Lunar New Year Performance at school

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Next Wednesday, 29 January, marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year, the year of the wood snake. If you are in any Chinatown, Little Saigon, or related East Asia “town,” it will be pretty obvious this is a special time of year for these cultures when you see all the red lanterns, red envelopes, and Lunar New Year decorations all over walls and hanging everywhere. Given that Kaia’s school will be closed next Wednesday and Thursday, they held their Lunar New Year kids’ performance and lunch party at school today. The kids have been preparing for the performance since the new (Gregorian) year began. Parents and caregivers were invited for the performance as well as lunch (which we either were expected to bring food for, or donate $20 for). I booked my nearby co-working space to attend easily today and do early pickup.

They had the performances by class, so first the Pre-K (4s) class, then Kaia’s class, 3K, and finally, the 2s class. As cute as it was with most of the kids wearing red or traditional Chinese clothes, it was pretty even that across all three classes, only half (at best) of the kids were actually getting into the dance. The others either stood there, picked their noses, or covered their faces. At least they had fun music to listen to and got to see all of our smiling faces.

As for how Kaia did, she wanted to run to me immediately when she saw me, but the teacher motioned for her to go to her spot on the performance floor. When she did, she did a little dancing and twirling for the first half, then decided that she wanted to cover her eyes and face for the second half. I wasn’t sure if her left eye was actually irritated, or if she was just rebelling and didn’t want to participate anymore. Her bestie stood there the whole time, mugging at all of us in the audience, then started picking her nose.

Well, at least my kid wasn’t the one who just picked her nose up on stage, glaring at us.

Travel insurance with credit card – the debacle comes to a conclusion

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It’s been almost two months since I was at the Mount Sinai West emergency room, on the day I was actually supposed to leave for our Thanksgiving European trip. Chris had to cancel and rebook train tickets. He also had to cancel hotel reservations, make new ones, and also change our outbound flight to Paris. It wasn’t fun for him, and just the flight change itself was extremely costly. But he realized that the credit card we used to book the original flight had travel insurance on it for trip cancellation/interruption, so I took photos of all my ER and Urgent Care forms and sent them in for consideration for our itinerary change costs due to my sudden illness.

You would think that given I was not only in the emergency room, but I also had extremely detailed documentation, that this would have been a smooth process that would have gotten approved relatively swiftly. Unfortunately, it was anything but. First, the contact details to file the travel insurance claim were not clear, likely by design. It’s not on Mastercard’s website. You have to call Mastercard, then get re-routed to a specific agent, who can then share the secret website you have to login to in order to submit all your claim details and proof forms. Then once you submit all of that, you wait. And wait. And then, for the first 8-10 days, I got no feedback. I simply saw “pending” as the status of my claim every time I logged into the portal. When I finally got in contact with the claims agent (a third party works for Mastercard to handle travel insurance), she grilled me about the time we left the apartment, when we would have needed to leave for the airport, what time I was admitted into Urgent Care and then ER, when I started having symptoms, etc. It felt extremely unempathetic, like she was simply looking for reasons to deny my claim. Chris copied and pasted literal paragraphs from their travel insurance policy stating why this was, in fact, applicable. I was shocked: wasn’t it clear that this was a very serious case, especially given all the details in the Urgent Care and ER forms? All of the forms had time stamps on them, so I wasn’t even sure why she was further grilling me. Did she even read any of the forms I submitted at all??

The claim was initially denied, as they originally said that my trip wasn’t cancelled, that we still went, so there was “nothing to claim” or get reimbursed for. I had to call them nearly every business day we were away in Australia, have at least 6-8 email back and forth communications with them, endless voice messages playing phone tag, and then finally a very annoying and painful phone call in the middle of the night, Australia time, to explain to them: what the hell else did they need to understand that I was genuinely sick, that I was in the ER for something that could have easily resulted in pneumonia or death, and that as a result of all that chaos, my outbound flight needed to be changed…?! It was clear that the claims agent barely read any of the documentation I sent. She may not have even opened them as far as I was concerned. I had to literally open each document, one by one, and point out to her where the time stamps or remarks around my illness were (e.g. “On the ER form, page 1, in the bottom left hand corner. do you see the time stamp that says ‘3:49pm’?”). It felt like I was instructing a small child instead of an adult. She finally realized after having her hand held by me that yes, this was a legitimate claim, and yes, it should be reimbursed. She reopened the claim for me as a “claim determination dispute,” then told me that at this point, the only reason it would be denied is if the manager thought I had some “pre-existing condition” back when the flight was booked. The flight was booked in July. You cannot have a pre-existing condition for a peritonsillar abscess; that’s just medically impossible and could easily be disproven. Plus, no one would have an abscess in their throat from July all the way to November!

I finally got an email notification last week that the claim dispute was accepted. I got my requested payment back today. While it was closure (and some much needed money back), it made me angry to think about how insurance works in this country. Insurance feels like it exists simply to exist and get money out of you. Then when you actually do need to use it, the insurance companies will do everything in their power to withhold money from you or even make you pay.

Not everyone would be as persistent as I was to get my money back. I made sure to call and email almost every day for over a month. Most people just let these things go. I’m sure they count on that happening. But no, I’m not getting screwed by all these stupid insurance companies as long as I can help it.

“Are you an old lady?!” The candle tunneling saga takes a turn.

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One of the things I looked forward to upon our return home this month was my nightly winter ritual of lighting a scented candle and reading for about an hour before bedtime. I hate the cold weather, and I strongly dislike short days, but I do enjoy cozying up in bed to a good book with the heat on, my covers over me, and a flickering and beautifully fragrant candle to soothe my senses.

Unfortunately, all of that sensual, soothing “me time” came to a halt one night last week when I realized that my semi new Voluspa Saijo Persimmon candle was starting to tunnel. How was this possible? Candle tunneling is the candle lover’s worst nightmare. I did all the right things: I made sure there was no draft in the room. I burned it for a minimum amount of time to allow the wax to melt evenly. I had the wick trimmed to the right length. What the heck was I doing wrong? So I immediately did a search on my phone to see what the culprit could be.

Unfortunately, it seems that candles do not like cold temperatures, either. A high quality scented candle prefers an ambient room temperature of somewhere between 65-75 F. What this means is: if a candle is lit while sitting in a temperature far below that (and yes, the thermostat in our rooms say that without the heat on, it’s somewhere between 40-50 F; we don’t keep the heat on in rooms we’re not using!), the candle fails to generate enough heat to melt the wax evenly. The heat then primarily melts the wax closest to the wick, leaving the edges of the candle solid and not burning properly. This uneven burning results in tunneling.

So what was I supposed to do, then, to prevent this from happening again — was I expected to turn the heat on in the room where I wanted to burn the candle and “prepare” the candle for lighting? That seemed so ridiculous. I get it when you want to turn the heat on in a room that you are preparing to enter, or for your spouse or even your dog or cat. But now I have to turn the heat on to prep the room.. for my CANDLE?

I was complaining about this to Chris earlier this week, and he gave me this bewildered look. “What are you, an old lady?” he exclaimed. “You’re researching causes for candle tunneling prevention?!”

He just doesn’t get it. When you have a fancy (read: expensive) and much loved candle which creates just the right room ambiance for you for your nightly bedtime reading ritual, you have to take care of it. You can’t just expect it to fix itself. I didn’t appreciate fancy candles ten years ago. But now, I wholly embrace them and everything they represent. Do I acknowledge this is a #firstworldproblem? Of course. But I have to take care of all my belongings!

End of sanity as we know it

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Today marks the inauguration of Dipshit once again — a second term in one of the world’s stupidest countries. This was the result I feared most of 2023 and 2024. I was just hoping that my cynical side about the US would be proven wrong. Unfortunately, it was proven right.

As usual, I have nothing new to say about how I feel about the state of politics in this country, or the direction that this country is going in. All I can say is that I’ve turned off all news notifications since the day of the November 2024 election, other than BBC, and I will keep them turned off until at least 2028. I feel like my blood pressure will be better for it, as well as my mental health. The few news updates I’ve already seen today, such as Dipshit withdrawing the U.S. out of the WHO, really do feel like they are updates from The Onion. But well, we have reached the end of sanity, so what else is new now?

It feels only fitting, and a bit spooky, that the great activist, Cecile Richards, who was president of Planned Parenthood for 12 years, died today, after a two-year battle with brain cancer. She was only 67. It was really hard to see the news of her passing and to simultaneously know the beginning of doom was starting in this country today. While most of the U.S. sees Planned Parenthood as a place where abortions take place, many women, including myself, have used Planned Parenthood simply for accessible women’s healthcare.

I still remember back in 2008, when I first moved to New York City, and before ZocDoc existed, I was struggling to find a gynecologist. I was experiencing really long menstrual cycles that had no explanation. Every time I tried looking up a provider and calling, I’d get told that I needed to wait at least 2-3 months for an appointment. It seemed completely senseless that a simple appointment lasting less than 15 minutes could take 60-90 days just to get scheduled. So I called Planned Parenthood in West Village and was able to get an appointment for the following week. A doctor saw me, and while she wasn’t able to pinpoint the cause of my long menstrual cycles, she was able to help give me advice, medication, and also advise me to track my cycles (which, sadly, NO one had ever suggested or taught me to do before). Eventually, I did find an OB-GYN I trusted who was able to identify the cause of my abnormal menstrual cycles. And I finally felt seen and understood.

It’s sad that in a country where so much money is spent on healthcare that our outcomes are worse, that care is barely even “care.” And it’s sad that what Cecile Richards stood for is pretty much being broken down every single day in this country. And I have a feeling it will only get worse in the next four years.

“Who’s my sweet baby?”

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There’s a lot of repetitive parts of parenting a young toddler. Not all the repetition is boring or annoying, though, as many people would assume. Some of the things we do on repeat are sweet, affectionate, quick moments that will remain in my mind as some of my most treasured moments. And this is one of them for me.

Sometimes, when Kaia is in a happy, affectionate mood, usually while we’re in bed reading before bed, I will hold her and say, “Who’s my sweet baby?”

She will immediately light up and break out into a huge grin. “Kaiaaaaa!” she will say in response.

“And who’s Pookie?” I will ask her.

Kaia: “Kaiaaaaaa!” she will excitedly yell back.

“Who’s Pookster?” I then ask her.

Kaia: “Ummmm, uhhhh. KAIAAAAAAA!!!!” she will giggle and squeal.

“And who’s Hoji?” I ask her.

Kaia: “Uhhh, uhhhh, KAIA!!!!!!” she keeps giggling and squealing. Then, she’ll bury her head into my neck or lap.

Kaia has so many nicknames, so many signs of love and affection. I hope she doesn’t ever forget how deeply she is loved not just by her dad and me, but by so many others.

Dragging your unwilling “three-nager” along the streets

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The “three-nager” year was always supposed to be challenging. Most of my friends who have older children warned me that while everyone seems to talk about the “Terrible 2s,” people seem to talk less about the “thrilling 3s” or “three-nager” year, which is actually far more frustrating and triggering. Logically, it makes sense: while the 2s period is hard because toddlers realize they are individuals separate from others and their caregivers, they do not have the vocabulary to vocalize what they want. That’s what makes the 3s period even more infuriating: they have not only the knowledge that they are separate, but also now, they have the words to vocalize that they simply don’t want to do/say what you want them to do/say.

Because Kaia was jet lagged last week, the second half of the week, I took the stroller with me to take her home because I didn’t want to carry her all the way home myself, as I did the first few days of the week. I was going to take the stroller again on Thursday, but Chris told me to stop using it as a crutch for her: she has to realize that she is expected to walk, and that she has no choice but to comply. Well, this didn’t work out very well. As soon as she saw I had no stroller in the school corridor, she refused to walk even a single step. I dragged her arms into the elevator, then dragged her out of the school building. I proceeded to drag her across the street on Grand, right in front of Hey Tea where she decided to just sit on the ground, when a Chinese grandma walked up to us.

“Hey, pretty girl! Why aren’t you doing what your mama says?” the grandma first said in Toisan, then in Cantonese, then in Mandarin. “You have to be guai guai and listen to your mama. Can you go with her?” Then she turned to me. “What’s wrong?”

I told her that she refuses to walk. She shook her head. She proceeds to start lightly scolding Kaia in Toisan and Mandarin, telling her she has to do what her mama says and be guai guai, so she needed to get up now and walk. Finally, Kaia relented, got up, took my hand, and walked to the subway station with me.

We got on the train. She got her favorite window seat and then started yelling at me for two stops, saying she didn’t want me to sit next to her. I told her I had the right to sit next to her, and if she didn’t want me to sit next to her, someone else could. She didn’t like that, so she continued to yell. There was a power outage at our stop, so we ended up having to switch trains and get off at 57th and 7th Street, meaning we had to walk even further. I felt like I was in hell.

I had to carry her out of the subway, and then she laid on the ground, refusing to walk once again. I dragged her a block. Then she finally walked several blocks between dragging. I tried to reason with her. I felt many sympathetic eyes on me as I switched off dragging, carrying, and letting her sit and lie on the dirty ground. Sometimes, I got worried in the moment that I could potentially dislocate her arm while dragging. She cried the entire way from 57th and 7th Ave to home and did not stop once we got through the door.

It doesn’t matter how many toddler books you read (I’ve already read four), how many articles you read on early childhood development, how many “experts” you consult with, or how many parent friends you have who advise you. This period is just beyond difficult and infuriating. You want so much for your child to cooperate, but she refuses. And it’s even worse when you’re outside and it’s SO COLD. I don’t even really care about all the people passing by who are looking; I care more about the cold and wanting to go somewhere inside where it’s warm!

And I get it: she’s in this weird transition stage of no longer being a baby and recognizing that in herself, but also not necessarily wanting to be a “big girl.” She’s said it multiple times, and I try to tell her that being a big girl is fun, that we all do it, and she is not alone. She has us, she has her teachers, and she has her friends. And we all love her. I don’t think I’ve ever had my patience tested more than in this period. So I suppose this is also a learning stage for myself as her parent, as in, how not to lose my shit, to try not to yell, and to try my best to be as empathetic as possible to her… because transitions are really hard. They are hard for adults. And they are especially hard for littles like Kaia.

I’m 39 today.

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A former boyfriend of one of my best friends used to say that Asians always look good, that they age well… until they don’t. He had this fictional graph where the X-axis showed one’s age, and the Y-axis was “good looks.” Asians were high on the chart as they aged… until they hit somewhere between 55-60. At that point, their “good looks” would come crashing down and they’d basically become a pile of leathery skin, endless wrinkles, liver spots, and grey hair.

I think I know what he was trying to say. The truth is that when the average person thinks of aging, they immediately think of things like white hair and wrinkles. But “aging” shows up differently for non-White people like Asians. For people who look like me, the things that stare back at you in the mirror, reminding you that you are no longer in your teens or 20s, are things like this: sun spots, freckles, teeny tiny fine lines, less fat on your face (yes, really), which means that your bones stick out more, and you start noticing “angles” on your face, like around your eyes and cheeks, that you never saw before. Of course, Asians will wrinkle. And of course, we will get grey/white hairs, as I already have some. But those are the things I see when I scrutinize my face now at age 39 that I never really took notice of until this time last year.

My metabolism is slowing down. Since I weaned off breastfeeding two years ago, I’ve never been able to totally work off the extra belly fat right in my lower abdomen; the flat stomach I once enjoyed seems to be just slightly out of my reach no matter how much cardio, exercise, and strength training I do. I’ll need to rethink my strategy on dealing with this in 2025. Sometimes now, when I eat very spicy hot food, which I love, I get more mucus in my throat — the same annoying side effect my mom has been telling me she’s been experiencing as she’s aging. That deters her from wanting to eat hot food, which she always loved and grew up loving.

But it’s all okay. I’d like to think I am smarter now, wiser, that I see life with more shades of colors and all its nuances. Unlike in my early life, there’s really no such thing as something or anything that is all good or all bad, all “hero” or all “villain.” Every person in our life is part villain, part hero, whether we want to admit it out loud or not. I have more perspective now. I’ve never had a single moment when I wished I were in my teens or 20s again. I like having more money and more financial stability. I’m a lot more confident in literally everything I do, from the way I walk on the street to how I conduct myself at work. I tolerate far less bullshit, abuse, and questionable treatment from literally everyone and anyone. It takes time to be comfortable in one’s skin. And so here I am, in my 40th year, happy to grab life by the balls and make sure that every moment is a moment worth living and speaking my truth.

I’m so fortunate and privileged to have the life I’ve had, full of meaningful, fun, vibrant experiences, travels, people, and tastes. Sometimes, I cannot believe how much fun I have had in my life, what good fortunes I’ve been able to enjoy, the kindnesses I’ve experienced all around from those closest to me as well as total strangers in everyday life and struggles (like the ones who stop and try to coax my child when she refuses to walk and wants to lie on the dirty sidewalk…). I hope that things will only get better from here on out, even with all my sun spots, fine lines, and grey hairs coming in. And I can only hope that my daughter will appreciate me for all of it.

Eating in the Lower East Side in your late 30s

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For most of my adult life, food has been one of the things in the center of my world. I think about what I am going to eat today, tomorrow, next week. I think about things I am going to make, ingredients I am going to buy for things I will make, and what and where I will eat which things. One of the fun parts about living in densely populated places like New York City is seeing how creative restaurants can get with a compact amount of space. It’s a bit dizzying at times to see how small the spaces are that restaurants cram their patrons into, and even more amusing to see how servers manage to get food out to diners without crashing into people and things.

In my early 20s, I always found this fun. I didn’t mind waiting in lines for highly sought after and trendy restaurants. Entering my 30s, I got more into making reservations and not waiting. And once I had a child, I definitely found my patience waning at the idea of queuing up to eat anywhere. Plus, I like having more space. I don’t veto crammed spaces, but I definitely do not seek them out at all.

Last night, I met my friend in the Lower East Side to eat at the super popular Okiboru House of Tsukemen. Tsukemen, as a ramen style, has never really picked up here in New York despite brothy ramen having its moment. I’ve always loved it, though, because with tsukemen, or dipping ramen, you get to appreciate the texture and taste of the noodles themselves more. The broth for dipping is also a lot more concentrated in flavor, so everything just has more of a punch. Okiboru has been a darling with food influencers across social media. When they first opened, people waited hours to eat here, as well as at their sister restaurant, Okiboru House of Udon, which specializes in Himokawa style udon — ultra wide, flat, and bouncy noodles. These are very unlike the long, fat, round udon that most of us have familiarity with. My only hesitancy with eating here was that I really did not want to wait, and I was banking on the fact that it was 26 F tonight, so maybe that would deter the crowds.

I was right. We met at 5:30 for our early dinner and got seated right away. As we slurped our noodles, though, more and more people came in. And with that, the acrobatics of the servers came to light. We saw so many close calls with bowls of broth, buns, and fries nearly getting knocked over because of the tiny counters and the extremely narrow walking space between the counters and the wall seating that it almost became a bit of a spectator sport, watching the servers get through. All it takes is one sudden, unexpected move by a seated patron to cause steaming bowls of broth to spill all over another. This is not a place I would ever take Pookster to, or really, any more than a single person. It just would be too hectic, not enjoyable, far too crowded and tight. Sometimes, you want to go out to eat to… relax. This is a place for a quick conversation to enjoy your food quickly, and then leave.

Of course I loved our tsukemen. This spot is a place I’d willingly go back to just for the quality of the food. There’s just a time and place for everything, and this is not a place that I’d ever think of to luxuriate or relax at all.

When a 13-minute subway ride turns into a 30-minute one

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Because I am going out with my friend tonight, I switched off with Chris and did drop off at school for Kaia. Drop off was really smooth. Unlike in the evenings, she was eager to walk all the way to the subway station and on the stairs. She happily held my hand most of the way and as always, peered out the window in wonderment as the train went fast and as we went through different stations. The train came and went quickly without any hiccups. Kaia even walked all the way up the stairs getting out of the station once we reached Chinatown. Because we got there a bit early, and I hate waiting in that little corridor in front of her school, I took her to my favorite fresh rice noodle shop, Yi Ji Shi Mo, so that I could pick up a fresh jug of soy milk. I brought her to the front of the school as soon as the doors opened. She ran in, and out I went to pick up a few produce items. When I got back into the subway station, I saw there was. 10-minute wait until the next train. And then when the train finally came, it kept stalling at stations and between stations. Later on, the conductor said that there was a signal malfunction at 59th Street (that’s my stop!), so we’d continue to have long waits until we finally reached my end point.

So, while I was lucky to get to school quickly and efficiently today, I was not that lucky on the way back. End to end, I probably spent 30 minutes on the train today for what is typically a 13-minute ride. It was annoying and not fun at all, though I was lucky since I didn’t have any calls until 11am. There are certainly pros and cons of relying on the subway, especially when it’s only 26 degrees outside and all you want to do is hibernate under some thick blankets.

First time making Burmese tea leaf salad

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As part of my Christmas gift, Chris got me a bunch of ingredients, some ready to eat, some raw, to make Burmese food. Though we love Burmese food and are particularly obsessed with Burmese tea leaf salad, also known as lahpet thoke, I’ve never made any Burmese food ever. Although we are surrounded by endless high quality Asian supermarkets in New York City, most Burmese ingredients, other than standard things like rice/egg noodles, chickpea flour, fish sauce, etc., still seem obscure. I guess that makes sense when you realize that the number of Burmese restaurants in the city can be counted on a single hand.

The tea leaf salad is actually really simple to make with everyday ingredients like peanuts, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, onion… but the catch is that the dressing has one key ingredient that tends to elude most of us, and that’s fermented tea leaves. Technically, any high quality tea leaf can be fermented after being spent, but the fermentation process for optimal funk and complexity of taste is two to three years long. As much as I love the idea of not wasting my spent tea leaves and repurposing them into a tea leaf dressing, I have zero desire to have a jar of fermenting tea leaves in my apartment for the next 2-3 years. So, with the package that Chris got me, it included fermented tea leaves in multiple forms: straight up fermented tea leaves, tea leaf salad dressing (all ready to eat, maybe with just some added lime juice and garlic, and individual portions of tea leaf salad dressing for one serving of salad.

So today, I finally opened the ready-made packet and created my salad mise en place: I added minced red onion, chopped cucumber, diced tomatoes, shredded baby gem lettuce, fried garlic chips (from the Burmese package), roasted chana dal I made this morning, roasted peanuts, roasted sesame seeds, and the tea leaf salad. I added some minced garlic and drizzled freshly squeezed lime juice on top. And it was delicious – just like in the restaurants!

I guess this means that more Burmese tea leaf salads are to come at home!