dinner at Cheng's

Lois, Thomas, Jessica (Diane's youngest), and Marcus had dinner at a Chinese Buffet.  Jessica ate lots of dessert.  You'd think she'd be fat, but nope.  She's growing taller; I'm growing wider.

 

We got fortune cookies at the end of the meal.  Jessica's was the oddest:

"You will receive a fortune. (cookie)"

Mother's was quirky, but differently:

"All troubles you have can pass away very quickly."

Thomas and Marcus got fortunes, but they weren't significant.  Confuscionism meets the West in fortune cookies.  Anyway, we ended the evening with High School Musical, a Disney movie.  It wasn't very good.

 

Thomas and Jessica found it in a video vending machine -- kid you not.  I'll ask Father to write about how the thing truly works, as I wasn't there.  Lois got pulled into a phone conversation -- long, so didn't see much of the movie.

 

Marcus took home Jessica and spoke with Diane and Jim for a long, long time (~ 4 hours).  Jim stopped at 1 and Diane and Marcus were finished at 2.  Diane's summer is now going to be filled with an assignment, courtesy of her boss at school.  When she described it, it seems like a trial in humility.  The federal government sat on a tack and now has some more paperwork for everyone to file.

 

Diane, Jim and Marcus discussed the disgust with movies in general.  Similtaneously the TV was showing Top 2005 worst movies as per Roger Ebert and partner.  I don't trust critics as they laud movies from an underdog director -- the movie full of pasture waste or pander to the masses of a movie that's neat to watch only once.

 

Father took some food for church, but Mother, who was up late again, didn't go.  The food pantry, a service to the community that gives discounted/free food to needy families in the area, doesn't have enough donations to give one meal a week to each family.  It's shameful.  The church, however, does take in a great deal of weekly money, but it's spent on funding other things, so again the poor get the short end.  Anyway ... it's a good cause, and perhaps later things will improve.

 

Despite the heat and humidity, Jessica is supposed to mow the grass today.  She has few ways of earning money as she is just 14 and needs a work permit to get most jobs.  She mows Thomas' lawn for money.  Good luck to her in the heat.