Birthday Shopping Failure

I asked Little Kat to cook dinner for my birthday this year. I asked him to grill up some steaks. Before he went grocery shopping, I reminded him to pick up the meat. I told him to let me know if there were any problems with the purchase.

Little Kat did not say anything when he came home from grocery shopping. So I presumed everything was okay. Luckily I quizzed him today. Found out he did not find any steaks. WTF? I guess he was going to wait until my birthday dinner to lay that surprise on me.

I researched online how to buy steaks. Then I checked the rating for the local meat market. Not too good. Found an ad online for a grocery store close to us. They had New York Strip on sale. Momoko gave us a budget for the meat. I drove her new car to the store with Little Kat.

At first, Little Kat said everything in the store was just too expensive. I dug deeper and found some chuck meat for really cheap. They did not have a lot of it. But it was enough to feed the family. It helps that Kit Kat does not like steak. So we did not buy any for her.

Dishwasher Disturbia

Today I we ate late. I also playing some games late at night. Momoko watched a movie and then some K-dramas. I went upstairs to put my glass in the sink and found the sink full. Momoko cooked tonight. So she was responsible for doing the dishes. She said that Little Kat had not been doing his dishes recently. Therefore he was supposed to do the dishes for her. I called for Little Kat. He did not respond. I found him asleep. It was already the next day around 12:30 am.

I asked Momoko what the story was. We determined that in the last two days, Little Kat was supposed to run the dishes 3 times: twice for mid day dishes and once for dinner dishes yesterday. I told Momoko we needed an emergency family meeting to sort this out. She went up and woke up Little Kat.

Little Kat said he actually did do the dishes all 3 times he was supposed to. He also said that Momoko told him to do her dishes, but he fell asleep after coming home from work late and going out to get some dinner. Momoko said she sent Kit Kat to tell Little Kat to do her dishes. Apparently that produced no results. It only made this look all the more suspicious.

Momoko and Little Kat's stories about the dishes contradicted each other. Momoko thought that inspecting the current sink and dishwasher dishes would shed light on what happened. It was inconclusive. Time to schedule up another emergency family meeting to make sure these dishes get done. I don't like wasting my time checking up and making people do their jobs. I have my own work to attend to.

Welcoming a Mublerry Colored Car

Momoko's car starting making weird idle noises when her air conditioning was on. The car is pushing 10 years old. So she decided it was time for a new car. She wanted the new model from Honda that she has been keeping an eye on: the HRV. It is a smaller version of her CRV.


My brother and I went with her to the dealership. Neither of us could fit in the back seat. We could only fit in the front seat if the car had no moon roof. That pretty much dictated which trim level Momoko would get. She wanted one in Mulberry Metallic color. It is allegedly a purple shade.


This morning Momoko's old car would not start. My brother jump started with his battery cables. Momoko traded her old car in just in time. Now she has a brand new 2018 model. It is a step down in size and luxury appointments. But we hope it will last another 10 years like the old one.

Cleaning up an oily situation

Every once in a while, Little Kat comes up with some new idea. He wants to play with some gadget. Most of the time he asks me to purchase such toys. Since Little Kat is essentially a good guy, and he does not work/earn much, I usually indulge him.


Some time in the last year I got him a deep fryer. He fried up a few items. Said they tasted really good. Then I guess he got bored with it. The cooking oil was stinking up the house. So I told Little Kat to relocate the oil bin outside on the patio.


Well the bin has been out here untouched for a long time. Leaves and rain have fallen into it. Today I decided to clean the thing up. I poured a little of the oil into a pickle jar. The rest I drained into a two-liter soda container.


I used a lot of newspaper to catch the oil. Also used the newspaper to clean out the container. I wrapped everything up in more newspaper and a lot of plastic grocery bags. Don't want an oily mess before this stuff goes to the dump.

Starting early and working late

Since I was on vacation last week, I have a lot of catching up to do at work. I normally have to do some after hours monitoring of our production systems. It is a pain. But we share the responsibility amongst many people on the project. So I usually only do it once a week.


Last week I had a shift while I was on vacation. I asked a guy on the project to cover for me. In return, I would cover for him this week while he went on vacation. That means I am doing double shifts this week. Had to work the late shift last night, and the early one today.


The only good news is that my direct customer limits the amount of hours I can bill them per week. Once I hit that mark, I am done for the week. Guess what? I am done. It is the weekend for me. Now my company does not want me chilling on the weekdays. So I am officially opting for "self-directed training". Fun.

Last Day of Vacation

Momoko and I had a busy last day of vacation. We got up early to ensure we could see Momoko's mom in the hospital before we left. To my surprise, the temperature dropped and the car was iced up. The little ice scraper I borrowed from Momoko's dad could not cut through the ice. I had to warm up the car to melt most of the ice.

We were lucky that Momoko's mom was up early today. So we said goodbye. Then I went to fill up the gas in the rental car. Momoko wanted to go to some random gas stations on the way to the airport. I said we should stick to the plan we had made the day before. We did a test drive and found a gas station to use.

On the way to the predetermined gas station, we saw a pickup truck on the side of the road. It was upside down. The vehicle must have flipped recently. People were getting out to help. We proceeded to the airport. I had a little excitement going through security. A guy asked me to step aside and inquired if I had any sharp object in my carryon. Just a pen. Turns out he was interested in my GPS car holder, which is in the shape of an alligator head.

The airline reps said we had a full flight. Momoko and I had good positions with our A-group boarding passes. We chose the second to last row in the plane as usual. The stewardess kept telling people that the back rows were full. This resulted in us have an empty seat between us. Guess one guy missed his flight.

Vacation was fun. But it is good to be home.