History 1

This is one of my very favorite photographs; it sits on top of our television unit with some of our other treasured pictures. The bundled baby is my mom, only a few months old. The boys are her older brothers; her little sister and younger brother had not yet been born. The year was 1945, and Mom was only a few months old. 

About three years after this photo was taken, the family was forced to flee from Guangdong province in southern China to Taiwan. The Communist Party had defeated the Nationalist party, for whom my grandfather fought. My mom's family and several other families had to huddle together on a boat for a short but treacherous journey to Taiwan. There were too many people and not enough room. Mom, who was three years old at that time, was so sick and cold that she cried the entire trip. At the top of her lungs. The folks on the boat, equally cold, tired and fed up, threatened to have a group vote to throw the crying toddler overboard so they could have some peace. 

 

Thankfully, Mom got to stay on the boat instead of becoming fish food, and they eventually reached Taiwan, safe and sound. They were able to re-make their life on the island, where Mom eventually met Dad. Despite the fact that Dad is 10 years older than Mom, he also grew up in China and fled to Taiwan during the very same year. His story is especially unique but since I like to keep my blogs relatively short, I'll talk about Dad in a later posting.

To the folks who were on the boat with my mom -- thank you for putting up with her and not insisting that she got thrown overboard. And--ummm...really? What were you thinking?

To my late grandma and grandpa who saw to it that their kids would stay safe and sound, I wish you were still around to tell me all of the incredible stories. And thank you for all that you've done.

Twirley's Thanksgiving Edition

Today, I take a step back to reflect on everything for which I am thankful. Really, I should be grateful for what I have each and every day, not just during these few days when everyone is basking in the glow of turkey, pies, family and… well… thankfulness. I suppose it’s easy to get wrapped up in everyday trivial nonsense that causes me to vent, fume and snap; I forget myself sometimes. So, here’s Twirly’s special Thanksgiving edition on reasons I am thankful (and here’s hoping that I remember this every day):

• Mom and Dad, for being there for me, always. For immigrating to the U.S. without a job in sight, just so their kids could have a better life. For their crazy quirkiness that allows me to fill up a few pages of my blog, and more.

• My healthy, vivacious, curious little girl, who brings me joy each and every day, and makes me relish being a mom.

• Arlene’s Grocery, a little music bar in Lower East Side. Because without it, K and I would not have met. Speaking of which … 

• …K, for being a supportive, loving, gregarious hubs. Despite our occasional bumps, we are going eight years strong.

• My health. Last month, I went in for a physical for the first time ever. My hypochondriac self was convinced that the doctor would turn up gazillions of things wrong with me (physical, not mental…we all know I’ve got issues on the latter). Turns out everything is great, and my cholesterol is better than 90% of the U.S. population (doctor’s words, not mine). Not that I’m gloating or anything.

• My job. I was part of the 11% unemployed a couple of years ago; not a fun time. I’m grateful that I now have a job that I enjoy (despite periodic frustrations--but what would be the fun in not being able to vent about craziness at work, right?)

• My old friends who know me so well—my past, my faults, my insecurities—and still choose to keep in touch with me.

• My new friends, who have made my frequent moves to different cities a much more enjoyable experience.

• My mother-in-law, whom, despite several generation's age difference (she grew up during the depression, still sends me newspaper clippings and refers to the Internet as “Inter-Web”) appreciates me, loves EB to pieces and is a good mother-in-law.

• For the Internet, affordable plane tickets and wireless technology, without which I would not be able to stay in close contact with mom/dad/bro.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Crad digestive glands for your snacking pleasurefulness

I was going through some old digital photos this morning and happened upon pics from our visit to Shanghai back in early 2005. Dad had lived in Shanghai for his consulting work, and Mom had traveled back and forth between U.S. and Shanghai at the time. K and I decided to join in on the fun and stayed with Dad for 10 days, and had an absolute blast. While we had previously visited China with a tour group, there’s nothing like traveling on your own with someone who has an intimate knowledge of the area. There were no set itineraries; we had the freedom to meander and explore different nooks and crannies of this incredible city.

Dad is one of the biggest foodies that I know, and we ate our way through Shanghai--we were busy  planning our next meal before the current one was complete. One of my favorite places to eat in Shanghai is a food court in the Old Town area, a sprawling cafeteria with hundreds of delectable, Chinese delicacies. Here are some pictures we took:

Since Shanghai caters to visitors and transplants, there are signs with English translations everywhere. Frequently though, some things get lost in translation:

While "ovary and digestive glands of a crad" may not sound appetizing, it's what we know as crab roe, and trust me, it was delicious.

It was a wonderful trip, and we hope to be back there again soon, this time with EB in tow.

Spelling Beast

A few years back, I was visiting my parents and was sitting around the living room when I noticed a video tape sitting on top of their television set. The homemade label said "THE BREAST," in big, bold, capital letters.

What the???...

I’d never heard of any movie called “The Breast.” I first thought that maybe it was a bad 1970's sci-fi/horror movie with marauding body parts. Or, could it be a medical documentary on the female part? Or could it be…Oh. My. God.…Could it possibly be that my parents had left a porno movie lying around in the living room? I told my brother, and the idea made us giggle like schoolgirls.

Day after day, it sat out on top of the TV, taunting us. It was fun speculating for awhile, but finally I could stand it no longer; it was time to confront Dad.

“Umm…Dad. What’s this video?”

“Oh, that. I recorded it a few months back. Thought you two may like to watch it.”

“Uhh..Okay…what’s it about?”

“Some movie about a giant squid. Lots of action.”

“Um. Dad. It says ‘The BREAST’ on it.”

“Oh...really? Ha..ha...I meant ‘The BEAST.’ Must’ve added an ‘r’ by accident.” Dad shrugged, chuckled to himself, and that was that. Mystery solved.

Just a few days ago, my brother was visiting them and found the same tape in their movie collection. Rather than change the tag, Dad decided to scribble out the "R" with a marker..but the way he did it, it just accentuates the "R" even more. See exhibit below.

The BREAST lives on.

 

Halloween posting a week late

I know it’s customary to blog about a holiday right after it has passed, but as you can see, I’m a bit late in blogging about our Halloween. Being behind seems to be par for the course for me. I’ve yet to start a baby keepsake album for EB (should’ve started that four years ago), and I’ve pretty much given up on putting together our wedding album (should’ve done it eight years ago). Anyway...


This is the first year that EB got excited about Halloween. And when I say excited, I mean really, really excited. As in she’d been talking about it for months, picked out her Spider Girl costume back in August and practiced her Spider Girl “look” for weeks. Just take a look at her. This Spider Girl is fierce!

Don't mess with me!

It was well worth the wait, because we literally celebrated Halloween for a week straight.  It started with her friend’s Halloween party, followed by Halloween festival at her school, then trick-or-treating at my work, then Boo at the Zoo, then the grand finale…Halloween night. I was a bit worn out by the time Halloween actually rolled around, but EB was still so pumped that K and I couldn’t help but join in the fun with our impromptu costumes.

The end result of our week: candies, candies and more candies.

We’re not big candy eaters (at least I’m not; K loves candies, all the more reason to get it out of the house). And considering we only allow EB one or two candies a day, it would take probably a year to polish this off. So I did a search on the Internet and stumbled upon Operation Shoebox, an organization that aims to support our troops who are deployed overseas by sending them care packages, letters and moral support. They accept Halloween candies, so we allowed EB to keep one pumpkin-bucket worth of candies, and give the rest away to this organization. In case you would like to donate your candies, here is their mailing address:

Operation Shoebox

8360 E Highway 25

Belleview, FL 34420

operationshoebox.com

Hope you all had a spooktacular Halloween!

Things I learn during my commute

My commute to/from work generally takes about 30 minutes each way, and I actually kind of enjoy it. It gives me time to decompress and catch up on all the important news and info, like the ones I picked up during my drive home last night.

1. The launch of the Kardashian Kard. Kardashian sisters just announced the launch of their own prepaid MasterCard. In just a few short days, you can start carry around their faces in your wallet--OMG!--all Kardashians, all the time! And, as a bonus, you can store up to $750,000 on the Kard. Not sure if that’s enough for me, but it will do for now.

2. The metrosexual look is out, rugged manly-man look is in. I was curious as to what they meant by "rugged," so I checked out the Marketplace Website and here are a couple of their favorite "rugged" looks:

I’ve gotta say, when I think of rugged, I think of grubby jeans, flannel over white undershirt and a pair of work boots. This is more metrosexual-wannabe-rugged. The maize colored v-neck on the left is waayyy too carefully coordinated with the cornflower blue under shift. And the guy on the right…just look at the gold detail on his belt.


And finally, I learned the most important lesson of all from a bumper sticker on the car ahead of me:

3. “Give kids hugs, not drugs.” Well then. I'll be sure to keep that in mind with EB.

So you see, you learn something new every day.

She's Got a Way with Words

EB is in a talkative stage -- she talks non-stop, making up phrases, words and expressing herself with funny logic. It's great fun; here is a list of my all-time favorite EB-isms*: 

hanitizer          noun \ ‘haŋ-ә-ti-zәr\

Hand sanitizer, as in Purell  (“Mommy, can I have the hanitzier?”)

donuts            noun

Something she can eat in place of peanuts because of her peanut allergies (“I can’t have peanuts, but I can have walnuts and donuts”)

nursery school    noun

EB’s reference to the nursing school that K currently attends (“Daddy is going to nursery school”)

dressing sandwich noun
Chicken salad sandwich that I had made, with way too much mayo mixed in (“I don’t like the dressing sandwich that Mommy made”)

age-ier  adj  \’āj-ir\
When one is older (“Mommy is age-ier than me”)

*EB-isms   noun \’ē-bē -izәmz\

1: words and phrases made up by EB 

2: a three-year old’s adorable attempt to make sense of things around her