Home Alone

So mama and I watched Children Of Heaven last night. I love that movie!

Today mama knocked on my door at 3:35 am, and she, my dad, and the dog loaded up the car and left on their long drive home. After they left, I sat down and watched tv. It's about 10 minutes to six am now, my belly is full of breakfast (fried egg, toasted dinner roll, hot italian sausage), and I'm a little sleepy. Of course, today is the solstice, so it's totally daylight, so I may not get back to sleep.

Not sure what I'm going to do today; I have 11 days left before my program, and not much to do. The house is mostly clean, I'm kind of broke until payday, I don't have to go into the office until, well, August...

Dinner Time!

For dinner tonight we had grilled mackeral, grilled asparagus and onions, sliced tomatoes, grilled sweet corn on the cob, and a rice blend.

The rice blend we had was Mogami 8 Blended Whole Grain Rice, which is a blend of short grain, long grain, brown rice, black rice, maple rice, red rice, red wheat, and barley.

So if I don't want to spend the big bucks to buy this pre-packaged mix, where do I go in Seattle to buy a cup of each of these grains bulk, so I can mix it myself?

Whose results are those?

So I met with the RN today, and my meeting with her was less demoralizing than with the nutritionist.

First of all, we didn't talk about gross American health food. Second, my blood pressure was 102/64. How the heck did it get that good?

Also, I got my sexy new glucose monitor, I tried it out, and scored 103 at 4:30 in the afternoon!

My breakfast? A hard boiled egg and a packet of sugar-free oatmeal.

My lunch? Two salad rolls: chicken breast and seasoned bean sprouts, wrapped in some mâche and a tapioca wrapper. Some roasted chinese broccoli, another boiled egg, and some sugar free finger jello.
103, baby.

And then for dinner: a little bit of roast porkloin, some more bean sprouts, some more roast chinese broccoli, and some more jello. Plus one corn tortilla with a little bit of guacamole.

I might have a cup of tea before bed. I'm not that hungry, just bored.

Dinner Party Menus

Ding's having a dinner party tomorrow night. I think my invitation got lost in the mail.

I just came back from a party. It was a white 20 somethings party, so there was a lot of standing in conversation circles, drinks in hand. There were some snacks on a table. This is cultural. Met some very charming people. Somebody commented that Imus getting fired was the networks 'caving in to pressure.' Funny, I thought it was the networks distancing themselves from a racist, misogynistic pariah. Interesting to hear that perspective, though, wouldn't have occurred to me.

It's been a while since I've been to one of those white 20 somethings parties. As a thirty something now, I tend to go to dinner parties where you DON'T invite everyone you know, where you sit in a chair (or several), which is nice, and the night consists of at least three distinct acts. You know, Act I: the apperatif in the living room, Act II: the dinner in the dining room, ooh, Act III: let's have tea and dessert on the patio....

Filipino family parties don't have well defined acts, the way 30 something dinner parties do. Culturally, we are obliged to invite everyone we know, and then we cook everything we know how to cook. Which is why, Orange, the party buffet food is always cold. Because it got cold while other stuff was being cooked.

To prevent the dreaded cold buffet, my mama bought chaffing dishes, a trick she learned from Kuya Bubot, a caterer. At Auntie R's the food's not cold but only because there's a bunch of family that can turn out fresh food faster than it can get cold (and not step on each other in the kitchen, I don't know how they do it.

Anyway, I'm a dude, so there are low expectations when I have people over for dinner at my place, which is a blessing. I won't throw a three act dinner party, but I refuse to throw a big Filipino buffet by myself. In fact, I was reading Ding's post (above) when I realized I only have a handful of menus that I use. Here they are:

The Pinoy Picnic (no utensils necessary!)
BBQ Skewers (beef, chicken, baby zucchini, onions, cherry tomatoes)
Onigiri

The Seafood Boil
Crab, shrimp, clams, mussels, sausage, corn, and red potatoes
Crusty bread

Moules
mussels steamed in either white wine or beer, with sausages. (I should develop a provençal recipe)
Crusty bread and a caesar salad

Arrozcaldo
Boneless, skinless chicken thighs in a ginger rice porridge, topped with toasted garlic and chives
Braised baby bok choy

Fondue Party
Broccoli, chicken tenderloins, meatballs, li'l smokies, veggie sticks, boiled potatoes, and, yes, bread cubes. We learned about fondue from the Food Network, so we didn't know that people only did bread cubes exclusively. Fondue party is the only menu which comes with an obligatory dessert: chocolate, of course, with strawberries and cubes of cake (angel food, banana bread, whatever).

Lumpia Party
Lumpiang shangai and banana
Chicken scallopini OR grilled pinoy burgers (made with onions and soy sauce)
Steamed rice
Diced tomatoes
Cucumber sticks with soy sauce

Fish tacos
Pan fried, breaded tilapia
Shredded cabbage, diced tomatoes and white onions and cilantro
Sour cream
Guacamole
Chips
Toasty corn tortillas.

Cioppino
Cioppino, caesar salad, crusty bread.

That's it! I've taken requests before, for chicken adobo, beef and bok choy chow mein, in which case I just switch out the main course from the Lumpia Party.

I should develop a basic roast chicken, potatoes, and seasonal vegetable menu, because it's always elegant, even though everybody does it. Also, you can always swap out the roast chicken for broiled salmon. This was what we had at Francophone night on Thursday; the first course was melon cubes with black pepper and prosciutto. Delicious.

See? Simple. Obviously, I don't have a lot in the dessert area. People want you to slave over dessert, but they don't turn their nose up at Trader Joe's thawed out cheesecake.

Ok, before you start bugging me to invite you over for one of these, I should tell you that I don't clean my house except for special occasions. Honestly, I might like theorizing about these menus that actually executing them.

Update: As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I was thinking about pork tenderloin menu. Or pork chops. Or pot roast with bananas. Or seared tuna.

Saturday: zero productivity.

Recovering from a "tummy" ache.

I slept in this morning. Met 小猪 and 老虎 for breakfast at the 14 Carrot. I had chicken fried steak.

Slept on the couch for a while.

Stopped at Mutual and bought a pound of fresh Alaskan shrimp, salty, pink, and full of roe. I cooked them on the skillet with salt and pepper, and enjoyed them with a big baked potato. I will have them for lunch tomorrow as well.... maybe as a scampi, with spaghetti.

Around 10pm I was getting bored, and I was getting food ideas from FoodTV. No, I wasn't hungry. But I went out and got a Bagel Dog. It was delicious. I parked under the viaduct. It wasn't even 11pm yet, so the party people were all pouting, smoking, standing in lines on the sidewalk, shivering.

I ordered my 'spicey wid' and the dude told me I'd have to wait for the bagel buns (the special buns they make out of bagel dough). He went inside, and another guy came out with the first bagel bun of the night, said I was lucky.

It was absolutely delicious.

Tomorrow, dinner at 马厩's place. I teased him earlier this week for being the best teacher in the world, which he might be. A film crew was at school, recording his brilliance for a museum in the nation's capital.

Fastest Dinner Ever

I was so hungry, I was seeing spots today after making candles at work.

So on the way home, I noticed that Mutual was all locked up, so I stopped at Quality Food for Caucasians. I never NEVER go there, but their seafood seems better than Safeway.

Anyway, I bought some big prawns there, but the only grits I found were instant.

Sigh.

So my dinner tonight was shrimp and instant grits. Mind you, I have never been to South Carolina, so I'm not exactly sure what shrimp and grits are supposed to taste like. Or look like. Or how they're supposed to be cooked.

Anyway, rock salt, cracked pepper, and a splash of oil; toss it all together in the wrapping paper, to save yourself from washing a dish. Lay them flat on a screaming hot, dry skillet.

Make your instant grits in the microwave. 60 seconds later, flip the shrimp onto the other side.

That's all. No bacon, no onions, no cream. I was hungry.

I bet there are real grits at Safeway....

Greek Gods Yogurt

I love Greek Gods Yogurt. Love it.

I am not a huge yogurt fan. However, the fatter, sweeter, and more expensive the yogurt, the more I tend to like it. Surprise.

I just got back from Metrosexual Market, with some basque cheese, a end of salami, some anchovy-stuffed olives, and some smokey almonds. Mmm. But all I want to eat right now is Greek Gods Yogurt. So far I've had honey, but I also bought pomegranite and fig.

Oh, by the way... new Alaskan Way Viaduct? No and Hell No.

You're Toxic, I'm Slipping Under

The day started with an email, someone trying to flake from something they committed to months ago. Minutes later, he unflaked. I am starting to tighten the screws.

I taught the passive voice today (ser + past participle + por + agent). What a lie.

The office got toxic today, and I drove away mad. I listened to the news on the radio and only got madder, listening to a) the rapes that are happening in the state of Mexico (one rape/murder committed by a policeman) and b) an earnest GWB trying to get us to believe that the Iranians are smuggling arms into Iraq.

Shut up, Mr. President. Shut your stupid, fat mouth. You started this war in Iraq by deceiving us about WMDs. I don't give a shit what the Iranians are selling the insurgents; we wouldn't be in this mess if YOU HADN'T SENT US.

I went and applied for a new passport. My old one isn't set to expire until 2010, but it was too beat up from being in my pocket. My application to the Hangzhou program I want to go to is only missing three more things: my Chinese essay, my English essay, and two recommendations. I'm still waiting to hear yes or no from one recommender.

I made rice in my new dolsot, but now I realize it might not be a dolsot at all, since it is made out of clay. Maybe tonight I will go to a Korean store and buy one that is made of stone. I will ask J* what she thinks.

It's Valentines day; I don't really care. I have some grading to do, but it shouldn't take long. Ash Wednesday Mass is almost planned; I'm picking music that everyone hates, because I hate HATE the sing-songy shit that people think they like because they recognize it.

Seriously, "Change Our Hearts" is a terrible song when you sing it straight, but when the Catholics start making that awful scooping hissing noise they call singing, it just starts to make me angry.

White people! Why do you sing like that? Who tells you that sounds good? Why don't you try singing with your VOICE? No wonder you have low self esteem when it comes to music; you insist on singing like children being punished.

Yes, it's official; I've got the "toxic febs".... those blues that teachers tend to get around February. The kids, the other teachers, even the news on the radio... toxic.

The good news, when I got home my house smelled like paint! Sweet! Until I went downstairs, and the walls have, indeed, not been painted, just spray textured. Still, it's only a matter of days until I get my den back.

Download Time

Sometimes I forget to download the pictures I've taken.

Here's a shot of my steak and polenta. The steak I cooked in the Showtime Rotisserie my mama left me for half a hour. The polenta I just fried in a pan with a little bit of oil. Does polenta count as a vegetable? Didn't think so.

They stripped my roof. They put the debris in my parking spot, because they were afraid it was going to blow down in the windstorm. Then it snowed, and then froze.

Yes, they covered the building in plastic after they stripped the roof.

They pulled off some boards and laid them on top of the a little box out. The Marlboro box is gone, but the boards are all still there a month later.










Here are some crazy white ladies that were singing karaoke a while ago.

Oysters! Ostras! Talaba!

I invited the cowsins over for oysters after seeing the Good Eats oyster show. Cowsin M was down, as was my sister, but I disinvited her; she has a cold that I don't want.

I was worried about buying enough oysters for the two of us; I decided I would just get a couple dozen. At Mutual Fish I picked out a dozen medium sized ones, and a dozen tiny olympia oysters. I was a little disappointed with the little bag the fish guy handed me; my memories are of my dad coming home with a palate of big pacific oysters as big as my shoe.

My dad always used to get a discount a the Oly Farmer's Market because the oyster guy there was a big union guy (that relationship is called suki, I think) . Before that, we used to drive to shelton and buy them by the .... what's the word? by the gross?

Anyway, I got my little bag of oysters and went to pay. Next to me, a post yuppie couple was buying some fish. "She wants to buy some oysters" said Mr. Good Time, pointing to his pleasant blonde wife.

"How many can you eat?" she asked him, referring to the oysters.

"Oh!" he said lovingly, "a least three or four." He winked at her.

Three or four dozen, I thought? The fish guy pulled three or four single oysters out of the water. As I left the building I thought I saw them high-fiving each other.

Well, cowsin M came over, and so did my disinvited sick sister. I shucked all the oysters with my dad's oyster shucker, probably as old as I am. That oyster shucker is my inheritence. Anyway H, T, and M and I sat around the table eating oysters and telling the family oyster stories.

M told the one about the time all the uncles took the aunties to Genoa's by the Bay for all-you-can-eat brunch on Mothers' Day, and they ate all the oysters on the oyster table. Apparently Uncle E made a stink about them bringing out more oysters, but they refused to bring out more, saying they had to last all day. Ha! What kind of all-you-can-eat is that? Well, apparently most white people don't eat oysters into the single digits. I am sure, SURE that restaurant never had all-you-can-eat oysters ever again.

Then we talked about how the Harborside used to have a great $1.99 menu during happy hour, and one of the items was a bowl of mussels. I remember Asian families used to show up at that and order bowls and bowls of $1.99 mussels, and no drinks. Now those bowls of mussels are off the menu and there is a drink minimum. Live and learn. Now they serve those gross frozen kiwi mussles on the half shell, with the green tint, dressed au gratin under a salamander. That will guarantee that the Asians don't come back.

You know, white people, you used to eat shellfish by the pile too, and it used to be cheap. Remember? Now it's just us Asians and southern Europeans. But you enjoy your boneless, skinless chicken breast...

Actually I remember driving through the Peninsula once, and my mama showed me a mussel. We eat these in the Philippines, she said. White people don't know how to eat them. A couple of years after that, somebody discovered that FRENCH people eat mussels, so they started selling them, and charging a lot.

I can cook a kick ass bowl of mussels.

Anyway, this post was about oysters. We ate all 2 dozen raw, and I got pretty good at shucking them. They were small and clean, not like the barnacle encrusted, frilly oysters we used to cook in the microwave.

By the way, microwaving is by far the best way to cook an oyster in the shell. To me, a cooked oyster is what an oyster tastes like; the raw taste just tastes like the ocean to me, and is kind of a bore. But we decided to eat them raw. For some reason, raw oysters are more filling than the cooked ones, in my opinion. And when I say more filling, I mean I could only eat one dozen, max.

Star Trek, Oysters, Apple Pie à la mode

I am sitting on my couch, eating Ben & Jerry's American Pie ice cream and watching an episode of Voyager. It's very important nowadays to be conversant in trekese. Thanks, Angry Asian Man.

Finals week is over now, so for the next few days my life is about grading. But for now, I'm going to relax. I've been busting my hump lately preparing for a big retreat next week, and getting exams ready... and I'm tired. So tonight, I'm not doing nothing.

When I got home, there were contractors in my house, trying to figure out my leak situation. They had sent two colors of water down in separate sections, to try to find the source of the leak, and apparently the green colored water leaked into my basement, suggesting that the leak is to the left of the drain pipe. The bad news is, they still don't know where the water is entering from, and they said they that some of the test water is still standing out there. They left me the shop vac just in case some more green water came in.

I think this weekend I will invite my cowsins over and buy a couple dozen oysters. I've grown up eating oysters from Puget Sound, and I'm starting to realize I don't eat them enough. And I'm pretty sure we have the best oysters. It's so odd to me that a) so many people don't know how to appreciate, much less shuck, an oyster, and b) that they're so expensive. Dickens once wrote that poverty and oysters always seem to go together. Well, I like oysters, so I hope the relationship between poverty and oysters is not causal either way.

American Pie ice cream is delicious, by the way. It's like ice cream à la mode!

Dear White Guy...

Dear White Guy,

Why haven't you been beaten you to death yet?

There are dozens of ways this video is wrong.

Thanks a lot, Angry Asian Man.

______

Today I had school. Dang it! If they don't call a snow day tomorrow, I might eat my shoe. Tomorrow is our Dr. King assembly, and I'm in charge of morning prayer, but I've still got my fingers crossed for a big deep freeze.

Today I had a meeting from 4 to 7, and snack was Ezell's. I teased one of my students for looking exactly like the guy on freecreditreport.com, which I won't link to because it's a scam. It's a scam in that it's not free at all. Incidentally, the youtube comments seem to show that the actor, "I'm thiiiiinking of a number between 450 and 850...." that the guy is a math teacher named Mark Swanson.

At 7pm after the meeting, it was snowing hard, so I offered to drive B home, rather than let her take the bus for 5 hours. We finally made it to SeaTac Mall, where I dropped her off, since the rest of the way was dangerous hills. Her husband came and got her in a minivan with chains. That was around 9pm, and it took me another hour to get back home.

For dinner I made myself two pancakes, some brown n' serve sausages, and a fried egg. That's right, for dinner, so what?

And now I'm tired and I want to go to bed.

The last 5 days

Ay! So much has happened in the last five days, I don't even know where to begin... definitely not at the beginning.

Christmas was karaoke at Uncle L's. We drank pomegranate martinis and sang karaoke. Some of A and M's friends came over. They all ate, sang karaoke... N stayed the night, even, which struck me as odd that they wanted to spend their Christmas Eve with our family, but of course they were perfectly nice, and I was glad they were there. I'm glad I had some emergency gifts to give them.... from when I bought H's Korean blanket with the Virgin of Guadalupe on it, and the shop keeper said, ok, as a bonus gift from us, take four items from this table.

My presents: Satrapi's Chicken with Plums, which I had bought for myself, but then H wrapped and gave to me; a thick green Korean blanket, and $50 cash. With the $50, I bought a red ceramic French press cafetera, which I've already used for coffee and tea. It's better than a glass French press because holds the heat in longer; and I prefer it to a stainless steel French presses, even the insulated ones, because I feel like the metal changes the taste of the coffee. It's probably all in my head, and yes, the plunger mechanism in my red ceramic French press is stainless steel, so phooey, but I like my ceramic cafetera anyway. It even has a rubber bottom, so I don't need a trivet.

My parents have arrived, and the days are flying by. Because of some cleaning and furniture planning on my part, my condo is now fully presentable, and there is plenty of space for four adults and a dog in my little casita. Even the downstairs hallway is under control. The only problem is that there are now baskets piled high of CLEAN laundry in my once simple, uncluttered bedroom, which I have no intention of folding. Well, we'll see.

Meals so far: Leftover ham and pansit from the party. Ham fried rice, tuna omelete, toast made with dried-fruit baked in. FuMan Dumplings for lunch; boiled dumplings, pan-fried pot stickers, spinach-tofu egg drop soup, tofu and veggies with garlic sauce, house special chow mein, seaweed with garlic/sesame sauce. Leftovers for dinner. Pork sausage patties, fried eggs, and toasted shokupan with B blackberry jam. Lunch at Than Bros. #10 medium, #9 large, #12 large, iced coffee, complimentary bahn choux, $20.

Dinner: chicken tinola (thanks Tulip Fleurs!), pea vines with toasted garlic and oyster sauce. After dinner we watched First Strike, and then a Good Eats marathon (Tender is the loin I & II; Wake up, little Sushi)

What else? Oh, I bought a new document shredder. No more fooling around.

Hope you all had great holidays! My gift to you, Chinese character of the day! This one, this one, and this one, with stroke animation!

Captain's log, stardate 200612.19.19

Elevated rapid transit is awesome. I can tell you that the elevated sections of the Paris Metro are the best parts of the system, in terms of riding experience. Do the noise and arial obstructions outweigh the convenience? Anyone in Chicago will tell you 'no.'

So why do I like monorails instead of heavy elevated or light rail? Because elevated monorails DON'T DERAIL.
____

Let's see, for breakfast I made a cheese omelet and some bacon.

Went to Ross to buy my chair; stopped at the Spanish Table to buy a bottle. Wandered around the Market for a while, had a cup of chowder and a crab roll for lunch. Forgot to drop off my pants for buttons; oh well.

For dinner I made steak and potatoes, deglazed again with some sake. I had some of my left over pie for dessert.
____

So I went into work today to to pick up some stuff, and found that a colega had left me a little tin of chocolate walnut cookies. Delicious. She wrote "to: khuya" in Arabic, which means "my brother."

See? Arabic and Tagalog are the same language!
____

I keep forgetting; I saw Mario Battali yesterday, as I drove past Zeitgeist.

My Sleepy Puppy Day.

If someone can point to a picture of Vietnamese deli items, labeled in English, I can tell you what I had for lunch. For now, I'll just have to tell you shrimp/pork salad roll, wide noodle salad with ham, shrimp and pork bits suspended in chewy rice goo, steamed in banana leaves, that potato scramble, and waffles.

For my late lunch, I went to Paldo World in Bellevue (I know) and had bibimbab with purple rice and a tray full of panchan. It was seven bucks, totally worth it, and I didn't have my camera on me. The lights in Paldo World were half off, and an all-ages Korean choir/orchestra entertained us from the south entrance.

For my late dinner, I made a steak with mushroom sake sauce, green potage, and steamed rice.

The Accidental Hedonist has got me thinking about cheese courses (and now sticky dark brownies).

Right now I'm boiling a couple of cans of sweetened condensed milk.

Wind Day Report

Woke up this morning at 6:30, still no power. One new message on the cell phone: No school today. Sweet.

I texted H to see what her situation was; her power stayed on. I got bored by myself without electricity, so I went to Ballard market and bought eggs, sausage patties, pita, oj. Went to H's place, she cooked breakfast. Yum!

Caught up on email, etc. Found out that Simbang Gabi Mass was canceled, or at best postponed. In either case, the church is closed for business tonight. Boo! Come on, it's the first night of Hanukkah... you know, the miracle of lights? Hmph. We may be going to someone's house, since a lot the food is ready to go, seems a shame to waste it...

Took a nap on H's couch. Woke up around 11, putzed around, made my way home.

Got home at noon; the clocks were blinking 2:30, so I'm assuming power came back on at 10:30 am. Stopped at Safeway for some chicken, chocolate, and emergency candles. The best kind of emergency candles, I think, are the Mexican novena candles, because they are cheap, bright, long lasting, and encased in a jar for safety. They used to be 99 cents, but today they were $1.49.

For lunch we had cous cous with peas, chicken tenderloins with green peppers stewed in some senegalaise peanut sauce in my freezer from the Soirée Sénégalaise. It was delicious, of course, with pita. I also brought over the cheese plate from my fridge, and some mini cheesecake squares from my freezer.

Then what happened? Surfed the net for a while, watched some Futurama, blogged. Blogging.

Tonight; no Simbang Gabi. Gotta stop by work to pick up my Christmas loot (a jar of jam, a pouch of salmon chowder concentrate, various other gifts-for-teacher). Faculty bowling is at 8:55, which is the way we market 9:00 pm, nowadays. I will miss Battlestar Galactica, but I will download it tomorrow and watch it on my laptop.

May the force be with you, or whatever.

High Winds

The SeaTac Airport people are a bunch of grinches. No trees, no menorah, no nothing, because it would have killed them to honor other religions. Gross.

Today, as I drove home from work, there was a rainstorm; it was like people were throwing buckets of water. After that was a big windstorm, and the power went out in the CD, so all intersections were four way stops.

I bought some cheese and a baguette; that might be my dinner. I'm also boiling a can of condensed milk. I'll tell you how that goes.

Frightening

My friend N in Shanghai sent me this frightening link. There is nothing about it that isn't frightening.

For dinner tonight I will have some leftover potatoes and some frozen meatballs. I'm not sure yet if I will make a cheese sauce or a brown gravy, but I sure hope there is a can of cranberry sauce somewhere in my cupboard.

Today I spent 5 hours at work for Open House. At the language dept. table, they ask us we teach Latin or Chinese, as if their lazy kids had a prayer of learning that. At the science table, they ask if they teach Creation. At the ministry table today, they asked me if the Masses were in English or Latin. They also asked how many kids come in "professing Catholicism." Wha? Are you kidding?

I went shopping afterwards. Bought a pitcher for punch, some flat plates for cheese, a chrome rack for above the sink (it doesn't fit in the kitchen, it will go in one of the bathrooms. I also bought a bench, which, once I got home, I realized it had storage inside. Sweet! Well, inside were three matching footstools. Surprise! But what am I supposed to do with three matching footstools?

Brown Elephant 2006

So tonight was our annual Brown Elephant party. For those of you that are new, in early December we have a Brown Elephant gift exchange.

My mama started this tradition one Christmas because we didn't have a lot of money for real presents, so mama went around the house wrapping what she could find; cans of tuna, panty, hospital bedpan. That's when we realized that the gifts themselves were irrelevant, the fun of Christmas is opening the packages.

Then one year, S imposed rules on our joke gifts, White Elephant rules, complete with numbers from a hat and swapping gifts and all that.

So the 2006 edition was excellent.

First, attendance: H and T, M, C and M, E and E, K and R. And me.

Next the food: Arrozcaldo, secret chicken wings, turkey/pork/beef/bacon meatloaf, cold noodles, cheese fondue (jack, cheddar, emmenthaler) with bread cubes, potatoes, and broccoli). Cheese plate, huge creamy cream puffs, spinach mushroom pastries, apple crisp.

To drink: Brown Elephant Punch (pomegranate cider with soda and rum on the rocks); frozen peach vodka, some kind of tequila in the cell phone flask.

The gifts: a tiny Christmas tree, incredible hulk fists, White Chicks DVD, Girls Gone Wild DVD, Brokeback Mountain DVD, Cowsins Gone Wild DVD (from K and R's wedding). A Japanese sake ceremony set in a box. A framed chart plotting the data of a couple's fertilization efforts. A cute teddy bear. I tried to trade for the cute teddy bear, but at the last second I was thwarted, and I ended up with Brokeback Mountain. Also, White Chicks managed to remain in my house after the party; I will keep them both.

We played Catchphrase. Overheard: fire crotch! Penis... Penal colony! Cows... The opposite of... If you get too drunk you ruin your... Wedding! The blank blank of the blankety blank!

H and T tried to rope me into watching Brokeback Mountain, but it didn't work. SNL was on, so I watched that. I'm thinking about buying another DVD player for upstairs. We'll see. They're so cheap now.

I have to go in to work tomorrow for Open House. That's when some sixth graders show up and ask what languages we offer, I tell them Spanish, French, Japanese, German. Then their parents butt in, asking if we teach Latin. I teach modern Latin, sweetheart, it's called Spanish and French.

It's either that, or they ask if we teach Chinese. Look, many students pass their language classes, many even get As. Far fewer, what, one in a thousand? go on and actually learn to speak, read, and write that language. The vast majority of these kids don't learn it because of their high school language class; they learn it because they go and spend time in the target language environment... they learn it in the wild.

And I'll guarantee you one thing; people who learn language are the students who WANT to learn it, NOT the ones who are taking it because it's useful or because they hear the buzz about all the economic benefit. People learn language because they enjoy it; their enjoyment activates their language learning instinct, and once your instinct kicks in, it's hard NOT to learn it.

Amerian second language classrooms do not exist to teach kids target language, anyway, so it doesn't matter if the target language is widely spoken or not. Second language study in America is geared towards grammatical concepts in the first language. They exclaim, "I learned more about English in Spanish class than I do in English class!" Congratulations, genius, that's why we do it. If we were serious about teaching them language, we wouldn't do it in a 5 hour a week classroom.

Shudder. Not looking forward to Open House.

Yum, Apple Crisp!