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?!

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Who left that in the fridge?!

So my roommate had called me a couple of days ago upon returning back to Pittsburgh from Japan and informed me that apparently the last person to leave for vacation had failed to empty the fridge of easily spoiled foods, e.g. vegetables, milk, etc. Moreover, she had also forgotten to throw the leftover rice in the rice cooker and coffee grinds in the coffee maker. So all of the above had been left to rot away for a full three months while we were all away for summer break. 

I was the second to the last person to leave, only shy of one day. I had remembered asking her to make sure that the veggies in the fridge would either be given away or thrown away. I did not specify that she also check appliances like the rice-cooker or the coffee-maker, but this should be common sense. Apparently, she had none. *And* she was also the first to return back to our apartment, back in the first week of August. When she called me, I simply assumed that she would have the sense to clean and dust up a bit, so I did not even bother to pursue the matter. I was not her mother, and this wasn’t something that one would need reminders for; especially when I consider the fact that she will be turning 30 years of age by this December.

I could not believe my ears. 

Ostensibly, it is quite true that one cannot judge one’s maturity level, quality of life skills, common sense, and wisdom from one’s age; neither can it be judged from one’s education level. Practical skills are indeed not dependent upon theoretical skills, though the two can wonderfully complement each other–and of course, this also depends on which person it is embodied within. 

And poor Naoko! You have no idea how angry she is; and understandably so. 

I feel so sorry for her! I can already envision her reaction when she first opened the rice cooker, and then turned around to check the coffee-maker, then the fridge. She said she had wanted to do something, but the thought was so repulsive that she simply could not bring herself to reopen the rice cooker or the coffee machine. As far as the fridge is concerned, she could not even identify what some of the items used to be. “I think they were once vegetables…” On my part, I should have just done it myself before I left. I was just thinking that Ching-Chia (our other roommate) would use those appliances. She herself told me that she would give the raw vegetables to her sister, so they won’t go to waste. 

I asked Naoko to try as best as her stomach allows her to clean the appliances. The rice cooker could be thrown away, but the coffee machine was a rather expensive one, and included an espresso maker on one side. I paid for most of it, and I really don’t want to toss it. I advised Naoko to just close her eyes and throw the filter away and soak the plastic filter in hot boiling water; if she waited until I went back, it would only get worse. I am not sure if she accomplished, but I will find out soon enough.

I must admit that I am just as upset about the whole situation. Either one of us has to get down to it and scrub away those little micro-critters that had been growing, or we buy new appliances. Honestly, I’m not sure which is the best route to take….

Pet-Peeves

1. Hair in bathroom sink, tub, floor, around the toilet. Just gross.

2. Food in kitchen sink. Food decays quickly. If you don’t clean it, invisible bacteria can grow exponentially in numbers overnight. 

3. People who tend to always arrive late. And when you call them for the third time, they say they are on their way when they are really still at home putting on socks or finding the keys. It just makes me feel as if they are not valuing my time, and are thus not valuing me. 

4. People who don’t pick up their cell phones *and* don’t call you back. How long does it take to call someone back anyway? It would take no more than five minutes of their time. 

5. Drivers who don’t hit the blinkers when they cut in front of you abruptly. 

6. Men (mostly Taiwanese) who discourage their own women to wear makeup or dress up, but then when out on the streets look at those very other women who wear makeup and sexy things. [Thank God, Mr. Worm is not one of these men.]

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.

The bad thing about living on Ellsworth…

is how freakin’ unbelievably noisy it is outside!! Friday nights, Saturday nights, Sunday nights, game nights, graduation nights…. every damn night the streets are crowded with assholes drunkards yelling and screaming as if they were going to hell there were no tomorrow. I suppose that’s a given living on Ellsworth. Our building is surrounded by a total of eight clubs and bars, so it is no surprise that as soon as the sun sets, the parties start, and a noise of horrific ruckus begins and does not end until at least 3 in the morning. 

The only good that comes out of living right in the middle of eight bars is being able to walk across the street after a long day’s worth of intense reading and writing, and just sit out on the patio and order nice beer and finger food during happy hour half-price. That means, $2-3 for beer, and $2-5 for food. Across at Harris’ Grill they have a beer called Ommegang Three Philosophers (we all know why I chose it) and it is *so good*! A dark ale with a well-balanced malty aftertaste, brewed Belgium style in Cooperstown New York. One of my favourites, and not only because of the name!