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| Dear Resident/s of the 16th Floor:
Can you please stop throwing away orchid plants that have lost their flowers yet are still viable? Mother has been taking the discarded plants that you discard in the garbage room and keeping them on our window sill. Although I know orchids are a fastidious group of flowers and at times, do not flower in one year, but surely it would be silly to buy an entire plant, enjoy the flowers and then discard them when the flowers have fallen only to repeat this vicious cycle afterward? In any case, given our economic situation, this would surely fall under the category of being wasteful since one plant of orchid with flowers can cost at least twenty dollars and more and you have already discarded 3 plants within one year (and maybe more since we do not check the garbage room 24/7 to see if you are discarding them). Indeed I also do believe this stems all from one person/household since the odds of multiple households on the same floor participating in this activity is very slim. As a result, our window sill is being overcrowded with flowerless orchids and the Asian obsession of no wasting is leading to an army of orchids in our apartment. It would be greatly appreciated if you did not continue purchasing orchids in this manner or rather continuously discarding them when the flowers have all fallen off.
- your fellow neighbor
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| The big 23! Aaaaah so old!
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| A weird thing happened these past two early mornings. On early Wednesday morning around 3-5am ish (too early and groggy to check the clock) I wake up to the phone ringing. Huh? Who the hell would call this early. I'm on the pretense of ignoring so I lie in bed while it rings and rings and rings and rings (we didn't set up an answering machine). So eventually my mom gets out of bed and picks it up and mutters something. Then she hangs up. Relief. Good. The phone call wasn't for me anyway. 10 seconds later it rings again. Huh, Wtf? So I let it ring, thinking it was for my mom again but then it continues for like.. minutes. Ok now it's starting to get annoying. By now, I'm past the sleepy phase and into the I-have-to-get-up-to-pee stage so I get up and pick up the phone since I'm too awake to sleep on a full bladder anymore.
Hello?
Man w/ an accent: Good Morning (no.. sorry... it has not been a good morning).
Hello?
By this time, my mom yells from her room, "IT'S A WRONG NUMBER! TELL THAT STUPID HISPANIC TO STOP CALLING!"
So by this time, the man is talking and I can barely understand him and I don't know of any hispanic or anybody who would call in the middle of the night so I do the usual, "wrong number" and hang up and proceed to pee. Midway during the relief, the phone rings again. Goddamn... he is effin persistent. My mom picks up again this time and screams at him. Then she hangs up. Right before I finish my nighttime relief, the phone rings. Geez, this guy is retarded. This time we were ready. We had our strategy. My mom picks up the phone, shuts it and then turns it on again leaving it in on the dial tone.
Silence. Bliss. Relief.
So the day follows with the usual classes, daytime work, etc etc. And after a long day we settle down for a nightly slumber.
The phone rings early Thursday mornings again.
What. The. Fuck.
This time my mother is beyond fed up. She picks up the phone and demands what the hell do you want and screams at him that he has the wrong number. I get up b/c once again I am beyond the drowsy sleepy stage and into the aforementioned stage earlier. After 5 seconds on the phone with him, she thrusts the phone at me and tells me wth he wants.
Hello?
Man w/ an accent: Good Morning (no you prick, it is NOT good morning with some weirdo calling you two nights in a row)
What do you want?
Man w/ an accent: Calm down (uh... I wish I can but I'm sort of grumpy and sleepy and it doesn't help that a stranger is doing prank calls)
What do you want?
Now this is where it gets hazy on what he said and what I said. The jist of what I got was that he was Nigerian and he asked for my name multiple times. I told him why does it matter (yea I know, I should have asked him for his name for some reference). And he always responded to that with an annoying "calm down." So eventually I get fed up and said in my best calm yet pissed off voice, " I AM CALM, what do you want?"
Man w/ an accent: Call this number: 0 1 1
WTF? NO I WILL NOT CALL THAT NUMBER! (I didn't say that but, what I said was more in the terms of:)
Why? What do you want?
Man w/ an accent: Calm down (this was getting too annoying for words). Call this number: 0-1-1
Me: "NO. What do you want, why are you calling me??"
Man w/ an accent: Do you believe in Jesus?
Me: NO
Man w/ an accent: You are not Christian?
Me: NO
Click... dial tone...
Silence. Bliss. Relief. Yet weird.
That was pretty much what happened. I have no idea what transpired and whether or not he was really Nigerian or some weirdo or even a possible scam. Any idea on why he was being mad shady and telling me to call an international number? The whole Christian/Jesus thing looked like an appeal to perhaps kindness or maybe naive-ness. Anyway, he stopped calling yet I still have no idea how he got my home phone number. Random chance? Who knows. This was certainly two weird connected moments. Hopefully there would be no more though. We'll see tomorrow early morning.
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| I can remember a few childhood food moments quite clearly. There are good ones such as my first taste of sour cream. I was about the age of 7 or 8 and the entire family had went to this place where there was a lot of cool stuff going on like an inflatable castle and the such. For dinner, there was a huge dinner buffet table and being the potato fan that I was, I took a baked potato. Now back then, I was a strict salt, pepper, and butter baked potato person. But then my mom took a spoonful of some white stuff and plopped it on my plate.
"It's for the potato"
Naturally, I asked her what it was and naturally at that, she never really gave me a straight answer (as usual for such happenings during my childhood). So eventually I sat down and started eating and got to trying the sour cream. After my first bite, all I remember was HOLY SHIT this is good and that's the end of the memory. It was only until much later that I actually found out its name.
Another food memory that was not as nice was my first taste of eggplant. For some reason, I always encountered it in some mushy spiced casserole version. I don't understand why Chinese people cook it like that. It was gross and after I had to force it down (because I was threatened that if I didn't eat it, bad things would happen... hey I also like.. 7 or 8 man..) I subsequently threw it back up again with some other stuff involved. I think the texture of it was just too mushy for me and I swore off eggplant afterwards.
I also remember my first taste of French Onion soup. It was at a Disneyworld in Florida and I remember eating the top cheese layer (because it was awesome) and not liking the soup and the gross sodden mess of bread at the bottom. We were in a nice dining area and when my parents asked me why I didn't finish the soup, I feigned fullness.
And now, being 22 going on 23, my tastes sure have changed. I don't mind eggplant as much but rather prefer it in solid chunks instead of the gross mess, which although I would eat once in a while, I would still dislike the texture. French Onion soup sure has gone a long way, becoming a popular soup selection. From the delicious nutty gruyere cheese melted and broiled perfectly on the top to the rich hearty onion soup down to the equally delicious flavored soaked French baguette. Sour cream still remains a favorite but it's usually accompanied by chives. Baked potato however, has fallen much from the palate unless it comes accompanied with other sorts of interesting flavors. It's funny how certain foods fall out of favor and other foods that you hated you begin to like. I'm starting to heavily dislike cheap chocolate. I'm not turning into a chocolate snob but Hershey's chocolate is just plain disgusting. The cheap feel and chalky soggy cardboard aftertaste doesn't bode well. Especially when you've tried stuff like Lindt and Ghiradelli.
But right now, I'm really liking lamb. Not just any part of the lamb, but the rack of lamb, or also known as lamb chops. Haven't really tried lamb shanks but I've had lamb meat in general and didn't really like it that much. Rack of lamb has more of a tender texture and a nice taste. A lot of people don't like the taste of lamb but it's pretty awesome.
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