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!

Christmas Mission Accomplished

I left the house at 10am and I returned by 12:30pm, with all my gifts.

I only bought gifts for my parents and my sister. The cowsins had Brown Elephant, so the pressure is off in terms of buying them gifts.

Along the way, I found a Valerio's Bakery and bought some pandesal with ube and a couple of pork embutidos.

I bought gifts for my parents and then went to another place for my sister's gift. I found it without much trouble, and bought a couple of lamps for my den. Ok, they are disco lights.

I've got plenty to do before my parents get here, but I don't think they've started driving yet. So I'm just going to take it easy and wrap the gifts, and watch the Star Trek Voyager marathon.

No Battlestar Galactica for the next month. It's just as well; I don't like the KaraLee drama.

Christmas is a scam.

You'll need real player to listen to David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries, which I heard today on NPR. Don't worry, the download is free, and the story is awesome. AWESOME. It's about his experience as Crumpet, the Macy's elf in Santaland.


Do not miss Sedaris' Billy Holiday impression, right around the 7:50 mark. It's a really good impression!


Christmas is a scam.


Also, I'm sure these kids in the video below are nice kids, but I really find this kind ecstasy over an gift to be pretty frightening. We confuse surprise and excitedness with happiness. That doesn't look like happiness to me; it looks like anxiety (think: the Dog Whisperer). Materialism is not normal, nor is it natural; it's socialized, and reinforced throuought childhood.


You want your kids to be happy? Go ahead and buy them an N64, and play it with them. Also, encourage them to study their Spanish; help them when they need help, and praise them when they do well.

Christmas, sukkas.

Christians are gross, huh. No, not me, and not you, unless you're one of those Christians. You know, the anti-semetic kind that throw tantrums over missing trees rather than, oh, for example poverty and hunger in the world.

So check out Goldy, I don't know why I didn't say the words before, but he said it, and I'll repeat it: ANTI-SEMITIC. "Christmas is when people of all faiths come together to worship Jesus Christ," I think that's a Bart Simpson quote. That Pastor Fuiten is a horse's ass.

Meanwhile, there's at least one Jesuit who's ready to cede Christmas to the corporations, reschedule the Feast of the Nativity for a time when the Christmastree worshippers are not in a feeding frenzy.

So, there. Is there anyone else to alienate?

On a lighter note, the Vatican State is thinking about starting a soccer team. (Thanks 2x to Rocco at Whispers in the Loggia.)

During our recent War on Christmas tantrum...

Oh, those evil liberals wanted to take away our Christmas. Blame the Jews, right? Civil liberties are for asshats, right?

Well, now it looks like the FBI can bug you through your own cell phones (thanks, B). As in, when you turn your phone off and put it in you pocket, they can listen to you. You think they're getting warrants for that?

We used to have a nice country, with civil liberties and everything. I hate George Bush. His record of poor judgment, and his contempt for the Constitution has been spectacular.

By the way, this whole 'listening' act that he's doing now is a stunt. We all know they've decided to up troop levels for the short term to try to extinguish violence all at once, instead of chasing it around from province to province.

Stupid man. Why didn't we send enough troops in 2003? Is there any possible way for him to answer that without him being an incompetent moron? Let's all say it together: insufficient intelligence.

Stupid Christians

I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state. Absolutely.

I also believe the First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees freedom of worship.

So when a rabbi points out a bunch of Christmas decorations in a public building and asks for the menorah to be displayed, my inclination would be to PUT UP A MENORAH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

Stupid Christians, you don't understand your Christianity, (the Jews are not our opponents) and you don't understand the Constitution, so no wonder you don't know how to keep them separate. High school civics, children.

As you know, the Port of Seattle took out its Christmas trees, believing that the rabbi would bring a lawsuit. The rabbi was all over the news, telling people WITH WORDS that he never asked for the removal of the Christmas trees, but for them to add a menorah to the display. The rabbi did not remove your Christmas trees, the PORT OF SEATTLE did.

So then the so-called Christians came out of the woodwork to throw a tantrum, blamed the rabbi and the liberals, lamented the loss of the trees. When the story got national attention, the Port of Seattle replaced the trees. STILL NO MENORAH.

You idiots. Will it kill you to honor the Jewish community? Would you DIE if you had to recognize that some people don't celebrate the same holidays as you? The rabbi isn't trying to deprive you of your stupid trees, he's asking to be INCLUDED in our society.

The First Amendment that guarantees and protects the freedom of worship that allows you to worship your Christmas trees also guarantees and protects the freedom of other religious communities. If you're going to spend the public's money to honor a Christian holiday, it's not going to kill you to put out a menorah.

Now, it's a valid point that the menorah is a religious symbol, and that Christmas trees are more a symbol of the Christian community, and not of Christianity itself. So then you TALK to the rabbi, and you honor the Jewish community with a symbol that's less religious.

But if you can't figure out how to honor everybody, then do your job and remove all religious symbols from my airport. And quit whining about it, seriously, because a) you're not creative enough to solve the problem, and b) the First Amendment protects all of us from religious persecution, and I'd rather have a tree-less airport is preferable to living in a country with religious persecution.

I am sick of hearing people pretend that it's a terrible burden to honor diversity, whether it's linguistic, religious, or cultural. If you're too lazy to recognize other people's beliefs, then to hell with your Christmas trees.

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.

Apple Crisp is in the oven

So I finally made the apple crisp; I used four big Rome apples and my mama's apple pie crust recipe, but I added a fistful of brown sugar. We'll see how it goes!

I've managed to convince my thermostat to stay on for more than five minutes... whoops, it just shut off. Spoke too soon. Oh well, it's a blistering 66 degrees in the house.

I was supposed to put up the Christmas tree today; there's still plenty of time to do it tonight, but I think I'll do it tomorrow, because CLASSES ARE CANCELED FOR TOMORROW, TOO! We just had a mid-week weekend! Our assembly has been moved to Friday, so we'll rehearse Thursday. Our reconciliation service is canceled. Sweet!

I might stop in at work tomorrow, just to grab a stack of papers. If the roads are ok, I'll go looking for dishwashers. I subscribed to Consumer Reports; they like Frigidare, Maytag, and Kenmore. I'll stop at Loew's, Best Buy, and then Sears. Any suggestions?

I gotta go jiggle the thermostat again.

I made it, thank you God!

Well, folks, I made it to Thanksgiving break, thank you Jesus. Now I have a chance to catch up on grades, clean the house, redraft an assembly get the fireplace fixed... oh yah, and eat turkey. H and I are going to auntie A's place.

Yesterday I skipped 中文 class, so I could be ready for work today. I took a delicious nap when I got home, but dreamt that I had a crushing muscle cramp... in my thumb. Don't remember which, but it woke me up. Neither thumb hurt when I shook off the groggies, so maybe the cramp itself was a dream. Just to be safe, I drank a bucket of water. Can you get a thumb cramp?

One thing my 中文 teacher taught us was that "Yao Ming, " referring to the the famous center for the Houston Rockets, is just a nom de plume. Or maybe nom de balon. It was meant to sound like the Chinese word for "EXTREME!!!!!!" Anyway, my favorite online 中文/English dictionary shows that they are different 汉字，and 姚 is a common surname.

Trad.	Pinyin	English
姚明	yáo míng	Yao Ming, Chinese NBA star player;
要命	yào mìng	(v) cause sb to die; (adj) extremely; frighteningly; very; (adj) annoyance;

My parents are coming to stay in December for a few weeks; it's time to buy some furniture. I'll post some of my choices here.

Pineapple Express

Well, folks, it has been raining HARD here, today but mostly yesterday. Yes, yes, it's raining hard even by Seattle standards. There are flood alerts all over the place, and in the rural areas, there are houses and roads being washed away.

I don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder. I'm from here. I like the rain.

I think I do get extra dramatic when the rainy season starts in earnest. So far, I've contacted a few of my friends from college and grad school who I've almost totally lost touch with, just to reconnect.

I have a side ache. It's too high to be appendicitis... it actually feels like gas. But it's been there since midnight last night, when I was trying to sleep.

There was a death in the community yesterday; today we pulled together a Mass. There's another Mass on Thursday, for Veterans' Day. I don't want to sing "America the Beautiful."

My ballot is sitting here next to me, I have to go drop it off. I will stop by the store on the way home pick up some tomato sauce, tortilla chips, maybe some sour cream. I'm gonna try to bring my lunch tomorrow. Peanut butter and jelly? Or maybe some left over chili?

Aujourd'hui les collegues m'ont critiqué que j'avais le portable éteint. A mon avis, éteindre le portable est l'avantage d'en avoir, quand même. Je m'en fou de ça, surtout parce que l'un d'eux qui m'a critiqué est un de ces gens qui a peur d'avoir un portable. Il y avait des tas des fois que on avais besoin de se communiquer avec lui, mais il a peur....

Il a pas le droit de m'en critiqué. Je crois qu'il a peur que tout le monde lui appelle, mais la solution est très simple, faut éteindre le portable, et voilà, ça y est.

Halloween?

I don't like dressing up for any reason. Not for weddings, funerals, parties, Halloween... no reason. The students ask me why I don't dress for "spirt week" or "decades day" (dude, for me, every day is 'decades day.' Specifically, the 90s).

So I don't like dressing up.

But I do like hats!

So today I went to Sears on First Ave ostensibly to get new pants. I didn't even look at pants, but I did look at a futon, and the fall home furnishings reminded me that it's time for another fondue party.

And then I walked across the street to the military surplus store, and bought three hats: a Greek fisherman's hat, a chef's hat, and a drab cap with a red star. So I figure I can either be a sea captain, a chef, or a communist for Halloween. I will probably be all three throughout the day... but to be honest, putting on the hats will most likely be the furthest extent of my "dressing up."

The weather, by the way, has been downright cinematic. Foggy morning, hard rain at noon, the sun and blue skys while I was still at lunch, overcast in the afternoon with blustery wind, swirling leaves, and skies full of small, flocking birds. Now, golden sunset.

I want pie. Or ice cream or something.

I'm Thirty Four

It's my birthday. And although I've always hated that 'princess for a day' bullshit, I know you all believe in it, so here's what I want. Give it to me.

• to speak Tagalog, Mandarin, and Italian better
• to be a more competent composer
• to make a ton of money and retire early
• to have straight teeth that bite correctly
  
• to not be so fat all the time
• to get around Seattle on elevated rapid transit
• to not get the cold that's going around
• maybe a couple of v-neck sweaters

Love you, Mama! Thanks for birthing me!

Saturday Night in a Clean House

My sister stayed the night last Thursday, which means the place appears clean. I could still stand to mop the kitchen floor, finish the laundry, re-arrange the rec room, vaccuum downstairs. However that kind of stuff smacks of "strain" which I'm supposed to avoid due to the kidney biopsy.

A and J came over, we had dinner at Tutta Bella, came back to my place and chatted while half watching an awful Olsen Twins movie "The Challenge." I like having a clean house and having respectable people over. I pretty much forgot about the missing chunks of my kidneys. Althought I did regret not having fun snacks or drinks to offer.

When they left, I came into the office to blog. I put on the tv and watched the very end of Star Wars Episode II: The Clone Wars. When it ended, I hadn't changed the channel, and now it seems I'm watching Kill Bill Part 2.

I just realized it's a three day weekend; I have two more days to enjoy this clean upstairs. And orders from the doctor not to strain, lift, or cough.

4th Of July

There are a lot of fireworks. My neighborhood smells like gunpowder, and it's visibly smokey. I started hearing explosions at around 3pm today; it's almost 11pm now, and I can still hear patriotic whistles and pops.

I used to live at the southern tip of Wallingford, and I miss it. I miss the great view, I miss the people wandering in to use our bathroom, I miss yelling at the crowd as they all walked out on foot. Go home! There's cake at home! Go home and shave!

I forgot to make plans for today; I got invited to a party at the last minute, but then my sister talked me into staying home alone. Maybe next year I'll go somewhere. This is actually the first time I've spent the fourth of July in Seattle for a long time. I'm usually out of the country.

Then maybe I can avoid all the local news coverage. They've got reporters at Gasworks, 4th of Jul-Ivars, Bellevue, Everett, Emerald Queen... Not even earthquakes get this much coverage in Seattle. This kind of coverage is usually reserved for something like.... snow.

Well, time to study Chinese.