use real butter

I was wiped out when I got home tonight and a veritable mental and emotional mess.

I didn’t feel like cooking and I was craving bad, fried take-out style foods. I flopped around on the floor with Kaweah while Jeremy tried to offer some solutions (places to go pick up some food while I took a nap). But nothing sounded good because my guilt meter was on Hysterical setting. Didn’t want to spend money, too tired to cook, and I had to prepare a whole meal to take to our friends’ house for dinner tomorrow, whine whine whine.

These situations can go one of two ways and this time I put my mental ass in gear and made Chinese Cold Noodles while Jeremy did dishes.

Dinner was good tonight. I finally got around to making this korean noodle dish with my stash of bean thread noodles that needs to be used up. It’s completely vegetarian and delicious. Only problem is that I’m hungry again because the noodles have something like 2 calories a pound (not really, but you know). Chinese mushrooms, carrots, green onions, tree ear fungus, mmmm mmmm mmmm. Good for summer meals.

My parents and grandma arrived last night. We took them down to NBC Seafood in Monterey Park for dinner. I wish I had brought the elph with me because there was a good 15 minute discussion between the three of them over what to order. They pored over three sets of menus and interrogated the waiter three times as to how various dishes were prepared. Finally, the waiter came back with two buckets. One had a live red snapper, and the other had a live lobster. My parents gave the snapper a nod and then told him the lobster was too big and to get a smaller one.

Lobsters must be between 1 and 1.5 pounds because anything larger is too old and the meat is no longer tender or sweet.

In my Dad’s speak – Kid, are you listening to me? This is how you order a lobster. You want it to be between one and one and a half pounds. Are you listening to me? If it’s two pounds, it is NG (no good). It will taste like eeeeyech.

This morning I ushered them into the backyard to take some pictures. I wish I had rekindled my interest in photography before Kris died. We did take some studio pictures about 4 years ago for Mom’s birthday, and I’m really glad we took one together. But it’s something I wish I had more of now that I don’t have her. Not that I ever expected to be without her. I can’t be sure if I’m operating out of fear or love or both now.