Amanda Takes Off...

We chatted with Mother and Sister tonight. Mother told us that she had a dream that we had a baby. A very tall, half-white, half-Korean basketball playing baby.

In Korean culture there's this idea you have a pregnancy dream (태몽) before conceiving.

This horrifies me.

I can only comfort myself with the idea that Mother is pregnant.

Good Man calls me a drill instructor sometimes. He does so lovingly. "You are like drill instructor! This is like first day at boot camp! I married drill instructor!"

Good Man took his driving permit test for the third time today.

I haven't written about this before because I was so upset about it that I couldn't be gracious.

In Virginia you have to pass a multiple-choice ten-question signs test perfectly, and then a 25-question multiple-choice written test with 80% accuracy.

The first time (in November) he got all the signs down pat but failed the written, non-signs part. He'd been studying online, but we figured it must be a language issues. So I found some downloadable Virginia test questions and ordered them for $15. I decided a $15 cost was better than a several hundred dollar class. Because the DMV only had copies of the manual in Spanish (DeMogic...), we also went to three—count them, three—libraries to get a new copy of it.

The second time (in December?), he failed the signs test. He told me he'd been distracted by some woman fighting with the clerk. I was very, very, very ungracious about this. I yelled at him that he would have distractions when he was driving, too. I told him I was no longer going to pick him up from school at 10 pm because he couldn't even get his permit and I was tired of being his chauffeur. I figured that would give him an incentive to get his permit.

Not one of my Best Wife Moments.

And the "incentive" didn't even work. He stalled. For a long time.

Finally, last weekend I told him that the one thing about this first year of marriage that has most angered me has been that he's stalled on the driver's license process. It's not that he's unlicensed. It's that he just... stopped... trying.

I hate being the only driver in the house. It makes me feel used. If we go out, I'm the one who always can't drink. I'm the one who has to drive when I'm tired. I've wanted to take road trips, but no way in hell are we doing it when I would have to be the only driver.

He told me he'd take it this week.

This morning I said, "Look, if you fail, it's OK. We'll pay for the class. I just want to move on in the process."

"I will not fail," he assured me.

I reminded him to bring more than he needs—his green card, his passport, his SSN card, our marriage certificate, a copy of his Roth IRA statement...everything. I remember the ridiculousness over our lease!

Well, turns out that he didn't bring his passport. He had this green card, but they wanted more proof that he was who he said he was. Student ID wouldn't work. Roth IRA statement wouldn't work. SSN card wasn't good enough. He was about to go home when he decided to offer up his EAD card. Luckily, he still had it in his wallet, and even though the green card overrides and makes it unnecessary...they took it! (After a check with the supervisor.)

Then the clerk asked him if he wanted to take the test on paper instead of on the computer. He didn't know that was an option. (The DMV website doesn't seem to think it's an option, either.) Good Man hates the computer-based test because it tells you after each question if you got it right or wrong. It makes him nervous and messes with his head.

So of course he opted for the paper test.

He was the only one there taking the paper test.

And he passed!

Oh, thank God (and Fairy Godmother for praying for him at work), thank my voodoo magic prayer (which I did while Fairy Godmother prayed), thank kimchi, and thank the Kind, Mind-Reading DMV Clerk. And thank Good Man!!

"I don't know why nobody else told me about paper test! I am Korean! If we are good at one thing, it is paper test! We learn paper test for 12 years!"

I feel like I just got my wedding anniversary gift 8 days early.

I have a three to five page paper about a current controversy in gifted education due on Friday. So that meant it was the perfect time to try my hand at a new bread recipe.

Swedish Rye Bread

Cut

I think it could use a few more minutes in the oven. Good Man disagrees and thinks it's perfect as it. And it rose (really! It did!) but there are not any visible yeast bubbles in the bread. I may have kneaded too much flour in.

In any case, it tastes wonderful and reminds me of the breakfasts we ate on our honeymoon. It's heavy, dense, and the molasses and fennel gives it great depth of flavor. So even if it's not perfect, it's really great.

And while I was kneading, I decided my position on the controversy. So I guess making the bread was worth it.

For a change of pace I'm making a bojagi—a Korean cloth used to carry stuff, wrap things, and hide things. I've always seen square ones but I had a nice big piece of purple floral linen/cotton cloth left over from a dress I made when I was 22.

It's a woven cloth and I yanked two threads clear across to get nice, straight cutting lines. Luckily, the piece had two selvage edges, so I only had to yank two threads.

I said, "Is this OK?" and held up the rectangle.

Good Man glanced at it. "Yeah, it should be square."

So I figured out the square size and yanked another woven thread across the whole piece. When I finished and held up the square he said, "What was wrong with it before?"

"You said it should be square!"

"Yeah, that was square, right?"

"No! That was a rectangle," I cried out.

Good Man sucked air through his teeth and shook his head, "English is too hard..."

I finished the second Pippi book (꼬 마백만장자 삐삐) today. I'm still below where I should be (if I'm perfectly on track to reach my goal), but hey, I'm trucking along. That's what matters.

I'm going to start the third Pippi book next. I'm on a roll with these books and I've gotten into the translator's groove. No reason to quit now!

Good Man and I are celebrating the one year anniversary of our legal ceremony in less than two weeks. We're debating between going somewhere and doing something around here. What complicates it (slightly) is that I have a class on Friday nights until 9:30 and Good Man has class on Mondays, so making it a three-day weekend is impossible. Plus, Mother and Father are coming for Good Man's graduation ceremony in May and I'd like to keep my two remaining personal days for his graduation. And we're going to Mom and George's at the end of next month, which sort of make me "ehhhh" about going somewhere else for just one night.

I was missing Korea today. Korea's rice cake looks bigger than America's.