Monday morning dread

How many times has this happened to me? I start composing a light-hearted, amusing entry in my head, but, by the time I sit down to write, it no longer matches my mood. Nuphy[*] goes back under the knife on Thursday. We talked about it on Saturday, but then I spent the rest of the weekend having fun so I didn't much change to obsess about it until this morning. For months, I've been wanting nothing better than for the docs to sew him back up so he can resume a normal life. Now I don't want him to go in. Before, if you had asked, "What's the worst that could happen?" I would've said, "Well, he could die!" with a flippantness than evinced a belief in the exaggerrated nature of what I was saying. If we had that exchange today, my voice would have a grim, fatalistic timbre. After all, that's just about what happened last time. Taking no chances this time, Nuphy drew up his will and had me witness it two weekends ago. His daughter comes in Friday, but I'm point man for O-Day itself. He's going to pass me his cell so I can call everyone who's a bigger worry wart than me with updates. monshu just offered to come to the hospital from work and lend me support and I might well take him up on that.

[*] For the benefit of spookyfruit and anyone else who confuses my current boyfriend with my gentleman friend, a few mnemonics:

• __m__on -> monshu
• monshu is a Japanese Buddhist title that, although translated "Lord Abbot", literally means "Master of the Gate". That should provide you with some memorable associations, spookyfruit!
• If you can remember which one is a prof, I may start referring to "Professor Nuphy".
• Nuphy's namesake, St. Barsanuphius was a desert hermit. Nuphy is from LA.

"Her Highness will receive you now."

When my father was in town two weekends ago, he, my brother, and I visited Nuphy at home. It was late afternoon, and Nuphy had to excuse himself in order to get ready for bed. From about five in the evening until eight or nine the following morning, he's hooked up to an IV pump and can't really move about. As he left, he said he'd call us when he was ready to receive visitors. "You know," he said, "that when the Queen receives people in her bedroom when she gets up in the morning, it's called a levee; this would be the evening equivalent of that." We briefly discussed possible terminology without ever hitting upon the obvious counterpart: couchee.

He's got a lot more levees and couchees ahead of him in the near future, so in case he wants to vary his diction a bit, here's a new word to toss in:

ruelle 2. A bedroom, where ladies of fashion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in France, held a morning reception of persons of distinction; hence, a reception of this kind.

Maybe this could be our nickname for his hospital room? Incidentally, the first listed meaning for this word is "the space between a bed and the wall; the part of a bed next the wall." So if you've ever needed a name for one of those things, now you've got it.

Spanish usage notes

For brunch on Sunday, monshu and I met at Riques. It was remarkably quiet. I got there first and sat across from the Raving Chomskyite who intently read from his Palm as he scarfed complimentary pastries. monshu ordered a burrito suizo which, unfortunately, turned out to be somewhat bland and doughy, but my huevos motulenos (or motuleños) were fantastic. A chef--the owner?--came by with some fresh pastries and chatted us up. He recommended one of the pig-shaped cookies which he called porquitos.

"I think I've had those before," I said, recalling to the pig-shaped cookies lhn brought to Skiffy once, "only they were called marranos."

He smiled, "Marranitos. That's a word they use in the country. Like when you have a farm and, in the morning, you feed the chickens and the pigs? They call them marranos."

"Sounds like the word hog."

"I don't know that word. How do you spell it?"

"H-O-G. People who raise pigs for a living, they call them hogs. And there's another word, isn't there...cerros...?"

"Cerdos. But that's a technical word."

"Oh, like swine."

Then he told us he was leaving the next day for Yucatán, where he would take a three-day course and seek out new recipes. "Come back on the 28th. I'll be doing a special dinner." Any takers? If the ham in my eggs is anything to go by, I can promise lots of marrano!

Foodie booty

Yesterday, I finally got around to shopping at Arirang again. I stocked up on many Korean staples, including:

• homemade kimchi
• soju (they had 1.75 litre plastic bottles of my favourite brand! much easier to lug on the bus)
• flavoured soju (more haw fruit and some mystery wine whose name means "red yeast", unless I miss my guess)
• ready-to-eat natto in convenient serving sizes (waiting in the freezer for you, niemandsrose!)
• kocwucang or hot bean paste
• ume candies (much better than the Korean plum candies the local Vietnamese store stocks I've been sucking on in the meantime)
• ccacang noodles
• Paykseycwu (or "hundred-year wine", in quantity--an entire 20-bottle flat!)
• yuja preserved in honey for "tea" (really more like lemonade)
• a flat of "sweet nectar" (a.k.a. tanswul, kamcwu, or sikhyey) in cans
• a 5-pound bag of sweet brown rice (since my favourite white rice didn't come in anything smaller than a 10-pound, reminding me that to shop at an Asian food store is to shop in bulk)
• quince drink
• Chilsung Cider

monshu grabbed us a cab, in case you're wondering how the hell we got it all home. We also picked up ccacang, or Korean-style Chinese-style fermented black beans, so I could make Pucca's favourite noodles. They came out very tasty, despite the substitution of zucchini for napa cabbage, which was not to be found next door. In fact, for dinner tonight, I'm going to chowmein them. For sides, we had mandu and some salads--spinach, bean sprout, and a marinated strips of tuber (burdock?). I thought about asking if they had tetek, but I couldn't remember the name.

monshu threw himself into reconstructing the "jinjer sojutini" recipe; my efforts to create a "yuja sojutini" met with less than success. Still, with 3.5 litres of the stuff, we've got a lot more experimentation ahead of us! We sipped them as we took in Stephen Fry hosting the Baftas; his entendres regarding about Jude Law and his threat to speechmakers that "If you carry on too long my breast might accidentally pop out" alone made it worth watching.

[While looking for a link to mention of Pucca and noodles, I found (a.) that, alas, lovepucca.net is no more and (b.) this picture of "modern Corean superheros". Enjoy!]