What do you get when you cross bossanova, the 80's, and Godard?

I've been listening to this song all day...

Nouvelle Vague - Dance With Me

Don't mess with mess

I'm messy.* I'm also pretty unapologetic about it if I'm left to my own devices. My closet is a disaster, my clothes and books can be found in about 40% of the open space in the apartment, and my college student brother can spend about three minutes in my room before he starts to compulsively organize my things.

So I'm totally loving this NY Times article, "Saying Yes to Mess" (added emphasis is mine):

An anti-anticlutter movement is afoot, one that says yes to mess and urges you to embrace your disorder. Studies are piling up that show that messy desks are the vivid signatures of people with creative, limber minds (who reap higher salaries than those with neat “office landscapes”) and that messy closet owners are probably better parents and nicer and cooler than their tidier counterparts. It’s a movement that confirms what you have known, deep down, all along: really neat people are not avatars of the good life; they are humorless and inflexible prigs, and have way too much time on their hands.

The article also goes on to slam people who have overbooked, highly structured schedules, a diagnosis which, as a product manager and a big believer in having your priorities and process straight, I don't entirely agree with. But other than that, right on!

*Note: Though I'm comfortable with clutter, I am clean. For example, I'm pretty good about keeping tabs on our refrigerator, especially after the rapidly decomposing fiasco that was once our market basket, and I try not to tempt the ants and critters that no doubt see our first-floor apartment as a safe haven in these sub-freezing temperatures.

The Improbable Skier

I dragged Sheena to Kirkwood on Sunday, and after a series of ups and downs, she actually made significant progress in becoming a skier. I taught her how to sidestep up small hills without drifting away into the nearby creek, and to snowplow down the same small hills while staring said creek down with steely-eyed confidence. After she was on a roll with these exercises, I managed to get her on a chairlift. When the lift got 20 feet up her confidence quickly disappeared, but she was somehow able to make it down her first real trail in about 20 minutes while only falling twice. I knew I would get something in return for watching Ever After with her three years ago, and this is it.

I was in LA briefly yesterday for a few meetings, and the sky was so clear that you could see the snow-capped San Gabriel mountains in the distance. This was my second time in LA, and it seemed like a completely different place from the hazy, overcast city I visited in April. It clearly isn't always so amazing, though, since this photo made the front page of the LA Times today.

It must have been love, but it's over now

I stopped drinking Diet Coke and all diet soda. I love Diet Coke, but it's not good for your bones.

We had some good times, DC. You were bubbly, sweet, and suppressed my appetite like no other, but being hunchbacked in my old age is not really what I had in mind when we first met.

What am I drinking these days, you ask? Hot water with lemon. Kind of the Steffi Graf to my Brooke Shields but I think I'm better for it.

!!!

Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod. Heroes is the best show ever.

Also, I almost fainted in yoga today. Everywhere is excitement!

Reading Log: November

This was a yawn of a reading month. Maybe these were just the wrong books at the wrong time...

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Grade: B. Quirky, touching, and very human... but I really need to stop reading books narrated by eccentric/misunderstood kids.

No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy
Grade: B+. Like watching a really thoughtfully directed, masterfully acted, gorgeously shot... action movie. Ooh--or having a glass of really fancy scotch on the rocks. I know it's special and worthy of acclaim... but I didn't enjoy reading it very much. It's not like Cormac wrote this book for a girly girl like me anyway.

On Beauty, by Zadie Smith
Grade: B. An entertaining read once you get past all the inaccurately rendered American slang. I'm not the hugest fan of Zadie Smith's writing style, but this made for a pretty interesting story, if not the groundbreaking look at intersections of race and class that I was hoping to get.

The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating, edited by James Watson and Melissa Caldwell
Grade: B. With all the novels this month, I was ready to go back to non-fiction. Full-blown academic writing, however, felt a bit taxing. Still, lots of cool stuff in this volume--fast food in developing countries, the marketing of coffee in the US, the politics of artisanal chocolates in France... sadly, nothing on Thanksgiving.

This was kind of a sad roundup... I've got my fingers crossed for December. :)

Reload

I thought I'd share some recent finds that I've been checking obsessively:

* Kircher Society is about the bizarre and the curious. Like did you know there was a brain disorder that makes you suddenly speak in a foreign accent? Or that someone who was really, really scared of being buried alive by mistake created something called the "security coffin"?

* Lobstersquad is technically a food blog, but it's written by an illustrator in Spain who includes stylish, whimsical drawings with every entry. The drawings are my favorite part.

* gabba features user-submitted electronic music (NOT gabber, thankfully), some well-known, some independent, and has an innovative voting/incentive system to legislate good taste.

And these two art blogs:
* Art MoCo (its parent "modern contemporary design" blog is great too)
* neverhappened

Enjoy!

Sweet home San Leandro

Thanksgiving at my grandmother's house in Oakland was delicious. We had the usual:

• Lo mai fan (sp? Steamed sticky rice with Chinese sausage, sliced shiitake mushrooms, dried scallops and dried shrimp)
• An intriguing potato salad I grew up with, probably more accurately categorized as fruit salad with potatoes and mayo, and the addition of diced Fuji apples, pineapple chunks and halved longans (the last of which was actually a later development, c. 1992); sounds vile, but I promise it's good
  
• Japanese sweet potatoes and Okinawan purple yams
• Sweet jellyfish and pickled cucumbers, sprinkled with sesame seeds
  
• Cranberry sauce (the canned stuff)
  
• Honey-baked ham
  
• Pumpkin pie
• Mango cake from a Hong Kong-style bakery
  
• And last but not least, our family recipe for turkey, heavily influenced by my grandparents' years in Peru, seasoned with soy sauce and cumin -- damn near the best thing I've ever eaten.

I love that every family I know makes Thanksgiving their own somehow, e.g. Hester's family having turkey with a helping of japchae on the side, the jubilantly autumnal cranberry compote Eli's uncle makes, Keyvan's Persian feast of meat and hair (??).

I've been hiding out at my parents' house since last Tuesday night, mostly reading, catching up on some work, eating good food, and brushing up on my Chinese with the help of chinesepod. I also built out my Netvibes page with lots of great design blogs (I went from three tabs to five!) and continued my cardio streak (I'm at 12 days in a row now). I did no shopping, but I'm at peace with that. :)

Hope everyone had a restful and delicious Thanksgiving!

Favorite podcasts?

I've started to try and fit in some cardio activity on a regular basis. I've gone every day for the past 8 days now. Of course, now that I've put it in writing, I'm totally jinxed. :-)

For the first seven days, I jammed my favorite trance anthems* and zoned out, but today, I listened to two NPR Science Friday podcasts, one on Neanderthal DNA and another on deja vu. I liked it! It really made the time fly by.

Does anyone have any podcasts to recommend? I'm not really into gadgets (sorry, Keyvan) but I do like science and programs on books, music, and art. Help me continue my streak!

* This video sucks, but the song is invincible!

Happy pores!

Eli and I went to Bikram Yoga (yup, that's the hot room kind) today after work for 90 minutes of sweaty, masochistic... sweating. We were a little scared going in since we had no clue what to expect. We both freaked out for a minute when our instructor said "you might not want to drink water right now because it could actually make you more nauseous" and it was definitely hard work, but we left feeling very relaxed and cleansed.

And just because we felt like crunchy California folk tonight, we had whole wheat pita pizzas with vegetables for dinner. Yum!

Thugs don't cry

I'm watching an episode of 30 Minute Meals where Rachael Ray is obviously distraught over the recent death of her butternut squash-loving dog. The sunny disposition we've all grown to despise (at least, if you're a friend of mine, ha) feels defeated today. Her eyes look just a touch swollen from crying. And she's adding a "pet meal" to accompany the dinner she's cooking. But the weirdest thing of all: she never once mentions that her dog died. She just keeps referring to her in the past tense and starting 40% of her sentences with "that's what's so great about animals...". Awkward!!

6:56PM. Oh wait, I spoke too soon. She finally said it after a commercial break. Okay, time to clean my apartment for my visitors tomorrow...

6:59PM. Holy crap, did Rachael Ray just make me tear up a little??? RIP Boo.

Wholesome, Post-Vegas Fun

1) Sheena has been inspired recently to cook at home, which for me has the single downside that I have to do the dishes again, but other than that is fantastic. Last night she made salmon poached in chicken broth and white wine, a duck salad with green beans, and a "relish" made with avocado chunks, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, and sesame oil. Yummy. I have been doing my part to uphold an image of suburban domesticity by drinking the occasional can of beer and groaning when it's clear that the time to wash the dishes has arrived. We watched three episodes of six feet under, but got a little too annoyed by Claire's self-absorbed art school professor so had to stop at that. Later we discovered that the Music Choice channels on Comcast can actually be a pretty effective avenue for discovering new music. Pandora is still better though, since you have the ability to skip songs you don't like.

2) This morning we woke up early and caught a matinee showing of the Borat movie, which had just as many completely uncomfortable moments as hilarious ones. Sheena and I agreed that it wasn't a total bomb, but a main detractor was having to watch it in a theater with people who aren't your friends, and whose reasons for laughing hysterically at certain moments were not completely clear. Because of this, I would recommend to those who haven't seen it yet that you just download it and watch it with friends at home instead.

3) Around lunchtime we experienced the injustice of dealing with bossy matriarch-led families at crowded Asian malls during their peak hours. I was waiting in line to order food and Sheena stood scoping for empty tables. After ten minutes of scoping, I saw a man get up and Sheena go over to establish ownership of the table. A 60-something grandmother then came over and informed her that it was "her table", even though she had just seconds ago materialized from one of the aisles of movie rentals. Sheena had no choice but to admit defeat and avoid being trampled by the group of children the woman proceeded to wave over in a celebration of victory. Injustice? Or injustice?

4) After a horrible lunch at Harry's Hofbrau (Munich-style restaurant on Saratoga Ave in San Jose specializing in sauerkraut and lard) we went to get haircuts at Z Salon and then some coffee next door at Bellano. Bellano is a college-town-y, independent cafe, which in the San Jose area is really a find. They even had the XM radio indie rock station playing, which seemed a little odd when combined with the oldster-staring-out-the-window clientele. A song came on that I really liked and I was able to ask the guy working behind the counter what it was. So if any of the following potentially misleading descriptions are appealing to you, you might want to check out mew - the zookeeper's boy: Danish, Royksopp with guitars, epic, bleak, voices echoing through snowy landscapes, music Eli likes.

Trip to Las Vegas and Other Things

This is Eli--since I haven't posted in a while (long enough for Sheena to call me a "guest blogger" in her last post, ouch) I thought I would clear that up first.

vh-1 is now showing the 100 greatest songs of the 80s, which is awesome. It has graphics from the original Pole Position game for Nintendo in the intro. It's on #64 right now (Paula Abdul, Straight Up) and favorites so far include Gary Numan's "Cars", Lionel Richie's "All Night Long", The Pretenders "Brass in Pocket" and Chaka Khan's "Ain't Nobody." You can also watch videos on the site (you have to watch the "Whip It" video at #63). Also, apparently Thomas Dolby ("she blinded me with science") later went on to start a company in silicon valley called Beatnik, which is involved with wireless music licensing or something like that. Maybe he lives in Cupertino and shops at 99 ranch (he has a crush on an asian girl in the music video, so not unlikely).

Highlights from our trip to Las Vegas this weekend:

1) Sheena parlayed a $5 investment in nickel slots into a profit of $14.20, all within 90 seconds. This equates to an annualized net profit of eleventy billion dollars. Sadly, this profit was lost in five minutes while waiting for a restaurant to open for lunch in Mandalay Bay.

2) Cirque de Soleil's "O", the water-themed acrobatic extravaganza, which we saw at the Bellagio. We sat in the "limited view" seats way off to the right, and although we didn't get sprayed with water, we did have trouble focusing on the real center of the action because it was easy to be distracted by people on the side doing things that were mostly ornamental.

3) The Sterling Brunch at Bally's on Sunday was really great. They had an endless pile of lobster claws that were precracked so you could just pull out the meat, and they also had an omelette station where they added Hennessey to the pan and set it on fire for good measure.

4) Since it was halloween we saw some people with costumes on the strip. The most creative was a group of girls dressed with headlamps and skimpy outfits, all spraypainted in gold (they were golddiggers!).

5) The Wynn, the strip's newest hotel/casino which opened up earlier this year apparently, was amazing. It was the only place in Vegas that made me feel like I was actually in Ocean's Eleven, and not at a cruise ship buffet.

6) This isn't a highlight, but a complaint. Sheena didn't want to take any pictures in Vegas--not one. I would have put some up, but because she didn't want to seem like a tourist (where else is it more acceptable to seem like a tourist? do you really want to seem like a local in Vegas?), I have none. Sorry. Instead I will give you this horrible, impersonal link.

Reading Log: October - Happy Halloween!

There appears to be a seasonal bent to my reading selections this month, a lot of books that were Halloween-y (from genetic mutations, to the afterlife, to the Japanese beauty industry); belonging and identity were another running theme.

Heavy Words, Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme, by Chris Roberts
Grade: D. This book looked so promising: scores of etymological mysteries solved--with bawdy, morbid, delightfully British explanations! But no, it was drier than a blacksmith's boot.

The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Grade: B+. This novel centers around a first-generation Bengali family and the bittersweet coming-of-age story of their son, named after Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. Lahiri really has a gift for describing those complex, compound feelings that characterize growing up between two cultures.

Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body, by Armand Marie Leroi
Grade: A. I love good science writing, and this is it. There's lots of stuff in here that will make your stomach turn (extra renegade skeleton??!?), but Leroi is also quick to point out the beautifully intricate orchestrations that make order and life possible in the first place.

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, by Mary Roach
Grade: B-. This book isn't nearly as joyous an undertaking as Roach's previous book on human cadavers--you get the feeling she was a little bored the entire time she was sniffing out the answers--and while I still love her sense of humor, there was a lot of uncharted territory here that wasn't covered. Still a fun read.

Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics, by Laura Miller
Grade: B. This was the first real academic book I've read since college, and while at times it definitely read like a dissertation (reifications, anyone?), it was such an interesting and refreshing take on gender studies and Japan studies. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and not everyone is trying to emulate the West. Bam!

I haven't forgotten about our trip to Vegas. You'll hear about it soon, I promise. Hopefully, Eli will make a guest blogger appearance. :-P

You know you've been working for two years when...

This like, totally made me laugh this morning.

In other news:
* I am now caught up on Heroes, which conveniently fills the TV-shaped hole in my heart left by Project Runway.
* I spent about 5 hours on Saturday night belting out alternative rock anthems on this amazing invention.
* My car officially got 35.5 miles per gallon on my last tank.
* Some work drama: the cafeteria at work stopped putting fresh pineapple in their fruit salad and the entrance right next to my cube stopped working. As a result, I lose out on my daily delicious Hawaiian treat, I have to walk halfway around the building to get to my desk, and a chain of fools likes to call me on my cell phone to manually let them through the door.

Duck Duck... Lamb?

Eli and I went to dinner at Left Bank last Friday night and came to the realization that more often than not, we order the same kinds of entrees. I always want duck; he always wants lamb.

Then we turned to each other and said, hey wait a minute--I'm kind of like a duck (quack quack), he's kind of like a lamb! Tonight we compared Myers-Briggs types and it sort of fits... we differ in that I'm an extroverted judge-r (ENTJ) and he's an introverted perceiver (INTP). I think we make a good team.

Almost as cool as Men's Pocky

Back when I was in 6th grade, we did a kitchen midden activity for an archaeology unit. Apparently, quite a bit of what we know about the lives of everyday people in ancient times was gleaned by going through fortuitously preserved, stratified piles of trash.

A bunch of teachers in my middle school contributed bags of trash toward the activity, and our assignment was to go through them and make rash conclusions about what life was like for the individual whose garbage was sitting on our desks (did I mention I went to public school?). My team, a cadre of awkward wannabe grungesters, concluded that our subject was totally obsessed with weight issues and secretly hated her cats.

I wonder what an archaeologist 2,000 years from now would say if they saw some of the products we use. Just a cursory glance at our bathroom yields these 21st-century Proctor & Gamble gems, among other things:


Okay, so I think that long buildup was kind of unnecessary and I reeeeally secretly just wanted to post about how Eli's deodorant is called "Showtime" and the idea of him waking up in the morning and putting on "Showtime" before heading off to work, half-asleep, is endlessly amusing to me.

I occasionally use cola.

Oh dear. I drink at least 2 diet colas a day.

"Women who drink cola daily had lower bone mineral density than those who drink it only once a week," she said. "If you are worried about osteoporosis, it is probably a good idea to switch to another beverage or to limit your cola to occasional use." -- from http://health.yahoo.com/news/167458

Overheard in Cupertino

Random wandering guy: Excuse me, you look Asian so maybe you would know...
Sheena: *scrunches eyebrows*
Random wandering guy: Do you know my friend Amy, if she still lives here? She used to live over there (points).

One step at a time...

As of 9PM tonight, I can now say the following in Chinese:

- I cannot drink milk.
- When I drink beer, I turn red.*

YEEEEEESS!

* That's not true, by the way, but can you really claim to speak Chinese if you don't know the terminology around Asian glow?

Reading Log: September

I love to read, but it has been hard to make time for it. Not so, after moving to Cupertino!

My goal is to read 4 or 5 books a month, roughly one a week, so to borrow a page from Young's playbook, I'm going to keep track of the books I read every month to keep myself accountable and record my impressions. I used to keep a reading log in my sassy Jordi Labanda blank book, but it's labor-intensive to write out all the quotes I like by hand.

x The Sea, John Banville (B+; beautiful/pompous)

I was plagued by coincidences; long-forgotten things were suddenly remembered; objects turned up that for years had been lost. My life seemed to be parsing before me, not in a flash as it is said to do for those about to drown, but in a sort of leisurely convulsion, emptying itself of its secrets and its quotidian mysteries in preparation for the moment when I must step into the black boat on the shadowed river with the coin of passage cold in my already coldening hand.

x Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, Julie Powell (B; a fun read, if a bit self-indulgent)

The reason people despise liver is that to eat it you must submit to it... you've got to give yourself over to everything that's a little repulsive, a little scary, a little just too much about it... you can never get away from the feral fleshiness of it.

x The History of Love, Nicole Krauss (A; I wholeheartedly agree with the Washington Post's review--it's "at least as heartbreaking as it is hilarious")

Sometimes I thought about nothing and sometimes I thought about my life. At least I made a living. What kind of living? A living. I lived. It wasn't easy. And yet. I found out how little is unbearable.

x The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon (B; charming, sort of pointless)

All the other children at my school are stupid... I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in is coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-colored hearing aid... none of these people are Special Needs, even if they have special needs.

Now if I could only muster up the courage to keep myself just as publicly accountable for my fitness goals... ;-)

Alone in the sprawl

With Sheena out of town for the weekend, the logical thing for me to do was go out and talk to the locals, and in Cupertino this means a middle-aged Chinese lady. But it's not as strange as it sounds. This Chinese lady is Sheena's--and now my own--Chinese tutor.

So when Sheena and Keyvan were giggling (or maybe just smiling dispassionately) over past MTV crushes, I was being presented with a Soviet-planning-style overview of payment, teaching supply, and scheduling logistics. It didn't take long for me to realize that my Chinese is pretty rusty, but I was able to walk away with some salient learnings from the session:

1) The Chinese flag is red not because red stands for communism, but because it represents the blood of all the people who died supporting Mao during the civil war. Think about this the next time you're in Shanghai walking down East Nanjing Road (photo 16).

2) Qinghua is the best university in China, partly because it's one of the best science and technology universities in China, but mostly because my tutor's husband got his PhD there.

3) The Chinese government has a propaganda department because without such a department, the rural masses would have no idea what to think about major national and international issues. In other words, it's not an effort to get everyone behind their points of view, so much as an educational initiative. However, the most interesting part of this argument was her claim that, without the propaganda people writing articles about how China should approach Japan, Chinese people would have run Japanese people and businesses out of the country during the protests of 2005 (and others). Also, I think she might have suggested that Tiananmen was probably the right thing to do at the time, but that's another topic for another lesson.

Until then, onward and upward.

Improper Bostonian

I haven't posted in ages, but I have a great excuse--I was in Cambridge!

Last Thursday was sort of a homecoming for me, and even after two years of being away, I found my old stomping grounds to be pretty much the same, save for the notable absence of Wordsworth Books. I've sworn that I'll never live in the Boston area again, but it's funny what a magical place Cambridge can be when the weather is perfect and your closest encounter with slush is a memory indexed three years back--oh, and when you're with amazing friends, friends that will do crazy things like this:

Sheena: Hey, is that Gideon Yago from MTV? I had the biggest crush on him freshman year of college.
Hester: GIDEON!
Gideon turns around and waves. Chorus giggles.

God wants us to start cooking again

Today we left the apartment early (10am) to check out the Mountain View farmer's market. We weren't planning on walking away with the entire market, which is what happened after I entered a raffle and was called 2 hours later (back in Cupertino, at this point) by the market manager. It was kind of funny because after she called with the news, without a thought, I launched into one of those mini-speeches you always hear on the radio when people call in and win something, which always start with "oh my god I've never won anything before in my life...."

Sheena took this picture of me outside her car, posing with said cornucopia of local produce.

The winnings are funny because:

1) we haven't cooked once since moving into our new apartment three weeks ago.

2) how can anyone who doesn't run a kitchen make use of this volume of fruit and vegetables before they go bad?

3) we didn't recognize a number of the items we won, for example, the interesting specimen pictured here. If anyone can tell us what it is, you'll win something great in a cool wicker basket.

Anyone want some habaneros? How about a few ears of corn?

Ok, time to go check out the pool and get going on some nectarines.

Darfur

There's a group on Facebook called For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur. Its primary goal, as stated on the site, is to spread awareness about the Darfur genocide that is escalating--it's not featured in the news (Lindsay Lohan gets way more coverage), and the international community hasn't done much to help.

If you're on Facebook, please consider joining. It's not going to add up to a lot of money, but I see the main benefit as showing politicians (i.e. the people who can do something about this) that young people care about this issue. Not that we vote or anything, but yeah.

Also, I got a little mad tonight and used an expletive on a stranger in front of untold numbers of other strangers, but people can be such jerks!

On my recent, tragic descent into lactardation.

Growing up, I drank three glasses of milk a day, one in the morning before school, one at dinner, and a glass of warm milk before bed (all skim, mind you, or I'd be 600 pounds). I had milk with my cereal all through college, but as soon as I transitioned from hitting the dining hall every day to getting my own groceries, milk was no longer sustainable.

I don't drink tall glasses of milk, but I don't know many people who do--it's not very refreshing and it makes your breath smell pretty rank. While I was living alone in Tucson, I bought several quarts of milk only to see them go bad in my fridge. I try my best to run a tight ship, so I started eating soy yogurt for breakfast, instead of cereal with milk.

Fast-forward to the present day, where I am feeble and lactose intolerant as this elderly Asian man:

Honestly, though, I think it's pretty "street" that a light smearing of cream cheese can stop me in my tracks. It wasn't always that way. Alegrias' baked goat cheese, my beloved Precious Stringsters string cheese, brie en croute, even the damn fruit & granola yogurt cup at the cafeteria... man, I miss those guys.

I happen to love soy, and I'm fine with putting soy milk in my latte. But while I adore soy yogurt, soy custard, smoked tofu, and yuba (this all sounds like pretentious spa food, but it's all stuff that's very common to Chinese cuisine), I also miss dairy. In fact, I would rather be allergic to something like red meat than be lactose intolerant. Because lactose intolerance hates freedom. There, I said it!

Adventures in Texas

Eli and I have both been away. I went to Houston for the ASBDC conference; Eli was in New York for a board meeting.

Houston was my first exposure to the great (read: enormous, not a value judgment) state of Texas. Seizing the opportunity, I went to Chick Fil-A twice. Everything in Houston is big. The portions are big, the churches are big, and 90% of the cars on the freeway are pickup trucks, SUV's, or minivans--no exaggeration. I also went to a megamall with Ronni and saw the biggest American flag I have ever seen, at three stories tall. Flying into Houston Hobby Airport, there were McMansions as far as the eye could see.

Let's just say I'm sympathetic to the idea that we should live simply so that others can simply live. I do have a soft spot for fine dining and I've been known to throw it down at the mall, but I think it's important to be aware of how I vote with my wallet.

A tale of two cities...

We had an awesome weekend!

Saturday: Went to Nan Hai bookstore in Millbrae to get my Chinese textbooks. Drove to the Richmond, tried to read in a cafe, but were chased out by an goosey dance instructor yammering on her cell phone. Sought refuge in our car. Eli read, I took a nap. Dinner with SF friends at Chapeau!, then watching some heated beer pong games (including Ronni's farewell match) chez Young & Tony's (click here for a video tour, hee hee).

Sunday: Woke up way too late, put up pictures, put away clothes and books. Drove Eli's car through the car wash. Dinner at Halu Ramen, then Little Miss Sunshine with Cupertino-side friends.

Going back to SF was weird. Our old apartment complex was just purchased last week for a cool $170 million by Archstone, and it's been renamed from St. Francis Place to Archstone South Market.* A huge Peet's Coffee opened up down the street. There were people everywhere! And cabs! But seriously, something about it was off--it just didn't feel like home, even though we called it home only three weeks ago.

* "'Our strategy is to own apartments in the most desirable neighborhoods in the country, where housing is exceptionally expensive, and St. Francis Place is a perfect fit with that strategy,' said R. Scot Sellers, chairman and chief executive officer." GROSS!

Suburban warrior

Kraftwerk? Or underground cult leader? In either case, probably shouldn't be out buying groceries.

Update: 2 hrs later

It was a little sketchy when I had to prepay her for my lessons for the whole month and when she told me to leave the "To" line on my check blank for her to fill out and when she asked me if it would be okay if I give her cash next month, but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt because it was one of the funnest (funnest?? I've been out of school for a while, clearly) 1.5 hours I've had lately. It's so awesome to be learning stuff and letting my inner nerd get down with its bad self.

So hopefully my money won't go to Sun Myung Moon or whatever, and by the end of the year I will be a Putonghua master. Hen hao!

Ni hao?

I found a Mandarin tutor on Craigslist and have my first session with her in 30 minutes. This means I am not chowing down on Zushi Puzzle with my best mates, but I know you'll understand...

This is kind of a big deal for me because:

1) I don't know Mandarin, but no one knows that I don't know Mandarin. Waitresses from Shanghai to Cupertino assume I'm hard of hearing/mute before devolving into that half-chuckle, half-sigh of realizing, oh, she's one of those kids.

2) This is something I've been meaning to do for a really long time. First, I went the do-it-myself route and bought an impossible computer program (see left) centered around an American exchange student named Sumisu (Smith) with a cloying voice and the fashion sensibilities of Bart Simpson. Then, for about a week, I practiced my pronunciation with Eli, going through all the pinyin sounds. I felt bad because it was so time-consuming, and I wasn't exactly the most focused student.

3) This represents me getting off my ass! I'm driving myself to my tutor's house. Seriously! I don't like to drive at night, but I don't want to be a hermit either. Mommy, I'm all grown up.

More to come once I return...

Labor Day weekend

This past weekend was our first real weekend in the suburbs, and it was an eventful one. Old China-hand Nick was in town Thursday and Friday night on business, executing reverse takeovers in his sleep and fending off the SEC during breakfast. Nick and I spent the 04-05 academic year together at Fudan University, where they are very welcoming to foreign students ("we are grateful for their nice hope and wish they have a nice stay in Fudan").

It looks like I'm not the only one who started having problems with a Verizon Samsung phone this weekend. From Charles' blog:

"I am sorry I didn’t take better care of you when you were under my care. For all the many times I dropped either of you [phone and iPod], stashed you into an uncomfortable bag, or pushed your buttons too hard… I’m sorry."

I, on the other hand, am not sorry. I dropped my phone just once in 14 months, took extra care to stash it in a padded compartment in my shoulder bag every day, and don't have an especially violent phone-flipping technique. So I'm not really sorry at all that my phone is repaying me for all this special treatment by bombing out after 14 months of mediocre service.

I also went to the optometrist this weekend, which was fun. I had some bad pain when I was landing in an airplane two months ago, and I haven't had an eye appointment in almost 2 years, so Sheena cautioned that I should go or my head might explode. They dilated my pupils and looked around inside (nothing was wrong) and then gave me a pair of makeshift sunglasses (the kind that rolls up like a roll of film) to protect my massive-pupiled eyes from the sun. They told me to put my regular glasses on over these, and I then walked around Cupertino village doing a few errands (I guess I thought I would blend in with all the visor
-people). I drove home still wearing my foil face plus glasses, and decided to try replacing my passenger side side view mirror with a kit I bought at Pep Boys. The result was not ideal--I spent 15 minutes cutting the sheet of reflective plastic to fit my mirror fixture, which just reflected a big blur from inside the car, and was seen by no less than two fellow complex residents with my double layer glasses on. I must have seemed like some freak who really enjoyed tinkering with reflective, shiny surfaces, and who aspired to build a whole reflective, shiny lifestyle, regardless of how it affected neighborhood character or local real estate prices.

Jeff was also with us for most of the weekend, and on Monday we saw Ronni, who will be leaving for New York soon (we'll miss you!). We went to a barbeque nearby, where the jalapeno poppers were intense and there was some good conversation about Ninjas, among other things.

All for now....

Hello Cupertino

Sorry for the hiatus. Moving down here has been a pretty all-consuming process, but in summary:

1) Eli did a great job driving the U-Haul (and thanks to all who pitched in with helping us unload)
2) I'm over my food poisoning
3) Miracle of miracles, the Ikea furniture survived with minimal scarring

We're mostly settled into our apartment in Cupertino. The apartment is great: it's much bigger and nicer than our old place, with higher ceilings and a charming little patio. The walls are a cheery yellow, the A/C is fresh, and the digital cable is glorious (how did we survive for so long without it??!?). It's peaceful at night and I no longer have to watch out for that singing crackhead on 3rd and Harrison or those B&T's stumbling out of Club NV (wait, am I a B&T now?). Our commutes have been cut down to a third of what they used to be, so I now have more time to iron my shirts in the morning and attend to personal hygiene obligations--always a plus, especially for people who sit near me at work.

Most of you already know this... even though I tried really hard not to, I bought the same car as Eli. Yes, I did get a different color. No, it would not be very original of you to leave a "his 'n' hers" joke in the comments.

Some good cheese, some bad cheese.

San Francisco has amazing restaurants, charming bookstores, and some breathtaking views, but the thing I'll miss most about this town is my friends.

Who knew my first years of full-time employment could be so much fun? Thank you all for being there, for destroying me at Scrabble, for giving Eli the very last piece of string cheese, for waking me up at 4th and King, for all the Korbel (and TIME), for accepting me even when I leave the club at 12:15am, even when I announced my move to the suburbs.

I was originally planning to upload a picture of Young pretending to be a roast quail from Thep Phanom, but I couldn't find my camera cable.

In other news, you know what really grinds my gears? Family Circus (click the pictures to enlarge).















Never mind the uproarious puns--what I love best is that even after 60 years, it's just as "hip" and "fresh" and "down" with current events as it ever was! I bet all those factory kids in Bangladesh getting 5 cents an hour for sewing XXL cotton briefs would be proud to have an ally in Jeffy or Billy or whatever the hell his name is. Zing!

Pre-Move Jitters, or: Why I Am Doomed to Become a Cat Lady Sipping Mai Tais On Her Barcalounger Whilst Ordering Marie Osmond Dolls from QVC

This past weekend, Eli and I took a spin through the North Bay, stopping at the Marin Headlands for a few photo ops and a chat with some friendly folks at the Marine Mammal Center before continuing on to Healdsburg and Dry Creek Valley. Some highlights of the trip: seeing an adorable little quail family (that’s our state bird!), running up the hill toward a vista point overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, trying an old vine zinfandel at Quivira with a badass dark chocolate finish. I hear there are vineyards in Cupertino, too, some of them award winning! I’m trying, I’m trying.

I’m starting to get pretty anxious about the move. There’s probably nothing I hate more than moving, though its less frenetic but more demeaning cousin, apartment-hunting, comes in at a close second. I suspect my need to feel grounded and nested stems from that crazy summer in college where I moved from couch to couch about a dozen times, relying on the kindness of friends and shuttling my belongings from one end of Cambridge to another by cab in a sagging, beat-up laundry bag. I’ve used up all my moving points.

I’m also starting to notice that I have a lot of stuff. What drove me to order all these cookbooks from Amazon? Why do I have thirty pairs of shoes? What might an inventory of all the hair products I’ve amassed in the past two years look like? Well…

Shampoos

· Aveda Scalp Benefits Balancing Shampoo
· Garnier Fructis Fortifying Anti-Dandruff Shampoo
· Kerastase Resistance Bain de Force
· Shiseido Tsubaki Oil Shampoo with Japanese Camellia Oil
Conditioners
· Aveda Black Malva Color Conditioner
· Aveda Curessence Damage Relief Conditioner
· Shiseido Tsubaki Oil Conditioner Japanese Camellia Oil
Styling
· Aveda Elements Finishing Solution
· Aveda Elements Smoothing Fluid
· Dove Extra Hold Hair Spray
· Dove Straight & Soft Sleek Styling Cream
· Framesi Chill Paste
· Kerastase Resistance Volumactiv Spray with Complexe Amplicament
· Kerastase Lait Nutri-Sculpt

And yet, the only hair product I use on a regular basis is the $3.99 Garnier Fructis. Oh, and my Kiehl’s hairbrush with picots (pictured), without which my hair would converge into a single, glorious one-dread.

Simplify, man!

I have a new car

I have been the proud owner of a brand new Scion xA for three weeks now, which has shaved my ludicrous 1.5 hour morning commute down to a puny 40 minutes. Thank you Scion, for finally figuring out how to make a car as hip as I am, for 38mpg highway fuel efficiency, and for giving me enough trunk space to hold one grocery bag from Trader Joes.

In terms of the impending leap to suburbia, these last few weeks are truly a time of transition, where Sheena and I have been able to live in the city at last year's rents but with next year's car. This has meant taking frantic apartment-hunting trips to the South Bay, but it has also meant getting to visit interesting spots closer to home, like Bernal Heights. Being a sucker for "spectacular vistas" and an avid map buff, I have always had my eye on Bernal Heights Park. I love the sudden way it slopes upward between the houses in the landscape, and the way its rolling grass surface changes color with the seasons, more intensely than other open spaces. This picture is from the brief hike to the top, which was a little on the scary side. We also walked around Bernal Heights' Cortland Street, where we saw some of the coolest dogs ever, checked out Red Hill Books (see post about bookstores), and ate at Moonlight Cafe.

In other news, this morning while driving to work I found my car had been violated when I looked over at my right side view mirror and found that it was missing. I spent a few minutes being fascinated that it took me 15 minutes to use my right side view mirror just once, but then I got angry. Three weeks is all it took for something like this to happen? I started to think maybe this is why people move to the suburbs. I think my mind is halfway to Cupertino already...

Things I'd drive 45 miles for, part 3: Bookstores

I love Amazon, but sometimes you want to look up at a real-life shelf of books. I can usually find out about good novels and good poets from friends and book reviews, but lately, I've been all about getting my hands on well-written non-fiction. The big challenge in hunting for your next dose of elegant, crystalline prose is that if you don't have a particular subject in mind, you can't simply run a search on Amazon and get what you want.

That's where brick-and-mortar bookstores come in. As much as I appreciate Amazon's recommendations, there's something to be said for taking a random walk through a section you weren't originally in the market to explore. I love scanning over carts and table displays (admittedly judging many books by their covers, at least initially) and lingering over staff picks.

Here are some SF bookstores I particularly like:
1) City Lights - Great poetry selection, but the real clincher for me is the bizarre, eclectic basement and close proximity to Gelateria Naia.
2) Green Apple Books - Narrow aisles make this place a really cozy hangout, as long as you've come to terms with the idea that we live in earthquake country.
3) Chronicle Books @ the Metreon - I love a good coffee table book. This is a fun place to kill time.
4) Cody's Books - The staff here is thoughtful about their table displays and reviews, and that's where I think the battle is lost and won for independent bookstores. Lots of in-store events, though I have yet to attend one thanks to my commute.
5) Kinokuniya Bookstore - If I could read Japanese, my life would be so much cooler. Thanks to Kinokuniya, I found my Next Big Craft Hobby once I move down to Cupertino: making "bead mascots" (see left). HELL YES.
6) Red Hill Books - I just discovered this place today... it's pretty small, but it totally feels like you're in your cool aunt's house, checking out her library. There are lots of comfy chairs and they even put snacks out.

So what have I been reading lately? The last two books I read were The End of Oil by Paul Roberts (really interesting and well-written, though it got repetitive toward the end) and The Places In Between by Rory Stewart (amazing).

Welcome, Eli!

I just discovered that you can do "team blogs" on this thing, so please put your hands together and welcome Eli to the blog.

Eli brings with him an extensive knowledge of option portfolio risk management strategies,* a love of spectacular vistas and all things Seinfeld, and a wet-my-pants hilarious imitation of the guy who narrates all the movie trailers.

*Yeah, I randomly flipped to a page in your CFA book.

Things I'd drive 45 miles for, part 2: The Food Entry

I've always had a passion for eating, cooking, and trying new restaurants, but after the culinary wasteland that was Tucson and a short but heavenly stopover in Shanghai, I was thrilled to come back to the Bay Area and squander my disposable income on some serious food.

Here are some of my favorite haunts around San Francisco, places I've found to be reliably good and will miss terribly, in no particular order:

1. Taylor's Automatic Refresher - Toasty eggy hamburger buns!
2. Golden Gate Bakery - Perfect custard tarts
3. Just for You Cafe - Best brunch ever... the cornbread here is a revelation
4. Fringale - Simple, good Basque food and excellent service
5. The House - Been here five or six times in the past three months... everything on the menu is finger lickin' good and reasonably priced
6. Zushi Puzzle - Happiness is sharing a Sales Force Roll with your friends :)
7. Yank Sing - Delicious highway robbery, death by xiao long bao. Mmm.

In other news, I roasted a chicken for the very first time last night, following Thomas Keller's instructions. I was skeptical at first--the recipe is so "set it and forget it" simple and I really thought my conventional oven wasn't going to cut it.

It was phenomenal. Eli proclaimed it the best chicken he'd ever had, even better than the one we had at Zuni Cafe the week before, though he'd had quite a bit to drink by then, so definitely take that with a grain of salt. But I was so happy with the results--the chicken was succulent and juicy with perfectly crispy skin. The key to this recipe appeared to be drying off the chicken thoroughly so that there's no steam in the oven to carry all the flavor and juices away. I served it with a little baby romaine salad with a handful of french green beans, a few red bliss potatoes I baked up in the pan juices, and a dressing made with champagne vinegar and dijon mustard. Delicious!

Things I'd drive 45 miles for, on occasion.

I'm a little anxious about my upcoming move (hence the blog), but I'm pretty excited to build my life in the suburbs. I love the idea of having extra time every day to take classes and pursue hobbies--and to wake up two hours later for work (!!!).

It's not very sexy to live in the suburbs, but if there's anything I've learned from working on small business financial accounting software for a living, it's that you have to choose what makes you happy, even if it makes you lose punk rock points.

At any rate, San Francisco deserves some love from me before I drive off into the 'burbs. My plan for the last month of my lease is to list out some of the things I'll remember fondly from my time in the City by the Bay.

And to kick off the series, it's only fitting to begin with a man who insists on being first in line:












NO SLOPPY SECONDS!

I'm moving to Cupertino!

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
- Wallace Stevens

Except it won't be that bad. I promise.