Life

Tonight’s Walk Around The Neighborhood

After enjoying our 4th Asian/2nd Korean meal since our exchange students arrived, my wife and I took off on our walk.  After we settled into our walk pace with only the occasional yo-yo-ing as either my wife or I assumed the lead, we dodging a few sprinklers and the set of grandparents walking all of their grandkids, the walk really only had two, make it three, alright four is my limit, highlights.

  1. As we rounded one of the 4 courts we walk (the walk in total is about 3 miles), an older hobbit-like gentlemen with a 4-pointed cane visually separated himself from the HOA-demanded, brick mailbox.  As we got closer to him and prior to him looking up, my wife said, “How are you doing tonight?”  Without missing a beat, he looked up and said, “I hate healthy people!” (His response was definitely an exclamation point.) Instead of risking saying something that might falsely assume he was joking, I simple replied, ” We like you too!”  In my one previous encounter with this neighbor, he did seem a little eccentric.  I am not completely sure what the “boring-psychotic” spectrum looks like, but this guy just graduated out of eccentric.
  2. Over the past 2-3 weeks, we have continued to pass the same location at just over our half way point in our walk.  At a built up stone wall with grass behind, there is a brush that I do not believe has moved during the whole period.  Initially, I thought the girl who gets on the school bus there used it to kill time and get beautiful prior to getting on the bus.  (This was the theory after the “she-just-left-it-there-this-morning” hypothesis soon was realized to be horribly incorrect.)  My present theory unless I become brave enough to try and physically move the brush is the many hairs on the brush have become semi-sentient.  They will/make themselves to go into the soil, and they are now bringing nutrients and moisture up into the brush, the giver of life.  Should I start to see a stem, I will go to the tree under the cover of darkness and dig it up so it can be transplanted in my backyard.  I do not know what a crop of brushes will look like, but it is sure to sell on eBay.
  3. The house that has been “Just Listed” for the past month has apparently reached its statute of limitations.  The real estate police came out and let them know once you exceed 30 days, the word “Just” can’t be used on your real estate sign UNLESS it is the name of your realtor. Also, on the same real estate sign, they have 3 baby signs underneath the parent signs.  (I believe the three say, “Pool”, “Unbelievable”, “Must See”, respectively.) We are convinced the listing price will go down $10,000 per “baby” sign removed.
  4. The “Yard of the Month” sign finally moved yesterday.  The other house had been allowing the sign to camp in their yard for the past 5 or 6 weeks, and I think their bushes, perennials and annuals were feeling the pressure.  When plants can’t relax, no amount of water can relieve the stress. The newly appointed “yard” seems to be dwelling in the yard with the second best flowers in the neighborhood.  The yard with the best flowers must be a recent recipient of the coveted award or they must be behind on their HOA dues.  We thought planting all of our roses in the spring would have paid off, but the sprinkler guy adjusted all of the heads in the front bed, and the petunias all died.  We will be sure to be early with the dues next year!

We enjoy our walks, the Texas fall night, and the healthy bodies God has blessed us with.  Although not all walks bring the incredible insights I received this evening, I continue to be grateful my wife is by my side, and I can always hold out hope the kids finally did the dinner dishes while we enjoyed our walk.

 

 

Milk To The 4th

We like milk. Well, at least we used to.  Now it seems regular milk is simply not good enough for our population of mammals.  Where once we had a total of 3 types of “cow” milk (Our kids drank 2%, my wife(on the rare occassions she drank milk) and I drank skim milk, and our undernourished foster child drank whole milk) living in our refrigerator, we now, today as I write this, have a variety of things that have never seen the inside of a cow.

The milk-ish products in our frig include the following:

  • Gallon of 2% milk:  Our only shout out to the milk of my youth.  (Growing up, we got milk directly from our neighbor who milked the cows.  We got whole milk that was unpasteurized and unhomogenized.  Once the milk settled out, my mother scraped off the cream that rose to the top and made yogurt.  I don’t remember eating any of the yogurt, but she told me she used the dehydrator to make it.  My daughter has heard this rumor and wants me to put the dehydrator on my Christmas list so she can experiment.  Since getting the blender for Father’s Day, she has had far more fun with it than I.  Why shouldn’t she ask for it?)
  • Almond milk:  My mother has been buying Almond milk at Aldi’s for a number of years.  She has been cheering its merits for quite some time.  I have tried it, but remain a traditional mammal.  The non-traditional mammals will drink it knowing full well there is no guarantee when or IF the carton will be replaced when emptied.
  • Soy milk:  This one was one I did not really ever planning on drinking.  Our Chinese exchange student doesn’t ask for much, so when she requested the soy milk, it seemed hard to turn her down.  She drinks it very diligently….a cup in the morning and at night. [I believe.]  (My experience with Chinese students [I am guessing adults, too.] is they are very disciplined.  And she certainly is that.  She likes sweets, but limits (at least she gives all appearances of limiting) her consumption of them.  She may sneak an extra cookie into her lunch, but she is rarely seen getting a snack after dinner.)
  • Coconut milk:  This one is my fault.  I had this incredible plan to make a Caribbean feast for dinner.  I had 15 or so skinless, boneless chicken thighs marinated w/ a bottle of Caribbean Jerk marinade.  Since I was such a good planner the night before, I had set 4 cups of beans in a bowl with 12 cups of cold water.  They expanded nicely and after cooking in the crockpot all day, they were ready to be blended with some rice in an INCREDIBLE (or not) Caribbean Beans w/ Rice.  Since last time we made rice, I doubled it and there was barely any left over for school lunches.  I determined I was going to get ahead of the curve and double it.  The plan was good, but I failed to factor in the impact of the coconut milk on the flavor of the rice.  Needless to say, the rice wasn’t a hot mover at dinner.  When the containers came out for pre-packing tomorrow’s lunch, the rice was almost completely absent from the festivities. Only one container had the rice paired with some broccoli.  I don’t fault them for not being more enthusiastic.  A happy, satisfied cook is much more likely to experiment and sometimes hit one out of the park.  Right…..a half gallon of coconut was purchased for the bean and rice experiment.  It was cheaper than buying 2 cans, and it may tempt us into other experiments.
  • Hazelnut creamer:  We have had one of these in the frig for quite some time.  I am NOT a black coffee drinker.  My wife sometimes dances with the black brew. I am also a recovering sugar user–why does my wife stay married to me?  I usually don’t use full strength creamer.  I will splash the creamer and make up the difference with milk. I have attempted to take walks with other flavors of creamer, but I usually reach the bottom of the cup  unsatisfied.
  • Chocolate Caramel creamer:  Since my son moved back home while commuting to school, he has revealed a variety of new habits.  The habit that pleases my wife the most is his graduation to coffee drinker.  As an added bonus, he usually has coffee in the morning and another cup in the nightish time.  The chocolate caramel is definitely his creamer of choice.  My daughters have also been known to make an iced coffee where this creamer is an ingredient.  If our youngest son would only start drinking coffee, my wife would know her job as mother was a successful one.

I suppose milk to the 6th might also have been an appropriate title.  Having sometimes been overly a purist, I was not sure exactly if the creamers qualified for a “power of milk”.  In my desire to be accurate, I may have inadvertently offended any whose entire dairy consumption comes from their coffee cup.  (Better milk than those little, non-dairy creamer cups–yuch!)

Also, I have failed to address any cheese present in the frig.  For those who are curious:

  • we have mexican shredded cheese for our frequent tacos, carnitas, and fajitas
  • cream cheese for any of those bagel purchased at the discount bread store,
  • American cheese-we really don’t eat it.  It is only to show our support for America–kind of like putting out the flag on various holidays,
  • Provolone-one of the best cheeses ever.  When it goes on a hamburger, the meat gives it a big hug and takes a bite out of its neck in a pseudo-vampirian embrace,
  • Mozzarella-the pizza cheese of choice–as long as it hasn’t already gone moldy,
  • Parmesan- a nice thing to have around for those Italianish things us Americans think we do so well.
  • The final holdout…sour cream– not a cheese, not a milk.  It is a big glob of dairy goo that is all too necessary when I make banana bread.

Maybe at some future day, I can give a tour of the vegetables presently residing in our frig.  (Even more exciting, the ice cream and dairy products residing in our freezer.) It is not as good as an adventure movie, but may compete with “Honey Boo Boo”.  (I doubt they have many vegetables in their refrigerator.)  Making a milk “suicide” (in my youth, a suicide was a little bit of each soda/pop available at the fountain.  Cream soda was essential for a good one.) might just be the right way to bring closure to my dairy adventure….

Learning To Breathe

If you came here looking for something profound and life changing, you need to change the station now.  This is exactly as stated….

As I attempted to refill my black mango tea cup today, the sweetener was not set up correctly. As I poured a small taste into my cup of both non-sweetened and sweetened, it was clear there was a sweetener issue.  The staff at QuikTrip confirmed the sweetener issue and made up a new batch.  And, because of my wait, they provided two coupons for a free drink refill.  As I attempted my second draw of tea, I must have been distracted because it did not go so well.  I coughed and hacked and drooled on the floor.  As I attempted to clean up my mess and draw a normal breath, my tea princess popped her head around the corner to check on me.  I thanked her and let her know I would make it.

I have been breathing all of my life.  (Well, since I believe life begins at conception, I guess “darn near most of it” would be a more accurate statement. Breathing without lungs is something not even an illusionist like David Copperfield could get away it.)  And, with the exception of the time frame just mentioned, I have been drinking (i.e. milk, tea, coffee, water etc.)  most of my life.  Maybe I have been occasionally choking most of my life as well.  It is bad enough having a self-inducing coughing/choking fit in your home with just your children or siblings to mock you.  When you have such an attack in a public place where you have already drawn attention to yourself, every one of the spittey, drooley, frothey, projectile balls flying from your mouth seems like a reason to be referred to you as an aging member of society with compromised bodily functions.

I am not that old.  I don’t look that old.  But, I do creak more along with more of all of the other noises that are part of the human experience.  And, maybe living in my body for a number of years now makes me sensitive to the odd looks and personal questions more than I should.  I was young once with an absolute certainty I would never age.  I used to look at older people and wonder how they were able to function in a body so lacking in youth.  Now, the mirror, my ears, joints and hairline confirm I am on the path to what I saw as old.  Fortunately, I continue to reset the boundary.  Although I am older, old is reserved for people in the cemetery–I have PLENTY of time!

Cross Country Morning Madness

The beginning of the school year revolves around pretty much one thing–cross country.  Yes, there is school and homework and various other social things.  But, these other things are only added to the calendar if is does not interfere with cross country.  So, as much as my daughters enjoy (not always) cross country, here is a somewhat unbiased look at its impact on our lives:

  1. Wake up time:  Cross country practice starts at 6:00 AM through almost the end of October. Since they don’t drive themselves and can’t walk there, my wife an I alternate between assuming taxi duties.  After my wife’s dropoff, she usually drives in to work and fires the computer up early to be prepared for any of the east coast meetings she needs to participate in.  When I return to the house at about 6:20, I usually drag for a couple hours before crawling back into bed OR I go immediately back to bed.  Even when there are exceptions to adding more sleep to my beauty (or something like that), I often do not function at to high of a level without hoarding some more “shut-eye”.
  2. No weekend off:  It would be one thing if it were only during the week, but all of this training has to be put into action sometimes, and the sometime is almost always the weekend.  Since it gets warm later in the day, the meets also occur early morning.  As it is our coaches desire to arrive at all meets an hour before the first heat so the course can be walked prior to running, the kids sometimes need to be at the course 2 to 3 hours before they actually run.  When the meets start at 8:00, it makes the adults coffee addicts for a solid couple of months.
  3. Four girls out the door:  They try so hard, but it is hard.  When they leave the house, they need to have their lunch, a water bottle, a couple of snacks, a change of clothes, and shower supplies.  If it were just one or two kids, I  could keep track of things a little more closely.  When 4 girls (no matter how responsible and/or sincere in trying to get everything) participate in this daily morning ritual, it is no surprise when a couple times a month an extra trip needs to be made to school to fix a “whoops”. (Snacks are not a “whoops”; lack of clothes definitely are!)
  4. Prepacked breakfast and lunches:  Even though they do provide cereal for the kids to eat prior to school, they usually need something before their morning cross country work outs.  The quality of this morning snack depends on their planning (both the night before and the morning of) and their pickyness.  Almost all lunches are packed the night before.  This causes the front of the refrigerator (at least 2 of the shelves) to look like something nearly any engineer would be embarrassed to claim any knowledge of.  Each girl may have 2 or 3 plastic containers and possibly a sandwich bag with a pita/wrap/bread inefficiently balanced on top of a few other soon-to-be consumed items.  This is a little chaos–far less chaos and inefficiency if it were necessary to get everyone up 10 minutes earlier to pack their lunches in a semi-sleeping state.
  5. Leaving something in the taxi:  This is usually a pretty simple “turn around and remove” the forgotten item.  It is the “turning” around I dread.  This morning, I started turning around as soon as I heard my cell phone ring.  (I don’t get many calls at 6:00 AM) Even though it was an early hour, the other drivers seemed to be bothered when I took up 2.5 lanes waiting for a opening.   As I have been known to say when we leave the house, “Don’t forget your pants.”, I will now add, “Don’t forget your waters.” as I prepare to pull out of the school parking lot.
  6. Differing schedules:  This year, I have 1-middle schooler, 2-high schooler, and 1-cross country photographer.  The middle schoolers don’t practice every day, and the photographer really doesn’t have to be there for practice. (The taxi driver goes into a rant if he/she has to drive the school route to many times within a 2 hour period.) Due to this schedule, two (or one) or our students are forced to be there early with nothing specific to do.  When the season started, the coach held the line saying they couldn’t go into the school.  With this rule softening, the “non-practicers” can hang out in the school and safely do their homework without over-straining their sand-encrusted eyes.

Now, that I totally discouraged everyone from encouraged their kids to do cross country, I will try (some may call these big stretches but I prefer to view it as just being optimistic.) to point out some good things:

  1. More opportunities for dates:  As we drop the girls off at the school so they can take the bus to the meet, my wife and I get chances to have more little dates together.  Although breakfast is not my favorite date meal, it is better than nothing.  (It would be better if Texas had a few Bob Evans restaurants….)  Our conversations are often somewhat superficial as the “talking” part of our brains are content to hide their wit until after coffee or mental boredom becomes impossible to bear.  If you can like your spouse consistently at a time prior to 6:00 AM, you should have a good marriage. 😉
  2. Self-esteem in the kids:  Both of our bio-daughters are pretty consistent-to-improving in their meet participation.  Our Korean exchange student has never run competitively before.  She started getting up early shortly after arriving–no matter how much her body’s clock fought her.  She ran despite the pain and all out rebellion of most of her muscle groups.  She endured excessive sunshine (based on info I have, Koreans like cloudy days with some rain.  Full sunshine is an allergen that makes them run to shade while practically abandoning all concerns of personal safety.)  As she ran her first meet on a difficult track and completed the course in front of many other runners, you could see the satisfaction on her face of having accomplished something.  (My daughters were 2 – 5 minutes ahead of her in time.  The coach is convinced she was not winded enough at the end and she can cut 4 minutes from her time—ohhhhh, cross country coaches!)
  3. Part of a team:  The coach acts like a coach.  She praises rarely, and criticizes freely.  Whether it is loyalty to the coach or it is all of the runners uniting against a shared dictator, the team is very supportive of each other.    The high school kids cheer on the middle school kids.  Because the team needs 5 “good” times to have a chance of placing at the meet, even the slowest athlete is given very positive encouragement to “hang in there”.  (Since it is a small school, no matter how slow the 5th member of the team is, there would not be a team capable of competing without him. )

If my youngest daughter participates her senior year, we have 4 more years of this madness.  It is not our desire for our girls to get good enough to get any type of scholarship out of this sport.  We know it is one of the experiences that makes them more interesting people.  It is an activity that balances them as people.  And, as parents, we are not supposed to think of our comfort.  Children are a gift, and we owe it to them to let them know it.  Comfort is for cruise vacations; life is a series of experiences shared with others–regardless of the time of day you need to be there to be bathed in it.

 

Grilled Cheese With Waffle Iron Included

Another one to clear out of the “draft” folder….

Waffleless Grilled Cheese

After last weeks cruise, the emphasis this week was on improving our diets.  (Although cruises are infamous for throwing a few pounds on the hips and any other place they will stick, a combination of exercise and minimal additional meals [the always available pizza and hamburgers does seem to make our decisions more like fish stories, but they are true!!] allowed us to not get to far off of the scale.)  We had two meals using spinach tortillas.  Chicken and lots of those green leafy, onioney, and peppery things with a touch of salad dressing made these pretty healthy choices.  The girls made a new batch of red roasted pepper hummus.  They invited me to join them for their carrot/celery/pretzel dipping feast. As a reward and because it just does not seem right to let a week go by without serving our taste buds something new, my daughters fulfilled their wish to re-purpose the waffle iron.

Without much guidance but a pressing need to use a non-stick spray, we treated the waffle-grilled cheese just like how we would have treated it if on a griddle.  The waffle timer was mostly irrelevant.  And, our waffle iron “likes” to have everything squashed together pretty tight before it will allow the waffle iron to do a half flip.  The first couple sandwiches were not fully embracing their waffleness.  We were reluctant to force everything into the very tight space demanded by the waffle iron.  As the successes continued, we took more risk.  By the 5th one (my oldest son ate two), we were pretty confident in the latitude allowed us.

This was not a diet meal, but it was fun and not too bad for us.  (We did use wheat bread!)  With the carbohydrates being watched (breakfast food tends to be heavy in the carbs and the grease – pancakes and sausage or french toast and bacon or donuts.), it is good to take one of the those appliances that has to compete for shelf space a chance to shine.  And, shine it did!  Although we were tempted to fill the waffle dimples with syrup, we were very content to consume our sandwich with a side of chips and salsa.

Maybe the waffle quesadilla will be our next attempt to give the waffle iron a little higher place on the appliance shelf.  (I don’t know if there is a pecking order with appliances, but I am sure the non-electric ones [manual can opener] are constantly dealing with self-esteem issues.)  Regardless of the appliance or ingredients, lunch is better with my girls and the enthusiasm they bring to nearly everything.

Ancient Chinese Secret

CIMG5508

Even though the picture may give a clue to the “secret”, the question remains, secret to what?  Well, we will get there!

While traveling in China last year (good fun while at a good value), nearly every hotel had a hot water maker similar to the one shown.  And, being we were in China, the tea bags were available with a variety of flavors available.  Somewhere during the middle of our (my wife and I) trip, I commented to my wife, “Boy, this would be something I would not mind having at home.”  The trip ended and since the last water heater was not able to fit into our luggage (not really), it remained on my Christmas list.  By my own admission, I am hard to shop for.  Thus, almost everything on my list ends up being wrapped and stuffed under the artificial Christmas tree.  (If you need me to say directly I got the heater, “I got the heater!”

I enjoyed it during the winter and spring, but as we moved into summer, the “teapot” spent nearly all of its collecting dust on our counter.  That is until about 3 weeks ago….our exchange students arrived.  It did not take them long to practically adopt the teapot as their very own.  (They also made it nearly impossible to keep coffee/tea mugs clean.)  Remarkably, they just heated the water w/o tea when they drank it. And, drink it they did.  Specifically, our Chinese student drank the warm/hot water almost exclusively.  Her claim was drinking the hot water would cure her of the cold she caught in New York prior to arriving at our door.  She had to promise me for a couple days that the cold/cough could be taken out by hot water before it happened.  When it did, she got some satisfaction out of getting better w/o our “wacky” (I don’t think she used this word–my interpretation of her actions) western medicine. Because all water must be boiled in China before drinking, the logic seemed solid for drinking hot water, but would drinking hot water allow a skeptical American to dodge an extended illness?

Since I really had nothing to lose, I decided to give it a shot. I attempted the “hot water” challenge for 2 days. (I began this attempt 5 days ago.)  During that time I drank coffee, tea (in bags I drank green tea and other varieties from Trader Joes, and loose tea brought by our Chinese student–two pinches in the bottom of the cup—MAN, does it expand as it rehydrates!) and the plain hot water.  Drinking hot water might seem fine when you just crawl in from the desert and mumble through cracked lips, “Water”.  But, drinking hot water while an ice maker drops a load inside the freezer seems just plain wrong.  Regardless of how disconcerting this exercise may have felt, for two days I held firm.  I did have the occasional sweats that are sometimes a part of being sick.  I was not sure if they were regular sweats or sweats induced because of the oral enemas I was subjecting myself to. (It just seems weird using this word in this context because it summons up some childhood memorie.  Having those memories while in my adult body is certainly no where near any “happy place” I would describe for anyone!)

As I look back over the illness, I am not quite sure how to evaluate my recovery.  I do have a couple of lingering symptoms, but I think they are part of my “normal” recovery pattern.  The real question still remains:  Does drinking hot water shorten the length of the viruses reign in your body?   Is “hot water” a mass hypnosis technique conducting on the entire Chinese population?  Is “sweat tea” and “Coke” a product cleverly engineered by big business to make us all smile and/or speak southern?  Regardless of the outcome, it doesn’t hurt to try out a few “secrets” from other cultures.  If it doesn’t kill you…..something else will.  But, you will get a few cultural experiences along the way.

 

Impatient Motorist

In a parallel dimension – somewhere – an impatient motorist hears a siren blaring. To avoid having to stop for the ambulance, she tries to outrun it. Succumbing to the pressure of her husband, she pulls into a driveway to allow the ambulance to pass. As the ambulance prepares to pass it stops and it blares even louder. It also honks its horn–something is wrong with how she is parked. Is she still in the road? What has she done wrong?

In frustration, she pulls back on the asphalt and continues driving south on the tree lined country road. The sirens stop and the ambulance pulls into the very driveway she was parked in.

A small headline the next day read, “Ambulance Arrives Seconds To Late to Save Victim”. Our driver felt very badly. Her vehicle now bears a bumper sticker stating, “I don’t speak SIREN, I only speak HORN”

This is entirely fictional–unless you choose to believe any of it. And, then I will tell you what is not.

Exchange Student Fried Rice

CIMG5442A great experience was had the other night.  (As I write this on Monday, it happened last night.)  With less than 2 weeks in America, our Chinese student was convinced she could make fried rice for dinner for us.  We were not sure if the ingredients from Kroger would give her enough spice to be pleased with her creation.  (There was minimum Asian spice options at Sprouts, and the local Asian market is still on our “to do” list.)  We had a few unknowns.  Despite these, we/she persevered!

She decided to make two separate batches of fried rice.  Our jambalaya from earlier in the week convinced her smoked sausage would be an excellent ingredient in whatever she would attempt to create.  This doesn’t rule out shrimp-fried rice, but it was not to be created this evening.  Her ingredients and any applicable back story:

  • Smoked sausage:  (listed above)  We love this stuff!  When you buy the 3 lb package at Sam’s, it is always good to have multiple ways to use it.
  • Rice:  At home in China, her parents have a rice maker.  She was a little skeptical I could make adequate rice in a pan w/ a lid on the stove.  Fortunately, the goal was achieved.  (The fact we misjudged the amount of rice necessary was a very small point!)
  • Celery:  She did not precook this at all.  She probably only included a couple of stalks for both of the varieties.
  • Carrots:  Probably only 10 or so carrot nubs (what I call the small little carrots that are demanded by all children when they pack their lunches. 😉  She boiled them for a little while before cutting them into little pieces.
  • Eggs:  Prior to starting the frying process, a couple eggs were cooked and readied to be dumped into the fried rice.  (So, they were fried before being fried.)
  • Green onions:  Cut and in a separate bowl.  These were added at the end.  Earlier in the week, after having a bit of Mexican food, she had mentioned using cilantro in the fried rice.  Having established a baseline rice, we can now consider creating some mutations.
  • Soy sauce:  Not much, but the garden variety of stuff is probably fine.
  • Lee Kum Kee Chile Garlic Sauce:  This stuff added great flavor, although I am not sure if its spiciness may have created some chaos once it entered my body.  Very flavorful, but…..???
  • Ketchup:  We just used standard Heinz.  It probably amounted to a couple of tablespoons.  She told a story of how for one week in China all she ate for all of her meals was ketchup fried rice.  (I believe there was also some protein [shrimp or sausage?] with it.)  When her mother found out, she scolded her.
  • Lee Kum Kee Oyster Flavored Sauce:  This sauce/seasoning did not go in the ketchup flavored fried rice.  It may have just been her choice.

Tools

  • Wok/pan: She claimed my wok was too big.  So, we used our indoor pan-not the one claiming to be a non-stick.
  • Heat source:  When I got my wok, I got a outdoor burner to use it on.  It can easily get to over 400 degrees if necessary.

Results

  • Good meal:  Both types of rice were very good.  The ketchup version was good, but I probably enjoyed the other version better.  It had a little more heat and flavor.  And, even though I have confirmed with our Chinese student that they have ketchup in her refrigerator at home, it still seems sooooo American.  Something without ketchup is certainly more exotic and interesting.
  • Warmups for school lunches:  The next day, all remaining rice ended up in somebodies lunch.  The little plastic containers were all packed full, and stowed away until the appropriate school lunch time arrived. To my knowledge, all who took the rice ate it cold the next day.

Future Meals….?

Since having this meal, we have discussed what other items we might make fried rice with.  We had some pork the other night that was being considered for fried rice, but it ended up in pork and noodles.  (We had never made pork and noodles before, but we were assured by our local fried rice consultant it was the better choice.)  However, if we did the fried rice w/ pork, she thought the addition of spinach might be a good touch.  When she first arrived, her often hear comment was, “Chinese….we eat everything.”  And, I suppose if you have the capacity to eat everything, you should know how to accompany it.  As a corollary to “eating everything”, there is “wasting nothing”.  I am sure if we didn’t have spinach available, she would have come up with something else to throw into the wok w/ the rice and pork.  There will likely be a seafood, beef and/or chicken fried rice before the final votes are cast on “best” fried rice.

As with all of the many experiences the exchange students have provided, we just sit back and watch and lend a hand when asked.  To come this far from their family, they have to have a spirit of independence.  It only seems logical we try and encourage their independence.  Since we are not native to their countries, anything they cook us is going to be judged very much in their favor.  Although we may have ideas on Chinese or Korean food, our daily interaction with them and how and what they eat gives us a much fuller picture of what life is like around their dinner tables when at home.  Our palates can only become richer from the experience!  Our teenage daughters cannot help but be more open to foods from other cultures.  (In the past, there have been occasional reservations.)   And, our refrigerator and I (official member of the leftover police and the excessive plastic container detectors) are grateful for other options as we effectively reuse our food overages in creative and tongue-pleasing ways!

 

 

Waiting Room Etiquette

As I got an oil change this morning on my wife’s car, I had my Kindle by my side.  I had nothing really pressing that needed read, but since the maintenance light was turned on on the dash, reading here was just fine.  (This was the place we always come, so they had our license plate and all of our info in their system.)  As my cell phone rang and I immediately stepped out of the door to prevent others from having to listen to my call, I realized people standards vary on how they interact with those they share the waiting room with.

  1. You should leave the waiting room when you are on the phone:  Two other customers also received calls and stepped out of the waiting room.  I had no way to judge them or what is going on in their lives because other than minimum interaction with the oil change staff, I did not hear their voices.  However, if a person chooses to stay in the waiting room and talk to the staff of her mother’s rehab center about her mother’s depression and how the move has been so hard on her, then my brain gets filled with information that would otherwise be private.  I really prefer not to know about all of the challenges that people face if I don’t know your name first.
  2. Where to sit:  This is a pretty obvious issue.  In almost NO cases should a person sit next to another person.  To help clarify this point, I will sometimes put my extra items on the seat next to me.  Since I was on the edge, I only had one seat to protect.  As a person sits in the middle, this strategy is not always as effective.  Corners are also good.  Just as in Tic-Tac-Toe, there are good starting positions and better places to put an “0” if an “X” is already present.  If TV viewing is a must, the rules are slightly modified.  However, if you don’t like woman’s talk shows, you better have a book or a smartphone.
  3. Talking with fellow waitees:  I have talked to others before, but this happens quite a bit less than half the time.  If someone is reading a book and I catch the title or if I see a religious symbol of some type, I might say something.  If the response is unenthusiastic, I am not married to the idea of engaging in a conversation.  At the moment, I cannot think of many/any times a fellow waitee has started a conversation with me.  If so, it was likely based on the person eavesdropping on me attempted conversation.  So, something in my failed conversation served as a catalyst for the “new” conversation.

I am sure there are other rules that apply, but I intersected with none of them today.  A little advice during checkout,,,if you say “yes” to any of their recommendations (rotate tires, change bulbs or change filters), ask for a discount.  I used an expired coupon today and received $20 off of the air filter.  Saving money almost makes knowing the problems of my fellow waitees mother worth while….

Our Grill’s New Job

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Our grill has been a standard in our house for a number of years.  While living in Ohio, we have used it in January and whenever it seemed appropriate.  (When you are hungry for something grilled and weenies at the fireplace is not enough, you have to choose the grill!)  Our first Texas grill went through a couple of cooking surfaces before we realized we could do better and cheaper over the long term.  Our grill has been friendly with chicken (with many different glazes and configurations) for a number of years.  This year our grill became an herbivore. (Depending on the night of the week, it is a vegetarian.)  Yes, it has had a few skewers of chicken and veggies on it before.  As the pictures shows, it is meatless with only a little olive oil to give it a slight feeling of being manly.

Our grill did not become a “sometimes” eunuch over night.  It has been a gradual process.  A process that began accelerating in the spring.  My daughters, specifically my oldest daughter, wanted to eat better.  However, since we like our hamburgers, brats, mac n’ cheese, and other comfort foods, it was not enough for her to make this resolution for just herself.  She began discouraging us (If you knew this daughter, discouraging is a mild word.  Buying something like a few gummy bears at Sprouts would make her throw every form of guilt she could at you.  And, if I was at Walmart and came home with a couple packages of knock-off Oreos, she would give me the “Do-you-really-love-me?” treatment.  When I say persuasive on this issue, it is only scratching the surface of what goes on.  She is the “anti-catalyst” for sweets entering your mouth and any enjoyment that might happen afterwards.) from participating in sweet things.  She does still allow slight caloric sins, but compared to most teenage girls, she is very disciplined in this area.

Although we had visited Sprouts prior to her being possessed by this creature with mild-to-severe “allergies” to sugar, the girls became much more excited about these visits in the spring.  Once we were bored with Sprout’s offerings, we had to mix it up a little bit.  Although Trader Joes is not as convenient, we have wondered there a couple of times to allow her to seek out various ingredients.  (They also have the black mango tea I like.)  With Whole Foods opening up close to our home, the variety of healthy-food shopping options makes it almost impossible for us to “not” find certain ingredients she needs for her various health food mixes, smoothies, and/or other concoctions she believes will give her body the respect it demands.  And, now, with the arrival of our Asian exchange students and their desire to maintain multiple appearances of fruit (strawberries, raspberries, melons etc) and vegetables at every meal, it appears we are locked into this “healthy” cycle for at least another 9 months.

If vegetables would immediately be flavorful, we would not have had to invite the grill to our pseudo-vegetarian party.  As good as baked beans can be and as bad as microwaved corn can be, it seemed crazy to NOT invite the grill sooner.  We suffered through endless zucchini-ish veggies mixes sauteed on the stove.  We ate bland green beans, and if we were lucky we might get a sweet potato or two.  Broccoli with cheese sauce may be yummy, but it does not scream healthy.   With our vegetable past being less than cordial, we just needed to break down and let the grill convince us it could create “happy” flavors in the veggies we offered it.

In the image above, there are eggplant(we have grilled w/ and w/o the skin.  The skin is not good to eat [our Asians liked it], but it does hold the eggplant “meat” together very well.), red peppers (previously, we only grilled to include in our hummus) , zucchini and yellow squash.  (We also do onions, but none present on this night.)  After flipping a few times and dabbing in olive oil, they usually come out pretty well.  The heat is down all the way when cooking.  After dabbing with the oil, the fire sometimes starts licking its lips in anticipation of a sacrifice.  A shuffling of the grills contents usually brings the fire back into submission.  We are still fiddling with the thickness of the zucchini and squash.  If cut to thin, they burn fast.  If too fat, they are a little on the mushy side.  A couple of evenings ago, we cooked up 6 small zucchini, 2 squash, 1 onion and 1 pepper.  Nothing was left at the end of the meal.

Whatever my daughter(s) motivation for  pulling/tugging/shoving us down this pathway, I am glad we have all jumped on it together.  (With my wife doing a pretty particular diet, she does not always actively participate in our recent meals with the higher vegetable percentage.)   As a significant birthday awaits me later this year, I am glad to be able to gain awareness and a pathway to healthier eating.  (I am still convinced we didn’t eat badly before.  We are just eating better now.)  As I continue to enjoy my family and look forward to what a long life might offer, I will gladly modify any corner of my life that needs sandpaper.  I guess I will go to Whole Foods and see if they have a sandpaper squash….