Stephanie's birthday falls on September 23, the first (depending on who you ask) day of fall and the same day as my father's birthday. In the aftermath of all of this turmoil (and - as it turns out - descending grades), the three of us celebrated Stephanie's 35th birthday. I started out by delivering at lunch time to Stephanie's school - instead of a flower arrangement - an edible fruit arrangement with apple slices, grapes, strawberry slices, and some chocolate covering thrown in for good measure. (Astute readers will recall that the box later shows up in "Odd maladies.") Stephanie's colleagues and students enjoyed it at school (I don't think I've ever sent Stephanie flowers.) (Pictured above is the fruit - by the end of the night or even the next day - when not much fruit was left.)
That night - a weeknight - Stephanie picked a pan-Asian - Mongolian barbeque-Korean restaurant - we'd never been to - not too many miles from where the balloon glow had been the previous weekend. We nodded little to Stephanie's Mongolian students, since we focused on the Korean food. The proprietress/hostess - warming up to us as she realized we appreciated Korean food - eventually brought us Korean condiments (pictured below) - kimchi, fish cakes, and all (even if Vincent wouldn't cooperate with picture-taking). S tephanie and Vincent were also demonstrating their aptitude with chop sticks.
The hostess stopped by to personally finish preparing/stirring by dulset bee-bim-bop. Stephanie had chop chae and Vincent bul-ko-gi (though fixed in an unusual manner) - it was still all good.
Below - I believe - is Stephanie's chop chae (the first time we took Vincent for Korean food - near campus in Columbus - we sold him on shrimp chop chae - though it took him a while to master chop sticks use).
Pictured below is my bee-bim-pop - a rice dish with chili sauce cooked in an iron pot - with the rice sticking to the pot! I got sold on this dish on my first night out to eat with Taejeon - in South Korea - when I visited Penny and Serge there for two weeks in November 1995 (right before I met Stephanie and Vincent).
When we got home, Stephanie opened some presents - from us and Grandma Martha and her Mother Nancy, and cards - we had some edible fruit and carrot cake - plus Vincent made a model of a brain - with celery as the cerebellum - for the physiological psychology chapter of his Advanced Placement psychology class. The model worked in a way - his classmates helped eat it - and he remembered the parts of the brain he represented in the cake - and frogt the parts he left out (later on a test).
I gave Stephanie some Spanish phrase books for her possible upcoming mission network meeting trip to Guatemala and her Mom (?) gave her a shawl, among other things.
Pictured below is Vincent working on his brain cake - from a model to his left that he had drawn.
There's the model and the cake and then Vincent lighting the candles on Stephanie's birthday carrot cake.
We had a late night but we got some good Korean food, Vincent completed a school project, and we got to share some gifts and some good times.
Click on play, however to check out Vincent's odd "Happy birthday" rendition towards the end of the evening.
-- Perry
Pictured below is my bee-bim-pop - a rice dish with chili sauce cooked in an iron pot - with the rice sticking to the pot! I got sold on this dish on my first night out to eat with Taejeon - in South Korea - when I visited Penny and Serge there for two weeks in November 1995 (right before I met Stephanie and Vincent).
When we got home, Stephanie opened some presents - from us and Grandma Martha and her Mother Nancy, and cards - we had some edible fruit and carrot cake - plus Vincent made a model of a brain - with celery as the cerebellum - for the physiological psychology chapter of his Advanced Placement psychology class. The model worked in a way - his classmates helped eat it - and he remembered the parts of the brain he represented in the cake - and frogt the parts he left out (later on a test).
I gave Stephanie some Spanish phrase books for her possible upcoming mission network meeting trip to Guatemala and her Mom (?) gave her a shawl, among other things.
Pictured below is Vincent working on his brain cake - from a model to his left that he had drawn.
There's the model and the cake and then Vincent lighting the candles on Stephanie's birthday carrot cake.
We had a late night but we got some good Korean food, Vincent completed a school project, and we got to share some gifts and some good times.
Click on play, however to check out Vincent's odd "Happy birthday" rendition towards the end of the evening.
-- Perry
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