Archive: March 2008

Janet asked:

What character from a TV sitcom do you most relate to?

I am going to assume that Gilmore Girls counts as a sitcom because I wholeheartedly relate to Lane Kim. It’s not just the Asian thing, although that certainly played a big role. Whenever Lane trundled over to Rory’s house in her band uniform, or coming back from Seventh-Day Adventist camp, or complaining about how she was supposed to marry a “nice Asian boy,” I saw myself. She was constantly conflicted between being a dutiful daughter and a fun person, and with the meta combination of every Asian mother I have ever had the opportunity to meet embodied in Mrs. Kim, it wasn’t easy. I felt her pain.

If Gilmore Girls doesn’t count as a sitcom, then second place goes to Minkus from Boy Meets World. I was totally that kid.

- - - - -

Operation Pink Herring asked:

What is your all-time favorite TV show?

I do not exaggerate when I say that this question was one of the hardest ones for me. How does someone pick an all-time favorite TV show? Do I base it on lines memorized? Episodes seen? DVDs owned? Newer favorites? Conflicted, I asked OPH if it would be okay if I went outside the lines and identified two shows (gasp!). To my relief, she assented.

First, I choose to reveal the show whose mention makes my heart leap with an unmatched affection, whose absence on the airways causes me despair. I risk alienation and dissension, but this show is for the true and loyal, to whom I belong. Perfect Strangers, I miss you. My mom and I laughed our way through Balki misconstruing English idioms and Cousin Larry getting stressed out. We wrung our hands when they tried to move that piano for Miss Lydia. Whenever I see Sam Anderson, I always want to cry out, “It’s Mr. Gorpley!” But best of all, in times of celebration, Perfect Strangers taught me to shout triumphantly, “Now we are so happy, we do the Dance of Joy!” Good times, good times.

My current favorite is not really a shocker: How I Met Your Mother. JG and I have been hooked ever since we stumbled upon the episode with the sword fight in the first season. We sing out the theme song without fail, and we even named our dog after the main character. I laugh out loud during every episode, and I love hearing the voice of Bob Saget during the flash-forwards. The creators are really smart and current; the characters have MySpace pages, including Robin’s eighties pop-star alter-ego, Robin Sparkles. The dialog is quick and witty, and the writers reward long-time viewers with references to trivial facts like Marshall’s obsession with the Loch Ness Monster. Plus, how can you not love anything with Doogie Howser? It is impossible.

HIMYM is the show I most look forward to watching, and I am so excited that the first new episode in a very long time is airing tonight! Next week, Britney Spears will have a guest appearance, and we all want to see how that turns out. Basically, HIMYM is pure awesome. You have to see to believe. It is, without a doubt, legen — wait for it! — dary.

Previously: Lent, hypothetical actions, superpower

#60

I am pleased to report that the recipe binder welcomed a new addition to the dinner ranks with my sixth new recipe of the year: sweet and sour chicken, courtesy of Cooking Light. This homemade version of a take-out classic has a straight-forward process and relatively short time frame, and the ingredients are readily available. The process of cooking the dish went smoothly, almost eerily so, and I was nervous to try it out. What if it didn’t taste good? It looked pretty similar to what we’d get at our local place, but you never know when those cooking imps will dash in and spoil things. I tentatively took my first bite.

Yowch! Hot! Hot! Molten lava hot!

I fanned my mouth wildly and gulped down water. Needless to say, the sauce holds its heat very well, straight out of the pan. Once my tongue recovered, I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty the dish was. It was actually sweet! And sour! And just a tiny bit spicy from the dash of red pepper flake. It was a satisfying dinner that wasn’t too heavy, and I felt good about avoiding the extra calories and MSG that our neighborhood Chinese place throws in for free.

It must be noted that it took me about an hour to put together this dinner, and my poor knife skills are solely to blame. I spent half an hour mincing two cloves of garlic; chopping up a red bell pepper, two stalks of celery, and half an onion; and rendering three chicken breasts into half-inch pieces. I doggedly pushed through all of it and emerged with my fingers intact — reward, please! It irks me that I struggled with the prep, but the cooking was a breeze. What is that about? Next time, despite my good intentions to become knife competent, I may ask JG to be my sous chef (i.e., chopping slave).

Also, I have an issue with buying ingredients that have a low probability of being used again, like the “ground fresh ginger (such as Spice World)” mentioned in the recipe. Spices are expensive enough without having them languish in the pantry, taunting me all the while. Plus, I wasn’t about to go out and buy sherry for a mere two tablespoons, and cashews are full of fat, so I omitted those entirely. I followed a suggestion from another cookbook and substituted chicken stock for the sherry in the sauce, and just before I spooned out servings of chicken, I shook in regular old ground ginger, to taste. JG was a member of the Clean Plate Club, so I think it’s safe to say that it all worked out just fine.

P.S. Happy Pi Day!

Traveling with Ted can be a production. In order to assume our normal lap-sitting set-up, JG and I have to run through the following sequence of events:

1. I get in the passenger seat and make sure that both of our cell phones and wallets, the CD case, directions, and toll money are all easily accessible.
2. I buckle up my seat belt and then drape an old towel over my lap. (Too many times, I have forgotten the crucial seat belt step, and it is not pretty.)
3. JG walks Ted out to the car on his leash, and then lifts him up onto my lap.
4. Once I have a firm grip on Ted’s collar, I close my door, unhook the leash, and drop it into the side compartment on the door.
5. After JG gets situated in the driver’s seat and closes his door, I relax my grip on Ted’s collar and let him get comfortable.

Thankfully, Ted sits relatively quietly, and I can even catch a few winks if he dozes off on my lap. On the way up to New Jersey over the weekend, Ted was quite the pleasant seatmate, and the three hours went by without incident.

On the way home, JG decided to see how Ted fared traveling in his crate so that I would be able to sleep a little and lessen the next day’s exhaustion. He strapped the crate to the center of the back seat so that Ted could see us over the center console, and we gently nudged him in. For the first half hour, Ted scratched at the wire grate and whined, but he quieted down eventually. We hoped that he had figured out that we were right there, and that he could just lie down and sleep, if he wanted.

Presently, I heard what can only be described as a squishy sound.

“Did he just throw up?” JG asked.

Yes. Yes, he did. We pulled off to a rest stop, and JG pronounced that the crate was beyond cleaning with the half-full bottle of water I had in my bag, so he switched our luggage to the back seat and put the crate in the trunk. I took Ted back on my lap with a certain degree of trepidation, and resigned myself to getting no sleep for the rest of the way home.

JG remarked that Ted has gotten sick in his crate any time he’s gone in the car inside of it, even on short trips to the vet. He thought that maybe the highway wouldn’t be as bumpy, but now we know. Ted is an adventurous road-tripper, as long as he can be a lap-sitter.

Get your daily dog dose with Smalls, Kaya, Rufus, Ben, Gus, and Zapp!

A couple of weeks ago, when my manager found out that my birthday was coming up, she told me that people on the floor like to go out to lunch to celebrate, and did I have a preference for a restaurant? I assured her that I would be fine with anything, but deep down, I hoped with all my strength that nothing would come of this purported lunch date.

It’s not that I dislike the people with whom I work. It’s more that I don’t really work with anyone because my job is so isolated. After five months on the job, barely a handful of folks even know my name, much less what I do. I’m not directly attached to a specific team of people, and I receive work as it comes because I am not a dedicated resource for anyone. To be fair, I haven’t made much effort at all to meet people, but after receiving the lion’s share of sideways glances throughout the holiday lunch, I wasn’t eager to take the initiative. Although it might sound lonely, I like having my own domain of expertise, and I savor my quiet lunch times. The prospect of having lunch with co-workers who don’t know me (I could just picture it: “RA’s birthday? Who’s RA?”) and being trapped at some chain restaurant for an undetermined amount of time was, well, not very attractive.

My birthday came and went, but no lunch plans ever materialized. I thought I was safe. This week, my manager popped her head into my office and said, “How does lunch on Tuesday sound? For your birthday?”

“Oh. Okay, that’s fine.”

What else could I say? “No, thanks, I’d rather eat my warmed-up leftovers than sit awkwardly,” and “Do I have to pay?” are not included in suitable responses to lunch invitations. So, yesterday, I took a deep breath, stuck my container of rotini and chicken in the mini-fridge, and went out to lunch.

There were only six of us, but I felt odd as the youngest person by at least fifteen years. I heard stories about the high price of a grandchild’s school tuition, drinking stories from college days of yore, and why fighting high cholesterol is like “fixing something that’s not broken.” I was referred to as “the baby” no less than three times, and each occurrence prompted a discussion about how young people have it so easy these days and do I ever stop texting? Oh, I don’t text? What about that MySpace thing? Oh, I don’t do that, either? Well, young people do that stuff. These women had all read it somewhere.

I ate my ravioli much more quickly than I would have normally (i.e., if I had been contributing to the conversation), and it was a pleasant surprise when my manager paid for my meal. All told, the lunch wasn’t that bad, and my meal was tasty. At the very least, I had a better time than the intern, who had the misfortune of being the only male present and still a college student.

When I finally got back to my office, I had the following exchange with a doctor who is no small source of annoyance to me:

Doctor: Was today your birthday?
RA: No, it was actually last week.
Doctor: Why didn’t I wish you a happy birthday last week?
RA: I … don’t know.
Doctor: Oh, so you kept it a secret.
RA: Well, you know …
Doctor: How old are you turning, 21?
RA: Uh, no, that was a while ago.
Doctor: I’m just trying to comment on how young you look.
RA: Oh. Okay.
Doctor: Well, whatever. (walks away)
RA: … (with question mark floating above head)

How would I know why he didn’t wish me a happy birthday? Why would telling me that I look 21 be a compliment? It’s not like I have to strive to look remarkably younger in a department where the average age is 45. And I wasn’t about to tell him my real age without being asked directly, because it would have undoubtedly garnered another declaration of my “baby” status. That conversation typifies exactly why I did not look forward to my birthday lunch. Next year, I’m taking the day off.