Chinese New Year feasting continues…
Grilled lamb and cheese sandwich for breakfast.
Dumplings – folded by hand for dinner.
(some non-canonical folding by Jeremy)
We had a ton of heavy cream and mascarpone that we had purchased for the frosting of our disastrous red velvet experiment last night, so we turned it into tiramisu instead.
Edda is outgrowing her stroller. We don’t use it very often – Edda usually walks wherever we walk, just very slowly and while someone is holding her hand. But today she fell asleep in the car on the way to the dog park, so we plunked her in her stroller and watched while her head tilted all the way back because it wasn’t held up by the mesh seat anymore.
This afternoon, Jeremy and I went to a prayer ceremony at a Sikh temple. A friend’s father passed away last week and they were holding the traditional 72 hour ceremony this weekend. The whole family gathers at the temple to pray and cook. We had a delicious vegetarian meal consisting of her late father’s favorite dishes.
Emy’s birthday is on the 20th and she’s been keen on red velvet cake. Apparently red velvet cake is very hip – we followed the recipe from the New York Times.
In went a whole bottle of red food coloring.
Apparently cochineal is a dye made from bugs. It freaked Jeremy out that we were pouring bug remains into our cake and then I freaked out that we were planning on serving red velvet cake with bug food coloring to vegetarian friends tomorrow night. Was I going to tell them that the cake wasn’t really vegetarian because it had red bug juice in it? Or was I not going to because if we hadn’t googled it, none of us would have been the wiser? But then Emy noticed that it said artificial on the label, so therefore it was made from fake bugs and the cake remains vegetarian.
And, whoa! It turns this bright red color!
But then, 10 minutes after the cake goes into the oven, disaster strikes and the power goes out in our whole apartment complex for about 90 minutes. No oven, no internet, no videos. We decide to swim in the unlit pool.
When the lights come back on, the cake continues baking, but it turns out all greasy and flat.
We are so not hip.
Martin, our friend from Dresden, just moved here and tonight we invited him over for CNY reunion dinner.
Jeremy made this huge leg of lamb. Ruby was a lucky dog tonight!
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/02/egg_drop_make_v.html
Reminds me of High School, Although, our design was 10x lighter and much much cooler.
I saw this on Frank’s blog.. Thought it was interesting.
Vince played hooky today. He went out to breakfast with me – ordered a Milo Dinosaur (an iced Ovaltine with Ovaltine powder drizzled on top).
Then he went to the dragon dance performance at Edda’s school. He is sitting next to his main squeeze in Edda’s class – the very blonde and glamourous N. Edda’s in the 2nd row – grouchy because she didn’t sleep very well last night and it is getting pretty hot outside on the asphalt parking lot.
A moment of peace to catch up on last night’s missed zzzzzs.
This is such an unusual sight for Edda – she’s using her hands. Well kind of. She’s resting her hands on the rope/bar and ever-so-softly grasping them as she is swinging – every moment resisting the urge to put her hands in her mouth.
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Scientific name: Clerodendrum myricoides ‘Ugandense’
Common name: Butterfly bush
Location: Singapore
I’m pretty much .0001mm away from canceling my climbing membership. It’s fun. I like it. But week in and week out, I always end up feeling left out on a limb to hang. Granted, I totally understand people have different priorities than climbing. I totally understand. Let me repeat that, I totally understand – it’s expensive, it takes some dedication, people have definitely much more important serious life events happening. I get it. I get it. But I’m out there, standing alone at the gym, waiting for people to show up, when they say they will show up, and they don’t and I feel like an idiot. Is climbing not fun? do people not enjoy it?
I wouldn’t mind doing it on my own, but climbing requires a partner, someone else to show up at the gym. In the past 4 months, I don’t think anyone has asked me if I want to go climbing with them. I’m always the one pushing it. Maybe cause I still think people are interested in it. Maybe I”m wrong. Maybe I’m being too pushy. Maybe my hope that it is a fun thing for friends to do it expecting too much. Is climbing not fun? Do people not enjoy it?
Ugh. The only thing that’ll save me from dropping it, is if these folks that I met at the gym are willing to partner up with me. But I’m pretty much done asking. If people are interested in climbing, then they know where to find me.
We’re now www.justregularfolks.com! Pretty cool, huh?
Edda expressed her displeasure quite loudly this morning when we dropped her off at school. Apparently she thought she was coming with us to eat breakfast and to climb to the top of Mount Faber. We forget sometimes how much she understands and so this morning in the car we were happily chatting about the morning plans and maybe she was pleased that Vince wasn’t coming with us (he had already been dropped off at his school). She made her crooked, sad, pouty face when we pulled into the driveway next to all the school buses.
Jeremy’s been preoccupied with Edda’s crooked frown. Since she constantly mouths her right hand, that side of her face is stretched out and droopy; when she frowns, she frowns extra deep on the right.
She didn’t miss much, Mt Faber is not very exciting (especially since all the restaurants were closed and we were starving).
Later on in the day, we did find something more kid friendly.
For Valentine’s day, Jeremy treated us to massages and a dinner out while he took care of the kids. We went downtown to a hotel’s spa and the masseuses gave us shower caps and disposable panties to put on during the massage. A little strange, but whatever. Both Emy and I checked “firm” for massage pressure, which might have been a mistake – it was kind of painful when she tried working out the knots in my upper back. Apparently I have a very stiff back. My masseuse implored, “Must come back every week!” Hmmm….
The hotel lobby was decorated for Chinese New Year!
In response to my last post, I put up the links on sidebar of the blog to the two major Rett Syndrome organizations. Donations to either will be much appreciated. If you do donate, please let me know. I’d like to thank you and give you a big hug!
Jeremy took the day off and in the morning, while the kids were in school, we went to Chinatown. Everyone is geared up for the New Year.
You have your horns:
Your dried sausages:
Sea cucumber (discount for amounts over 1 kilogram):
Dried pig:
Emy and Jeremy choosing candy:
Then we went to the zoo and rode an elephant!
