Salmon Swimming Upstream

Once upon a time, there was an overworked young mother, some say her name was Lien. Lien had a darling little school aged daughter, perhaps named Evie, for whom Lien enjoyed making nice little lunches. These lunches weren't necessarily elaborate affairs but they were cutely presented. Some days there were mini sandwiches cut into adorable shapes. Other days there were fruit and vegetables cut in the shape of stars. And other days there were elaborate foods that were designed to not only delight the taste buds but all other senses as well (ok, so I exaggerate, just a bit).

Alas, our overworked young mother went a few weeks without making so much as an oshinko tulip with green onion stems over rice. She feared that she was neglecting her little Evie and so decided one night to wake up early and make an extra special lunch of her little girl's favorite dinner.

Thus, on Monday, April 23rd at 7:30am (shush, that's early for ME okay?), Lien woke up and prepared to amaze her little Evie with her special lunch. She sliced and boiled potatoes, carefully prepared salmon, and slowly reduced a fine sweet red wine sauce (no I don't serve my baby alcohol, it's all burned off by the end). Then, Lien carefully arranged grilled salmon over mashed garlic potatoes in a cute little pink bento box. The salmon was then topped with the red wine sauce and beautifully garnished with sliced spring onions. It was a marvel to behold. Amazing to the taste. It was, one of Evie's favorite foods in a pink box. AND, it was prepared just in time for her to take to school for lunch (done in 40 minutes y'all!)

Lien, confident that she would be greeted with huge hugs and incredible kisses for all her efforts, wiped off her blood (just kidding), sweat, and tears and presented little Evie with her lunch. Evie, looked at the box! Peeked! And replied!

"Awww mom! I wanted a sandwich!"

>_<

*Picture from Sweet Pea's birthday party. L-R: My cousin Lil, Evie, and her buddy HQ.

Virginia Tech

I was ranting to Lien earlier today as she read the news, which seemed to focus on the exemplary lives the Virginia Tech students had lived.

It seems like the mainstream media has been trying to cover the students who were murdered, trying to make them stand out, to talk about all the positive things they’ve done, and all the things they won’t be able to do now that they were murdered. I have a big issue with this, were they all really that special?

In my mind, not really. For the most part, they were your average students, going to school, planning on getting a degree, and heading out into the working world. They weren’t superhuman, they weren’t any different than other college students, I’m sure they had their vices, went to parties and got wasted, missed class the next day, cheated on homework occasionally, talked crap about their classmates and professors. I think the thing to appreciate is that they were normal people, going about their normal routine, and one crazy murderer ended it all.

Do people have to be special in the eyes of the masses to be missed when they’re gone? Is it wrong to be okay with being average? I think the most important lesson, if there is one, to come out of the massacre is that people need to realize that death is a daily part of life, it can be random, and the only thing to do is to accept that and to live life as best we can.

Oh, and in response to that little “onedayblogsilence.com” that’s up in the left hand corner, I think it’s silly. Showing respect by being silent for 10 minutes I can understand, but to keep silent for a whole day when many of us are silent for weeks or months at a time online seems to be a bit silly. Why not devote one whole day to the discussion about violence and how to prevent it? You can do a lot more with discussion than you can with silence.

Why do the Virginia Tech students deserve more respect than anyone else who has been murdered? Because they’re a statistic? I sometimes think we give the people who commit these crimes too much power by devoting too much energy to the issue.

While googling for exact numbers of college students who have been murdered, I came upon this article. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/Dobbs.April18/index.html?eref=rss_topstories. Lou Dobbs covers the same question from a different angle, why focus so much on murders when other issues are more pressing, for example, the thousand college students that commit suicide every year.

Six Years and One Day

Dear J,

Six years and one day ago two geeks got married on the veranda of an old Victorian by Lake Merritt. Remember? You were drunk on DayQuil due to a head cold (no one had previously thought that one could possibly get drunk on DayQuil but you certainly proved them wrong). I was completely uncomfortable in my wedding dress because well, it was a dress and how often do I wear dresses. (But for you baby? Anything.) I remember having to be made up and having other people insist that I have my hair put up despite the fact that I had just cut it so that it was chin length (and so all our wedding photos have an weird bit of hair sticking out behind my neck). They took my glasses away so I couldn't SEE you when I walked down the isle, but it was alright. You were there to steady me in the end. (And now I will write something cheesy.) You are still there to steady me. (I'm not very good at writing mushy love letters.)

I love you. I love that even though I sound like I'm annoyed when you call me at the office asking when I'm going to go home, you call anyway. I love that if I'm craving something, you'll still go with me to get some even if you don't particularly like the cuisine (but then, outside of pizza and hamburgers, you don't exactly like anything else, what's up with that??) I love that, even though I forgot that our anniversary was this weekend, you remembered. 'Cause you're may not admit it, but I know you're mushy like that. Thanks for taking me out yesterday dear, dinner and a movie is all it takes for us really. I love that we don't need huge trips or gifts to prove to each other that we love each other. We already know and that's enough.

Lien

PS Just to clarify, for our 10th anniversary, we're going abroad right? Just checking. Please respond.

PPS Hot Fuzz was hilarious, thanks for watching it with me. I love that it was the perfect balance of proper English comedy and action movie (although a bit too much gore). Who knew that Jerry Bruckheimer would ever get a homage.

The Interview

This is actually a meme you ask for rather than are tagged for. Basically, you tag yourself by commenting on a participating blogger's blog, "I am an ego maniac." They then provide you with 5 questions they would like you to answer. My friend Daddy In A Strange Land asked me these 5 questions after I responded to his own 5 questions asked by Susan over at ReadingWritingLiving with "I am an ego maniac." You too can be an ego maniac if you like. =)

1. Describe your fantasy perfect bento box, container and contents.

I honestly love the look of traditional wood boxes. So I guess, my “fantasy perfect” bento box would be something like a round wood box. If it were somehow beautifully arranged with at least the following, I would be happy:

a) My favorite fuits, mangosteen - which CANNOT BE BOUGHT FRESH IN THE US, URGH! and raspberries

b) Good dark chocolate - at least 67% cacao, but no more than 80%

c) Good white chocolate

d) My favorite pretty veggies - baby carrots and broccolini

e) My favorite dish of the day - which changes since it would all depend on what I am craving at the moment, which becomes my favorite dish, like right now I would love to have some really really good galbi with radish kim chi over rice, mmm…

2. If you could design your dream job, what would it look like?

Once upon a time, my dream was to be an anthropologist specializing in early Southeast Asian cultures since I’ve always been interested in history and the nature and evolution of societies, especially those that affect my own modern experience. However, I couldn’t stand the idea that I’d have to get down and dirty and dig up things, anyone who knows me well enough knows that I cannot stand being or feeling dirty. Thus I moved on to my next love, Astronomy…and then I took an astronomy class and remembered that I hate math. No one ever tells you that studying stars has a lot of mind boggling math involved. My brain is not actually allergic to math like some people I know (ahem, including a certain friend who happens to be an accountant but never wants to figure out the bill when we eat out together, you know who you are) but my first astro-physics class really killed that dream. Finally, I thought to hell with it, my parents will take care of me if I’m poor (cuz I’m spoiled like dat) and decided that maybe I could try my hand at writing and became a literature major (which…still doesn’t quite work out since…well, have you considered how much a literature major normally ends up making???)

The moral of this story, is that I don’t know what my dream job is, it’s constantly changing with the circumstances I find myself in not to mention how much I like or dislike aspects of the occupation which I may not have thought of. I imagine anthropologists might actually have to travel quite a bit and astronomers would probably have late night hours and so neither of these professions, regular travel and late night hours aren’t actually things I’d consider right now because I have a family with whom I’d rather spend my time. (Although, my current job does require occasional travel and LOTS of late nights, it’s at a tolerable level.)

Now that I’m a parent, primary breadwinner and student, my perfect job is one that provides a decent salary with benefits along with a flexibility that would allow me to not only have a life with my family but also take classes as well. I should also mention that this dream job would have to be an occupation that I am able to do well but is also challenging with room to learn more. Thankfully, my current job fits the criteria. Once I’m done with school and move on to law school or when my kids get older, perhaps my needs will change and I’ll have to revise my dream, but right now, it’s pretty nice. I get to telecommute two days a week (and then some if I really need to) plus 27 days off per year y’all!

3. What lessons do you want your kids to take from their multi-ethnic Asian American heritage?

I have a lot of lessons I hope my kids will learn about their heritages, however one of the most important is the history of how they came to be here. Whether it be the history of how their grandparents (and mother by the way) escaped from Vietnam in a leaky boat only to spend nine months in a Hong Kong refugee camp waiting for an uncertain future, or about great grandparents who escaped from North Korea, not just once, but twice. Or the great great grandparents who came to the US over 100 years ago and who were forced to abandon everything they owned due to heightened xenophobia and racism during WWII and live in internment camps.

They need to know these things because they are American and they should never ever forget the price that was paid for them to be American. No matter what the government or anyone else says and even if some people look at them and ask them stupid questions about where they come from as if they didn’t belong here, they are American. They MUST know that they belong to this country, they own a part of it, their ancestors EARNED that for them.

4. If you could live anywhere, where would you live and why?

I already live where I want to live! I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, Oakland to be exact. Here's why, no matter where I go, Oakland and the Bay Area will always be home:

a) The weather! - We Northern Californians are SO spoiled, especially Oaklanders when it comes to the weather. We have gorgeous weather almost year round with temperatures normally between 60 and 75 for most of the year (not too hot, not too cold). It’s warmer than San Francisco and cooler than San Jose and usually sunny.

b) The diversity! - A lot of towns claim to have diverse populations but Oakland is truly diverse. There is no clear majority of any one race. African Amercicans make up approximately 30 percent, whites approximately 25 percent, Asians about 15 to 20 percent, Hispanics about 25 percent and the rest being mixed and “other”. The socio-economic run the gamut from super poor to super rich and I think I read somewhere that we have the third largest gay/lesbian/bisexual population in the country. I have friends from several different walks of life, races, and economic levels and my kids get to experience that diversity first hand. Some people say it’s not the reality of American life, but I think I like my reality better.

c) The food! - Lots of diversity means lots of yummy different kinds of food to eat. I could have pho in the morning, soul food for lunch, and some jerk chicken at night. With plenty of snacks of various other ethnic foods in between if I so chose (unfortunately, my schedule limits me to two meals a day or something :sigh:)

d) The surrounding area! If I ever get tired of Oakland, other great cities are less than half an hour away. Berkeley butts Oakland to the north, San Francisco is a short drive west across the Bay Bridge, and San Jose is only about 45 minutes south. And then of course, there are all the cool little towns and cities in between and not to mention the fact that places like Sonoma/Napa, Yosemite, Monterey, and Lake Tahoe are there for daytrips or weekends away.

e) The sports! - I am a sports fan. Baseball is my sport of choice and we have a great team in Oakland. The Oakland A’s consistently do well for a team with maybe about a quarter of the Yankee’s and Red Sox’s budget every year. For football, we have the Raiders who I don’t follow but they’ve got cute colors so they’re cool with me. And finally, the Golden State Warriors play here. Not even San Francisco has as many major league sports teams.

f) My family! – Of course.

5. What’s the best thing and worst thing about working (partially) from home?

The best thing? Seeing your kids all the time. The worst thing? Seeing your kids all the time and not having clear hours or set times when work is done and can be left alone.

Thanks to DISL for the questions. Want your own? Comment "I am an ego maniac." =)

Random Ramblings: Early Morning Edition

4:17am. It's been a very long day for me, but I just had to get a few thoughts off my mind before I put my trusty laptop away.

The Sweet Pea is lying on the couch next to me in just a little t-shirt and his diaper, scratching his tummy and contemplating whether he should wake up and keep me company. At least, that's what I think he's thinking. My baby boy, what wouldn't I do for him and his sister? Our lives are so very routine, everything is planned and expected. My trusty routine and calendar can tell me where I'll be at any given moment on any given day. J and the kids have routines too. There's comfort in ritual. I don't normally worry about my kids during the day since I know exactly where they ought to be and who's watching them (heck, it's even on occasion me). There's nothing wrong with routine really, just that no one believes you're really living when you do the same things over and over. And you know, in this day and age, unless you're doing something dramatic, it's not really living...but it's not really the same every day. No, not really.

Everyday the Sweet Pea changes a little. He grows a little taller, he learns a few more things, and even his face changes. I swear he's getting a new dimple in, where there was once only one, I see the hint of another on the opposite cheek. But it's easy to see change in little ones. Evie doesn't change quite as quickly, but every day, somewhere in our routine, she learns something new at school. There's a new revelation to be had and she's slowly learning to be more independent from her parents. Somewhere in the routine, my babies grow, they change, they do their living. And I take comfort in my absolute faith, that despite the changes and the little moments of life slipping through, the Routine, keeps them safe and will keep them well until they are old enough to go off to college and live a life away from me. Even then, I'll take comfort in knowing they'll just be doing what they are supposed to do. As long as they have a routine that takes them to class and back I'll only have to worry about the vacations and breaks in between.

Yesterday morning (now it is "yesterday"), 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech. The vast majority of those were young students who were following a routine. Many o them probably had parents like me, who would take comfort in knowing their child was going to class. It was just another Monday. Just another day...I'm holding my baby boy tighter now. He's not scratching his tummy anymore. We're just cuddling as I type over his shoulder with my laptop on my knees. We don't cuddle nearly enough. I think I need to change my routine. I think I need to make "life" a bigger part of it. I can't help but think about the families of the Virginia Tech shooting victims. I can't help but wonder if they can ever continue to live "normal, routine" life anymore. I wonder if there are any regrets that there was never enough time to cuddle, to love, to relate.

I wonder, if we all need to find more moments of "pure joy"*... *Thanks to Superha for the term.

10 Things

Two is...

1) Crying and screaming at your sister one second, then eyeing her granola bar the next and asking, ever so calmly, "Evie, I wan some." When she breaks you off a piece you say, "tank chu."
2) Not being afraid of flamin' hot cheetos.
3) Not yet fully understanding the realities of physical space considering you just got stuck behind the TV.
4) Giving mommy kisses for the heck of it rather than being heckled for them.
5) Giving your big sister a huge hug and kiss this morning (which mommy had NO camera on hand for!!) because it's your birthday and she screamed, "Happy Birthday [Sweet Pea]!"
6) Looking mommy in the eye with your lips rimmed red with hot cheeto dust and saying "hot" in two languages.
7) Not crying about it and calmly drinking your juice to take care of the spicy.
8) "Tall" and lean around the legs with the slightest hint of a little pot belly, and cheeks that are reminiscent of baby...but just a bit past that.
9) Being diabolically clever with the "toys" you find for yourself. Who would've thunk tossing a penny around would be fun. Although no, the penny does NOT belong in the DVD player.
10) Incredibly cute.

Happy Birthday Sweet Pea! It's only 10:47am, and you've only been 2 for so many hours, but mommy can tell she's in for a big year.

P.S. For those of you critical of my allowing my baby to have flamin' hot cheetos at 10 in the morning...hey, we're on vacation!

When Words Fail

I'm a hugger. Despite my usual "no touchie" stance, I'm all about hugging. I hug my family to ease their slights and wounds. I hug my friends when I want them to know that I'm here for them. I've even hugged total strangers, when it looked like they needed it...well, I only did that once and it was because this girl in the women's bathroom was crying and asking me if she had looked like she had been crying, I hugged her and told her everything would be alright, whatever it was, would be alright. She had smiled and hugged me back. I think I helped a little, but do hugs help heal when death is involved? Is everything "alright" when someone has just died? Someone that was loved and honored and...needed?

I hug when I see pain. Snickollet is in pain, her beloved husband GH just passed away. I sit here nearly wordless. How do you give hugs across the internet?

The Procrastinator Extraordinaire

The Little Goose is a dawdler. She will do everything in her power to just not do what you asked her to do. I wonder if it's an age thing? When she was younger she was always happy to get a chore or a command. She loved DOING. No matter what it was from getting her shoes on or brushing her teeth or throwing things away, she'd do them in a flash. Well, those days are gone. I want to say it happened when she turned 5 about six months ago but it may have started when she got a morning routine. I'm not sure. It might just be a kindergarten thing. While she loves school, you wouldn't know it from her morning sluggishness. (Or it could also be that she's still tired in the morning and isn't getting enough sleep, but our sleep issues are huge and are for another post.)

Here's what the routine is supposed to look like:

7:30AM - Alarm goes off, Mommy and Evie wake up and get ready for school
7:45AM - By this time, Evie will have changed into her school uniform and mommy has made breakfast.
8:00AM - By this time, lunch and homework should be packed and in her backpack
8:10AM - By this time, Evie should have her socks, shoes, and jacket on along with her teeth brushed, face washed, and hair combed. Daddy wakes up and takes the Little Goose to school...ON TIME.
8:20AM - School starts

Here is what the routine every morning actually IS:

7:30AM - Alarm goes off, Mommy attempts to wake up the silly goose who is in a death like sleep or SOMETHING. At some point, I say f**k it and let her sleep a little longer because I'm rather tired myself...
7:45AM - Second alarm goes off, Evie wakes up but sits in a dazed little heap on the floor next to the bed and attempts to sleep some more
8:00AM - By this time, I've dragged her into the bathroom and washed her face with cold water so she could WAKE UP after which I ask her to brush her teeth and put on her uniform so that I could make her breakfast and lunch.
8:10AM - She's dawdled and played with her toothbrush instead of brushing and so I stand there and WATCH her brush and then help her put on her uniform, after which she declares that she's hungry and eats her breakfast (or if we're really late, no breakfast, and by this point, it's almost always cereal). Daddy wakes up...sort of.
8:15AM - Everyone is screaming for Evie to put on her damn socks and shoes, which she does with the energy and strength of the slowest little slug on earth.
8:20AM - Out the door...maybe.

ALMOST EVERY SINGLE MORNING! Although it's even worse when my mom's around because she insists Evie finish her breakfast before any movement is made. The ideal routine only happens once every few weeks maybe. For some reason the socks and shoes part always trips her up. She could follow the ideal routine perfectly and then when it comes to socks and shoes time, she just does.not.want.to.do.it. and we have to pry her away from whatever she's doing to get her to put them on and get out the door. When her report card came back, I was shocked that she only had two official tardies, but still, I know for a fact that we cut it very close every morning.

This morning was weird, we all woke up late at 8:07AM, I washed Evie's face, she brushed her teeth, I told her to hurry, helped her with her clothes, gave her socks, which she put on, packed a quick lunch of leftovers (Zachary's Chicago Style Pizza, an apple, and a box of sugarcane juice y'all), and J was up and they were out the door in record time. J actually came back and said she was on time for once. The irony is kicking our asses.

Happy Friday Everyone!

My Friend Meo and Me

See that cute guy in the pic? He's another man I love. He's my best high school friend. I've been thinking about him a lot lately. Mainly because I've been thinking about people I care about whom I don't get to see or talk to nearly as much as I'd like. He lives in the LBC now but hopefully he'll see the light and come home. He told me recently that he's looking for jobs both in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Hopefully he gets one in San Francisco. Highly doubtful since he once proclaimed that he's a "SoCal man" now, but we'll see.

My parents never let me out much when I was in high school and so I didn't have all that many friends, but Meo (I'll just call him Meo here) was a great friend. We went to a school that was probably ninety something percent black with many students coming from extremely troubled backgrounds (students with parents who were addicts, criminals, or no families at all). There was a police officer on campus and not quite enough books. Still, for those who wanted to learn, it wasn't necessarily a bad place to be. (All our teachers cared and would stay after hours if you ever needed anything. I would say they were all pretty decent for the most part and never hesitated to encourage more learning when they saw potential.) Anyhoo, considering the small number of Asians, it was only natural that Meo and I would know each other.

He was fresh off the boat when we met, but he was smart, good natured and pretty well liked by most of our class (small school, only about 600 students and even fewer actually attended). They called him The Man, despite his slight stature and high voice. We would eat lunch and hung out at the school library. Afterschool we would have similar activities. Meo's dad had escaped to the US without his family and had remarried and made a new start, so when Meo came, he did so without his mom. My mom loves him. He's like a cousin in our house and like any good older cousin, he taught me a lot about life and what it means to be a friend.

I had skipped my Junior year to graduate with the Seniors and so Meo and I competed for the Valedictorian spot. Meo won and I was salutatorian (aka second place). I remember arguing that I should have won since some of his grades were A's from ESL classes and while he technically had a higher GPA, I had skipped a grade and had higher SAT scores. He countered that ESL was harder for a non-English speaker than regular English classes for someone who already speaks the language. I hadn't actually thought of that and I remember gaining a new respect for ESL students. I think prior to that conversation I thought of ESL as English for Special Learners rather than as something akin to my history with the Spanish language (4 years of Spanish y'all...don't ask me how to say anything beyond "me llamo es...") Yes, I pretty sure I'm much more compassionate about that now.

Other times, he was the only friend I would even dream of going to. When I was in college, I broke down and went a little nuts. I nearly destroyed every close relationship I had. Maybe someday I'll have another need for catharsis and write about it, but I'm not ready yet. Meo helped me out during those times, he listened to my calls and cries, lent me money and did everything in his power to be a friend, even when I was being stupid and foolish. I could have taken his money and taken advantage and walked away, but he trusted in me when I wasn't deserving of much trust because he knew who I really was. I will love him forever for that. I am a better friend and better person because he gave me an example of what good friends do for each other.

I remember, one day he called me and asked me...

Meo: "Honey, are you sitting down?"
Me: "Yes, I'm sitting down, what's up?"
Meo: "I'm gay."
Me: "Really? Wait! Remember when we went to see Batman and Robin? Didn't you say you had a crush on Uma Thurman? I mean, wasn't that the reason why we went to see that god awful movie??"
Meo: "Noooo! I didn't have a crush on Uma Thurman! I had a crush on George Clooney!"
Me: "Ooooh...ok, that makes sense. Good taste, dude, I LOVE George Clooney...even if he is old."

I hadn't thought much about homosexuality before then, but it didn't matter. I was honored that he felt that I should be one of the first people he would come out of the closet to. Even though I hadn't thought about it, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it didn't matter what label or orientation my friend had, he was my friend, that's all that mattered and that's all that matters.

I think of Meo whenever I think about wanting my kids to grow up to be tolerant people, I can only hope that they'd meet people of different backgrounds who are as cool as he is. I remember the nervousness in his voice when he asked me if I was sitting down, as if he wasn't sure if I'd accept what he would be telling me. I think of my reaction when he first told me he was gay and I'm always happy that it was barely a blip to me, it was almost like a tolerance test, and I passed. I hope my kids react that way if one of their friends revealed something about themselves that wasn't within the realm of mainstream or "normal". I think I learned it from my parents, who were always accepting of others (my dad sometimes talked shit about others, but at least he did it about EVERYONE and so there was no bias there). Their own reaction to Meo's "news" was something along the lines of, "Oh, ok, well, you can't help the way you're born. So when's he coming home? Haven't seen him in awhile." (My mom's always asking me if Meo's got a boyfriend.)

Winter Tally

Winter quarter 2007 is over and the first day of my classes for Spring quarter start well...since it's past 3am, today. I had tried not to write too much about the issues I had over the winter quarter. However, I think I can give you a hint by letting you know that it mainly had to do with the fact that the entire family was sick on and off for months plus my incredibly hectic schedule due to the Daylight Savings Time patch coordination for work. These two things combined to prevent me from achieving the same academic results I had last quarter. I only take two classes per quarter (three is considered full time) and was forced to withdraw from one during this last quarter (it was a non major human genetics course I was taking for fun anyway).

I had to really struggle to pass the second class which was a major required class. I missed a midterm due to an incredibly bad cold (I made it up with a really badly written term paper, at least I thought it was bad) and got a D on a second midterm due to not being able to review enough of the course material because of my workload. I also had slapped together two five pager term papers in less than three hours after a night of no sleep and research; and studied my ass off all night for the final. Considering all the issues I had, I was expecting to barely scrape by with a C- or D. Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw that I had a B-. On the one hand, that's a lot better than I expected (I think my professors like me or something), on the other hand...there go my straight A's. Try as I might to give myself some credit for pulling off a B-ish grade, I can't help but imagine my mom's voice in my head berating me for getting a B. She's telling me cold schmold, I should have gotten my ass up and studied harder! It's like Advanced Algebra/Trigonometry class in high school all over again, only then it was a B+ and I bawled my eyes out. (Damn you Mr. Essien!!) I think J would tease me and roll his eyes if I cried about my grade now. He's such a twinky. :sigh:

3:30 something a.m. maybe I should worry more about sleep than grades...I can't seem to sleep anymore and my days fly by (I have to be up at 7:30am to help the Little Goose get ready for school), but these are issues for another post. Goodnight!

Proof of Life

As a human being, there's a physical proof that my mind sometimes needs. I have to touch something before it makes any sense to me that this thing had a life of its own outside of what I see on my monitor. Sometimes when I read blogs, it doesn't always feel real. I know, mentally, that people who read my blog and vice versa are real, but it's all so...virtual. Despite all my history with the internet and despite all our technological and particularly telecommunications progress, I still need to touch and/or see something in front of me to make my brain believe it truly exists.

So this weekend, I got my proof of Daddy In A Strange Land and his lovely ladies La Dra and Pumpkin; the Super Has, Twizzle and Honeybee, ThisIsLarry and family, and Susan behind ReadingWritingLiving. I still had a headache, muscle aches, and sore throat but the drugs were working (for the most part) and no way I was going to miss out on getting out of the house. (I don't do sick in bed very well. My kids don't let me anyway. It's either get up and go or get jumped on.) Somehow, I got over my aversion of meeting new people. There were quite a few moments where I didn't know if I should go (not least because I didn't want to get anyone else sick and I wasn't sure if the Sweet Pea would be able to handle yet another trip out considering the week of flu he's had). But I'm happy to report that I did end up going, we all felt...ok, and that yes, they're all real and they were all just as nice as I thought they'd be.

The kids seemed to get along well. Although Sweet Pea was rather cranky from being sick this past week I think he did end up enjoying himself. Evie made fast friends with Larry's daughter (who kept asking if Evie could come over for a playdate. Unfortunately the Bay Area is a big place and while we live on the East side, they live in the South.) Evie got over being shy as soon as Larry and Co. arrived. It was cute to see them having so much fun. All the little girls including Ashley and the Pumpkin played a bit of ring around the rosies while the Sweet Pea hunted pigeons (or "quack quack" as he called them). Honeybee was incredibly cute in person. The adults all got along and it was a beautiful day in the city by the bay. I'm glad I went, it was...I have no other word right now, nice. =)

I'll probably post more pics later, but here's Sweet Pea chasing after DISL's Pumpkin chasing after Ben Ha with DISL himself taking a picture. Superha has a much better picture (I swear I wasn't trying to hide behind Sweet Pea).

RSS Feed Link

Due to some "super" demand, here is the link for an RSS feed for yours truly's blog. Hopefully it works, it IS 1:42a.m. afterall. Holy...1:43!

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLotusLife