Spider of DOOOOMMMMMMM!! *gasp*

We encountered the biggest damn spider EVER today.

Matt was on his way down to the basement when he noticed a huge spider chilling in the upper corner of the stairwell. I wanted him to hold the flyswatter next to it so I could show how big it was. In my opinion, the next logical step would have been to kill it with the very same flyswatter. But, noooo....

Matt decides to use it to herd the spider towards me! *screams of outrage and pure panic*

Finally, he caught it in a plastic cup and decided that the humane thing to do was to put it outside so it could live. (So it can come back inside the house???) But the spider lived. And so did Matt...

Garage Sale Success Story

We had a garage sale!

It was a success!!

What? You were expecting more?!?

Well, Mom is moving to Korea the end of October so everyone has to get their stuff out of the house in order for us to get it ready for the renters. The general thought was, "What the hell are we going to do with all this shit?"

Our original plan was to donate it. But then we came to the conclusion that if people were willing to pay money to take our various pieces of junk off our hands then we would try out that option before hauling everything into the van, driving it across town, unloading it and wallowing in the general unhappiness caused by sweating.

It was such a rousing success that we decided to do it again next weekend! And the leftovers from that garage sale will be donated to charity, probably Good Will or something.

Feel free to come and peruse through our piles of discarded goodies to add to our worthy cause of padding our pockets and withholding from the needy!! (Or don't come, keep your house uncluttered and ensure that a minor portion of something gets wrested away from our greedy little fingers to help some person in need.)

Canning Party: Take Two!

If you read Saturday's entry, the original canning party was a disaster/fiasco. (You'd think that would abbreviate into "disco"...)

Luckily, today was Labor Day and no one was working. So to commemorate the day, we labored! Matt, Tim, Heather, Liz and I canned 28 jars of peachy goodness!! (Lesley supervised and taught us how to play cribbage.)

This is how the day went:

First, Matt and I went over to Lesley and Tim's. The canner and the various pots were already on the stove and filled with boiling water. Matt got the syrup started and prepped the first batch of jars.

Heather and Liz were on their way. In the meanwhile, I set to blanching peaches. (It turns the water a pretty pink color.)

Then I passed them onto Tim who slipped the skins. And finally, they reached Matt to get hacked in half and pitted. The girls got here in time to help pack the jars and pour syrup. And we had our first 7 jars of peaches in the canner! While we were waiting for them to cook for the 3o minutes, Liz decided it would be a good opportunity for her to take a nap.

So Lesley taught me and Heather how to play cribbage!! Matt suffered our one and only casualty when he tipped the lid off a pot towards his wrist instead of away from his body. *ouch!* But at the end of the day, we had rows and rows of beautiful peaches. And they lived happily ever after.

The End

Transformer's Burlesque

Heather had a birthday party. Last year's theme was toga. It was a lot of fun! We ran around everywhere in our togas and looked super cool. This year's theme...Transformers/Burlesque?!?

How in the world are we suppose to manage that? *utterly confused*

Like this!

And this!!

As it turns out, the idea was to dress burlesque and have Transformers themed plates, cups, etc. It was a little more doable that way. *sigh of relief*

We had yummy cocktails (with a virgin option, of course), swimming rama and ice cream cake!

Oh, the cake.

I guess Heather had a vision in mind as to how she wanted her cake to appear. (Wait! Let me precede this part of the story by telling you how much she loves Optimus Prime. I mean, she LOVES him. *psycho!* Back to the cake...) So she picked out her ice cream cake, bought a Optimus Prime figurine and made sure that is hand was formed so that he could hold up one of her candles.

Everything was going fine until we started lighting the candles. What in the world possessed her to have 24 candles on the cake?!? There was wax everywhere, some of the candles were already half melted and then Optimus's candle started to wilt. *mass pandemonium* OH NO!! Quick, Heather! Blow out the candles NOW!!!

Poor Optimus. Not only did he have to survive the trial by fire, he then was molested by Heather. It must have been a sad, sad day in his life... *moment of silence*

Moving on. We played a trivia game in which the object was to find out who knew Heather the best. Since Heather has a long held tradition of crying every birthday, I was sure this was her ploy to provide an opportunity in which she could sob maniacally while screaming, "You don't even KNOW me!!" Alas, it was not the case. And I won. Duh.

Then the fun part. SCAVENGER HUNT!! *super excited!!*

We had to all sorts of crazy things. Find someone wearing polka dots and take a picture with them, have someone serenade us, find a couple on a date and have the guy give us his number while his girlfriend took a picture with us, find a dent on a car and put a bandaid on it, pump gas for someone, make Heather's initials with our bodies and more! (All within an hour.)

Can you picture us running around in our burlesque gear at 10pm on Capitol Hill? FUN TIMES!!

Happy Birthday, Heather!

Canners of Peaches

Matt has become fascinated with the whole canning process. I have no idea what started him on it but it may have had a lot of factors. (Apparently, his mother used to talk about canning peaches as a child because her dad loved peaches. And while we were at the Farm, Gram had talked about all the different things they used to can every year before the winter. So, we're up to two factors... *counting diligently on my fingers*)

Matt LOVES peaches. And so it came to be that we decided to can peaches. I was actually excited. After all this talk about canning and everything, it sounded like a fun thing to do. And I love anything that involves large groups of people. People make everything even more funner! (More stressful too but let's overlook that. *grins* Also, if you could bypass the fact that funner isn't a word, I would appreciate that too.)

Matt's mom, Lesley, bought a canner and said that we could use it...in her kitchen, no less! YAY FOR LESLEY!! (And Tim! You can't leave out the husband. He lives there too.) My house is a horrendous mess right now between the remodel, the move and various other insanities. So it was seriously awesome that we had a kitchen other than mine to can in.

Matt and I set out on Friday afternoon to buy some peaches in Thorp. What a deal! *faints with joy* A box of peaches for $7.50?!? That's cheaper that at the grocery store even with all the driving! It was so pretty out there and the wind was insane. (For example, look at my hair. I would hope you wouldn't think that I actually style it that way...)

We brought home six boxes of peaches. We were hoping it was enough to can about 40 jars as well as leaving enough for us to share fresh peaches with other people. The only disconcerting things was that the peaches were as hard as rocks! They were cold so we hoped that once they warmed up that they would be ripe enough to can. *crosses fingers*

So this morning, we showed up at Tim and Lesley's with our boxes and boxes of peaches. Lesley had the whole kitchen all set up! She's so nice!! I was so unprepared because I had forgotten to read up on canning before joining the venture so I was pretty lost the whole way through. The basics were:

1) Blanch the peaches in boiling water for up to 30 seconds
2) Slip the skins of the peaches
3) Cut the peach in half, pit and scrape away fibers
4) Stuff as many into a hot jar without making a pulpy mess
5) Ladel in the syrup
6) Remove the air bubbles
7) Wipe the lid, screw on the top then set it in the canner to boil for 30 minutes

Woah! That's a lot of steps!!

Luckily, we had lunch first. *yum* And Matt's aunt, uncle and cousin showed up to eat with us. They're very nice people and Natalie is adopted from Korea which is super cool. Soon lunch was over and it was time to can.

WHAT A DISASTER! WHAT A FIASCO!!

We blanched and blanched those suckers and the skin would NOT come off. Finally, we gave up because we were practically cooking them to death. So we had to peel them with vegetable peelers which should have given us the first clue that they weren't ripe enough to can. But we were determined! They had a slight yet distinct green tinge to them (indicating non-ripeness) once the peels were off yet they were still passed off to the cutting board. Then the circus act began.

We sliced it in half and then tried to twist the halves off. Do you have any idea how hard it is to try and twist a peach in half when it's hanging on to its pit for dear life?!? Needless to say, there were a lot of peaches that popped up and out between fingers covered with peachy slime. They flew into the sink, onto the floor and everywhere. We were a mess! And yet, still determined. We managed to find the ripest peaches from all six boxes and were able to can one jar of peaches. ONE. *laughing hysterically*

It was still fun. With all the "not quite ripe" peaches, Natalie and I made cobbler. Lesley had a fantastic recipe. We added our own secret ingredient. (Orange extract) And it was SO good! All in all, I think it was a successful day.

P.S. By the way, the first jar of peaches looked good in the picture. But the fruit shrank a little after being boiled and it ended up looking like specimens floating in peach-colored formaldehyde. I'm assuming it's not suppose to look like that...

Happy Birthday, Hayder!

Today is Heather's birthday.

We went to Mana Buffet and gorged on Korean BBQ. *DROOL*

She approved of her birthday cake from Baskin Robbins. (One year she cried about the flavor we got and I had to buy her a new cake...)

Blew out her candles. (There were only two so it didn't pose a problem.)

Then tried to knife me with the cake cutter. (I had a tiny problem with that.)

Mom tried to hop into a "sisters" picture and landed on my foot. *Ouch!*

It was a good birthday!

Japanese Garden

Matt and I went to the Japanese Garden today.

It was so beautiful.

And peaceful.

Except for the koi.

The koi were crazy.

Eclipse? What eclipse?!?

The lunar eclipse was scheduled for this evening. Well, early tomorrow morning to be exact. I don't know why they couldn't have scheduled it for a better time for it. This is totally going to ruin my sleep schedule...

I did manage to stay up until 2am to take this picture. Then I fell asleep with the intent of waking up a little later to take a better picture. Erm, yeah. It didn't happen. Oh, well! When's the next lunar eclipse again?

Welcome to Fairhaven!

It's been over a month since our road trip ended and we were kind of missing being on the road. So Matt and I got into my trusty Matrix (which would probably be more trusty if I would take it in to be maintenenced...) and headed out to see what we could see. It was to be a "get lost" drive. And so we just picked a direction and went.

We happened to pick north. And ended up in Bellingham. Hmm...not so much what we were looking for. It looked a lot like what we had left behind at home. A little disappointed, we continued on and found ourselves in Fairhaven. ULTIMATE CUTENESS!!

It had older buildings, tons of little stores of different varieties, a waterfront, cool places to eat and had that small town feel. *in love* We drove out to the water first and saw a heron and a couple kayaks. Then we went into town and looked through a glass store, a pottery store and window shopped at random.

Finally, we started getting hungry and got some recommendations from a shopkeeper. And that's how we ended up at Harris Street Cafe. *fond remembrance of a blissful stomach* Matt had a BLT with soup and I had some sort of a scramble with onion, ham, potatoes, tomatoes, maple syrup, BBQ sauce topped off with an egg. YUMMY!!

Then we came home a different route and listened to more of Pirate (the book on tape we abandoned 2 CDs from the end because our road trip was cut short). It was a fabulous, fantastic, wonderful day!

Just a reception this time...

Matt and I went to Mia and Brian's wedding reception today.

It was kind of crazy to see so many people from high school. I haven't seen most of them in 10 years! But it was fun. Mia was gorgeous, Brian looked great, the reception was set up beautifully and the food was really good.

(The picture was filched off her MySpace page)

I loved the cheese and fruit. *guilty pleasure*

The only sad part of the whole experience was the Father and Daughter Dance. It was the same song that Dad and I danced to at my wedding and it made me cry. I think back on that day and remember how hard I cried during that dance and it makes me wonder if somehow I knew. Overall, I wish I had never married Andy. But I will never regret having that dance.

Caught up until tomorrow

Today was a stay at home day as well. And no, I didn’t play WoW all day. I made an effort to get caught up on my blog and I did. *happy dance* The real reason I didn’t leave the house today was it was laundry day. And since there is a washer but no dryer, it means I have to wait until my clothes dry on the line. The public does not want to see me in my pajamas. (Damn the public…)

Watch out, world!

After nearly twenty-four hours of downloading, my ruin was at hand.

World of Warcraft, here I come. Wicked is back.

Actually, I was supposed to meet up with Yun Sook today but I got sick. I am not about to go into details so let’s just say, I didn’t want to leave the house. So that was the extent of my activities for today.

I lied. We had pizza. It was good.

A sleepless night

I didn’t sleep last night. My sleeping pattern got messed up at some point and I had the brilliant idea that staying up a whole night might tweak me back into a regular mode. (Not thinking that in a few days I will be back in the States and it won’t matter! *sigh*) In the midst of my psychosis, I had another intelligent idea. I began the long process of downloading Warcraft. Let the addiction begin… Not to worry though, it was just the 10-day trial and it’s not like I’ll be playing it on the road trip. *crosses fingers*

The whole night wasn’t a loss. I was SO far behind on my blog but I did manage to catch up a bit. I think I got seven or eight entries done. *pats self on back* Emo was up most of the night too. She said she had too much coffee so she spent most of the night cleaning the house. (I am beginning to see where my mild case of OCD comes from.) *bleary eyed* She then went off to work only to return in the afternoon to take me and the grandparents to lunch. Her co-workers had given her money to take us to a nice Japanese restaurant, Sapporo.

The only nice thing I can say about the place was it had cool seating, kind of like that place I went to with Chi and Christine. But MY GOD, I am SO sick of sashimi. I can say that I had not even had it before coming to Korea this trip and I’ve been having it almost every other day. I DON’T LIKE FISH! I was just being polite!! Please, for god’s sake, I would like some real food!!! *cries in hunger* At least it was pretty to look at. *sniff*

I met up with Jennifer, Levi, Franklin, Mindy and Ray at Inchon station later that evening. I was vastly entertained on the way there by a woman on the train. She was wearing her pants so tight that not only could you see her prominent underwear line but the very muscles of her butt…which would twitch with a random regularity that I found hilarious. *staring yet again* Anyway, we went to Sookdae for dinner. Rob met up with us there and Misil came a lot later. The food was SOOOO good! *faints with happiness* It was…uh, chicken kalbi? Whatever. We got the spicy kind with ddok and noodles and the cheesy kind with potatoes. YUM!! (Sorry, I was too hungry to take a picture.)

I think the most startlingly funny part of the entire evening was when Rob was telling us about his favorite Korean food but he couldn’t remember the name of it. He kept saying bulgogi ttang but there isn’t such a thing. Basically, he was saying it was bulgogi but in a soup (which is what the ttang part means in this case.) Misil was trying to convince him it was either something else or it was just bulgogi with a lot of liquid. In the midst of their heated debate, Misil dramatically splashed the remainder of her beverage into the remnants of our chicken kalbi and queried, “Then what do you call THIS? Chicken kalbi ttang?!?” *a moment of utter silence before everyone burst into hysterical laughter*

When we left it was POURING rain. *drenched even with an umbrella* Jennifer wanted to get bingsoo but the place was closed. Luckily there was a noraebang next door so we took refuge there. Between the mood lighting that cost a dollar, Misil double fisting the mikes and learning Levi could rap Eminem with the best of them, we had a good time. I hope Jennifer and Levi have a great time on their trip and a great rest of their life! *smiles*

A mistaken sense of direction

I was rudely awakened by a phone call. And then my ears were assaulted by the piercing tones of Sook Mo #1. She was calling to schedule family time for me and Jung Min. The story goes, Jung Min was scheduled for an overnight rehearsal and therefore had the morning off. Instead of letting the poor girl sleep, Sook Mo thought it would be fantastic for her to spend that time with me. *still trying to wake up* I called Jung Min posthaste and set up a meeting. Ok. Myong Dong at 1pm. Good-bye.

I got there. On time, no less. Without thinking, I exited at the first exit I saw. *a moment of hesitation* Uh…did we even set up a place to meet? Now that I think about it, I think I pick exit #1 because that’s the one I always went to whenever I met up with Yun Sook. My bad! Because I was WRONG! After waiting for nearly half an hour, I decided to call her. But I had forgotten to bring her number with me! *smacks self in head* I scrounged some coins out of my purse and dialed Emo’s. My grandmother answered and then it occurred to me, this could prove to be difficult. *hangs head in despair*

After attempting to pry information out of the old lady while watching the money in the payphone drain away to nothing, I finally asked to speak to someone else. Luckily, Hyun Ho was home. I told him excitedly exactly where to find my notebook with all the phone numbers only to have him casually remark that he couldn’t read my handwriting. *doom* The only one he could recognize was the shoe shop. I quickly memorized the number (there was an echo of remembrance in my head that made it much easier than it would have been otherwise) and dialed with trepidation.

Sure enough, Sook Mo’s outrage was clearly heard at the far corners of the subway station. Jung Min had been waiting for THIRTY minutes! *cringe* I was forced to borrow a pen from a hapless bystander who seemed to be sympathetic and I was able to write down Jung Min’s cell and finally meet up with her. Gah… We laughed about it after I had recovered my composure a bit. *sheepish grin* The Outback was our first stop. We needed to eat! I nearly needed to be rolled out after we ate. I was SO FULL. (Do I sense repetition here?) Then I realized I had forgotten my camera battery…

I did a little shopping, we hung out a bit and then it was time for Jung Min to head back to school. I’m glad we ended up hanging out even though she was sleep deprived and I was lost for a bit. I’m going to miss her!

Wedding goodness

Early morning, there was drama with Mom but I’m going to skip over that and just say that she left for the airport to go home as scheduled. Around 330pm, I left to go to Jennifer’s wedding. It was freaking FAR! I think it took me an hour to get there on the subway. Once I got off the train, I looked at the neighborhood map to see where I needed to go. *giggles bubbling dangerously near the surface* Well, I found the place.

Korean wedding are odd. It’s more of a production than anything else. There are facilities called wedding halls that cater specifically to providing you with the proper setting while you are tying the knot. Depending on the amount of money you want to spend, you can get less or more…stuff. Like a smoke machine. *laughs* You also rent your wedding dress which is awesome because, honestly, when are you ever going to wear it again.

Jennifer looked beautiful. The ceremony was long. The trumpet solo was exceedingly loud. There were people everywhere! And I’m not talking about guests although there were about a hundred of us. There was a photographer and a videographer and a lady from the wedding hall that kept rushing up to fix Jennifer’s dress or to tell Levi to remember to clench his fist or to tell the two of them how to pose for the photos. I felt like I was on a movie set. The funniest part was when they had to cut this fake wedding cake with a knife that looked remarkably like a samurai sword. *evil grin*

Oh, before I forget. Korean people don’t tend to give wedding gifts. It’s customary to bestow gifts of the monetary variety. To ensure that you do, the wedding halls have a genius system set up. Before you walk into the seating area prior to the wedding, there is a kiosk divided into two sections. (Let me give you a hint, Bride and Groom.) You hand over your gift/money in an envelope to the lady in the correct section in order to get your name in the guest book. Then they hand you a ticket. (Remember the ticket, it’s very important.)

After the ceremony, the guests were invited to partake in food while Jennifer and Levi changed out of their wedding gear. The mass of people were slowly funneled through into the dining area by a another wedding hall employee. And what was she doing? Collecting meal tickets! I told you to hold onto it!! I sat next to Rob. I hadn’t seen him since show choir days in high school. Misil was at the wedding too but she was downstairs helping Jennifer so she didn’t eat with us.

After a while, the married couple still hadn’t shown up so we went in search of them. I had forgotten that after the western style wedding, they then changes into the traditional Korean outfits to take MORE pictures. Finally, they were allowed to get changed into regular clothes and eat. I hadn’t met Levi before but he was super nice! Since they were leaving at the end of the week for their Peace Corps mission to Suriname, they were going to be really busy. But a group of us decided to meet up on Wednesday. All in all, it was a good wedding!

Next time, remind me. I hate amusement parks.

Ugh. I don’t know if I was emotionally exhausted because of last night or what but I slept in LATE today. I vaguely recall Mom coming in at one point and talking to me about going somewhere but I don’t remember anything at all about what she said. And then I remember Hyun Ji coming in and asking if I wanted to go to Seoul Land to which I whined something along the line of “Nooooo, I’m tiiiiiiired.” I don’t know how much time passed after that. All of a sudden, my eyes opened and I was awake. It was kind of cool except it was 3pm and the reason I didn’t want to sleep anymore was because I kept having the same bad dream over and over again. It really sucks to be stabbed in the side with a pair of tongs. *grimace*

Determined to do something today, I rushed out into the living to announce that I wanted to go to Seoul Land…only to find no one was home. Wait. Never mind. The cousins were home but they were hiding. Ok, so they really weren’t hiding. Hyun Ho was still studying for mid-terms and Hyun Ji was watching TV in her parents’ room. It took us a little over fifteen minutes to get ready and we were out the door. (We had to abandon Hyun Ho because he wasn’t allowed to come. You know, studying takes precedence over everything. Possibly even breathing.) Once again, the subway was the setting for another comedy.

I don’t know if it’s like this in other parts of the world but it’s pretty much a given in Korea that you will give up your seat on the bus or subway for an elderly person. I really hate the people who treat you like shit just because they feel that they are entitled to the seat due to their age. The least they can do is be decent about it. You know?!? *grr…* But there was this old lady today and she was pretty funny about the whole thing. She didn’t glare at the guy or mutter some derogatory remarks about his parents under her breath. In fact, she was on her way to stand by the door when he got up and offered her his seat.

The thing that got me was how she was simultaneously saying, “Oh, dear. I didn’t want to be a bother. I really feel sorry that you have to give up your seat for me…” as she was hurrying him out the seat with a not to gentle push. Puhahaha. The dichotomy is amusing to me. The rest of the ride was uneventful. We got there in record time. Well, in any case, we got there faster than it took us to get to Lotte World the other day. Anyway, it was warm and we didn’t feel like walking so we coughed up a buck fifty and caught the elephant tram up the amusement park entrance.

We had taken so long to get there that it was nearing 5pm. We looked to see what the price of the tickets were and realized that there was a discount for evening tickets…starting at 5pm. What luck! But how freaking SLOW those last ten minutes were. And then we were in!! Before we could do anything else, we had to take advantage of the photo opportunities. You really shouldn’t let a fountain go to waste. Flex your fingers and ready your peace sign! *forced smile while waiting for Hyun Ji to take my picture for the fifteenth time*

Lunch was at Lotteria. Hyun Ji was craving a burger so I caved in although it’s not my most favorite thing. In the end, she ended up ordering for me because even though I was looking at a menu full of burgers, I had no idea what was what. She said she was getting me a cheeseburger but it wasn’t like any cheeseburger I had ever had before. First of all, I couldn’t find any cheese. And there was a meat patty but there was another one underneath it that was breaded. At least that’s what I thought until I bit into it. So THERE was the cheese! Interesting. And then there were black olives and sweet pickles…

We went on a couple rides. The lines weren’t insane but they were still long. We had Dippin’ Dots to give me strength. God, I hate waiting in lines. We rode a couple more rides and then I made a mistake. I let Hyun Ji talk me into riding a spinning ride. BIG BOO BOO! I know that spinny rides make me want to hurl. For some reason, that was not taken into consideration. It only occurred to me when I found my face plastered against a window as I was simultaneously being rolled horizontally and flipped upside down. I was so nauseous I could barely walk. I’m glad I didn’t throw up because I would have been embarrassed but, at the same time, I wish I had because my tummy might have decided not to be so angry with me.

I couldn’t really act like I was sick because I didn’t want to ruin Hyun Ji’s time at the park. So I faked it. *laughs* It was rather difficult since I had the sweats, was shaking and gulping frantically. But overall, I did ok. And I even managed three more rides after that. The picture on the flume ride was so hysterical that we had to buy a copy. My stomach finally settled down enough for me to have a sausage on a stick. Woohoo! Because no time at a Korean amusement park is complete without a sausage on a stick!! *munch* By then it was 10pm and the park was closing so we hopped on the subway to go home.