Category Archives: Contemplation

Cleaning out the fridge before travel

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Some things I always do before we leave on a trip are 1) clean out and use up all produce / perishables in the fridge/on the counter (NO WASTE), 2) clean all sinks, toilets, and bathroom/kitchen floors before we leave (to ensure I am coming home to a clean slate), and 3) run a load of laundry so that we don’t have dirty clothes on top of more dirty clothes from travel to do when we come back home. That also means clearing all our used bath and kitchen towels and ensuring all clean ones are on the racks when we get home. It’s another extra step, but it also means that when we get home, things are calmer and I don’t have to think about refreshing anything — it’s already done! I also make sure all the trash bins are cleared out and lined with new plastic bags — no one wants rotting trash in their house while they’re gone!

One thing that is slightly different this time when preparing to be away for about two weeks is that Chris decided it would be a good idea to have about a dozen Ataulfo mangoes and a pineapple our last week in town. All the mangoes started ripening at the same time, along with a very, very ready pineapple, so I ended up peeling and cutting nine mangoes and an entire pineapple today, with three more mangoes, a kiwi, and a nectarine to go for cutting tomorrow! Whatever we do not eat (which will be the majority!) will go into a freezer-safe ziplock bag into the freezer. And that fruit will inevitably get thrown into smoothies, shakes, or popsicles for Pookie when we get back home. I usually tell Chris he has to be the fruit manager who checks on ripening fruit, but before family trips, I end up being the ultimate fruit manager doing all the manual work!

Golden Mall at FiDi

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Once upon a time, the Financial District was not a fun place to be at all. It was a place you went to and from work. It was an area of the city you’d go shopping at famous discount mega stores like Century 21. It was also a destination to see the New York Stock Exchange and of course, the famous Wall Street bull (and get a photo op!). I still remember once I went down there on a Sunday night in my early 20s to have dinner at a friend’s place. She was living in a luxury high rise in the heart of FiDi. And it was so incredibly eerie and quiet while walking from the subway to her place and back that I sped-walked both ways, wondering what lurked in the corners. The whole area on a late Sunday night gave me the heeby-jeebies.

That was circa 2008-2010, my early years living in New York City. Now in 2026, there’s a Printemps department store from Paris, a Los Tacos No. 1 outpost, a huge Whole Foods, an excellent Uighur style restaurant, and lots of delicious regional Chinese restaurants. We also have the much awaited opening of the Golden Mall, which is an extension and recreation of the famous, divey Golden Mall in Flushing, Queens, one that really recreated a lot of the hole-in-the-wall/mass eateries that I once remember frequenting when I was in China in 2006. The food was region-specific, authentic, and dirt cheap. Here, of course, the food isn’t dirt cheap since everything in Manhattan is expensive, and FiDi is no exception. Golden Mall FiDi just opened a few weeks ago, and so far, the line-up looks really good: They have Lou Yau Kee opening, of the original Hainanese chicken rice consultants to the beloved Urban Hawker Center in Midtown Manhattan; we have Good Coconut, a fresh coconut juice/pudding spot, Prawnaholic, also originally of Urban Hawker. And Joju, the Vietnamese sandwich spot originally from my original hood of Elmhurst, is also opening an outpost here (they wanted to match the quality of bread at the REAL banh mi OG in Brooklyn — Ba Xuyen!!). My friend and I met here to catch up over Xing Fu Tang bubble tea, and she also had some braised beef hand pulled noodles at a sparkly new Lanzhou-style hand-pulled noodle stall. It looked and smelled delicious and authentic.

Every neighborhood is evolving and changing. Some like FiDi are becoming more fancy… and more Asian. And I’m all for that!

Kids’ birthday parties at playgrounds and the fun question I got when I arrived

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My neighbor friend let me know that her friend’s daughter was having her fifth birthday party at a local playground just half a block away today, so she suggested that I bring Kaia. I had met this friend and her daughter two months ago at my neighbor friend’s son’s birthday party, so I had previously met them. I told her I wasn’t sure we should come given it was a birthday party, and we didn’t know them that well and weren’t explicitly invited. But she insisted, saying it was a public playground and open to all, and she was sure her friend would be glad to welcome us. My friend said it would be a good last opportunity for both our kids, who adore each other, to play together this month before we go on our respective summer trips.

So just after 3pm today, I brought Kaia to the playground. We saw the picnic tables covered with endless food, snacks, drinks, and decorations. The area was streamed with banners, huge prints, and balloons. We came over to say hello to the mom, and we made some small talk. Her daughter, the five-year-old celebrating her birthday, also came over, and she had a very large frown on her face as she sized Kaia and me up.

The mom asked her to say hi to us as we wished her a happy birthday. The girl looked us up and down and then down and up, wrinkled her brow, and finally said, “So, you didn’t bring a present for me?”

Her mom scolded her, first in English then in Bulgarian. “D! That is so rude,” her mom admonished her. “You aren’t supposed to say things like that! Be nice!”

“You came without a present,” D rephrased herself while continuing to frown at us. It was as though she wanted to stare holes into our faces.

I didn’t say anything. What was I supposed to say? It’s true that we came without a gift, but frankly, we don’t really know this kid or her mom. And to my neighbor friend’s point, this is a public playground and anyone is welcome to come to the freaking playground regardless of whether a birthday party is being held in the corner of it! But this was also a reminder to me that once kids hit the age of 5-6, this is generally when they become more bitchy, bossy, demanding, and flat out openly rude… and unlike in earlier years, at this age, they know they are being rude. This is really when parental discipline becomes extremely crucial.

The kid never apologized even after getting scolded at in two languages. To be blunt about it, she sounds like a total brat, and not a kid I’d want Kaia to spend any time around. My neighbor friend warned me about her and said she thinks this girl is a bad influence on her own son, so I never had my hopes up about this child.

I told Chris that this happened, and he responded, “If Hoji said that, there would be no more birthday parties for the next ten years.”

Ronny Chieng at the West Side Comedy Club

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Tonight, Chris got us tickets to see Ronny Chieng do test material at the West Side Comedy Club, which was convenient for us given it’s just about 15 blocks north of us. We’ve already seen Ronny Chieng live numerous times over the years. One time previously in the West Village, we also got to see him perform test material. This was pre-pandemic, far before he was ever a “star” in a major Hollywood movie. But his fun, vibe, and dead panning remain amazingly the same. We sat in the front row around the stage, and he made a comment about my sandals (modern Crocs!) and how they are definitely fitting of the “Upper West Side,” and so we must not live in the area (I corrected him). “Well, I guess it’s all the new money in the area, then!” he responded.

Are we “new money”?

When we were walking back down to our apartment, Chris noticed that Ronny actually was walking a little ahead of us. He was wearing his same outfit, with his test material notebook under his arm, and the same large bottle of sparkling water in his hand. I remarked to Chris that this was such a guy thing, to carry a loose notebook with important information in it completely unprotected out and in the open when it could easily get destroyed by rain (it had rained during the time we were inside the comedy club, and could very well start again given how summer rains are in the city). Chris suggested that I tell him this myself. So we walked a little faster to catch up to him, and that was how I greeted him. He recognized us from the front row, fist-bumped us for coming to his show, asked how we found out about the show and if we had seen him perform live before. So we walked together for maybe three to four blocks before we separated ways. He was on his way to another comedy club for another standup gig — always hard at work, doing what he is most passionate about.

With this interaction, he was nowhere as socially awkward as he was when we approached him at his test material night in the East Village. He seemed more confident, happier to interact with us, and genuinely grateful we’d come to see him live. I LOVE THIS GUY.

Importance of leucine

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Oftentimes when I read about complementing diet with exercise, I’ll be honest and say that I haven’t really thought very deeply about it. I always thought that if I ate mostly whole, home cooked foods, mostly plants with some meat and fish here and there that I’d be fine. But I realize with lean muscle building/fat loss/body recomposition goals that unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. Even when you think you do the right things like eat mostly whole foods, that doesn’tmean anything when it comes to making sure you have the right nutrients to fuel your body with the level of activity you are doing. So while I always exercised relatively rigorously, I also wondered why I was able to get definition pretty easily in my back or legs, but pretty much zero definition in my arms. And I have a feeling it’s because of an imbalance of nutrients (plus… genetics).

As I am reading more about women’s health, I finally started thinking more about leucine. Leucine is an amino acid that your body cannot produce on its own that must be obtained from diet. It acts as a primary “trigger” for muscle protein synthesis, which makes it imperative for muscle repair, growth, and the regulation of blood sugar levels. Overnight your body is fasting, so when you wake up, it’s crucial to have a breakfast high in leucine to give your muscles a signal to start building and repairing tissue. And given I am now in my 40s and will be facing declining estrogen levels, this can accelerate muscle loss, which makes leucine even more important to protect against muscle breakdown. Maintaining muscle becomes even more critical in my 40s to prevent insulin resistance and unwanted weight gain. I wonder why I never really read about this before or was told about leucine before. But that’s why we’re all always learning and evolving!

So now I am consciously eating a breakfast high in protein / leucine (2.5-3 grams) each morning, within one hour of working out. It’s a bit of a struggle since I usually skip breakfast, but I really need to be consistent about increasing protein and making sure I get enough leucine (the easiest places to find this are in whey protein powder, cottage cheese, yogurt, soybeans, beans, and meat products). Breakfast is a pretty simple meal to prepare in advance, so I hope all these efforts I am doing will actually yield some visible results in the next couple months!

An identity crisis at the grocery store

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While in the dairy section at Trader Joe’s yesterday, I stood in front of a refrigerated wall of yogurt options, debating what to get. Given my focus on high protein, lean muscle building, and fat loss as of late, I knew I had to (at least temporarily) ignore the European style full-fat yogurt I would normally get in favor of the drained, thicker lower-fat Greek yogurt. But when I looked at the Greek yogurt options, I felt confused: why were all the 1% and 2% fat options so much smaller quantity wise, yet more expensive than the 0% large container (one quart)? And also, where did all those 1-2% fat Greek yogurt options even go? This section of the shelf had been completely wiped out before I even arrived at the store late morning, so even if I had wanted to choose those, they were no longer there for me. So I was left with the 0% fat Greek yogurt option, which was my least desired option (zero percent – what is that – like eating a bunch of nothing favor-wise?!). And since I had made the trek all the way up to 92nd Street, there was no way I wasn’t coming back with Greek yogurt, as it was on top of my ‘to-buy’ list. I felt like I was having an identity crisis: since when did I ever buy nonfat anything — ever? Even before living with Chris, when I lived with my then-roommate and friend, we always bought 1-2% fat milk or yogurt. This felt like a funny thing — me walking around Trader Joe’s with two quarts of zero percent fat Greek yogurt (which also happened to be the very last two quarts of Greek yogurt in the entire store at that time!). Maybe the Yvonne I thought I was will no longer be?

I told my friend about my identity crisis over text when I came back from TJs, and she laughed at me and said that zero percent dairy is basically like eating a thick blob of nothing. Even with her fat loss / lean muscle building goals (and she has always been way more into this than I ever was), she said even she refuses touch that stuff and has to do at least 1 percent fat. Welp, there we have it: even she won’t touch it.

Trader Joe’s at 72nd Street Upper West Side closes, so Trader Joe’s at 92nd Street/Columbus becomes an even bigger zoo

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Late April, I heard the unfortunate news that my neighborhood Trader Joe’s at 72nd Street and Broadway had plans to temporarily close for about four months for renovations. I usually go to Trader Joe’s every other week and use that as some outdoor steps time for me, so I was sad about this. Now, the closest TJ’s to me is on Columbus between 92nd and 93rd Street. While technically, I still can walk, that’s a much longer walk, which means it will take more time, which means that it will require a bigger chunk of my day to go. And I usually try to go on a weekday late morning when my calendar is lighter to avoid the most insane crowds and lines. So until about September, I will need to more carefully plan my Trader Joe’s visits and be more strategic about when these will happen. And as such, I will likely go less frequently, which also means I will end up buying more items per visit. So my plan is to walk up there, get my groceries, and take the bus back down.

Today was the first day I did the trek up. The walk was nice; I always like walking outside in the mornings, especially now that it’s getting warmer with summer here. But as soon as I stepped into this Trader Joe’s at 92nd Street, I felt a bit overwhelmed. I saw people whizzing and running by me, a few in actual circles. Carts were nearly crashing into each other left and right. I lost count of the number of people who either bumped me with their cart/shopping basket or themselves. There was no real, clear flow of “traffic” in this store. Many of the shelves were already cleared out or near empty. I wanted to stock up on about two weeks’ worth of Greek yogurt, and my timing was just such that I was able to snag the last two quart-sized containers — pure luck. I’d never been in this store location before, and so I wasn’t used to the layout and got weirded out when all the cereals and cereal-adjacent items were not in the same area. The only thing I like more about this store layout versus my neighborhood TJs is that everything is on a single floor. I’d never liked the 72nd Street “two floors” situation. While that does help with traffic flow, I never like the lack of natural light on the lower level.

After I got all my stuff and paid, I was happy to be able to have the bus stop just a block away. But then when I got on the bus, there was barely any space for me: multiple people were there with walkers and strollers…. or their own shopping bags. I eventually got a seat in the back, but getting on was really uncomfortable with my three packed canvas bags full of groceries and trying not to step on anyone’s feet/stroller/walkers.

While I will definitely do this trip again in July, I am not sure I can go here every other week until September. That TJs location is a zoo with many accidents waiting to happen. And if that doesn’t already increase my stress level, the bus situation will also not be fun. Who would have thought about the bus being packed at around midday on a Monday?

ChatGPT Premium – Therapist, trainer, dietitian, work assistant, everything now

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Chris just got us a good deal on ChatGPT Premium, so instead of relying on my free version of Claude AI to answer my life’s deepest and most important questions, I am now deferring to ChatGPT Premium for what is obviously very, very premium answers. So I have a few chats that are completely disorganized and mislabeled in ChatGPT now, but they are mostly following along these themes: family travel/food/itinerary planning, workout regimen design based on my 40s status/perimenopause prep/desire to lose subcutaneous fat/build lean muscle, and a meal planning/prep plan to go with said workout regimen. I also ask ChatGPT questions about things that originally confused me, like why can collagen powder not be considered a “complete protein” that “triggers” the body to realize I want to build lean muscle (UGH, what a bad purchase given my goals). And also, why can’t my old pea protein powder be a “complete protein”? As you can see, “complete proteins” are very much top of mind the last couple months.

And then here and there, I have some work questions, so I have to ask ChatGPT to help me with research, changing my tone in a message, or drafting a message that I really do not want to write myself. So, ChatGPT really has become like my therapist, my work buddy, my trainer, my dietitian — almost my everything now. How can I even live without this thing now?? And just a year ago, I barely even used this thing!

Longer days, warmer weather = happier self

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Ever since I was young, I have always disliked cold weather. The dreary, grey overcast days of the Richmond District of San Francisco always made me feel miserable. Then, when I made the decision to move East for college, snow was fun for about a hot second, and then it settled in to me that this atrocity would last about three months every year. Overall, I’ve really embraced the distinct seasons (especially spring, summer, and autumn), but I always have a general dread for winter because of the shorter, darker days and the extreme cold.

So when it starts warming up in late spring, I always get excited. The days are getting noticeably longer, and I can feel myself just feeling happier in general that I can look forward to lots of sun, natural light through our windows, and not needing to wear layers every day. I am the happiest when I can walk out my front door and not put on any layer on top – no zip-up, no windbreaker, no coat — nothing (other than a hat)! This time of year, I am definitely my happier self.

A day spent exploring the surrounds of San Pedro Sula, Honduras

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If you look at places to see and what to do in San Pedro Sula, you can tell almost right away that it was never a place built with tourism in mind. There’s virtually zero tourism infrastructure. People obviously live there. Many businesses are located and/or headquartered here, so people come for business travel. But when it comes to sightseeing, most of that is found outside of San Pedro Sula, at least an hour outside the city, where you forget “urban” even exists because of how green, jungle-like, and rugged the area outside of it is.

We didn’t want to rent a car or drive in mainland Honduras, so Chris tried for a while to find a driver who could take us on a day trip, but it was challenging. Some of the drivers he found and reached out to didn’t seem legitimate. Others were quoting such astronomically high costs that they would even be absurd if we got quoted those numbers back home in the U.S. Finally, and unexpectedly, we were able to enlist the hotel manager’s help ahead of time in finding us a safe, legitimate driver who charged a reasonable amount to be our driver for the day outside the city. We were warned he didn’t speak any English, but this was fine because we’d give him our desired itinerary ahead of time. And of course, there was always Google Translate (what a savior!).

We visited a number of interesting places today that made us forget about the city completely. Our first stop was at D&D Brewery and Restaurant in the Pena Blanca area. It’s this little brewery/restaurant/inn that you’d totally overlook when driving passed it because it’s so tucked away. It’s physically inside a rainforest close to Lago de Yojoa (Lake Yojoa). Given they are a craft brewery (that uses mountain spring water), we got a pineapple and raspberry beer along with a slice of very light and fluffy chocolate cake to appease Kaia. We also walked around the property, which really did feel like we were right in the center of a jungle. It was a really beautiful spot with friendly service despite the language barrier.

Our next stop was at Los Naranjos Eco-Archaeological Park, which contains pre-Columbian ruins of a major Lenca city dating back to 800 B.C. That is even older than Copan, the famous Maya ruins also in Honduras that is likely better known. Copan dates back to 400 A.D. There, we got to walk along a long wooden boardwalk that curved through these huge wetlands at the edge of Lake Yojoa. I loved all the unique bird songs we got to hear while walking through it — how beautiful it would be to be able to fall asleep to those nature sounds at night! I also appreciated how relatively covered we felt by the endless large trees from the UV rays (I am officially in my forties now, after all…).

Just past midday, we went down to Lake Yojoa and took a calm, relaxing boat tour of the lake and surrounds. This time, our driver Javier came with us, and he occasionally pointed out interesting things to us, like the famous Goblin’s Cave and the turtle shaped island in the middle of the lake. While on the boat, I was reminded of this time last year when we were in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, for a day trip. And the mountains in the distance here and the faint mist over them reminded me of that time. There are so many beautiful bodies of water in the world to see and explore!

We passed so many street side fruit vendors that I had to take advantage of this. So I asked Javier if he could stop by one so I could check out some fruit. I ended up getting a local mango and my very first cacao fruit — all for 70 Lempiras; more on this tomorrow!

A typical lunch by the lake will include fried fish, fried fish, and fried fish, all caught from the lake, with a side of freshly fried plantains in the same oil. Chris managed to find us a teeny tiny little quaint spot overlooking the water called Comedor Mayra, where a very nice lady was able to communicate with us and get our order in. I asked if she had juice, and though she didn’t have any, she was eager to get it from a nearby fresh juice vendor once we told her what we’d be interested in. We ended up having a hibiscus and mango juice. The fish was delicious, as were the tostones and the juices. And I’m still in shock from how cheap the meal was: an entire whole fried fish with tostones with all the cabbage and pickled vegetable fixings, plus two large fresh juices for just 250 Lempiras — that’s not even $10 USD!

Our last stop for the day was at Cataratas Pulhapanzak (Pulhapanzak Falls), meaning “white river overflow in Mayan. “Pulha” as it is known is 43 meters/140-feet tall, located on Rio Lindo about an hour’s drive outside of San Pedro Sula. The area served as a pre-Hispanic center, likely overlapping with the Mayan civilization. Before the Spanish arrived here, the falls were deeply revered as a sacred, mystical site by the indigenous Lenca people. Now, it’s fully set up for tourism, with the option to do cave walks, behind-the-water splash adventures, river tubing, and even multi-course ziplining. There is a big “Pulha” sign for photos with the large waterfall in the background, complete with a large platform to which you can walk up to get the perfect photo opp. It felt like mostly locals and maybe domestic tourists when we went. A lot were getting into the water and swimming in calmer, shallower areas. The whole area felt like a big family-friendly outdoor hangout, and a very natural one at that! I do not recall seeing a single obviously foreign tourist there other than ourselves. The falls were beautiful, and the mist went much farther than it appears it would. We had a feeling that we probably came on a lower flow day because the actual fall itself was relatively small.

We packed a lot into today, with the day planning done by Chris and Claude/Gemini, and some occasional help and friendly pointers from our driver Javier. We ended the day with yesterday’s Power Chicken leftovers (a very popular fast food spot with HUGE portions all over Honduras that should be visited if you ever come!) and a good night’s sleep. And luckily by midday today, my right butt cheek stopped hurting and burning, so I hope I’m on the short road to recovery from these coral reef scrapes.