Monthly Archive for March, 2007

It is the time.  We saw two new babies in a row on Saturday.   And there are more to come.  That is it! If you are not having a baby, get yourself one!

It is interesting, two new moms asked us same question.   When they were both holding their precious babies carefully, learning to satisfy the babies’ needs.  “When will you guys have babies?” with that questions, you can see a very happy face anticipating an answer.  I think there is one explanation for that:  having a baby is really a happy experience and people who are engaged with babies really want to share the joy with others.  But is it really a joy or pain? 

To most Western people, the Asian grocery shopping experience is more or less like going to the zoo.   They get the chance to see most animals they eat (or they don’t) alive but hardly ever see them in a Western grocery store display or the zoo/aquarium.  

We were in Toronto, we couldn’t miss the chance to shop in a nice big asian grocery store.   After several stops, finally we made the trip at around 8:00PM.   Unlike most Western shops, Asian stores usually close late.  We had full two hours to shop before it closed.   We went into every aisle and saw stuff we didn’t have time to look at before.   Ron was pretty happy and laughed at those English names on the Asian food.  Despite his laughing, we soon had many things loaded into our cart.  Here comes the seafood section.   Maybe it was late in the evening, the store was not as crowded as usual.   I had a peek of the seafood.  Knowing that seafood is a “forbidden” dish on our table, I wandered to the meat section.  On the contrary, Ron put away his cart, stood in front of the fresh seafood water tanks and started to inspect those creatures he would never eat in his life.

When I was in the vegetable section already, I turned back and found Ron was still there.   He started his inspectoin at the lobsters, then a sort of lake fish, snails, king crabs… He put both his hands in the pockets, looking at those shell animals quietly 1 minute, 2 minutes… 5 minutes without moving.  When I was wondering when he would stop his fascinated inspection, he took his left hand out of the pocket, and poked something in the tank!  That apparently satisfied him a lot.  After the poking, he quickly moved away, grabbed the cart and looked around for me.   He was amazed to find out that I was so far away and came to me happily afterwards.  I hope the sales people in the seafood section didn’t think he was retarded.

It is said this year is Chinese golden pig year.  Many many couples are in a rush to get pregnant and get their babies born in this year.  The theory behind it is that pigs usually have a very easy life.   They never need to work hard, just eat, sleep and play in the mud.   The reason why it is a “golden” pig year, I am not sure.  I dare not say superstition is stupid, but I think life would be easier if we have less things to worry about.