My Christmas: Review.

So, my Christmas day potluck with my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend and a couple of his friends was fun.
 

Of his friends, one was (Bangladeshi) and the other (Indian), and we had the potluck in a professor's big apartment where the one was catsitting for her advisor.

His (Indian) friend made some perfectly made basmati rice, and brought this (North Indian) dish with like pinto beans or something perfectly spiced and half falling apart, which you put over the rice so it was almost like a thick pinto bean stew over rice.

Also, at some point, she and his (Bangladeshi) friend started talking about how they really didn’t know what celery was until they came to the United States.

“We just don’t have it at home!”, said the one (Indian) friend.

The (Bangladeshi) friend also was talking about how she had this one class on culture when she first came to the U.S., and there was a quiz question asking why people on diets would eat a lot of celery.

She didn’t know what celery was, and so she went and asked the TA, who gave her a hint about how it was a vegetable that was “green and crunchy and had a lot of water and so not a lot of calories” – that is, practically the answer to the question.

 She was very appreciative of that and has always remembered it, she said.

Also, at one point, my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend started talking about how there aren’t many Mexicans in the UK.

“Back home if you find out someone’s Mexican, it’s very exotic, you know, panpipes and all that,” he was like.  “Not at all like here, where they’re a dime a dozen.”

He then added that when he first got to the U.S., he was always very amazed when someone said they were from Mexico, but then after a while he “got over it.”

Also, both he and his (Indian) friend had both heard (young) (Muslim) women in veils say, when they were asked if the veils weren’t hot, that “hell is hotter.”

Also also, he reminisced how about back in the Sudan some of his family are very into this local Sufi holyman, who never eats, and when he does eat, he vomits it out again immediately and all the cats gather to eat his vomit.

Also, once his cousin was there when everyone was working on a construction site and this big storm was approaching, and the holy man just clapped and the storm went away.

 His cousin saw it.

Later, we played Scrabble, and I tried to convince everyone that I could lay tiles just outside the grid, since the rules said you just had to lay tiles “on the board” (not “within the grid”).

No one accepted that, but I won anyways, by six points (it was close), and during the course of play was able to play the words “DUNG” and “POO” as actual point-getting maneuvers, not as me being a smartass.

My one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend had also tried to convince everyone that you should get double points for Christmas-themed words, and had offered help to his (Indian) friend in forming words if she’d give him “ten percent” of the points that she made from the play.

She thought that was hilarious.

The (Bangladeshi) friend had left by that point, since it was already late, and we didn't get done playing Scrabble until after midnight.