All the News

OK, I am starting to get a numb shoulder from sitting on our overly soft couch with the laptop each and every night. First World Problem!

The news. We celebrated Jim's birthday with a trip to a Chinese restaurant. That by itself wouldn't really be news, but the restaurant is in the weirdly swanky enclave of downtown our town, and the restaurant is a... chain, I guess? So even though they have what looks like a real Chinese restaurant menu (laminated, many pages, photos of each and every dish), accompanied by a pretty authentic looking photocopied paper menu where they check off the choices you make, they also have high ceilings, modern light fixtures, stylish tall frosted glass and cherry wood room dividers, and white wait staff. I am just going to lay my race cards right out on the table: we never ever eat at Chinese restaurants where the wait staff is white. I swear it is not on purpose. We have nothing against white wait staff! It is just the way it is.

Also: this restaurant has a specialty, which is the yummy little dumplings that have soup in them in addition to pork filling. Remember the "Freshen Up" gum of the dumpling world from my Singapore trip report? These are they! So when you enter the restaurant, there is a big window that looks into the kitchen, so that you can watch this staggering number of specialty dumplings being made before your very eyes. By...a bunch of Hispanic guys! Nary a Chinese person on the other side of the window.

Ultimately, these Guatemalans or El Salvadoreans have a deft touch for the soup dumplings. Our kids ate around six each. The rest of the food was pretty good too, though I have no guesses as to the ethnic identity of the cook. Nor do I care! Fried noodles is fried noodles, am I right?

Today was Muriel's half birthday checkup. I completely spaced taking her after she turned 4 (see: my recent admission that I forgot she is due to start attending Kindergarten this fall). So she went in today and got all her shots for Kindergarten. Three of them! She was a trooper, and although her eyes misted up, she didn't actually cry. I was proud of her. According to her lovely doctor, she doesn't have to get any more shots until sixth grade. And she got a sparkly sticker with a rainbow AND a dolphin.

What was the other news item...? Oh! The book came in the mail today, the one we made for Naomi. I was worried it wouldn't come in time, but it did, and it is pretty great. I will take a picture of it! And the bongos! And the Cow Popper! And someday I will get on the other computer where the pictures live and start adding those to this thing again. Adieu!