Memorial Day weekend plans

It’s the Tuesday before Memorial Day weekend here, and since today is my last day in the office before we leave, colleagues have been asking what my plans will be this long weekend, and I’ve been asking them. A number of them will be traveling for beach locations along the east coast or for weddings, but most will be here, spending time with friends and family at barbecues and the usual gatherings that happen during the first weekend that marks the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere.

I can’t remember ever going to a Memorial Day barbecue in my life. Maybe we did them growing up in our own backyard, but I don’t remember ever attending one. We often went to family friends’ homes for Independence Day barbecues, but I don’t really think I realized Memorial Day barbecues were a thing until I became an adult. And as horrible as it sounds, I don’t miss the idea of going to one during Memorial Day weekend, especially if I know I could be traveling to see something new during that time. They just sound so… mundane to me. I get bored hearing of these things. Maybe that makes me seem like a loner. Or maybe, that could make me seem like I don’t like people, or that I think I’m too good for a family and friends gathering on that day of the year. But… I kind of don’t care. I like that we use this time to travel and explore other parts of the country and world we haven’t been to. Maybe it makes us less relatable, but again, I don’t care. I’m happy to do our own thing. We have each other and the world. That seems like enough.

Sharing information

When I have personal travel upcoming, unless it’s specifically relevant to topics at hand (e.g. “I can’t do that meeting because I’ll be on PTO”; “I won’t be in town that weekend when you come because I’ll be in X city for vacation”), I rarely share it openly unless directly asked. I’m not the kind of person who likes to flaunt or brag, and I’m cognizant that even if that isn’t my intention, people can *hear* it that way because… well, people are people, and people are flawed. Chris’s mom has said she’s felt that way about sharing her travels at work, too. I’ve generally not shared openly unless asked.

So, today I told my colleague that I’d be in Colombia for about five days, and she exclaimed, “What?!!! You didn’t tell me you were going to Colombia!” It’s not like I purposely held it back; I just didn’t really know how relevant it was or if she even cared. And the other thing was: even if she now knew, does it really matter whether I told her two months ago or today? What difference does it really make unless she’d been there before (she hadn’t) or was the kind of person who discussed travel? While some of my friends share little to nothing about where they go and what they do, I have other friends who tell me their exact dates and cities when they travel. Everyone has their level of sharing and reasons for doing so, I suppose. But in my case, I just want to talk about what is relevant in the moment.

Cautionary messages when traveling

This Wednesday, we’re headed to Colombia for an early start to our extended Memorial Day weekend. I’ve gotten quite a lot of responses to this destination, everything from excitement to envy to downright, “Are you crazy? why are you going there?” A customer said he didn’t think it was safe for us to go there and said he’d never in his life want to go there and was happy just where he was; a partner suggested I watch my back and my purse at all costs. A colleague suggested I be careful and not drink any of the water there.

I’ve gotten all kinds of cautionary messages when traveling everywhere from China to India to Brazil. A friend who was worried about traveling to India kept recounting all the rapes of women and tourists there from media reports, and that even when accompanied by a man, it doesn’t make it safe for a woman to be walking around in the streets of India (in other words, just because I’m with Chris doesn’t mean I will no longer be a “target”). In general, I’d like to think I’m not a “dumb tourist” in that I always keep my purse in front of me, and I never flash a lot of cash in public or wear obviously expensive jewelry when traveling. But most of the time, I try not to think about that kind of stuff. It’s not that I’m being ignorant to the warnings, but rather I know that if I think about it too much, I will start getting nervous, and it would probably ruin my trip. I can’t foresee the future, and I can’t predict what bad things will happen because bad things happen around me every single day no matter where I am. Even though I consider New York City an extremely safe city to live in and walk around at all hours of the day and night, I still hear about friends of friends or acquaintances who have had their iPhones or other expensive electronics stolen from them, a few right out of their hands on the subway or on the subway platform. What are we going to do about that?

Eleven Madison Park granola adjustments

After getting such rave reviews from Chris’s parents and Chris about the Eleven Madison Park-style granola I made a few weeks ago, I decided that since I had so much extra oats (and well, I’m not a big regular oatmeal person) that I would make a second batch today. I made the same additions by adding in flax and chia seeds, plus macadamia nuts, as last time. But this time, I increased the amount of sea salt. The original recipe calls for an entire tablespoon (that’s three teaspoons!) of sea salt. I’m pretty salt conservative/sensitive (whatever you want to call that), so for the first batch, I used only a teaspoon. Given that I could barely taste any salt in that, I decided, why not increase that to two teaspoons this time? And to me, I think this batch came out nearly perfectly with a good combination of both salty and sweet. Chris, while he enjoyed it (he never eats granola ever, but this time, he’s actually snacking on this before and after dinner!), says the first batch was better and this was a tad too salty for him.

Maybe the compromise for the next batch will be 1.5 teaspoons? I’ve just never been able to find granola I really loved from the store, so in both cases of making this granola and my hemp granola two years ago, these have been my favorites. It just tastes too processed, even when most of these brands claim to be organic/non-GMO/yada yada. Homemade granola-only in this household from now on.

Stood up

My foster care mentee messaged me a few days ago asking if we could meet this Friday, so I left work early to meet her at a nearby matcha tea spot that is usually packed with crowds and has a line. This time, I luckily got there a few minutes early when there was not only available seating, but also no line. I got excited and texted her, telling her I’d get her drink and have it ready for when she arrived since I wanted to save us a table. 

So I got the drinks and sat myself down… and waited for half an hour. She never showed up. I texted her a few times, called twice. No response. I was really confused. This was really unlike her. She’s rarely even late, and most of the time, she’s even early.

Was she in trouble? Did something happen to her? She had just texted me around noon to confirm the location.

So I left, feeling half stood up, half concerned. I sat there for such a long time that I’m sure other people in the shop were wondering if I were on a blind date and just got stood up. I brought the extra matcha drink home to Chris, who drank half of it already watered down by the melted ice, and I myself had the extra half dose of matcha.

Later this evening, she finally got back to me and said that her social worker forced her to stay extra long for their session, and the room they put her in had zero reception. She apologized profusely and said she felt horrible.

As long as she’s okay and not in harm’s way, I was fine about it. It’s just always uncertain what really happens when things like this occur.

Mentoring at work

In my new and elevated role at work, I am being turned to for mentoring both formally (new hires) and informally (through our internal team mentoring program). I was sitting with my colleague who I oftentimes chat with as my new mentee. He sat there and as I would expect, complained to me about his current situation, not being in the line of sight for a promotion, and how he keeps getting told he doesn’t have “executive polish” and needs to work on it. When asked how to improve his “level” of executive polish, he is given no concrete tactics to help this “area of growth.”

I’ve actually watched him present, so I gave him some suggestions. In his case, he lacks poise and confidence both in areas such as his posture and voice. I suggested ways for him to share little anecdotes of other customers and even his own stories in relevant ways during presentations, to speak with more volume and authority during meetings. It’s amazing what wearing an outfit you are proud of or even standing a certain way can do for you when others view you while you are speaking.

“All this is really helpful, and it’s not even that hard to pinpoint if you observe me,” he said, thanking me for my suggestions. “Why wasn’t my own manager or anyone else who works more closely with me able to share this with me?”

I did not respond to that.

when the ignorant discuss topics as though they are experts

As a woman and a person of color, I am oftentimes amused, baffled, and at times even enraged when I think about all the conversations that I overhear about topics being discussed by people who have no clue about the realities of the topics they are discussing. It ranges from the stupid generalizations I hear of people who have traveled to maybe one or two cities in a country and are now somehow making massive all-encompassing statements about x country in comparison to this country or others they have visited, to a bunch of white men gathered around a table discussing diversity – no woman at the table, no person from the LGBTQ community, no black, brown, yellow, or blue person. What exactly do anyof you know about what you are discussing, anyway? 

Then there’s the generalization of old white men in Alabama today making decisions that affect women in the form of not only banning abortion, but making it illegal for doctors to perform the operation, without exceptions for incest or rape. While all of that is horrible and completely lacking of empathy or any ability to relate given that no man will ever have the opportunity to understand how horrific this situation could personally be, I would even go so far as to say that women who identify as pro-life and consider abortion “baby-killing” likely have zero idea how judgmental, unempathetic, and wrong they are in their opinions. It’s not really anyone’s place to be deciding what any one person decides for her own body. That’s like regulating when someone decides to cut their hair or pee. Leave them alone. It doesn’t affect you at all. How does this affect your life…?

I oftentimes think back to my last workplace where one of my colleagues was five months pregnant, and at five months, the fetus suddenly stopped growing. And she had to face the absolutely horrifying decision to either a) abort the baby (which was essentially dead), or b) take the risk of ‘carrying it to term’ and giving birth to a dead body and suffering massive potential health consequences. Given she lived in San Francisco, she was actually able to make choice A… as painful and depressing as it was. But I’ve read other cases where women had similar situations when they were not so lucky to live in a progressive city or state, and thus were forced to take major health risks and carry the fetus to term. Some of these stories have resulted in significant health ramifications that never seem to get brought up when the topic of “pro-choice or pro-life” debated.

We have no idea what we don’t know… until we learn it. So why are we all trying to regulate the bodies of other people? Why does the Republican Party, who prides itself on being for small government, want to have “big government” specifically when it comes to making personal decisions for women, who represent over half our population?!

Until this week, I didn’t even realize that New York State bans abortions after about 20 weeks. It’s even nearly impossible to get an abortion in New York City, LAND OF PROGRESS. That’s my city where I live right now, today! Even in a land where Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land over 46 years, people still can’t accept reality and still try to oppress vulnerable women who need the most support of them all. The progress we have made is slowly being rolled back and destroyed. And that “progress” is still a long time coming and has a long way to go.

These are the moments when I am so ashamed to be a part of this country. This is really when the lack of funding in education, the overall lack of knowledge in this country is just so painfully apparent and excruciatingly raw.

Overloaded with meat

For Chris’s dad’s birthday today, we took him to Danji for dinner this evening for their tasting menu. New York City has been experiencing a big wave of modern Korean/Korean-fusion restaurants, and while some of them have been hit or miss, Danji and its sister restaurant Hanjan have been really great dining experiences with high quality and local ingredients. Danji provided the second “tasting menu” of Korean food we’d ever had, and while I enjoyed it a lot, I’ll be honest and say that it was a bit too meat-heavy. Tasting menus should be a good balance of meat, seafood, vegetables, and starches. In this tasting menu, the majority of the dishes were pork and beef based, and there were very few vegetables outside of the different varieties of kimchi and radish that were presented. I wish there was more fish and other types of seafood that were presented. I realized this as the dishes progressed and came out, and towards the end of the meal when we ended up not finishing the final savory course, I found myself feeling bloated and really uncomfortable, and I had a feeling it was probably from the amount of meat we had overall. It was so uncomfortable that I had troubles falling asleep that night… and if I thought about it, the sheer amount of meat was not even that much. It wasn’t like I had a big steak or other massive slab of meat to myself. Ugh.


Keep it down

Tonight, Chris, his parents, and I went to dinner with Chris’s mom’s cousin and his wife, who happen to live just four blocks away from our apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. We usually see them once a year when Chris’s parents are in town. The more I have seen his mom’s cousin’s wife, the more funny I think she is. She is extremely gregarious and social, very opinionated, and quite loud in volume. The last part always cracks me up, especially when she laughs. Like me, she has a loud laugh, and I always love how when she laughs, her husband seems to have a somewhat sheepish look on his face, and sometimes even asks her to lower her voice and calm down. He asked her to do this tonight when she was talking about a series on Amazon Prime about Indian wedding planners and being open about sex. I loved every second of this story, especially her facial expressions as she was describing bits of it.

It’s a bit of a gendered expectation, isn’t it, to expect your wife to be quiet (or quieter, in this case), to not laugh as much, to be less vocal or lower in volume. They have children who are high school- and college-age, so they are older than us, but I am always relieved when I witness little gendered gestures like these that I am not married to someone who tells me to keep my voice down and not to laugh as much or as loud. I’m loud when I laugh, and well, everyone just has to deal with it. And if they want to be as loud, they can certainly join the party.

Hoover Presidential Library and Museum

Because West Branch, the town where the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is located, is two hours east of Des Moines, we unfortunately didn’t have enough time to see or do anything else on our last day in Iowa. But I actually got a glimpse of Herbert Hoover that I’d never quite seen before. In school, I feel like my history classes glossed over Hoover as a president. He was the president of the U.S. during the Great Depression and eventually got pushed out by FDR. He’s often been noted as one of the worst and most useless presidents in U.S. history. He’s also been blamed for exacerbating the Great Depression, as well.

But I didn’t realize that before he became president, he was well respected as an engineer and eventually as a humanitarian during World War I by leading hunger-relief efforts in Europe as the head of the American Relief Administration. Many people in Belgium looked at him as a savior since he provided food for those suffering famine. It’s odd that someone who was so helpful to Europeans during a time of crisis and who had traveled to and lived in Australia and China would not only be isolationist but also conservative and perceived as callous, insensitive, and unaware.

Visiting presidential libraries has educated me about U.S. history in a way that my history classes in school never did. Of course, the presidential libraries are always going to paint each respective president in a flattering way, so. it will take some effort and proactivity to read between the lines. It would be a good idea to do a tour of presidential libraries as a child, as well as of the vast variety of history museums, to supplement all children’s learning in this country… though it would certainly be costly. But it would provide a more well-rounded perspective of what this country is actually made of.