Sort of

It's Sunday night. Sort of. Sunday night in Korea is late Saturday night/early Sunday morning in the states, and is thus very boring. Everything is closed, no one is on the computer to talk to. And to make matters worse, tomorrow is Monday, sort of. Monday morning here is Sunday afternoon there, and there is a total blackout all day. No new blog entries + quiet Facebook + no emails= AGONY.

I used a recipe for dinner. Sort of. I read this book, 'The Ungarnished Truth', by Ellie Mathews. She is a Seattle hippiegeek (new word; do you like it? I'm aware that individual people have already used it, but I'm using it to sterotype an entire group of people. I'm still toying with the capitalization issue; I'll keep you posted), who won the Pillsbury Bake-off for her recipe for salsa couscous chicken a few years ago. I had to make a few substitutions, of course. There is no way on God's green earth you would find currants at the commissary, so I had to use chopped up apricots instead. There is, however, plenty of soy sauce, Crisco and Count Chocula, should you want to whip up something scrumptious with those.

On the topic of the commissary, which we were, sort of, I found the commissary more appalling than usual today. Right in the front where you walk in, where you would expect to find the ads posted in a normal store, was a display titled 'Gender Report'. It was exactly what it sounds like- a report listing elementary school students by classroom and gender. Also a perfect pedophile's shopping list but no one asked me. I am reminded every single day that no one has any privacy here: you can't even have a few beers too many and throw up on the sidewalk without someone making a big deal about it; you have to have your ID scanned at the BX to buy Oxi-clean and Maalox; and when your new stripper pole comes in the mail everyone knows about it. I can live with those things, sort of, but if my kid's name was on the 'Gender Report' posted at the commissary I would be beyond furious. Not that anyone cares.

I'm ready to start a new week. Sort of. We are leaving here soon, sort of, and the weeks are going slowly now and my energy and enthusiasm are waning. There are never enough books, enough time, but always too much laundry, too many eggs mashed into the carpet and too much noise. I want to write, sort of. There are lots of ideas, but never enough time and always too much noise. I can ignore the laundry, sort of, so here you go: I updated my blog. Sort of.