Ooooooh, FACE!

I'm sorry that Facebook has taken over my blogging desire.

What bad habits I'm developing.

Thanksgiving list 2008

Danika and Sarah write these every year, so sometimes I do, too:

1. To be in our own, sweet and little home, something I've longed for for years.
2. The ability to travel, especially in celebration of big life events.
3. Graduating from grad school.
4. Four years of loving, supportive, mutual, partnered, challenging, growing and exciting marriage full of endless possibilities.
5. Being 90 minutes from the ocean.
6. Many healthy babies who either arrived this year, will arrive next year or who thrive now.
7. Relatively spontaneous visits with friends over coffee, even if we haven't seen each other in over two years.
8. Concord grapes, pears and fresh local peaches.
9. Planting a garden with Mom.
10. Remembering everyday something about my gram, and tearing up but treasuring it.
11. Le Creuset.
12. Medications and modern science that have made misbehaving parts of my body fall in line again.
13. Hammocks in Mexico with my love.
14. Laying on the furniture-less deck, looking up at the sky with Tara.
15. Seeing how my nephews change and grow at every blink of an eye.
16. Being a Godparent.
17. Quiet moments in worship when the only thing I feel is peace brought on by prayer.
18. Chai latte.
19. Apples and apples and more apples. Apple pie. Apple bread. Apple cake. Apple crumble. Apple cider. Apple with caramel.
20. Being a gay-married, liberal socialist in a blue state.
21. Hope.
22. Obama.
23. Change.
24. Learning to slow down, even if I'm terrible at it.
25. New kitties, who need love and a good home.
26. New England.

Prop 8

An interesting photo essay on Prop 8. I have to say: the results have got me down almost as much as this picture taken as people celebrate banning gay marriage rights in CA.


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gaymarriage5-2008nov05,0,1545381.story

#31 - Elect a president of color

I AM SPEECHLESS.

Things I Hope to See or Do Before I Die: 21 - 30

21. Bake bread for family dinner most days of the week.
22. Own only hybrid cars and/or become a 1 car family.
23. Make peace with any past trauma.
24. Take a professional cooking class.
25. Learn how to decorate cakes!
26. Croissant. Paris. Eiffel Tower.
27. See and touch Antarctica.
28. Witness Aurora Borealis.
29. Enter a photo contest, even if it's small beans.
30. Camp in the Rocky Mountains.

Things I Hope to See or Do Before I Die: 11 - 20

11. Complete a 30 Tiny Moments collection.
12. Visit my Vietnamese grandparents' grave site.
13. Have a baby, or two.
14. Learn how to play guitar.
15. Become a runner.
16. Jump into Halong Bay off the side of a boat.
17. Learn Italian.
18. Go back to school for another advanced degree.
19. Get better at knitting, and making quilts.
20. Can/freeze enough seasonal fruit and vegetables to last the year.

Things I Hope to See or Do Before I Die: 1 - 10

1. Set foot in each of the fifty states in the US.
2. Go snorkeling in Belize.
3. Drink a coffee at a Parisian cafe.
4. Climb/hike a 10,000+ mountain.
5. Learn how to weave.
6. Successfully plant, nurture and grow at least one fruit tree the bears edible fruit.
7. Visit my grandmother's grave at least once a year.
8. Bungee jump.
9. Grow all of the produce we eat (in the harvest months).
10: Conquer my fear of bees.

Waiting

I can't wait to have a baby so I have a good excuse to abandon writing on this blog (that isn't laziness) and just post pictures of my wee one(s).

Tear In Your Hand

If you want to find yourself crying at your desk for no apparent reason, go to Pandora and listen to the Cat Power results you get when you create a new station, then sit back with open ears.

I am obsessed with Cat Power right now, and in today's mix I discovered more new music: Frou Frou, A Fine Frenzy, Sia and Rosie Thomas.

I need more tissues. Not sure why I'm feeling down and weepy today. Could be the lack of sleep and the major life change I experienced this weekend.

::clutches self tightly and rocks::

Here! Here!

I cried Friday listening to my friend Ann Marie give a phenomenal speech which touched on many of the feelings I've been struggling with since April of this year.

With the doctoral degree that I am receiving, I become the second doctor in a very large extended family of passionate, loving, complex, and gifted people. While the diploma I will soon receive bears my name and is something that I will hold dear for the rest of my life, it is not solely mine. This doctorate comes with the knowledge that many, many people in my family have withstood and survived the viciousness of racial discrimination and the humiliating, dehumanizing effects of poverty in hopes that their children and grandchildren, my generation, would not have to endure these hideous cruelties. All of these fine, hard working, loving people always encouraged me to read more, study harder, and pursue higher education - a privilege that was out of reach and beyond the realm of possibility for most of them.

Hello, Dolly!

Well, if you were ever curious about what a tropical storm looks like, here you go! This is actually the tail end of Dolly, filmed in Mexico as the center of the storm mutated into a category 2 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and headed towards Texas.

On slickness, for Jenna

So, I'm on the phone with Jenna during my lunch hour, hanging out in my office. I'm kicked back in my chair. Maxing. Relaxing, even. During this upward tilt, I notice that the recessed portion of the ceiling is COVERED in spider webs. And not just spider webs, but DUSTY spider webs. Eww.

In my efforts to continually improve upon my own genius, I imagine the ways in which I can undo those dusty spider webs, despite the 14 foot ceiling in my office. Necessity is the mother of invention, and aha! I have a yard stick! It's not long enough, but ahoy! I have an umbrella. So I affix with transparent tape the last six inches of the yard stick to the pointed end of the umbrella. A little wobbly, but it will work. It even has a handle! To the other end of the yard stick (the ceiling end) I ball up a deliciously wasteful ball of transparent tape and begin to swing wildly at the dusty jungle vines hanging from above. Whoops! I surge forward and *stick* goes the ball, crusty in its gray furry coating, and now securely lodged fourteen feet above me, spider web tentacles hanging.

Crap. What do I do with a wobbly reacher stick thing that's almost falling apart and a ball of tape high above my head. Could this ball stuck to the ceiling really bother me less than if I had just left the frakking thing alone to begin with?!

But aha! I super-double affix yet another tape ball to the end, reinforce the six inch connector portion between the umbrella and the yard stick with masking tape, and with some good work and a little leverage, I remove the whole entire thing from its ceiling perch.

Now, that's slick, folks.

Self-Tagged!

Based on this post over at A Crunchy Life (thanks, Jenna, for the link!), I am completing the list of my own. What would your list look like?

What was I doing ten years ago?

• I had just finished my sophomore year of college.
• I was starting a teaching position with Summerbridge in Portland.
• My new found freedom in Portland and separation from what had been five solid years of boyfriendedness/relationships allowed me to learn a million important things about myself, what I needed and wanted, and how to be alone and happy.
• I was gearing up for my junior year of college, questioning my sexuality and learning how to knit better.
• I treasured what I knew were the last good days with my grandmother, even though our visits were infrequent.
• Mostly I was broke and without major worries, and I felt optimistic.
• I was working on building an adult relationship with my parents, but mostly with my mother. It would be many years before we were good communicators with each other.
  

Five Things on My To-Do List:

• Stick to a budget.
• Get through the first-time homebuying madness without dying.
• Enjoy myself on vacation, for it may be the last for some time!
• Spend more time with family and friends once the house situation settles down, and during what I hope is more free time now that grad school is over. (I didn't expect to replace that time obligation quite so quickly with endless house maintenance and improvements!)
• Craft more, especially in memory of my grandmother, who would want that. This would including canning, like making jam, butter pickles and pears in syrup.
  

Snacks I Enjoy:

• bananas with cheddar cheese
• edamame
• granola bars
• juice
• chocolate chip cookies
• any fruit
• baby carrots
• pudding!
  

If I were a billionaire:

• Like Crunchy Life, I'd pay off all debt for my family and friends.
• I'd make all of the Wish List changes to our new house, including a vaulted ceiling on the 2nd floor with skylights and other delicious features that probably would include some kind of extension or addition to what is already there.
• I'd take my family on vacation for a month so we could spend time together.
• I'd buy a hybrid vehicle.
• I would still try to have "my own" children, but also plan to adopt or foster kids who need a loving family.
• I'd quit my job and go back to school, either for my MBA, or a degree in nursing or my EdD.
• I'd begin a research and scholarship foundation to support students from underserved Asian American student populations that would support improving their local public high school and also provide scholarships for college.
• I'd make a craft/sewing room in my house, and fill it with crafty goodness and craft. And teach my kids to craft. And craft things for other people...

...this part of the list could go on and on...

What's on your list?

May I just say?

I am so tired of cleaning up pee off of the toilets seats at work. Now, I am not the youngest person who works in this building, but I am also certainly not the oldest. In fact, I fall well below the average age in this building, so if I've learned to control the flow of my urine and/or clean up after myself, why haven't YOU?

Just sayin'.

Wondering...

I'm sneaking in a quick email check during the conference, and while I'm at the library I'm wondering: why are the library chairs more comfortable than my expensive office chair? That I sit in. For eight hours. Everyday?

College priorities. That's why.

Eeek!

We are swamped at work right now with the conference coming in Thursday. On top of that, we *may* just be buying a house.

Oh crap.

and :-).

For laughs

Like really? For real?

Images: Baptism

Andrea with Gus.


Gus handling the baptismal water like a pro!

Yogurt: The Official Food of Women

Are you sick of all of those lame yogurt commercials targeting women, and their unrequited and insatiable love of all things yogurt?

"The I-have-a-Master's, but-then-I-got-married-look!"

This has me cracking up. Thanks for the link, Jenna!

What a wonderful weekend!

Although I'm exhausted and this week at work is GOING TO KILL ME (Open House today, meeting in Boston tomorrow that STARTS at 8:30 am, CE weekend A...) we had a wonderful weekend. Friday I was completely exhausted and fell asleep on the couch at 9 PM. Even though I had to get up early Saturday morning, I still slept almost ten hours, and it felt SO GOOD.

Saturday morning I got up and made fruit salad to bring the Lisa and Tanya's house for breakfast with Tanya's family and friend Elspeth. We had a lovely breakfast, then hung for a little while but rushed home to clean quickly before Tara's parents arrived. Once they arrived, we went out to dinner at Paul & Elizabeth's (one of my favorite joints!) to find out it was Northampton Restaurant Week, and all participating restaurants had special three course menus for $20.08 per person. I enjoyed a lovely antipasto platter with some delicious tapanade, a linguine with pesto and fresh shrimp entree, and a slice of carrot cake with maple frosting. MMMM mmmm!

Sunday morning we got up early to all get ready for church, and we met the Favorites and practically the entire Favorite family at church to prepare for Gus's baptism. He was a dream. He was cheery and engaging and bouncy the whole 1/2 hour before services, and then was an angel during the prelude and welcome. During the order of baptism he was goofy, smiling at everyone, staring at the fans high above on the ceiling and just generally being silly and laughing! And laughing! Then laughing more! He was making everyone in the church laugh! He handled the baptismal water well - my guess is it probably felt good because it was about 1,000,000 degrees in the church by 10:15. Soon after the baptism (I only cried once) he had a bottle, then napped for the remainder of the service. On the first note of the organ playing the postlude, he sat bolt upright in Tanya's arms, caught Tara's and my eyes, and grinned an unbelievable ear to ear grin as if to say, "Hi! How long have you been here? I love you!" It was very, very sweet.

Lisa and Tanya had a lovely party and we hung out for a long time. Among the other gifts we gave them in honor of the baptism (donations made in his name for a month's worth of education for one girl in India, moringa and apple trees in developing countries) we also wrote him this letter:

________________________________________________________

Dear Gus,

It will be a long time before you can read and understand this letter fully, but we find it no less important to try to explain to you the importance of you in our lives. Today we became your Godparents, so there is no more fitting a time for us to tell you how much we love you and how very, very dear you are to us.

We continue to talk almost daily about you, the ways in which you change and grow, and how your own exploration of the world around you, your sense of wonder, discovery and curiosity, is a lesson that informs our own ability to explore and discover the world around us. Through you, we are able to see the world from a different perspective, one supple with innocence, openness and love. You are a gift. And we love you more than you can understand.

We have both had an interesting and sometimes complicated journey toward discovering our own spiritual and religious selves. On the day that we were married, we felt God's presence like on no other day ever in our lives. We were surrounded by our parents and siblings, plunked in the middle of a fragrant and blooming annual garden in Northampton on what was one of the most beautiful days we had ever seen. The sun shined so brightly that we both got a little sunburned during our brief wedding ceremony. Reverend Andrea, the same pastor who baptized you today, married us. We all huddled and cried and celebrated and it was then that we realized the true beauty of God's grace. We were not supposed to be anywhere but right there at that moment, amid the collective love of our families, surrounded by the full blossoming of nature around us, with nothing between us and the heavens - it was a perfect moment of God's grace.

There are other moments of God's grace in our lives. Our two nephews, Harrison and Griffin, are examples of that. Our families are a continued blessing. As are the thousands of perfect moments we share with each other. Moments we will share with you and your moms, and those that we will share with our own children sometime in the future. Since the moment you were conceived you were part of God's perfect plan, and we hope that we continue to learn from you. We can't wait to watch our love for you grow, for you to grow up in a household and a family in which our love for you knows no bounds.

In that love we hope you grow to understand how to love others – how to be passionate and wise and to love your neighbor as yourself. We hope that you learn to love the planet and nature and how to become a good steward of the Earth. We hope that you stand up for others when they are hurt, to love deeply and to be brave. We hope that you will love to learn and help others. We hope that you will feel strong and smart and full and cared for and well-loved. We hope you will someday discover something you are passionate about, or many things you are passionate about, and that you will follow your passion with humility and courage. We hope that you will journey with us so that we all discover new ways to love, to be passionate and to seek justice for those who experience injustice.

Thank you for the gift of your love and your life, and for allowing us to walk with you.

Love Always,
Val and Tara
________________________________________________________

All it all, it was an INSANE weekend, but it was really lovely, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

And now Tara and I are Godmommies, so the real work begins!