I have always considered myself a fair cook. 

I am no chef, but I’ve always been pretty proud of my home cooking. In my near ten years of cooking home style dishes, I have never once had any complaints that it wasn’t good enough, and usually, my guests gobble everything up. 

At least, until now.

After living together with Mr. Worm (a die-hard carnivore) for about three months, I’ve noticed (amongst many other things) that not only is our living style and habits completely different, our tastebuds seemingly operating on polar ends, our cooking methods are also completely different. I am pretty sure that he’s not too fond of my cooking, and often times when I’m preparing something, he will stand nearby and give little remarks like, “that’s not how it’s done” or “you have to do this first” or “otherwise it will turn out bland”. 

WTF!!

And the worse of the worse: “I hate vegetarians. I used to promise myself I would never date one.” 

Well, as they say, never say never.

So anyway, as I was saying. I have never (damn! I said that word again!!) had anyone said to me my cooking was not good. Well, Mr. Worm didn’t exactly say it, but I can sense that he’s not dying for the dinners I prepare. I’m not quite sure what the precise reason is, but I guess it might have to do with the central fact that he likes meat, and I’m a good vegetarian cook. But many of my meat-eating friends have no problem with my vegetarian cooking. Or maybe it’s because I don’t do a whole lot of vegetarian cooking at home because I’m trying to use meat ingredients for him? I must admit, my meat dishes really aren’t that good — and how can I be blamed? I haven’t cooked a meat dish in such a long time! Now that I think about it, it hasn’t been too long. Last time I made something with meat was when I was still with my ex, which was roughly 6-7 years ago. 

Okay, fine. So maybe that was a real long time ago. 

Mr. Worm cooks (a lot of meat) quite well, but I must say his vegetables not very creative. And I’ve noticed that he doesn’t eat a variety of greens, in fact, I can count them all using my fingers. You can imagine what kind of pressure I’m under when we go grocery shopping. I don’t get to buy a lot of veggies that I can cook with. For example, today when we went to the Japanese grocery store, we purchased *five* different kinds of meat, no greens, and one package of natto (Japanese fermented beans). 

He also uses a different brand of soy sauce – which, as you Asian cookers should know, makes the greatest amount of difference in the final product.

I’ve also sensed a bit of frustration on his part with my limited eating choices. Well, he eats so many things I don’t eat and I don’t (not really) have a problem with him. 

I don’t know what to do with myself. Maybe I should just stop trying to be the cook he wants me to be, and just be the vegetarian cook that I am.  

 

Lately, I’ve had this curiously empty and unsatisfying sensation in my stomach. Mr. Worm won’t let me buy and eat many things I would have bought and eaten otherwise. He says that I already have a lot of finger/junk food at home, and that I should finish it all before I buy more. He said this when I told him I wanted to go buy some Camembert to go with the Sauvignon Blanc. 

Disappointment!

And today when we went to Uwajimaya, I saw so many yummy things I wanted to buy, but because he was standing there, I was almost scared to pick those things off the shelf! Imagine that! I would have never imagined that I, J.L., would one day be afraid to buy food!!

Sad.

Shit from Pittsburgh’s USPS and Citibank

Okay.

So last Friday, Mr. Worm sent me a credit card using USPS’s priority mail, advertised to ship within three days. It has already been an entire week, and I still have not received anything from Seattle. Unfortunately, the card has been activated (Citibank requires that the card be activated from the home phone), so both Mr. Worm and I are afraid that the card might have got lost, which brings up the possibility of someone else using it.

I called the local post office for our neighborhood, and explained my situation: I know without a tracking number you probably can’t find it, but is there anything else that can be done? And you know what the lady said to me?

“I’m sorry, but without a tracking number, we can’t do anything about it. You’re just going to have to call the credit card company.”

“Okay…. so priority mail is supposed to be shipped within three days, right?”

“Usually. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

WTF?!?!?!

*Sometimes* it doesn’t? Then why the hell would we want to pay four times the usual postage price for a letter/package that might not even be shipped within the time frame of so-called “priority mail”? If it’s going to arrive the same time it would under normal shipping speed, then why the hell bother with advertising “three day priority mail” and charge the customer $5 USD for a piece of plastic that probably doesn’t even weigh 0.03 oz.? And if it’s priority, it is quite reasonable to assume that the contents are pretty important (why else would one choose priority mail within the states?). You’d think that they would be especially careful with mail like that. And honestly, that lady’s attitude was definitely not what I would consider quality customer service.

Undeterred, I called the local post office that Mr. Worm went to. And – surprise! – the lady was exceptionally nice and tried to be as helpful as possible. Contrast Pittsburgh-Lady with Seattle’s: “Oh, I’m sorry for your inconvenience. Yes, priority mail is supposed to arrive within three days, but sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t know why that happens, it’s ridiculous, but sometimes it just falls out in the back of truck. But if you can find the confirmation number, I will be able to look it up in our computer system for you.” What a difference! I mean, I know it’s not their personal problem that my mail got lost or delayed, but really, customer service and attitude really does make such a big difference!

Yesterday, I told Taine about the situation, and said,

“Pittsburgh’s postal service seems so……”

“Unreliable?”

“Yes! Very much so. Or is it just me and my bad luck?”

“No. You’re right. They are extremely unreliable.”

Shit. Next time, if we need to ship anything important, then we are definitely *not* using USPS. With something like an activated credit card, I would rather spend a buck or two more and go to FedEx or DSL.

And then, I called Citibank to see if they could cancel my card and send me a new one to the address in Pittsburgh instead of the home mailing address. First of all, THE LADY DOESN’T EVEN FREAKIN’ SPEAK DECENT ENGLISH OR UNDERSTAND MY ENGLISH!! I’ve had to explain over and over that we already received the card, had sent it to Pittsburgh, but were concerned that it got lost. She kept saying with a heavy Indian accent “You have to wait at least two weeks for the card to be processed.”

BUT IT HAS ALREADY BEEN PROCESSED! THAT’S NOT EVEN THE FREAKIN’ POINT!

And I tried to ask her as calmly as possible if they could ship it to Pittsburgh.

“No. We can’t do that. No, we just can’t. No, no, no.” What is she, a broken record? Can’t she even give me a reason? Capital One let’s you do that. Why not Citibank?

On top of all that crap, I found out that if I wanted to cancel my card, they would have to cancel Mr. Worm’s card as well, because of the same number. And so we would have to wait another two weeks or so, by which time I should be back in Seattle.

I suggested to Mr. Worm that I will wait until the day I leave, and if the card still hasn’t arrived yet, I will call them to cancel the cards and just have them send new ones back home.

Talk about inefficient, ineffective America! If we can’t even guarantee timely deliverly of such mundane things as a piece of plastic, how the hell do we expect to expedite more important things like food and clothing in times of emergency?!

Protected: 退後

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: Can you keep a secret?

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

irritating

What is it that men do not understand about women? Is it so incomprehensible that their female counterpart would like to spend as much time as possible before she departs to the other side of the country? Is it too much to ask that he might spend over 3 hours with her? 

Everytime I say something of this effect to him, Mr. Worm would always reply, “But I have to go make money and talk business!” As if that would take up the rest of day (10 hours). As if he would really be sitting in front of his computer emailing, or on the phone with his clients. Such bullshit a lame excuse.

Take today for example. 

I am scheduled to leave Seattle Sunday morning, leaving only three days to actually be able to do anything before I have to start packing. So for this past week, I had been hoping that one of these days he would actually come to the realisation that perhaps, just perhaps, he ought to take out a whole day to spend together. On Monday morning, the first thing he said to me was “I can’t stay out very long today because I have to go home and switch titles on my Lexus and bring my mom shopping for clothes, since she will be leaving for Taiwan soon. But tomorrow I can stay longer.” 

Okay, fine. Use your mom as an excuse; I have nothing to say. It ended up being that his so-called “I can stay longer” only meant an extra *one hour*. Whoopdidoo~~  

Wednesday: same situation.

Today, Thursday, we were together for only four hours, of which one hour was used up discussing matters with a client, another hour eating breakfast, and another hour and half on the road. And then his mom called and told him to go home and do some business for his dad. When I asked him if he was going to leave immediately, he said, “No, not right now. We still have another hour or so.”

Another hour?! 

What the hell can you do in an hour? Where can you go? What can you do without having to keep looking at your watch? You call that spending quality time??? Sure, there might not be much to do, but it’s not like there’s much to do when he goes back home anyways.

Upon expressing my complaints, he only replied, “But I have to make money… and I have to pave the tiles in the driveway.”

Why does it have to be now? Is it an emergency? And why can’t he do it after I leave? I’ll be gone in 3 more days, can’t he do it then?!

The hell with that stupid excuse!!! 

Why are men so insensible? 

No wonder why some women prefer women.

driving and what not

Have you ever stopped doing something for a long time, and then upon resuming the activity, suddenly realize that you are just not so good at it anymore?

After not driving for a good 3-4 months while away in Pittsburgh and now returning back to Seattle with a car at my free disposal, I honestly feel as if I cannot maneuver my car as well as before. Not only has my parking skills gone bad, but stopping without the car choking and without freakin’ out my poor mother sitting besides me is a bit more difficult. In fact, some of the unconsciously natural driver’s common sense has deteriorated somewhat.

For example: parking in a no-parking zone.

I really wish that our public transportation here is as good as New York’s, or even as Pittsburgh’s. (Of course, if it was like Western Europe’s or Japan’s, it would be much better… but I suppose that would be wishing for the stars.) Although I must admit that it is nice to have a car, it would enhance the transportation experience if the city system would be more efficient and on-time. After being around several countries, I think that Japan has the best public transportation system. Who needs a car there, anyways? It’s much more easier to take the densha (electric train) and buses than driving and getting a headache about how to park your car in those highly compact parking spaces. In Taiwan, Mr. Worm drives, and I just sit in the passenger seat. If my wits hold up, I would take a scooter. Unfortunately, those darn Taiwanese drivers are horrifically fast and reckless road-ragers. This is quite evident from Mr. Worm’s own road rage. It is my personal experience of the king of all potty mouths when executing the worse of all curses to those damned drivers blocking traffic by driving 10 miles under the limit, or breaking for no reason. I swear, one of these days, Mr. Worm will die from a heart attack in the middle of swearing at the slow driver in front of him.

It can’t be helped.