I went down to the Xindian City Office this mornin…
I went down to the Xindian City Office this morning to move my residency from Sanchong over to Bitan, where my new place is. The reason it was in Sanchong before is that landlords here almost never allow tennants to have their residencies listed on their landlords’ properties, because the landlords would have to pay more in taxes because they’re getting extra income from the rent. As a homeowner, however, I can now have my official residency actually listed at the place where I live.
After taking a number and waiting, submitting documents, etc., I had my new ID. It’s been 19 years since they switched ID cards here, so the old ones were pretty archaic. The new one has a smaller photo, has the information printed sideways, Western-style instead of written top-down, is the same color regardless of sex (the old ones were pink for females, yellow for males), and supposedly has all kinds of security features. One thing that struck me was how different I look now than I did in 1992, when the older picture (on top) was taken.
Christmas was good this year. I had some excellent Virginia Ham at Bret’s and Alan’s party in Nangang on Christmas Eve. Kirk was there and got quite drunk by the time we left. There were the usual invitations to go to Fresh, but I was too full and too tired, and besides I’m not really into Fresh, or anywhere else since they closed the Taiwan Bear Club.
On Christmas Day the weather was perfect, mostly sunny and not too cold. They’ve strung Christmas lights all around the lobby and outside our building. I spent time walking around, did some shopping, and then showed up on Darrell and Judy’s doorstep at 5:30. Maurice, Claire and Dean were already there, the former two in the kitchen whipping up the Caprese that is so good we named his character in the film after the dish. Later many other people showed up, including Paul, Jane, Tim, Ian, Rowan, Bruce and some other people whose names escape me at the moment. We played Johnny Cash songs and munched on a truly fine turkey dinner, and then Judy brought out a birthday cake for me with, thankfully only 10 candles on it. At 37, I’m officially, according to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “not old”:
“Old woman!”
“Man!”
“Man, sorry…”
“I’m 37.”
“What?”
“I’m 37, I’m not old.”
“I couldn’t just call you ‘man’.”
“Well, you could call me ‘Dennis’.”
So there. The cake was delicious, despite Judy’s protests to the contrary. Dean also gave me an Obi-wan Kenobi action figure, complete with plastic lava, as well as the Blues Brothers’ Greatest Hits on DVD, that we settled down and watched part of while recovering from the feast. Rowan’s pants only came down a couple of times, and the dogs behaved for the most part. Even the kittens were good, or at least we couldn’t hear them over the music. Jane took a lot of shaky Christmas Tree photos.
All in all, a very nice Christmas.
