Lord of the Flies

Okay, so remember how I said there were actually FUN things that happened over the holidays? One of those events was a mother-daughter outing (and in the case of my sweetie, mother-son-niece/granddaughter).

On Monday, December 29th @ 11am, I wrangled everyone down to the usual vast tea house, Jing Fong Restaurant, which as some of you know, can seat 1,000 simultaneously. (No I am not exaggerating -- my father's social club rents it out every Chinese New Year and sells tickets fo 100 tables of 10.) It is so vast that the wait staff communicate with walkie talkies.

The gang included my friend Jackie, her mom, my friend Marci, her mom (her dad had to work), MY mom, my engineer, HIS mom, and his niece.

I was able to introduce my sweetie's family to the cholesterol extravaganza that is deep fried, bacon-wrapped shrimp, with a side of mayo. See it in the first photo?

There was also chicken feet (too much work for not enough reward, I say), shu mai, meatballs, taro-wrapped savouries, chopped spare ribs, tofu-wrapped shrimp, all of which can be seen in these photos. There's more, but at 25 plates, I lose track. Can you blame me?

My engineer paid for the whole table (!) as he had been permanently impressed/ traumatized with the importance of the Chinese cardinal sin of being cheap prior to meeting my mom for the first time -- by me, my sister, and his Chinese (as in: from mainland China) co-worker.

I explained that my mom understood about going Dutch for dim sum, but he insisted, and was also "extremely generous with the tip" according to my mom (well, and me too, but yes, my mom was watching, poor man).

Afterward, all of us except Marci & her mom (her mom had to get back to work) wandered around Chinese grocery stores, asking my mom her opinion on everything from which brand of mochi flour to buy, and the best wonton & egg roll wrappers to get, to which type of dried shiitake mushroom is best.

We also wandered across Wilbur's relative here, which I memorialized for my boo's niece (who was visiting on winter break from Florida). I have to admit that the oddly lively eye sockets creeped out even me. It also brought up vague memories of reading Lord of the Flies, where the kids run wild with animal masks/ skins (to the best of my recollection anyway -- haven't read it since high school).

By the way, I have WikiHow one my iGoogle homepage, since I am frequently amused by the random assortment of "Tips of the Day" it offers. Today's pairing is How to Be Feminine, right above How to Dig a Ditch (okay, it says "How to Excavate a Trench" but really, isn't that the same thing??)

I can't make this stuff up.

Okay, lunchtime is over. Back to the salt mines (for as long as they'll employ me, anyway.)