The Pursuit of Happyness

So I actually wrote this post on Sunday, but my computer froze and I lost it. I was not very happy. Anyway, take 2.

I remember talking about the Method wood wipes. I really liked them because they allowed me to be able to reach all the little crevices in the furniture. The wipes are stronger and more durable than paper towels. And they smell like almonds and a fresh baby. They're one of my clients, so I felt a little pressure to try out their products. Surprisingly, I seem to like it so far. I have a few new freebies they gave me to try.

I also saw the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. It was a really good film. One of my favorite scenes is while the family is clearing the dinner table. The mom starts putting away the dishes and she puts the contents of the half-drunk glasses of juice back into the pitcher. It was such a subtle detail about how this family was scraping to get by. They are having a conversation while she is doing this, so this event would pass the audience by if they weren't paying attention. Sometimes I forget what it is like to struggle financially. I may complain about the housing prices in the SF Bay Area, but there really are people who have to live paycheck to paycheck. It was a good reminder about humility and being thankful for the things that we generally take for granted like being able to pay the bills every month.

And while I am discussing the Pursuit of Happyness, we have also have some renewed hope on the housing front. Congrats to Matilde and Sujay on the purchase of their new home in Orinda. It makes us think that maybe it's not as hopeless as it seems.

Yummy Yogurt and other Food Adventures

Greetings from LA. Edwin went home on Monday morning, but I stayed for work. I'm in training until Wednesday. While I was here, I had dinner with my grandparents and Uncles Jason and Edwin and Aunts Emily and Tung Fan. I'll post a photo when I get a chance.

I also got to hang out with Binh who took me to a few new restaurants in the area. She took me to a place called Phoenix Food Boutique which had some really yummy looking food for very affordable prices. I only wish that I hadn't just finished eating dinner. We ordered a shark fin like soup, clams in a sesame chili oil, noodles with braised beef, mango mochi, pecan cookies, lychee panecotta, and fried calamari. Did I mention that I already ate? All this for under $25. I'm in heaven- or hell, since I couldn't eat very much and it looked so good. We went to the one in Alhambra, but there are quite a few in SoCal. I hope that they open one up in NorCal soon.

Tonight, Binh took me for some Cuban food at a place called Versailles. I haven't had decent Cuban food in long time. My favorite Cuban restaurant is in Miami and is coincidentally also called Versailles. We had the lemon chicken, a combo with oxtail and beef tongue, and of course fried plantains and black beans. I normally really like black beans, but I didn't really like the black beans here because of the cilantro. Binh tells me that is a hereditary thing. It was good, but then we went to this cool new dessert place called Pinkberry. Here is a hilarious LA Times article about how the place started and has generated the city of LA much revenue via parking tickets issued for illegal parking around the original location. We went to the one on Berendo (and Sixth) street in Koreatown. Here are some pics. Doesn't it make you want to drool? If there has been one sin that I have been guilty of this week, it's gluttony. From the spa to all this eating. It's just gluttony. I wouldn't mind doing it all over again if only my pants still fit! I had the vanilla with mango, strawberry, and carib while Binh had the green tea yogurt with raspberry, blueberry, and mango. So delish. No wonder they call it crackberry.

Spa Day in San Diego

So this weekend was a great weekend of decadence. Edwin and I flew into LA on Friday and I drove down to San Diego for a spa day with Michelle and Corinne. It was a very nice way to spend a Saturday. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I don't really like to wake up early. However, I was out the door by 8:30 on Saturday to drive down to San Diego for a 12PM spa appointment. Michelle and Corinne were already in San Diego for a conference.

We met up at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. Corinne and I had the Papaya Pineapple scrub while Michelle and Corinne's cousin Emily had deep tissue massages. What I thought was interesting is that while Corinne and I had the same treatment done, we had slightly different experiences. I had a 25 minute scrub with a 10 minute shower and then a 25 minute massage with lotion. Corinne had a 50 minute scrub and massage and then a shower and was given the lotion to apply herself. I always like to get scrubs because I think it's like getting a 2-for-1 with a scrub and massage. We got to hang out by the pool and use the sauna. I took 3 showers that day- once in the morning, another to remove the scrub, and another one after using the sauna and pool. It was very relaxing to say the least.

We left to get some Hawaiian food and then started on spa part 2. We went to get some mani/pedi's that was recommended by Emily. They were clean and relatively inexpensive, but they had some service issues. They were trying to upsell everything. I also had a weird experience with a parrafin wax for my hands. I decided to do that one because when I had hand therapy, I always had a parrafin wax treatment to help my hand "stretch." I think most women do it for the smooth skin. I feel like an old woman sometimes because my hand feels kind of tight when it's cold outside.

Before dinner, Michelle, Mike and I went to Seaport Village for a little shopping. Here's a picture of me and Michelle looking relaxed and happy.

For dinner, we went to Indigo Grill, a hip San Diego restaurant. The Smoked Duck Nachos were really yummy and I had the pecan crusted rainbow trout. After dinner, we walked around a bit in San Diego's Little Italy section and then headed out for the drive back to Calabasas. Michelle gave me a little tour of the "Valley." It was a surreal experience because we drove for miles and could not find a coffeehouse to save our lives.

Who's Afraid of SoCal?

This weekend we are heading south to LA and San Diego. Edwin's friend Dennis is coming to visit from Singapore and I am going to San Diego on Saturday for a spa day. I have to be in LA for work next week, so we decided to go for the weekend. I'm also going to try and see the grandparents while I'm there to check in on Grandma.

I wish that I had more time in SD. I have a few friends there and I'm not even telling them I am coming. It was supposed to be a Girls Weekend, but it turned out to be a spa day. Todd and Frances just got married in December in AZ and I wish that we could at least stop by and say hi. Our friends Amy and John came up with their 2 daughters for our wedding and we hardly got to talk to them. I would love some quality time to catch up with them since we haven't seen them in almost 2 years. Gilbert also lives in SD and came to the wedding and we haven't seen him since. So many people and so little time. Also, I'm going to the spa with Michelle and Corinne and both of them live in SF, so it seems a little crazy that we're all meeting in SD to hang out. I guess that Michelle and I have done crazier things like traveling to the same locations at the same time without planning on going together. We planned on going to London and Paris a few years ago and both got food poisoning on Valentines Day dinner together. Then, we also both had to go to Seattle for work and so we met up there too. Not to mention that Michelle and I have never lived in the same city until she moved to SF 2 years ago and we have known each other for about 8 years.

We're going to see "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?" tomorrow night. Should be fun hanging out with Sully and Eric. Dinner at Le Colonial. YUM! Haven't been there since we went there for Edwin's 30th birthday.

Happy Easter!

We had a pretty good Easter this year. Had dim sum with Uncle Glenn and his family while they visited from Lousiana. I'm looking forward to having more family around. We didn't do any Easter egg hunts this year or egg dying. It's really funny to me because it really makes me wonder how the resurrection of Christ somehow led to an Easter bunny as an icon for the holiday. I understand how Santa Claus came about with St. Nicholas. That makes sense to me, but what happened with Easter? It's not like the Bible has any story about Jesus with bunnies or eggs. You've got the parable of the water into wine or the fish and bread multiplying, but I don't think there's any reference to candy or anything that is commercially "Easter" related. So then how does a holiday morph into a day that celebrates bunnies, dying eggs, and overdosing on jelly beans and peeps?

So we also started looking at a few places in the peninsula. We started looking at Foster City and saw a few 3 bedroom 2 bath condos. It was encouraging to see things in our price range in an area that has good schools, but the condos were a bit older (1970's) and not as charming as we would like. We like older Victorian places that have a lot of original architecture or were really made of solid wood, but I don't think that anyone can really say that buildings built in the 70's were either made well or look that great. Still, the area is very pretty and quiet along the water, but unfortunately, it is built on landfill. However, I think most of the places that we can afford are going to be on landfill which is not exactly the best place to be if you're in an area that is prone to earthquakes. Though I have to say that in all the years that I have lived here, I have never had any bad earthquakes where even 1 thing broke. Most of the time, it just kinda feels like vertigo- you just kinda lose your balance for a second. Sometimes I think that a truck is passing by outside or that the upstairs neighbors are walking loudly or dropped something. But it is never like what you see in the movies. But you never know if there's gonna be another Loma Prieta earthquake like there was in 1989. So what's another option? Move away from the Bay Area? Let's hope not!

We're Pregnant!

Ha ha! Happy April Fools Day! And just to clarify- no, we are not pregnant!

The last few April Fools Days were pretty eventful, so I thought I would try and top some of the biggies:
2005- Nikki & Ed's wedding in Maui
2006- Edwin asked my parents for their blessing for our wedding (believe me- that was a big day!)
2007- really hard to top!

This weekend, we spent Friday with the Banerjees for dinner and a movie (and a little laundry!) Poor Kokomi has a diaper rash and had cried so much during the day that she was completely hoarse when we saw her.

Saturday we went down to our cousin Billy and Maggie's house for a BBQ in Mountain View. My Aunt Finney and my cousins who are moving from Louisiana are in town for spring break, so it was good to see them. I also got to try out the new video game system called Wii. It's kind of a reality video game but without all the motion sickness for me. It was pretty cool. I was swinging the control like baseball bat for a game that simulates baseball. The control had some kind of vibration that went off if you hit the ball. (Since I only hit the ball 2/10 times, I don't really recall too much. Obviously, I'm a little rusty...)

Today, I went to my Uncle Glenn's new church called SF Swatow Christian Church. I had no idea what a Swatow was, so I googled it and here's Wikipedia's definition. The church has a small English congregation with about 20 members. Reminds me of the old church in Cleveland when there were only about 15 of us in the pews so we only took up one side. It grew a lot bigger and when I left Cleveland, there were about 100 in the English congregation. If only the services weren't so early! 9:30 is not early for some, but when you are used to an 11:30 service, and sometimes even waking up in time for that service is a struggle... I know, I know, parents with young kids are collectively groaning everywhere... believe me, I am going to enjoy every minute of sleeping in until possible!

I also wrote a recommendation for an old coworker who is applying for a teaching assistant position in Spain. I don't know what I was thinking because I guess that I thought that my Spanish skills were still up to par and that I could write the recommendation in Spanish. Well, it's not that I can't write in Spanish anymore, but it's the lack of speed I can't deal with. It was taking forever to formulate a sentence. I finally gave up and wrote it in English and then I'll go back and translate it later. So sad when I used to be able to speak Spanish without even thinking. Ay, que lastima!