Things I Can't Unsee

Less than 2 weeks before we move and things are getting INSANE around here. I just realized it's been about 10 days since my last post and I have inadvertently kept you all waiting about my reader poll. I just want to thank those of you that contacted me with your votes and other suggestions. You rock! I will debut the new blog with a new name once I'm back in America. For now, you'll just have to wait and see what I've decided as I'm busy packing and looking for jobs online but I had to take a break to tell you all about this.

Have you ever seen something and then promptly wished you could rip out your eyes, burn them and replace them with new eyes in hopes that the image you just saw will be washed from your memory? Or perhaps you go share it with someone because nothing helps more than spreading some grossness around, amirite? Of course I am! So enter, if you dare, into my Hall of Things You Can't Unsee!

Now, because we're leaving so soon, I'm stuck with my in-laws constantly in my face. I've never been so relieved to go to work each day so that I don't have to be trapped with them. But on weekends, which normally should be my quiet and peaceful time with Jeremy and the children, my chimp-like in-laws come trampling over at 8am to make us food I don't want to eat and let Raelynn act like a brat. I'm trying not to let it aggravate me too much since we'll be on our way to America hopefully before I completely lose my mind. Though sometimes, they make things even more difficult for me to refrain from flipping out.

Like when my FIL came over on Saturday and then proceeded to grab MY Miami Dolphins cup that I ALWAYS use off the table and drink MY green tea from it. Yes, really. I had to resist the urge to vomit. Has he done this before? Oh. My. God. Please tell me this is the first time he's drank from my drink. "Zhe shi wo de," I say, trying not to sound so shrill but I am straining so hard not to scream it truly hurts me. "Oh oh, wo zhe dao," he replies "I know" to my "that's mine." I hurry to the kitchen to make him his very own teapot full of tea and bring it to him, with a glass for him to use. While he's distracted with that, I go to disinfect my glass and make myself fresh, non-FIL-contaminated tea.

MIL of course is busy wrecking my kitchen which I gave up on about a month ago. I have no time to clean up after that woman anymore. She's taking over this dump and it's just easier to let Jeremy exhaust himself picking up after her. I wonder how he will react when he sees my parents' open-plan kitchen. Even simple things like a garbage disposal will likely entertain him. Me too, because over here, we've got sink traps. They're essentially metal cups with small holes in them to strain out the water. When you wash your dishes, any bits of food get collected into the sink traps. When they fill up, you just empty the traps into the garbage and all is well and good again. Of course, any sane person would use plastic dish washing gloves for this task. But MIL being MIL gives me such a treat as I walk into the kitchen. I watch in helpless horror as she sticks her BARE HANDS into the sink trap, digs out the clumps of food and tosses it into the garbage. Then, to make it even more disgusting, she rinses her hands ever-so-briefly with cold water and dries them on the dirty rag she uses to wipe down everything, and continues cooking. God. Help. Me.

I try to explain to Jeremy who is also disturbed by this but pats my leg reassuringly and reminds me that this is why he doesn't like to go out to Chinese restaurants because the old people that work there do stuff like this too. I'm not sure how this is supposed to make me feel any better.

After the meal, which I haven't eaten much of, I go put Seoul down for a nap. As I rock her to sleep in my lap, I stare off into the fish tank in front of me. I'm humming a Pink Floyd song and zoning out on the fish as they swim around, thinking about all the tasks before me: packing, finding work, where to live, enroll Raelynn in school, pediatrician, driver's license renewal...and as it all swirls around in my brain like a cyclone, Seoul drifts off to sleep. Ah, now that's a nice sight. A sleeping baby. I smile and then I make the mistake of looking up at the fish. And that's when I see one fish swim up to the butt of another one and eat poop right out of it. GOD NO.

So yeah. I told you so! But hey, I'll help you cleanse your eyes by leaving you with this very darling picture of our sweet Seoul, who will be turning one shortly after we arrive in the US. My how it's flown! Yay Seoul! We love you!

Oh No You Don't!

My husband the comedian says this to me last night:
"I want my mom to immigrate to America in the future."

No.
NO.
No. No. No.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HELL NO!

He can't be serious. Can he?
Oh but yes. He is. Why in the world is saying stupid stuff like this? Men are such idiots.

In the morning, I'm still homicidal.
"You're still angry?" he asks. My Drew-Barrymore-Firestarter-stare must have given me away. He implores me to calm down. That it's something we can discuss again when we are settled in America.

Yes, time is on my side. And I'll buy as much of it as I can to keep those parents of his from coming over permanently.

I kept stewing in my rage so I decided to look online to see what I could find out. Had anyone else been in this situation before? And thankfully, I discovered that I can't be responsible for his moron parents. They're not MY immediate relatives. So I can't bring them over. Oh darn. Yes, that was a heavy layer of sarcasm coating that statement.

Even though I can't get them a permanent resident visa, there is one person who can. Their own son. Yes, my husband can do it. But not while he's a green card holder. He needs to become a full-fledged US citizen first. And that will be lots of paperwork, money and time. Plus, he'll have to prove he has enough money to support those two before they will grant his parents green cards.

I don't like my in-laws. You know this. I don't want anything bad to happen to them though, despite how much I despise them. I really don't. But just because I don't wish any ill will on them does not mean I want to dote on them. I did not work this hard to get out of here and get my husband and daughters into a better place just to have tthem tag along. Maybe that sounds selfish but I don't want to waste my earnings on 2 people who are old and aren't going to accomplish anything else in their lives. The money we make should be spent making our daughters' lives the best we can make them.

I'm fine with them visiting or us going to visit them. I'm fine with sending them money. Even though they have money. Fine. But I'm not in any way, shape or form down with this.

I know that getting all worked up about something that's not even happening yet isn't helpful either. I just had to vent though to get it out of my system. And now that I feel a bit better, I will be praying that this idiotic idea of my husband's never ever comes into fruition.

Completely Clueless

When you know you're moving away from your moron in-laws, life seems rosier. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. And you tend to overlook some of the annoying things, reasoning with your brain that soon, very soon, you will be flying over 8,000 miles away from them. Of course, my in-laws seem to really want to help...help me go completely insane before we leave that is.

Today, I came home and discovered this...

Yes, that's part of a green bell pepper on our dish drying rack. Why? Lord knows what ever goes through the head troll's empty head except a constant swirl of sawdust.

As I took the baby back into our bedroom, I noticed something less amusing...amongst all the toys in there, there was an open box of Raid plug-in mosquito repellent discs. Really? Because she has absolutely nothing else to play with. Let's give her a freaking box of poison! I holler to MIL and ask her what the hell is up with this being in the crib and she of course blames her idiot husband. OF COURSE! Not that I doubt he's probably the culprit but if you see your nutsy husband giving the baby something unsafe like that, how about telling him NOT to do that? Or taking it away? No, this couldn't possibly occur to MIL because she has such an alarming lack of common sense it's frightening.

But soon I will have the last laugh. It turns out that maybe they don't know quite when we are moving away. Jeremy confessed that he simply told them we were leaving this summer. So that will be interesting. I told him not to tell them until the day we leave. Ha! Bye Felicia!

Genius.

A few evenings a week, my in-laws take Raelynn over to the neighborhood mountain park. They're usually gone for about an hour, returning her to us around 8pm. Which is a little annoying but because we're moving away, I am letting it go. It won't be much longer we have to endure The Stupids. Thank GOD!

When I came home today, I found half of a watermelon sitting on our table. My husband had cut it open last night and wrapped the remainder of it with cling wrap. Now it was sitting out, sans wrap, attracting gnats. Who wants watermelon with gnat corpses? Oh me me me ME! NOT.

She saw me scowl at it and quickly covered it up. Why don't you take the tainted watermelon home and eat it then, if you like leaving food out for insects so much? Dummy.

Then, I went to turn on the satellite TV so Raelynn could watch Nickelodeon while I fed Seoul. And as I go to turn the cable box on, I see, sitting on top of the wires that connect it to the TV in a place the baby can't yet get to (thank GOD!) a gnawed on apple segment that was now rubbery and textured like it had been sitting there ALL day. Please note this was not there when I left for work. I grabbed the offending apple piece, chucked it at the table and just began shouting at the sky. "I hate it here! Gah! I can't wait to move!" Is she trying to make me even more excited about moving away? If so, job well done, though I sincerely doubt that's her intention.

Just after 8pm, as I'm almost about to worry, I can hear Raelynn in the stairwell. So I start to whip open the door. Only FIL and Raelynn are standing right there and he's stupidly rang our loud, noisy ear-splitting doorbell even as the door is opening. Because. He's. A. Total. Idiot. Hello???? Sleeping baby in here! I tell him as nicely as possible the baby is sleeping and he seems confused as to why this is an issue. Or he's just jerk. I'm not really sure about that, but what I am sure about is that very soon, we will be moving away and I won't have to deal with these troglodytes for a good long while at least. Hooray!

They Know

I thought I'd mentioned it in one of my recent posts but a quick glance through them tells me that I neglected to write about it after all. What is that crazy broad abroad talking about now? Why, I'm talking about how my husband didn't tell his parents when we were moving away. Yes, really.

Jeremy told them that he was issued a visa to the US. He told them we needed to be inside the US before the date on the visa. But he did not tell them WHEN that would be. Even after we booked and paid for the flight, he still didn't tell them. He was putting it off, trying to figure out when he'd say something. Surely, they had to have an inkling.

But this weekend, after packing up 2 of our suitcases (leaving me to wonder how the heck to fit the rest of our crap in the remaining 4 suitcases, but that's a story for another time...), we had nowhere to put those heavy badboys. We shoved them out of the center of the floor but it's quite obvious the process of moving has begun for us. So Jeremy manned up and told them when we're leaving.

And MIL seems cool with it. They will come live in this apartment when we're gone because all the appliances are better. And we have internet that we paid for already. We'll get them a new computer so we can Skype with them too. Most of all though, MIL insisted we sell the car. I told Jeremy we should sell the car but he said he wanted to leave it for his parents. Which pissed me off because THEY CAN'T DRIVE! After exhausting myself explaining about depreciation in regards to motor vehicles and how maintenance is still mega-important even when you don't drive a car for a long time, this lecture plus what his mom said got through to his man-brain and now we'll be selling the car.

I kind of feel sad about the car. It's been a member of our family. Even though I never drove it personally, it's been our little car for most of the time we've lived here. I will miss it. I mean, remember when Jeremy first started driving? If you don't, it's worth checking out here and here. He's come a long way from those days, back when his English name was "Lane" and he'd decided to change it to "Jeremy." Hahaha!

Anyway, now that the in-laws know exactly when we are leaving, I am sure they will constantly be in our faces even more so than they already are. Which will be even more annoying but at least I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel and when I feel like I'm going to snap, I'll just remind myself that we'll be leaving in just under 2 months. And I won't have to deal with them for a good long while after that. Ahhhhh...splendid!

For Why?!?!?

It's the start of a 3-day weekend! Last night, I had a migraine and was determined that today would be awesome. But Seoul has a cough and runny nose so we've been chillin' at home. I decided it would be an ideal time to begin going through my crap and whittling it down. I know the next 2 months will fly by and I don't want to be panicking before we leave for the US.

So I started with a giant storage bag (the kind you vacuum-seal shut) that was under the crib. I noticed my fatheaded troll of a MIL had been in it because she took out the ugly polka dot pants she'd given Raelynn. She must have taken them home in defeat because they're not in Raelynn's closet again. Good. I'm not wasting precious suitcase space on ugly garments from her. I will be absolutely thrilled when that woman is not rummaging through my items!

Anyway, I pour out all the items onto the floor, much to Seoul's great delight, who has helped herself to some of my bikini tops while I begin trying on shorts and t-shirts. Oh what did I expect? That I would fit into my size 3 pants now? Ha. They mock me as I try to pull them up but I'm rather surprised that I can get them pulled up even partially over my butt. That's progress at least. But since it will be quite some time before I'm a 3 again, I put them in the pile for sale. Most of my cute Hollister t-shirts were a no-go either. I'm so booberific now that they appear like they have shrunken onto me. No, no. I'll go buy new ones at Hollister when I get back. They're in great condition so I'll sell these too.

And then I find some stuff that's just had it. It's old and ripped and I've no idea why we've wodged it into a storage bag. Time for it to be thrown out. I make a pile of things to be thrown away. I'm pleased though that there are a few things at least that I can wear again since having kids. Not many things, mind you, but I'll take it. And hey, at least now I have good reason to go shopping.

I sort the bag out and then fill it back up with carefully folded items to be sold. I feel productive. Jeremy comes in and I proudly show him my work. I point to the pile to be thrown away and he gets all concerned. "Oh no, we can't throw it away. We'll give it to my parents," he tells me. "Um, what? WHY?!?" I ask. He explains that in China, there is none of this culture of giving away or selling your things, or throwing clothes away. Even ripped clothes. "But these shirts are old and ripped! What in the world are they going to do with them?!?" One of the shirts in question is a black t-shirt that has faded to that grayish black and has lots of holes in it from being washed excessively. It's an old shirt I creeped from an old college boyfriend and it says "SECURITY" on it. For many years, it had just wound up in my closet as that t-shirt you wear to sleep. Somehow, it wound up in this bag. And now, he's going to give it to his parents. Because. I have no earthly idea why. What will they do with an old ripped shirt?!? I used to have one that said "FUCKER" on it (from a different college boyfriend) and if I find that one, they can have it because I HAVE TO see one of them wearing it. That would totally make my day.

But it just seems odd to give them old clothes they will likely never ever wear. Perhaps they could make rags with these old things, but they won't. They will use the same dirty rag over and over without ever washing it once we go. Jeremy and I wash our rags every week. I bet they will never get washed again once we move. Would my FIL actually WEAR any of these old shirts? He wears this one shirt of Jeremy's. OMG. I need to tell you about that.

HOW did I NOT tell you guys?!? About 3 years ago, MIL bought a decent shirt for Jeremy. It's a Tommy Hilfiger. It may or may not be a fake but if it is a fake, it is a darned good one. I was stunned that she'd picked out something that wasn't fug. Anyway, here is the shirt in question...

 This was on our 2nd anniversary, incidentally.

We had left Raelynn with the trolls so we could go out to a nice Thai restaurant.

Anyway, I hadn't seen this shirt in Jeremy's side of the wardrobe in ages. I had been wondering about it. I think he'd been wondering about it too. Guess what happened to it? His dad took it. No, really. He took it. I checked and checked the closet. So did Jeremy. This was not a case of his mom buying her husband the same thing. No, he randomly took it at some point. Why? We have no idea. When I ask Jeremy about this, he just laughs and laughs. Maybe because he can't explain it either. Now every time FIL wears the shirt over here, we laugh hysterically. It's just bizarre.

So maybe they will wear our old, ripped, outdated clothes. Or they'll just shove them in the cupboards and we'll find them when we come back to China to sell the properties or, his parents, whichever comes first.

In-Law Engrish

Well, my last Engrish post was quite the fail, huh? I'm still shocked it's a thing but whatever. Surely this next item, spotted at my in-laws' house of vile smells, is a real Engrish deal.

For whatever idiotic reason, they have this stupid chart of fruit on their wall...

Ages ago, they had a couple different ones that they put up for Raelynn when they would, despite my protests, bring her to their stink shack while we were at work. But this one is new. I sure hope they aren't bringing Seoul over there. I can't wait to move.

Anyway, this weekend, on our way to the supermarket, Jeremy decided we should stop by their house to drop off some chicken he'd made. He promised just 5 minutes. I was not happy about this but thrilled it would be a brief pit stop at least.

I want to kill when I hear MIL's awful voice echo into the stairs, "Raelynn lai le!" she booms. Raelynn is of course happy to be there. Me, not so much. Because we're only staying a short while, I don't take Seoul out of the baby carrier. But that doesn't stop FIL from idiotically holding his sopping wet, just-washed hands out, summoning me to hand her over. While you get points for washing your hands (with soap too, no less), I have to wonder if you still have not yet figured out what a towel is for. Oh, right. You think towels are blankets. Sigh. 

For the record, this was the longest 5 minutes in history. Actual time wound up being closer to 10 minutes but I honestly felt like an eternity had elapsed. Maybe because I was roasting. Now that it's officially spring, the weather is heating up. Don't mind me, my dear old Floridian friends. For now when I declare it's too hot out, I mean it's about 55 Farenheit. Yeah, I'm that person now. Anyway, because it was so warm (or hot, as I like to put it) and we were only going to the supermarket, I'd thrown on a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt. Under the sweatshirt, I only had on a sports bra. And in this, I was sweating.

In the parts of China where heat is available (believe it or not, some parts of China, particularly in the countryside, do not have any heating!), you pay a heating fee for the duration of the heating. For us here, it's from mid-November to mid-April. The radiators are always heating during those dates. Which means that when you have an uncharacteristically warm day, it is hot inside your house and there is nothing you can do except open the windows and let the smog in. So truly, being trapped inside their home in this kind of heat made me feel like I was in the seventh circle of hell. Run for your lives, folks.

Anyway, back to the chart of fruit that I happened to glance at while trying not to break my bitchface as I endured my dippy in-laws. Something caught my eye on that chart. Come in for a closer look...

Mmmm...you know what I just love to eat? Pawpaw. I thought that thing was called a papaya. Here we go again with the Engrish. At least so I thought. After the rapeseed oil turned out to be a real thing, I decided to check and see if pawpaw was a real thing. Guess what? It's just not my week for Engrish now is it? This link here kindly explains the difference between the pawpaw and the papaya. 

Well, I'll be. Twice in one week. Sigh.

How Many Times?

Every day when I get home, I am filled with pure joy when I see Seoul. She warms up my heart when I come in from the cold. Before I can hold her though, I must put down my things and wash my hands.

I rushed to put my pumped milk away and as I was washing my hands, I heard Raelynn angrily screaming in her room. Raelynn's pretty uppity and is usually very grouchy when you first take her off the bus and get her home since you're waking her from a good nap. But this was a different angry grumbling from her.

When I went to investigate, I saw just why she was so upset and it made me furious. Right there on a shelf that is eye level with her in her own bedroom, there was the peeled remains of a kiwi AND A FREAKING KNIFE! Dumberella (that would be MIL) peeled a kiwi in Raelynn's room and left the skin and the knife in an easily accessible place to Raelynn. I yell for MIL to get in there. When she sees it, she's all, Oh hahaha! Oops! (but in Chinese of course). Oops? OOPS?!? Are you kidding me, lady? You make a mess in Raelynn's room which is typical of you AND you leave something dangerous lying about and all you can say to me is the equivalent of oops?!? You make me feel real good about leaving my baby with you each day. And why the hell were you peeling and eating a kiwi in Raelynn's room? Can't you do that in the kitchen?!? Geez!

I scold MIL and then whisk Seoul off to our bedroom where I can feed her privately. I always love this feeding time with her because it's extra special since I haven't seen her all day. As I'm preparing to give her milk boobie goodness, I hear Raelynn cry. "Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" She wails. "Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! She bwoke my gween toyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" I ask her what all the fuss is about and it turns out that this plastic watermelon half from her play food set of items has been broken. When I inquire as to how, she explains that her grandma told her that Seoul broke it. Seoul shouldn't be playing with Raelynn's toys. She is a baby and has baby toys. The play food items are not for a child Seoul's age and I have told this to BOTH of my idiots-in-law numerous times IN CHINESE mind you but to no avail.

I plan to tell Jeremy but I'm sure he'll just tell me that they're old or to forgive them or some lame excuse because that's almost always what I am told when this kind of thing happens. But who knows...the knife thing is very dangerous and I hope he seriously says something to his parents about being more careful. The longer I spend in this country the more I question whether it is them that is insane...or is it me? If it's me, it's only because they drove me there.

Happy Year Of The Sheep!

Happy Chinese New Year! It's the year of the sheep, ram or goat, depending on who you ask. The Nanfang has a great article about that one, if you're interested in learning more. I'll just go with sheep since it's what my husband first told me and what he calls himself when asked about his birth year.

So how was our celebration? Well, to be honest, I think the food last year was much better. The food during last small CNY was also better.

But this year, we put out nuts, seeds and fruit as a snack. Which is very typically Chinese thing to do. Also, we began drinking before the real food came out. Scandalous! Jeremy's parents were not keen on drinking before the food. They think it's strange to drink without eating at the same time. Oh and I found one of our last beer mugs! I'd thought all of them were destroyed by the in-laws. One survived!

Slowly, MIL adds food to the table. We don't mind the slowness of it, since it's only about 4:30pm at this point. This is some cooked beef that they serve cold. It's cooked with Chinese spices that I don't even know how to explain but that other foreigners who've been here will go, "Oh yeah, THAT beef." It's not bad but I really can't stand to eat more than a few pieces of it. I also get annoyed with this dish. Because they serve it COLD. But if I try to drink a cold glass of water or milk, or eat a cold American dish, watchout! Because it will kill me, yo!

 Gah! It's that century egg with ginger on top. I do not eat this weird fermented egg thing. I can't. It makes me gag. Plenty of other people find it delicious though. If you're one of them then good for you. I skipped this.

 Meanwhile, my husband has forced me to turn the satellite channels off and put on the Chinese cable. Boo. But wait...this is interesting...some crazy lady with an ugly dress. Also, dig on the cutesy wootsy ram digital ram in the corner. That is SUCH an Asian thing to do. It makes me want to scream.

 Speaking of things that make me want to scream, see this dress. WTF?!? All I could think of was my friend Aaron Gordon and what he'd do if he saw it. Like always, he probably heard my laughter from here.

Ok, look, I don't mean to be a bitch or anything but if you're going to dress up in a gown that resembles an overfertilized flower market from hell, leave your glasses at home. Get contacts and put them in for this one event. Or just grope around blindly. It makes you look like Old Mother Hubbard bought herself a dress from the town dump.

 More ham. Because she probably bought a giant slab of it when she shopped for the stuff she made for small CNY.

 She made la pi at Jeremy's request this year. She made it so much better last year. Seriously. This was very blah. La pi is a potato noodle and vegetable dish. It's served cold with a garlicky, peanut sauce and also has bits of ham. She did a very half-assed job on this one.

 She slopped this on the table too. Garlic sauce for that ham. Sigh.

Cabbage and jellyfish salad. Very tasty!

Also, please notice Raelynn's little fingers snatching more ham. We moved it away from her because she gobbled up so many pieces. We wanted her to eat other food as well. But of course, FIL disobeyed our wishes causing her to disregard the things we say. Urgh...

 The table is filling up fast with food now! Here's a very ugly but tasty store-bought chicken. Also served cold. Also cooked with those odd Chinese spices. I miss American seasoning on things. I was happy the breast was there though. I like white meat. My in-laws think I'm strange for that. I think THEY are strange for many reasons of course, but because under that meat you see, there are chicken feet. Blah!

 Somebody took a nice long nap so Mommy could enjoy some food and many beers before doting on her. Thanks Seoul!

 Now we have some very jumbo jumbo shrimp. They were so good!

Seoul is trying to steal things off the table while Raelynn is making some sulky face. I'm not sure why...maybe because we took the ham away?

She made abalone but instead of making a soup like she did last year, she served them like this. I didn't find them very delicious this time.

 Raelynn busts out her busted demon bunny. This thing is so much worse than I thought. FIL put batteries in for her before the dinner. It squeaks but thankfully, not too loudly. And it hops around.

You can't tell from the photo but it has a broken leg. This is how he gave it to her, incidentally. she did not break its' leg! Oh and photobomb courtesy of Jeremy's foot.

This is a soup with scallops and cucumber slices on top of a steamed egg. It sounds and looks vile but it's incredibly tasty.

 You can see the egg better in this photo. What annoyed me though was when MIL brought this out, FIL took his chopstick, stuck it into the broth and put it in Seoul's mouth. I shouted at him about it and my husband said it wasn't nice to yell at people on the holiday. Look, I let a lot of things slide from those 2 morons but sorry, he needs to wear his ass as a hat for this. He could have made her very sick! She's only 7 months old. She can't have eggs yet. Or seafood! What an idiot! Even MIL yelled at him. I did not apologize. And I won't. I can't wait to move my children away from that dangerously stupid man. MIL is incompetent too but she frightens me much less than he does.

 Just some meh-dish with pork, that weird black mushroom thing and some leafy green that's like spinach but is not actually spinach. This was like what she'd make us any other day of the week.

 Here's the head troll holding the baby. She's wearing her green vest she wore the other day. This time, she's paired it with a pink shirt. Which pisses me right off. Not because it's pink but because Chinese people constantly refer to pink as red. It. Makes. Me. INSANE. Red is the color for CNY and to wear it is lucky. When people get married, red is a lucky color too. And then they cover sewer grates and ugly things by the newlyweds' home in PINK paper. Because. They. Think. Red. And. Pink. Are. The. Same. WTF China?!? Augh! Stop it, please. I lectured my husband about the difference between pink and red. He's got 2 daughters. He NEEDS to know there is a difference between these colors.

At this point in the meal, I felt the beer was making me very full. I wanted to maximize my drunk and salute my folks who were unable to come visit us this year. So I switched to baijiu, a very strong Chinese alcohol.

Cheers, Mom & Dad! It was like they were right there at the table with us. Sort of, anyway.

 Big steamed fish time! Meal is almost over now. Fish was fabulous as always. She has never messed this one up.

 Dumplings had come out at some point while I was in our bedroom putting Seoul to sleep. Despite all the loud pops and bangs that night, she slept very well. How were the dumplings? Not bad, but not her best either.

And now, I leave you with a couple photos from bad Chinese cable TV specials. May this CNY be prosperous and wonderful for you all!

Chez Puke

On Sunday, after we left church early (much thanks to Raelynn's ultra-embarrassing behavior that caused us to scoop her and our coats up faster than Superman), we found ourselves in some truly ridiculous traffic. Trapped in the car with one bratty child and a small but sweet baby, we spent part of that time lecturing Raelynn about how she should behave and the rest trying to decide what to do once we extracted ourselves from the gridlock.

Jeremy suggested going out to eat but after the tantrum Raelynn threw, I didn't think it was a good idea to sit in a restaurant. Then he suggested we stop by the wholesale market near our home so we could buy a few cases of beer for Chinese New Year gifts for the relatives and also take home some street food. That was a good plan, perhaps the best plan of all simply because Seoul had fallen sound asleep so us gals could just wait for him in the car.

He's not gone long. He comes bounding back about 10 minutes later with a happy young guy in tow behind him, helping him carrying 2 of the 4 cases of beer. See, on the day after the big Chinese New Year celebration, you have to go around and visit the older relatives. Like we did last year.You have to bring some sort of gift or it's considered very rude, probably as rude as not going at all. All over the city now, gifts of cases of beer, baijiu (a very strong Chinese liquor), teas, fruits and all kinds of things are being bought up as quickly as they're sold for this occasion. You could wait until you venture out to visit these relatives but then you're at the mercy of whatever few stores are open and the incredible markups they put on their price tags.

As the young guy helps Jeremy put the other 2 cases in our car, he spots me. He asks if I'm Russian. No, she's American, my husband tells the guy. "Mei guo ren! Li hai! Li hai!" or "American person! Awesome! Awesome!" he shouts. Yeah, we are pretty awesome, us Americans.

It's now that I notice my husband has no street food for us. He explains all the vendors are nowhere to be found, likely because they've already taken off for the holiday. and then he says something horrible: "Hey, let's go to my parents' for lunch!"

Suddenly, I hear screaming. I realize it's coming from me. One of those long, slow "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" screams. The baby had already woken up when the beer guy was loading up the car. She was intrigued by this wailing of mine. "I'd rather eat out of that garbage can!" I sulk, pointing out the window at an overflowing trash receptacle. Jeremy pats my hand and tells me if we just have a casual lunch with them, he can get them to leave us alone for the rest of the holiday, excluding the big CNY dinner of course. He's off work now for the holiday so he doesn't want his parents intruding on our time together either. Knowing that I'm still sad about my parents having to cancel their trip, he also offers me the most blissful gift of all for having to endure a meal at their horrible home...he says he will take me out to Shangri-La later this week. Ok, I tell him, but if I wind up with diarrhea, you owe me 2 separate Shangri-La dinners. He laughs at this but agrees, knowing full well this might be a possibility.

I also negotiate that he immediately pour me some alcoholic beverages once we get there. I wanted to attempt to be cheerful and let's face it, being around them does NOT make me a very chipper person. As we clomped up the stairs to their stink shack, I remembered that I could at least amuse myself by taking photos for this blog.

I haven't been forced to dine at Chez Puke, also known as my in-laws' house, in a year. Not since the last CNY. They rearranged the furniture but it's still all kinds of gross. Have a look...

Jeremy shows me where he sat for that ill-fated haircut of his. FIL has inexplicably covered most of the mirror on the wall behind Jeremy too. It made the place look bigger. Not anymore though.

This is their 2nd bedroom where the bed they gave Raelynn once was. Don't get me started on that bed again. And it seems all Chinese people's houses I've ever been to have a ton of random stuff that no one ever uses but they pile up for some day that will never arrive.

This tangle of cords on the floor is very typical style for my in-laws.

Here's MIL and FIL's bedroom. I looooooooove that they have this giant version of the insane acid trip sheets they gave both of our daughters. What, was there a special on this fabric? It feels like burlap, incidentally. I will never understand these people. Anyway, Raelynn and Seoul are playing and FIL is dutifully ensuring neither one of them falls off the bed. Their bed used to be up against the other wall but now there is space on 3 sides instead of just 2.

Oh, and check out what MIL is wearing!

She assembles the ugliest outfits ever. That green vest and those orange pants look like they were hurled into a vortex from the 1970s and somehow landed here in China. Gah!

Say, this looks familiar! At first, I thought it was the one they gave us. I thought they realized that we didn't like it when I'd casually moved it into our entertainment center shelf way in the back where it can't be seen. But I checked when we came home and ours is still there. So this is their very own evil bunny rabbit! I should just make hideous things like this and sell them here. I'd make millions because people here seem to buy the most atrocious of things...like that bed sheet that causes hallucinations from the other photos I just posted!

This is their table. Yes, they eat off of here and supposedly just ate before we came over. And now here is where we must eat. God. I can't even. And see the luo bo?!? Why do they cut up so many of them and strew them around?!? At least they do it in their own home too but it makes me insane that my in-laws and my own husband too will cut up several different luo bo and leave them around. JUST CUT UP ONE AND EAT IT ALL FIRST! GAH!!!!!!!!

FIL gave me this to try. It's some kind of Chinese alcohol. I expected it to be gross. It wasn't too bad though and it took the edge off, making it much easier to tolerate them and their house of mess. The funniest part was I offered to pour him some and he tells me that he's already had some. I was sincerely not at all surprised as I'd already suspected that to be the case. Of course he'd already had some! Sigh. Well, at least he doesn't smoke so there's that.

 And now for the food! She plops this mess in front of us...some cellophane noodles, cabbage and unidentifiable meat. Oh good. I grimace. I don't want to eat this. My husband deftly grabs a few pinches of this with his chopsticks and drops it like a bird turding onto a car right onto my rice. Ugh. It wasn't as nasty as I was expecting but in no way can I call this good.

 Zucchini and some sort of clam or scallop shellfish creature. This one wasn't bad. I simply feared for my stomach regarding the seafood. Had she stored it and cleaned it  properly? Well, if not, I would get another meal at the Shangri-La.

 OMG...MIL cleaned her kitchen! What? This is clean, for her.

 This is the floor along the kitchen wall by the way. Helppppp...

And now for some tomato, egg and shellfish. And slop! Ha! The slop is actually a primitive la pi dish. La pi is potato noodles in a garlicky, peanut-flavored sauce. It is very good. It's just very unattractive. Perhaps she's practicing for the big CNY meal because Jeremy asked her to make it for that occasion but to formally be la pi, it needs some vegetables tossed in there. The tomato and egg thing is just a typical dish Chinese people serve here. It's not a bad dish. But she has made it better than she did on this day. When I got my hair done, she made it then and that night, she made it awesome.

MIL also busted out a plate of that Western-style ham. Raelynn is happy. She likes this stuff. Most of the time, she eats whatever MIL serves her. You'd think maybe the kid has no idea what good food is but she really raves about Jeremy's cooking and mine too. As long as she's eating all kinds of food, I guess that's what matters.

Anyway, stay tuned for my big Chinese New Year post in the next few days. I will be documenting the whole holiday for your amusement.