An Evening at Home with Leona and Roast Duck

8-31-13

      It has been raining since Wednesday evening. It’s raining now. I haven’t ridden the bike in three days, unless I count the half hour round-trip to American Eagle yesterday afternoon. Leona and I haven’t left the neighborhood on a scooter since Wednesday, too. Hopefully I can ride the bike later today.

      We had a nice evening at home yesterday. I went out to the shabby stand outside the store front near Family Mart where there are a few roast ducks in a glass case. I bought half a duck for 230NT. The gentleman there roasts the ducks himself in a steel drum out in front of his stand near the curb. Then, he cuts it up, leaving the meat and skin on a plate while cooking the bones in a wok with some sauce and greens. His mother helps pack it in a plastic bag to later make soup. We get flour tortilla and plum sauce to make moo-shu Peking duck. It was delicious! There’s a lot of soup left over.

      At 9pm, I made nachos cheese tortilla chips and opened a bottle of Rioja wine we got at Jason’s. We watched “ Rope,” a Hitchcock film with Jimmy Stewart neither of us had seen before. It was a very nice evening. After the film, I sat outside under the round jut of balconies over our bedroom sliding patio door and watched the rain fall around me. Wished I had a smoke. Leona topped it off with her routine watching of talk shows while I took a shower and went to bed at 11pm. I woke up when Leona came in at 1am after finishing watching the talk shows. Then, I couldn’t get back to sleep until 3am. Finally, I got back to sleep only to wake up at 6am to feed the cats.

      I sent the edited “Brightest Star in Tan-Zih” to replace the last edit in the short story blog. Then, I shared it on Facebook.