Monday, June 13, 2005
Dragon Boat Day
I should start today’s post by telling about Friday night’s dinner out and a movie that ended in a fight between Nian and myself. We got over the fight and had a great Saturday and Sunday together however so I will start with those events instead. Saturday was something called Dragon Boat Day: a traditional day of celebration for the Chinese. Nian told me the story of how it came to be, something involving the drowning of a good man and the local villagers attempt to save and find him by throwing rice on the water. We spent the day together then she went to a Dragon Boat Day party. I was not invited though I’m sure I could have insisted on going. I would have been a wet blanket on the proceedings, however, as everyone there would be speaking Chinese.
Nian and I got together the next day and set about to do some shopping for some items I needed around the apartment. I had started to fix my place up before meeting Nian, but now that I have a steady girlfriend/fiancé (oh yeah we’re engaged, more about that later too). I’ve been determined to make the place much more livable. The shopping didn’t go well however, we had trouble finding just the items we needed. To add insult to injury Nian looked as though she was going to get sick any moment from lack of sleep and a bit of a hangover. The most I have ever seen Nian drink is one Heineken, and only the one time when we very first met, but evidently imbibing alcohol at a celebration is a Chinese custom, in fact Nian informs me that when I meet her father I will probably have quite a bit of some kind of white wine to drink to be sociable.
Nian had one more social obligation to attend to Sunday afternoon, though not an all night affair like Dragon Boat Day, so I dropped her off to join her University colleagues while I continued to shop for what was needed around the apartment. Nian would call at 8pm for me to come pick her up. After not finding what I really wanted or needed at Schnucks, Carters, or Sam’s Club, I went hog wild at Wal-Mart. I’m not trying to rave about Wal-Mart, just that for whatever reason this day I found just about every remaining item on my list of things to get and then some. I didn’t have a written list of what to get, but all the failed shopping primed me for things to get and so I did. Picture frames, a replacement mirror for the bedroom door, a drain rack for the sink, just the right kind of desk lamp for Nian to study with, a hand vacuum, a mattress pad and fitted sheet that actually fits the waterbed (these last two items I had been searching for over a month for), lots of other small necessities. Towards the end of my shopping I also got 3 yellow roses (for my Asian rose) and chocolates for our one-month anniversary. Then to be really domestic and top things off I bought two large semi exotic houseplants and found some reasonably attractive woven potholders to place them in.
I was shocked by how much the plants added to my rather drab living room when I got them home. I’ve never been much of a plant person, but to add even a little more dash I went outside and pulled a few wild plants from along the nearby road, and arranged them in the empty pots I had been meaning to fill with something so they didn’t look so useless. The effect turned out to be quite aesthetic. My father had lots of plants at his apartment when he was alive, but they had always looked tacky to me, mostly because they were mostly dull common plants like philodendrons and not potted in anything other than the dull green plastic or dull orange ceramic, plus he had a tendency to over-water, which didn’t hurt the plants, but wrecked his furniture they were on in short order. Wherever dad set his plants was always covered with deep-water rings and stray dirt -- the veneer actually pealing from the tabletops and drawers where dad placed his plants. To be fair the rest of his apartment was always clean as a whistle, no mean feat given his arthritis, but he put up with plants for some indefinable reason -- they probably symbolized something to do with life or hope to him. Then again it could just be he thought they would improve the air quality of his small apartment.
I whirled around the apartment trying to get everything installed and in place I had purchased. I had hoped to have enough time to start some work on the back junk room, but after Six O-Clock I decided I would run to the gym to get my workout in (they close at 8pm) and then if Nian was late calling I would have time to start the junk room.
The workout went well and I stayed until the very last instant when they kicked us out. It was now a little past 8pm and no call from Nian, I made one last quick errand run to finish my puttering around the apartment then returned home. Nian was there waiting to my surprise and quite happy with all my thoughtful purchases, especially the roses to officially mark the one-month occasion though she had found them on her own in the refrigerator.
Evidently I did such a good thing with everything Nian didn’t even point out I had failed to tackle the back junk room again.
