Scenes from Today

Here's some interesting stuff I saw today, on my now-daily lunchtime circumnavigation of the office premises.

What looks like a snowed-in bunch of Flintstones-era cars is actually some performance art by the office's snow-plough guy.

Big, loud honkers - the resident flock of Canada Geese. I also managed to get a video, in addition to Goose Poo on the soles of my shoes.


It's cold today. A few days ago, it was quite sunny: The first three days of this week, the cold front is back, and along with sub-zero celcius temps, some snow.

During lunch today, my smelly roomie (see the previous blog entry) unveiled his crappy smelling lunch and elicited some spirited responses from us all. Thankfully, everyone voted to evict him from the table, because of the stink. Preserved Bamboo shoot normally doesn't smell that bad. I think maybe he used the brine from the can. Otherwise, it could be a chemical reaction with bamboo shoot and tomato.

Bad news is, there are some more leftovers. :-(

The odour of an Abomination

There I was, sitting innocently on my armchair, waiting for my roasted chicken, red potato and sweet yellow corn to finish baking to perfection. I can smell the pepper and garlic slowly succumbing to the gentle heat, infusing the tender, fresh meat with tendrils of fragrance and delicate flavour.

In comes roomie, who starts chopping up preserved bamboo shoot, and raw meat and Idaho potatoes. I figure that it's one of his Myanmese recipes, so, fine.

At last, my scrumptious meal is ready! I transfer the succulent items from the roasting pan to my plate, and draw a knife from the block. Then I notice that the knife is wet. Then I notice that the serrated edges have something white all along the edge. Close inspection reveals - raw pork and pork fat!! ARRRRRGGGHHH. Roomie drawls "Ayah, I used dar nife".

And proceeds to pick off the meat off with his fingertips.
And almost puts the knife back into the block. A withering glare prompts him to wash the knife in his usual noisy plate-banging throat-clearing fashion.

A couple of deep breaths later, I'm happily eating my carefully prepared dinner, and then I smell it.
Tomato-based pork dish braising itself with garlic, onions, pepper and possibly dark soya sauce, with one special mystery ingredient. I think it's preserved bamboo shoot.

Knowledgable Asians (or those who know how to cook Asian dishes) may know what over-boiled preserved bamboo shoot smells like. With the combination above, it smells like UNWASHED PIG INTESTINE, heavily marinated in White Peppercorn.

Somebody please kill me now.

Disconnected in Ohio

Thank you Bridgestreet, "Corporate Housing Made Easy". Maybe they should change their motto to "Making Multiple Screw-Ups"...

• Yesterday, 14 entire hours without Cable TV or Internet access. Was forced to take out a book and READ! The Torture, the Pain! The Inconvenience of Sequential Information Access! I was forced to sleep early. So Medieval!
  
• Pepper's unmentionable underthings keep getting fondled (or maybe even modelled) every time Housekeeping invade the apartments
• Fire alarms go off when water pipes burst, or when people open their doors too hard. 4 so far, and counting..(as of March 6th)
  
• Housekeeping keeps replacing Pepper's clean, bleached bedsheets with stinky, yellowed ones.
• When Pepper and I first got the apartment complex, we had no way of getting into the building. Our roomies were unlisted in the directory, and of course, our keys and access cards were in the apartments already...
• Housekeeping took away the dishcloths they provided (after we asked for some), so I'm currently using a handtowel.
  
• They arrange for a Cleveland Tour 4 weeks after we get there. Thanks!
• Pepper is constantly barraged by a sucksaphonist in the apartment above hers, who daily-gaily mangles her once-favorite songs (it's Bridgestreet's fault for choosing such lousy apartment complexes).
• Sharing an apartment with an odour-generating roomie, whose feet smell so bad, I have to spray his footprints with an Extra-Strength anti-bacterial cleaning spray.
  

Thankfully, the wonderful folks at the office more than made up for our travails. They've brought us to concerts, and out to wonderful meals with warm company. In fact, we recently had our first breakfast meeting at Original Pancake House.

So there's one more concert coming up and a group lunch at Abuelo's (or West Side market). Yay!

For my readers outside of Ohio, the weather's warming up.
This is Caution Lake, a few days ago when temps were around freezing:
And two days ago, with temps slightly above freezing:
Later on, I'll show you how many geese have returned (only to find themselves freezing again this weekend)..

Armor? Amour? Ang Moh?

So today, I ordered a double cheeseburger, a Louisiana Gumbo and a custom salad. The burger took a while, so by the time I joined Pepper and our roomies at the lunch table, the conversation was already in full swing. Pepper and I were innocent bystanders in the wholesale slaughter of the English language.

Roomies were talking to each other, in their 2nd language — English. Imagine a PRC mainlander and a Myanmese trying to have a technical conversation with an intermediate (and I use this term in it's broadest possible sense) command of the language....
They were babbling away, talking about what I heard as "Ang Moh plucks", "Amour blokes", "Arm More Blogs" when they were actually talking shop about "Armor Blocks". Pepper and I started losing it at that point. Here's why:

Armor — protection designed to shield wearer or object from harm/danger.


Armor block — Shielded Input/Output module for use in space-limited manufacturing environments (the 'armor' shields sensitive components from factory crap?) (no, actually, it can be installed directly onto a machine).

Amour — Love, in French (generally speaking).


"Toots" L'Amour — "The Ass That Goes POW". I kid you not. Google this, if you want, but don't say I didn't warn you about violating corporate Internet policy..



Amour Block — some IEEE communications code mumbo-jumbo.


Arm More Blogs — more Humour! yay!

Ang Moh — Literally (in Hokkien), red hair. Normally used to refer to any American, Briton, or European, regardless of hair color or ethnicity. Slightly derogatory, but can be used affectionately.

Ang Moh Plucks — Caucasian butcher defeathering poultry. Or something. Who Knows?

Do you Smeeeeeeeellllll....

... what my roomie is cooking? Here's some hints:

• Burnt salty water
• Crisco fumes
• Onion-fueled Burmese Nose Snot
• Carbonized mulched Pig-meat with MoanoSodiumGluetamate and assorted organic Nitrates

If you guessed pseudo-Bolognaise sauce for non-noodled-Spaghetti, you guessed wrong!
Roomie is on the phone (again), telling his Girlfriend Down Under that he's steaming chicken. Wrong!
It's leftover Dinner Splatter, lovingly seared by Heating Coil. Mmmm. So appetizing.

As I desperately static-charge my way to the balcony door and set off a St Elmo's Fire-sized blue ball of kinetic energy on the handle, I remember the fresh smells of:


- moist loam, freshly revealed by snowmelt, and a squirrel's determined rooting. See the little guy near the 'trunk'.

- freshly rain-pelted sludge, lining the driveway. It's lightly garnished with cigarette ash, broken butts, with a light sprinkle of tarred driveway meticulously gouged out by snow ploughs. The upright squirrel in the background (near the tree line) is obviously chittering in appreciation.

- recently used squirrel outhouse (behind and to the right of the leftmost tree). Note the grand entrance to the rustic abode of Mr & Mrs Squirrel.

- pristine ornithoid spoor, joyously revealing to interested amateur anthropologists what geese can forage from soggy ground.

- gently spiralling clumps of snow, born of virgin moisture from the heavens, turned crystalline by temperatures decrescendo poco a poco. Snow and gently rolling fog enveloping Gates Mills in a sleepy embrace, silencing the shriek of technology, wrapping a cocoon of tranquility upon all who can hear.

Scenes from Today

OK, so this was last night. But I'll be having part two tonight! Roasted Beef Rump with red potatoes, red onions and very sweet corn!

The last bit of crinkle-cut clouds before rain and sleet clouds descend upon our soon-to-be-flooded Landerhaven facility.

This isn't a squirrel pic, it's a Squizilla pic.


A preview of conditions tomorrow. I'll keep everyone posted on black ice accidents.

Images for today...

Debris from my roomie's quickie 6 minute bacon, egg and toast breakfast - very noisy, and I don't mean the pseudo-crisp bacon or toast either.


Ice-cream cone newspaper dispenser?

The one patch of open sky this afternoon in between snow flurries. Did you know that an airplane ran out of runway today at Cleveland Hopkins Airport? Yeah, poor thing was going too fast or something, and the suddenly snow-covered runway didn't help none neither. Thankfully, no casualties. Not if you count the two engines..

[Sigh]. I think the local fire station draw lots to see who gets to respond to the false alarms from Gates Mills.