A future speed bump speaks

Yesterday I had my most frightening automotive encountre since I ended up on that asshole's hood on North Avenue while waling back from Home Despot.

Monshu and I were coming from the market with fixin's. We were about to cross the street to my building in the same way we almost always do--by stepping out in front of the alley opposite. I did notice that someone was coming up the alley, but I foolishly assumed she'd seen us because we were RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER. However, it's a one-way street and--just like that asshole on North--she was only concerned with looking for cars. So when she saw none approaching from behind her, she took off.

I was much more caught off guard than that previous time, when I knew the guy hadn't seen me before I walked. I just kept staring at the car, wondering why it was still rolling towards me, until my hands were on the hood. I'm never worried I'll actually get run over in such situations, since the acceleration is so low (let alone the velocity), but I have nightmares of the front wheel ending up atop my smashed foot and the driver being too flustered to back off of it.

That didn't happen. What seemed to me like an ungodly delay was probably two seconds; she hit the brakes and we yelled at her through the open window. We might have been meaner than usual, since we had been nearly run down by bikers moments earlier. They were especially odd: They came to a stop sign and clearly signalled their turn (which, on these streets, is even rarer than seeing a motorist use a turn signal), but never actually stopped. The first just blew past us and the second narrowly missed hitting us. "You still have to stop! I called after her.

I'm sure some of you (not to embarrass rollick by mentioning her specifically) would feel bad about yelling at an early teenage girl on the street. There might have been day when I would've, too, but I've lived in the big, bad city for so long I can no longer recall it. If you're going to be a jackass in public, wantonly disregarding the rules of the road, you're going to get called on it in public. I'd like to think that some of the people I've castigated for nearly running me down are better drivers as a result, but there's no way of knowing and, anyway, I sort of doubt it. We'll go so far to avoiding accepting blame (after all, one could say I brought the most recent incident upon myself by crossing in the middle of a street and in front of an alley), that we're far more likely to condemn the other person for their rudness and hysteria than make a fundamental change in our own behaviour.

In any case, my comment didn't seem to faze her at all. She had a frozen expression of defence against a hostile world (something like the "el face" familiar to anyone who uses that mode of transit) before the intersection and she preserved it afterword; not even a comment to her older friend about the rude asshole pedestrians who think they're hot shit as they sped up the street.

Da Da Da

On Saturday, welcomerain noted the tongue-in-cheek nature of my comment that I chose "Da" as a nickname to avoid nominal problems. In fact, it causes as much trouble as it avoids; people pronounce it as anything from "Duh" to "Don". But I can allow myself even more self-righteous condescension as a result, pointing out, "It's only two letters. How could you get that wrong?" And few people who learn it ever forget it again. This contrasts starkly with my Christian name, which people have been known to use correctly through one or more conversations and then, on another occasion, substitute it with another name that resembles it only in designating an Old Testament figure and starting with the same letter. Do other people have that problem? Do the "Marks" out there ever get called "Matthew"--or vice-versa? (This I consider a very different phenomenon from the Christy/Christine/Cristina/Kristen/etc. problem, where different variants of the "same name" get confused. They're related only in both being the result of having a relatively small pool of given names, which may ease the general learning load, only to overburden it in particular cases.)

quote for Ken

"What stupidities are you trying to tell me, miserable savage? I cannot understand your murky language." --Francisco Pizarro.

Hong Kong Foodie

Outside on the street, some students from Hong Kong are selling cha siu bau and curried fishballs to raise money for their organisation. Of course, this reminds me of the scene in My life as McDull when he's trying to order a dish in shabby noodle shop that's run out of both noodles and fishballs, and I said so. Turns out, none of them had any idea that the movie had played Chicago only a week ago. This surprised one of my co-workers who also saw the film, since his Korean hirelings were acutely aware of the Korean films in the festival. Speaking of which, seeing the flats of VitaSoy™ reminded of that Margaret Cho bit where she says, "VitaSoy™--it's good for you!" But I figured HKers wouldn't know that reference and didn't mention it.

I never did tell y'all what the fixin's we risked our lives to bring home last night were used for. I made a big pot of kimchipap and watched in amazement as Monshu, who usually doesn't have much of an appetite at dinnertime, demolished it. Seems he had skipped lunch, with the result that he ate up what I had been counting on for my lunch. (Or dinner. Leftover kimchipap makes great fried rice!) At any rate, my rare run of eating out has been broken; its last gasp was the milanesa I ate on Saturday night. In its own way, it was the equal of the seafood pastilla I had at al-Andalous the night before--yes, Monshu did submit to my gentle arm-twisting and agreed to try a new (to him) place in the area. Tonight's meal will probably be quesadillas or soup--something quick while I try to get abreast of my household drudgery.