Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Tibet/Korea issue

J has confessed that he is obsessed with Kim Jong Il.

The Mullholland drive, the school bus delivery route, focuses me in the morning and my thoughts meander usually to the news as the dull drone of NPR plays the background. Not dull, no - just the way it plays in my brain - a low-volume, constant, insect-like buzz. Having listened to the Dalai Lama yesterday and a chap called Robert Barnett - a Tibet scholar from Columbia - today, I've realized that my knowledge of the whole Tibet/China situation is lacking and I vow, on returning to mi casa, to look it up. "You know that Kim Jong Il was born in the Soviet Union, right?" he says to me, as if I should know this. His head is in Korea, mine is in Tibet. And so it goes.

"You know what just occurred to me?" he says, while brushing his teeth. "What's that, darling?" I ask. "Next time you're in a rush to make mashed potatoes" he says, spitting out the water, "You know when you have to boil those big potatoes, you could do them in the pressure cooker in just a few minutes." "I'll keep that in mind," I say.

No comments: