Seriously, I don’t know how you guys do it. I read your blogs about staying out until three a.m. and getting up at six to go to work. And I think to myself, "Yeah, I have vague recollections of doing the same thing in my youth…" I’m sitting in the family room now, and I’m remembering a time nearly 13 years ago when I sat in nearly the same spot at three a.m. talking with my new ‘girlfriend’, whom I didn’t suspect at that moment would become my wife. But we would regularly stay up late in what was then her parents’s family room, talking, watching TV, or playing cards.
Thirteen years later, if I stay up even as late as one a.m., as I did last night, I pay a dear price the next day. Ayumi was her normal cheerful and talkative self at five thirty this morning. And trying to send her back to bed resulted in her barging into her brother’s room, waking him up, and setting off a chain of events that included yelling, hitting, tickling, hysterical laughter, more yelling and more hitting. By seven, we were pretty certain our night of rest was over.
So Saturday afternoon, after the chores and errands, turns into the surrogate Friday night at the Fong house. The current silence is the same that can be heard at three a.m., including the incredibly loud snoring of the dog, who is keeping me company as I write. The next hour, while the kids nap, is the most stress-free hour of our weekend.
So can anyone tell me what the name of this thing is? We had dim sum today, and I was so excited to find real dim sum in the ‘burbs that I ordered all the favorites of my childhood. In my house, my dad, and my aunts and uncles referred to this little treat as a ‘greaseball’. Not the most appetizing name for it, but I must admit, pretty accurate. This is the one with red bean paste inside. My favorite one has meat instead.
Sunday, January 8, 2006 at 10:43PM 
I should have ordered the chicken porridge.
