AWARDS BANQUET @ THE VENETIAN
No, not THE Venetian in Vegas.  Rather, The Venetian banquet hall in glamorous, exotic, um, uh, Garfield, NJ.  Tri-state area bridezillas and wedding guests all know this magnificent place well.  And now, so do we.  Last weekend was crazy for us.  Before shrimp skewer eating, before Paramus Park eating (I'll get to that), we had this Friday night affair to attend.  It was bubbyMichael's Century 21 Northern NJ awards banquet and it was our first year attending this lavish affair.

 
The Venetian was grand.  Marble columns, enormous fresh floral arrangements, and FOOD everywhere.  This event was like a full-blown wedding reception, except with no marrying couple to worship.  Instead I worshipped a massive cocktail hour and endless fabulous passed hors d'oeuvres.  It was truly insane... everywhere you turned were trays of roasted lamb chops, seared swordfish bites, shrimp cocktail, sushi, mini-cheeseburgers, shepherd's pie bites, sweet potato fritters, and more.  The cold appetizers spread had every cheese, cured italian meat, cold vegetable and pasta salad you can imagine.  I waited in the ridiculous line for food, double-fisting heaping plates (one for me, one for hubb).  I tracked bubbyMichael down with my bounty of food for us, only to find him already full from passed hors d'oeuvres.  Apparently, to avoid the ravenous crowds in the cocktail hour room, he stood out in the empty hall waiting for me.  He stood next to the kitchen door.  The door where all the waiters with full trays of food emerged.  The waiters that all went up to him offering their goodies.  The goodies that he gladly accepted.  He had 5 of everything!      So I ate both my plates myself. 

 
My favorite 2 words after "cocktail hour" are "open bar".  I initially asked for white wine, then thought:  fuck that.  COSMO.  I had 4 all nite.  The awesome folks from Michael's office were great fun.  His boss, a well-established old-school Italian father of 4 from Bayonne, absolutely loves us.  It's official....Bayonne loves the gays, and we all had a gay ole time.  We danced, we laughed, we drank.  Someone bought the table these disgusting vodka shots.  I chased it with my 3rd cosmo.

 
Before I finished cleaning off my cocktail hour plates, the formal dinner was being served.  Salad, warm bread with butter, lobster bisque, and an entree of both grilled salmon and chateau briand.  These were just ok.  I woulda enjoyed them more if this typical-fare course weren't sandwiched by showstopper courses.

I discovered 2 more favorite words:  DESSERT HOUR.  The sluttier sexier cousin of cocktail hour, dessert hour was a dream come true.  I literally have dreams like this, awake and asleep.  I joined the voracious hordes that formed outside the cocktail/dessert room.  When the doors opened, I was among the first ones in, and I swear, I felt like one of the spoiled brats invited to tour Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.  Of course, I was Charlie in a room of slobbish Augustus Gloops and impish Oompa-loompas.  This was still NJ after all, and I was the most attractive and slender one in the room.   Shocker.

 
These paltry two pictures portray only a fraction of the dessert room action.  After these initial shots, my camera just had to go away.  I needed my hands free.  Let me paint the scene.  Walking in, to your immediate left:  this table above of gorgeous martini & champagne flutes of jellos and mousses.  Arc'ing around the table, platters and platters of mini-pastries.  We're talking petit-fours, tiramisus, napoleons, custards, cream puffs, lemon bars, tarts.  I had one of each.  At the end of this side of the room were chocolate covered strawberries of every kind -- milk, dark, white, coconut, almond.  In the center of the room, a WAFFLE station, with waffles irons and every kind of topping -- vanilla ice cream, bananas foster, caramel, chocolate syrup, fruit purees, gummi bears.  On the far right of the room, stood 2 ginormous chocolate fountains -- white and milk chocolates, with marshmallows, bananas, strawberries, and assorted cookies for dipping.   Then there was a creme brulee station.  Creme brulee!  I nearly fainted from all the excitement.

 
With 2 heaping plates in hand, I think I literally skipped and giggled back to the dining room where I proudly showed Michael my goodies.  Again, I got 2 plates for us to share, but he didn't want any.  OH WELL.  I sat huddled over my plates in sheer joy, looking up every so often with chocolate lips and sticky fingers to see who was watching me stuff my face.  No one?  Everyone?  Who cares!  Back to my plates!

Clearly I wasn't able to finish everything, but I did take a few bites of each item and moaned each bite.  I also danced so much all nite with the fun sassy ladies of the office.  We closed out the dance floor with a request with the DJ for Diddy & Keisha Cole's "Last Night".  Don't get me wrong...I can't dance to save my life.  But I can eat to save many many lives.  (Save the cheerleader, eat her food, save the world!)

SHRiiMP & Wii

 
Where there's a Wii, there's a meeeeal.  Sunday evening we had Bennifer, P.diddy, and Keith over to play some Wii and have a little pot luck dinner.  Due to our food-love-affair with new friends Steven & Phyllis, we have been neglecting our other friends.  Well, we're taking steps to rectify that.

  
Patrick prepares his curvy bowling swing.  Ben lackadaisically bowls the 5th ever gutter ball in Wii Bowling history.  The first 4 gutters ever in Wii history were achieved by Keith just moments earlier.

 
In between rounds of tennis and bowling, we ate.  Ben made this wonderful elaborate appetizer salad of fresh Stew Leonard's produce and a prosciutto, salami, pepperoni medley.  With dinner, Benny Crocker also made this lively bowtie pasta salad to go with......

 
...my Spectacular Sizzzzzling Shrimp Skewers!  I made 2 kinds -- one wrapped with pre-cooked bacon (I cooked the bacon halfway before wrapping and skewering); one coated with tarragon butter (melted butter, dried tarragon flakes, and a dash of Mrs. Dash).  Aren't these simply gorge?! 

  
And after we gorged on dinner, we gorged on dessert.  Everyone's holding up bubbymichael's homemade banana-walnut bread a la mode, and Keith brought a chocolate-strawberry cream cake.  Here, we have Bennifer's (freakishly long and slender) arm holding his plate of cake out as if to smush in my face.  Imagine that...me, being threatened with a dessert.

AS IF.

P.LUGER
Decadence of decadence.  Last night we went for a big steak dinner planned by our new food-fiend friends Steven & Phyllis, with whom we've spent more time than any other friends so far in '07.  Adding to our extensive list of eating excursions with them: Chinatown dim sum 4 times; Peking Duck House; Moonstruck and Taka in Asbury Park, NJ; Nikko Sushi 3 times in Bayonne.  And now, P.Luger!

 
Peter Luger in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, an NYC fixture since the late 1800's.  No joke.  Hubby and I were here 4 years ago with Linda & Bao.  I wasn't thrilled with the steak back then, and it was time to give it another go.  Here's how it went down... 

 
The Shrimp Cocktail here is like nothing I've ever seen.  The shrimp are HUGE!  I had 2 pieces and had to stop if I intended to have any steak later on.  This rationalization quickly diminished when the sizzling appetizer bacon came out.  OMFG!  The bacon was the most yummmazing thing.  Thick, meaty, no-too-fatty, sizzling charred decadence.  Also shockingly good were the fresh plain sliced tomatoes with a little sweet horseradish cocktail.    

 
Going around the table:  Steven; their friends Cindy & Joe; me & bubbyMichael; and Phyllis.  We spend so much time with Steven & Phyllis, such a fun-loving, easygoing, quirky and interesting Bayonne couple.  When we arrived at Luger, they went straight up to the manager and maitre'd, and hugged and kissed hello like old friends. 

 
 
We got steak for 6.  Three plates of the house steak, cooked medium and medium well.  Thank god their friend Joe is also not fond of pink bloody steak, as I had someone to share a fully-cooked plate of steak with.  I'm so tired of defending my medium well (ok, well-done) steak preferences to everyone who looks at me with a mix of horror, pity and disgust.  So I like to chew shoe leather....get off my ass!  Check out my plate, fixed up with potatoes and creamed spinedge.  I was using the steak to scoop up creamed spinach.

 
 
Only a fool doesn't save room for dejjert.  Fools aside, I hate people that consistently do the "oh, I don't do dessert" thing.  Get over yourself!  No one at this table was like that.  Sundae, chocolate mousse cake, apple strudel, coffee ice cream, and a bowl of fresh-made "schlage" (whipped cream) covered the the table. 

To describe this meal as just "satisfying" is like saying Britney Spears makes "questionable choices."  This meal was freakin fantastic!  And Britney is fucking retarded!   The whole ride home, hubby and I were suffering that dreaded if-I-burp-I-swear-I-will-vomit feeling.  I have a love-hate relationship with that feeling from eating.  But that feeling is ultimately very deep-rooted in love.

* BITCHY EDIT * (The Peter Luger nazi has spoken):

jasonbasin: i have a peter luger entry
Linda: no thanks
jasonbasin: i have pics of their bacon
Linda: fine
Linda: (bitch)
Linda: gross
Linda: did you guys get the steaks well done?
jasonbasin: just me and one guy
jasonbasin: everyone else had medium/rare
Linda: FUCKING LOSERS
jasonbasin: shut the fuck up
Linda: FUCKING LOSER!
jasonbasin: i don't need to defend myself
jasonbasin: you're the one that's given up food [for a better body]
jasonbasin: so fuck you
Linda: i really have
jasonbasin: FUCKING LOSER
Linda: last night, there was strawberry short cake w/ fresh strawberry sauce, tiramisu, and cheesecake with oreo crumbs
Linda: i had NONE
jasonbasin: FUCKING LSOER!
Linda: in english please
jasonbasin: you're such a bitch

THE PAINTING BEDROOM ENTRY

This entry is over a year past due!  yeeesh.  I painted our bedroom the last week of 2005, and I was so exhausted afterwards that I drafted but never completed this entry.  Well it's done now and it's time to debut my biggest decor success to date.  (This entry is dedicated to fellow design-minded xanga pal Graceland, whose auxiliary site Graceful_Decor was a constant source of home decor inspiration and enjoyment, and this is the entry I always said I owed you).  So here it is, better fabulous than never!

In the last few days of 2005, I painted the Master Bedroom.  This mammoth home decor task required me to take a week off work between Christmas & New Years to tackle this mega-project. Our bedroom is the largest space in the house, with the highest ceilings and the most need of painting perfection because I lie awake staring at the walls and adornments with a critical queer eye.  With bubbyMichael's full un-interfering blessing, I attacked my ambitious vision of a deep luscious blue sky all around with the cathedral sloped ceilings left pure white.  The bedroom furniture is predominantly black/chocolate and white/ivory accessories (pillows, lamp shades), so the blue would be a welcome burst of color and depth.  Let's see how it all went down... 

BEFORE:  Blank, Bare, Blah & Boring

The Master Bedroom was painted in standard blecch bone white when it was built for us.  For a long time I convinced myself to leave it white -- I told myself that "white was ethereal and immaculate, therefore I will leave it untouched."  Clearly, I was deluding myself and making excuses for not wanting to break my back painting it.  But time wore on and the cheap chalky feeling of cheap flat paint was driving me crazy.  Then my gay gene kicked in, full force.  I needed satin finish!  I needed uncompromised color!  I needed finished decor!  So I unleashed my inner decor whore!

THE PAINT:  Home Depot's reliable BEHR premium paint.
THE COLOR:  'BLUE CHAISE', Satin finish. 
THE POSE:  just to prove it was me that did all the work.  With old boxers & tshirt as my painting uniform, I become my alter ego -- Super Mega-dyke Painterman.  I'm covered with paint for almost a week afterwards.  Each day I find a new spot -- elbows, behind the knees, in my ear, up the wazoo.

I cleared out furniture, moved the bed to the center and covered it, stripped the walls of all adornments, removed and protected outlets & switches, masked off wall edges, door jambs, window sills, baseboards.  This is the hardest part of painting.  Painting is easy; prepping is a bitch, and that bitch has OCD.  But it's the only way to ensure that I get my crisp clean edges and professional-grade finished detail.  Hubby's always offering people my painting services.  If we ever packed up our life here and moved to Hawaii, I could have a nice life selling pineapples, painting houses, and eating pineapples in painted houses.

LET THERE BE COLOR!  Some painting math:
One day of prep + two days of paint (2 coats, no priming) + one more day of touch ups and clean up = A lifetime of admiration.  

AFTER:  Sky Fits Heaven

I always wanted a bedroom to have a sleeping-in-the-clouds feel, and now I have it with this daring marriage of large room and bold blue.

A 270-degree-ish view of the room.  I know, the fuschia curtains need to g (shut up...they're NOT pink).  I'm working on that.  These Pier One panels gave the room a splash of needed color back when the walls were bone white.  Now they're on my To Replace list.  I have my eye on West Elm everything -- curtain rods, silk dupioni drapes.  No, your eyes are not deceiving you....that's a huge-ass clock just beneath the triangle peak.  When I saw it at Target, I had to have it.  Daylight Savings Times are a bitch though.  We haven't climbed up there to adjust the time in a year!  We gotta do it this weekend.

With such a spacious room and high ceilings, the air felt giantly empty even with all the furniture and adorned walls back in place.  So when I saw these 6-foot long hanging mirrored garlands from WEST ELM, my creative juices began to boil.  I started with one strand and loved it.  So I bought 4 more, and hubby gave me the idea to hang them staggered rather than in one row.  They hang directly over the bed, and the little mirrors cast dozens of reflections throughout the room.  It drives Wuzzy-kitty crazy!!

1) There was an empty corner of the room that bothered me for a while....until I got this set of three square wood shelves from West Elm.  That plant has long since died, but Pooh is still alive and smiling in the corner.  Collecting dust, but smiling. 
2) This beveled mirror with brushed faux-metal beaded frame is gorgeous.  It's IKEA, circa 2004 and a steal at $99.  If I saw this mirror is a SoHo design store for $999, I'd believe it and still want it.  IKEA = . 
3) Another IKEA item is this bamboo ringlets curtain that fills up wall space beautifully and provocatively.  Some poor child with tiny hands in Venezuela probably made this for 2-cents a curtain, and sells at IKEA for $10.

Right over the bed headboard is a Pottery Barn shelf and 3 silver-framed cloud photos that I took.  And over in the corner of the room is my junk dresser (not pictured...very junky) above which I hung this geometric West Elm cabinet.  Some willow branches and another cloud photo complete the look.

So again, it's been over a year since I completed the bedroom and it's been feeling fully fabulous and stylishly complete.  I no longer lay awake staring at the bone white walls and wishing do death it would magically get painted a bold romantic blue.  The room is heaven to me and I wake up in the clouds everyday.

Wii Partii
It wasn't meant to be a Wii party, per se.  It was dinner with our neighbors that turned into a Wii nite, since our Wii arrived at our doorstep earlier that day.  I was craving culinary adoration, so last weekend I offered to make my special Spicy-Tomato-Zucchini-Chicken for neighbors Jim & Annery and Rob & Diana, and bubby's brother Phil who was visiting us from Lawn Guylant (Long Island, folks).

I made a double batch of the chicken, with Annery's help in the kitchen.  She was browning chicken for me while I concocted the broth/stew in which the chicken and veggie medley would simmer and meld wonderfully together.  Serve this over yellow rice, sit back and receive praise.  This dish is supremely popular with anyone I've served it to, and its fan base is ever increasing.  A xanga reader asked me for the recipe a few weeks ago which propelled me to want to make this again.  Like hog pot, the season for this dish is almost over!

ONTO THE Wii...

Before, during and after the meal, everyone Wii'd.  First, bubbyMichael sat each friend down and had them create their own Mii, their video game likeness.  It was uproarious fun, and all our Mii's deserve a separate entry later on (you're gonna get so sick of my Wii entriis).  We played mostly tennis and bowling.  Don't you just love my faggy technique?

(left) Diana gets down with bowling.  She was quite good, beating out her hubby Rob and Michael who struggled with their wayward hooks.  Phil looks on with beer in hand, sitting the game out so others can win for a change.  * ps -- HAPPY BIRFDAY YESTERDAY, PHIL! *
(right) Michael goes for a strike...and gets a 7-10 split.  errrrr!!  Rob looks on, and Annery & Jim are passed out on the couch. 

Our living room transformed into a bowling alley on our Sharp Aquos 37" LCD, which is tiny now compared to everyone's 46-inchers. 

TIRAMISU CAKE that Rob & Diana brought for dessert from a Hoboken bakery.  I hesitate to ever make superlative statements like this, but this was THE BEST tiramisu I've ever had!  And I've had hundreds(of thousands) of tiramisu in my voracious lifetime.  With everyone so busy playing Wii and losing to Phil in tennis, I secretly helped myself to 2.5 slices of cake.  Or in Wii-speak, I hit a strike with my first tiramisu slice, then picked up a spare slice and a half.  SCORE!!

MORE HOG POT
Yes, that's my new name for Hot Pot, after watching Linda eat it for the first time.  Last week, just a few days after gorging on mom's hot pot spectacular, I met up with the girls, May and Dawn (my 2 remaining best gals from Parsons JHS in Flushing, Queens who don't hate my guts).  We went to Happy Shabu Shabu under the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown.  Dawn was dying to meet the infamous Linda (the bitchy fabulous heroine of the unstylishgal/craigslist-criminal-stalker-fame), so I dragged her along by her long luscious hair for Dawn.  The hot pot to me was just 'aight...all in a day.  For Linda, it was, OMG how good is this shit!  I'm never eating hot pot at home anymore!  Does anyone want more beef?  Shiao-jhe (waitress), bring me another order of beef!

 
The first-time meeting between the formidable Linda and the sassy-chatty Dawn went VERY WELL.  What a relief, because the last time I introduced Linda and another 'female' 'friend' of mine from my younger school days, it was bad.  Really bad.  Criminal identity fraud & harrassment bad.  NYPD bad.  Mugshot bad.  Police detective proclaiming: "This is her third arrest" bad.

Eating hot pot in a restaurant is quite fun and a bit different from mom's.  Everyone gets their own pot nestled in a heating pit in front of them.  The mute grunting waitress brings you a standard plate of raw hot pot staples -- fish balls, rice noodles, big leafy veggies, tomato, egg, tofu.  You order a specialty plate of raw food -- seafood medley, sliced beef, pork, salmon, etc.  (If anyone "ewww"s the raw food part in a comment, I will freakin' slap you).  You do all the cooking yourself [cooking = drop everything in boiling water and wait].  You concoct your own dipping sauce comprised of chinese bbq sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, peanut sauce, scallions, garlic, cilantro, etc.  So to refresh: boil, wait, dip, slurp, and repeat.   I'm close to OD'ing on hog pot.   Oh who am I kidding??  I'm eating it again next week.  HOG PIG.

OSCARS 2007
If I know my girls and gays, you need a little closure to this year's Oscars.  And by closure, I mean some bitchy commentary.  So let's do this and move on.

THE BEST

Cate Blanchett, in her own subtle respectable way, is fast becoming the Meryl Streep of our time (imagine Cate as Miranda Priestley in a 'Prada' remake 10 years from now and tell me you don't salivate). With a handful of nominations (I count 4 or 5), one win, and her second movie with Brad Pitt in the works, Cate is a hot Hollywood commodity. And with this shimmering splendid silver stunner, she slaughtered the rest of the red carpet hags.
Celine Dion is misunderstood. I applauded her backwards white tuxedo years ago when everyone else trashed it. This year she rocked the red carpet again in this gorgeous green. Her lack of tits didn't take away from the simple elegance of the look, thanks to her gorgeous flowy hair that wispily offsets the harshness of her face & the over-done lopsidedness of everyone else's hair (Nicole, J.Lo, Gwyneth).

THE HOT MEN OF 'THE DEPARTED'
 
Leo is grown up and I like it.  I've seen both 'The Departed' and 'Blood Diamond' and he's not going anywhere anytime soon.  He halts the red carpet with his slicked back style and he's just classic.
Mark Wahlberg is arguably the yummiest man alive.

NOW FOR THE RED CRAPIT

Cameron Diaz needs to just go away for a little while.  She needs to stop coming to these awards shows looking like a not-so-hot mess.  She needs to join Renee Zellweger and Halle Berry and just lay low for a bit and let people get over getting sick of seeing her.
Does anyone see Gwyneth here and think she just escaped from that popular "Bodies" exhibit that?  You know, like a flesh-less human body with exposed bloody musculature.
I hate Kirsten Dunst.  Not only does she spoil the Spiderman movies, she spoiled the red carpet with this awful look.  Awful hair, awful red lips (you're no Michelle Williams), awful dress, and awful pale skin ("Interview with the Vampire" finished filming over 10 years ago, dear...get some sun!). 

  
3 Memos to Nicole:  1) Gwyneth called and she wants her hair back.  2) The BMW dealership called and they want their holiday car bow back.  3) Kirsten Dunst called...she wants to show you how to tan.
Jennifer Hudson carries on the tradition of Best Supporting Actress winners looking less than their best on their big night.  Remember Jennifer Connelly's drapes with tassles?  Remember Angelina's Elvira costume?  This year J.Hud went for Gladiator armor to fend off the vicious glares from Beyonce.
Last and least, J.Lo arrives yet again to a fabulous affair looking like Bronx gutter trash, with a mexican taco waiter as her date.  Don't let the camera flash fool you....J.Lo looked AWFUL being interviewed on the red carpet.  Her tan was blotchy and burnt, her face just did not Glo, her hair looked faker than John Travolta's, and her dress was a better maternity fit on Naomi Watts.  And as for Marc Anthony, Kirsten Dunst took one look at him, slit her wrist, and made a blood offering to Lestat.

DYKING ON!
  
I never thought I'd ever use these two words together:  LESBIAN FAB!  The lesbs of Hollywood had an especially strong presence at this Oscars, and not just because of their strong thick thighs and strong man hands.  Gay rights rallies and home improvement projects were put on hold.  It was a night to put the mullets, tool belts and flannel away, and tap into their inner inner inner woman.  Ellen's gorgeous girlfriend Portia de Rossi rocked long blond hair better than Nicole and Gwyneth combined.  Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels looked happy and humble, and I adore these two.  For the first time in her life, Jodie Foster didn't wear a pants suit, nor did she hide at home on this big night.  She had to 'come out' and show her support for her sistas.  After all, it was a 4-hour live taping of the Ellen Degeneres Show with a few special guests.  Wasn't it??

BACK ON THE EA(S)T COAST...

My golden statuette Linda and I spent our 6th consecutive Oscars night in each other's bitchy company.  The location and guest lists of our Oscar affairs have changed drastically over the years, but the cattiness and catering have always stayed the same -- delicious and decadent.  We started the afternoon early watching last week's American Idol and gushing over LaKisha's "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going", then we red carpet'ed with Ryan Shecrest on E!  Then Linda's L.I. neighbors 5-minutes-away Leslie and Michael came over and joined us for a Grimaldi's thin crust brick oven pizza feast!  I had fresh mozzarella coming out of my pores and it was wonderful.  The basil pesto thin crust with grilled chicken was amazing, as were the cannolis and ricotta cheesecake.  By 8:30 when the show started, we were all buzzed and shouting catty obscenities at everyone.  Such as:

Leslie:  Why is Reese wearing the SAME hair she wore to the Golden Globes??

Me: Ugh...Forest Whitaker is SO incoherent.  Can't we fast forward??

Linda:  Bao, get me some more Chardonnay.  BAO?!  Wake up!  I need Chardonnay!

And so another Oscar comes and goes, along with Jennifer Hudson, whose career is practically over now after winning for her first movie.  There's nowhere to go now but down.  Or in other words, Catwoman 2. 

WHEEEE!!!
After much urging by many, I finally got to play the Nintendo Wii.  I love it!!  At my brother's place last weekend, bubbyMichael and I got a taste of what it's like to get some exercise with our eyes still glued to tv.  The Wii gets you off your ass and gets your arms and legs going with the revolutionary motion-sensing controllers and beyond-interactive games.  But of course, all you hip kids knew that already.  You cool cats all made it fun and uproarious.  I'm just here to make it fabulous!

  
First we created our Mii.  You customize your every feature and spawn your own video game likeness.  Move over Princess Toadstool...there's a new queen in videogame-land!  That's Mii and hubby's Mii. 

 
We played a few minutes of Tennis first, and I was shocked at how satisfyingly real it was.  Like a novice idiot, I was practically running side to side in the living room trying to hit the ball.  Then came Bowling.  I got up, tightened the hand strap of the controller and went fagWiild with my dramatic bowling squats and miraculous spares.  The following day, hubby and I pooled together our Chinese New Year red envelope cash and ordered ourselves a Wii.  Like my wise brother (Yuda) said, "Be the same, your house parties will never be again."  May the force be Wii us.

YEAR OF THE PIG
...incidentally, that's also the zodiac animal for this year's chinese calendar.  Go figure.  Anyway, every feast with my family is the year of the chinese pig.  This weekend we celebrated with Hot Pot (or shabu shabu, chinese fondue, fobdue, what have you...) at my parent's house.  The whole extended Tsay family was there too -- cousin Steve, Rosa's parents, and hubbybubbyMichael.  (cousin Jenn, we missed you!)

   
If you need the concept of hot pot explained, then I feel sorry for you.  My mom upped the hot pot ante this time, with bigger variety and more everything -- seafood (jumbo prawns, squid, live crab, dried scallops, imitation crabsticks), fish-/squid-balls, fried taro, 4 kinds of tofu & bean curd, 3 kinds of mushroom (white, babybellas, golden string mushrooms), and much else.  It's soothing good eating without rules or portion control.

 
Rosa's always yelling at me for taking unflattering pics of people while they're eating.  Now I see why.  That's me chomping down on a cob of sweet corn.  Highly unattractive, I know.  But like I've said before, eating before beauty. 

Chinese ATM:  Automated Teller 'MA'chine dispenses red envelopes of cash for "good lucky, ok-la?" to her sons, daughter-in-law, nephew, son's in-laws, and other son's hubby.  ATMom!

Good lucky for everyone this year, ok-la!!

I'm on an entry roll, folks, so comment fast!

BITCHFALL

On my usual 6pm-ish jog/run/mad-dash from the office to catch the PATH train, I'm usually very efficient and agile in dodging people, dogs on leashes, oncoming traffic, and hopping curbs and all.  I have to.  Catching the train at a specific time lets me catch a specific Light Rail which lets me catch the very last shuttle bus of the day from the station to my house.  So timing is crucial and I'm always running.  When the snow & ice landed on Weds, I was so proud of myself at the end of the day when I was bragging to bubbyMichael "I ran and ran everywhere today and I'm shocked I didn't slip and fall once!  These new boots are amazing!  I'm so graceful and agile...I just can't fall!" 

The next day, same thing -- jog/run/mad-dash to catch the train after work.  I'm jaywalking across 15th Street, skedaddling deftly in front of an oncoming cab.  I get to a curb slightly blocked by a small snow mound.  I do my usual faggy ballet leap up onto the curb.  That's when I FUCKING FALL ON MY ASS.   Hopping the curb and surmounting the snow mound, I totally foiled my dismount on the sidewalk.  My feet landed on some slush and I fell sideways, landing flat on my right leg.  The impact was hard and I was shocked.  My leg from the knee down was throbbing and my right hand too which hit the pavement hard.   I had fallen and I couldn't get up.  BITCH FELL.  My thoughts were, in this order:

1) When I started to fall:  "whoa...whoaaa...WHOAAAA"
2) During mid-fall:  "omg...this is NOT happening.  aahhhhh!"
3) When I hit the ground:  "oof!  Yikes!  WTF?!"
4) When I was sitting on the cold wet pavement: "omg...did anyone see me??  DID ANYONE SEE ME?!"
5) Still stunned, kinda laughing, and undoubtedly beet red in the face:  "dear lord, I hope no one saw me.  Fuck...those people in those cars must've seen.  I can't wait to xanga about this!"
6) Standing and dusting myself off:  "AM I HURT?!  Is my leg fractured?  Did I twist my ankle? Can I even walk??"

That's right folks -- Embarrassment, Xanga, THEN my physical well being.