"What's in my Fridge?" (a series)

This is the first of a new series I've decided to start. "What's in my Fridge?" is sort of a recipe log of dishes I've made out of the items left in my refrigerator. Most of these dishes will be similar, considering my tastes run closer to the blandness of Taiwanese cuisine mixed with the saltiness of American style cooking. Tonight's dish veered away from my usual fair of soy sauced laced dishes. It shall be named Chicken in Wine on Noodle.

Chicken in Wine on Noodle

Ingredients:
Chicken cutlet cut into quarters and sliced thin (1 can make 2 servings depending on your mass and daily food intake)
Spinach (a handful of leaf spinach will do, or 2/3 of a bag)
Green Peas (to each their own)
Eggs (2)
Vegetable oil (about 2 table spoons)
White Wine (about 3 table spoons)
Salt (2 quick wrist flicks of your salt cylinder)
Pepper (4 quick dashes)

Heat your wok or large pan and pour in your oil. Since you are cooking chicken, it's best to have it at a mid heat. Throw your chicken in and spread around evenly in the wok. Immediately pour in the wine, stir about and let the chicken simmer.

As the chicken simmers, turn over at an even pace. After one minute of simmer, add in your pepper. I said four dashes, but it's really enough to cover all the chicken you have. Once the pepper has been added, do another few turns of the chicken.

Get your bundle of spinach that you've washed and let sit to dry and add in the first half and stir about. Once that handful starts to whither, add the rest and stir in. As it all begins to stir together, add the salt.

Keep turning the chicken and stirring the spinach, as it all starts to come together add in the green peas and keep stirring.

Mix your two eggs in a bowl. Turn your heat to a lower temperature. Pour the eggs over the entire portion in your pan. Mix slowly and let the eggs marinate over the chicken and spinach. Turn off the heat and continue to toss and stir.

Now you may notice that noodles are included in the title. It is what I chose to use as my compliment as opposed to rice. I cooked a pot of noodles with a dash of salt and also fish balls.

Once both are completed, you take the chicken and veggies and put over the noodles and fish balls. The end. Now eat!

Insomnia Tourettes

Insomnia is the inability to obtain sufficient sleep, esp. when chronic; difficulty in falling or staying asleep; sleeplessness...

Now I can sleep, don't get me wrong. I just can't seem to sleep at the appropriate time. I come from a family of late sleepers. Our family parties last well into the AM, especially family birthdays. While cake usually marks the near end of festivities; we don't have cake until about 1 AM.

When I do sleep, I can sleep for hours. Ask anyone who knows me. You can even ask the kids that sat next to me in class during high school. I fall asleep all the time. But when it's time for bed, I couldn't be more awake. I have tried to go to sleep at a decent hour but my body seems to think I'm taking a nap and two, three hours later I'm up like it's nobody's business.

I have had a lot of time off recently so my late sleeping habits have only gotten later to the point where I might as well be a night watchman. Large amounts of that time is spent doing online searches: jobs, news, entertainment, miscellaneous answers to miscellaneous questions, Facebook. It also doesn't help that the two cousins I am closest too are also incredibly late sleepers and we will chat until one of us finally gets tired. This greatly affects my daytime activities. This past long weekend, I spent two days napping despite waking up at 1 pm.

This frustrating phenomena is happening at this very moment. I fell asleep reading around midnight only to wake not even two hours later. While I lay awake, I hear my gchat alert sound and just couldn't resist responding. Now it is 4 AM and I am trying to make myself sleepy by writing this latest post, hoping grammar and spelling will cause some sleepiness. So far, it has only made me realize what a poor writer I am at 4 AM in the morning.

My eyes are tired, my brain is tired, but my body feels like dancing...but I do not want to see the sunrise so I will now attempt another try at this sleep on demand. Wish me luck.

Ode to Pie

Oh pie maker Oh pie maker
how hath thy broken my heart
A weekly affair
unceremoniously torn apart

Oh pie maker Oh pie maker
so unfair was your fate
How the need for cheap
had defeated the need to create

Oh pie maker Oh pie maker
so colorful and clever!
Now dead will stay dead
tv imagination will never be better

Domestic Disturbia

Domestic disturbances are just that: disturbances...It is currently 12:37 am and I am trying to get my ass to bed. About half an hour ago I heard a low male voice shouting from two floors above. It slowly made its way down the stairs and past my door. From the loud spurts of rage, I deduced that he wanted the woman to pack up the kids and leave with him, but apparently that was not happening. This predicament was causing him distress and bitterness. Therefore causing him to wake up the rest of the building on his way down. Being the curiously nosy person I am deep inside, my ears perked up to listen for the back story, but the rants were laced with so many varied uses of the word "Fuck" that there wasn't much info I could gather.

He continued the rant outside inviting the building next door to also listen in on his dispute. During this, somewhere on the street a very annoying beeping was occurring. Not the car alarm kind that is just gruesomely irritating when you are trying to catch Z's, but a straight up beeping that sounded like someone was just blasting short bursts into a trumpet repeatedly. Every once in a while the beep would falter and come back as if the person needed to take a breath. Currently the guy is no longer shouting but continuing his "fucking" complaints in a regular speaking voice which I can still hear from my closed window. Let's hope he gets tired or laryngitis cause I need to sleep.

Since it is Summer, it is officially also Reggaeton Season across the street.

Let the disturbia begin!

People Watching

I love to people watch. It's uber fun if you have an active and running imagination...and what better place to invoke and nurture this hobby than the great high rise packed, trash and urine smelling, bitchy city of New York?

Now, do not confuse "People Watching" with being a "People Person". They are entirely two separate entities. "People watching" is first of all a verb; an action. While being a People Person is a noun; a person, place or thing. Just like "Mother Fucker". Being a people person means you like people and in NYC there is no such thing.

Observance is a very important characteristic to have in order to do it right, for "people watching" is not as literal as its title deems it to be. You have to hone in on individuals, know how to single out the interesting ones from the mediocre stories. Everyone has a story and most people wear theirs. Whether its through clothing, accessories, body type, or even the way they walk. The story is there.

Long ago, on a far far place called the G train platform, I was witness to a live action calvin klein/hipster/grunge ad. A guy in typical skinny jeans and plaid shirt hipster uniform was idly standing next to his companion who at first glance I took to be a sour looking asian female. She had hair like Morticia Adams, red skinny pants (which are cool, cause I also own a pair. Thanks Mom!) Blue/Black plaid shirt and tennis sneakers. I have never seen a more depressing and hygienically challenged couple. In my mind, Asian Morticia and her compatriot (let's call him "Hippy") had just fought before leaving the studio loft apartment they share somewhere in the depths of hipster Brooklyn. They were heading to a friend's rooftop barbecue to celebrate the fourth of July (I recall that I was doing the same except I had a much better disposition), she had made a snipe about Hippy's choice in attire and he then started lamenting and complaining how she only ever criticizes and that he's tired of being in a one sided relationship. Asian Morticia dismisses his cries as petty and he sucks back in his balls and they leave to hop onto the G train; the happiest fucking train on earth.
Upon exiting the station, my friends and I discussed whether or not Asian Morticia was in fact a dude. But it really doesn't matter if indeed Asian Morticia was in fact Asian Morty, my back story stays in tact.

The other day I was chillin on the 6 train when three single white females boarded and sat directly across from me. Like stealing candy from a baby....a sleeping baby. TOO EASY! From left to right: Girl #1: Blonde, short, like a boring version of Amy Poehler; made me recall my stabbing incident (see My Beef with Heels) very mousy. I instantly felt annoyed. Girl #2 Brunette, thicker than her friends, was wearing snakeskin shoes that looked old. Boring. Girl #3 Jackpot! This was a dyed blonde with roots, she had an air of having fashion sense, but the best part was the obvious sunburn on her chest. Why was it obvious? Because the neckline of her top was at least a full inch below her tan/burn line. I don't care how hot you think you look...that ruins it. I couldn't stop looking at that gaping yellow rim of skin. It also did not go well with the gray and black colors of her top, which just made her look more like she was wearing a jaundice necklace. Poor idiotic thing. Maybe they'd get drunk and take lots of pictures (all from high angles cause they'd be taking it themselves) and she'll look through them later and be blinded by the glare of the flash off her stark tan line.

Anyways....so back to the point which was (quick scroll back to the top) People Watching. So you may have noticed that one of the best places for such an activity is the subway. Cause you don't even have to physically move. The people come to YOU.

Easter Lessons #1: Chocolate is a gift from God

Easter by definition (or according to the ever awesome and amazingly up to date Wikipedia) is "the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year." I have no idea what liturgical means (another online search tells me it means "of or pertaining to formal public worship") but what I can tell you is that I know it's about Jesus. And to over 2 billion people, Jesus was the coolest kid in mandals back in the day.
All my knowledge of Jesus and Easter has been gathered from old Hollywood movies rented from the local library. The ones where the men show leg in short tunics while the women have intense hairstyles and everything is super colorful. Seriously, who needs Sunday school when you can watch muscly men be withered and schooled by God and his boy in technicolor? I once went to Sunday school with my neighbor and was not enlightened at all. In a room of white kids, I discovered that they hated Sunday school and made paper airplanes during bible reading.
My family is not included within the 2 billion plus of Jesus fans, but Easter still has had an impact on me throughout my life. As a child, it gave me a day off from school every year. During this time I also learned that Christians have a holiday that is all about candy! Chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, chocolate covered this and chocolate covered that...chocolate chocolate chocolate! WTF! They even come in a basket. Baskets are so obsolete, the word looks wrong just typing it.
So, if Easter is about Jesus aka religion, and kids get candy aka chocolate on that day, then chocolate in itself is a Holy food? No? Yes?

My Beef With Heels

I was stabbed. By a heel. A sharp heel. In the foot.

I decided to wear flats that day. I had been wearing sneakers all week. Socks and thick sneakers, lots of padding. I decided to live a little, why not you know? It's officially Spring, even if global warming is fucking with us.

So I was standing at my usual spot on the 4/5 platform at the 86th street station, right behind a blonde woman in earth tones and browns. I can tell by my vantage point that she is short. She's wearing brown high heeled boots to make up for the severe shortness and I can still cleary see the top of her head. The train is approaching and as since the platform is lined with at least two rows of people, the front row naturally steps back while the back row (which I am in) stay put. She stepped back with her left foot and her heel made direct contact with the upper part of my left foot and lost her balance and the heel slid down my foot and stopped right above my second toe. This being the ending point, all her weight was concentrated and funneled through to the point of her heel. I did not see it coming. The shock of the pain actually was so much it vocalized itself into a fully pronounced "OUCH!". In the fuzzy aftershock, I faintly heard her brief apology. We both looked at my foot, but the blood had not surfaced yet. So the blonde turned around and we both went towards separate train doors and I needed to get to work.

Within the next few minutes, I started noticing a developing red line running down my foot. It was like I tried to scratch Orion's belt constellation onto my foot and ran out of room. Like connect the dots, but the shortest lamest connect the dots ever. I was immediately irritated and pissed at the woman for her lack of caring and obvious lack of awareness of her surroundings. I guess this would be the equivalent to road rage in the suburbs.
Once I got over the thin skin peel and the stinging, I told myself that Blondie, wherever she was, was feeling guilty. Since that's all the retribution that I'll be getting. Damn heels...