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. :)