Happy Chinese New Year! Year of the Ox

I've been waiting anxiously for this day to come for years... ever since I went with some great friends in Hawaii to the celebration in China Town to celebrate the Year of the Monkey... patiently I've waited for this my year.

Happy Chinese New Year to All!

Being in a fairly non-Asian community, there really weren't a ton of options for celebrations this weekend. Searching for a necklace with the symbol of the ox on it, I happened upon a sweet store owner who also was a feng shui master. I'm not really sure how it lead up to this, but the next thing I knew, he was reading a paper full of kanji and warning me about the upcoming year. News Flash: It turns out that when the symbol you were born under comes back up, it's not necessarily a "lucky" thing. I was warned in adorable broken English to drive with 300% caution, be wary, and put rose quartz rocks by my pillow. I was also told not to eat fish and to wear yellow pants. I'll be honest, walking out of the Asian gifts store I felt quite dampened.

Do not worry though. I did research and talked to my Asian friends. So Monday morning, I wore brown tights (closest I could get to yellow without looking like a banana) and a red shirt (told by Hamano that it is the best color to wear that day). I also wore my Ox pendant and took the opportunity to shout, "Happy Chinese New Year" to everyone I passed. Hamano also recommended blowing something up. Allegedly the bad spirits are chased away quite well by loud explosive noises. But it's not easy to find fireworks around here and a trip across the border to Wyoming was out of the picture.

I did manage to get in an excellent Chinese dinner complete with a perfect fortune cookie fortune:

You will come into great fortune.

Memory: Reminded me about the time way back when I was working for a jewelry broker before my mission. One of the people he dealt with was in San Francisco and managed a fortune cookie bakery for his family on the side. One day on the phone he said, "y'know Lori, I like you. I want to send you some cookies. How many do you want? 1 or 2?" I jokingly said, "Sure, how about 3?!" The next day Fed-Ex overnighted 3 thousand fortune cookies to my front door. We had fortune cookies coming out of the yahoo. I remember giving bags of them to everyone who came by as a parting gift. Taught me to ask more questions...