Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Spiced Rum

I hit H Mart in Lynnwood today to stock up on Asian groceries. I scored gobo and kimchee and even Korean sushi, but I couldn't find any long onions or konnyaku (devil's tongue). I'm making buta jiru on Friday, so I will have to make another trip elsewhere to find those things. At least I don't have to drive 3 hours to get to a foreign food superstore, so I can't complain too much.

And what does any of this have to do with spiced rum? Nothing at all. But dinner will be a combination of bi bim bap (from namul I bought at H Mart) and Korean sushi, so I don't need to be on my game to cook it.

DS1's homework is done. (Well, all but Benesse, but I just didn't feel like cracking the whip on that today.) DS2 has had mental stimulation in a non-video format for most of the day. It was happy hour, but I'm out of cheap, decent Chardonnay, so I raided the liquor cabinet and since I only own gin or rum, I googled hot rum drinks. I settled on hot buttered rum. I am slowly imbibing whilst the boys are making books at the dinner table. To give you an idea of how slowly I am imbibing, I had to microwave my drink ten seconds since it was lukewarm buttered rum at one point. Of course, our rental condo is 18 celsius at the moment since I am too cheap to run the electric heaters and too lazy to change the thermometer to Fahrenheit on my pencil
stand.

And all this talk of rum makes me thinks of pirates and Japanese animated ones.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

This Beautiful Life


I just finished reading This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman last night. I'd had it on reserve at the library since reading about it in some random magazine found in some random doctor's office. I was impressed.

I expected it to be high drama and the unraveling of an American family. Yes, there was an event that causes everything to unwind, but Schulman paints a realistic portrait of a family that loves each other, but can't figure out how to pull it together.

The mom in the story resonated with me. She's well educated, but gives that up to stay home with her kids. My favorite line, early in the book on page 11 after she gets her kids off to school is "...Liz took one look at her messy home and was overwhelmed by how much there was to do and how little she wanted to do it. Finding that first step into an amorphous day, a day without bones, was always the hardest."

My boneless day started several hours ago and so far I've started laundry, disposed of a rotting pumpkin, emptied the recycling, put futons away and made our bed. I've wanted to do none of that, but since yesterday I nursed my cold and read a book, I felt I owed it to myself and everyone else to try harder today.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Hope


One of my favorite movies is The Shawshank Redemption. The tagline for that movie is, "Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free." I haven't been very hopeful lately.

I went to a Women's Wellness Weekend on Orcas Island about 10 days ago. I thought it would help me sort some things out. Instead, I did crafts all weekend and rode the giant swing and the zipline. It was good, but it didn't necessarily give me the dramatic prison break that I was hoping for.

I did win $5 in camp bucks at bingo. I used them to buy lanyard lace for my boys and a cheaply made bracelet with a "Hope" affirmation on a silver-toned token. I've been wearing it daily and every time I see it, I send out a little karmic energy that we will find a house soon.

I know there is a house for us (or a small lot upon which we could build.) I am tired of living in the rental condo. I'm tired of the thumping bass of the person who lives beneath us. I am tired of the students who live across the street and party until all hours of the morning on Saturday night. I am tired of unpacked boxes stacked in our closet, waiting for a "permanent" home. I'm tired of the messy impermanence of it all.

I have hope, or at least a hope bracelet. Too bad it's not the Hope Diamond, or I wouldn't be worried about how much money we will have to spend to buy a house. Oh well.