I can see you weren't burdened with an overabundance of education.

The big debate of my morning has been whether cloud ears and wood ears are the same thing. I think they may be. Not really knowing this before the trek to Central Market, I passed on the fresh wood ears. In the Asian aisle, there was a black bag of dried fungi next to the golden needles (dried lily flowers). I needed the latter and they so often seem to go hand-in-hand. I figured I'd just go for it. Now I have these mystery black dried fungi (strips) that I'm fairly sure are not cloud ears. I may use them anyway. It's for mu-shu pork...I can always try a tiny bit first. I don't even like mushrooms to begin with, but I'm trying. Especially in a stir-fry situation.

Also found Chinese rice wine, Shaoxing, in the Asian aisle. Luckily I wandered through the check-out line right at 12. It didn't even occur to me, but I lucked out and managed to look like a total alcoholic all at the same time. What I love about the rice wine is that they've slapped a label on it saying, "Cooking Wine," right over the original print that says, "Not for sale or use as a beverage," which I find very intriguing. Like sex toys that say, "For external use only," or the (legal) hallucinogenic mushrooms I used to buy in Tokyo that said, "For decorative purposes only." As if anyone decorates with mushrooms. Ah yes. I guess bongs here say that, too. Anyhoo.

Those four houses? Wow. Barf, next. The HUD house was a disaster--anyone who could fix it up, great deal, but us? The bathtub's side was kicked in, ALL the carpets were stained, one of the walls had brown splatter--you would have never guessed from the pictures!! The others were just weird. The best one was indeed #4, but the kitchen was TOTALLY lame. Little white maggoty bugs in the left hand side of the sink scared me off. Three large (dead) roaches per room--waterbug-sized didn't do a lot for me, but the house is next to a wetland and has been vacant for nearly two months. They were dead. It's a hard call, since I loathe roaches but love the quiet neighborhood, and one can presume the insect life could be kept under control? The foundation being shitty just kinda sealed the deal. Too much of a pain in the ass.

So the search continues and I've expanded beyond 2-stories. Sniff.

We are very much enjoying the Firefly. I bumped up disc 2 on my Netflix. I felt bad for Kylee (sp?) the mechanic, who was also in Wonderfalls, the other incredible Fox show to be cancelled at one season. At least she was in two awesome shows...How the heck did House ever survive this long?