Road (if you're heading out to Evans, turn left at the McDonalds in Columbia Square), offers heaping bowls of pho--rice noodles in broth with veggies and protein--along with rice plates, Vietnamese sandwiches and so much more.

Seven of us--Grace and her family, our friends Connie and Jake, and Sean and I--went there recently to celebrate Sean's birthday. The fact that our waitress stumbled over a name on the beer list ("We have Bud Light and M-Mish-lob? I don't know how to pronounce it, I'm only 18") only added to the charm.

Sean ordered something off the Beef Stew section of the menu; when it arrived, it turned out to be nothing like beef stew, but was instead a richly flavored mix of shrimp, beef, chicken and vegetables atop noodles lightly coated in a brown sauce. My spring rolls (whole pink shrimp and green lettuce and herbs peeking out through translucent rice wrapping) and salt and pepper squid (perfectly cooked calamari coated in crispy crumbs flavored with salt and pepper, and sitting on a bed of onions and jalapenos) were light, fresh and just right.

It was a long night of laughter and stories, with more Mish-lob ordered, and cupcakes at the end (from Sundrees downtown market, but that's another story). Pho Bac is a little hard to find...there's no sign on Washington Road to direct you, and you have to really look to see it, which is a shame since the staff is sweet and the food is authentic, or so it seems to this non-Vietnamese Chinese girl. And did I mention the karaoke?

Image: Squidoo.com