Right before we left for church this afternoon, I put a chicken in the oven to roast while we were gone. I was in a hurry, so I wasn't going to do anything fancy. Just open the package, put the chicken in a baking dish, and get on out the door. I was stopped in my tracks when I found that the chicken's head was still on~ eyes tightly closed, limp necked, with a pale, flesh-colored beak. I did not know the head was there when I bought it, as it was tucked under the body. And I had purchased the chicken at my beloved City Shop, the import store with all the wonderfully familiar products. But chicken with their heads still on aren't part of the 21st century American Mid-west experience.
Now in Shanghai, I see whole, limp chickens in the Chinese grocery stores and markets all the time. I have occassionally seen whole plucked chickens hanging from a light post on the street, awaiting something. I have seen live chickens for sale on the sidewalk, tied to the sellers bike basket by their feet. But never, ever, have I had a chicken with its head on in my kitchen. I think I may have screamed a little when I saw it.
But remember, I was in a hurry. So I grabbed the kitchen shears, cut off the head, threw it in the kitchen garbage can, and put the chicken in the oven. I shivered slightly as I did the deed, but heck, I have given birth, surely I can cut off a chicken's head. I just tried not to look at it too closely.
Fast forward to this evening, when we arrived home from church and were preparing to eat the chicken. It was beautifully cooked, golden brown and moist looking. As Scott began to cut it up for serving, he discovered a little surprise inside the chicken that I had missed when I was hurredly getting it in the oven earlier. The feet. Neatly tucked inside the cavity of the bird were both feet, complete with little claws. Just in case one would want them, there they were, carefully saved, just in case.
I don't think I'll be needing them.
Driers are something that most Chinese people do not have.
There was quite a pile of rubble in the street when we finished with all the fireworks and firecrackers. Right after we finished the last set, while we were still standing around, a street sweeper was already there cleaning it all up. This is typical of Shanghai... always people sweeping the street by hand, with brooms made of branches. I assume they are city employees.
I would have enjoyed wearing a costume too, but then who would have taken my picture?! A young Chinese student asked me if she could take some pictures of the girls with her camera, and then offered to take one on mine of all three of us. Maybe when Mark and Mindy come we should all get costumes... do you think I will be able to get the guys to do it?!
The money god himself...
monitor, any of various dragonlike, mostly tropical lizards. A monitor lizard has a heavy body, long head and neck, long tail that comes to a whiplike end, and strong legs with sharp claws. Its slender, forked tongue is protrusible. Monitors range in size from the 8-in. (20-cm) short-tailed species of W Australia to the 10-ft, 300-lb (3-m, 136-kg) Komodo dragon, the giant among living lizards, that lives only on the small Indonesian island of Komodo. Some monitor species spend their lives in trees, and others inhabit lakes and rivers; they can be found on the oceanic islands and continents of the Eastern Hemisphere in all types of warm habitats, from tropical forest to desert. They feed on various kinds of animal matter, including eggs, rats, frogs, and decaying meat. The larger species will attack small deer and pigs. They often tear the prey with claws and teeth, but generally swallow it whole or in large chunks. Monitors lay from 7 to 35 leathery eggs, usually in holes in the ground or in trees. They are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Reptilia, order Squamata, family Varanidae, genus Varanus.
