Why is it snowing?

Thursday afternoon it hailed (just what my poor car needs, more hail spots) and now it's 30-something and snowing! Apparently it was just wishful thinking on my part when I packed up most of my sweaters last weekend. It's mid-April, can't we just have spring weather yet? I mean, if I'd wanted a lots of winter weather, I would've stayed in Montreal. (Actually, I kind of did want to stay in Montreal, though not necessarily cause of the weather, and, anyway, that's besides the point.)

I guess if nothing else, at least it's a good day to hang out at home and read, which is what I've been doing. Silver linings and all that.

Sweet pork buns, where have you been all my life?

It's no great secret that I love food, and I enjoy trying new things. For several years I've wanted to try dim sum, but I didn't know of any Chinese restaurants in Columbus that offered it. (Which makes more sense to me after one of my roommates in Montreal explained that dim sum is a regional thing. She said they have it in Hong Kong, but not in her family's home province.) Today we went to Bo Lings restaurant for lunch and it turns out they have dim sum on Saturdays! And really, how could you order from the regular menu when there's a new dining adventure at hand?

For those who've never tried it, dim sum consists of many small dishes, for instance steamed dumplings. The servers circulate around the restaurant with a cart of dishes for diners to pick from. At first we were slightly overwhelmed by all the choices we were offered, but we eventually figured out how the system worked and got to try some really great stuff, including everything from spring rolls to dessert.

My favorite of everything we tried was the cha siu bao, which is a bun filled with sweet barbecue pork and either steamed or baked. The steamed ones were good, but the baked ones were amazingly delicious. It was almost like eating a dessert--if your dessert typically includes pork. Yum! If you're ever out for dim sum, I highly recommend that you try these.

After lunch we stopped at Half-Price Books because it was only a few doors down, so really how could we not? I bought two new books: The Dead Fathers Club by Matt Haig and Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Neither book looks like it has been read before, and the first one was originally priced £12, but I got it for a mere $6. That's about a quarter of the original price! What's not to love about that?