Well, Dave’s mom (Cris) replied that there’s no more tickets available for Lilith Fair on 6/20. She offered her ticket to me, but that didn’t seem right since she was so excited about going. I haven’t checked to see if there are any left for the next night, but who can go on a Sunday night? Retail workers, I suppose.

The doorbell in variably rings during the day. One of the things I liked about our apartment in Seattle was that the whole building had controlled access so we never got solicitors at the door. Here, the building is open to anyone and everyone willing to ride that unreliable elevator. Usually I don’t answer the door when the bell rings. Sometimes I’m playing loud music, making it obvious that someone is home, but I still won’t answer unless I’m dressed, which I’m most often not. Or, if I am dressed my hair is all over the place and greasy, drool residue from the night before stuck to my chin. The usual. So I just don’t answer. It means that the mail guy doesn’t deliver our packages directly to us but to the guard; and the toshi gas lady doesn’t get to read the meter, forcing her to leave a note for us to call, which we never do, hiding behind the facade of "ignorant foreigners." I don’t know who else comes by, but the bell does ring at least once a day.

I think they’re all real solicitors, because I have opened the door in the past to find people selling milk, yogurt, and other little drinks. There are the pesticide guys, of course, whom I have to chase away. And then the church people. Good grief. They're global! Today the doorbell rang and I answered despite the universe of hair big banging on my head. Church people, complete with pamphlets. They never walk away; other people, when they see that I’m not Korean, usually chuckle and then leave. They don’t want to go there. But these church folks, they dive right in. At least they’re not as aggressive as in the States and I’m not so afraid of them that I’ll shut off the TV and hide in the back room until they're gone. But still, it takes a little more effort to get the door shut and locked without catching one of their pretty pamphlets in the door.

The other day I was at the bus stop listening to music when two older ladies approached me with a smile. I started to cower. Really. When people approach with a smile it means they’re gonna start talking in English, which usually means some kind of parasitic event is going to occur, where I’ll become the host, until they tire of sucking what they need from me. But one of the ladies started off in Korean by asking me if I speak it. Aniyo, I said. (I always find that hilarious. I answer "no" in Korean to a Korean question, which means I do speak a bit. Still, mostly I can’t.) She switched her brain to English and asked, "Do you know Jehovah Witness?" I got out the hand immediately; that is, the hand politely firm and flat, waving horizontally in a plane not quite parallel with the ground in front of me to indicate, physically, "No, I don’t want what you’re selling." And I added verbally, "No thank you." She thumbed through her pamphlet just like the other lady did, but there was that persistent hand in front of her, so she politely walked away.

I’m used to gearing up for a big defense. The Jehovah Witness who used to stop by my G-ma’s house were really aggressive, sticking their feet in the door and pushing against it with their arms when you tried to close it. G-ma began to fear any car that even looked like theirs, taking refuge in the back of the house. (I always picture her hunching behind the bed. I don't think she did that, but she looked like that's what she might do when she hauled off down the hallway, shoulders crunched up in a defensive position - like running away from a bee.) But these people in Korea, they take "no" for an answer and walk away.

I think today is the anniversary of the Kwangju massacre. (In 1980, in the city of Kwangju, hundreds of civil demonstrators were gunned down by the military.) I read in the paper that citizens planned a peaceful memorial. One of the reasons they gave for being so peaceful this year was that they didn't want to burden, politically, the new President, who was himself a participant in the uprising in 1980 and was later sentenced to death for his role in it. Anyway, I think May 18, 1980 (if in fact that is the anniversary of the uprising) was an awfully cosmically charged day. For, what I remember always about that day is the eruption of Mount St. Helens. I was nine and it was really cool to have a volcano in my backyard. We used to drive over to my uncle's house, which was on a ridge affording a great view of the ash spewing into the air. Like every little kid in the state, I got my very own jar of the ash, scooped up probably from a roadside in Eastern Washington. I think the 18th was also a Sunday and I remember some degree of glee resulting from the disaster since it meant we didn't have to go to church that day. But that could've been another eruption on some other date because the mountain did erupt more than once.

I forgot to mention a great thing that happened yesterday. Well, there were other great things I didn’t forget to mention, but this small one shouldn’t be forgotten: On the way home from Technomart, we stopped for bread at our local bakery. We used to go there all the time, maybe 4 or 5 times a week. Now they’re lucky if we go once a month. The deal is that they started slacking on the quality while raising their prices. Primarily, we’re interested in the baguettes, which they routinely leave in the window for two or three days, during which time they become fossilized. The cost was the same regardless of the age, so we stopped going. Yesterday though, we needed bread and this bakery was the easiest solution. It was our great fortune to enter the store just as they were dumping a bunch of freshly baked loaves into the bin. Ahhh, they were so warm and incredibly soft. We bought a bunch and when we got home we dove into them immediately with the huge jar of Smuckers (imported) that Dave’s parents bought while they were here. Ooo, it was so good, that warm bread with that sweet jam.