Intracacies of Shu

So, by now you've guessed that I spend a lot of time with my housemate, Shu(pronounced as Sue). If I were to summarize her, I'd say she was a 'tender woman'.

Shu is originally from Guangzhou, China. She's been unemployed for 1.5 years and has relied solely on her savings during that time. That's a great accomplishment by any measure. Granted, she's saved for 6 years while she lived in Boston and she's an accountant studying for her CPA exam. But, she lives in such a way that she'll never turn down an offer to go out to eat at a restaurant and groceries must always be the highest quality.

I've lived in the same townhouse with Shu since December. She lived in an in-law and had a bad experience because the fumes from her housemate's car seeped through her door and into her room. She went to the emergency room and fell down from the wheelchair while there; injuring her right knee. Shortly after, she decided to move out and into this house in Park Merced. We've gone to numerous doctors of both western and eastern medicine and I'm not sure she's become any better today than 6 months ago. After the first month, she had a friend of a housemate come in and massage her left ankle the wrong way, spraining it. Since then, we've been to 3 chinese herbal doctors in Oakland, 1 in Chinatown, 1 in Sutter, and 1 on Noriega for her ailments. She's also been to American doctors at UCSF and the General Hospital. And somehow, she's paid for all these out of her own pocket, though hopefully she gets medicard approval for reimbursement.

The reason I refer to her as a tender woman, is because physically she's a bit well, tender. Emotionally, she's very sensitive to violence or 'evil' in the world. Philosophically, she needs to open up to the real world. Culinarily, she almost always refers to the food we eat in terms of its tenderness. As in, "this is quite tender." Or "that beef dish looks very tender". She's also quite sensitive to how the food makes her feel good or bad afterwards. She's very intelligent but I need to increase her adjective collection or else I start to refer to things in terms of their tenderness. Case in point.

Because of Shu's immobility and our need for groceries, I spend most of my days off driving her to shops and stores. Going to Chinese markets was quite amusing(except for seeing how butchers open up a turtle) but finding parking to go to 3-4 different Chinese markets was almost unbearable. One market may be good for fish, one for meat, and the one for vegetables is always different than the previous market.

Today, we went to the Embarcadero Ferry building because I bought good organic lamb there two months ago. She didn't like the freshness of the fish and we both think the meat is a bit too costly for a week's worth so we went to the wonderous Whole Foods on 4th street. Afterwards, we went to Safeway to get fish, asparagus, oranges, water, orange juice and toothpaste. She wanted to go to Noriega for Chinese vegetables, but I convinced her(and she was persuaded by overuse of her legs) that we'd be able to make do with american vegetables in the form of tomatoes and lettuce. From start to finish, our shopping took 5 hours.

Two hours and a nap later, we went to this close restauraunt on Vicente called the Riverside seafood restaurant. They had good 'bird'(tasty quail looking thing I've had 4 times but still don't know the american name), spinach with preserved egg and egg, and combo seafood in bird's nest. I always let her order because she makes good decisions, always orders a vegetable and the waiters always speak in Chinese/Mandarin.

Besides the time we spend grocery shopping and doctor visiting, we've had dinner together for all but 7 nights in the past 4 months. We keep each other company because we don't have many friends and I dedicate myself to work so much that I don't do much else than skate. But she often drives me crazy. I'm very grateful for her for cooking all the time and I try to best to clean dishes and try to make life easy for her, but whenever she's negative about her health outlook or narrow in her views of the world, I return to that mode of self-questioning that goes, "How did I get here?" "Is it time for me to make some changes?"

Shu quirks:
Words or phrases that need work, "asparagus, olive oil, clam, how do you think?"
Believes that all raw fish will cause worms under the skin.
Believes women's fate is pre-determined by the curved angle of their nails.
Must have a 'green leaf' vegetable for dinner. Must have rice with dinner.
Believes that people from North China or Taiwan are bad.
Thinks that people from SF are untrustworthy and that none compare to Boston
Thinks that Korean people are more attracted to her than Chinese people.
Can not bear violence in movies and will whimper when those scenes occur.
Would not finish movies that I liked, 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sassy Girl, House of Flying Daggers'; only likes Gone With The Wind and A Beautiful Mind(in Boston).
Believes in good luck and bad luck.
Makes quick judgements from few experiences.

Random side-note: I'd like to introduce myself to someone by full name and add, "but you can call me blue."
Watched: Real Genius - Inspiring and yet self-reflecting, "Why didn't I go to that kind of college?"