Chicken Sacrifice and a holiday visitor

Yesterday I was in Line to get fried chicken wings at Chinatown Cafe. Chicken wings and a rose. That was Grace's wish. You may say that is not very romantic. But what you want is better than something expensive that you don't want.

Anyway, everyone in line was buying whole chickens and the words "bai sun" which means bowing to the gods was thrown around. Basically the chicken would be a sacrifice, and then it would be eaten by the family directly afterward. Chinese are very practical.

But what Holiday was it? Chinese New year is next Thursday. The only thing I could get from Facebook (and not asking anyone in line because I didn't put this all together until I was walking home) was that people were probably just doing the Chinese New year's dinner now since they wouldn't have time later.

Hey Jews don't change their holiday dinners to fit in with the work schedule do they? Maybe Chinese are too practical. Actually what would really be practical would be a Chinese Holiday App. I know there is actually some sot of Holiday every month. And most of it just means you eat.

But I wasn't sure if this was  some other pre-new year holiday I was supposed to do sacrifice a chicken or if everyone was just doing stuff early despite having to wait in the snow. Not that I have an altar in the house.

This morning I woke up to see a child standing up on our bed. I thought it was Noah, but things were out of focus. I moved my foot to gently kick where Noah's legs would be. But they weren't there. I had a moment of panic as I put my hand down and felt Noah's body. The other child, which looked a lot like Noah was looking at Noah. I wanted to go back to sleep but I was sort of afraid for Noah somehow. The part where the child's head was shifted and then faded away until it was actually jut the light on the ceiling.

This reminded me of a time when I was a child and I woke up to see a bunch of Chinese kids sitting on my bed eating rice happily until they faded away before my eyes. They weren't trying to hurt me, but it still freaked me out.

This little visit from doppleganger imaginary Noah made me wonder if I had somehow missed an important holiday and some child ancestor was looking for the chicken he was supposed to get.

But hey we can just get a chicken on Wednesday right? Or maybe today we'll set up a little pretend altar and do a pretend chicken just to ease my mind and give the kids something to do.