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.

Small Chinese New Year 2015

Fireworks outside our bedroom window last night.

Last night was the Small Chinese New Year celebration. You might find this surprising but when it comes to Chinese holidays, particularly anything to do with Chinese New Year (CNY), I really don't mind my in-laws being around. They come here, which beats going to their house any day, because we've got Raelynn and Seoul. It's much easier to endure the holiday in the comfort of our home as opposed to the filth of theirs.

So how was this little pre-celebration of what is soon to be the year of the sheep - or goat, depending on who you ask...there seems to be a bit of debate about which creature it is and all the merchandise for this year's holiday reflects this confusion by selling calendars with goats on them and then sheep stuffed animals and all sorts of lanterns and decor with both animals on them...meh, enough about that! Let's talk festivities, shall we?

 It's true that MIL cooks well for the holidays, but I was really disappointed to see such ordinary offerings. Cut off in the back is some fried fish which she has been making us A LOT lately for regular non-holiday dinners. We also have steamed shrimp, cucumbers with crushed garlic and a plate of cashews. To see why I find this meal so ho-hum and lackluster, click here to see last year's Small Chinese New Year feast.

 OMFG, my kitchen! Ok, calm down, calm down. She's busy cooking so I can't get mad at the mess...unless she leaves it like this when she goes home. Thankfully, she didn't. She cleaned everything up. And wow, for once, she's not wearing mismatched clothes. Amazing!

Incidentally, this is the other kitchen counter while she's in there cooking. Good grief! Even when I cooked Christmas dinner, the kitchen wasn't quite this messy!

 From this angle, you can see the fried fish better. You can also see this bok choy and mushroom dish. It wasn't awful, but I felt it was too salty. Sidenote: I was holding Seoul on my lap as we ate and she's such a sneaky little thing...she shot her little hand out and stuck it right into this dish. Babies are so hilarious!

 Now there's some Western-style ham slices and a bowl of crushed garlic and sesame oil that is supposed to be a sauce for that ham. Yeah. For me, it's a yes to the ham and a big fat no to the sauce. It amazes me they want to cover up the taste of the ham with something so sharp and strong as garlic.

You'll also notice the dish of ribs on the table. I was skeptical. MIL makes ribs often enough. The meat falls off the bone, which is lovely, but the flavor is just very mediocre. But not these. Oh no. These had a hint of garlic and something else I couldn't place. I had tried one to be polite. I wound up eating quite a few after that. Jeremy said she learned a new technique. I told him to tell her to always make her ribs this way. They were excellent. Good job, MIL!

 To the untrained eye, you'd think this was some noodle dish. It's not though. This is tofu cut into noodle-like ribbons. She's cooked it with leeks and shrimp. Normally, she makes this taste so bland. What she did different this time, I can't be sure but it was delicious. I'm not a fan of Chinese noodles because they always taste so mushy and floury, so having her make tofu in the style of a noodle is so much better. The tofu texture makes all the difference in this dish.

 Awww yeah...I'm kickin' it with imported beer. We had a selection of Danish and German beer we bought from the wholesale market near our house. Unfortunately, my in-laws have managed to destroy all our beer mugs, leaving us coffee mugs as our only option. The look on my face says it all, doesn't it? I'm so cool I drink my beer out of a coffee mug. Try not to hate, y'all.

It's luo bo! Not again! But hey, she's cut it all fancy and put a really nice dressing on it. I had to leave the table for a while to put Seoul to bed (a very difficult chore indeed with all the fireworks popping outside but somehow I was successful) and when I returned, she'd put this in another bowl with orange zest. Jeremy claims it was her idea but I think he had something to do with it. I can't imagine she'd think of doing that herself.

It's almost over, as you may be able to tell from the mostly picked-apart dishes. The dumplings came out after everything else. How were they? Meh, they're the same dumplings she's been making a lot recently so I'm not too excited about them. It could be that I'm sick of being served dumplings all the time. It could be that in my American brain, I feel like dumplings are something you have a few of, like an appetizer, before moving on to another dish. Or it could just be that these dumplings are just there. They're not bad but they're not amazing either. I hope the ones she makes for CNY are more exciting than these.

And finally, as I've said before, if you're at a big Chinese meal, you'll know when it's coming to a close when they trot out a large, whole steamed fish. This was always one of the dishes MIL cooks well but in recent months, she has changed up her sauce. She used to use a very savory and salty brown sauce. But this sauce is made with marinated red peppers. It has a bit of a kick to it, but not too much. And it's really really REALLY good. It's a great way to finish up a great meal.

She'll make this for CNY as she must for tradition's sake. Jeremy also asked her to make a few dishes I really like for next week's big celebration. I love CNY! Here's hoping that this year of the sheep (or goat) and the upcoming new year give us many wonderful things to celebrate!

I Am Not Alone

Have you ever read my blog and wondered if my Chinese in-laws are the only mess-making slobs or if other Chinese people behave similarly?

Well, wonder no more, because today's post revolves around a photo my friend/Western boss, Patrick, gave to me. See, we are both official members of the unofficial Chinese Spouse Club. Sometimes during our breaks, we wind up trading horror stories about our in-laws. I'm not sure who has worse in-laws...Patrick or me. I'll let you decide. One thing is crystal clear though as I scan our apartment for more dough in random places...I am not alone in my suffering of incompetent boob-brained Chinese in-laws reeking havoc on my personal habitat.

Let's take a look at this photo of Patrick's kitchen. He explained that he has given up on cleaning the kitchen because moments after he cleans it, it resembles Chernobyl once more, as shown below.

There is SO much to discuss about this! Where to start? The green onions and other assorted vegetables on the floor. And is that a cigarette I see?!? Random green pepper on the window sill. Oh look! They have a luo bo on the counter too! Garbage on the floor. Every dish in the cabinet out on the counter, probably with food in it and even more probably left out for days. Geez! Patrick, I feel your pain, bro.

Apparently, this is what his in-laws consider to be clean. Only in China! Also, Patrick's MIL has some foot condition and when he gets angry with her about something, his wife gets upset and worries that his telling her to clean up after herself will make her die. Just like MY husband worries about his mom breaking into pieces should I happen to ask her to not treat our home like a pigpen.

Even though Patrick has the aggravating task of hiring a replacement for me when we get approved for Jeremy's visa, I think he's secretly rooting for me to escape the hell that I must endure with my husband's parents. Meanwhile, Patrick is surely counting down the days until he and his family go to the US for winter vacation, aren't you? Thanks again for sharing your kitchen katastrophe with us!

Kitchen Nightmares

I've got lots to blog about but am too tired to really get into it now. But don't be sad because I have this short and sweet post to tide you over with.

Remember what my kitchen looked like the other day? Yeah. I didn't have to clean that up. But I did spend a considerable amount of time cleaning our kitchen this weekend. Because I don't want a kitchen like MIL's kitchen.

Despite this though, MIL is determined to convert our kitchen (as well as the rest of our home, from what I can tell) into the kind of grotesque hellish mess that her entire abode is full of. And I'm powerless to completely stop it because there aren't enough hours left in the day by the time I return from work to correct it. Any steps I take are completely destroyed the next day. Like when you write your name in the sand near the shore on the beach. Swoosh. Gone. And thus, so are my cleaning efforts. My wonderful husband does all he can but even working together, we cannot completely rid our home of the yuck that she constantly spreads around.

So today, I go crawl into bed early and attempt to catch up on the sleep I so desperately need, and while I do that, please enjoy these photos of what MIL left in our kitchen...

Do you know what I love about this? The fact that there are giant jugs of oil right by the stove? Ah, safety first, my friends. No, no. Not that. I looooooooooooove that there is an insane amount of apples piled into an enormous bowl OUTSIDE of the refrigerator. Not that there's room inside it for all 100 of her apples she brought for us. At least it's cold enough outside to leave apples out without them spoiling but we'll never be able to eat all of these before they go bad. Maybe I'd better whip up a pie...

Also, I just want to point out the green onions that she's also left out.

And the dried crud on the cabinet doors. I just cleaned those! I am the only person who wipes those down. I'm so glad I wasted my time doing that this weekend so she could gunk it up already. Thanks MIL.

Mooseknuckle, Anyone?

Who's hungry? Well, if you are right now, you certainly won't be when you take a look at this creation by MIL.

 Dear Lord! What IS that mess? It looks like she melted a whole entire yak into that pot. Thankfully, I didn't have to eat it. She knows better now that I will not eat unrefrigerated creature. She left this out on our stove. Shame on my husband for allowing that too, but he likes eating boiled mooseknuckles or whatever the hell this is, even if it's been sitting out on the counter overnight. Or for days. And according to my other friends with Chinese spouses, this is a very typical thing Chinese people do - the whole leaving the food out thing. It totally freaks me out.

Also, loooooooooooove the wonky dumplings she probably left out all day long with this decomposing carcass. On a plate. In a plastic bag. Because Qingdao people love their plastic bags. Ugh.

Blargh! I should totally print this photo out and tape it to the cabinet where all my candy bars from my mom are. That will keep me from snarfing them all down at once. Actually, that will keep me from eating anything again. Ever. This looks like a cauldron of death, doesn't it? It's like she goes out of her way to make her food extra gross.

Despite this disgusting mess in my kitchen, I was at least able to make a normal dinner tonight. I waited until Seoul fell asleep before I began cooking and MIL kept pestering me that she wanted to hold the baby. MIL, you were with Seoul all day. I get only about 2 hours - if that - of her being awake when I get home and I'm NOT giving her to you for that time. Dinner will wait until she sleeps. No one will starve if we have dinner at 6:30pm instead of 5:30pm. In addition to nagging me every 5 minutes about getting to hold the baby, she kept singing stupid Chinese songs. SHUT UP! No one wants to hear you sing, especially not me. I gave her the death stare and she put a lid on it. Thankfully she left soon after that. Of course, when Jeremy got home, he served himself up a side of yeti soup here to go with my offerings of cheesy pasta, tofu salad and roasted cabbage. I had to look the other way while he ate it so I could try to ingest some of the meal I'd prepared.

MIL - ruining food by cooking it her way since at least 1950.

Now That's More Like It!

So remember that old lady scarf from my husband's boss? Yeah. In a move that surprises no one, I decided, predictably, to give it to MIL. She'll wear the hell out of it and I'm sure pair it up with something completely foul, like plaid or paisley or another clashing flower pattern. It's just how she rolls. And when she does, I'll be waiting with camera in hand.

Today, when Jeremy arrived home from work, he had another gift for me from his boss. And this I will be keeping. Check it out...

I have no idea why I've received yet another gift from him. Maybe he realized at the dinner the other night that I'm 37, not 67. Whatever the case, this will be so much easier to accessorize my wardrobe with.

I spent today scrubbing our home up and down, inside out, after my in-laws visited yesterday. MIL made these horrible fish dumplings. Why can't she make them with the filling I like? I have told her 1,000,000 times which dumplings I like the best. So has Jeremy. But she threw this pureed fish crap together for us. At least she pureed it at her house this time so I'm not left with a disgusting ring of fish guts around the bottom of my blender. Still, I just couldn't eat it. She gave me one to try and scuttled back off into my kitchen. I took a bite and nearly gagged. I don't know if it is genuinely THAT disgusting or that being pregnant, I'm just turned off by the taste of it right now. Whatever it is, that shit had to get away from me and fast. My husband makes a good garbage disposal for these sorts of things, thankfully. I shoved the remainder of the dumpling into his mouth and promptly guzzled several glasses of tea.

My kitchen in particular felt sticky, stinky, greasy and just plain gross. Also, my husband bought enough fruit and vegetables to where I could possibly open my own little store in here. There are so many oranges, cucumbers, carrots, kiwis, bananas and mangoes around here, it's just nuts. Oh, and speaking of nuts, he also bought a big bag of walnuts and a big bag of almonds. He had all of these things on the counter because the fridge is stuffed to the max with even more fruits and vegetables, plus meats and leftovers, and ancient frightful things from MIL that have been in there for Lord knows how long but my husband insists he will eat them anyway. The whole thing was beginning to look like MIL's kitchen. GOD.

So I rummaged through our cabinets until I found a tray suitable enough to create this lovely fruit platter. Crafty, eh?

And I recommandeered our fruit basket to host our bananas.

Jeremy had just stuffed all his stupid snacks in there and it was so out of control. Can I blame him? I mean, look at his parents. He learned this from them. I can point fingers and be a bitch, which I totally do, but I also show by example. Now he's proclaiming me a genius, which I think is a little much but I'll enjoy the limelight.

As we stood there marveling at my handiwork, I sighed heavily and said that once school starts back up, my clean and orderly home will be filled with grease and dirt and smells of unknown origins. And that's when my husband said something that sounded like it should have been accompanied by angels singing:
"No, the house will stay clean like you leave it because Raelynn will go to school with you and my parents won't come over every day."

It made me so blissfully happy, you can't even imagine. No more will I put on the rubber gloves to wash my dishes and discover that some fatheaded bison has somehow managed to get water into them AGAIN. No more will I come home to find pieces of fucking luo bo randomly spread around my kitchen and other parts of my house. No more will I have to carefully unstack Mt. Dishmore. No more will I come home to find things broken with no replacement or even a fucking simple apology (seriously, how hard is it for them to say "duibuqi" to me? Yeesh!).

Of course, all this depends on my sweet Raelynn, who must be able to use the potty before she can come to school with me. She has been doing great with pee. But today, she made so many poops in her pants when she was right next to the potty. What gives? Come on, kid! Don't you want to go on the slide every day? This kid loves slides more than any other kid, I'm pretty sure. So we're working on that, and with any luck, we'll soon be in-law-free! At least on a daily basis.

How lovely it will be to come home to a clean house, just the way I left it!

Oh. Wait. I'm forgetting something. The baby! Oh no! Baby Qu #2 will be born in mid-July. OH GOD! That yokel will be in my face for a fucking month just like she was when Raelynn was born, won't she? Ruining my maternity leave. And trying to force me to eat her nasty cooking. AND putting her germy hands all over the baby. Maybe it will work to my advantage and between breastfeeding and starving from not being able to ingest the vomitous offerings she prepares, I'll be pre-baby weight again before I know it. But my poor baby! Oh no! Once I go back to work, that poor sweet angel baby will be stuck with Dumb and Dumber while Raelynn and I go to school. And then I'm sure when we get home, those idiots will hang around so they can see Raelynn. EVERYFUCKINGDAY. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

NO! It's not fair! I was almost rid of her. It was going to be so lovely and now, poof! My dreams of happiness and peace are gone. I'm going to cry into a bar of chocolate now and pray that my husband sets some limits with them so I can still enjoy some semblance of peace. Or as much peace as one gets when they have an infant and a toddler to look after at least.

Kitchen Makeover: Useful But Ugly Edition

Hopefully you had a chance to check out my post about how MIL gave my kitchen a makeover, making it look a little too much like hers. Actually, let's study the photo of what she did to my kitchen, shall we?

I'd like you to focus more on the counter on the right side. Nestled amidst all the crap she's thrown on there, we have a rice cooker (closest to the refrigerator) with a fruit basket that is instead filled with snacky things like raisins and such for Raelynn; an electric kettle; a very large crock pot that I still have no idea how to use (MIL bought it for us as soon as she found out I was pregnant again so she could make me eat this Chinese bean soup every day...oh joy!); and not in the frame, a small oven. So on this right side counter, there wasn't much available real estate to play around with. I keep my counters clean and organized but with MIL intruding daily, it became a nightmare to keep free of extra crap. She's so random too. See that ugly purse by the refrigerator, under Raelynn's apple picture? We have a coat rack along the wall when you enter our home and she NEVER uses it. She just dumps everything everywhere. Even her coat! She never hangs it up. She puts it on Raelynn's toy box. And don't get me started about that dirty bag on the floor. Urgh!

Anyway, I'm showing you this mess again so you can see what my loving and wonderful husband did to make my kitchen better. Now, this kitchen will never be featured in Better Home and Gardens, but we've done the best with it that we could. What did Jeremy do to our kitchen to improve it? He added a shelf above the right side counter!

Let's check it out...

 Well, would you look at that! It's orderly! And clean! That's because the troll hasn't been here since January 1st. My kitchen finally smells nice again. AND! I finally have room to work on both counters. What a blessing! You might be wondering why we couldn't just stash the stuff from the counters into our cabinets. That's an excellent question. All the cabinets are already full of dishes and such. There's no more room in there to put anything else. Plus, we use the rice cooker, the electric kettle, the crock pot and the oven daily so it's kind of annoying to put them away. My husband's solution was very practical. And helpful. But it was also kind of ugly. Come see...

We put this shiny purple tablecloth on top of the shelf to hide its' ugliness. Just look at this thing. It looks like something MIL would pick out from a greasy Chinese restaurant that closed due to rat infestation. My husband paid only 15 yuan for this thing, which is between $2 and $3 US. What a bargain! Not that I was imagining him coming home with some fancy mahogany floating shelf. I just wasn't imagining something that looks like it was left in the dumpster. I realize it's very utilitarian and all but it is just so fug. I am so happy we have this tablecloth to unfug it up a bit. 

Pardon the extra power strip, but here is the shelf from a more front view. It really is an improvement, even if it's not going to win any awards for beauty. More counter space? I'll take it! And yes, that is a Snoopy Snowcone Machine on top of our refrigerator. Try not to be too jealous. Mental note to myself that I must find some flavoring so I can make Raelynn some snow cones during this winter break. 

Now here's our counter below the shelf, with plenty of room to work. I am showing you this because YOU KNOW...you just KNOW that my troll-in-law will cover it with garbage and leave food out on it for days once she comes over again. You'll see. She'll think, "Oh boy! More room to leave out luo bo!" She sucks. 

To the right of the shelf and the oven, here is Jeremy's stupid world map. I hate this fucking thing. Can you see how weathered it is? It used to be over our old stupid wooden couch (you can see it there in this post). He moved it into the kitchen a while back (I have photos but I'm too tired and pregnant to go leafing through my bazillions of bitchy posts to locate it). When the shelf went up, I was so happy because I thought the map was gone! Oh but no! I just didn't see it hiding behind the door. Well, since it's fairly hidden, hopefully no one else will notice it either. The only thing interesting about this world map is that because it came from over here, they show the map in reverse from what we are used to seeing in the US. We'd normally see the US on the left side of the map, but not here.

In any event, stay tuned for the next time my in-laws visit. I will document the desecrating of my kitchen and we can marvel at just how she can clutter up counter space, and floor space too.

Extreme Home Makeover: Disgusting Kitchen Edition

Holy hell. Has it really been a month since my last post? My apologies, it's been a little hectic and I promise I'll catch you all up on that soon.

For now, I'd like to tell (and show!) you all about my newly redesigned kitchen. Yes, that's right. I left for work this morning and it was clean and orderly. And when I came home this afternoon, this is how I found it:

Thank you, MIL! I don't even know where to begin with this. I suddenly have no counter space AT ALL on the right side of the kitchen. There is all kinds of random food and random crap on the left side. MIL has made another mountain of half-assedly-washed dishes on that side too but you can only see my white cutting board which still looks filthy.

Well, at least we know where she got her inspiration for this design. Don't you remember her own kitchen? Take a look again at this horrid filth that is MIL's kitchen. Dear Lord! At least when my husband came home and saw this disaster, he promised he'd clean it. I'm holding him to it, or he'll have to include some new jewelry for me under the Christmas tree.

If you like MIL's style, please contact me immediately. I can ship her over to you free of charge and then you too can have a stunningly sloppy pigsty for a kitchen too!

Return Of The Yuck

At the end of March, I posted about something horrible and yucky my in-laws put into one of our kitchen cabinets. You can check it out here, and if you don't have time to read the post (which isn't actually very long) you should at least take a gander at the accompanying photos. Well, today, the yuck has returned! Only, it's not in liquid form this time.

And for that, I'm a bit grateful because the last yuck I found we still weren't really sure what it was. We mostly suspect it to have been tea and for our sanity, we choose to believe it. Today, before I started dinner, I was unloading our dish rack which was looking a lot like this, actually...

Do you see the small, white bowl? Well, there happened to be one just like that on the rack today. And I went to put it back in the dish cabinet on top of the stack of other small, white bowls just like it.

Only something was wrong. I saw something strange in the top bowl so I pulled it out and put it on the counter. That's when I noticed there was something inside the bowl underneath that one too...

This substance is more easily identifiable than the original yuck. It's dirt. You know the culprit, don't you? MIL! Naturally. This is no mystery. Neither is the fact that it's dirt. Where the dirt came from though...that is certainly more mystifying. I am going to venture a guess that the old troll used these bowls to put some vegetables fresh from the market...spinach perhaps. Maybe she set them in there so as not to make a mess on the counters? No...that's too organized for her. Now I'm stumped. Here's a closer look at the dirt in the first bowl:

It's a good thing I look before I use any of our dishes. I'd hate for this to wind up in my food. Or Raelynn's food. Jeremy claims I'm over-reacting about this so I wonder how he'll react when I toss it in his breakfast for him in the morning. I think he'll change his mind quite fast, don't you?

Yuck Of The Day

This evening, I was rummaging around in one of our cabinets for a plastic container. Imagine my surprise when I found this in there behind the container I'd selected...

The top juice glass in the stack has a brown liquid in it. I immediately hollered for my husband. I make him take a sniff. After all, it's HIS stupid parents that did this. But there's no smell. We suspect it was tea. Why put an almost-empty glass of tea back into a cabinet with clean, dry dishes and plastic containers? Perhaps this is another mystery that will never be solved. Lord only knows what goes through MIL and FIL's heads, besides dust and cobwebs. It just boggles my mind completely. I mean, you have a glass of tea (or so we hope) and you aren't finished with it. Instead of just chugging down the rest of it, or leaving it on the counter, or even washing it out and putting it on the dish drying rack, you hide it behind clean dishware in the back of a cabinet. I'm not even sure if they created this curious thing today or if it's from earlier in the week, actually. Which is even more alarming though it's not every day I'm fumbling around that awkward cabinet for tupperware.

Here's a photo of the mystery liquid that we suspect to be tea after I moved the glass onto the counter to get a better shot, before it met its' fate with soap and a rag in the sink...

See how little liquid is in there? Why would you even save that? What would possess somebody to do that? I think this is the most perplexing in-law incident to date, and that says a lot because there are so many of them. Unless...unless it's another piece of abstract art. But it was hidden and not on display. Maybe they weren't ready to have an exhibition yet. Who knows with these 2 trolls?!? In any event, this has been your yuck of the day!

MIL The Martha

Apparently, MIL fancies herself a Martha Stewart of sorts. At least that is all I can possibly conclude after my discoveries today. Let's take a look at the lovely things MIL has done to our home while we've been toiling away the day...

 Yes, folks. THIS is what I come home to find in the baby's room. That little shelving unit plopped on top of that table. Let me first explain about this table. It was in our living room/dining area along the wall, out of the way. But over the Chinese holiday, it was bothering my husband because he felt it was taking up too much space. Not one to argue when it comes to decluttering, I didn't protest when he moved it. Until I saw he put it in Raelynn's room. He said he was only sticking it in there until his parents could come get it and bring it to their home (it was their table to begin with). It's been a week though and this damn table is still in Raelynn's room. And so, instead of moving the fucking thing OUT of the baby's room and OUT of our home, MIL has chosen to move it UNDERNEATH this stupid shelving unit. Because it's so safe to stack furniture on top of furniture in a baby's room of all fucking places. What a total moron!

Here is another shot so you can see that it is now more difficult for Raelynn to reach her toys. Especially that treehouse thing on top, which she loves. Thanks MIL.

On to the kitchen, where MIL has decided to make the dish rack multi-functional. How? Why, by using it as a place to stick ginger root and green onions of course! Le duh! Martha Stewart would be so proud.

And finally, we have her favorite thing: unrefrigerated mystery foods sitting out for an undetermined amount of time. There is a shrimp dish on the bottom. Martha wouldn't approve of the ugly little heads still attached to them but oh well. She's cooked this with cucumber (why?!?) and egg. The other dish in the plastic container on top is pork ribs, which would be appetizing except for the thick layer of congealed fat and oil at the bottom. Like it's been sitting for a whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile. I asked MIL why she didn't put it in the refrigerator and she told me that she'd made it recently so not to worry and it was fine. I'm sorry but I have never seen fat and oil unite like that in a short amount of time. Her concept of time vastly differs from mine, evidently. Who's coming for dinner? Yeah, me neither. I'm off to make something that won't cause us all diarrhea now.