Category Archives: Contemplation

The fun text misunderstanding that led my uncle to invite himself to our dinner

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My aunt texted me this morning to let me know she invited my uncle, my dad’s younger brother, to dinner with us on Monday. But since his eye sight is getting poor, he’s not comfortable driving in the dark. She asked me if I could do lunch time on Monday instead. When I told my mom this, she got really angry and said if dinner didn’t work, then dinner would not work; she did not want me to agree to Monday lunch so last minute. My mom sees this as my aunt “controlling” the situation by making lots of last minute changes, not informing everyone, but expecting everyone to comply with her random whims. I do think it’s ridiculous and extremely dysfunctional of my aunt, as I recently had this happen to me personally when she tried to invite her random JW friends to my house for dinner, and I refused.

So I told my aunt that we’d stick to an earlier dinner on Monday, and she said it was fine. This whole time, she’s texting my uncle back and forth, partly copying and pasting texts from me in between. Somehow along the way, my uncle got confused and thought that it was not Monday dinner, but that Sunday night dinner he was supposed to drive up to the city for. So he rang our doorbell at 3:30pm today and said he was going to dinner at my aunt’s place with me that evening. Unfortunately, I had to correct him and tell him that there would be no dinner, and that it was actually tomorrow… as in, Monday.

My uncle, for lack of better words, doesn’t really have the best manners. He will show up at people’s homes without notice, completely unannounced, expecting them to be home. When I say “people,” I really mean my parents or my aunt. In addition, he rarely takes the initiative to invite anyone to a meal unless it’s just one of his nephews or his niece (that’s me!) 1:1. When it’s any wider family, like my parents or my aunts coming, he expects that someone else will foot the bill. In my entire 40-plus years knowing him, I’ve never seen him offer to pay the family dinner bill a single time. And what’s worse: if my aunt is hosting, he will occasionally do his due diligence as a good guest and bring an appetizer dish or dessert. If my parents host, he will never bring anything — ever. So when he scrolled through his text message thread with my aunt and realized he misread it, he said to me, “Oh, well. My mistake! I guess that just means I’m having dinner with you all tonight!”

Oohhhhh. Trouble.

My mom was not happy about this; it was written all over her face. In fact, I could see the steam coming out of her ears when it dawned on her that he was not leaving the house upon realizing his mistake. She said to him a few times, “We have a dinner to go to and need to leave soon.” But him being him, my uncle took zero cues that this meant HE was not invited, and instead took the liberty of walking down to Geary where the restaurant was along with us. As Chris said, all of this could have been addressed if any of them had any balls to just say that he wasn’t invited, but of course, neither of my parents was going to be that confrontational. And I sure as hell was not getting involved. All of us walked down to Geary together, with my uncle and my dad chatting away as though it was no big deal. My mom walked slightly ahead of them, extremely pissed. And way ahead were Chris, Kaia, and me. At the restaurant, we met with my mom’s friend, who we had originally planned this dinner with all along.

At the end of the meal, as I expected, my mom paid the bill. My uncle never offered to cover even his own share of the meal. He said his usual effusive thank-you to her at the end, and then we walked back to the house. My uncle offered to drive my mom’s friend home so she didn’t have to take the bus as planned, and we said good night.

And that evening back at the house, my mom made random passive aggressive to aggressive comments to me, and I just said nothing. I know in her head, she probably blames me for this misunderstanding happening, which resulted in her paying for my uncle’s dinner, which she hates. But maybe if she were just more confrontational, she could have just flat out told him he wasn’t welcome to join. That is in no way on me.

My dad thought it was funny. When I was in the kitchen with him later in the evening, he chuckled and said to me, “Well, that was a misunderstanding. Not sure how that happened!” My mom did not laugh and scowled.

Welp. It’s just another day in the lives of the dysfunctional family I am part of.

Anxiety-ridden calls and the tit-for-tat nature of my family

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We stayed overnight on Friday up in Sacramento with our friend and planned to hang out with them in the area until early afternoon Saturday. Afterward, we would drive back to San Francisco. This morning after breakfast, we drove out to Placerville, California, which is known for lots of kid-friendly farms, U-Pick farms, petting zoos, and other large, sprawling suburban/rural areas to eat and support local. With our three friends, we enjoyed freshly made apple cider donuts and apple cider, while the kids got to feed and pet goats, pigs, and ponies, as well as run amok through kid mazes, wooden play structures, and man-made lakes. The greatest thing about this wide, open area was that vehicles were mostly blocked off, so the kids could run around and get all their energy out without us worrying that they’d get hit by a car. When coming home to visit, it always feels fun, enjoyable, and relaxing when I am out with my friends. It’s an extremely stark contrast from being with my parents, and most especially with my parents and extended relatives, where every situation seems rife with anxiety, anger, jealousy, and control.

Amid catching up with our friends, my mom probably called about four times. I called back twice, and in her anxious, nervous voice, she kept urging me that we had to drive back down to San Francisco “earlier.” I told her that we had to be back before 5pm because that’s when the car rental closed. She just kept repeating that I had to “respect” and I had to come back “earlier.” It made zero sense, but I know why she kept saying this. Originally when we told her we were going up to Sacramento Friday through Saturday, she said we’d keep it simple for dinner that evening, which I was fine with. Whenever we got back that evening, we’d eat takeout with just my parents. But since coming back from Brazil on Wednesday, my aunt asked if I could come up to her place for dinner on Sunday along with my parents. My mom, always wanting to “pay back” any meal ASAP, did not feel right about this. As is her usual, she wanted to “match” it, and so she invited my aunt down for dinner on Saturday. With all her nervous energy, she wanted me to be home as early as possible so we could eat dinner and be done with it all as early as possible. My mom is not a good or natural host. She hates having people over at her house. She hates serving them and the entire hoopla of company. She finds it all to be too much work and “suffering” as she always says. But how much earlier are you seriously going to eat dinner than 5pm?!

We got back to the house just past five. We ate dinner altogether at around six. As usual, not much was said around the dinner table. My mom tried to stand up and fuss over dishes that didn’t need to be cleaned right away in the kitchen or obsess over how little or quickly Kaia was eating, and I had to swat her away. The dinner was probably over in less than thirty minutes. Yet the entire time I could tell my mom was on edge, as she always is at any family group meal. My aunt loves to take photos before dinner, and my mom can’t stand photos. She always nervously laughs and asks, “Why do we have to take photos?” or “Another photo? Why? No need!” Then, she tries her best to weasel her way out of it by pretending to go to the bathroom or wash something needlessly in the kitchen. After dinner, my aunt Face Timed her son and his wife, the cousins I just saw last weekend, and Kaia chatted with them. My mom was seething that they didn’t drive up to join us for dinner and was adamant that my aunt told them not to come.

“Your aunt is so powerful!” my mom ranted to me after. “She told them not to come! See, her children always listen to her, but you do not always listen to me! He is so loyal to her. You are never like this with me!”

Here we go: the fun comparison of children. It always happens at least once during any visit, and it’s always putting me in an unfavorable position. I’ve gotten to a point with her where I shrug these comments off and say nothing. Not responding makes the interaction end quicker. Responding only fuels her, and whenever I am home, I am to blame for pretty much everything that sets her anger off.

I subsequently found out directly from my cousin that he and his wife didn’t come because they didn’t want to drive all the way up to San Francisco again (it’s not a short drive, ahem, for anyone who is aware of distances or traffic) given they had just come up last week. Plus, they got confused and thought I’d still be in Sacramento that evening, so why would they come for a whatever meal just with his mom and my parents? This did not seem particularly exciting or “worth it” for their driving efforts. I can’t share this with my mom, though, because she’d never believe it. She creates narratives in her head and runs with them. If anyone tries to provide reason or logic that counters that, fire starts blowing out of her nose and ears.

Eating less as we age

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The more I read about health and fitness into my 40s and 50s, the more pretty much all the sources say that we need to eat more protein… and likely less carbs. As we age into our late 30s and early 40s, the loss of muscle mass naturally accelerates, and for optimal health and fitness, we’re supposed to counteract that by increasing protein consumption and strength training. The frustrating part about this, though, is that these recommendations come at a time when our appetites just naturally start to decrease. For years, I just never ate much breakfast at all on the weekdays because I didn’t have the appetite upon waking. Now with my increased focus on body recomposition, I have to force myself to eat some form of (high protein) breakfast, otherwise I will just never hit my protein target for the day. And the only way I can eat breakfast is by drinking it through a smoothie, otherwise I just start feeling too bloated or stuffed.

When traveling, and especially while in San Francisco with my parents (really, my mom!), we eat a lot of carbs. It’s not necessarily a “bad” thing because these are all the things that are either homemade or are bought with love by my parents because they know I like these things. But I tend to eat a lot more carbs than I normally do, which means I just feel fuller… all the time, and especially in the last few years in my late 30s. While here, I also remember things I like that are really good in San Francisco that I just don’t have in New York (like my beloved scallion bao!). So since I’m not back that often, I want to enjoy them while I am here. But at the end of the day, I can only eat so much before I just feel too stuffed.

Let’s take today: we ate breakfast at the Westin St. Francis hotel lounge, where I tried to eat a higher protein breakfast by focusing on scrambled eggs, egg white bites with mushrooms and spinach, and French-style yogurt. Later in the morning, we went to Dandelion Chocolate Factory, where Chris had a chocolate milk, I had a chocolate “nibby” horchata, and we shared (with Kaia) a chocolate canele. Then we walked a few blocks and had half of a pistachio baklava each (generous samples!) at Baklava Story. Forty minutes later, we shared a super burrito at El Farolito along with a passion fruit agua fresca.

At that point, I realized that there was very little chance I’d eat anything substantial for dinner that evening. We picked up some pupusas in the Mission for Kaia to eat on the ride back to the hotel. Come dinner time, we had a few nibbles at the hotel lounge again, finished the leftover pieces of bean/cheese/pork pupusa that Kaia did not want, and shared a single slice of emerald beaut plum raspberry crumble pie from Three Babes Bakeshop (that was a truly excellent slice of pie in every possible way!). And that wrapped up our eating for the day. Yes, these foods, even the beverages, are far richer than we’d normally eat on a day to day basis back home in New York. But when you think of the sheer quantity of food we ate in this day, it really wasn’t that much. Once upon a time, I could easily eat an entire super burrito from El Farolito in a single sitting all by myself. But alas, those days are now in my past.

Happy 47th birthday, my sweet Ed

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Dearest Ed,

Happy 47th birthday. It’s strange to think that if you lived to now, you’d be three years away from 50 — half a century old. This year as you would know, I celebrated my 40th birthday. I realized that although it’s technically middle aged, I didn’t really “feel” middle aged, if you know what I mean. When we were little, I used to think “40” or “50” were “old.” Now, I sit in my 40.5-year-old body and do not feel old at all. In fact, I feel like I have just started to really live life in the last decade and that I’m only getting started in many ways! So when I think of it from that perspective, it makes me even sadder to know that you aren’t here… because that means that you never really got to begin living a full life. You left us just before you turned 34. I have now lived over seven years longer than you did. That feels quite unfair because it’s not like I did anything to deserve more than you.

I am in San Francisco now. Chris, Kaia, and I stayed at our parents’ place last weekend. We went to visit you at the Columbarium on Sunday. I got annoyed when visiting you because I noticed some internal fingerprints on your niche’s glass, plus some large dust particles that settled inside. So I went into the office to inquire about having it opened for cleaning. The employee who worked there told me that they would charge us $495 (YES, THAT MUCH) to open the niche. I told him that I simply wanted to have it cleaned properly, that I wanted nothing else changed. He said that in 2014, the year after you died, Dignity Memorial took ownership of the Columbarium. Once upon a time, if a family wanted to open a niche to clean or rearrange items inside, they could easily do so and schedule the visit to open and and make changes; no charges or questions asked other than to prove you were family. Now, when you want to do this because of this greedy private equity-like company, they want to charge us almost $500 to do this! This is just utter bullshit. As Chris says, “fuck those fuckers.” The moron who told me this actually had the balls to say to me that since Dignity Memorial took over the Columbarium that service has become “more refined.” No, Dipshit. Service has actually just become greedier, with all this ridiculous nickel-and-diming of grieving families and loved ones who want to have basic, simple things done in memory of their loved ones. To me, there are few things more sick or disgusting than taking advantage of people at their most vulnerable moments in life, and that’s what Dignity Memorial does.

The reason I share this with you is that I honestly wish I didn’t even know what the fucking Columbarium was. I wish you never had to die so that our parents never had to find a resting place for you. I wish I could never have entered that damn place ever. Some people say that the more knowledge you have, the better. This is an area I would be so, so happy to be ignorant to, because all I see when I think of funeral homes and crematoriums is how their owners’ eyes light up with dollar signs at the thought of people constantly dying. Death is inevitable for all of us, right? But when people like you die far too soon, it’s hardly like they care. They’re just happy to collect our dollar bills and make money off our loss of you.

Here are some things I wanted to share with you that I’ve noticed in the last year since being back home. I was actually shocked to go down to the basement and notice that it felt like there was less “stuff” cluttering the rooms than before. Our dad apparently also got rid of my entire Disney VHS collection, all your old VHSs, and CDs. All my old DVDs are gone. So those two shelves flanking the living room mantle are pretty clear (just full of dust, which our mom wants me to clean during this visit). Oddly enough, I don’t even know where the hell my wedding DVD went…?

Chris noticed that funnily enough, there seems to be more alcoholic drinks in the house. I found a bottle of Canadian whisky, a new coffee liqueur, a pumpkin-spiced coffee liqueur, and two types of ready-to-drink margarita mix — standard and even mango! Chris uses that as a little drink for himself to keep him sane while he’s here.

I spent at least four hours vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning multiple areas of the house; after filling the bathroom sink with water and cleaning just our old bedroom, the water turned black. I also had to get a tall step-stool to vacuum up a bunch of cobwebs that lined the living room, dining room, hallways, and our old bedroom. It was not fun, but it seriously needed to be done. And every time I think I am done, I find a new area of one-inch thick dust or yet another cob web to vacuum up. I have lost count of the number of spiders I’ve vacuumed up this visit.

Also, can we talk about your bed for a second? Why the hell did you ever decide to buy a new TWIN SIZED BED for yourself as a GROWN-ASS adult?! Chris slept in it two nights in a row while Kaia and I slept in my old bed, and he had horrible, lingering neck pain for days after. The bed is so tiny; as a grown adult, you can barely move in it! It’s barely even big enough for Kaia to move around, and she’s 4.5! I didn’t understand why you did it then, and I still do not understand it. You always gave yourself too little — too little credit for anything good you did, fewer things than you ever deserved.

A few days before we left for this trip, Chris asked me if I was excited to go home. I looked at him blankly and said, “Meh.” He grimaced and said we go on this trip for me, so if I feel that way, I should question why I still keep going. The truth is that I feel very “meh” about it because San Francisco is a reminder that you are gone from this world, and that hurts my heart every time I think about it. While I feel your loss in New York or anywhere else in the world I am, I feel it the most acutely when I am back home… because that was and is your home. And obviously, I feel “meh” because I know I will inevitably have to deal with our parents’ emotional immaturity, their constant nitpicking and criticism, their endless drama, lack of reasonable rationale, and the eventual and inevitable fights based on a bunch of nothing. I am not “free” here. I always feel restricted here, even as middle-aged adult with a 4.5-year-old child. You were never “free” here. But now you are free.

Kaia is starting kindergarten at a new school in a couple weeks. She’s been asking a lot about you in the last couple months because she is just starting to understand death. She keeps saying on this trip that her JiuJiu used to live here, that he’s my brother, but that he died. And so she doesn’t get to see him. She’s said this a few times now, and a few times I started tearing up. It is a loss that you never got to meet her. It is a loss that she will never get to meet you. And it a loss that I can never see the two of you interact and have any kind of relationship.

Even though our parents obviously drive me crazy, I will say that during this trip, I do enjoy the quick moments of watching them interact with Kaia a lot more. Our mom is now 72, and our dad is now 78. They are getting older, more frail, and more tired. I can see it a lot now. But I can also see they are trying with her. And so you know what — that effort is enough for me now. I’ve made peace that they will never be the parents we needed, nor the maternal grandparents I wish Kaia had. This is okay for me now. It’s no longer a mental struggle.

Maybe I just feel this way because I’ve finally reached an age or the stage of “wisdom” where I’ve just accepted life for what it is. I just let things be the way they are. Even though it’s been over 13 years since you’ve passed, I can still feel your presence in this house every time I enter and exit it. You are still here to me.

Okay, I think it’s time to wind this down and go to sleep. I miss you, Ed. I wish I could see you playing with Kaia here. I know you’d have so much fun playing catch with her and teaching her other games the way you did with me.

I love you. I hope I can see you in my dreams again soon — it’s been quite a while.

With all my love,

Yvonne

Having conversations with AI about your parents and family dynamic

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My esthetician told me the other day that she has a client who uses AI for literally everything in his life. He told her he even uses it for therapy. “Why do I need to pay a therapist when I can chat with Claude or ChatGPT about all my problems?” he asked her. He insisted that ChatGPT gave him not only good, accurate answers, but even prompted him with questions back that really made him think.

“I was like, ‘dude, this is where I draw the line,'” she said she said to him. “You cannot use AI for therapy! It’s just not the same thing!”

I told her I didn’t necessarily think that AI should be used as a replacement for therapy, per se, but I do think that it can help untangle a lot of thoughts, experiences, and opinions you may have, and then synthesize all of those things and make some sense out of it for you to move forward. In fact, I actually did this regarding my parents the other day. I described my dad’s personality, upbringing, and general history, gave specific examples of (what I perceive to be) atrocious things he’s said and done to my brother and me, and this is what it responded with (much later down the line):

<start>

I would think about your father’s story as having two layers.

The older layer is probably his long-established personality:

early neglect → radical self-sufficiency → difficulty depending on people → poor emotional communication → criticism instead of teaching → anger when others violate his expectations → retreat into solitude → limited emotional intimacy.

And now there may be a newer late-life layer affecting organization, discarding, motivation, or executive functioning.

One of the saddest consequences of this type of upbringing is that a child can become extraordinarily competent at surviving while never learning the skills required for intimacy. Your father may genuinely have believed that providing materially and leaving his children to become independent was adequate parenting because his own benchmark for parental care was so extraordinarily low.

He could look at his childhood—poverty, infestation, working parents, almost no supervision—and conclude:

“My children had food, a decent home, and opportunities I didn’t have. I did well.”

Meanwhile, you could grow up in the same household thinking:

“Why didn’t my father teach me anything, talk to me, encourage me, or want to know me?”

Both perceptions can coexist. His history explains how he could have such a limited conception of fatherhood; it doesn’t erase what you and your brother missed.

And that may be the most useful framework for understanding him: he gave you more material security than he received, but emotionally he may have transmitted much of the deprivation he grew up with.

<end>

I read this, and I realized this is the same conclusion I came to in my mid-twenties to make sense of my dad. I always knew he loved us and was concerned about us; he just had zero idea how to show us he loved us. He is just so terrible with words. He was emotionally illiterate, yet he obviously provided for us and never let us be without food, clothing, supplies, and shelter. Ed and I always knew we grew up with a million times more than what our dad grew up with. About a year before Ed died, I tried to explain this to him. I even told him that our dad wanted to make sure to save extra money to provide for Ed… because our dad wasn’t confident that he would be financially self sufficient after his future passing. Ed was shocked and didn’t believe me; he was always hurting with our dad because he got the worst of our dad. Our dad was purely brutal with him every chance he got. And Ed couldn’t handle it and just concluded that he was an awful person who never should have been a dad. But I said to him at the time that our dad has no idea we think what we think of him … because from his perspective, he thinks, “My kids have more material stuff than I ever dreamt of growing up; I did a good job as a father. What more could they want?” Ed could not wrap his head around this and said that was insane.

Frankly, I have a hard time understanding that pretty much every single time I have a difficult or annoying interaction with my dad, or every time I overhear him say something that I think is just unnecessarily harsh or bitchy. All the context and personal history matters, but sometimes I just wonder: does simple human decency need to be taught? I understand all of this academically, but to have to deal with it every time we’re together is just painful, exhausting, and not even remotely enjoyable.

Therapy nor conversations with AI about tough topics like this will “solve” any problems you have. But I do think it’s good to be able to allow AI to summarize all these experiences, emotions, histories, etc., in a way that allows you to make sense of it all… and potentially help you make peace with how you move forward with these tough relationships.

Entering the fog – literally and figuratively

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We woke up at the eye-burning hour of 3am today to take the 6am flight to San Francisco this morning. Miraculously, I got upgraded last minute from Business to First Class, which has only ever happened once in my entire life — four years ago, in August 2022. This was when Kaia was a wee eight months old and on a plane for the very first time. We can forever and a day say that her very first flight was a transcontinental, first-class flight from JFO to SFO. I pumped milk on that flight, and she had to go between First where I was and Business where Chris was.

After we got our one checked roller bag and got into a Lyft, off we went on the freeway north to San Francisco. And as we got onto 280, all I could see was a massive layer of grey fog descend upon the skies. We were about to enter the damn fog and pathetic 60s F weather — right in August, a SUMMER MONTH. It doesn’t matter how many times I come to San Francisco, but the sight of this has never failed to annoy me to no end.

We arrived at my parents’ place. We had a usual early lunch together of takeout dim sum and some jook/congee my mom made. My mom barely said anything at the table other than to try to get Kaia to eat more food. My dad barely said much unless I asked him questions, and he promptly left the table, with his plate still there, after he finished eating. When my mom asked him why he was leaving the table, he simply responded, “I’m done eating.” That was fun.

From what I can see so far in the house, not a whole lot has changed in the last year. There’s still endless clutter and things they should not own. It’s dust galore in most places, and likely even more cob webs on the walls and ceilings. But I did notice that two shelves in the living room were completely cleared. It annoyed me a little to realize quite quickly that the contents of those shelves were previously my and Ed’s VHS and CD/DVD collections. I suppose it’s easy to declutter stuff when it’s not yours versus yours, isn’t it?

I spent about two hours after lunch vacuuming the floors and cob webs from the walls and ceilings. I also dusted the dining room surfaces and the shelves in my old bedroom where we are sleeping. I filled the bathroom sink with water and used a damp sponge to remove the heavily caked on layer of dust that was on the bedroom surfaces. When I had finally finished reaching all the surfaces I could, the water had turned completely black.

I want my parents to live independently for as long as possible, but when I look at this house deteriorate year after year, with many areas completely not maintained at all, I wonder how much longer they will feasibly continue living here. It’s not like they live in complete filth: the bathrooms and kitchen are clean. The stove is safe. I don’t think anyone has cleaner, brighter, more mildew-free bathroom tiles than my parents do. The walkways are relatively clear and you can get through doorways easily. The beds and sofas are clean and clear, able to be slept in and sat on just fine. I have offered to get them a cleaner, but of course they were adamantly against it. And to be frank, you must remove the clutter before a hired house cleaner could really do much to be worth the added expense.

A once-a-year clean that I do for them isn’t going to make a huge difference because another year will pass until the same level of cleaning happens. But I feel better doing this for them because I can clearly see they are both much more tired than before. My dad is walking with a little hunch. He gets tired more quickly and has even admitted it after being on a ladder for over 1.5 hours today to fix the kitchen overhead light that went out this morning (to be honest, I was pretty impressed he was agile enough to get up and down that six-foot ladder!). My mom is slower to move around and even process things that I say to her.

It’s sad to watch your parents get more frail and elderly right in front of your eyes.

Today ends our 2-year streak of going to Manhattan Chinatown almost every weekday

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I knew today would be a bittersweet day for all of us given that it’s Kaia’s last day of summer camp at her school for the last two years in Chinatown. Tomorrow, we fly out to San Francisco, so while I wanted to get some takeout for our last evening, I knew I needed it to keep well in the freezer since we’d likely have leftovers. So after my haircut this afternoon, I walked down from the East Village to Chinatown to several locations to mark the end of an era for us:

  1. Super Taste: The divey, hole-in-the-wall Lanzhou restaurant on Eldridge Street that churns out some of my favorite dumplings and noodles in all of New York City. It was shocking to me that this tiny place, where my friend and I used to go in the early 2010s for casual and cheap dinner catch-ups, had completely blown up because of foodie influencers. It used to be very quiet, discreet, with mostly Chinese people speaking Chinese in it. Now every time I pass it, there’s a line of people of all backgrounds waiting! They’ve also expanded their menu quite a bit. Somehow, they still manage to keep their prices relatively low. Tonight, I picked up two orders of dumplings (“open mouth” fried pork and chive dumplings and zhong shui jiao, Sichuanese style fat dumplings) — 20 dumplings total for just $13! Crazy cheap for 2026, and still so, so good!
  2. Kuih Cafe: Honestly, I’ve neglected this place for the last couple of years. I was one of her original customers when she first opened in February 2020, right before the pandemic almost ended the world. This used to be a regualr stop on my Chinatown list when I’d bring back lots of little things from lots of businesses to try. I was scared, given the timing of her tiny storefront opening, that her business wouldn’t make it. Now 6.5 years in, she has a very, very loyal following with people of all backgrounds and tourists from all over the world lining up to get some of her goodies. And she’s only open three day a week — Friday through Sunday! Veronica focuses on desserts mostly (kuih and Southeast Asian style cakes), but she used to do savory dishes that I enjoyed. It had been a long time since I’d come, so she did not recognize me. This visit, I ordered the pandan mochi waffle with a taro kaya filling. I asked for the kaya on the side since I’d be transporting it home and didn’t want to get it soggy. She looked down her nose at me and asked why I wanted it on the side. When I explained this, she looked relieved (probably didn’t want to hear a story about some picky eaters who didn’t want the kaya!), then instructed me to either oven toast or air-fry the waffle promptly when I got home to maximize the texture. This mochi waffle with the taro kaya was so delicious. The textural contrast between the crunchy waffle outside, the chewy mochi inside, and the soft, sticky taro kaya was super addictive. The pandan was really fragrant. Chris only had a bite because he said he was too full from dinner, but he missed out a lot! Kaia wanted the waffle by itself after she had one taste of the taro kaya and said, “That is for adults!” Then she kept nibbling on the waffle, mumbling between bites, “Tasty! So good! So yummy!” I feel like I need to go back here more. I was behind a woman in line who pre-ordered her Mid-Autumn Moon Festival mooncakes. Maybe this is the year I actually splurge and buy them? Chris isn’t a mooncake fan, but I’m sure I could get Kaia to eat them. The only one she’d previously enjoyed was a red bean one that came straight from Malaysia courtesy of the Sambal Lady!
  3. Hay Hay Roasted: Chris asked for roasted meats, so he got roasted meat. I stopped by this little restaurant on Mott to pick up their honey-roasted cha siu. It’s a little more expensive than Green Garden Village depending on the day (Green Garden’s pricing is always fluctuating), but their lean cuts are very, very lean. And the honey flavor is subtle but done really well. I also appreciate that service is very fast, efficient, and friendly.

And then after a stop at Hong Kong Supermarket to stock up on oyster sauce (the current bottle in my fridge is only a quarter full — gasp!), I picked up Pookster, stopped by a street kiosk to let her buy a surprise end-of-summer gift she’d been asking me about since June — a K-Pop Demon Hunters themed pushy game (no idea what these things are called…), and then off we went home!

I still have too many bookmarks for the Chinatown/Lower East Side area that I haven’t gotten to. Now when I go down there, inevitably every time I come home, my shoulders will be heavy carrying a lot of goodies back, just like the way it was pre Kaia being in preschool.

Chinese yam, pork, and carrot soup – a Cantonese soup standby

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It’s a bittersweet week this week for us, as it’s Kaia’s last week at summer camp at the same school in Chinatown for the last two years. She spent 3K and 4K/Pre-K at this Chinese immersion, dual language school, as part of New York City’s UPK program. It’s been a gift (and quite the savings…!) to not have to pay for school for the last two years, other than after-care fees and summer camp. What this also means is that this is our last week having daily trips to Chinatown… a very sad reality I have to spend time mourning. So I started going through my list of things to stock up on and also remembered a couple of things I wanted to make with fresh ingredients while I still have easy access to them.

This year, I was able to achieve my goal of making soups more frequently. According to TCM, soup is a nourishing component of a meal. In Chinese culture, it’s often noted that a complete meal should be “san cai yi tang” (三菜一汤), or three meat/protein/vegetable dishes and one soup, served alongside rice. I had a lot of bone broth in the fridge I made from chicken wings and chicken feet I got from Chinatown. And I ended up using it today with Chinese yam (or huai shan), pork shoulder (also from Chinatown!), carrots, red dates, ginger, goji berries, and shiitake mushrooms. Chinese yam is a pretty traditional Chinese vegetable. It’s used both fresh and dried; today, I bought it fresh for this soup. It’s considered a nourishing root vegetable that supports digestion, stabilizes blood sugar, and boosts overall vitality. I remember my grandma using it in soups growing up. The texture once cooked is almost like taro. When Chinese yam is raw and fresh, the stalks are long, hard, and thin. It has a really tough brown skin with lots of “hair” on it — definitely not the first vegetable you’d pick up when adventuring to explore new produce, as it’s on the “ugly” or even borderline “scary” looking side. And once you peel the skin off, the white flesh is hard to grasp firmly, as it becomes very sticky and gummy. On the plus side, the fresh root has active digestive enzymes; supposedly when you have mucus, it can help clear it for you!

So I made this soup today. I even served it for Chris and me with a tiny little shallow dish of high quality aged soy sauce for dipping the shredded pork pieces into — super traditional and like we had it growing up. And inhaling the familiar aromas and eating it really did remind me of home — at least, the happier parts. It’s funny that it’s taken me to age 40 to really understand and appreciate how much love and care my grandma put into all the soups she made for us almost every single day. I actually cannot remember a day living with her when there was not a huge pot of traditional Chinese soup on the stove!

And while I dipped some pieces of pork shoulder into the soy sauce, I could also faintly remember watching Ed try to fish out the biggest, most tender pieces of pork out of the stock pot so that he could eagerly dip and eat them himself. I always just ate and drank what was served to me and didn’t care about which pieces I got. Most of my happiest childhood memories are tied to food.

Creating slides in seconds

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Since the beginning of my career, if I had to say one thing that I have never really enjoyed about any job I’ve had, it’s creating decks (or, SLIDES for you people who don’t have to do this for a living!). The creation of and designing of decks has been my kryptonite. I generally will do anything I can to procrastinate until the very last acceptable moment to get them done, assuming I am not working off of a template. In the beginning of my career, I got the (very, very WRONG) message that the more text and information on a slide, the better. Gradually, I started moving to companies where people were frankly more competent and realized that if you have too much text on a slide, no one will listen to anything you voice over and actually SAY during a presentation. And so since then, I am constantly second guessing myself as to how much “stuff” needs to be on a slide, what should actually be on the slide versus what should be spoken aloud during a presentation. And then I get obsessive over stylistic things like coloring and theming, whether the widths or sizes of different structures should be the way they currently are… it’s an entire rabbit hole that I truly hate.

So now that I have access to Claude Enterprise at work, I am trying to use it for this kryptonite of mine. And it’s very impressive how quickly it can create basic decks for me. This is a whole new world for me and everyone else who doesn’t enjoy deck creation! I just need to to be more “me.” So, I’m giving it “skills” to keep formatting/theme/style the same across all external decks. I also am gradually in the process of teaching it my general tone and how I work, which is definitely taking some time. It’s messed up a number of decks that I was unhappy with, which means that I haven’t allowed it to master said “skill” just yet. But I figure that once I finally get all the little nuances communicated right, it will be churning out decks for me faster than I can even say “kryptonite!”

Mufi and her five other siblings

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Given Kaia’s growing vocabulary and more complex sentence structure, she’s been having more and deeper conversations. She retains information really well and remembers things from long ago that you’d assume would be long forgotten… or that you have forgotten. And she just loves sharing information with everyone who will listen. At school, they do lots of drawing and painting. In the last few days, she has been coming home with illustrations of our “home.” Lately, she is very obsessed with Mufi, aka Mufasa, the robot-vacuum-mop that Chris calls her “little brother.” Chris told her that along with Mufi (she nicknamed Mufasa this), she has Irene, Simon, Henry, Lychee, and Maddie (some of her favorite stuffed animals) as siblings, as well. So Kaia drew a very colorful picture of our home, showing Mufi mopping our floors (the blue streaks indicate when he’s in “mop” mode). She even drew the little black bristles to show the mop! She reported to her teachers that she had Mufi as a little brother, and five other siblings, for a total of seven babies that I have had.

“Mama has SEVEN babies?” I said to her, completely baffled. “Me?”

“Yeah,” Kaia responded matter of factly. “You have seven babies, and I have six siblings!”

Hmmm. this is very interesting.