100 DOLLARS A WEEK - Day 15...

Driving back from OC as I type. We had rather unambitious plans to stop at Shun Fat to buy some Three Crabs fish sauce on the way home, but as we spent the day moving my mom and dad, and as they treated us to a sushi coma made of all our favorites including hotate (giant scallop), geoduck (giant clam), uni (sea urchin), amaebi (raw sweet shrimp), and ankimo (monkfish liver), and as we are packed to the gills in my little Jetta with kids and wiener dog and some odds and ends I had stored at my folks' place, and as I really don't want to move until we get home, I reasoned that we could probably find some Tiparos at one of the little Filipino markets down the street from our place instead.

My parents are moving into a predominantly Korean occupied elderly community. And today, encountering elderly Korean person after elderly Korean person; speaking a language I haven't had to speak in years - in the honorific, no less; practicing demonstrations of respect that seem almost overwrought in my current everyday life; and insisting that my children do the same, I felt very much connected to a little piece of a culture over which I am constantly conflicted.

For a little while, I forgot how frustrating it can be to deal with the judgment, rigidity, and passive aggression that are some of the hallmarks of my Asian upbringing and instead was grateful that my parents instilled in me early and often the idea of noohnchi, or mindfulness. Mindfulness of our surroundings, the people in them, and the dynamics of the situations in which we find ourselves.

Because while it has made some decisions and interactions harder or more complex for me than they might have been without it, it has overwhelmingly served me well over the course of my life and has more often than not persuaded others to give me benefit of doubt and perhaps even a wash of kindness, gentleness, and goodness of which I might not have always been deserving.

It was a really good day on many levels. A better day with my parents than many days of the recent past. And for that I am grateful.

And I am exhausted, so I'll leave it at that.

BREAKFAST

As the kids were with my parents for breakfast this morning, it was just me, the Man, and some bacon, egg and Havarti bagels.

This is how I feel right now. I was feeling much
peppier this morning. Those chopsticks must be
fortune tellers or something.

   1.5 plain bagels @ $0.18 (the bagels were on sale for $0.70 for a 6-pack)
+ 2 eggs @ $0.32
+ 2 slices of Havarti @ $0.50
+ 2 cups of coffee @ $0.40

= BREAKFAST: $1.40 total, $0.70/serving

LUNCH

was free. I heart sushi. ^^

SNACK

Two ca phe sua da (Vietnamese iced coffees) for me and the Man, as it's either these or early bedtime.

Some Vietnamese coffee and sweetened condensed milk for two of these...

= SNACK: $1.00

DINNER

Thanks to a late and filling lunch plus Cold Stone Creamery for everyone but me, no one's really hungry right now. But I'm guessing we all will be in a bit when we get our second wind, and when we do, it's doctored ramen for all of us. I'm too pooped to make anything else.

With some poached egg and chopped cilantro and green onion, it'll probably look something like this:

   4 packets of Sapporo Ichiban @ $2.40
+ 2 eggs (the kids don't like eggs in their ramen) @ $0.32
+ cilantro, green onion, and some kimchi @ $0.25

= DINNER: $3.00 total, $0.75 per serving

$5.40 spent today. Probably would have been closer to $20 had all of us been home all day, but we weren't.

And that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

shinae