Sky Mall

Note: Posting this now but wrote it on the plane on 4/5... :) 

I'm on the plane to Taiwan right now, and I woke up from a deep sleep of about 5 hours to my mother peering over the EVA Air Sky Mall catalogue from where she sat one seat over (there is no one in between us--we got lucky!) 

"We should buy something," my mom said. "We don't have any gifts." We had both been working late and overtime to meet some project deadlines. No time or energy for shopping, admittedly one of our favorite pastimes. 

I groaned. "Mom, you don't need to get anyone gifts. You just came four months ago. And it's not like we're coming emptyhanded." Between the two of us, we had four pieces of luggage that maxed out at an impressive 50 lbs each, due to all the food, wine, and vitamins inside. There was something like 20 bagels, five giant Costco bottles of Centrum, and four huge two-gallon jugs of olive oil.  

"A lot of that is from your uncle," she said. My uncle lives five blocks away from us in Livingston. We like to joke that he had a semi-midlife crisis a couple years ago, which was why he stockaded a vineyard's worth of wine in his makeshift cellar (ie garage). At one point, he had more than 200 bottles.  

Before we left for Taiwan, he unearthed four bottles of his favorite German white wine and handed them off to us to give to his sister, my aunt. 

"Okay, fine," I said to my mom. My reservations stemmed from my suspicion of duty-free shopping. I never thought the savings were as huge as the airlines and airports tried to make them out to be. Also, I had a feeling the joy of catalog shopping was more material here than the need to give gifts, but then I reasoned that my mom had just gotten promoted and a 8% pay raise. She could spend if she wanted to.  

I paged through the catalog with her and ultimately we decided on a YSL lipstick duo from the "Rouge Volupte Shine" series. By chance, my friend Tina had allowed me to try hers a week ago, and I remember the formula being sheer and light, not heavily pigmented and tacky, which I thought was perfect for my mom's friends. It was about $55 for the set, which I thought was quite good in light of the $37 my girlfriends and I splurged on Giorgio Armani lipstick for H's birthday present; the catalog indicated the original price for one tube of YSL lipstick wasn't far off from that $37 pricepoint. Not bad at all.

When we paged the flight attendant to buy the set, she told us there was a special going on: 15% off your purchase if you bought more than two items. My mom and I glanced at each other and went to town. We added another YSL lipstick duo and a Kiehl's toner to our purchase. The toner was for my cousin Jessica, who is 25 and quite fond of Kiehl's products, and the second duo was for my mom's other friend....or friends, as it turned out, because  when the items came, we opened up one of the lipstick duo boxes, and to our delight, each lipstick tube was separately packaged in those gold YSL boxes--my mom could gift them separately if she so wished. 

Altogether it was about $130 for everything. The toner was pricy, there was only a slight discount, but I thought the lipstick was a deal, and in my mind the coral and dusky pink colors would look great against Asian skin tones.   

 

A rainy Saturday morning

It was H's birthday last week. A joyous birthday because just a short while ago, she got her visa sponsorship. Quite difficult in this economic environment and there were several nerve-wracking months when the decision-making date just kept getting pushed off... 

So on Saturday the 29th, which was her 23rd birthday, I woke up bright and early roundabout 9am. The two of us had just stayed in and watched Ender's Game the night before. I'd gotten the DVD from Redbox, after returning two DVDs I'd borrowed Thursday night for free with Redbox's monthly "Rent 5 DVDs free" coupon. Of course, I fell asleep watching Don Jon Thursday night and I only managed to watch an hour of "We're the Millers" (which was freaking hilarious)...going to go back and get those one day again haha. I was going to re-rent "We're the Millers" with the 50 cent off coupon I got Friday morning, but Ender's Game was too tempting, and after a brief conference with H, we chose sci-fi action over raunchy comedy. 

H seemed to think the movie was a little too trippy. The "kid commander" thing quite provoked her disbelief. ("They're all kids? There are no adults they can trust to be in charge?") However, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I'm sad it didn't do so well in theatres. I shall write a review sometime. 

After the movie, I hit my bed relatively early and woke up at 9am. I got dressed in all Gap (a light blue washed denim shirt and skinny cropped pants made of navy fabric patterned with sprays of white flowers) and hustled down Broadway, stopping in at Sephora and CVS to pick up Giorgio Armani lipstick in #301 (a hot red color) and a Masterlock for H's birthday present. These presents joined one other: Jiye and I had stepped out of our offices in Midtown East the day before to hit up the HBO shop and buy H a heat-sensitive color-changing Game of Thrones mug. 

It started drizzling during my journey down Broadway, so I whipped out my trusty Barclays umbrella with the windflaps. Quite useful in these skyscraper windtunnels. 

At Grace Street, I met up with Ran and we discussed our business. He reviewed the business workplan I had put together and gave me tips on how to improve it, and we chatted about customers and what needed to be done to move the business forward. He gave me a book called The Start-Up Manual, which was his textbook from Entrepreneurship class. 

Then I traipsed 10 more blocks to 17th St and 6th Ave and Crema Ristorante to meet the girls for H's birthday drunch...more on that later... 

Overtime

There's something about working late. On the plus side, I get more hours, dinner, and a ride home if I feel like it--usually if it's cold or if I'm in my other office on the East Side. 

But if it's sunny and warm(er), and I'm just really dreading the work on my plate, the hours between 4pm and 6pm feel like torture--because I could leave, and the twilight sunshine is streaming in through the windows, and I could maybe go to the gym or that Rent the Runway sample sale... 

But then I'd be screwed when I have to hand in my work the next morning! Or the 2 or 3 days after or whatever. So more often than not I stay. I get food. I avoid spending money on fancy dresses I don't really need. I go to the gym in the morning and my hair is much more agreeable because I didn't sleep on it damp. 

And I hand in my work on time, at the quality I want. Work is always a tradeoff between time and quality. I hate giving one up in favor of the other. But I see people around me who have chosen time over quality; they leave strictly at 5:30pm no matter the upcoming deadline. If the person in question has neither a family to go home to nor a nighttime engagement to attend, I tend to feel a wave of disbelief or disdain, but sometimes, I admire their discipline...in the grand scheme of things isn't it better to prioritize your free time, instead of the grand goals of whatever institution you've attached yourself to and your inner ambition...but I guess I continue like this because I do find self-worth in my work accomplishments. 

Still, as things are now, I'm so tired by the time the weekend rolls around, I hardly have the energy to do anything but vegetate in bed. I can't bring myself to reply to personal emails when I get home weekday nights. I don't do my taxes or monitor my investments. I'm even too lazy to read a book or watch TV! (Hockey, football, etc excluded; I think my brain finds sports require less thinking.) Luckily I rotate soon--and I will only have *one* team next time. 

Life is a tradeoff between leisure and work. What makes it bearable is that pleasure can be found in either.  

A New York Weekend - Sunday

Another weekend is upon us (and nearly over), alas, I have yet to recount my Sunday adventures from March 23...

So after my March 22 Saturday full of Brooklyn, books, and Divergent, I woke up around 10:30am on Sunday morning and took a shower. I had bought a Groupon for S'MAC (Sarita's Mac and Cheese) for myself and my five girlfriends, and our schedules had miraculously worked out to the golden time of 12pm Sunday--I was seriously glad, we've tried to make enough dinner plans around some deal or another we've bought, and sometimes it requires months of planning in advance (even then, we'll more likely than not have a last minute dropout).

My roommate H and I took the Q train from 57th and 7th Ave to Herald Square at 34th St and Broadway. From there, we walked over to the relatively new S'MAC location in Flatiron, which is on 32nd St between Lex and 3rd. The Groupon was for 4 Major Munches and 4 large plastic cups of beer--which turned out to be plenty for six girls. 

We ordered the Parisienne, Buffalo Chicken, Mediterraneaan, and Alpine mac and cheeses, washing it down with hard cider and ginger beer. 

After S'MAC, I took the 6 to Union Square and walked over to Books of Wonder to attend the all-day, no foolin', kajillion authors book signing. My friend Sara, whom I met at a NYC Teen Author Reading Night event, was working there as a bookseller that day, and it was so good to catch up and chat during her breaks.

Book-wise, I picked up a paperback called Scarlett by ____ and got it signed, or "personalized" as the cashier guy called it. I had a brief, nice, still kind of awkward (more on this theme later) chat with the author about Sherwood Forest and Scotland, since Scarlett is about a girl disguised as a boy in Robin Hood's band of thieves. 

After bookbrowsing, I sat down at the wooden table at the back of the Birdbath Bakery section of the store, switched on my computer, and got started on the career plan for Thaxted. The hours slowly passed, the alcohol-free hibiscus sangria/iced tea mixture in my cup slowly dwindled, and I actually got a lot of work done. Halfway through, a gaggle of Japanese ladies and a tall, Patagonia-bedecked white guy sat down next to me and started chattering in Japanese (no kidding, even the guy).  

Also, they should call that sangria/iced tea mixture a Something Palmer. Like a Jose Palmer! I know at Grace Street on 32nd St, they call their lemon honey/iced tea mixture a Grace Palmer.  

Since BoW closes at 6pm, around 5:30pm, I left the store with two more books--the Divergent Illustrated Movie Companion (I couldn't freakin' resist) and the Zeus graphic novel by George O'Connor, which Sara recommended to me.  

Then I headed across the street to Paper Press, where I bought a pack of gorgeous, Shakespeare quote Thank You cards I thought would be perfect for my mentors in the publishing industry. Check it out: 

From there Itook the 1 train uptown and headed to my spot, the David Rubenstein Atrium, which closes at 10pm even on Sundays, to finish up working. Overall it was a calm and peaceful day.  Friends, books, and productivity. 

(Books were the creme in the Oreo sandwich of my weekend!) 

A New York Weekend - Saturday

These days I don't actually spend many of my weekends in New York...I'm a huge homebody with an immense love for my dear dog Lulu, my food-loving parents, and my 52" flatscreen with Verizon Fios, all of which reside at my childhood home in Livingston, NJ. 

That is to say at least two weekends out of the month, all of the above draw me across the Hudson and back home to NJ for some chill times, kicking back on the sofa with my dad or shopping at clothing-tax-free malls with my mom. 

But this weekend I am proud to say that I only went home for one night--Friday night--and came back in the next day to have a NY adventure with my parents...and also, uh, to pick up my hugeass hamper of laundry. We had been delaying driving in and doing exactly that for three weeks, and I decided to go home to make it all happen, because I knew my parents desperately wanted to get the EZ Pass carpool discount for the Holland Tunnel, which requires 3 people in the car and gives you a whopping $10 discount off the $13 toll for automobiles. 

So off we went. But before we went to my apartment, I took my parents to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to eat Pies n Thighs, which is a fabulous Brooklynified Southern comfort food restaurant (it's no Charles Country Pan Fried Chicken, which is up in Harlem). I will review Pies n Thighs separately one day, since it deserves its own post for sure. After a 45 minute wait, my parents and I heartily enjoyed our first meal of the day there roundabout 3:45pm. Then we walked off the fried chicken, fried catfish, cheese grits, and sausage gravy biscuits by going to Winter Brooklyn Flea/Smorgasburg and browsing the shops on Bedford Ave. 

Around 5:30pm, we left Brooklyn and waded slowly through NYC traffic to my apartment in Hell's Kitchen. My mom sent me off with loads of Chinese breads and a delicious checkers cake from Taipan Bakery (on the way to Brooklyn, we had to go down Canal Street to get to the Williamsburg Bridge, and there is no way my parents are passing Canal Street without picking up savory foods from Big Wong and sweet foods from Taipan Bakery), and relieved me of two huge bags of dirty laundry and some spring closet cleaning, successfully clearing up some space in my tiny apartment. 

Around 6:30pm, my awesome parents proceeded to drive me downtown to the bookstore McNally Jackson, where an event called "The Blurry Line Between YA and Adult" was being held with authors Patrick Flanery, Rainbow Rowell, Eliot Schrefer, Jennifer E. Smith, and David Levithan as part of NYC Teen Author Festival, which happens every March. I went with two of the girls in my Editing Children's Book Manuscripts class. We basically had to stand for 1.5 hours with a partial view--a huge bookshelf blocked the front of the room--but I certainly enjoyed tidbits from the talk. They expounded on their experiences hearing readers of adult books condescend to YA; on getting comfortable writing characters with diverse backgrounds; and on the YA community, which is unique in that there is a YA reader community and not necessarily a reader, reader community. 

The event ran from 7pm-8:30pm, so I couldn't get my copy of Fangirl (which I bought that night from McJ) signed by Rainbow Rowell, or my copy of Wide Awake signed by David Levithan, since I had to rush downtown to Regal Battery Park City Cinema to catch the 9:40pm showing of Divergent. I met up there with my two girlfriends, one of whom happened to be quite tipsy from drunching it up at Vamos on the East Side from the hours of 1pm-5pm. 

Anyway, we made it with plenty of time to spare! The theatre was quite empty, I think because it is so far west and out in Fidi, but it is suchhhh a nice theatre...you have to bypass the Hilton Hotel lobby to get to it, and the seating is so spacious. What a gem! I am coming here next time there is a huge movie out and I don't want to come hours in advance to get a decent seat! (*cough* Hunger Games *cough*) My friend and I also got a huge bucket of buttery popcorn to share which was wonderful as my post Pies n Thighs "light" dinner. 

Two and a half hours later, my night ended quite well because DIVERGENT THE MOVIE WAS AWESOME!!! SHAILENE WOODLEY KILLED IT!!!! AND THEO JAMES AS FOUR IS SOOOO HOT!!!! I COULDN'T EVEN SLEEP FOR A WHILE WHEN I GOT HOME THAT NIGHT BECAUSE OF HIS HOTNESS!!!

Anyway, ahem. Successful Saturday. More later about Sunday. 

Fearless by Cornelia Funke

I'm in the middle of rereading Fearless by Cornelia Funke. I absolutely love the worldbuilding in this series. The way she weaves fairytale tropes and infamous magical objects into the Mirrorworld tapestry is incredibly clever and fascinating, and she knows how to up the ante on the suspense with the high stakes, the constant undertone of danger, and the sparse, dark narration. The plot and worldbuilding are just droolworthy, and I can't wait for the third book! (Which is rumored to come out this autumn in German...praying the English will emerge shortly thereafter.)

So, since I inhaled Fearless in two days the first time around, I can't quite remember how the plot drew to a close, which is wonderful for this particular reread... I still get all that delicious tension from not knowing how Jacob and Fox solve the riddle and Jacob's, uh, bigger problems. 

Anyway, Cornelia Funke is so awesome on her Facebook page; she really interacts with her fans and followers. She also worked with the studio that did some work for Pan's Labyrinth to create a "Mirrorworld" interactive reading app, which I gladly bought for $5.99 and consumed in parts, slowly so I could savor it. 

I do have some opinions on the criticism this book got--I belive mostly about character development-- and why this book didn't do as well as expected. More later when I finish. 

EDIT: It looks like Cornelia deleted her Facebook page?! But she is still present at her writing house at http://www.corneliafunke.com/ and there is some cool stuff going on in the News section, namely the awesome-sounding Mirrorworlders Project!! 

Nonfiction Quotes Galore - The Big Short by Michael Lewis

On the curious, quixotic appeal of Wall Street to college students... 

When I sat down to write my first book [Liar’s Poker], I had no great agenda, apart from telling what I took to be a remarkable tale. If you’d gotten a few drinks in me and then asked what effect the book would have on the world, I might have said something like, “I hope that college students trying to decide what to do with their lives might read it and decidie that it’s silly to phony it up, and abandon their passions or even their faint interests, to become financiers.”  I hoped that some bright kid at Ohio State University who really wanted to be an oceanographer would read my book, spurn the offer from Goldman Sachs, and set out to sea.

Somehow that message was mainly lost. Six months after Liar’s Poker was published, I was knee-deep in letters from students at Ohio State University who wanted to know if I had any other secrets to share about Wall Street. They’d read my book as a how-to manual.

- The Big Short by Michael Lewis

Currently in chapter 2 of the audiobook. More later.

Restaurant Recs: Xi'an Famous Foods

One of my friends definitely loves Chinese food more than I do, even though I am Taiwanese, and Xi'an's Famous Foods is probably one of her favorites. She took me to Xi'an's my first time the summer before our senior year of college, to the St. Mark's Place location between 1st and 2nd Ave. We took the noodles in to-go boxes because the shop was too crowded, emerging into a pleasantly balmy night to eat perched on the ledge of a box garden fencing in a tree.

I don't quite remember what I got. Maybe the spicy cumin noodles? But anyway, I exercised bad ordering judgment; it was too spicy and had too much cilantro for me, and I don't think I ate a bite of Xi'an's the rest of my senior year.

Fast forward a year and a half, after I've tried dishes more suited to my tastes--the oxtail noodles and the liangpi--and I love this place! The 45th St location, which just opened in 2013, is close to my office and even more accessible than the East Village location was when I was at NYU. What a burst of spicy, vinegary, West Chinese flavor in bland Midtown.

Since I am an aspiring vegetarian, I eat the liangpi most often, which consists of rice noodles, bean sprouts, cucumbers, and "mianjin," or wheat gluten (which has great texture). I am a wimp when it comes to heat, so I get the liangpi not spicy, and then adjust by adding spice myself from the jars on the table. I also tell them to hold the cilantro. Don't think the noodles come dry though--even without chili oil or cilantro, they have plenty of flavor when they come to the window, since they are doused in vinegary marinade.

Best part, the liangpi is only $5.15 after tax! (Partly a function of the no-nonsense utensils--foam plates and plastic forks.)

Here are more accolades and a profile of the owner/manager:

http://ny.eater.com/archives/2011/10/jason_wong_of_xian_famous_foods.php

I saw Jason Wong today at the 45th St store! He had a Herschel backpack and was chastising, in a chill but firm way, one of his workers for not putting a box of tea drinks away and just leaving it in the doorway.

That doesn't mean the service is indifferent--the workers are friendly and service is fasttt.

This Recipe Really Works: Pioneer Woman's Oven-Roasted Asparagus

Okay, this series of blog posts is for everyone who watches a ton of Food Network but hardly cooks a darn thing. It's for everyone who owns cookbooks they hardly ever touch except for eye candy reading... Basically, reluctant chefs who love food. We would eat out every day if it didn't a) make our bodies feel gross from all the hidden MSG and butter or b) kill our bank accounts. 

So today I was scouring the refrigerator for vegetables to go with the penne marinara I was making for dinner, and I happened to see a big bunch of asparagus in the refrigerator.

Since my house is always sort of chilly when it's cold out, and it is still cold out (although so much better than two weeks ago), I thought it would be a good idea to do oven-roasted asparagus--the oven would warm the house, and as a bonus, I would get to use an oven, which unfortunately is not the case at my apartment in NYC, where the oven is circa 1960s, dinky, and burnt-smelling.

This was such a fast recipe. (I don't usually associate my oven with fast recipes because heaven knows it takes me forever to bake any kind of cake, tart, or pie.)

It literally took 5 minutes to lay the foil on the pan, wash and chop the ends off the asparagus, drizzle on the olive oil, and sprinkle on the salt, pepper, and (bonus) freshly ground garlic pepper. 10 minutes at 425 degrees, and voila. 

I pretty much followed Ree Drummond the Pioneer Woman's recipe and pictures here: 

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/11/oven-roasted-asparagus/

The pictures gave me encouragement I wasn't doing it wrong, and assurance the end-result would be awesome, even after only 10 minutes. 

And it was delicious. The asparagus literally melted in my mouth. Even my dog liked it, when I fed some to her. I think I didn't expect such success because eating hard asparagus feels like such a chore. Not when it's oven-roasted, it turns out. Whoo!

Apparently, asparagus is in-season from late February to June, peaking in April. So a great time to make this discovery and get my asparagus on.  

More about my love for Pioneer Woman some other time...

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I watched an early showing of Catching Fire, I believe it was 9pm Thursday night, at Kips Bay in New York City. I was excited regardless, but when the movie turned out to be freaking awesome, I squirmed with the joy of fangirls everywhere for two hours.

Catching Fire just came out on DVD yesterday. I promptly scored a copy from Redbox to watch with my parents. Here's a list of 12 things I didn't notice when I was watching it the first time around. Don't read any further if you don't want spoilers!!

Spoilers ahead, I say!! 

1. All the honeycomb imagery. 

There are hexagonal, honeycomb-like patterns on their wetsuit uniforms, in the forcefield, and built into the metal structure of the dome. 

2. Katniss trembling like crazy when she hugs Peeta after he gets electrocuted. 

I feel like J Law's throaty-voiced Katniss is less vulnerable than the Katniss I imagined in my head (not to say Katniss is cuddly, because we know she ain't), but this scene and the last scene where she's freaking out at Haymitch really brought out her vulnerability for me. 

3. Katniss kisses Gale *3* times in the movie?! 

I didn't really expect the kisses in the meadow or in the kitchen...did that happen in the book? And damn, Gale's eyes are a jaw-dropping shade of green-blue.

4. No individual highlights of the tributes in the marketing. 

Unlike they did for the first book (they published a hardcopy "Tribute Guide' for heaven's sake). In retrospect, getting the history of these former victor tributes would have actually been pretty cool...leading me to...followup book about Finnick, Suzanne Collins?!

5. The cursing. 

I recalled Johanna's censored tirade at the ceremony and Finnick's gargled "Fuck!" when he gets submerged in water after the poison fog scene, but not Peeta yelling "Shit!" when they're running away from the fog (no lie, it shows up in the subtitles) or Katniss's "You son of a bitch!" to Haymitch at the end.  Toto, we aren't in Middle Grade Land anymore. 

6.  The need for J Law to act her butt off in a non-sassy, non-hot mess role (a la SLP, American Hustle, and to some extent X-Men) 

Catching Fire called for a truly epic drama- and action-filled performaance. Katniss cries, screams, runs, falls, shoots, has a truly emotional and gentle makeout scene with Peeta on the beach... I thought J Law's Katniss still had some clunky moments but not as many as movie #1, so awesome!! 

7. Katniss always says "Thank you," not "Thanks." 

She says it quite a few times throughout the movie. 

8. Peeta giving Katniss that black pearl. 

He shucks that oyster on the beach and hands it over with the air of a dad giving something to the mother of his children. Eau de 40-Year-Old. But the pearl was so pretty! And I like that it was black, which speaks to Katniss's unique character.

9. Finnick holding Peeta back while he lets Katniss run after Brutus when they are attacked at the cornucopia. 

Huh? Or was that Beetee he was rescuing?

10. The sweeping music, whose individual tracks I would like to listen too much more than the music in movie #1. 

Rue's Farewell was the sole tearjacker track for me from movie #1's OST, but in Catching Fire, the music is quite poignant at several moments: during Peeta and Katniss's visit to District 11, the announcement of the Quarter Quell (somewhat incongruously), and when they submerge themselves in water to heal the poison fog boils, among other moments. 

11. Finnick's decidedly British pronunciation of "Annie!" when he's screaming her name during the jabberyjay attack. 

12. No mention of Katniss's "pregnancy" after Peeta's very public announcement. 

Kind of similar to how the books address it, but there were at least one or two scattered mentions in the books that didn't make it to the movie.