Witchy on Halloween

Does this make you laugh?

There's a Los Angeles-based female Asian-American cartoon artist by the name of Lela Lee whose website I stumbled upon many moons ago. I recently revisited it and found that she had not only redone the design, but also regularly updates her material. It was like finding a pot of gold, I tell you. Well, not quite, but almost. These days, I find little doses of sarcasm quite refreshing. Ms. Lee's characters participate in banter appropriate for her main licensed character "Angry Little Asian Girl" Kim. She's punchy because she's angry. I like her because she makes me laugh.

If you're in a trying relationship, are female, and want a little smirky humor about your man, I would suggest paying Kim and her friends a quick visit on Ms. Lee's comic section of her website.

Enjoy, and as much as you may want to avoid the rest of your day, I urge you to resume your daily schedule of activities and events. Like me - I need to temporarily clear my head of this *#@!#&@%!&!* job search and am aiming to take a light lonely stroll through Central Park BECAUSE I CAN. And no, I am not angry that no one will hire me.

Love Red Envelope

Let it be known that before Red Envelope became what it is today, I was one of their first followers. How can you not be a fan of their cute, simple, and classy products? Ok, so the $300 wooden rocking horse was, how do you say, "pushing it a little?" given they had not yet marked their presence in the market - I mean, who did they think they were? FAO Schwarz? - but their goods struck a chord with me and even had me perusing the career section of their website once upon a time, when they came out with one, that is. That's how far back my love affair with Red Envelope goes, back to when they were just a simple mail-order catalogue.

These heart-all-a-flutter memories of blissfully charming catalogue compositions are now just that: only memories. The good old days are over; those days when they used to splash pretty inanimate gold or silver objects across the front of their seasonal catalogue or the occasional LL Bean-esque model enrobed in a soft and warm cashmere throw or a rosy-cheeked baby playing with building blocks or the epitome of all bonsai trees, short and stout, trim and proper, sitting pretty on a console table.

These days, with Red Envelope's grown success, they've moved onto what sells: sex. Now it's like opening the pages of a provocative JCrew catalogue with a bunch of horny JCrew models. You know: young, skinny, impossibly tall, mostly white with a spattering of black and yellow. It's what they call "beautiful" these days. And once you get past their rippled abs and all that skin, oh, look, you'll see they're holding the occasional monogrammed silver candle holder, a leather photo album, or their signature red box. Just perfect for grandma's 80th.

Bedtime Cake

My ears overhear random cocktail conversation starters from my sister at all hours of the night. She's kindly allowed me to sleep in her bed so it's only natural that I become privy to her night musings. Luckily, there's nothing embarrassing or x-rated, and most of it is quite coherent. She usually speaks in full sentences and can get really animated, just with her eyes closed.

In fact, I've begun to respond to her spontaneous night talk episodes to see if she will participate in conversation. Usually, she doesn't respond, but last night, she sorta did. Last night's topic was cake. Cake. My favorite! She doesn't eat it too much, but maybe it was on her mind because she watched a spectacular episode of Ace of Cakes before falling asleep?

Soeur: "Oh. Wow. This is good."

Julia: "What is?"

Soeur: (Actually lifting her head and reaching over to my side of the bed) "Unnie, you have to look at this cake."

Julia: "No, thanks."

Soeur: (Scrunching up her face) "Only..." (Pause) "Wait, is this cooked all the way?"

Then she threw her head back onto her pillow and let her mind travel back to night-night land. There was not another peep out of her but as I finished the last few pages of Wuthering Heights, I craved moist chocolate cake with buttercream icing. It was a sad scene: Julia craving cake right before bedtime and without a single hope of getting a slice.

Air Drying 101

A much needed giggle during my weekly laundry duties.

West 86th Street

Across town on a rainy day.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Kimchi

When I left for college, I left a household that served Korean food every single day. As Italians thrive on pasta, the French on cheese, and the German on sausages, Koreans thrive on kimchi. Imagine then, in my eighteenth year of life, the sudden reality that my daily meals would no longer come from uhmmah's kitchen, but from an all-you-can-eat buffet style dining hall on the ground floor of your college dorm courtesy of an overpriced dining plan. There ain't gonna be no kimchi there, fo' sho'.

Luckily, around this time, I developed a sensational aversion to the pickled cabbage. My stomach didn't see a lick of kimchi for well over a year once I stepped foot into my college dining hall. It wasn't for lack of access (there were plenty of occasions when I'd spend a considerable amount of time talking my mother out of delivering a jar of kimchi to my miniature dorm fridge), but that my nose refused anything and everything resembling kimchi. My palate only asked for non-Korean foods. Given the chance to take it or leave it, I would have left it without thinking twice. The mere smell or sight of the offending cabbage made my stomach do flip-flops. Having coped with a sudden case of lactose intolerance the years prior, I wasn't so surprised that my taste buds were changing; I had given up on my love for ice cream and developed a taste for broccoli simultaneously, so why not purge kimchi from my diet while I was at it?

Fast forward to the later years of college. Holy cow. I couldn't get enough Korean food. It was as if my system was making up for lost time and ever since, my appreciation and cravings for Korean food have only increased. When I spent a couple weeks in Korea and had rice at every meal, my system yearned for bread (never before had I been so grateful for a bagel and Philly cream cheese as I did on that last morning of our visit - every dirty look thrown our way on that subway ride that morning was totally worth it), but now I don't think it would be a problem. I could have Korean food for every meal without any complaints. I don't have kimchi every day now, but my body's definitely dependent on the stuff. That's what happens when you grow up on it. If H-Mart didn't sell it in K-town, I'd be one miserable Korean.

Blue Means Asian! Or At Least Mongolian.

It wasn't until I was nearly twenty that I learned about something unique to those of Asian descent: the Mongolian spot. Some ridiculously high percentage of Asians have this birthmark on their bodies. The spot is of an unusual blue, sometimes grayish, hue. The mysterious blue mark appears on buttocks, backs, or thigh areas (Wikipedia even includes the shoulders). Don't stress, people: the marks usually disappear within a few years.

Here's a biological explanation of this strange phenomenon from one of the many internet sources:

Mongolian spots are caused by entrapment of melanocytes in the dermis during their migration from the neural crest into the epidermis in fetal development. Microscopically dermal melanocytoses are seen in all newborn babies irrespective of race. Mongolian spots are thought to be due to entrapment of melanocytes (pigment cells) in the dermis that have failed to reach their proper location in the epidermis in the developing embryo.

Let me get this straight: during the embryonic development stage, you're telling me that Asian babies' cells FAIL to reach their final destination? Now that doesn't line up with the whole Asian work ethic creed. Asians aren't supposed to start something and not finish. There's gotta be another explanation. Gotta be!

I myself have a mysterious blue mark, although I'm not sure if I can call it a Mongolican spot because I'm not convinced that it's a congenital birthmark. It appeared out of nowhere in middle school (either that or went undetected for the first ten plus years of my life). Indeed, there now resides right smack in the center of my upper back a blue circle several centimeters in diameter. People are very put off by it and progress through several stages: (1) horror (2) confusion (3) curiosity and rarely, very rarely, some will reach stage (4) concern and ask what's wrong with my back. Most refuse to pass stage (3) for fear of crossing that invisible line of what's appropriate and inappropriate to ask a female about her body.

The physical therapist who fixed my misaligned hips and lower back problems a few years ago, after gasping at the spot when I removed my shirt, suspiciously questioned me about whether I had fallen down the stairs recently. After she exhausted all possibilities like, "Did you turn your back to an oncoming tennis ball? Did you bang into the stairwell? Did you fall on your back?" Despite my adamant refusal of such activities, and of any pain from the offending spot, and a reminder that I was severely overweight from doing about as much physical activity as a rock, she cautiously ended her inquisition with a sigh and a, "It looks like a really bad bruise that shouldn't be there." At the end of the summer when the spot still remained in all its blue glory, I'm convinced she thought my boyfriend was beating the crap out of me. But my back felt a whole lot better.

Wacky Week

Marion Jones pleaded guilty to steroid use.

Britney Spears lost custody of her kiddies.

Three teenagers set a homeless man on fire in East Harlelm.

Julia went to a temp agency.

WHAT. THE. FRICK.

Verizon's Businessing Practice

All cell phone providers are flawed. Hugely. In Verizon's case, among other things, their online interface is the pits. Their javascript codes are so poorly written that half their online management features don't even work. And to top it off, I see this small disclaimer notice in fine print at the bottom of their payment page:

Please note you may incur charges from your bank if the transaction is processed as ATM card. However, Verizon Wireless does not charge any fee for a ATM card transaction.

Who can identify the errors in their statement?

Korean Rice Cake Dumpling Soup / 떡만두국

If you're lucky enough to have had a true aficionado teach you how to cook dishes from the motherland, then you will most likely have gone through the frustration of wondering why your mother doesn't find any use for measuring spoons or cups. Everything's just eyeballed: salt, red pepper flakes, water levels in the rice cooker, soy sauce, minced garlic, soybean paste, etc. If you're lucky, there's a single designated cup or bowl that serves as the basic measuring unit for liquid and dry ingredients. You know what I'm talking about: your childhood plastic Hello Kitty juice cup, a random plastic Ikea bowl, or a porcelain condiment cup. Even with that, though, from a beginner's perspective, couldn't everything go terribly wrong with one flick of the wrist? But eventually, an apprentice will learn that the art of eyeballing truly is the best way to cook. Then you'll get the recipe right regardless of what measuring utensils you have or don't. That's how I learned!

Here are the ingredients that went into my 떡만두국 (dduk mandoo gook) dinner tonight (apologies for the haphazard photo):

• beef broth (just boil a piece of meat in a pot with water for two hours, roughly 1/2 lb per 8 cups of water - the liquid will reduce)
• shredded beef (from the broth pot)
• minced garlic to taste
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 scallion sliced into 1" pieces
• sliced rice cakes
• vegetable dumplings
• salt to taste - not necessary for some folks because of the kimchi to be served with the soup

You can guess the instructions - once the broth is ready, just throw the rest all in the same pot and simmer until the rice cakes are soft (maybe 10 minutes?).

...and always serve with some type of spicy kimchi!