Dim Sum Diaries
My daughter wrote this story and I thought it was hilarious. She was quite tickled when I told her I wanted to post her story on my blog. Like mother, like daughter, I guess. :)

Hi, I'm P. and this is my brother A. I'm 7 and he's 5. Anyways we were taking our dog Max for a walk down our street you know where we live? Suddenly a strange fog appeared Max let out only one fierce bark at the stranger who came with a pair or scissors.

"Who are you?" I asked in a shaky voice.

"History has given me many names. But no one knows the truth."

Then my friend ran up with me. Once he did the stranger ran away.

"Who the heck is he?" asked my friend.

"I don't know," I replied. "But he's certainly strange."

By that time Max was barking his head off. A had to tie Max up because it was too much for him to hold. I could barely sleep that night for 2 reasons 1) I kept thinking about that stranger 2) Max was still barking his head off.

I heard a scream I ran to where the scream came from. It was A. he must be having a nightmare I thought. The next morning was Saturday. That means we can eat anything we want for breakfast well anything that we can cook at least. So I ran out to feed Max but he wasn't there then I found a huge hole in the fence. A hole that was big enough for Max to squeeze through.

"Mom! Dad! Max is gone!"

They came rushing into the backyard.

"Max what?"

"He ran away," I said breathlessly.

Everyone was stunned.

Well see you next time in part 2 of THE DISSAPEARING PET!

(Ed note: I put her conversation in quotes so it's a bit easier to read. I noticed she has her mother's penchant for adverbs. Also, apparently this story is a 10 parter! :P )
The title of this entry has nothing to do with what I'm writing about, but it sounded interesting, so there you have it.

Lisa Kleypas just came out with her new book recently, A Devil In Winter, and I absolutely love it!! Virginal hero tames notorious rake. Hot sex scenes and it is well written! What else can I say?

I've been struggling over the last few weeks with the job situation. Should I go back to work full-time? The advantages? Making a decent/great income (enabling me to buy lots of books and save lots of money for kids college fund) and doing something career-ish. The disadvantages? When I worked at my last job, never saw the kids that much (in daycare all the time), grumpy and tired all the time.

Part-time? The trick is finding a non-retail/food service job that pays decently. There aren't that many great paying programming jobs that are part-time and pay well, are there? I talked to my mom (whom I love so much) and she's been stressing that its good for a mom to be there for her kids (kids seem to have issues with parents who work a lot it seems), and maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to take a no-brainer office job that is part-time so I can be pretty involved with the kids. This sounds pretty tempting, but I don't know.

*sighs

Of course there is that pressure to keep up with the joneses career wise. "Hey, Mir, all your paternal cousins are medical doctors, one is a lawyer and all the rest are in med school!! Your sister is a network administrator and manager in a very large, successful company!! And what do you do again?"

Umm...I got laid off and now I'm working at this part time office job...yeah did I mention I have a degree in cultural anthropology? Yeah...

*sighs

In a completely unrelated tangent, Hubby comments wryly that before when I worked, he was responsible for getting the kids ready in the morning (I left for work at 4:30 am), they would dress themselves and prepare themselves breakfast. Daughter would make her own lunch and by the time he'd finished getting ready, they were all ready to go. Now that I'm home...they don't get out of bed until I rouse them. I make them breakfast and pack Daughter's lunch. If I don't prompt them to get ready, they'll laze on the couch watching tv.

Sometimes Son will lay on the floor, shirt half off and peer at me helplessly.

"Mommy, I can't move...help me get dressed peasseee!!!"

Of course I have to help him get dressed whilst Hubby snickers about what a suckah I am.

Bah.

DSC01543
Originally uploaded by miriyaparino.
Mom took a trip to Japan recently and of course I have to post a picture of food! Looks pretty yummy eh?

Yes Dear, Your Penis Is Indeed Sweet


Hmm...haven't posted again in awhile, I was thinking about that on the way back from dinner. Its already March 2006 and I must say that this year so far has been way more relaxed (*knock on wood) so far. There have been a number of things I've wanted to blog about, but haven't gotten around to, so here goes.

There has been a very strong sense of family, as I've had ample time to spend time with relations from my mom and dad's side. First was Chinese New Year, where the entire maternal clan got together and actually "celebrated" a traditional Chinese New Year, I guess. The week before CNY, there was a huge faire at a local park with rides and booths and stuff. The kids actually got exposure to more Asians and Asian culture then they've ever been in their life (hundreds of Asians everywhere!). I did my part to expose the kiddies to my people by driving really shittily all over the place. Long line of cars waiting to get into to the faire? Why Mir just "accidently" cuts into the front of the line at the last minute because she doesn't know where the hell she is going, enraging the Local Parks Dept employee directing traffic, and pretending not to speak English when he starts to lecture her on why she shouldn't drive like a friggin Asian. :p

There faire was full of vendors giving away free samples of Chicken-Mint Juice Energy Drink, lamb kabobs (kids loved this) and carneys who remained mute to questions about the number of tickets requrired for a particular ride, only answering by putting the required number of fingers up by their lips. Mir thought this was odd, thinking that all carneys at this faire must be mutes...but she later heard one talk. We had a huge New Years dinner with my immediate family, then the next morning, bustled to this Chinese restaurant 45 minutes before its opening to ensure we got a great table for Chinese New Year (the actual day). I was reminded by Mom that I was now an old married fart and must now give the lai-see (red envelope money) to my younger, unmarried male cousin Clement. He is like 14 now? And since the only other male cousin Ronald has married off, it is so much fun to withold the lai-see until he has kissed every aunt and cousin at least three times over on the cheek while he blushes a deep red.

I was kinda tired afterwards (still had the kids), but my sister and mom and aunts and grandmother all decided to go shop at the Pasadena Macys (good sale apparently). In the course of events, Pou Pou (maternal grandmother) wished everyone a Gung Hay Teem Ting in her heavily accented Toy-San Cantonese.

Suddenly, my pervy younger sister N piped out loudly in the middle of Macy's (to the horror and amusement of all, depending on who you asked), "WHY IS POU POU SAYING THAT MY HUSBAND HAS A SWEET PENIS????????????????????????????" The entire clan started howling with laughter. Apparently Pou Pou meant, 'may you have many healthy male sons.' But if you pronounce TEEM TING just a bit differently, it could be interpreted as "sweet penis". Poor Mom is in shock that raised such pervy heathens. *sighs

A few weeks ago I also got to spend time with my paternal cousins. They are the daughters of my dad's older brother. I hadn't seen them in years. It really was great to see them again. The oldest cousin, J, spent the night at my house and we spent some time talking about days past. I got her hooked on Robotech, and its great to see that we both have same nerdish personality and love of all things science fiction. :) Of course, the younger cousins had to bring up all the stories of the apparently horrible things I did to them back in the day. For example,

"Hey cousin Mir, remember the time when you locked us in our room and you and J made a tape of scary noises and played it to us and then scared us witless? We still have that tape!!!!"

"Hey cousin Mir, remember when I was playing the piano and you closed the piano cover, smashing my hands and all my nails turned black and fell off?"

*sighs

I have some pictures I plan on uploading later regarding family onto Flickr. I'll let y'all know when I upload them. Speaking of stuff, Lo-Gung mentioned that when his co-worker's wife lost her job last year, she turned to scrapbooking and apparently became quite successful at it, becoming well known in those circles and selling her patterns successfully. Here's a profile of her. It got me to thinking that she turned to something to fill her time while being a stay at home mom, which is great. I turned to WoW, I suppose. I started playing again, and am having a blast. That's the inset pic of me. I have more to write about but I will post more later. :)