The Randomness of My Life

In my lifetime, a number of very strange, bizarre, and kooky things have happened to me, but this may take the cake.  A couple of months ago, I bought a Buywithme deal for car detailing from an eco-friendly, mobile service.  The structure where I park for work would not allow the mobile detailer to clean my car from the parking garage so I switched cars with K for the day and they spiffy'ed up my car at his work parking lot.  He kept calling me through the day to give me updates on my car.  After they finished up my car, K called me to consult how much to give as a tip and to tell me that they did a great job with the clay bar on the paint.

He also told me this:

• K: "They found an ET in your car."
• Me: "A what?"
• K: "An ET.  A little one."
• Me: "What?!  An alien in my car?"
• K: "No, a little plastic guy.  What was he doing in your car?"
• Me: [utterly bewildered] "What do you mean, they found an ET?"
• K: [gasp of exasperation] "I'll bring him home tonight to show you, but it's a little plastic figurine of ET!"

And there it was.  A tiny plastic ET...exactly as K had described it to me.  I have never seen it before, nor do I know how or why it was wedged in the upholstery of my car.  Before we moved out of our old place, I carefully hid the ET in a little nook of our closet so someone else can have a random moment!

Superbowl Pork Buns

For Superbowl Sunday this year, I decided to try my hand at making Nikuman (Chinese style pork buns) after seeing so many delicious pictures of these pork buns on B's facebook.  The recipe comes from a Japanese cooking show called "Cooking With Dog" which is hosted by a cute little Japanese lady, dubbed over in English by an awkward sounding man, and features a real live poodle named Francis that just sits to the side and oddly enough, never once lurches toward all the food in front of her face.  Note, Asian people should never, ever title anything "cooking with dog" for the obvious double entendre associated with such a phrase!  Never...not even when the dog is helping to cook rather than being cooked (gruesome, yes)...sigh! 

The pork buns were not difficult to make, per se, they were just really, really time consuming for the amount of grubbing you actually got to do afterwards.  I started right after kickoff and I think we had but a mere 8 buns at the 4th quarter.  I am so ghetto that I used a butter knife with a round handle to roll out the dough because I do not own a rolling pin.  Oh well.  They were still quite tasty!

Above: uncooked pork buns ready to go in the steamer!

Below: four steamed buns - moist and flavorful on the inside with doughy goodness on the outside!