the weekend

it’s been an action packed weekend. for serious.
thursday, 03.20 – i get ching-wei and phyllis from BWI and head to ching-mei’s house in reston, va. kenneth arrived earlier that morning. we hang till 3 slash 4 (that’s am)? and also sample some fancy grappa and johnny walker blue.

friday, 03.21 – annie arrives at 6am. thankfully ching-mei makes the sacrificial airport run. my lazy behind doesn’t even rouse till 11. we get to tour the pentagon – one of ching-mei’s perks for working at the dod. one interesting pentagon factoid: there are 17 miles worth of corridors (if you walked all the rings and corridors on all known floors).
we had dinner at mai thai in DC then rocked it out like VIPs at MCCXXIII. semi-used to the club scene in baltimore, i was amused to see so many of my kind (the asians). one of them in particular was trying to surreptitiously merge with the group by lurking on the perimeter of the ring we had formed in the middle of the dance floor. after what seemed like a really long time (and several dirty looks from phyllis and i), creepo finally routed his efforts elsewhere.
safely made our way back to reston where dessert, round 2, awaited us – flourless chocolate cake in celebration of ching-wei’s 36th birthday!
noteworthy – this happened whilst consuming sticky rice + mango for dessert at the thai place…
ching-mei: rice is made of wheat!
silence slash rapid thinking…
ching-wei: wait a minute! no...rice is rice. wheat is wheat!

saturday, 03.22 – slow start to the morning followed by dim sum in rosslyn. curious about the myth of the extra limb on the statue, we walked over to the iwo jima memorial. we were looking for an extra leg but it seemed like there were an appropriate number. a brief internet search this afternoon indicated that perhaps the myth was about an extra hand instead?
anyways, we made our way to baltimore where the group split: hampden vs the whole foods but reconvened later for flip cup and a good home-cooked meal. what was for dinner? beef bourguignon (courtesy of the ingenuity of kenneth), roasted garlic mashed potatoes (thanks ching-mei for the labor), honey mustard chicken, salad. snooze cleaned up with freshly made apple crisp and ice cream.

sunday, 03.23 – after brunch, it was time to say goodbye, sadly. ching-mei, annie and kenneth headed to dulles. snooze and i dropped ching-wei and phyllis off at michelle’s. grocery shopped at lotte for this weekend’s sushi party then headed home in preparation for dinner with jessie and jennifer – eggplant parmigiana! and slowly eased into the work week with 2 episodes of the office…

dear friends: thanks for being super awesome.

hello spring!

it's you again. the harbinger of warm weather, playing in the park, sun shining on pale skin, juicy berries, riding bikes, shooting crack and so much more.

summer, i'll see you soon enough...together, we'll overachieve and conquer the world.

dear princesas, i still really like you.

the faux jus

there have been many fauxs recently. what's another one? as
previously mentioned, i'm currently in LA.

familiar with the traffic situation, i wisely took a late flight in
and arrived at 1am EST. good choice. especially whilst
simultaneously running a fever.

arrived at the car rental facility and i had my choice of mid-sized
cars - i love when that happens! the rental car world was my oyster!
did i want a gas guzzler or (wait!) is that a sweet prius? let's think
about it. oh, that's right. you're built to choose efficiency. most
of the time. i jetted out of there with a black one. and for a
fleeting moment, i got to feel what it's like to be the jus...99.9 mpg
suckas!

foodie

it's 65 degrees and sunny in southern california. and i'm
recharging...

nothing says geek (or hippie) like visiting LA for a natural food
show. and driving around in a hybrid. and talk about diversity:
corporate mingles with hippie mingles with gay mingles with foreign
mingles with monk. what.

also, is it possible that one could be starving at a food show? i
guess i should go deal with that situation...

what i really do at work...

*names of the others have been dramatized to protect their reputations.

the plot: at approximately 11am EST, beef, paper snowflake extraordinaire, phones f00, pixy stix ignorant, to discuss the possible outcomes of inhaling the newly launched flavor infusers. highly skeptical, f00 agrees to be supportive of the proposed experiment. f00 arrives at OMX at the designated meeting time and somehow gets roped into partaking. it’s very unclear how this happened.

the preparation: aquatina generously loans clean and sanitized cubicle top. TH provides necessary blade and mirror. LF unfortunately has to answer a phone call (why do people call this the office again?) and misses the rare opportunity to get some potentially damaging evidence. JR (bosslady of beef, aquatina, TH and LF) registers the commotion, shakes her head and then chooses to ignore.

during: first attempt – operator error on the part of f00. second attempt proves much more successful although she wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘success’. beef inhales her entire line like a champion slash princess.

after: symptoms include some eye watering, burning sensation in the nasal passage, sweet taste in the nasal passage and the occasional whiff of green tea. and lemon.

conclusion: the tested delivery method would be generally ill-advised. especially when taking into account the fact that the flavor infusers were developed to be savored (dissolved in cold water) and not to be consumed in such a hurried albeit efficient manner. there were also no indications that the effects of caffeine and EGCG were enhanced. on the plus side, the experiment was a perfect example of the stellar teamwork that is so often underappreciated.

go team.

domesticated

with home ec classes in middle school, i discovered that i possessed the ability to produce semi-edible things. everyone has to start somewhere. i started with semi-edible things.
when people caught wind of this semi-talent, the general feedback was, 'you cook? wow, that's impressive. you don't look the sort.' i guess i really should don my pretty, lacy aprons more often...
in college: 'you clean?' yes. i clean like my mother. ask kenneth. singaporean mothers have the same cleaning techniques and use the same cleaning chemicals. and we learned them all via osmosis.
most recently, i like making things. and i'm excited about my newfound domestic skill: sewing. additionally, i've been practicing my xacto knife skills and also my book-making skills. pictures to showcase my new skills...

the book





i felt like a sewing genius with this lunchbag. also ask snüz about her lunchbag!