Happy Year of the Rat!

For Chinese New Year, my extended family usually gathers for a meal on Chinese New Year's Eve where we eat traditional Chinese New Year foods. What are traditional Chinese New Year foods and why do we eat them? Uh...well, I'm not entirely sure. But there's generally always fish, dumplings, rice cake (nian gao), and other stuff. I do know that we're not supposed to finish everything because the leftovers are symbolic of having plenty for the new year. At least, that's what I've been told.

So last night I drove up to the East Bay for Chinese New Year dinner. Rather than eating home cooking, we ended up at a restaurant. My aunt, who is a very good cook and usually cooks everything for Chinese New Year dinner, is in Shanghai for the new year. We had fish, dumplings and other stuff, but no rice cake. That was kinda disappointing, but probably better for me from a caloric standpoint. It was nice to see everyone, but the food was not nearly as tasty as what my aunt prepares.

The other really cool thing about Chinese New Year is the red envelopes you get! For those of you not familiar with this tradition, after you pay your respects (bai nian) to your elders, they give you a red envelope filled with money. But since I'm married now, I'm not supposed to get red envelopes anymore. (boo) Instead, I'm supposed to give them out to the single people who are younger than me (read: my cousins). Did I have red envelopes prepared? Nope. Why not? Well, two of my cousins were not home for Chinese New Year, and I wasn't sure if the other one would be at dinner. Thankfully, no one called me (or my other married cousins) on it. What was surprising was that I (and my other married cousins) received red envelopes from my grandma, uncle and mom! Cha-ching! Maybe they forgot we were all married...probably not. Maybe my family doesn't follow the "No red envelopes after you're married" tradition. Or maybe they'll stop giving them to me after I have a baby and give it to the baby instead.

You might be wondering why I'm using the first person singular, I, instead of the first person plural, we, for this post. Well, it's because Greg did not join me last night. He had volleyball. Someone asked me if it bothered me that Greg didn't attend this family function since this is a big holiday for my family and he's my husband. It doesn't really bother me that he didn't go. I think he doesn't really enjoy these gatherings because my extended family either prefers to or can only converse in Mandarin. Really, how much fun can it be if you can't understand most of the conversation and/or very few people talk to you? While I can't really speak Mandarin very well, I can understand most of the conversation and contribute with Chinglish. If I had a choice between volleyball (or some other activity you enjoy) or going out to dinner with people I couldn't really talk to or understand, I would prefer to play volleyball. Wouldn't you?

Thank God for a Quick Metabolism

7:00 pm - arrive at BJ's Brewery

1. Beer
2. Long Island (love Dardy)
3. Scooby Snack (love Ann)
4. 3 Wise Men (love Eddie)
5. 151 (love Eddie)
6. Tequila (love Eddie)
7. Chocolate Cake (love Jen)
8. Irish Car Bomb (love...I dunno)
9. Buttery Nipple (love Ann - thanks for taking this one Dardy)

??:?? pm Dardy takes Greg to visit the bathroom

??:?? pm Ed takes Greg to visit the bathroom

Greg spends the rest of the night at home in the bathroom

I love my friends dearly.

Pictures of the chaos can be found at http://www.wilcopix.com/wilco/greg%20birthday

2/2/08: no hangover! woo hoo!

The Scientific Method

Observation: General reduction in number invitations to socialize extended from single people to married people.

Hypothesis: Single people prefer to socialize with other single people.

Experimental Design: Analyze number of social invitations extended pre and post marriage.

Analyze Data: Sorry...not enough time...to be continued...maybe.

Observations about Orlando

1. There're a lot of chain restaurants - many I've never heard of and some I would never want to eat at. I think every chain known to man is in this area: Waffle House, Golden Corral, Cracker Barrel, Friendly's, Sonic, TGIFriday's, Tony Roma's, Hooters, IHOP, Denny's, Bennigans, Boston Market, McDonald's, and more.
2. There're actually some pretty good restaurants in Orlando as well. On Monday night, some of my co-workers and I had really yummy South Indian food. I know, I don't usually eat Indian food. But we had some vegetarians in our group and the Thai place we wanted to go to was closed for the MLK holiday. I thought it was a bit peculiar...maybe they were just closed on Mondays.
   
3. There're a lot of retired, elderly people working as van/bus drivers or hotel/conference support staff. My shuttle driver from the airport to the hotel was a retired gentleman who moved here from the northeastern US. He was fiesty and would say stuff like, "Come on, now. Let's get a move on." at traffic lights or other cars/drivers. I guess retirement hasn't mellowed him out.
4. There are a ton of hotels in the Orlando area. I think there were like 4 Hilton hotels in the area so when I'd get into a cab to get back to my first hotel, I had to be really specific on the name. And many of the hotels are over-done and border on tacky. They kinda remind me of the hotels on the Vegas strip, which are over-done...but in a slightly different way.
   
5. The water out of the tap tastes and smells a bit funny. No, I'm not drinking the water, but you can taste it when you brush your teeth.
6. The hotel rooms smell funny. In both hotels, I was in a non-smoking room, but they smelled like smoke or Febreeze covering up the smoke smell.

Looking Forward to Going Home

Tonight's my last night in Orlando, and I'm really looking forward to going home tomorrow. When I told people that I was going to Orlando for work, most of the reactions were, "How fun!" or "You get to go to such cool places for work!" There was a time when I really felt that way and looked forward to traveling for work. In fact, it seemed glamorous to be a "road warrior." It was a lot of fun to travel to new cities, stay in swanky hotels, eat at really nice restaurants, earn massive mileage or hotel points and party it up all on the company dime. Who wouldn't enjoy that life?

But lately work travel isn't as fun as it used to be. Maybe it's because I'm getting old and set in my ways. Maybe it's because getting through airports with all the security requirements is such a time-consuming, pain-in-the-a$. Maybe it's because I tend to travel to the same places, which makes it less interesting. (I've been to Orlando at least 10-12 times in my career.) Maybe it's because trying to find healthy and tasty food options while you're on the road is such a challenge. Maybe it's because I'm sitting in my hotel room alone watching TV instead of hangin' out with my hubby and our dog and/or our friends. I'm sure it's a little bit of all these things.

(sigh) I'm looking forward to going home tomorrow.

Cheryl's First Mobile Blog Post

I was messing around with my Moto Q9 at lunch today and discovered the mobile blogging capabilities for our site. Interesting...I decided to give it a try.

I've got a bit of a break until my next session. So I just took a picture of the fountain in the lobby on my device and am now sending it to our blog. Let's see if this is going to work...

Observation...

When Cheryl's gone, I have to turn up the thermostat a few degrees to be comfortably warm at night.