much needed comfort food is here

It's been a gloomy week with a parade of big depressing headlines. It started with my neighbor Andrew freaking out with his internet service down. "Mercury is in retrograde. Communication is bad!! I'm serious!! No writing a novel today, all right?" It actually doesn't start until next Monday, my birthday. So he was a week off, but I'm already feeling Mercury's retrograde. I was working on a long blog entry yesterday, then we got very busy, and forgot to finish and put it up, losing the whole thing. Today, I was working on a longer entry, and then I hit a wrong key and lost the whole thing again. Does this mean that communication can get even worse next week and last for three weeks? Very scary. We've been selling lots of comfort food this week, niku jaga and curries. We all need comfort right now.
on september 19, 2008 @ 12:30 am [link]

My precious vote

What an annoying weather we have today. Grey and sticky. I'm hot without air-conditioner, but I'm cold if I turn it on. Heaviness of air is making me so sleepy. Tuesday was my very first primary election since I became a U.S. citizen, and in the morning I went to cast my precious vote. The day before Sean came by with posters and fliers for Paul Newell. "Remember my friend Paul I brought here once? I told you he was running for State Assenbly?" So voting for a candidate I have fed seemed to be a valid reason. I also heard someone say recently, "Always vote for a new guy," which sounds right, if you're not satisfied with current government. I always wondered why the Lower East Side seems to be neglected neighborhood, even though supposedly powerful Sheldon Silver represents our district. Pier by pier, they are getting brand-new beautiful park finished on the west side, but after almost ten years of construction they finished about 100 yards of East River Park promenade. Well, maybe the city park has nothing to do with the state, but still. Now this neighborhood is completely abused by commercial developers, and we are losing our sky block by block. So I went to the polling site and confronted this strange enormous voting machine inside the curtain. First I was mesmerized by the instructions all over the place, left and right, in different languages. Chinese, Korean, Spanish, then finally located English instruction, and pulled the lever. I cast my precious vote by turning little nobs, which marked X next to the candidate's name written in three different languages. It was confusing but I figured it out. At the end of the day the result showed that Sheldon Silver won by a large lead. Nothing will change unfortunately. Not now.
on september 13, 2008 @ 10:28 pm [link]

I was almost famous

Yesterday, I noticed that this famous picture of me, which Margot named "etsko_no_play.jpg" from the race two years ago was still being used for this year's Fitness magazine's 4M race. Not only it was on the race info page, it was also on the front page of New York Road Runners' website. So of course I felt obligated to participate in this morning's race in the Central Park. In sweltering 95% humidity, after 10-minute warm up I was already drenched. Both my legs were covered with droplets of sweat. At least we missed the rain and storm hasn't hit us in the city yet, and the race was on as scheduled. Thank god that it was only four miles! The heat and humidity was so challenging it was one of those memorably miserable race that I just wanted to drop out. But to this day I still haven't dropped out from a race in my life. We already past mid-point. It's only two more miles. I was tired. My teammte Susan kept going with steady pace. Only one more mile to go. I saw Asteria on the sideline with her usual strong encouragement. "Come on, Etsko! It's downhill from here!" Not easy downhill. I kept grabbing water cups and splashed right across my face. Since it was team points race, we had a great cheering section. So I made it through the finish line again.
on september 6, 2008 @ 05:50 pm [link]

Gardening report

A few months ago, after failed attempt to grow sunflowers right by our door, we found a thin strands of vine growing in the pot. "Looks like a morning glory." Yuko and I concluded. Since then she has tended the little weed, letting it wrap around chopsticks. It grew healthier and higher, and reached the top of the airconditioner. We wondered why we are not getting flowers. There seemed to be tiny green buds at the bottom every leaves. One day she picked one of the 'green bud' and found out that there were black seeds already forming inside. It's not morning glory. We didn't even notice the flowers but obviously they already bloomed! We felt betrayed. We took care of it hoping for nice flowers, which we didn't get any visually. Upstairs, I planted a mango seed in a pot and placed it outside of my window. Next day something came and took it out of the pot. I'm not kidding. What could it have been? It was not even on a fire escape. It was right outside of my window on the second floor. There was a hole in the dirt, and the mango seed, which I have scrubbed and dried well prior to planting, was simply missing. What happened? Who did it? A pigeon? A squirrel? A racoon? I've never seen a squirrel or a racoon on Suffolk Street. Mystery was never solved, and this morning glory like weed, just like the one downstairs by our door, began to grow out of the pot. I tied a string so it can climb up, which by next day it began to wrap itself around it. Out of five avocado seeds I put in water, I seem to have gotten two trees. One is thriving nicely in the window, and the other has just been planted two weeks ago with still only a few leaves. Long way to go until I have an avocado farm.

Micheal, who came in to eat a few months back, notified me that his review's up at New York Magazine's website. Very nice review.
on september 4, 2008 @ 11:51 pm [link]