Swap Meet 2/16/13

It started to pour when we arrived at the swap meet this past Saturday.

It was kinda cold too.


But that didn't stop some die-hard shoppers from checking out the goods.


It slowly started to clear up, and the hoard emerged.  It can get pretty scary for the seller if they're not prepared for the crowd of people who will go through their stuff even while they're still setting up.


That first hour can be pretty intimidating for them.


But after the rush . . . 


things will settle down.


This man and his wife are at Kam every Saturday.  He usually sells out pretty much all of his plants.


He was selling this Shooting Star plant for $12.50.


This is the girl that sold Geri that beautiful hat the previous week. She brought the price down from $5 to $3 just for Geri.


The rain pretty much went away, and we were able to check out the stuff comfortably.


Geri found these box wrap kits.  They were 50 cents each.


Dunno if you remember, but Sweetie bought a matching blue one like this on another outing. She got this one too.  It was $1.


I bought these for 50 cents each.  I'm using them to display my marbles. I'm separating them by style, now that I'm beginning to recognize them.


Remember these from back in the day?  You roll it on the ground and the duck's feet flap, flap, flap.  Geri plans to restore it.  It was $7.


Sweetie bought this grill for $20. The price dropped slowly from $40 to $30 and then finally to $20.


I bought this fanny pack for Landon.  It was $6.  Wendell said he wants one too.


I have no clue.


Some guy gave Geri a sob story about his wife leaving him and how he needed money so she bought this bag from him. I forget how much it was.


She bought this cute bumble bee costume for $1.50.


I thought this ABC book was so cute.  I got it for $1.


This was $1.


We each got one of these.   It was 3/$20.


I'm so glad that as we were leaving, this guy was lugging his keyboard . . . 


because then Sweetie wouldn't look so strange by herself as she crossed the street lugging her abdominal exercising gizmo.

My Cha-siu for Ramen

Looks good, hah!  Actually, I almost blew it.  The liquid in the pot evaporated faster than I expected, so the meat got small-kine burnt.  Luckily, I caught it just in time and was able to trim off some of the burnt portion of the outer fat .

The recipe is my own, and as you know I'm not a cook, so please adjust it to your own liking.


Wendell picked up this slab of pork belly for me.  I looked at it, and wasn't exactly sure how I was gonna be able to roll it.


I scored it like this to kinda help stretch it out a bit.


I forgot to ask Wendell to pick up some twine, but luckily we already had some, otherwise I woulda had to use some fishing line or maybe yarn.  Hahaha.


I couldn't really roll the meat.  It was more of a fold instead.


 I threw it in a pot with 1 c. water, 1/2 c. shoyu, 2 Tbsp. sake, 1 Tbsp. mirin, 3 smashed garlic cloves and 1/2 a small onion. I let it simmer for 1 hour on LOW HEAT.  I was planning to cook it longer, but after the liquid all evaporated even on LOW HEAT and I started smelling that something-burning smell, and after pandemonium broke loose thereafter, one hour of simmering turned out to be good enough.


Then, since Wendell already had a nice fire going on the hibachi for his steaks that he was making for dinner, I cut the log in half and threw them on . . . 'cause as you know . . . a little hibachi flavor don't hurt.


You're supposed to let the meat cool before cutting, otherwise it'll just fall apart.  In fact, you're supposed to let it cool in the liquid that you simmered it in, but since I had no liquid, I skipped that part. I tasted a tiny sliver from one end (ONO), and after cooling it on the counter for a little while, threw it in the 'fridge.  Ramen would have to wait for another day. Wendell had already made steak and some watercress soup for dinner.  Hoo hooo!!

Just Stuff

Here are just a few miscellaneous stuff that I wanted to share.

I think the coolest thing about my doing this blog is that people can get to know me better.  My cousin Phyllis gave me this collectible bead book 'cause she knows how much I like to collect old beads.  How cool iz dat yah!  Thanks Phyllis!!  I love the book!


This is Sweetie and her son Charles.


Yup . . . went to church again yesterday.  Pastor Fernando said that if you plant the seeds of purity you will sow great happiness.  All I can say is that I would love to plant the seeds of purity, but for some of us it's pretty damn hard.  Hahahaha.


I can't figure out our meter reading.  This is meter reading "03" which is the energy HECO delivered to us.


This is meter reading "33" which is the energy we produced and that HECO received from us.  Wow, right?  Looks like we produced 192 kWh and used only 69 kWh, right?


Now, this is meter reading "23" which is supposed to equal "03" minus "33" and is the amount we will be billed for.  Whatdahell does 99878 mean?



I got these trade beads from Antique Alley.  They were $20.


I also got this Akro Corkscrew marble for $20.  I know, I know 20 bucks for one marble . . . but I couldn't help myself.  It's so pretty.


Saturday was Aunty's birthday. We put the candle on her slice only 'cause we were afraid she would spit when she blew it out.  Heeeey, not just her . . . I spit too sometimes.


Wouldja believe that for Valentine's Day, our company treated us to lunch from Buca di Beppo?  So nice.


My friend Kevin brought this back from the Orient for me.  Isn't it cool?  Thanks Kevin!


I bought this stamp pad from the swap meet for $1. 


See how the colors are separated so that they don't bleed into each other.


When you're ready to use it, you can slide the colors together.


This is a sample of the card that I made 20 million of.

Word as Image by Ji Lee

Tasuku and Muu

My friend Rand sent me a link to the Good Morning America story about this pair of pals.

The article says that photos of the little boy and his equally adorable French Bulldog are taking the Internet by storm. The boy, Tasuku, and his dog, Muu, seem to be inseparable. The boy’s mother, Aya Sakai of Japan, has been posting images of the pair, earning herself a huge following on Facebook and Instagram.