the routine

We seem to have settled into a weird little routine here at the homestead: when lunchtime rolls around, we feed the renovators. There are usually about five of them on any given day, though today there are only two. For the most part, the renovators get Korean fare (jajang-myeon yesterday; ojingeo-bokkeum today), which is fine since most of them are Korean, though we often see a few Hispanics in the crew. ¿No hay problemas con la comida coreana? I ask in my fractured Spanish. They reply-- sometimes in English-- that, no, it's actually quite good. I needn't have worried. Most folks from hispanophone countries like it spicy.

I help Mom where I can, though I admit I'm not the best with Korean food, unless it's ddeok-bokki. My main role is at dinner, when I break out more Western fare. Thus far, it's been spaghetti bolognese (delish), beef burgundy (also delish), sandwiches and tomato soup (not very good, as it was jury-rigged with unconventional ingredients), and even a blackberry jam that is, at best, mediocre. If life were an Iron Chef contest, Mom would still come out to the winner; her cooking nunchi* remains far superior to mine. Which is perhaps as it should be.

My role at lunch is mainly in helping to put together Mom's concepts and to set the workbenches for lunch. Mom comes up with the culinary ideas, gathers ingredients, and asks for my help as sous-chef. During dinner, the roles are partly reversed, though Mom still insists on doing things like making salad to go with whatever I'm cooking.

We're happy to be using up so much food; part of what we're doing is getting rid of our excess supplies before the kitchen is finally torn up and totally remodeled. After that, we'll be relying more heavily on the backyard grill-- and possibly a Dutch oven, if I can convince the parents to buy one. We've still got a mess of New York strip steaks in the downstairs freezer... pair that up with some shrimp I saw hiding in there as well, and one of these nights is gonna be Surf n' Turf Night.

The post-dinner routine involves a cleanup of the kitchen, and sometimes a general vacuuming of the floor to make the place navigable without shoes. Mom tends to go downstairs around 8PM to begin watching her Korean dramas on cable for two or three hours; if dinner is served late, she'll eat leftover Korean food downstairs while Dad and I eat leftover Western food and deal with the dishes. Dad gets Mom's TV space ready by unwrapping the TV; the entertainment center is usually covered with a plastic dropcloth all day long to protect the equipment from sawdust and the like. It's also Dad's job to get the exposed bedroom ready for when Mom goes to sleep: during the day, the bed serves as a cargo palette on which Dad stacks boxes and boxes of his and Mom's (and the kids') possessions, thereby freeing up floor space and wall space for the renovators. Load the bed in the morning; unload it at night-- that's Dad's task.

While the renovators are here, there are other things to do, though I'm not usually involved with them. Dad will shop for hardware store items or work things out with the cable company; Mom will shop for food to supplement our supplies (we often have 90% of the ingredients already in stock, but need a few more to round out a given recipe). I helped one renovator register to vote, mowed the front yard, helped Dad carry the 150-pound air conditioner down to the street (another finger-slash pic is on the way), and have been superficially involved with sundry yard work, such as weed killing and the reduction of a huge pile of wood in the form of clipped branches, thorny brambles, and chain-sawed logs.

So there's a lot to occupy us, and the renovators move among us, practically part of the family now. I practice my Korean with the Korean guys and occasionally attempt Spanish with the Spanish-speaking crew. I also continue to work on graphics, formulate Craigslist ads, and look for work. Oh, yeah-- and I'm trying to get back into walking, though my legs weren't feeling so hot last night.

That's life at home these days. Next week, I'm meeting the folks to whom I hope to be tutoring French (they told me they're looking at another tutor as well). At the end of October, when the parents get Verizon FiOS installed, I plan to use some of my cash to get my laptop repaired, get a router to feed off the parents' FiOS line, and apply for work as an online essay grader. Sometime within the next few weeks, I will have established a more or less steady cashflow. Cross them fingers.

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*The word nunchi is very hard to translate. In this context, think of it as intuition. Koreans often use the term in reference to social situations, e.g., being able to pick up on the general mood among a group of friends, or being able to "read" another person's thoughts or intentions based on a number of "fuzzy" factors. When asked, I often translate nunchi variously as intuition, perceptivity, percipience, or even situational awareness. Basically, it's knowing what to do in any given situation. Truly perceptive Koreans say they possess "quick nunchi" ("Nan nunchi-ga bballayo!").

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