Mother's Day with CMIL

Happy Mother's Day!

Today we took CMIL out to Red Lobster for a Mother's Day lunch and we then went bowling. CMIL loved Red Lobster. She was protesting on the way over there that lobster was too expensive. We told her there are a lot of lobsters on the East coast of the US, it's not like Taiwan.

She really enjoyed her meal. Alas, I forgot to bring my camera so there are no photos.

I also made her my cast iron skillet banana bread for breakfast. She went back for thirds!



I think I may actually be bonding with CMIL through food. So far she likes all the meals and breads I've made.

She had fun bowling and was even laughing and clapping. This is not the CMIL I know. I really wonder if she is a clone. I really thought I might be going postal by now since my SIL has returned to Taiwan. I thought my wife would bear the brunt of all the nagging. Instead she hardly nags since SIL left. She talks, tries to play with the grandkids, is interested in trying new foods and driving through the area. She's even looking forward to going to New York on a day trip. (I'm definitely bringing a camera that day)

Did I mention that she has a 6 month visa and an open ended ticket? I'm actually not minding having her around. Maybe I'm the one on medication?

Am I Evil?

CMIL has an obsessive compulsive disorder. She will clean for hours and hours. You don't time her with a stopwatch, you use a sun dial.

She spent 2 hours cleaning the kitchen sink and then 1.5 hours cleaning the stove top. She also scrubs pots and pans over and over over.

How can I use this to my advantage?

Well Owshawng has been making quick, easy to cook meals that require 3 or 4 pots and pans. Tonight for instance, I made hot dogs, with canned beans and frozen corn. CMIL will then spend a great deal of time cleaning, them, leaving me alone for awhile.

If I was truly evil I would scorch them giving her something real hard to clean.

As a bonus my SIL was very happy with the meal. I've been trying to make American/Western style meals for her since she lives in Taiwan and can get great Asian food very easily.

How Many Monkeys?

Over the weekend my SIL was sitting on the couch looking a bit stunned at how much work it is to have two kids. I went to ask her in Mandarin if she wanted to have 12 kids. (Ni3 yao4 yo3 shi2 er4 shao 3 hai 4 tz?)

Alas I made a little mistake and said (Ni3 yao4 yo3 shi2 er4 shao 3 hou3 tz?) Which means "Do you want to have 12 monkeys?"

Need less to say that brought peals of laughter.

CMIL & SIL Are Here!

I picked up my mother-in-law and sister-in-law at the airport last night. Both promptly fell asleep on the way to my home.

So far they've been here 24 hours and all is well. My CMIL seems genuinely interested in her two grandkids and she has not started to nag me. She even gave me compliments on the dinner I made tonight and the take out we got last night. This is not the CMIL I know. What has happened? My top 5 possibilities are:

1) She is still jet lagged.

2) She is on medication.

3) She is starting to go senile. (My grandfather got friendly all of a sudden. Turns out he was in the early stage of Alzheimers)

4) She is a clone.

5) Has she really changed?

I'm ruling out #2 since she is pretty frugal. I'm too cynical to go for #5. No, my dear readers. I'm leaning towards a jet lagged clone.

Tomorrow I'm off to NYC with my SIL. Details to follow.

Fight Inflation

This weekend I filled up my car and spent $47.50. I then took my son bowling another $28.50 gone for 2 games plus rental shoes. Restaurant and grocery prices are going up at double digit rates. A local pizza parlor has signs on the window apologizing for their price increases due to the cost of their raw materials.

What to do? Do we hunker down and watch every penny? No. We are going to live better. Charlie Munger vice-charinman of Berkshire Hathaway loves to say "Invert, always invert" so that's what Owshawng is going to do.

We are going to focus on fun things that are free or inexpensive and local. So we will start documenting trips to the various county parks in North jersey. We will hit the local minor league baseball games, go to the jersey Shore (the beach everywhere else in the world) and still do the occasional day trip to New York.

And as for food. We will eat well. We are going to go peasant style. There will be recipes using root vegetables and inexpensive fish and meats. We will feed a family of four from the hot food section of upscale grocery stores for $5 a night. That's $5 for the family not a person. We will turn leftovers into completely different, yet very yummy dishes And the recipes are going to expand beyond Asia and the US. I'm going to order the ingredients for some Ethiopian dishes and post the recipes and pictures.

And let's not forget. CMIL will shortly be in the house. That will be entertainment.

CMIL IS COMING NEXT WEEK!

My CMIL has finally booked her plane tickets and will arrive next week.

These are open ended tickets (no return date).

How long can a woman who does not speak English last in the suburbs of Northern New Jersey?

How long can your narrator maintain what's left of his sanity? How many great stories will your faithful narrorator get from this trip?

I'm so intrigued by this that I put my blogging on hold so I could spend more time to work on my Mandarin. I've been spending an hour or more a day trying to bulk up for this trip.

We have some things planned for her (nice things, not horror movie type)

1) My wife wants to take CMIL to eat lobster since lobster is fairly cheap in NJ compared to Taiwan.

2) We may bring her to New York (my SIL is coming for a week or so. I'll defintely bring her at least)

3)Take her to some open houses so she can see how grossly overpriced housing is in NJ.

4) Take her to some of the local parks (I actually have shot some photos of parks and preserves in the area, just haven't put them up yet,along with 6 or 8 recipes I've done.)

But the real question is, how do you entertain a CMIL who does not speak a word of English and has no interests or hobbies? I have no idea. Will she can in shock from living in a city in Taiwan to seeing deer and wild turkeys wandering around?

Owshawng: Snake Wrangler

Yesterday as I stepped into the parking lot at my office I spotted something unusual. There was a garter snake laying motionlessly a few feet from the door. At first i thought a bird had dropped him and was coming back to finish him off, but then the little guy started to move. (I really need to get a little camera, I ran into a Wild Turkey (the bird, not the bottle) crossing the street in front of me over the weekend)




(This is a picture I took in the Spring of 2007 of a garter snake I spotted in Lord Stirling Park in Berndard's Township, NJ.)

I didn't want the little guy to get squished by a car or stomped on by someone with a phobia, so I looked around to see if there was something I could use to pick him up. There was nothing useful so I went back inside and grabbed about 10 sheets of paper to use as a platform. It was a very small snake, maybe as long as a sheet of letter sized paper. The snake saw me come back and took off across the parking lot. I walked along side of it so he wouldn't get run over in his dash for freedom and I started to draw a crowd(Can 2 be a crowd? It is a small company)

He stopped after about 20 feet and reared his head at me and kept flickering his tongue. He must have been frightened of me and tired from his brief sprint. I slid some of the papers in front of him and the rest of them under his tail. He slithered onto the sheets in front of him and I picked him up about a foot off the ground. He kept trying to crawl off the front of the papers so I kept alternating my hands so he crawled from right to left to right to left. Finally we reached the edge of the parking lot and he slid off into the grass.

After that he was on his own. I felt pretty good about rescuing the little guy from becoming road kill or an easy mark for a hawk.