Now I feel I need some Noro therapy. It is just so pretty!
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Sad memories
I used to have these two friends that were in the restaurant business. They worked really hard (from 9a to 11p Monday-Saturday) in their little restaurant. They had a few waitresses from the local university to handle the lunch crowd during the day, but only had their kitchen staff of two and themselves to handle the other hours of the day which included deliveries,waiting on tables and cooking.
At the time there were a few things that I could not agree with in how they chose to run their business. 1) They lied on their taxes (not admitting they were the actual owners and by record only paying themselves 15,000 as managers. 2) The kitchen staff were illegals. I think I overlooked these obvious flaws because of how they were. The four of them lived in a tiny apartment in a not so nice neighborhood and drove a car that had seen betters days. The clothes that they wore were simple and all they seemed to do was work (aside from Sunday). When I challenged them on the illegal help and how they are treated, I was quickly told "all Chinese restaurants do this". My friends at least paid them well and treated them as family. When we went out to eat " American" food with them, the kitchen help always came along. The head cook ofter showed me photos of his two boys and how wealthy they were because of his help. It was worth it to him that he would never be able to go home again just to make sure his family was taken care of and well (if he left, he could never return because his papers were forged).
Our first crack in the fragile egg of friendship came when we both had our first child. Theirs came first at two months early. While she was on maternity leave, he was left to run the restaurant by himself. The baby was in the hospital for the first three months of her life and the car was at the restaurant needed for deliveries. She was left alone at the house while he worked. They only took her to see the baby when someone from his family found the time to take her there (her family were still in Hong Kong). Often she was left alone because she needed to rest and was not to be disturbed. Once while visiting I got to witness a hissy fit of his because it was not fair that she got to lie around all day while he worked at the restaurant. He could care less that she almost died during labor or that the baby was very ill. He could not run the restaurant alone and demanded she come back to work. He pressed her often until she hired a live in nanny to take care of the child. Often they only saw their baby(later child) for a few hours in the morning and not once getting up with the baby at night or dealing with any illnesses.
Fast forward six years. Now the restaurant friends are very wealthy with a string of restaurants, a million dollar house and Mercedes in the driveway next to the Escalade.
We don't communicate much anymore. Years ago, we ran out of things to say to one another. They live in the world of business deals and fancy vacations. The cute immigrant charm is gone. Their Chinese friends are gone replaced by white upper class neighbors from one of the country clubs. Every year I invite them to my child's birthday party and for the last two years they have not bothered to even RSVP their regrets. I miss my silly friends. I do wish them well. Farewell good times.
Now I hear from an employee, the INS has raided all of their restaurants twice and he has a girlfriend that runs one of the restaurants. I was told that he and the girlfriend do not even bother to hide their relationship from anyone including his wife and child. When the employee asked me why I thought she would put up with this behavior ...all I could think of was how could they get divorced. They probably cannot afford anyone looking at their finances too closely.
At the time there were a few things that I could not agree with in how they chose to run their business. 1) They lied on their taxes (not admitting they were the actual owners and by record only paying themselves 15,000 as managers. 2) The kitchen staff were illegals. I think I overlooked these obvious flaws because of how they were. The four of them lived in a tiny apartment in a not so nice neighborhood and drove a car that had seen betters days. The clothes that they wore were simple and all they seemed to do was work (aside from Sunday). When I challenged them on the illegal help and how they are treated, I was quickly told "all Chinese restaurants do this". My friends at least paid them well and treated them as family. When we went out to eat " American" food with them, the kitchen help always came along. The head cook ofter showed me photos of his two boys and how wealthy they were because of his help. It was worth it to him that he would never be able to go home again just to make sure his family was taken care of and well (if he left, he could never return because his papers were forged).
Our first crack in the fragile egg of friendship came when we both had our first child. Theirs came first at two months early. While she was on maternity leave, he was left to run the restaurant by himself. The baby was in the hospital for the first three months of her life and the car was at the restaurant needed for deliveries. She was left alone at the house while he worked. They only took her to see the baby when someone from his family found the time to take her there (her family were still in Hong Kong). Often she was left alone because she needed to rest and was not to be disturbed. Once while visiting I got to witness a hissy fit of his because it was not fair that she got to lie around all day while he worked at the restaurant. He could care less that she almost died during labor or that the baby was very ill. He could not run the restaurant alone and demanded she come back to work. He pressed her often until she hired a live in nanny to take care of the child. Often they only saw their baby(later child) for a few hours in the morning and not once getting up with the baby at night or dealing with any illnesses.
Fast forward six years. Now the restaurant friends are very wealthy with a string of restaurants, a million dollar house and Mercedes in the driveway next to the Escalade.
We don't communicate much anymore. Years ago, we ran out of things to say to one another. They live in the world of business deals and fancy vacations. The cute immigrant charm is gone. Their Chinese friends are gone replaced by white upper class neighbors from one of the country clubs. Every year I invite them to my child's birthday party and for the last two years they have not bothered to even RSVP their regrets. I miss my silly friends. I do wish them well. Farewell good times.
Now I hear from an employee, the INS has raided all of their restaurants twice and he has a girlfriend that runs one of the restaurants. I was told that he and the girlfriend do not even bother to hide their relationship from anyone including his wife and child. When the employee asked me why I thought she would put up with this behavior ...all I could think of was how could they get divorced. They probably cannot afford anyone looking at their finances too closely.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Look at the list of (100) books below.
Bold the ones you’ve read.
Italicize the ones you want to read.
Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
Movies don’t count.
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings:
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Gol.
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving))
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27.
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80.
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
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