Spaghetti & Wine

Amy's coming over tonight to make spaghetti with me, refreshingly American, even though you can get spaghetti around the world. Wheat noodles here, however, still strike me as something of a gourmet food item, like cheddar cheese or Reese's peanut butter cups. Those Reese's peanut butter cups! So delicious, something really chocolate, that I think is chocolate before I put it in my mouth and does not fail to disappoint. Far too often in this country, I wander through some market or down some windy road and see some vendor selling a delicate treat which I am sure is chocolate, and is, as a matter of course, red bean paste. I love Asian culture, please don't get me wrong, but dessert is something that Western culture just does better. Cream and butter and sugar and real chocolate in all manners of equally ingenious and mouthwatering designs. Whereas "dessert" here almost requires the presence of rice and red beans. All very well in a savory dish, and even acceptable in certain sweets, but not all the time. I sorely miss a real, chewy, fresh baked brownie with a scoop of the smoothest vanilla ice cream and generous helpings of hot fudge.

She asked me to buy some mushrooms and cream, am not sure exactly what she's planned, but am sure it will be tasty. I bought a bottle of cheap Chilean wine, and will probably introduce her to some old movie with Marilyn Monroe or Cary Grant. I only hope she'll understand it well enough to appreciate the humor, but I am sure I can dig up something in my admittedly meager collection, compared to many, but all carefully chosen. She very much enjoyed Flight of the Conchords on a previous visit, and I may simply resort to that, although "resort" is not the best word, I fairly savor that show. No more than my others, but it is so adorably cute and with that degree of friendship emanting from the two friends that makes a part of me melt. I am a sucker for romance in any form. Hence my fascination with most of the films and shows I obessess over. Romance, intrigue, suspense, wit, good writing...but above all romance.

Lucy is curled up on my couch now. Amy should be arriving in twenty minutes, which leaves me twenty minutes to lie on the couch so that Lucy can curl up with me, as she is always anxious to do. Or I could, in the meantime, study some Korean to prep myself for speaking Korean with Amy tonight, although it is a constant battle between my desire to speak Korean and her desire to simply speak English. My Korean is poor, but it doesn't have to say that way. I plan on becoming fluent, or at least managing survival Korean. Conversational Korean has been something I've been working hard on lately and is my priority, among getting to work and making sure I eat at least two meals a day.