feng shui

sundays. nothing much usually happens around here on god's day. but katherine and i, we decided to get a little productive.

it all started with a mini-lecture from my mom this morning reminding me that i should always leave someone's house cleaner than i had found it.
after the elderfoos left to run errands, katherine vacuumed the carpets (2 floors' worth). we were sitting around shortly after when it was decided that we should also rearrange the furniture in the tv room and the living room which are essentially in the same giant room.
we did a little couch swapping, plant migration, tv stand relocation, etc. finally satisfied with the new look and feel of the rooms, we occupied ourselves with other tasks (meal planning, list making, hazelnut shelling) and waited.

finally, the elderfoos came home, remarked at how clean the carpet looked, walked around for a minute then...
mr elderfoo: nancy! what happened in here?!
me: we decided to rearrange a bit. what, you don't like it?
mr elderfoo: you can't put the tv there, it can't take direct sunlight on the screen. (hmm, curious reason. and also, i shouldn't have spent all that time worrying about feng shui)
me: we can move it back...
mr elderfoo: nevermind. anyways, when you all leave, we'll move the tv to another room. and we won't be here much longer. (perhaps a polite way of saying, 'thanks, but no thanks'?)

also noteworthy: while vacuuming, we found a half eaten dark chocolate mars bar under one of the couches. tsk tsk. also, i guess this means that it's not as good as the milk chocolate original?

up and down

today was a day of some amusing elevator situations.

after lunch, i took my mom to the asian grocery store where we bought some produce and delicious egg tarts. being recently anti-plastic, i didn't get a bag for the egg tarts which were already neatly packaged in a clear plastic take out style box. once back, we bumped into this woman in the elevator...
lady: mmm, something smells delicious!
my mom: we got egg tarts, you should try one!
lady: mmm, oh no, i couldn't.
nods all around then silence. the lady continued to eye the egg tarts.
lady: what kind of food are they? (preposterous, i know)
she took one step closer to me.
me: they're like custard tarts and they're sweet and dessert like.
my mom: you should try one!
we reached the 5th floor which is where the lady was supposed to alight.
lady: oh, you're so kind!
then she grabbed an egg tart triumphantly and left. we successfully shared culinary goodness with the world. i hope.

second elevator incident occurred when my mom and i ran another errand this afternoon. we met this dude on our way down and after exiting the building, my mom said she thought that he had looked like someone famous. someone with longish hair, a full beard and with some serious muscles (she even flexed her muscles like she meant it). i had to narrow the options a bit then said, 'hulk hogan?' bingo.

third elevator incident...
we returned from errands and rode the elevator up with this lady and two other gentlemen who were clearly homos (if i can tell, then they're definitely homos). the lady got off on the second floor. floors 4, 5 and 6 had also been selected. this remained a mystery till dude one at floor 4 took a break from his cell phone conversation (about some fabulous party happening at mrs moriarty's that i wish i had also been invited to) to inform my mom and i that dude two had made those ill-advised floor selections. poor dude two. he didn't have a cell phone conversation to return to so he just had to stand there while we visited floors 4 and 5. they finally got off at floor 6. once the doors finally closed, my mom said in chinese (not like they could hear at that point), 'those are your people, eh? one look and i can tell.'