Our Mad Dog

On Saturday, Lori dropped Maddie (AKA the Mad Dog) off at the hotel so that she could spend the night getting reaccquainted with mommy and daddy again. It was great. She's grown at least two inches taller during the past three weeks we hadn't seen her, but she's still our sweetheart baby.

She definitely looks more like a dog, not a puppy anymore. Lori said she could grow another inch, but she's already big for a female Belgian Turveren.

Maddie drooling by the bed....Why?

Ah-hah, Daddy is eating chips and chees dip!!

A good place to eat?

We've been in Webster, NY for over two weeks now. I've been trying to find a good place to eat although I can cook at the hotel. (We're staying in a studio equipped with a small kitchen. The room is actually bigger than Chris' apartment in Hawaii.) I've asked Karen, the hotel cleaning lady, what restaurants are good around here, and she told me "Applebee's". ummmmmmmmm....We didn't go there. Then two days ago, we wanted to have pizza for dinner, so Chris asked the she-male at the office (oh yea, (s)he's pretty scary-looking.) which pizza places are good because there are quite a few around. She told Chis she always got her pizza from Pizza Hut (which we like to call "Pizza Slut" from a t-shirt we saw in Bangkok). ummmmmmmmmmmmmm...we decided to try a local place nearby. It was pretty good like any pizzas are.

We also went to an Italian restaurant by the bay (without anyone's suggestions) last Saturday. The food was good. The portion was HUGE!! We got two big meals out of it.

The Coup

As much as I wanted to see the Thai PM out of his chair, I hate to see military tanks rolling around bangkok and armed soldiers everywhere. It's the sight I didn't expect to see again in my lifetime. I remember seeing something like this once when I was a kid and once again 12 years ago. The last time it happened, it didn't end pretty. Too much blood was shed, and I was old enough to remember it.

I just hope they do what they promise to do. Return power to the people. Thailand's politics will never get better. There will always be corruption, but at least let the people decide.

Before Fall comes....

Fall is in the air. I'm really looking forward to the foliage, but not the cold weather.

Trucking

Chris started hauling all the trailers out to the job site in Webster, NY last week. Driving there hauling stuff takes 7 hours and coming back takes 6 hours. I've been going with him every trip, and we're very familiar with the route now. The job itself will start next Monday, so it means we'll start staying at the 20-year-old Days Inn in Rochester on Sunday night. Not something I really look forward to as I'm sure the hotel is not very nice. Oh well, at least we'll get to be by ourselves.

Some pictures from this past weekend at John's. It was a fun and relaxing time that I felt like I haven't had in a while.

Green Card Approved!

My green card was finally approved after I had to send in additional documents twice to clear off my 2-year residence in Thailand after I left Hawaii. How long did the whole process take? About 7 and a half months. Other people's take about 3. I still don't know why the interviewing agent failed to see in my passport that I didn't leave the country except for the 5 days in Amsterdam before I came here last October. Bureaucratic crap I guess.

Anyhow, the actual green card should be in a the mail within three weeks. I hope I'll have it before we go to New York next month. Then we can definitely go to Canada. :-)

A Baseball Game with the Boys

We took the boys to the Indians' game last Sunday. It was hot, hot, and hot, especially at our seats in the bleachers. It was a good game, though. The Indians won big with 11 runs in the first inning.

Dinner at the Pointe Cafe

Last Saturday we had dinner at the Pointe Cafe. Marianne recommended this place, so we thought we'd check it out. The restaurant looks like an old house. It's not a fancy restaurant, and the decor inside is rather tacky. When we got there, we saw a couple leaving the restaurant holding hands, and the woman was saying something about the man's wife. hmmm, what the ??? They were holding hands like they were a couple, but the man already has a wife? Oh well, none of our business, but we had to wonder what was going on.

Anyhow, we had to wait for about 15 minutes for our table. After we ordered our entrees, our salads came. The house vinigrette dressing was quite nice.Chris ordered Cajun Chicken Fetucine. He liked it a lot. Its spiciness lightened the cream sauce up, so it's not too heavy. Chris said that was spicy enough for him. No wonder he never likes my Thai curry. haha

I had one of their specials for that day, Pork Loin Stuffed with Sausage and Spinach. It was good. The pork was not dry, but I think the mushroom gravy was a bit too salty. We only had half of our entrees and boxed the rest home.

Chris had his leftover for dinner on Sunday, I had mine for lunch yesterday. Not bad at all for a $35 dinner for two.

.......

i'm having the last beer in the fridge and watching tv by myself downstairs. after we took maddie out to get her first rabies shot, chris decided not to go to his cousin's graduation party with his mom and dad. we have another party to go to anyway. but now he's upstairs sleeping and i'm downstairs by myself. well, i'm with maddie and hannah, but they are just lying down minding their own business. the house is quiet and that's very nice. i've just realized how much i miss being by myself.

happy mother's day

Friends(2)

green and yellow beans

i just don't get it. why did we boil the hell out of fresh, crispy, tender green and yellow beans that we went all the way to the farmer's market to buy? they're supposed to be eaten mushy like the way they are in cans?

......

i guess i'm not allergic to bee stings. lucky me. my neck didn't even get swallen. after a few hours, the whole thing was barely noticeable. i got a bit dizzy and sleepy from the allergy pill i took, though.

Gyozas

Here's the recipe for the gyozas (pot stickers) I made for the HOF party last friday. Sorry, no measurements. I don't believe in them. (Obviously, I've never baked.)

Filling Ingredients: ground pork, chopped cabbage, green onions, finely chopped garlic and ginger (Use a LOT of garlic. You're supposed to kill your significant other with a single breath after eating a few of these.)

Mix everything together. Add soy sauce and ground pepper to taste. If you're not sure if you have added enough soy sauce, take a small spoonful and cook it in the microwave to taste first.

Put the filling in gyoza wrappers which usually come in frozen packages. Find ones that are thin. The thinner, the better. (You know, these are different from those dough-ey dumplings with very little pork filling you get at a Chinese restuarant. If we go through all this trouble to make them ourselves, we need to taste the pork (and garlic), not the darn dough.) Put about a teaspoonful of the filling in each wrapper. Wipe some water around the edge to bind. Fold the wrapper up. Crimp only the top half of the wrapper and press it against the flat bottom half. (Sorry, no pictures. Chris was nowhere to be found while I was making them.)
Put a pan that has a lid on the stove with a just enough oil to coat the bottom. Place the gyozas bottom down. Fry them until the bottom turns brown, and flip them over. Then add a little water. Cover the pan with the lid immediately to let the steam cook the pork. Wait about 2-3 minutes until the gyozas are cooked through.

Dipping Sauce Ingredients: a few slices of ginger, water, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, green onion
Boil water with ginger. Add soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar to taste. It should be salty and a little sweet and sour. Let cool and add green onion. If you want it a little hot, add chilli oil and ground chilli pepper. (I really recommend adding chilli oil,though. It makes it so much better.)

ouch!

i got stung by a bee for the first time in my life while watering tomatoe plants. ouch!! that darn suicidal bee!!

i took a pill for allergy just in case. hope that did it.

Friends(1)

i was just telling chris the other day how much i missed my friends. it started like this, "honey, this is nothing against you, i do enjoy being with you, but i do miss my friends. i miss talking to them, hanging out with them, going shopping with them....." chris said he's sorry i feel that way. i told him not to worry about it. hmmmmm, what else can i say?

perhaps this is why meeting john and josh lat saturday was really really nice. it's not that i can go shopping with them and hang out with them the same way i do with my girlfriends in thailand, but i'm more related to both of them than anyone else i've met since i came to ohio. the fact that we all went to school in the same class was very helpful. that we spent a lot of time drinking and partying in hawaii helped even more. i've just come to realize that i don't have anyone i can talk to here, but chris. sounds very sad, huh? it's not that i don't have anyone to talk to at all, but it's that nobody 'clicks' with me. not enough 'mutual background' i guess. yea, what can i expect? a woman growing up in thailand and people growing up in ohio. thailand is only half the world away. whenever chris gets together with his buddy, they like to talk about sports. when chris' brothers are here, they talk about sports. hmmmmmm, me talking about NFL, MLB, and NHL? i don't think so. recognizing a few of the tribe's players is all i'm capable of doing (in this life).