Sunday's Magic Kitchen (transcribed and edited from email)

Today is Sunday, a laid back day where we start the day by going to the flea market in San Jose on Berryessa Rd. This flea market sells only new things and is not like the ones in Canada where they only sell used things that are even too sketchy for a second hand store. It's a massive market stretching for a couple of city blocks, like the night market like bangkok. It consists of mostly mexican vendors (and now gradually more and more chinese and vietnamese vendors now). You can find virtually everything there... the independent vendors sell everything from apparel to furnature, household items, jewlery, toys, carpets, sculptures and even fresh produce! we come here every second weekend for their fresh and cheap produce. The must have for each trip are napeles cactus leaves, which my mom does an amazing job stir-frying to make one of my favourite dishes that I can only enjoy when I'm back in San Jose. Other than the vendors here, there are stages spread about the entire market where you can catch glimpses of colourful sombreros and hear whisps of spanish guitar. It's like a constant festival there with small vendors selling beer and drinks as well as fresh fruits and various mexican food such as tacos, burritos... etc. I love walking through the produce market. It's always bursting with life with vibrant mounds of fruits and veggies that are in season. Being there is like stepping into a whole different world with vendors yelling musical phrases in spanish advertising their various products. I love the spanish language, when vendors yell well practiced phrases with such pace linking all the product names together, they make the words dance across the air. I learned a new word today- "cherisa" it means cherry in spanish.

After we return home from this trip followed by our usual stops at costco, and lion's mart (a chinese grocer), our kitchen and fridge is flooded with a sea of fresh produce. Then my mom would sigh as usual and come to the conclusion that we don't have that much room to put away everything to we must cook as much as we can and eat them as soon as we can. This marks the start of our concuctions. Digging up as many recipes as I can that uses our newly acquired ingredients I begin chopping, mincing, frying, mixing, baking and boiling alongside my mom who have differing ideas of what a good meal should be. Soon our kitchen is filled with smells of butter, onions, cumin, soy sauce, seseme oil, lemon and unique combinations of eastern and western smells that are a little less easy to identify. Today my mom baked some kind of cumin/soysauce chicken and stir-fry beansprouts with chinese parsley as well as a chinese veggie with garlic. Oh and she also made black glutinous rice pouridge with coconut milk for dessert like the one we always have at sheares hall upon my recomendation. While I one the other hand made a nice potato-carrot-egg salad with home made tuna mayo in addition to a baked fish with fried onions, celery, garlic, basil, parsley, pepper and lemon juice. Everything turned out amazing. So we ended the evening being overly stuffed, with a mountain of dishes that I just finished doing, but everyone was happy.

waste of lyrics

I saw some really nice lyrics to a song... it made me get the CD. Unfortunately the lyrics were raped by the disgusting music. But here are the lyrics without the song:

21 Things I want in a Lover- Atlantis Morissette

Do you derive joy when someone else succeeds?
Do you not play dirty when engaged in competition?
Do you have a big intellectual capacity but know
That it alone does not equate wisdom?
Do you see everything as an illusion?
But enjoy it even though you are not of it?
Are you both masculine and feminine?
politically aware?
And dont believe in capital punishment?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer

Do you derive joy from diving in and seeing that
Loving someone can actually feel like freedom?
are you funny?
la self-deprecating?
like adventure?
and have many formed opinions?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer
I figure I can describe it since I have a choice in the matter
These are 21 things I choose to choose in a lover
Im in no hurry I could wait forever
Im in no rush cuz I like being solo
There are no worries and certainly no pressure in the meantime
Ill live like theres no tomorrow

Are you uninhibited in bed?
more than three times a week?
Up for being experimental?
are you athletic?
Are you thriving in a job that helps your brother?
are you not addicted?
...curious and communicative...

sounds like my kind of shopping list.

the secret

Today I unexpectedly found a comment on my xanga account that I haven't touched for years. It was from my good friend Stanley. Since High School we've gradually drifted appart. He now goes to SFU back in vancouver and I to McGill across on the other side of the country. To my suprise he wished me happy birthday. I can't believe he still remembered, after so many years and out of so many people that he knows. I'm really touched. I thought I was forgotten by all the people back in vancouver.

It was my birthday four days ago. Thanks to thefacebook's brithday notification, many ppl wished me happy birthday online. Something I'm no used to. I was suprised that most of these came from people I never thought I was that close to, nor did I think they cared about me much, and these same people I haven't talked to in ages. It was a pleasant suprise.

And then there was my friend Julia, she's one person I am sure who's always going to be in my life. No matter how far appart we are, she always finds a way to meet up with me. She came to visit me in Montreal from California, and then we met up in San Jose when she came back briefly from Russia. Ever since I met her she has remembered every single on of my birthdays (although she was absent for every one of them). My first birthday she phoned me and sang me happy birthday from Moscow, then I found e-cards and happy birthday songs on my answering machine for all my subsequent birthdays. I've given my new addresses and contact from each year to most of my friends, they usually lose it, or never use it, but she's on person who keeps perfect track of whereever I am.

So many people I thought I was so close to didn't even notice as the uneventful, unfestive day passed by. So now I am 20 years old.