Someone Made Me Eat This: 3 In A Row!

Well, I'll be damned. I was wrong. I had predicted that last night's dinner would be a fail. There would be no way that MIL could serve 3 decent meals in a row, I'd thought. MIL, are you reading my blogs? Ha! That's a funny thought...my in-laws have an ancient laptop that I think FIL just uses to play mahjong on. They used to bring it here before we got the iPad so that on rainy days when the satellite wouldn't come in, we could just put in a DVD of Max & Ruby and Raelynn would mellow out. But they do not have internet at their home so there's no way MIL could be doing this just to throw off my predictions. No, she's actually doing this. She's doing a better job of cooking and hence, helping our family out. Thank you, MIL. Yes, a non-sarcastic thank you for a change.

Look what's back...it's the xifan! Haha! I guess that slop is here to stay. I just think it's funny that she didn't serve it the other night. So let's look at the other stuff...

We've got cauliflower which would have been better if she'd served it hot. She cooked this first and let it sit out while she cooked the other stuff. Next to the cauliflower, she's made some saucy Chinese ribs. I love love LOVE how she's sprinkled them with chopped cilantro to try to be fancy! Oh MIL! You're such a card! So how did they taste? Well, when I saw them, I immediately thought of those sweet and sticky BBQ ribs you can get at any Chinese joint in the US. But they weren't sweet. They were salty. I would have been so happy if they'd been sweet, and had more meat on the bones, but this is a good job for MIL. Like when Raelynn behaves herself, we have to make a big stink when MIL does a good job. We want to encourage her to cook good food, don't we?

Next up, you'll see more tudou bien, potato bread. It was in one of my other SMMET (Someone Made Me Eat This) posts. As I've been handling a baby who seems to want to be up at all hours partying, you'll have to go look for it yourself. And again, with this batch, she did a great job.

Finally, we have a shrimp dish. Take a closer look...

It's shrimp steamed with cucumbers and cilantro. I hate cooked cucumbers but I was able to successfully ignore them. The shrimp was great. Nicely done, MIL.

Today is Thursday, which means it's her last night this week cooking for us (I get to cook on Fridays). Will there be a royal flush - all 4 days filled with no (major) complaints from me? Or will she fuck it all up? I guess we'll find out soon enough!

Someone Made Me Eat This: No Way!

I must tell you that I am beyond stunned today. MIL did not serve us a table full of fried foods! But that's not even the most astonishing thing.

 Shocker #1: she MADE this chicken. It doesn't look all that delicious in the photo (her plating sucks, plus my flash photography never does these things any favors) but let me tell you...it is. So as I'm eating it, enjoying that it's juicy and flavorful and not greasy and fried, she tells me she made it. "Ni?!?" I sputter, with a mouth full of chicken. She caught me so off-guard that I actually talked with my mouth full. I couldn't help it. "Ni?!? Ni zoufan le ta???" I ask again, incredulous. You?!? You?!? You cooked this??? And she seems pretty pleased with herself as she tells me that she did. I have to give her credit: great job, MIL. Make this again. And again. But not every fucking day, ok? You did good here.

Of course, she's served it with a giant bowl of rice. My husband will eat that, easy. I actually ignored her rice tonight because earlier, when my husband ran us to the supermarket, he bought me a little tray of salmon sushi rolls. They were so good too. So good that I gobbled them up before I even thought to take photos. But I still had to take bites of the dishes she prepared. Her chicken gets an A+ tonight though I wonder if she really truly made it herself or bought it from someone who knows how to cook.

Now let's talk about the red and yellow bowl of mess that looks like someone ripped Ronald McDonald's scalp clean. It looks menacing and gross but it's actually tomatoes cooked with eggs and garlic. It's not an awful dish, but I don't love it. I don't hate it either. I'm just kind of meh about it. Basically, I'd rather eat other things but this is far better than many things she makes.

Here's some potatoes with onions. Not bad either but still fried. Not deep fried, mind you, but the amount of oil at the bottom of this bowl is a bit unsettling. She just can't not fry anything, can she? At least she didn't fry everything this time though.

And here's Shocker #2: She didn't serve xifan! I know. How weird is that?!? I couldn't believe she actually let us go one night without trying to force that shit down our throats.

So will we get a big steaming bowl of xifan with dinner tomorrow? Will MIL go for 3 days in a row of winning with decent food? I think she'll break her good streak, but who knows...she could very well surprise me. After all, she surprised me with that chicken tonight. Check out other Someone Made Me Eat This posts right here until then.

Someone Made Me Eat This: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

In addition to being utterly hysterically funny today, MIL did a fairly decent job with dinner. It was good, bad and ugly, all at once.

First, the good:
I actually have to say I like everything pictured here. We've got cucumbers with that garlic soy sauce (I could do without the sauce honestly), then that green thing is actually leeks and eggs and it's really tasty. There's chicken wings and fried shrimp. And that thing in the back is tuduo bien, or potato bread. Normally, I hate when she makes tudou bien because she sucks at it. She always adds too much flour and it tastes like a glutenousy mess with hints of potato flavor. I like tuduo bien when it's made right. Tonight, MIL surprised me by making it right. I'm shocked.

The bad:
Out of 5 offerings, 3 of them are fried. So this meal, while tasty, is not very healthy. Jeremy kindly explained this to his mother. Not just for my benefit but also his. He doesn't want to eat so many fried things either. Of course, this just means she'll make different gross things. But hey, I've lost 20 pounds since having the baby just from breastfeeding, and presumably starving because I hate most of the shit she cooks, so this could be a good thing as I work on losing the rest of the baby weight.

And finally, the ugly:

A Broad Abroad file photo of xifan.

And yes, of course she served us xifan again. Because she thinks this is healthy. Well, at least it's healthier than 3 plates of fried food, I'll give her that.

Will our non-fried future meals be edible? Stay tuned. Check out previous Someone Made Me Eat This posts here.  

MIL The Comedian

Today, MIL showed me that she can actually be funny. Only problem is I don't think she was trying to be.

A friend of my husband's is in the coat business. He gave us a couple coats to try out. One is black and is probably for a man but it doesn't look too manly. It doesn't look overly feminine either. Very neutral. The other is definitely for a woman. It's white and cinches at the waist. It's really cute. Problem is that it's in a size for a typical Asian women, meaning my boobs do not at all fit inside this thing.

It looks like if this coat

And this coat

Had a coat-baby.

Now that we've established what this coat looks like, let me tell you why MIL is a laugh-riot today.

Because the coat doesn't fit me, Jeremy said he'd give it to his mother. Actually, he's quite the comedian too now isn't he? Can you picture MIL in this? If you've forgotten what MIL looks like, here's a refresher:

Incidentally, I couldn't resist using this photo of my in-laws from when I first visited China before moving here in late 2010. They look the same but our apartment does not (thank God!). This is before we moved into our home.

So of course, imagine MIL trying to wear a coat for a young woman. And imagine even more her being able to fit into it. While she doesn't have a giant-boob problem, she is a boxy-shaped woman and there's no way her man-frame would ever fit into that coat. Are you laughing yet? Because that's what I was doing when my husband suggested this. Hard. It brought tears to my eyes.

But give it to her he did, reasoning that perhaps she'd know someone she could give it to. He gave it to her last week but I noticed she left it in Raelynn's room. Perhaps she'd forgotten it. I mean she's not the sharpest tool in the shed now is she? Today when she came, I'd moved the bag with the coat in it out into the living room so she would remember to take it with her. And as I watched TV, I saw her take the bag and put it back in Raelynn's room. So I tell her not to do that and to please take the coat with her later when she leaves. And she says why should she take it? AND WAIT...this is where it gets goooooooooooood...

She says Raelynn can wear that coat and we should save it for her.

Please. Let that just absorb for a moment, won't you? Raelynn is almost 3 1/2 now. This coat is for an adult woman. Yes, that's brilliant! Let's save a coat for her for 15 years. I'm sure it will be fashionable then. Why, that makes PERFECT sense to hold onto clothing for nearly 2 decades! See? She's fucking hilarious today.

So I tell her that's nice but we'll be moving to America at some point and I'm not waiting until she grows into a coat. Should I ship that thing over to America? When she goes off to college, I can bust it out. Hell, when she's worn it to shreds, Seoul can wear it too.

She says she'll take the coat and keep it at her house for Raelynn when she's bigger. Yeah, you'll be holding onto that coat for a loooooooooooooong time, lady. Of course, she loves to dress Raelynn in things that are about 5 sizes too large so I'm sure she'll whip it out next winter. At least it's not ugly though which is more than I can say about the shit she usually picks out. It's SUCH an old Chinese lady thing to do - buy things way too big so you can grow into them. Never mind that they will look worn or most likely be tattered by the time it IS an appropriate size. Squirreling away things like a crazed hoarder is the Chinese MIL way!

What I Hate Most Of All

There is something out there that I truly from the depths of my soul hate beyond all other things. Even more than MIL and her cooking. Actually, way more than her. I absolutely have no tolerance whatsoever for people who steal.

If you read this post, you know I'm a little steamed at Jeremy for losing his Samsung phone. Husbands are your unofficial children and that is why I'm forever reminding him (he calls it nagging) not to forget this or that. Too bad I wasn't with him as he ran around doing work-related errands yesterday because while out, he left his phone somewhere.

At least he remembered after the fact and tried to go back to retrieve it. Only some asshole took it. There were cameras around this building but the guard there wouldn't do anything without Jeremy going to the police. So he went to the police who said this wasn't a big issue and to tell the guard at the building to review the surveillance footage. The guard then said he wouldn't review the footage until the police came. But when they finally reviewed the footage, the cameras trained on the area Jeremy had been were broken. Of course. I think the guard took it but that's my personal belief.

Police here are notoriously useless as well, making my utter disdain for this country even greater. Yes, I'm aware people steal in my home country, but here, no one does anyfuckingthing about it. Now my husband is sad, and quite frankly, so am I. We had photos of Seoul on there that he hadn't downloaded yet. He had songs on there he loved. And now it's gone, partly because he's careless (he got a big lecture about that one) and partly because some dishonest pig took something that didn't belong to them.

Let me tell you about something that happened to me about 6 years ago...

I was unemployed for the most part, only able to get freelance writing gigs which didn't pay the bills. I had to collect unemployment on top of that and still, things were rough. I needed money. My life sucked. One night, I went to the drive-thru ATM for my bank (Wachovia which is now Wells Fargo) near my Miami apartment. There was an SUV in front of me. I waited my turn and when the SUV left, I rolled up. I started to lean out the window to slide my card into the machine and that's when I noticed the person in the SUV had left their card in the machine. And, they were still logged in with their pin which meant I could have withdrawn money from that card. As hard as times were for me, there was no way I could ever steal from somebody. I know you're probably thinking only an idiot would steal in front of surveillance cameras but even if there were no cameras, I'd have done the same thing I did.

Which was lean on the horn, flash my lights and yell to the person in the SUV, who was now driving away. Either they didn't notice my attempts to stop them or, because it was night, perhaps they were afraid. So, I removed the person's card and put mine in, made my transaction and then took my card and drove to a nearby parking space. The person's bank card was also through Wachovia so I called the toll free number on the back to report it.

It only took a few minutes out of my life to handle that and the woman I spoke to at the call center was so happy to get a call like mine. She told me that most of the time, it's a bad outcome. She was so happy that someone was doing the right thing. How could someone NOT do the right thing, I wondered. I did what I would want someone to do for me if I'd left my card behind. I wish everyone looked after each other in this way. But sadly, it happens back home, in China and everywhere in between. How very sad that people can be so greedy with no regard for others.

I hope whoever took my husband's phone from where he left it gets heaps of rotten luck. I really truly do. You are the lowest of the low, complete garbage, for taking what's not yours and I hope it comes back to bite you in your ass.

The Pooping

Warning: You are about to read a post that discusses the bodily functions of an infant at length. In other words, this involves a poop-related mess so if you are eating something (or about to eat something) or you hate kids, perhaps this post isn't for you.

This post is for all the moms and dads I know out there (and for my friends without kids who can stomach this situation and laugh at my expense). It's also for those of you I don't know. Enjoy!

Oh, and there's no gross photos, just so you know. I'll just use this cute photo of Seoul...

For the last 2 nights, Seoul has been making me a bit nuts. Since she's now 3 weeks old, I'm guessing this is just a growth spurt since she's chunking up fast. Her little legs and arms are getting fatter as is her face and although I'm exhausted, I'm happy she's getting bigger and stronger. But this of course means that she's been waking up constantly in the night, wanting her milk boobs. Then needing to burp. And of course, pooping. Then she needs to go back to sleep which she loves to do during the day but now that Mommy is tired and her eyes are so dry and heavy they're practically glued shut, she wants to look at me and smile. It's a good thing she's smiling, because I'm ready to scream I'm so exhausted.

At some point in the night, Raelynn began crying in her room. Jeremy went and stayed in there to calm her down since I was busy nursing Seoul and we wanted to avoid having Raelynn in our bed with the baby. She tosses and turns and doesn't pay attention so I can't sleep when she comes in because I worry she'll accidentally smack Seoul. It's just easier this way. Plus, Jeremy's snoring sucks so maybe I'll get more sleep, I think. Wrong!

Seoul finishes eating and I go to put her back in the crib. Her eyes are shut and she's sleeping. Phew! Into the crib she goes and back into the bed crawls Mommy, who can almost taste the peacefulness of sleep.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Not 5 minutes later, Seoul has unswaddled herself like Houdini and is upset because she's at that fun newborn stage where she hasn't quite figured out that those are HER hands that are smacking her in the face. I swaddle her again. I rock her in my arms and then put her in the chair to rock her some more. And finally, she starts to drift off. I wait a few minutes and then move her back into the crib. And back to bed I go! Hooray!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Oh fuck me. What is it now, Seoul? Ah, she's escaped from my blanket cocoon once more. And again, I repeat the whole sequence above. I do this 5 times before 2  hours have passed and now it's time to give her more milk boobies. I think I've slept about 15 minutes in total.

As I'm feeding her, she makes one of those epic splatter-poops that newborns do so well. It sounds just like what I'd imagine shit hitting the fan to sound like. I wait, as she keeps eating and I know from experience that she'll make more poop in a few minutes. And there it is...PLLLLTHIRRRRPPPPTHRRRTHRIIIIRRRRPPPPLLLLP! She begins crying now as anyone would who is trapped with an epic shit in their pants so I get up and proceed to change her.

I put down the changing mat and ready all the tools I need for this job - the wet wipes, a fresh diaper and baby powder. And now I begin the grueling task of changing a stinky disgusting poop-filled diaper at 3:30am. But suddenly, as I'm trying to slide the new diaper under the old one, something frightfully awful happens and because I'm running on a total of 4 hours sleep in a 48-hour period, I'm not sharp enough to catch on until it's too late.

Seoul rips a massive fart followed by a huge streaming squirt of poop that flies completely over the dirty diaper as well as the clean diaper and sprays my pajama bottoms and the floor by my feet. I hear screaming and realize it's me. How Jeremy and Raelynn didn't wake up and come running to see what was wrong is a mystery to me. Now there was poop all over the changing mat, poop on Seoul's blanket (though thankfully, none on our bed), and poop all over my fucking hands and clothes. I didn't even know what to begin cleaning up first. Seoul begins crying again because my noisy shrieks of terror are understandably frightening to her and I do my best to hurry and clean up the stinky situation before me.

Now I'm wide awake because I have effectively scrubbed everything in the vicinity of the pooping and although I've cleaned it all up and removed anything that needed washing, I still feel gross. I desperately want to sleep and now I'm nursing again. Ah, now she's done. I can go back to...oh, another poop. Noooooooooo! This time, I'm much luckier. No surprise attacks. But now she won't go to sleep, no matter what I do. I rock her in my arms. I rock her in the chair. I sing her songs. I have the white noise machine doing its' thing. WHY WON'T SHE SLEEP?!? AUGH!

And so, I repeat this endless cycle of insanity all through the night until some time in the early morning when my husband comes in to check on us and sees me hanging on by a thread rocking the baby's chair. This is probably what I get for laughing at him when Raelynn pooped in his hand when she was an infant and he was changing her diaper and for when the same thing happened when Seoul was about a week old. But he didn't laugh. Not then anyway (he, being a good husband, laughed at me later). He shooed me into the bed and took over rocking the baby so I could get some sleep. It wasn't much sleep thanks to Raelynn deciding that 7:30am was a super time to bang on her xylophone and causing MIL, who had come to take Raelynn to the park, to yell at her for making too much noise (which was counterproductive but hey, that's MIL for you), but as any sleepless parent can tell you, it was way better than nothing.

Someone Made Me Eat This: Another Fried Night

Tonight's dinner was only slightly better than last night's dinner. The difference was there were 2 things I was willing to eat without being coaxed into it.

Let's start with the plate of cucumbers on the left. Yay! Something not fried. But of course, she's served it with a bowl of garlic doused in salty soy sauce for dipping (just behind it, with the spoon). Sigh. Next to that, you've got chicken on a stick. She didn't make this herself. These come in a big bag in the frozen section at the supermarket. They aren't horrible, but they aren't that good either. Unless you're drunk. She made these for us on Monday and Jeremy had let her know then that he wasn't all that thrilled with it. Plus, she'd made enough for the entire Chinese army. He made her take home the excess and only allowed her to leave 6 of them.

When Jeremy saw them again today, I heard him complain to her that these are poor quality and he wasn't happy to see them again. I hope she never serves this crappy chicken on a stick again either but as lowgrade as it is, it's way better than most of her cooking.

Except the fried shrimp, to the right of the chicken. That shit's good. It's just fried.

Then there's that crappy fried, greasy pancake from last night. This isn't leftover from last night either. She just felt the need to make it once more. And what do we have next to the pancakes from my nightmares? I have no earthly idea. I conveniently ignored it. It smelled like a wet dog and it looks greasy and gross to boot. For once, my husband didn't insist I eat it or even try it. He's hanging his tail in shame once more today because he lost his Samsung phone. I swear, every summer, there is some shit like this. Remember the watch incident? Ugh. I hate when he loses things. This time, he wasn't drinking though. He was just working. I blame that Y chromosome again. And maybe the heat of summer helps trigger something with that damn chromosome too. Why can't he lose MIL somewhere instead? That would be fanfuckingtastic. He could replace her with someone who can actually cook Chinese food and not cause me to despise an entire country's cuisine. Now there's a thought!

Oh, and let's not forget the xifan! This is my stock photo of xifan. I'm sick of photographing it. It looks like the same murky shit every single day. She rarely if ever makes a different variety. Though unlike the xifan in this picture, she didn't add enough water so it was goopy and gloppy. Urgh.

If you would like to see more of Someone Made Me Eat This, click here. Will tomorrow's meal feature the same chicken on a stick crap? Or more fried funness? Get your TUMS ready and stay tuned!