What ordinary Colorado girl says this?

Petra — as in the 80’s Christian rock band — had a song with this line:

Sometimes it’s good to look back down,

We’ve come so far, we’ve gained such ground.

Today I had such a glance back in a brief email interaction setting up a Friday lunch appointment.

She wrote: Hilarious – that is the response of someone who has lived in Asia a long time!

Hilarious? I love a good laugh, but usually don’t joke around about food due to being cranky if my blood sugar dips too low. ‘Hilarious’ slowed me down enough to go back and glance at what I’d said in response to any food preferences.

I don’t have any strong food preferences (other than I am for it!). I like spicy, doufu (tofu), veggies, meat, whatever. I’m not that into organs, but won’t die if I have to eat them :)

Sometimes it’s good to look back down. Flashback to my first year in Chengdu when my teammate and I took a student out to dinner as a prize for some event. Being new to China, we couldn’t order, um, anything, so he ordered for the three of us.

It never occurred to us that some animal’s heart would be chopped up and put in a soup. So, when it arrived all I heard was the whispered “lub-dub, lub-dub” of some science teacher explaining how the heart works. The soup remained mostly uneaten.

Colorado girls don’t normally comment on organs. Unless.

Unless they live somewhere that does.

Lest you think this is all about me, organs, Chinese food, or the scarring brought on by a science teacher, the Petra song continues:

But joy is not in where we’ve been,

Joy is who’s waiting at the end.

Rock on Petra! I doubt I’ll be eating organs on Friday, but if I am, I’m just going to hum this tune a little louder!