Category: Nonfiction

Categories
Awesome Being a girl Drew Love Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment Travel

Love locked

My parents recently went on a trip to Italy and Spain. When they returned, they posted hundreds of pictures on Facebook, which I dutifully scrolled through last week, liking some so that they would know I had looked at them. One of the pictures they posted was this one, from Borghetto:

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I have a vague memory of hearing about this phenomenon before, but thank goodness my uncle posted a link to the Love Lock wiki page, so I could refresh my memory. You write your names on a lock, fasten it on a fence, and then pitch the key into the river – because your love will never be undone. (It’s a little cheesy, but I think that kind of stuff works in Europe and in the Napa Valley.)

Thank goodness my uncle also posted a comment that there is a love lock bridge in Napa, just a quick trip north of here. Which set my mind to working…

Today is Drew’s and my fourth wedding anniversary. We didn’t make any plans to go out tonight. (I mean, Survivor is on.) (Also, we have this baby.) But over the last couple weeks, I’ve been tyring to think of something cool we could do together to celebrate.

I figured Napa would be a good day trip – we could get brunch, seal our love with a $6 padlock from Ace Hardware, and we could even take B with us. So on Sunday morning, we packed up plenty of baby accoutrements, stopped by the hardware store for a lock, and drove up to Napa.

When we found the restaurant I had randomly picked from Yelp, we saw the long line outside and drove on by. But we were in downtown Napa (I guess?) and so we just parked and walked around. We found a place that wasn’t crowded, and had plenty of outdoor seating, with a view of Napa Creek. After brunch, we walked the half mile to the Napa Valley Wine Train, where the bridge is located.

There wasn’t much call for ceremony, so I snapped the lock on and we took a couple pictures. We debated throwing the keys away, but in the end kept them as a keepsake. I like keepsakes. Then we walked back to the car, stopping on the way for milkshakes.

love lock

(It was pretty bright out.)

It was a fun trip. I’m glad we did it. I’m glad that my uncle posted all those comments (thanks, Uncle Pastor!), and that my parents uploaded 336 pictures of their trip, and that I took the time to look through them because I thought that’s what a good daughter would do.

Four years. We’ve now officially been married longer than we were just boyfriend-and-girlfriend (not counting the 9 1/2 months that we were engaged). That’s nice.

I take him for granted, sometimes. This has been a pretty emotional year, full of ups and downs (although even the downs have their silver linings). I think the roller coaster nature of this last year has shown me how strong our relationship is, which is good to know. I’ve heard that the first year of marriage, and the first year of parenthood, are two years that test relationships. So far we’re getting an A+.

Happy fruit-and-flowers anniversary! Four more years! Four more years!

Categories
Awesome Baby Beauty Being a girl cars Children Dreams Drew Family Fashion Food Humor Love Memoir Nonfiction Religion Sentiment Travel

A 1-year-old is an unreliable wedding guest

A couple weeks ago, we took B to a wedding. A francy wedding.

(I meant fancy, but I accidentally typed francy, and I immediately fell in love with that new word I just created.)

This francy wedding took place at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in San Francisco. Drew and I were a little nervous about the whole day, for the following reasons:

a. wedding of a medium-close family member who might not be forgiving of 1-year-old antics;
b. ceremony at 3pm, reception at 6pm across the city;
c. our particular 1-year-old doesn’t always behave well in francy situations;
d. also we have to dress up

As a bonus thing to worry about, our car situation meant we were taking my parents’ bug, which is stick, so I had to drive.

We left plenty of time to get ready, get everything in the car, and get to SF. We got there about 10 minutes before 3:00, which was perfect. We parked right outside the church, which was perfect. I hopped into the backseat to pull B out of his carseat…and was greeted by an absolutely remarkable smell.

We opened the trunk (do you realize how small a VW bug trunk is??) and laid him down in it, button down shirt and all, to change his diaper. It wasn’t until I had the diaper half off, and Drew was digging through the diaper bag looking for the wipes, that I remembered I had used up the last wipe and forgotten to put a new package in. There were some exclamations of dismay. I mean, we were on the side of the road, outside a francy church, dressed in our best, trying to change our squirmy child in a trunk, and we had no wipes.

Luckily we had pacifier wipes, so we survived.

We got everything put together and went inside. The church was beautiful. We sat down in the back row, on the outside aisle, ignoring the waves from Drew’s family to come up and sit with them. Through a mixture of mouthing and mime, he told them, “Our kid is going to lose it so we need to be able to slip out quickly.”

We were sitting down for about 4 minutes, and the family members were being escorted in, when B opened his mouth and let out a “Aawwwk?” And then his eyes got big and he looked around, as he realized what a great echo there was in here. I jumped up and tried to jiggle him to keep him occupied, but once he started squawking, there was no turning around. We saw the bride come in, and then I ended up taking him out to the narthex, where we walked back and forth for the entirety of the service. Sometimes we went outside.

But B was smack in the middle of wanting to walk everywhere but needing to hold hands, so I spent an hour alternating between being kind of hunched over, and tossing his 25 pounds into the air to make him laugh.

After the service, we had all this time to kill, and we thought if we drove around he might take a nap in the car seat. Well, we were wrong. So we drove all around San Francisco, went up to Twin Peaks and got gas, and got caught in the worst ever traffic on the way downtown to the financial district, where the reception was.

Despite being the most anxious about the reception, it was actually really lovely. As soon as we got to the table, one of the waitstaff came over and said, “Do you want a high chair?” and Drew and I were both like, “YOU HAVE HIGH CHAIRS??” Also, the first toast of the evening was by the bride’s father, and rather than being champagne, it was a tequila shot with cinnamon and orange. So good. B lasted for a really long time before he started melting down (like 9pm – like 2 hours after his usual bedtime) – although right at the moment when we decided it was time to get him out, they started other toasts, and then one of the bridesmaids gave like a 15-minute toast and were trapped on the side of the room opposite the door.

Anyway. B’s first wedding, and it was francy, and it was inside a Catholic church, and it was late at night. And he did great!

francy2
Blurry backwards camera!
Categories
cars Drew Humor Memoir Nonfiction Self improvement Writing

Under pressure

We have a new car.

I can see how car shopping might be fun, if you’ve got the luxury of time to look around, and you’re not planning the whole time about how you’re going to afford it, and you don’t have to go do test drives on your lunch breaks.

We looked around a bit in the evenings, but we always had to take B with us, and I’ll be straight with you: he can be kind of a drag sometimes. Like when you’re just trying to stand there under the stadium lights and see how many miles this Jetta has on it, and he’s shrieking because riding around in the umbrella stroller is no fun. Not to mention, you can’t test drive anything together because someone has to hang out with the kid and try to make car shopping fun.

We went on our lunch breaks a couple times, but those car salesmen (they’re always men) really drag things out, and you can really only look at one or two cars before you both have to get back to work before someone notices you’re missing.

We were under a lot of pressure to get a car purchased, because for the last 3 weeks I’d been driving my parents’ lime green VW Beetle, which was a lucky break. They just happened to be flying to Italy for the month of October, and planning to leave their car parked at our place anyway, a couple days after my old car (which I got last September) had some kind of crazy electrical malfunction, and burned mostly to a crisp.

(Yup.)

(I’m okay.)

So. My parents’ vacation was nearing its end, and they were flying back to SFO on Monday, so we knew we needed to get this thing under control. So last Friday afternoon, Drew and B and I went to a new (used) car lot, one we hadn’t yet visited, to poke around. Almost immediately we spotted a new-looking gold 2008 Elantra…whose major selling point was the 22,000 miles on the odometer. I’ve never had a car with that few miles. I didn’t even know they could have that few miles. Don’t even new cars get that much just from the factory?

So we both test drove it (separately), then we dickered a bit with the salesman (who was super nice), then we said we needed to go talk about it and come back that evening. We walked back to the Beetle in a turmoil of emotions, and then stood there for a few minutes discussing it. We ended up turning around, marching back inside, and buying the car.

It’s going great so far and I think we made the right decision. Someone else would’ve snapped that thing up if we hadn’t.

Last Wednesday (five days later), on my way to work, I noticed that there was a light on on the dashboard. It wasn’t a light that I recognized, and I spent every traffic light flipping through the manual, trying to place it. Finally I found it: low tire pressure. When I got to work, the tires all looked good, but I was (am) still very cautious about this car, so on my lunch break I drove to Arco.

I thought the optimum PSI was printed on the tires but I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I just made sure they were all about 32, which I thought sounded right. The air kicked off, so I got back in the car and started it – the light was still on. I googled “optimum tire pressure for a 2008 Elantra” and some anonymous person somewhere said it was 38. Okay. So I went back inside, asked the woman behind the counter to turn the air back on, and I filled the tires all to 38.

By this time, a girl had pulled up behind me and was waiting for the air. I finished up and she approached me and said she hadn’t done this before, so I kind of walked her through what she needed to do, feeling very good about myself and all my Car Skillz.

Then I got back in the car, started the engine – and the light was still on.

Drew had texted me, so I called him and told him about the light, and as I was saying, “Maybe your dad needs to take a look at it–” the low tire pressure light TURNED OFF! I started cheering for myself. (For some strange reason, he didn’t join in.)

Listen: it’s rare that I can
a) identify something is wrong with the car;
b) put my finger on exactly what that thing is; and
c) fix it by myself.

This calls for, like, a victory dance or something.

Which I did, in the front seat of the car, all the way back to work.

You gotta celebrate the little things sometimes.

Categories
Baby Children Drew Holidays Love Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment Theatre Work Writing

Happy Halloween 2013!

So much to catch up on! So many blog posts behind!

First things first: I’ve been doing all the Halloween things possible. This includes reading Stephen King’s new book, Doctor Sleep, which I am loving so far; seeing Carrie the Musical at Ray of Light Theatre in SF, which was fun and campy and had some great effects; and carving a pumpkin for our office Halloween party pumpkin carving contest. (I threw together a very last-minute mime costume for the party.)

Also, I made B a dragon costume.

Halloween collageI realized about last weekend that he didn’t really have anywhere to wear it, so I decided I should take him to work. I picked him up from his grandparents for the party, and then he hung out with me at my desk for the rest of the afternoon. He did a really great job actually. I put up boxes in front of my cubicle, put down a blanket and a bunch of toys and books, and let him crawl around for awhile.

Also: I’m pretty sure today (at work) was the first time I saw him drink from a bottle while sitting up, and just tipping the bottle up (we usually have to recline him a little bit. Also, he’s been chomping at the bit to really break out and start walking, and today he went crazy at work, running all over the place by himself. So I think it’s official: we’ve got a toddler.

It’s so freaking cute. I wonder if he’s been kind of testy lately because he’s been on the verge of breaking into a glorious new skill? Let’s hope so.

My other project has been a costume for myself – not for Halloween but for a work event I have on Saturday, that happens to be a costume party. I think I’m going to do a dia de los muertos thing (although now I’m seeing stuff all over Facebook about how that’s just appropriation of an actual holiday, and it’s offensive, so oops). I still have a couple other things to put together for the costume but I’m sure it’ll be done by Saturday. And I’ll be happy to have it all behind me.

My other, non-Halloween-related, project is the Bench Project 3, which is a night of short plays taking place in San Jose, and mine is one of them. We are teching on Sunday morning (after my sure-to-be late Saturday night) and then going up on Monday night. I am excited, but this is also another weekend that makes me tired just anticipating it.

Happy Halloween!

 

Categories
Awesome Books Holidays Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment

Starting my Halloween reading

Last year I wrote an post on great Halloween reads. Tonight I gleefully started my first Halloween book for 2013.

Drew recently gave me Stephen King’s latest, Doctor Sleep, which is a sequel to The Shining. My grand plan is to reread The Shining in preparation for reading Doctor Sleep, and then, if I have any time left after that before November 1st, I’ll reread Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House which is one of the freakiest stories ever.

halloween

I don’t know what it is that I freaking love about Halloween. I don’t know if it’s nostalgia: I have all these memories of singing Halloween songs, writing stories about ghosts, stamping pumpkins all over a piece of paper…and that’s just elementary school. I don’t really care about dressing up in a costume myself, but I want to browse every Spirit superstore and look at costume pieces. I love Halloween episodes of TV sitcoms.

I love haunted houses, and scary movies. I love fake spiderwebs and other domestic decorations. I love creepy statues that jump into life when you walk by them. I love crunchy leaves on the sidewalk and brisk winds (not necessarily Halloween-specific).

As a bonus, the bookmark I found in The Shining when I opened it up is a ticket to Nightmare Haunted House! The memories, they are flooding in.

Categories
Being a girl Books Love Nonfiction Sentiment Typography Writing

Anne of the Island

Green Gables typography 2 color edit 3

I’m still reading…but honestly a little bit ready to get through Anne’s House of Dreams so I can get back into “real” reading.

In the meantime, I’m still having fun with this typography thing. Although I might be delving too deeply into various background patterns. It’s starting to look like something that might be found on a Geocities website circa 2001, with glittery rain falling and roses waving back and forth. I’ll scale it back for the next one.

Categories
Awesome Children Family Food Friends Games Holidays Love Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment

First birthday party

Dear B,

We had your first birthday party on Sunday. We planned for it for weeks (dare I say months?). We made multiple trips to multiple stores to secure the decorations. We ordered things from different sites to supplement the store bought stuff. We did not one but two trial runs for your birthday cake. The day before the party, during both of your naps, we raced to the kitchen to bake EIGHT CAKE LAYERS (in batches of two) to ensure we had enough cake for everyone at the party (two four-layer cakes). After you went to bed, we made a vat of fruit salad, and I used three cans of frosting to put those cake layers together.

You probably had very little idea what was going on. You didn’t know who most of those people were. You won’t remember anything about the day. But trust me: it was great. It was a completely successful party. There were nigh on 40 people there, including 8 kids, 6 of whom were under the age of 5. There were your peninsula aunties and uncles, your BFF Tom, mommy’s coworkers, and of course family from both sides.

There was way too much food (of course) which neither daddy nor I really had time to eat. But don’t worry, we brought a lot of it home. (Two days later, we still have 2 gallon ziplocks of fruit salad to eat…so, get out your spoon…)

When we put your birthday cake in front of you and sang to you, everyone gathered around and you looked a little overwhelmed, and at the end of the song everyone clapped, so you clapped too, and then a wave of 40 people went “AWWWWW” and it startled you and you started crying, which made them laugh. We put a giant slice of rainbow layered cake in front of you, and it took some coaxing but you got your hands into it and you even ate some. You calmed down from crying, but we still seem to have a million pictures of you crying while clapping and cake-covered.

Daddy and I were so preoccupied during the party that we neglected to take many photos. But luckily our family members and friends are camera-happy and willing to share, so we’ll have plenty of visual memories.

You got so many presents that we don’t really know what do with all of them. We have hidden some to give to you later, when you’ve gotten used to the ones you have out now. (But your favorite things, of course, are still wiffle balls and plastic stacking cups.)

Everyone had a great time, and (of course) the party ran over the planned 2 hours. But despite me waking you from your morning nap around 10:45 so we could leave for your party, you were a total trooper, staying awake and mostly happy throughout the entire party, then the entire clean-up. On the way home, I sat in the backseat with you and tried to soothe you into falling asleep. You managed to stay awake until we got to the airport, at which time I watched you melt into sleep. You woke up 10 minutes later when we got home. Oops.

I think you had a lot of fun. I know I had a lot of fun. I’m glad so many people came. I’m glad we went all out for your first birthday. I’m glad everything went well. I’m glad it’s over and we made it through.

I’m not saying that parties or material possessions are an indicator of love. But, based purely on actual love, you are loved, little guy. Happy first birthday, and congratulations to all three of us for making it through your first year!

Love,
Mommy

Categories
"Other people" Celebrities Children Memoir Nonfiction

Throwback Thursday: An Explanation

In the summer after I graduated from high school, I worked on a B-movie being shot in my hometown. And OMG wait I just googled it and THERE’S A TRAILER ON YOUTUBE AND IT’S JUST AS CHEESY AS I REMEMBER IT.

Oh wow, I think I just got what the plot is.

Okay. So that’s what I’m talking about. This production company (meaning, the director/producer, a camera guy, another guy, and the actress who played the mom) came to town and we shot this thing over the summer. The rest of the crew consisted of like 4 teenagers (me included) who were all interested in “drama” and were likely getting paid a “pittance” but I don’t remember because it was all in “cash.”

I do remember learning a lot, but also starting out knowing nothing. The director depended on us a lot but without always telling us the details of what we were meant to do. I think she expected us to come in knowing more than we did. We did our best, but it was stressful. I was basically fulfilling a stage management role (before I knew what that was) although in the movie credits I’m listed as Production Coordinator (holla!).

I have this one really clear memory of being out at the goldmine (?) in the middle of the hot summer, and I was supposed to be holding this umbrella up to shade one of the kid actors. At one point, the director sort of barked at me that I was supposed to be shading the actor, not myself. But the thing was, because of the angle of the sun, I had to hold the umbrella pretty much up and down in order to shade the kid. I pointed it out and she ceded the point. This was a major victory in my life…that I’ve clearly hung onto.

I was thinking about this recently because I realized that I still have this deep down need. I sometimes daydream up situations in which I’m in some kind of major trouble, and then I think of the circumstance that would make it all go completely away. Like, “Okay, so I’m a key witness in a major investigation, but I leave town, and then the police are calling me but I don’t return my phone calls, and it’s looking really bad for me…BUT THEN, when they finally get ahold of me, it turns out that I called the precinct a week ago when I left town, which I had to do for a family emergency, and I told them that my phone was lost, and gave them a different number at which to contact me, but a lazy officer didn’t pass on the message, and it’s not my fault at all!”

Stuff like that.

So yeah. There’s a fun fact about me, backed up with an amusing TBT anecdote. Hope you enjoyed it.

Categories
Baby Children Endings Friends Love Memoir Nonfiction Sentiment

Closing the book

We borrowed a lot of baby stuff from friends. Some of the items we borrowed were for a very short, early, specific period of time, and were long ago returned. But we still had a handful of stuff borrowed from B’s friend M, who is a year older than he is.

Over the last week or so, we cleaned everything up to return it to M’s family. The biggest item was a Baby Einstein jumper that’s been living in the corner of our living room for the last 9 months.

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That is 3-month-old B trying out the jumper for the first time. Since then, his feet have grown to touch the ground; we’ve moved it up to level 2, level 3, and level 4; and (to be honest) he’s spit up on it countless times. He’s bonked his face into each part of it. He’s crawled underneath it and read books. He’s sat outside of it and practiced pulling up on it.

IMG_0133

He’s also pretended to be an astronaut in it.

And finally, it seemed like it was time to part ways. He’s getting too big to be in it any longer, and his feet are flat on the floor (just his toes are supposed to touch). It’s good if you need to put him down and know he won’t go anywhere, but half the time he fights going in there because he’d rather crawl around and grab everything he’s not supposed to.

So, yesterday we said goodbye to what was effectively our baby prison. I guess if we need to anchor him we can use the high chair or the crib for now. But we should probably just start getting used to the idea that he’s on the go and at his own whims.

photo (2)

And thus ends the great love affair between B and the jumper. In their last photo, he’s just chillin’ in the hot summer (don’t worry, he’s wearing a diaper), reading The Runaway Bunny and probably bouncing lazily.

Thank you for sharing, M and M’s family! I didn’t realize until tonight how many pictures I have of B in, on, and around the jumper. I’m sure I will always remember him crashing furiously around in it, squawking gleefully. But he’s slowly but surely turning into a toddler, so it’s time to put away babyish things.

Onwards and upwards!

Categories
"Other people" Nonfiction

2 kinds of people

After much consideration, I have decided there are two kinds of people in the world:

There are the people who walk into a public bathroom, push open a stall door, see an unflushed toilet, and walk away…and then there are the people who take on the burden of flushing it.

(For the record, I will do the right thing and flush it, and then use a different stall.)