Karma, dude, karma

I had a pretty good time at the Father’s Day family gathering, though sometimes I feel a little awkward around everyone since my separation.  Two notable things happened, though:

• We had a few slip’n’slides hooked up all in a row (we were attempting to break every rule on the box) and once when i was going down I crashed into a little cousin of mine.  I felt really bad but I think everything is okay; she had a pretty bad welt but was going down again about 15 minutes later.
• I lent my car to my cousin and her boyfriend; they’re driving to Cedar Point for a few days and didn’t have very nice wheels to do it in; I felt like a hybrid would help them out.  So, I am carless for 2 days.  This is a good thing, because I want to see what it’s like to take the bus to work, and this will force me to do it.

So, where does karma play into all of this?  I don’t know.  I feel like lending the car out should give me some karma; hurting my cousin, even though it was accident should give me bad karma.  Maybe it will all balance out.

Happy Father’s Day

My Dad is really great!  He’s always there for you: to give advice, to help you out, or just to chat.  He’s one of the few people I know who’ll just sit down with me and have a conversation about whatever.  I get a lot of the traits I like about myself from him:  my particular brand of intelligence, my sanity and emotional balance, and my agreeable nature.

I think the last time I told him how great he is was at his 50th birthday party, or maybe it was 45th.  On his 50th I would have been 16 and I feel like I was younger.  Anyway, I gave a little speech about it and it’s one of the few times I’ve felt like I was successful at public speaking.  So, that was a good day and I still remember it.  In any case, I probably don’t say it enough.

He’s watching golf now, which is one of his favorite things to do.  I wish him a great day and a great year!  Dad, we should go golfing sometime, but I’ll have to borrow some clubs!

Learning to make Sushi for Mom

Happy Mother’s Day!

Absorbing all the information we can from the DVD.

This year my brother and I decided to get my mother a gift slightly different from what we normally get: the gift of sushi! About two months ago I got my brother a sushi-making kit for his birthday. The specific kit that I got for him was called Simply Sushi and featured a book and DVD by Australian sushi chef Steven Pallett. We, being something of a lazy duo, have been putting off actually trying out some of the techniques described in the kit, but mother’s day marked a perfect opportunity.

Making the grocery list.

We spent about an hour perusing the book and watching the DVD. The chef has a pretty awesome Australian accent; I definitely enjoyed when he kept talking about the fillets (pronounced fill-ETS). There was also somewhat amusing elevator music playing the whole time. These things did not distract us from our real task of learning how to make sushi rice, sushi cuts, and sushi rolls.

In the Asian Market, perusing seaweed options.

The next step was to make a grocery list. We went through the recipes in the book and I grabbed a pencil. Among the things on the list were:

• Nori Seaweed
• Wasabi
• Japanese Mayonnaise
• Daikon Radish
• Rice Vinegar
• Pickled Ginger
• Avocado
• Crab Meat
• Tuna Fillet
• Yellowtail Fillet

Once we had agreed on the final list, it was time to head to the Asian Market to look for some of these things. We took a short pitstop at a Salvadoran place for lunch, then entered the war zone. The Lotte Asian Market in Aspen Hill was filled to the brim with people and carts and children and some sort of animated energy that coursed through it all.  We left our cart unattended for about 30 seconds at one point, and it had disappeared!  The place was pretty amazing.

Approaching the fishmonger at the market, we were confused; it appeared they didn’t carry tuna or yellowtail at all. They had about 50 types of fish, but neither of the ones we were looking for. Disappointed, we decided to try the regular old grocery for fish. Still, we needed quite a few items that could only be obtained in this place, and we pushed on.

We had a hard time with the labels, most of them were unreadable to us, or had English in tiny print at the bottom. Eventually, though, we found everything on the list except for Japanese Mayonnaise and Kampyo, some sort of spiced gourd. We figured these things were overrated anyway and headed to the regular store for fish and avocados.

I have obtained fish.

At the supermarket, the only fish fillets they had were salmon and tilapia, and the fishmonger was a little rude about it. Undaunted, we bought the last fillet of salmon and since tuna is absolutely necessary in our opinion, for sushi, we picked up two tuna steaks. Not exactly ideal, but we figured they would work out.

After carting all the stuff home, we took a little break to play some Smash Bros. Dinner wasn’t supposed to be ready for three more hours and we didn’t want to start too early!

While Dad was helping chop the cucumber, radish, and avocado, we started on the sushi rice. making sushi rice is a pretty intensive process consisting of about 10 minutes cleaning the rice, 30 minutes cooking it, 5 minutes kneading it and applying rice vinegar solution, and another 5-10 minutes fanning it until it is room temperature. We rewatched the video for this section specifically because it is the single point of failure. Without successful rice, sushi cannot be achieved. Cleaning the rice is actually quite a bit of fun; you have to massage it.

Ingredients all ready to go.

As the rice was cooking, we took stock of our other ingredients. It was at this point that we realized that instead of crab meat, we had accidentally purchased clam meat. This changed our plans not at all, but it was a little funny. It was especially funny when poober bit into a piece of clam meat, made a face, and spit it out. Apparently, clam meat is pretty salty. We still used it in our “California” roll, though.

Poober with a knife!

While I fretted about the rice, poober cut up some of the fish. While we are both capable in the kitchen, he is the one who demonstrates the most raw natural talent. We couldn’t quite get the correct cuts down, especially on the tuna steak, because it was a steak and not a fillet. It was also possibly because our knives were not quite sharp enough. Still, we got some adequate strips off of each type of fish. We made a little bit of Nigiri, where you just press the rice against cuts of fish, and poober sliced up some squid combined with roe for a bit of Sashimi. Our favorite type of sushi, though, is maki; roll sushi. That’s what we needed the strips of fish for.

To roll sushi, you use a bamboo mat that came with the sushi kit. You place some nori seaweed on the mat, put rice onto it, put on your ingredients, then roll the nori inside the bamboo until the rice sticks to either side. You really need to see the video to see it explained adequately. You can also make sushi where the rice is on the outside of the seaweed, which in my experience is more commonly what you get at a sushi bar. We were somewhat successful at making both kinds, as you can see:
(click to enlarge)

I’m sorry if some of these are a little blurry.  Everyone was in a hurry to get eating!  In the end, we made:

• Miso Soup
• Squid with Masago Sashimi
• Nigiri Salmon
• Nigiri Tuna
• Avocado Roll x2 (Avocado)
• Pickled Radish Roll x2 (one with Cucumber)
• Tuna and Avocado Roll x2
• Clamifornia Roll (Clam Meat, Cucumber, Avocado, Masago)
• Philly Roll (Cream Cheese, Salmon, Cucumber)

Our presentation improved on each roll; the first one I made almost totally fell apart, though it tasted pretty good after all.  About 2/3 of the sushi got eaten, and the rest was disassembled to get at the goodies inside.  All in all it was successful and very good.  Not to focus on the negative, but we did end up with a few takeaways:  1) Use less wasabi.  The wasabi we bought at the store is much stronger than what they serve at sushi bars.  A few of the rolls were a little hotter than maybe they should have been.  2)  Buy a rice cooker.  We cooked the rice in a saucepan, and it turned out pretty good, but I think it was a little chewy for my taste.  Also, the seaweed we put into it gave it little green specks that didn’t affect taste but may have affected presentation a little bit.  3) Make and use less rice.  In some of the rolls, we went a little overboard on rice.  I think less really ends up being more in this department.  We could have probably done with about 1/3 less rolls and with each roll having about half the rice it ended up having.  This time we made 4 uncooked cups of rice, next time maybe 2 will be in order.

It was a great experience and I would recommend it to anyone who is a sushi lover.  Making it at home is not very hard and the payoff is good and fairly cheap sushi.  We spent about $40 at the store to make all this sushi for four people, and that includes a lot of ingredients we will be able to use again.

Real Men Play Frisbee

Guest post by: poober

I’m not the most athletic guy out there, but I do enjoy certain sports. Many of the more common sports like football and baseball require large teams that I have trouble mustering.

That’s why I have taken to the lesser-played sports. Right now some of my favorites are frisbee-golf, bocce ball, and croquet. Not only can these games be played with at least two people, they can be played right in your backyard.

Now that it’s warm out again Ive dusted off the ol’ discus and started tossin’ it around again. I have a course in my yard that me and a friend randomly picked out one spring and it seems to have stuck, so now not only I know it by heart but all my friends do too:

We also put a little twist on it.

I believe traditional frisbee golf is played with hoops on the ground you must land the discus inside. We play that there are trees designated as holes (as well as a sandbank, brick pile, bush, and lamp post). While you don’t break a huge sweat throwing a frisbee and trudging after it, you are up and moving around, so its better for you then just sitting around the house. After a warm up round of frisbee golf with my brother, my parents decided they wanted a go at it and it became a fun experience for everyone.

So grab a friend, grab and brother or sister, grab your parents or children, and get outside to toss a frisbee. Its not the same as going to the gym, but it beats sitting on your ass.

Extended Family Appreciation Day

My wonderful aunt and cousin came by to take away some of our old stuff that I don’t want anymore for a yard sale, and they treated me to a nice dinner and some wonderful conversation.  My extended family in the area are all so wonderful and supportive.  Every one of my aunts and uncles are unique and their own person, and some of them can be a little eccentric, but everyone appreciates and loves each other.

I worry because my kids aren’t going to have the same large family structure.  Both of my parents (and now that I think of it, Melissa’s parents, as well) have at least 7 brothers and sisters.  Each of them, however, only seems to have ended up with 2 or 3 kids.  My kids will only have one uncle on my side.

I don’t know what the cause of this is.  I know it’s a somewhat national trend that family size is going down, and that that generally occurs when a nation is fully industrialized and developed like the United States, but I don’t know what the cause is on an individual level, because it seems like the change occurs on that level.  Sometimes I wonder.

Anyway, like I said, I’m concerned that my kids won’t have the wonderful extended family network that I do.  If I stay in touch with my cousins, they could possibly become “aunts and uncles” for my kids.  Does anyone just a little older than me and who is in the same situation know if that is generally what occurs?  I am not very good at staying in touch, even though I would like to be better.

Lance Corporal Broseph

My brother is in the marine reserves and just started his two weeks of service in Honduras helping to repair a school.  (I sincerely hope I didn’t just violate operational security!)

Anyway, I miss him, but I’m sure he’s having a great time.  I can’t decide whether to start moving furniture now or wait for him to get back, since he is the brawniest of the family, and a good friend who’s ready to help whenever I need it.  I’ve already been in stasis for the past few weeks just waiting for Melissa to remove half of it, so two more weeks won’t hurt, right?  I just hope I’m not making excuses.

I really appreciate the work he is doing helping people, and when he gets back, maybe I’ll invite him to share a few stories with you.  He is an excellent writer and an interesting guy.

Alone.

Melissa left at 10:16 PM tonight.

She took my two beautiful beagles, Molly and Claire, with her.

I haven’t cried yet. I am OK right now.

I want to share one of the last conversations we had, I hope it’s not too personal for her to mind:

Me: If I had it to do all over again, knowing what I know now, I would do it all again, but I would have tried harder.
Her: Me too. You made me a better person.
Me: …and you made me happy.
*long pause*
Me: I guess it takes both.

A good sport

At our Easter get-together, we played three games of volleyball, which is probably the first time I’ve played a team sport, or any sport at all, in about a year.  I really enjoy it, but I’m so out of shape that I can basically only play sports where you don’t have to run very much.  (When I play soccer I usually give myself about 4 minutes, and that’s generous).  I think I would like to play team sports more often, maybe join some sort of league or something.  I think that’s more likely to happen if I’m living with my brother than with my wife.  She refuses to do anything like that, in general.

So, I hope I do that.  But so I don’t waste this blog post with just mindless blather, I’ll talk about professional sports!

I don’t like them.

Mainly the reason I don’t like professional sports is that they are essentially just business.  Yes, there is a good deal of skill involved, but who shows off that skill and where they do it is basically a matter of team owners making smart investments and trades.  I wonder what the world would be like if people followed college recruitments to major corporations like they followed sports drafts.

And the meat of the sports business is government subsidies.  Teams will do anything to convince local governments to build them stadiums using taxpayer dollars for next to nothing, and usually anything means threatening to move their team to another locale.  The fact that a team is local means next to nothing to the owners and most of the players, but the fans seem to care a great deal.

I wonder where in the United States is farthest away from a stadium owned by a major sports franchise?   I might like to move there.  And I bet some crazy sports fan has figured out what that place is (not unlike something a crazy scifi fan like me would do, though).

Happy Eostremas

Happy Easter all!

I spent time with my family today, as I hope you all do whenever you get the chance. My cousin’s boyfriend Teddy told me about his website, which is apparently about his musical stylings, although he tells me he hasn’t actually recorded any music. So watch for that! It’s not the easiest Web site to navigate, but then again it’s better than lame people who just use the default blog template.

I guess I wanted to talk a little bit about Easter. You guys are probably aware that I’m a fan of etymology and mythology from my post on my second cousin Odin.

Well, Easter is a funny holiday, at least when you speak a Germanic language. You’re all very erudite, so I’m sure you’re all aware that most Christian holidays are actually pagan holidays that were co-opted by the church to help smooth the conversion to Christianity in Europe. Christ’s birth actually taking place in the spring and so forth. Well, last year I wondered why this holiday is called Easter, since that seems like a funny name for a combination passover / resurrection holiday.

Apparently, in Latin and the Romance languages, the holiday is called Pascha or some variation, which essentially means passover. But in the Germanic languages, it’s named after the goddess Eostre, the ancient Germanic goddess of the dawn.  Essentially Easter was a preexisting holiday celebrating the spring equinox and in Germany and England they didn’t even bother to change the name! (sort of like Yule (Christmas) and Samhain (Halloween)).

So, here’s to Eostre and all the others gods we don’t remember except for a few words they left behind!  Go hide some eggs and chase some bunnies!

Apartment Search Party

Today I went out with my brother to get a sense of what the apartment market is like. After I sell my house, I’ll need somewhere to live and he has been looking for someone to live with. I don’t know if this is a good idea or a bad idea, but it’s something to try. I need to learn to live more independently. One of the things Melissa says I should work on is not needing someone to take care of me, and I think this is a good step towards that.

Some issues arise, though:

• My brother is a smoker. Eeyuugh! I already told him he should quit but if I harp on him about it living together could be tough!
• My brother also likes to party! This means I will be spending time with his friends, which is good because I’ll be out there meeting people, and I could even be his designated driver. Because I’m not much of a partier myself.
• I make a lot more money than him, so that could cause tension if he is not able to pay one month.

Those things being said, I love him and we do get along pretty well. So, we went to look at apartment. It seems like for a two bedroom, the price range is from $1100-1500, which is pretty high. And no one seems to be covering utilities where we were looking, in Glenmont and Rockville. The cheapest apartment (and hence the one we liked the best 😉 had kind of a weird attribute. One of the bedrooms had a hallway at the end of it that just sort of ended at a window! It looked like this crude paint replica:

My parents theorized that every bedroom needed a window for fire safety rules or something.  I’m thinking that area would be a good place to store my board game collection.