i am happiest when programming. really. last week i jumped back into programming the roots database. and it's about time. it's been what, almost two years? it makes me impatient to finish up my chinese degree.

when we were making 湯圓 last week, that was happy too. every year at winter solstice we make them. i don't know what to call them in english. david's dad favors "dumplings," but they're really just balls rolled from sweet rice flour, and i always think of dumplings as having things in them. i'm sure i've talked about this before: i have the biggest problem with food names. at david's house i was trying to explain what was in the soup that the 湯圓 go into, which includes 紹菜. "it's called siu choy," i faltered. then a revelation at the market today: siu choy is napa cabbage. and now the question is: why is napa cabbage called napa cabbage?

anyway, so here we were rolling the 湯圓, my mom, my grandma, and me. it was such a happy domestic scene. but alas, life is so much more complicated then rolling rice flour into balls.