Life is Funny
We had nothing on the agenda for this weekend, which is a small miracle. Soccer is over, birthday season is done, holiday madness hasn’t started yet. I was going to start painting the trim in our living room. Yes, I know. It’s literally been MONTHS since I painted the rest of the living room. The blue tape has become a permanent fixture. I need to get motivated and get to work.
At 2 pm a neighbor knocked on the door and asked if our kids could go to her little girl’s birthday party at 3 pm. Literally in an hour! She said not to worry about a gift.
Normally I would have said no to such a late invitation. I wasn’t even sure of the little girl’s name. Since we had nothing on the agenda I decided to chance it and take the kids over there since they seemed pretty desperate for guests. I have a gift closet, generic cards and wrapping paper at the ready, so we did manage to take over a gift. All I had for little girls was a couple of Disney princess dolls. I decided to go with Ariel since she at least wasn’t as blonde as Rapunzel. I was wishing I had a Mulan doll since the little girl is from the Philippines and I think it is important that children have dolls that look like them. Mulan is my favorite Disney movie, but I guess she is not a part of the Disney princess culture? At least I have never seen her represented in all the princess things.
But maybe I’m racist for thinking I have to give an Asian child an Asian doll? I don’t know! I have no idea what the answer is. I just wanted her to be happy and enjoy her gift. She had a Disney princess cake with Belle, Ariel, Cinderella and Snow White. She had a gigantic happy birthday poster filled with blonde Barbies and pictures of her. They were very proud of the poster (it literally covered one whole wall) and said they ordered it from their country. I guess if you want to be happy in this country you can’t dwell on the limitations? I have no idea since I have white privilege, but I am trying to learn. Now that Elsa is getting older I need to stock my gift closet with girlie things. I guess I should steer clear of dolls and Disney princesses since it makes me feel guilty (I tend to buy things that I would have wanted to play with when I was a little girl and I was all about dolls and princesses and sparkle).
The kids had fun at the party, and I found it pretty entertaining so it was a win. There was an interesting variety of people there and I learned all about my neighbors. They live across the street in a townhouse that has a garage instead of a basement. I have no idea how they all manage to live there. Six adults (a matriarch, two married couples, a bachelor and a 6 year old) in three very small bedrooms. But here’s the thing: three of them are medical doctors! The six adults all work in the medical field. I can’t understand why they would choose to live in cramped quarters. There are plenty of houses in this area that could comfortably house an extended family of seven.
All in all, they were very nice people and I was glad to get to know them a little better. And now I know where to go if I ever have a medical emergency. I’ve been confused by them for years because they are in and out very odd hours, but it all makes sense now.
There were two awkward things:
First, the food. I’d already eaten a big lunch so wasn’t hungry, then when I saw the food I knew I couldn’t stomach it. I didn’t even know what most of it was, but it just looked really unappealing to me. I thought I might get some of the stuff that looked a bit like a creamy fruit salad, but on closer inspection it had shrimp in it. I brought some beef stuff home for Mike and he said it had a lot of liver in it. There was some kind of olive loaf. I tried a bit of flan, but I am not a flan fan. It tastes like scrambled eggs that have been soaked in syrup.
They kept insisting that we eat the food, and there was a group of us who kept looking at each other like deer in the headlights because we were not from that cultural and it was just not something we could stomach. The funny thing is, me and my kids were the only white people there. The African-Americans and Hispanic families were just as wary of the food as I was. In fact, the teen girl who called Erik “Hitler” was there and she was complaining the most. Her mother and sister were trying to shush her, but she wasn’t getting it (btw, I found out that her dad is a minister and he was terribly embarrassed by her behavior with Erik).
I know it is a part of many, many cultures to try to feed people as a gesture of warmth and welcoming. I am sure it was really rude of me not to eat the food, but I just couldn’t.
The other awkward part is that they kept introducing me as the vice-president of the PTA. Which is true, but not really something that elevated me to the status they were trying to give me. I should have been passing out membership forms.
I also learned that Elsa is a very common name in the Philippines, which I had no clue about. In fact, there was another Elsa at the party–an older lady who was tickled to find a little girl Elsa.
Sooooo. . . interesting weekend! I’m always up for a new experience, as long as it doesn’t involve strange food since I am embarrassed about my picky eating. It was probably crazy to go over there since we don’t actually know them at all, but I was curious about them. I would love to go into every single house on our street at least once. I’ve only been in nine of them (out of about 80–they have us squished in here cheek to jowl).