In his impious desire to be occupied with some sort of manual labour, Georg decided that the cable modem needed to be moved -- for aesthetic reasons. Not much, maybe a meter or two from it's current location.
Only problem is that the same aesthetic reasons also forbid him to run a cable along the wall. So after a bit of deliberation he decided the best way to do this was to break out the angle grinder and cut a small trench across the wall. Fast, efficient and not too loud -- the wall gets mostly pulverized and the tiny dust particles just vanish. At least this seems to have been the plan.
There is a door (closed) and about five meters of hallway between the newly cut trench and my room and still it feels like I'm living on a sandy beach. Dust between my teeth, under my feet and even in my bed -- but I guess I am the lucky brother. Christof's room was covered with a layer of dust -- his table, his bed, his carpet floor and my jackets that were hanging in his room.
I'm not going to complain about a few dusty jackets of mine, when my living quaters so narrowly escaped to be turned into what I now call the great sandy cave.
Oh and whoever thinks we could just use the vacuum cleaner to remove the mess -- the ultra fine dust particles got into the motor and brought it to a grinding halt after just a few seconds. Judging by the burnt smell emanating from the vacuum cleaner I fear that this time it will be a permanent one.
Amongst my friends in Japan bento -- especially the 愛妻弁当[^1] -- is all the rage now. This and the slippery slope of trying to be a good boyfriend motivated me to try and cook one myself.
Surely preparing bento must be super easy -- every good japanese housewife mass-produces them every day. Every japanese high school girl dreams of cooking an artfully prepared bento to share with her boyfriend and even japanese kindergartners judge the value of their mothers by comparing bento decoration.
So off I went to the first japanese site that explains how to prepare these most wondrous things.
e-obento -- crazy bento decorations for every day
Go look at that link now -- even if you don't speak Japanese!
After maybe ten minutes on that side I decided that I want to prepare something modest. Not for lack of confidence, but because I didn't want to seem too pretentious with my first japanese bento.
A simple one with chicken & bell pepper in a sesame sauce and broccoli with wasabi flavour sounded like the ideal choice. A paltry twenty minutes preparation time -- it takes my brother longer to prepare scrambled eggs -- and well balanced nutritional facts made the prospect even better.
There was a funny note about using an electric kettle to pre-heat the water and thereby save two to three minutes, but I shrugged that off as a simple translation error on my side.[^2]
Anyway forty minutes and a staple dirty pots later[^3] I noticed that I had just cooked lunch for a whole japanese family -- or one hungry european student.
This adventure clearly taught me that bento are delicious, beautiful, fun and probably the main reason why japanese are so slim. It also taught me that I'm not cut out to be a good japanese housewife. To be able to cook that in 20 minutes I'd need at least another pair of arms -- even better a couple kitchen slaves.
[^1]: A lunch packet made by one's caring and loving wive
[^2]: This is not a joke! She really wrote something like "Who has the time to wait until the water boils in a normal pot"
[^3]: Especially interesting since Japanese households typically don't have dish-washers