By the skin of my teeth

Today is the full moon, which also means it is the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. I've known the date for quite a while now, but that didn't stop me from scrambling at the last minute to pull something together. I rearranged the week's menu, so that we had an cabbage and sausage stir-fry for dinner along with Vietnamese cucumber salad. That was the easy part.

This afternoon, after my riding lesson and shower, R., Y. and I headed to the Chinese market in hopes of finding moon cakes. (I knew from past experience that H-Mart was not the place to look at the last minute. This seems to be a habit with me.) Last year I had bought some moon cake molds with the grand idea that I would learn to make moon cakes myself. Since this afternoon was the day of the festival, clearly that didn't happen. The store was my last resort. 

We did find some, though the options were very limited. They were lotus root flavored (I think). There were no black bean paste moon cakes or date moon cakes or pineapple moon cakes. These are our favorites. While the ones we had were okay, I need to begin my shopping a little earlier next year to get our favorites. I also bought some pineapple cakes as well. These weren't moon cakes, but they were pineapple paste enclosed in dough, so that satisfied us a bit. 

After the shopping trip, I realized that the dining room table was looking a wee bit summery, so I quickly fixed that as well.

To make it a more festive occasion, I also got out the "good" chop sticks. This excited H. particularly, and she helped me set them out. Because we were being fancy, I also got out the chop stick rests that we have. We have a collection, but tonight we stuck with ducks...

and turtles.

It's nice that most of our Asian tableware is a mix of things we picked-up in Vietnam and China, the chop sticks and chop stick rests being no exception. 

The only thing we did not do tonight was head outside to look at the moon. It has been overcast all day, and while I'm sure the moon is up there somewhere, it cannot be seen at the moment. Maybe later in the week we can catch a glimpse of it. 

So, notes to myself for next year:

• Buy moon cakes a couple of week in advance
• Order lanterns to use as decorations in advance
• Plan a more purposeful menu
• Invite friends (Will we be able to do that? Boy, I hope so!)

But I pulled off a holiday. Sort of. This definitely falls into the good enough category at this moment.