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It was my mom’s birthday

Parthian Chicken

It was my mom’s birthday the other day.

We were originally all going to see some other relatives before we saw her for dinner.

So, I rented a car since it was the four of us: Me, the kid, the Firecracker, and her kid.

But, at the last minute, my other relatives cancelled, and it was too late to cancel the car.

Since we had it, we just went on a little car-ride to Ikea out in Long Island where the kid had their Swedish meatballs and I got (another) planter, this time for a lemon tree that Bryson got me.

The Meyer Lemon tree that Bryson gave me. He insists that I can grow lemons at home; the jokes on him because I am incredibly bad at getting plants to produce flowers or fruit.

Afterward, we drove back and I picked up dinner for everyone – it wasn’t a lot because most of us were full, including my sis and her kids.

It was still good, though.

Anywho, my mom’s getting older but still working because her job gives her joy.

I envy her, in many ways; she found purpose in her life that inspires her and keeps her active, both mentally and physically.

Feel lucky that she’s still around and gets to see the boy grow up.

This year will be the first year that we’re doing Thanksgiving at my place – the first time in close to 30 years of my being here (!)

So, I’ve been practicing making Parthian Chicken, which is a 1,500 year-old recipe that I got from a YouTube Channel I like called Tasting History.

It’s unlike any other chicken dish I’ve ever had because it has this spice called Asafoetida (“hing” in Indian groceries) and…well, it absolutely stinks.

As does the garum/fish sauce that is used to season it.

I bought this one. It does not smell good.

But the taste is just killer, and the smell essentially transforms into this really lovely thing after an hour of baking.

The Firecracker and I love it; her kid likes it, and my kid is less than thrilled.

Still, I think that it’ll be a nice change up from the usual Turkey and stuffing.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Location: standing in front of my desk because my back is absolutely killing me
Mood: guess
Music: Say you’ll be there, when I need you (Spotify)
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Hot pot with a buncha hapas, Pt 2

What’s a Hapa?

I’m hard pressed to say which of my friends are the better chefs.

For my money, Steele’s probably the best but that might just be because I’ve had his food the most.

Bryson and Pak are both close behind, with Pak working in restaurants practically his whole life and Bryson just taking it seriously like Steele.

I will say this: Before my dad died, Steele and Bryson both came by so he could show them how he made sushi.

It’s one of my fondest life memories, ever.

As for me, I’ve been trying for some two-plus decades to get invited over to Bryson’s for a meal and, earlier last week, it finally happened.

Because the Firecracker and I had such a great experience at the Frenchman’s for dinner last year, we all decided to have hot pot again, but this time at the Brysons.

Their pad was absolutely ginormous – four bedrooms in Queens, which isn’t very common.

With an outdoor area to boot.

Me: Man, this place is just tiny.
Him: (laughing) Come on, I’ll give you the tour.

Bryson moved a lot in the past few decades but, like me, stayed in the same building, just moving from one unit to another.

The last time I visited Bryson and his wife, Nikki, they were both sans kids; this time around, they had three, with one a freshman in high school.

Her: I saw you on YouTube and told my friends you were friends with my dad, that was fire.
Me: Sweeeeeeet, I’ll take it. Tell your friends.

Bryson wanted me to just sit and chill but it was just him prepping for this small army of people.

So, I rolled up my sleeves and got to chopping, first deboning and cutting the chix and then the flat iron steak.

Bryson took the chicken and made some Karaage – which my dad used to make for me alla time (god, I miss him) – for the kids, although we ate some as well.

Firecracker: OMG, that is so good.
Me: That’s for the kids! The hot pot’s the main attraction.
Her: I’ll try…

But Bryson didn’t make it easy for her anyone to pace themselves because he kept bringing out these delicious dishes that we all loved.

Like, I mentioned how much Tess and I liked spam and how much the Firecracker had grown to love it and so he made a bowl of musubi for us to all enjoy (which is what the kids were eating in the last photo of the last entry).

By the time the hot pot rolled around, we were all already pretty full.

Which is not to say that we didn’t kill that all as well.

On that note, Bryson bought a slab of wagyu beef which, being the absolute animals we were, we devoured before Bryson got to try any.

Me: So sorry we killed the wagyu before you had a chance to try it.
Bryson: Whatever. Super happy you guys were able to enjoy. That’s my happiness

Afterward, we all had some of the tart and chocolate cheesecake that the Frenchman and Tess brought over.

Oh, I suppose I should explain the main pictures of these two entries: My back has been absolutely killing me these days.

I’ve been doing this back PT called the Mckenzie Method but you gotta do it like every 60-120 minutes all day for it to work.

I’d be slacking for a while so my back’s not been improving.

Ergo, I gave myself a goal of a minimum of eight times a day and – because these were all good friends of mine – I asked Nikki for a yoga mat and did them.

It was fine – it was my comedic contribution to the night.

Well, that and alcohol.

It was a great night, as always, with good friends.

We took an Uber back and the boy was beat tired when we got back.

Me: Did you have a good time, kiddo?
Him: Yes. I’m so full. I’m so tired. Did you, papa?
Me: Good. Yes, I did. Bryson’s one of my oldest friends and the Frenchman and his family are nice aren’t they?
Him: (nodding as he dozes off)
Me: Good night, kid. Papa loves you.
Him: (smiles with his eyes closed)

Location: a train to the Morgan Library and Museum from Newark
Mood: starving
Music: if we go down, at least I’m in good company (Spotify)
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Hot pot with a buncha hapas, Pt 1

What’s a Hapa?

A hapa, in Japanese, has traditionally meant someone that is half Japanese and half something else.

Other Asians, like myself, have co-opted this term to mean anyone that is half-one race and half-another.

So, my son is not technically a hapa but I call him that.

In any case, after a lotta back-and-forth – and because alla our significant others got along so well – Bryson, the Frenchman, and I finally agreed to meet up for another dinner, this time at Bryson’s.

There, I marveled how the hapas completely outnumbered the only three people there that weren’t hapas – namely, myself, the Firecracker, and the Firecracker’s kid.

What I found the most interesting was that the Frenchman (French/Japanese) married another hapa, Tess, (Chinese/Caucasian), while Bryson (African-American/Okinawan) married another hapa, Nikki, (African-American/American).

And Bryson and Nikki have three hapa kids, while the Frenchman and Tess have two hapa kids.

The kicker is that some of the hapa kids were dating…other hapas!

Me: How do you all keep finding each other?
Bryson: We’re everywhere!

I’m finding this to be true.

Always wondered if the kid was gonna end up with an Asian like me, or a Caucasian like Alison, or something else entirely.

It never occurred to me that he might end up with another hapa.

Based on what we were seeing with the kids, that seems more likely than I had originally thought.

In any case, the food was so amazeballs that I felt it deserved its own entry, so I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

Oh, and I’ll explain what’s going on in the picture above as well.

Her: Everybody point at Logan!
Me: That’s really not…ok, I see this is happening.

Location: my apartment, showing the boys how to escape an American lock.
Mood: parched
Music: We ‘bout to elevate, getting up and getting down (Spotify)
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Water, water, everywhere…

Fairly self-evident

I’d just settled down in front of my computer after being busy with nonsense all morning to actually get some work done when a tenant franticly called me.

She had water dripping down from her ceiling at a fairly fast clip so I ran upstairs to see what the matter was.

That was the start of another two-day odyssey with water, plumbers, and workmen.

We needed to get into the apartment above her, but I had the keys to that. Or so I thought. It turns out that the owner either changed one of the locks or keys and I only had one of the three locks on the door.

Damn mortise lock again.

The start of the damage above the initial apartment. It got *much* worse – see the video below.

The unit owner was in Asia though and it was 3AM there. But this was an emergency.

Her: What do you mean, you don’t have the key?
Me: I feel that that’s fairly self-evident. I don’t have the keys.
Her: I gave you them. I rely on you to keep them for me.
Me: Yes, and I have the keys you gave me. They don’t work on the lock. Again, I don’t have the keys to your unit.

After a lotta back-and-forth, finally ran out to get a locksmith who got us in some two hours later.

But that was just getting into the apartment above.

The next step was getting a plumber in post 5PM and the same day.

That was another adventure, and he finally got to us after 7PM.

I’d already shut off water to the building but, by that time, a ton of water had already pooled.

The plumber found out that, just like my own kitchen sink, the pipe had snapped off in the unit two floors above the initial apartment.

The unit sandwiched between the two units – the unit right above the initial unit which I couldn’t gain entry to – was absolutely wrecked.

Spoke to the owner – still in Asia – who was grateful that I got to it when I did.

Still, I feel that, once she gets back, she’ll be unprepared for the amount of work that the unit will need to get clean and safe again.

As for me, I finally got to sit down and get to my own work the next day.

I could use a lot less excitement in my life, TBH.

Just a tiny bit of the damage that the broken pipe wrought.

Location: a playground with the kid, desperately trying to get work done
Mood: (trying to get) busy
Music: don’t wanna see behind your walls. You build them up so tall (Spotify)
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The kid’s getting older

It’s been nine years since that day

The kid’s birthday just passed.

It sucks because I can never just have it be a joyous thing. Like Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, the kid’s birthday is a complex affair for me, and probably others.

Alison collapsed just five days after he was born, and that was the beginning of the end.

He turned nine, which means that one of the worst days of my entire life happened nine years ago.

So, it tough being in a celebratory mood.

Having said that, I just wrote that I try – as best as I can – to shield the boy from what I can. This is no different.

I had his friends over for a pre-birthday party of sorts because it was Diwali this last Friday and his school was closed so that was fun.

Then we met up with the ABFF for a dinner of gyros and chix sandwiches (that was his choice).

 

Then we had a proper party with his friends and, just like last year, the Firecracker baked him a homemade cake with homemade frosting – low-carb(-ish, because I’m not a complete monster).

I don’t think he knows how hard I try to seem fine on his birthday.

That’s a good thing.

Pic from last year.

Location: earlier today, sleeping on my sister’s couch in the burbs
Mood: nostalgic
Music: I’m just tryinna make it last (Spotify)
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Oh, Ruth, Joe…what have you done?

Everything is crumbling away

Her: You were a nerdy kid when you were younger? I don’t believe that.
Me: Do you remember the kids that never got picked for any sports games?
Her: (laughing) Yeah. That was you?
Me: No. I was the kid that those kids beat up.

Years ago, I told you about a legal saying that really changed how I looked at the world: Sine qua non.

It’s Latin for, “But for…”

Meaning, But for John losing his job, he never would have started drinking, which lead to his suicide.

The self-importance of these people is what’s galling.

Or, But for the girls’ bullying, Annie never would have changed schools.

Thought of that and Ruth Bader Ginsburg the other night when Trump won the election.

Ruth was asked – begged, really – to step down while Obama was president so that he could appoint a liberal judge that would protect Roe. And yet she refused.

    • But for that refusal, Trump never would have been able to appoint three justices to the bench.
    • But for that appointment, the Supreme Court never would have been able to overturn Roe.
    • But for that appointment, the Supreme Court never would have been able to expand the power the presidency for Trump.
    • But for that expansion, Trump would probably have done his last few weeks of campaigning at the height of a trial for keeping classified documents.
    • But for that trial being dismissed, Trump may not have won the presidency.

Couple her arrogance with that of Biden’s – who should have stepped down years ago to allow a successor that could actually be likeable enough to win – and here we are.

In the end, it wasn’t that the country voted for a complete pig of a human being…

…it’s that the Democrats were so arrogant they couldn’t even beat a complete pig of a human being.

And now – Ruth, Joe – how sad it is that everything you spent your life trying to help and protect is crumbling away by your own self-importance and arrogance.

There’s a lot to be said for accepting the world as it, not as you wish it to be.

And this is why I drink.

Location: the kid’s schoolyard, talking to his teacher, hoping they’ll all be ok with a gunman on the loose
Mood: carb-eating, rum-swilling, machine
Music: this song is about you, playa (Spotify)
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Election Day 2024 – It’s a Nailbiter

Alcohol helps

No real entry today, folks.

This whole election is a nail-biter.

I honestly cannot believe that it’s still this close between a highly educated career public servant and a lying, racist, misogynistic, whiney idiot.

It’s pretty hard to concentrate on anything else BUT the election tonight.

Thank goodness that I have the Firecracker to give me some distraction.

Her: I did pretty well in college; I only did poorly in one class.
Me: Which class?
Her: Music appreciation.
Me: Why don’t you appreciate music!?

I don’t think that she’s as easily entertained by me, however.

Alcohol is helping both of us, though.

Location: pasted to the TV
Mood: fulla carbs and cray anxious
Music: shit, I feel like Alice, woke up in a rabbit hole last night (Spotify)
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Halloween 2024

A losing battle

This year was the same as previous years but also a bit different.

In the past, we used to go out and wander all over the UWS. But something felt different this year.

My kid’s dressed up as French soccer player Kylian Mbappé.

I’d been reading about shootings in the area on the upswing and I just didn’t feel comfortable with Nate running around outside; especially since, in the past, there were times I felt penned in in some streets and the last thing I wanted at that time was some violence.

It turns out that I was right, because my sister wrote me to tell me that a McDonalds – which my kid and I’ve been to easily 2-3 dozen times – had a shootout just an hour after when we were supposed to start trick or treating.

So, while the Firecracker and her kid went trick-or-treating out and about, I only let the kid do it in the large apartment complex next door.

On the positive side, though, it’s nice that he and I have so many friends in the neighborhood that we have the opportunity to do things like that.

It stinks that kids can’t just be kids these days.

Like all parents, I try to shield him from what I can but it’s a losing battle.

Still, he’s such a resilient little kid, I’m hoping it’ll be ok, somehow.

Location: the kid’s BJJ class, watching him try to throw another kid
Mood: nostalgic
Music: maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me (Spotify)
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There are no penguins anymore

This is why we can’t have nice things

Considering that today was Halloween, have you ever had a “banana-flavoured,” candy and thought, “This tastes kinda like a banana but not really?”

There’s a reason for that.

Not a banana plant but I thought it looked nice. From this entry.

Years ago, I had some friends over and we were playing Scattergories and the category was: Birds that begin with the letter “G.”

Him: What the hell’s a “Great Auk?”
Me: It’s a large, flightless, extinct bird.
Him: You can’t just put “Great” in front of a bird and say it starts with, “G!”
Me: OK Google, what’s a Great Auk?
Machine: According to Wikipedia, “The great auk is a species of flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus.”
Him: OK, stop, stop. Just take it.

Remember that line: “…the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus.”

I’d meant to write an entry about that, but it slipped my mind.

Now, the Great Auk was a true penguin – it looked like this:

By Mike Pennington, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13812423

I know what you’re thinking, “They kinda look like penguins.”

But that’s the opposite of the truth – the things we call penguins kinda look like them, the real penguins.

Those birds, the real penguins, completely died/were killed off some time in 1844.

A decade previously, around 1831, people started calling flightless birds in the Southern Hemisphere – far from the Northern Atlantic where the Great Auk was found – “penguins” because they kinda looked like the Great Auk.

But they weren’t actually penguins at all – again, the Great Auk was the “only modern species in the genus Pinguinus.”

Always found that so interesting: The birds we all call “penguins,” aren’t actually “penguins” at all but a completely different animal that we all assume are penguins now.

By Zwifree – I personally took this picture in my kitchen after buying approximately 30 Gros Michel Bananas.Previously published: I put it on my Facebook, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70354204

Somewhat related, my parents (and probably yours as well) grew up with a banana that was the Gos Michel banana but those went commercially extinct by about the 1960s.

In their place was the Cavendish banana, which I, and probably you, grew up on.

The Cavendish tasted a lot different from the bananas they grew up on, the Big Mike.

And that’s why a lotta banana-flavoured things don’t taste exactly like a banana to us – because those flavours were developed to imitate the original Gros Michel and not the Cavendish.

On a completely unrelated point, the election is happening soon.

Growing up, I spent most of my young adult life voting Republican because I was always fiscally conservative whilst being socially liberal.

What I’m seeing these days is a complete takeover of what I grew up with.

The compassionate conservative, which I prided myself being, has been taken over completely by a woman-hating, “Christian,” anti-choice, subtlety racist, and otherwise hateful group that seems to be wholly different from what was once called the Republican party.

Just like the Greak Auk, and the Big Mike, I think that the current GOP has taken over so completely that no one remembers that the Republican party used to be substantially different and something wholly unrelated is now known as the Republican Party.

Oh, and the Cavendish banana may be going extinct too.

Really, this is why we can’t have nice things.

Location: a former Masonic temple
Mood: irritated but fulla carbs so, not terrible
Music: Hey, Marianna, you gotta no banana? (Spotify)
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Swimming in Hoboken

Plus BBQ

My SIL invited the kid and me, plus the Firecracker and her kid, to head to her place this past Sunday because there was a trick-or-treat event happening in her building AND there was also a pool party to boot.

So, bright and early on Sunday, we packed up and headed out to the wilds of Hoboken

Unfortunately, we went right smack into the Trump rally that was here so, after 10 minutes of wandering, the police told us the only exit was on 8th Avenue.

We figured it’d be easier for us to go back into the subway, head back to Times Square, and then head down to the PATH station on 32nd.

Him: We haven’t even started and we’re already on an adventure!
Me: Evidently.

After a bit, we made it onto the PATH train and out to Hoboken, where my SIL picked us up and brought us back to her pad.

There, the kids immediately changed, and we went to her gym, which was ginormous!

This is just like a 1/3 of it. It was insanely big.

The kids were mainly interested in swimming, which is what they did for the next two hours, while the adults just chatted.

It was really lovely to me that my SIL and the Firecracker got along so well.

My back was still hurting so my SIL told me to check out the sauna there.

I wrote the Firecracker while I was in there.

Her: Wait, did you wear your jeans?
Me: Nah, I just stripped bare and sat there.
Her: You’re not even wearing underwear!?
Me: (laughing) I’m joking. I’m at least wearing my underwear.

It was honestly great but I didn’t stay all that long.

Afterward, we were all hungry, so we went to a local Hoboken joint for some BBQ.

Before heading back so the kids could trick-or-treat while we killed two bottles of white.

We stayed until late and then took the train back – we were home in less than 40 minutes, which is pretty impressive.

Not a bad way to spend a sunny Sunday.

Location: earlier today, FedEx, binding 1100 words for the kid
Mood: ache-y
Music: I said I’m alright, but maybe in the day, and no way in the night (Spotify)
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