Chapter 156

I slept till 11, it was glorious. The girlfriend was eating some of my reheated chicken and rice cake casserole and I got a few bites, then I went outside with the dog. We rode to a park equiped with gymnastics bars, but it’s also unfortunately equiped with an expropriated cabbage farmer wearing a ill-fitting dirty uniform who immediately descended upon me to express with brusque gestures and monosyllabic “Uh! Uh! Uh!” sounds that dogs are not allowed in the park. As we walked away, I could hear him panting and moaning with excitement from flexing his little speck of authority.

So I went to another park, and exercised while a young girl played with the dog. We had a simple conversation, in her sing-song baby talk she told me she likes dogs, and has two at home. She approached the dog correctly, by presenting her hand and then petting him gently starting under the ears, unlike a lot of Chinese kids who are either petrified with fear or roughly coming over their heads, so I let them play, watching in the corner of my eye while I did my pullups and other moves. Then her grandma came and scolded her for touching a dog, washing her hands with the contents of a water bottle, not withstanding that she and the other kids in the park were being their usual selves getting their hands covered in dirt. That’s another paradox in Chinese culture that puzzles me, how they can be extremely nitpicky for some aspects of cleanliness (not sitting on a couch with clothing worn outdoors, washing seemingly clean plates before using them) but negligent for others (chucking garbage everywhere, never brushing their teeth). And don’t get me started on the bizarre superstitions they have regarding female hygiene and childbirth.

I rode home, stopping at a small supermarket to buy food. I drank a protein slurry, and went back out to run some errands. I returned the inflatable mattress I bought yesterday, it’s 200 cm long, which is too long for our tent. I also went to a glasses shop and placed an order for a pair of sunglasses. I’m still limited in what I can say in Chinese, I don’t know the word for “prescription” or even “sunglasses” for that matter (I just said “black glasses”) but made myself understood somehow. And the price was fair, much lower than what Uncle Scumbag quoted me yesterday. I took a little part of my afternoon, but it was fine, the weather was nice and most of the distance was on cycling paths among greenery and beside canals.

I relaxed a bit and then got in the kitchen. The girlfriend was hosting some of her coworkers and grade-12 students and I got asked to cook for them, I made roast chicken with lemongrass, mashed potatoes, bruschetta, deviled eggs and also served the hummus I made a few days ago. First I was listening to Mule Skinner, a kickass grindcore band I’d never heard of before, and just as their album ended they all came in, so they didn’t have to be subjected to that blasting and shrieking. They all sat in the living room and watched some British TV show with subtitles, before we sat at the dinner table and ate our feast. Good wholesome fun.

Then we watched the rest of the British TV show and they left. I poured myself a double white Russian and watched Dark Side Of The Ring while the girlfriend did the dishes. It was about Jake The Snake’s father Grizzly Smith, who was quite a heinous scumfuck and caused a lot of trauma in his children.

I went to bed fairly early and read a bit. I briefly, briefly considered going to the bar but mehhhed.