Thanksgiving with Jack Daniel from Korea and other stories…

So we made this new friend who is here from Korea studying English until March. When I asked him what his name was the first time, he explained that his name was Daniel, or I could call him Jack… or Jack Daniel… or Joe. He’s from Korea, so he originally decided to call himself Daniel here so that it would be easy for people to remember… only they decided that Jack was easier(?). That’s how he explains it when people ask him about his memorable moniker. We’ve been having a blast getting to know him and teaching him all sorts of useful English phrases like what it means when you look at someone after they've been talking for awhile and say, "anyway," what being “full of yourself” means and what it means when you "get backed up.” When he offered to watch me pull out of my parking space in a crowded parking lot after dinner, he also got a good lesson on his use of, “Kristy, I’ll watch your backside, okay?” Aren't languages such fun things! Oh, this brings back great memories of all the times I grossly misused Japanese! Jack is such a good sport, and we have so much fun swapping stories.

My aunt and uncle invited us down to Philadelphia to join them for Thanksgiving weekend. We were so excited when they said they were thrilled to host Jack for his first Thanksgiving, too! Ian had arranged with Jack to pick him up at his dorm on Wednesday after work before we headed down to Philly. He soon discovered that he was in a little bit of an awkward situation when he couldn’t dial Jack’s cell phone because his room wasn’t picking up a signal, and had no idea of our friend’s real name! So Ian did the only thing he could think of: he walked into the school and started asking people, including a burly security guard, if they happened to know Jack Daniel. Of course everyone looked at him like, “Is this some sort of joke?” In the end, after a bit of detective work with the school administrator, they were finally able to narrow the search and find our Jack Daniel! Thanksgiving was a blast in the end with Ian and Jack getting to experience all of the traditional stuff like watching the Macy’s parade, getting wrangled into dinner preparation, putting up Christmas lights, and eating Philly cheesesteaks! (Wait a second…I thought it was turkey?)

Of course after all of that fun, we both caught colds the next week. On top of that, the grad school semester is wrapping up, keeping both of us busier than normal, so we were both more out of it than usual last week. One morning, I saw that Ian had forgotten his lunch just as he walked out the door on his way to work. I was still in my glasses and jammies, but that didn’t stop me from running outside after him. As I ran down the driveway after his car screaming like a banshee in nothing but my pajamas and fuzzy socks, a thought occurred to me. I thought if I could just thump the car with something, maybe he would hear me and stop. So, I launched his lunch at the car as hard as I could… but he just kept going! He must have really been out of it. Just as I bent over to pick up the lunch bag and an apple that rolled down the driveway towards me in defeat, Ian must have seen me in his rearview mirror and thought, “What is that?” So, in the end, I was able to give him his lunch even though the apple was a bit bruised on one side! That’s love, right?!

This weekend we also had a really cool experience of having a bunch of friends help us out with our first Christmas Charity brunch! We hosted a group of our friends for a festive brunch in the morning, and then we all went out to buy presents for people in need. It is such a great feeling buying gifts for people who really need them, and we had a lot of fun trying to find the best deals, ransacking toy stores, and finding cute sweaters for teenage girls at the trendy mall shops. By the time we left the mall it was already snowing beautifully to add to our Christmas joy! We were all totally in the Christmas spirit as we headed back to the house to “show and tell” the gifts we had found and wrap them up. Of course there was plenty of good food to go around as well as a cup of tea, hot chocolate, hot apple cider, or eggnog for every good “elf”! I can’t wait to do this again next year! Thanks to all of our wonderful friends who contributed!