Category: Family

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"Other people" Family

It’s a California thing.

Recently I saw an aunt and uncle who I haven’t seen in ages. They live in Washington. They drove down to California. When I said, “Oh wow, how long is that?” he said, “It’s about 900 miles.” And I was like, I don’t really know what that means, even though it is a totally appropriate and probably more accurate answer to my question.

I’ve heard it’s “a California thing” to give distance in terms of time (it takes about 3 hours) and not miles (it’s like 130 miles). Honestly, I don’t even know how many miles away things are, but I can tell you how long it’ll take to get there. Well, I know my work is about 30 miles from my house, but that’s only because I gauge how many more trips I have before I’ll have to get gas.

It was a lovely family visit, by the way.

Anyway. I’m curious.

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Family Food Love Nonfiction Tomato

Making Mom Proud, or, A Very Beet Story

Over Labor Day weekend, my mom brought me a bunch of home-grown food: a zucchini, some beets (red and golden), cherry tomatoes, pear tomatoes, pears (not ripe yet), and a gallon Ziplock full of blackberries – my favorite!

I wanted to do something special with it all – I like the concept of “living off the land,” not that I’ve ever actually done it, and I’ve never cooked beets before.

So I dreamed up this menu for last night, basically using everything. On Wednesday night I cooked the beets so that I could refrigerate them all day. Beets, it turns out, are the most fun.

"What am I gonna do with these here beet greens?" Answer...nothing.

Meanwhile, the beets bubbled away on the stovetop.

Then I peeled them – and the skins came right off, just like the internet said they would.

Oh so satisfying.

Then into the refrigerator so that last night I could make beet salad.

Beet salad! Microgreens, beets, cherry tomatoes, and shaved parmesan. (Also penne with chicken, zucchini, and pesto.)

(Tonight! Leftover beet salad! Also, potstickers. And leftover rice.)

After dinner last night, it was time to make blackberry pie.

Yay mom!

Success, beezys!

Thanks, Mom! If you have more beets or berries you need to get rid of, you know where I am.

(Coincidentally, Jamba Juice has a “Berry Upbeet” smoothie that combines these two flavors. You’d think I would love it. But actually it tastes like berry, with an undertaste of V8. It’s okay, but it’s not going to become my go-to.)

Categories
Drew Family Love Theatre Work

It would probably cut back on my Starbucks habit.

At work we recently hired this woman, who everyone agrees rocks. She happens to be (newly) married to a guy who also works in our office, and who also rocks. Yesterday as I was parking, they pulled up across from me and parked. And I sat there with my head cocked, thinking about what it would be like to work right down the hall from your spouse.

I guess it would be fun…? But, on the downside, I feel like it would also be an infringement on personal space. What if you’re having one of those days where you’re annoyed by everything and everyone? Do you have to hide it from them? What if you have some story of work confrontation – but rather than going home and telling it, clearly skewed so you are the victim/victor, your spouse knows the whole thing because it’s their co-worker than locked horns with you?

On the upside, carpooling. So…there’s that.

Speaking of working with your spouse, two of my Facebook friends, who happen to be married to each other, are working on a show somewhere. She is directing and he is acting in it. He keeps posting things about how awesome of a director she is. That’s sweet, but also makes me cringe. Too close. Too much interaction. What if you were bickering on the way to rehearsal, and now you have to direct how your spouse is supposed to be acting with their play-spouse? I don’t know, man.

I guess that is extra cringey for me because I have residual trauma regarding directing. When I think about it, but put myself in a stage manager role instead of a director role, it’s not that bad. I guess I could do that.

Thoughts? Working with your spouse? My parents have been teachers in the same district forever, but at least they’re at different schools…sometimes.

Categories
Awesome Beginnings Family Tomato Work

Day 11: Expect more tweets.

My parents stopped by this afternoon. We did some catching up and they took me to my local Verizon store, where we picked up my first ever smartphone. I have now jumped on board the smartphone train! I honestly do think it’ll be really useful for work. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I see how this smartphone thing could become super addictive, super fast. Anyone want to play Words with Friends?

I mean, look up things for work?

Then we went out to dinner and sat there talking until 10:00. I miss my parents. They are significantly geographically closer to me than they were from 2006-2009. But I guess I still don’t see them enough.

PS. My basil is finally starting to grow. There are tiny tiny little sproutings. I’ll have to see how this goes. It’s very cold and windy right now, I feel sad for the plants stuck outside.

PPS. Just checked my weather app. For some reason the defaults are Cupertino and New York City. Looks like NYC is getting thunderstorms twice this week. I’m strangely jealous – those crazy summer thunderstorms are intense.

Categories
Being a girl Family

Happy Mother’s Day!

Dear Mom,

I don’t know when it’s normal for a girl to realize that she’s turning into her mom, but for me it was around age 23 or 24 when I started hearing your words coming out of my mouth. At first I was a little taken aback – who knew it would happen so suddenly and unexpectedly?

As time has gone on though, I’ve come to appreciate the wisdom in the things I hear myself say, and I know it came directly from you. Things like how you shouldn’t read at the dinner table, and you should converse with the rest of your family. Or when Robb and I used to begrudgingly ask what we should do on house-cleaning Saturdays, and you would say, “Just look around and do what needs to be done.” Or when Drew and I left for New York and you told us to take care of each other. 

I guess I really was listening all those years.

I’ve always known I’m very lucky to be blessed with such wonderful parents. I had a great childhood and I still reminisce about it. A couple weeks ago, when we came back from our Lakeport weekend, all the laundry I’d brought back smelled like home and it caused me a great many wandering thoughts. But I’m also happy to say that I don’t feel like I peaked in my teenage years – I feel like I’m still growing all the time. Because you guys gave me an incredible foundation of faith, family, and self-confidence.

What I’ve been especially lucky to have is our evolving mom-daughter relationship. I like the way it has turned into a friendship. Maybe it helps that I don’t call and ask for money anymore. Maybe it also helps that I was so far away for those three years, so now we are both that much more appreciative of being in the same state. Maybe it’s just what happens when a girl becomes an adult – she discovers that she and her mom have so much more in common than she ever realized.

So thanks for being the best mom ever! And thanks for always being happy to hear from me. And thanks for setting the bar so high and being a good role model. I hope that when I have kids, they love me as much as I love you.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Syche

Categories
Exercise Family Memoir Religion Sentiment

Post-Easter Resolutions

I was home this weekend for Easter. The last thing I had to accomplish in April (not counting Script Frenzy, which is almost over, and anyway I can do it from my couch in pajamas).

A great weekend home, including a 6 am sunrise church service: although I balked at it last week as it became imminent, I figured I owed it to my-3-years-ago-self, who was, in another dimension of time, stuck in New York, doing 2 shows on Easter Sunday, and wishing she could be at her family’s church.

So, there was church, there was playing with cats, there was dinner with family, there was much driving.

But now life is “back to normal” and it feels so good. We went to bed at 10:15 last night.

In honor of being back to normal, I have set myself these goals for this week. (And if I make it public then I will have to follow through on them.)

1. Go to the gym 4 times – I’m trying out this Couch to 5K thing, and today I finished my first week (which is actually the third week of the program). So I would like to complete another week, this week.

2. Finish Script Frenzy – I have 26 pages (and one major plot twist) to go.

3. I want to start tracking on Weight Watchers online again. I’ve been half-heartedly tracking things, and then giving up mid-afternoon. So this week, I will track every single thing that happens. I mean, I pay the $18/month for the thing, I should use it, right?

4. Finish and submit a second guest commentary thing. Topic: ?

Totes do-able.

Categories
Awesome Being a girl cars Family Religion

Attitude of gratitude

This morning before work, I drive down to Redwood City to pick up sub paperwork and the forms to take to my 9:00 am fingerprinting appointment.  So I get to the school, park, go inside the office for, like, 8 minutes, and when I come back out, my car will not start.  Like, it doesn’t even make any noise when I turn the key.  What??  So I call Drew’s dad and tell him what’s up, and he says that it sounds like a dead battery and that he’ll come down.

So I sit in the car and fill out my paperwork, and then I read a little bit (Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup, who also wrote Slumdog Millionaire), and the sun is out and it’s not too bad.  I do have to go back into the office and ask if I can reschedule my fingerprinting, as there’s no way I’m getting there by 9:00.  But they say to just come on over whenever.  Occasionally I turn the key in the ignition and see if it’ll start.

Drew’s dad shows up a little after 9:00, and as he walks up to the car he says, “See if it’ll start.”  And of course…it does.  Flawlessly.  Not even hesitantly.  Wtf, Saturn??  His dad is totally cool about it and says that he needed to come down that way anyway, and that he’s used to cars suddenly acting fine when he shows up.  But jeez, he had to drive half an hour to me at 8:30 in the morning…I’m afraid I’m going to get booted from this family for being a bad daughter-in-law.

I’ve had no more problems with the car for the rest of the day.  So the only logical explanation is that I needed to be detained in Redwood City this morning for 45 minutes.  I wonder what disaster I avoided?  I guess it doesn’t have to be something on my way to the county office (fingerprinting) – it could have been something I would have run into in San Francisco, or even on my way home this afternoon (I ended up staying later at work because I didn’t get there until almost 11:00).

Anyway, whatever it was, I’m grateful.  Having to sit in the sun this morning and read is by no means a hardship.  And I have to assume that someone is looking out for me.  So…thank you!!

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Family Friends Memoir Sentiment

What’s “film”?

Also in the boxes from my room at my parents’ house – 3 rolls of undeveloped film.

One of the rolls is not a typical canister, and Walgreens told me they don’t develop that stuff anymore.

One of the rolls ended up being blank (bummer).

The third roll (or the first roll, depending on how you look at it), ended up being random pictures from…2001? 2002?  Who knows?  It’s all pictures around my house, or Kirsten’s (my high school bff) house, those are her ducks, that’s my brother on the ground, having apparently been bested by Kirsten’s dog…I don’t know what this is.

Actually, this is the exact reason that I’m so grateful for digital cameras.

And no, I did not get doubles of this.  (I actually just got the negatives and a photo CD – yay 2011!)

Enjoy.

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Categories
Awesome Beginnings Family

The biggest surprise of all is that he really had no idea

My dad was born on New Year’s Eve, 1950.  Last night my mom threw him a surprise 60th birthday party, which she has been planning for about a year.  We were about 97% sure he knew something was up, since she’s never done anything like this before and we’ve for sure all heard her slip at least once in front of him.  Luckily he’s pretty imperceptive, and was completely surprised. 

He’s also pretty laid back, though, so instead of turning bright red and crying (like Lauren at the surprise bridal shower earlier this week), he kept his hands in his pockets and went “Oh…wow.  Surprise!”  Here’s a picture of him being taken completely off guard (I was across the room so it’s pretty zoomed in):

There was eating and picture-taking, and I grilled him to try to figure out if he was just pretending to be surprised.

Afterwards we went back to our house (haha, I don’t live there anymore) for cheesecake and presents and a slideshow of amazing photos my aunt and uncle assembled.  A surprising amount were slides from the 50s and 60s.  It was an appropriate amount of embarrassing for a 60th birthday celebration.

We toasted the New Year at 9:20 (for some reason) and then the regular guests trickled out.  My aunt and uncle stayed the night, and Drew and I drove Robb back down to San Bruno so he could get to the airport this morning.  But we waited to leave until 11:00 so we wouldn’t be anywhere near San Francisco near midnight.  I passed the time by taking pictures.

We got home just after 2:00 last night.  This morning I drove Robb to the airport at 8:00, then came back and went back to sleep.  When we got up, we made coffee for the first time using our Christmas coffeemaker, and a paper towel instead of a filter. 

Hunger Games book #3 + grocery shopping = a lazy day, recovering from this whirlwind week.  In the last 7 days, I’ve spent an entire day’s worth of hours in the car.  It’ll be really nice to go back to work, having a schedule and eating real food (although living primarily on cookies has been fun).

2011 FTW!

Categories
Awesome cars Family Not awesome

I promise this is the last “Dear Diary” entry for the year.

Okay.  So on Tuesday I was supposed to drive up to Davis to meet up with Molly (who lives in SF but was spending Christmas in Reno) and Liz (who until last week lived in NYC but now has moved back to Stockton).  I had made it to about Richmond when my car started making weird feelings again, and I got too freaked out that I wouldn’t make it to Davis.  Or that I would make it to Davis, but not from Davis to Lakeport.  So I drove back home, and Drew’s dad looked at my car, and he replaced all the spark plugs and two of the spark plug wires.  And now, I promise (this isn’t like after I changed the oil and “thought it felt better”), it is running like before again.

The funny thing is, when it was all shaky on the freeway, I was desperately trying to figure out how I could fund getting a new car, and I was like, “I’d be sad about losing this one, but happy to get one with no problems and less than 190,000 miles on it.”  Then after it was fixed, I was super happy and sentimental about it, thinking, “I couldn’t imagine getting rid of my baby!”  I’m a hypocrite?

Okay, so then I had my car but it was too late to meet Liz and Molly, and my brother was flying in from Colorado.  My dad was supposed to come down and pick him up but I called him and said I’d pick up Robb.  So then Robb and I drove up to Lakeport in the pouring rain.  My family – like, just the four of us – hung out for the first time in maybe like 8 years.  It was really nice, until I got kind of bored of the constant stand-up comedy routine and went in my room to read Catching Fire (the second book of the Hunger Games series).

Also, from being home on Christmas, to being home on the 28th, our bathroom was completely torn up.  They are fixing the floor and the entire bathtub area, so that was a surprise…  So then on the morning of the 27th I woke up to strange men’s voices in the hallway, my bedroom door not really shut, and all of my regular clothes (besides pajamas) in the dryer.

In the afternoon my high school best friend was throwing her sister a surprise bridal shower, so I went over there.  Her sister was completely surprised, which is always fun, and there were a bunch of people there I haven’t seen in years.  It was awesome.  But then there were snow warnings so I had to take off so I could get home without dying.

And that is basically my second Lakeport trip.  Here’s a slideshow, since I just learned how to make them.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

(And happy 1st birthday to my blog!)