2018 Calendar Boys

Happy year of the Earth Dog*!

An even shorter photoshoot this time.  James is already "crayoning-in" plans for December --  Paul seems a bit wary about that. And he didn't even see this video yet!  

Bad (on-purpose?) translation of one the most popular new year songs with dogs lip-synching.  Amusing and creepy, oh, the wonders of the internet!  

* Though this dog on the calendar looks a lot more like fluffy kitty.  How can we even tell sometimes with all the wacky dog breeds?! 

Happy Chinese New Year!

It's the Year of the Rooster (Chicken).  My boys indulged me with a 10 minute calendar shoot :)

I read the Telegraph article "Chinese New Year 2017, year of the Rooster! What's your zodiac animal?" (sorry for the video auto-play).  The list of Chinese New Year's Day Taboos was particularly interesting.

I already know not to wash things, but didn't know it was partially because (#3) "People do not wash clothes on the first and second day because these two days are celebrated as the birthday of Shuishen (水神, the Water God)."

Number 8 "Crying Children" ("The cry of a child is believed to bring bad luck to the family so parents do their best to keep children as happy as possible.") is a little too late / unavoidable now (more about that later)...

I kept the tradition of a vegetarian lunch (corresponds to #13).  Well, mostly, I finished off James's lunch and that had some fish...

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This photo seems appropriate (Coconut and House Hippo from last-last Christmas (2015)).

 And, so does this:

Closing the Year with Hot Pot!

Paul gets adventurous: 5 orders of spam!

No, not actually.  But he does go for a Tom Yum soup base.  I am a little less adventurous this time at 97 Hot Pot (I'm not just eating for myself...), but it's still all delicious.

It doesn't feel like that long ago that we were here, but it's been a year.

Again, I didn't like how the individualized pots meant we were focused on what was right in front of us, but it did mean we can customise the food and cooking to exactly how we'd like it. 

This time, I decided to try XO sauce, ginger, cilantro, chili oil, and green onions in my dipping sauce.

Celina's in a medical biology class, and looks more closely at the cooking pots, examining each morsel questioningly.  Yep, learning about all sorts of bugs and parasites can do that.  

I take this as my chance to ask Theresa more about pregnancy (guess I wasn't that curious before).  She apparently gained about 20-25 pounds in each pregnancy.  Also, she breast fed with Celina, but not with Kevin. 

I definitely ate too much and needed to go for a walk to the high street.  It was incredibly warm outside, maybe even disturbingly so...

At home, I'm motivated to clean - sort of.  Spring cleaning for Chinese New Year is traditional after all.  But, I don't get that much done.  So tired.  But still getting rid of things and some dust, so... doing o.k.

Happy Lunar New Year!

House Hippo and Coconut gallop into the Year of the Horse with greetings of luck. 

馬年行好運!

Opening the New Year

Dinner at parents' to "Open" the new year.  And they served exactly what I felt was missing, traditional foods (among a few new creations - making a total of eight on the table, with soup on the side). 

(Right: Slurping is not strictly polite, but at least Kevin's eating his seaweed.) 

While the meal was mostly the same (Celina and Kevin quickly eating and then leaving the table, Theresa and my parents updating on different family members they talked too in the past few days), after dinner was decidedly different.  I was no longer to go and play with the kids.  Nope, again, an adult my place was to work, help clean up, and figure out what foods I was to take home. 

 

Paul, Celina, and Kevin played games and finally got the green light to open tray of goodies from Christmas (left). 

Meanwhile, back at home:

Calendar Boys

Happy Chinese New Year!

New Year's Day - Traditions Reinvented

"So for the day, so for the upcoming year..." or something like that.  I attempted to create some of the same festive spirit at my parents' home, but without having to do what they do (i.e. wake up two hours earlier for cooking and offerings to the ancestors), and maybe create some new traditions.

Slept through the night instead of waking up in the middle to do the "Walk for Big Fortune" for the new year (new).  (Mom didn't reveal the details of the direction and time anyway, and walking would have been that easy.)  But did dress in tones of red (traditional), and spoil the kids with sweets and red pockets (traditional). 

Paul left the house for work. 

I cooked a vegetarian lunch (traditional) and then a treat, using the "foot spa" for the first time.  Um... is it supposed to smoke like that?  I worried about wat this would mean for our "rest of the year", but an unburnt (if a bit lopsided) loaf of raisin bread did eventually emerge.  (With a proper prosperous name it would definitely be "new".)

Baking is not the tidiest of activities and I regretted it a little for all the mess I made and couldn't sweep up (traditional). 


It looked like a pretty nice day outside with plenty of sunshine.  But, I was stuck inside and it all seemed a little too quiet and still... Especially compared to past years with my Dad's special New Year's soundtrack (including sounds of firecrackers) blaring, their phone ringing over and over again, and our New Year's greetings to family (traditional) back in China shouted into the phone*... Or I'd be at work and be sharing these greetings with my Chinese co-workers. 

Paul returned for dinner.  I reheated the special care package from Mom and Dad which included roast pork and deep fried dumplings with other prosperously named dishes (traditional),  that were definitely not vegetarian. 

We ate and talked, and it finally felt a bit more right.  This was to the sounds of Flight of the Concords (new, but you probably didn't need me to tell you that :P).
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* Found out later the silence and isolation wasn't required, but that I had misunderstood Mom: When she said I shouldn't call her and Dad to "bai nian" (send greetings for the new year) that day, I thought it was something to do with me being in my first year of marriage and there would be some clash (like with some other events...) and it should apply to all people.  What she meant was I shouldn't bother, because I'd be too busy calling all my aunts and uncles and cousins.... etc.  Oh.

Can't Say No

"Just look!  There's one in the washroom too!" 

I pointed to the calendar.  Kevin and Celina both shook their heads and made similar spluttering noises.  All of us were thinking "Why?"

Dad has six calendars hanging in the house (one in each bathroom) that I knew of, and there was a surplus stack of more on the shelf.  Mom had given both me and Theresa a couple in the past month and was trying to get us to take more.  She noted how pretty they were (each was different).  She noted how useful they were.  She probably thought, "Take some we have too many!" 

And I probably wouldn't have minded if the art was right (there would be some craft potential) or if Dad had been o.k. with me giving them away (there's always Reuse)... but he wasn't, they weren't, and already with two I was having trouble figuring out what was an auspicious day or not!  More would only confuse the matter. 

I half wonder if all the calendars are because he has trouble remembering what day it was, and this was a trick to keep on track.  Though his memory hasn't faded as much as Mom's (that I could tell). 

If this was fiction, I would think just maybe this was a symbol: Dad is getting older and who could refuse more days, more months, another year, if they were offered to you? 

But this reading of life would just be too impractical. 

We didn't talk about it any more at the New Year's Eve reunion dinner.

(un)Dress to Kill

Goal: Do as much house cleaning as I can (without hurting myself), before Sunday. 

Now that I'm not living with my parents, Chinese New Year will definitely be different.  I'm too lazy (or not competent) to do everything required, but still superstitious enough that not all traditions are going out the door.  It's a big "no" to incense, but cleaning before the new year just feels right.  And things like haircuts.  I convinced Paul, since he needed one, we should cut his hair now else he'd have to wait another two weeks. 

We were going to go with what worked in the old house (i.e. In the living room, while watching a standup comedian's show on the laptop).  But we didn't count on one big difference: Friendly neighbours!

If we had managed to have dinner a little earlier... and started the haircutting a little earlier... the knock at the door would have caused quite a scramble.  Run and hide!  Make sure the neighbours don't catch Paul half-naked*! 

Instead they caught us during dinner so the haircut itself was fairly uneventful.  Except for the parts in Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill where I learned about being an executive transvestite,



the choice of cake or death,



and the importance of flags. 



Then I vacuumed him and the living room clean.  There, right on schedule. 

Also, good news: Paul's feeling better; bad news: I'm now sick. 

*i.e. With his shirt off :)

Feast of Gods

"You are a god!"

Dumplings and sticky buns arrived in a cloud of steam, making Rem, according to Na, godly.  The food was certainly divine! 

Feast, with its food orient flavours felt inspired by the Lunar New Year.  We started off with edamame.  Their fuzzy pods (fitting with their Chinese name "hairy beans") were deliciously covered with salt.  Finger licking good.  For those a bit more civilised, chopsticks were available too. 

My contribution of gummy "jujubes" wouldn't exactly fall under the divinity or orient, but it did spark conversation.  I was sure jujubes candies were originally based on real fruit.  To the dictionary! 

Which then lead to practise vs. practice and license vs. licence. I thought I had them clear for a while, but...

Arilyn was there too.  It's been a while since Paul saw her, so you can imagine the surprise.  She's almost not a baby! 

New Spring

We're back to +5 degrees after a few days ago of -33 (with windchill).  Crazy.  Almost makes me believe it is the truly the other name for Chinese New Year, New Spring (新春).

Paul was invited to Chinese New Year dinner with the family.  He happily obliged.  To the delight of Mom and Dad, he was adventurous (tried at least a little bit of everything), and really seemed to appreciate and enjoy the food (unlike the usual picky eaters at the table). 

At one point, someone joked that Paul didn't seem to be a rice bucket (飯桶).  Well, maybe a little, but only in the very literal sense since he does like rice.  Not the other meaning. 

After dinner we kids retired to the basement to play Cranium (Family Edition).   There was pry away Kevin and Celina's earphones, but they still played. 

(Below: Miming, like in Charades, the clue on the card.  But still no pictures allowed!)

Happy New Year and Happy Valentine's Day

or Ode to Chainsaw

It's been a crazy bit of week and all for today, Chinese (Lunar) New Year.  At one in the morning, Mom, Dad and I go about our "Walk for Big Fortune", before going back to bed.  Today we will having a (loosely) vegetarian lunch to honour buddhist roots.  Then I suspect, Mom and Dad will make calls overseas to wish family a happy new year.  This will be followed with a lot more cooking and cooking preparation.  I will be quite spoiled and not have to think about it - instead the rest of my day will be filled with dance training.

It just also happens to be Valentine's.  I've predict flower sellers will have a very good week in sales between this and CNY.

All the best to everyone!  May this second start bring good luck.

This, I grabbed from Anne's blog made me laugh, and I hope it brings a smile to your face too:  http://www.slate.com/id/2211163/

New Spring? Late Christmas.

Happy Chinese New Year! The sun was shining today and the sky is clear, and it could very well be spring, if it wasn't so cold.

Parents remind me that if we were in China, I'd have the day off. I'm not complaining. Sure I'm at work, but our team caught up with Christmas celebrations by going out for lunch today (Chianti's - chocolate mousse on special). We aren't the only ones to wait - Catherine's work had their Christmas party yesterday.

I met up with Catherine after her shift, after I got off class (amazingly happy to have received my exam back - I passed!). Together we go to Smilie's. The restaurant is only a couple parking lots away, but it was so cold that driving seemed like must. Once inside we're directed to a private room, and then chaos ensued.

The "cool" table (also "kids" table or maybe simply the "over-sugared" table?) beckoned. And it continued to beckon, so as to accommodate all the people a table was added to extend the original... and another... until before you know it, one side was trapped against the wall. But undeterred, we all ordered the buffet and climbed out as necessary.

I possibly embarassed Catherine by eating as much seafood as I did (it's a buffet!), and piling all the batter from the deep fried items on the edge of my plate to form a little mountain. But then again, she was more likely too distracted to notice: a food fight that seemed on the brink of eruption, the pop culture references that were volleyed across the room, the cellphones that were whipped out to show/take pictures and play songs, the sugar-packet-people army that was being created and amassed...

It didn't take long for me to recognise Alex, who from work anecdotes, draws and commentates on issues of People magazine. He'd be the same guy who insists on recasts for all of Twilight to make it entertaining and then jumping to three other topics before I (or anyone) chance to comment. More difficult to place was the guy who supposedly has a tattoo of a buddha wrapped around his calf.

In line at the buffet, a Chinese lady (one of less-hyper co-workers) catches my eye. We look at each other, comment, and laugh. Chinese New Year's Eve and here we were at a "faux" Chinese food restaurant.

All in all, it was a pretty amusing night. Makes one have dangerous thoughts, such as "maybe I should take a part-time job at bookstore"... unfortunately, I think I'd be too slow.

O.k. time to head home for dinner. Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Preparing for New Spring

"First you punch him and then if he speaks English you say, “What the F*ck was that?!”"

~ Morgan, re: The Appropriate Response

It's bagel time!
I had a little trouble believing how excited Kevin was that I was going to go get bagels. He cheered. I guess he just really, really likes bagels (I had not starved them). So I take the order: One toasted regular with cream cheese... a toasted honey wheat (or multigrain) with cream cheese... and another toasted regular, but with butter, a hamburger... and coffee... and leave the kids with Michael and Jay to watch the kung fu demonstration.

We were at the Telus Centre in the first place because of the Chinese New Year Celebration and Open House for the Mactaggart Art Collection. I got Theresa to drop us off early (we were probably of the first ten to arrive) with the plan to look at the collection and do some activities. What actually happened: they played on the terminal with the interactive online exhibit. Not that I could blame them exactly. The page flipping was really cool, and the online exhibit was more extensive than what the showing area could fit (access it here), but I was ulitmately glad I had a chance to stare at the originals the last time I was there.

We then headed out to the lobby to do activities. Agreeing on where to start was an issue, but I plunked them down and ordered them to paint. Michael arrives then, and he gives the brush painting a try too.

Next, a close examine of the (sleeping) lions. "Are those (pom poms) boogers?" No, they are not.

Jay joins us. Kevin works on a lantern (left: Ahh! Lightning!), and then we watch the lions dance. And then... I go for bagels.

I regretted, almost immediately out the door, that I had to walk 3 blocks. Ack! Windchill! There were still small gaps between sunglasses and hat, and sunglasses and scarf that the wind took advantage of. The return trip was a little better as I hugged the toasted items and coffee for warmth. I was glad really glad I didn't follow the original plan which involved taking the kids to the bagels.

The crowd that had accumulated during the lion dance was no where to be seen. We ate at a now empty table. At almost rendezvous time, we go to the Max nearby (the rendezvous point). From the reaction I got from the kids as they waited (half exploring) in the Max, I thought, maybe this was the highlight for them.

Anyway, without the kids. Some more fun: The Reuse Centre! What was there that delighted? Steph (!), and carpet samples (with names that attempt to invoke movie greats, and rival a mid-priced cosmetic hue). Had made a vow not to bring any more things home until after the (Chinese) new year... so I took pictures... and had Michael take things home with him.

With the rest of my afternoon, I continue what I've been doing for the past few days: Clean. I've dusted, done some sorting... made a little headway, but there's still a lot more to go. It's kind of nice to know that my horoscope thinks this a good course of action:

This goes against everything you believe in: try living with less. Your life is so cluttered that anything new, including a relationship, can't find a place to rest. Clean out your closets, tidy up your paperwork and remove the emotional baggage. Out with the old in with the new.

So far Chinese New Year celebrations have been quite a laugh. Watched the horoscope forecasts on television with Mom and Dad and noted how each predictor was saying something different. So, if I get to pick and choose like last year, I'd pick: It is a good year for studies. With that, I just might make it through these last couple of courses.

Family dinner was relatively uneventful. Having finished eating early, I started playing cards with Celina and Kevin. It felt good.

Later on in bedroom, attempted to the bridge on a whim. Completely collapsed. Would have been incredibly sad (further signs of getting old), if it wasn't so funny. Realised I really lucked out, aside from myself, nothing else was knocked over. Now that's an accomplishment.

When it Rains...

... it pours... and one shouldn't complain about it.

I was all content to write about my weekend of Chinese New Year's celebrations... (I was a good girl for the most part and had dinner with my family and watched with them part of the Hong Kong broadcast of the celebrations. Of course, making special note of what will be the fortune for those born the year of the Monkey - it seems like everything will come by through by travel - good luck in travelling, finding love abroad, moving away for work that kind of thing).

... When stuff started happening today. Lots of stuff... and though I can't really determine at the moment if it's exactly good stuff, I'm not going to complain. But it all lends itself to being even more superstitous than before. Didn't think it was possible?

Well, after almost a full week of nothing on the job front, I get a call from my placement agency and I'm offered a temp position downtown. Unfortunately it starts this Wednesday (sorry, Liz, won't be able to help you move much afterall) and after I had accepted I get two more calls for interviews with companies I had applied for. And my program with the Outplacement place starts, and they only do their workshops during the day. So after feeling like a bum for the last two weeks and lazing around, all of a sudden I've overbooked again! But no complaining.

All this coinciding with the New Year just seems like too much. Last year was supposed to be disasterous for my career and once the year ended... O.k. definitely too much superstition. And then there's the whole thing at the outplacement place where the agent / counsellor starts talking about listening to my heart... um... wasn't this what The Alchemist was saying? (And Char, and Norah, and Steph, and Chris... hm... I'm seeing a trend :P)

Anyway - if I had the Magic 8 Ball in my disposal I'd probably see: OutLook Good. At least for the next 2 days :)

Enough of my ramblings - have to get to TA class. But a special "Get Well Soon" to Char. And thank you to Clarence for the CD. Stay warm peoples - it's a wet cold.