Category Archives: Contemplation

Unexpected customer news today

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Some colleagues and I had a scheduled call this morning with a customer we hadn’t heard from in months. We had tried reaching out countless times to get a meeting on the calendar with them since April, to no avail. Finally, they agreed to this meeting today, so we spent a lot of time thinking about what we’d add to the agenda. Then, when our executive contact came on, she slowly spoke and revealed that they’d unlikely be renewing our contract when we reached the end date in the spring because they had not seen much a return on any of their e-learning providers and needed to rethink their strategy for internal upskilling. And in the same breath, she revealed that she had stage 4 cancer and would not be around for much longer. She would try to make all our scheduled meetings and respond to our messages, but if she did not, she reassured us that she was not ignoring us; she was simply prioritizing her health, or… she just wasn’t around anymore. She also said she’d try to remember putting up an out-of-office auto reply.

I wasn’t even sure what to say. All of us froze on the call, and the customer kept talking business. So that’s the direction the call went. But it just such sad, unexpected news. I didn’t even know she had any health problems. Plus, for her to talk about not renewing the contract and having stage 4 cancer in almost the same sentence was just completely baffling to me. Plus, the fact that she was reassuring us that she wasn’t ignoring us in the midst of everything she’s going through personally… I was just rendered speechless.

Life is short. None of us knows what is going to happen next. Death is just waiting to take all of us away.

AFSP featured on CBS News Live – preparation

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About a month ago, the executive director of AFSP NYC asked if I’d be interested in representing AFSP in the media, so I agreed to it. She said it would include things like TV, newspaper, and magazine interviews. Given that the Manhattan walk is just over a week away, we’re trying to get the word out about the walk more, and we were able to get a segment on CBS News Live because Cindy Hsu from CBS is on AFSP’s board. Two of our co-chairs were not available for the recording timing, so our director asked the third co-chair plus me to represent. I’ve never had any experience being on TV, much less live TV, but I figured it would be a good experience. I’d learn something and get exposed to a world I know pretty much nothing about. In preparation for the media coverage bit, our ED asked me to prepare a “Why I walk and participate in AFSP” statement. She said it would be particularly powerful coming from me because I have now been fundraising for AFSP for 12 years now. So, with some thinking and assistance from ChatGPT to tighten my messaging, I came up with this:

My name is Yvonne Wong, and I’m proud to serve on the AFSP Out of the Darkness Manhattan Walk Committee as a volunteer and fundraiser. This year marks my 12th Out of the Darkness NYC Walk to fight suicide and save lives. Each year, I walk in honor of my big brother Ed, who I lost to suicide in July 2013 after a long struggle with depression and anxiety.

Living 3,000 miles away in New York while Ed was in San Francisco, I often felt helpless and unsure where to turn for support. When he went missing and was suddenly gone, I was overwhelmed by guilt, anger, and grief. I couldn’t understand why he had to die, or why our community hadn’t taken his suffering seriously. In searching for answers, I found AFSP, one of the few organizations that openly addresses suicide—not just mental health in vague terms—and creates spaces for honest conversations, connection, and healing. 

Since then, I’ve shared Ed’s story openly, year after year, through fundraising and community events. What started as a small gesture to honor his memory has grown into something that has felt transformative for me. People—friends, colleagues, and even complete strangers—have reached out to share their own experiences of loss and struggle; many of them confided in me and said I was the very first person they’d opened up to about their losses and struggles. Through AFSP, I found a community of understanding, hope, and connection. I can’t bring my brother back, but I can help ensure that others know they are not alone. AFSP has given me a way to heal and to help build a world where fewer families experience this kind of loss.

“Focus on what we can control and influence”

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Participating in the workforce and working for someone else is probably one of the most frustrating, infuriating, and annoying roller coasters a person can ever experience. And a lot of the time, I wonder if it’s all even really worth it. My dad always told me that the best thing you can do is to work for yourself because then, you don’t have to answer to anyone else. While it can be liberating to not have to answer to anyone, that also comes with immense pressure and responsibility that not all of us can handle… and not all of us frankly have the skill and ability to do. When he used to say this, especially after I became an adult, graduated from college, and entered the workforce, I always thought, but never said out loud to him, that I actually admired that he was skilled enough to make this leap for himself… because I don’t think I was ever brave (or creative or skilled) enough to do this for myself.

I was supposed to have a relatively relaxing day at the coworking space today. I originally had two meetings on my calendar and blocked off some time to work on some slides. And then suddenly, I got some bad news that came crashing down, and it was all hands on deck trying to figure out how to remedy a customer situation. I could not even believe how frustrated and angry I got, and I was even more pissed that this had to happen on a Friday at midday. A few colleagues and I were ranting about it, and everyone kept on repeating the same thing to try to ground ourselves: “focus on what we can control and influence.”

So much of what happens at work, with colleagues, customers, projects, data — is out of our control. We try to create narratives that this deal or opportunity happened because I did x, y, and z, and that person did a, b, and c. But chance and luck are very much in there as invisible drivers. People don’t like to openly acknowledge that, though, because unfortunately, we cannot replicate or quantify chance or luck. So in times like this, I just want to escape and do things that help me mentally escape. Tonight, I ended up double boiling and heat aerating a pot of chai. I added extra ginger because I figured I could use the extra spice. I find the process of making chai very meditative, and I can attribute that to watching many “chai meditation” Instagram Stories that Sunny from The Chai Box records every single morning. I used to watch her chai double boiling and meditation almost every morning when I was on maternity leave, and I always looked forward to it. And now, I still do it when I want a little mini escape.

Work can really suck. But chai meditation always helps.

Body weight, fat, muscle, and overall health tracking

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Ever since I weaned off breastfeeding over 2.5 years ago now, I still cannot get rid of this excess lower belly fat. It’s annoying, and though no one else really notices it, I always notice and feel it when I put on clothes and when I look at myself in the mirror. I’ve never thought of myself as a vain person, but I really, really dislike this. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I exercise or what ab exercises I do (YES, I am aware spot training doesn’t work), but it won’t go away. I was telling a friend of mine about this who has had two kids, and she feels the same and says she has the same issue. She also said she wonders that given we both exercise a lot and eat decently, that maybe it could just be excess skin?

Haha, there’s zero chance that is the case. If only it was excess skin and not real FAT.

I was chatting with my other friend about this, who has taken pretty much every health test written about that’s not covered by American health insurance, things like the DEXA scan, VO2 Max test, amongst other heart/oxygen/blood sugar related tests. She was urging me to get a DEXA scan to see what my muscle/fat ratio was, as that could help me pinpoint what I needed to change about my diet and/or exercise regimen. Although the DEXA scan does intrigue me, the idea of drastically changing my diet did not sit well with me. I eat mostly whole foods 99 percent of the time. I am intentional about eating lots of fruit, vegetables, and varying up my protein sources; I try to make some type of plant-based protein (beans!) every week. I almost never eat ultra highly processed, packaged foods. I barely even drink alcohol anymore (excess sugar/carbs that I don’t absolutely love). I told all this to my friend. But she chuckled and said, “Yeah, but it’s hard for a foodie to make big changes to their diet. I mean, CARBS. We love our carbs.”

We were just wandering and eating through Arthur Avenue in the Bronx today. I picked up two pounds of fresh pasta noodles, a box of pumpkin-porcini ravioli (frozen for future), a bag of dried Malfalda pasta imported from Italy. I got a pound of fresh buccacini mozzarella from my beloved Casa Del Mozzarella. We also got two loaves of bread from our favorite Italian bakery up there, Madonia Bakery, plus two pounds of Italian sausage from our favorite meat shop, Calabria Pork Store (with its famous sausage chandelier all along its ceiling!). And I thought about all these carbs (evil foods!) I brought back and grumbled; I can’t not have these delicious things in my life! You can’t take them away from me! You cannot!

My friend reminded me that we’re nearing 40… me sooner than her by two years. “Things have to change, even if just a little.”

What changes in ten, twenty-plus years

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I feel like every time I come home to San Francisco, I notice yet another thing that has changed. I hadn’t passed 6th and Geary Blvd in ages, and I was shocked while walking along Geary yesterday to see that the entire area that used to be the Ashley & McMullen family owned funeral home was not only demolished, but completely replaced by a multi-story condominium building. There’s no way this happened in just the last year, and I guess I hadn’t passed this part of Geary to notice it. I don’t know why that felt so strange to me, though; condos replace older buildings all the time everywhere, especially places like San Francisco that have a housing shortage. Both my grandma and my uncle had their funerals at this funeral home, in 1995 and then in 2000.

The Alexandria theater at 18th and Geary is still abandoned and looking worn down, a pigeon-poop filled home that is blocked off to humans by aggressive gating. Gaspare’s, the neighborhood Italian American restaurant in the Richmond, still seems to be going strong; we ended up getting takeout pizza and clams with linguine from there on Friday night for family dinner at home. B. Patisserie, a popular (and at that time, very innovative) bakery run by a Chinese American female pastry chef that opened in 2012, is not only humming along in the same location on California at Divisadero, but they have even opened a second location in the heart of downtown now. We went there yesterday and enjoyed some pastries and coffee before walking to Japantown. While I was there, I thought about the week and a half I spent at home in November 2014 because of my dad’s scheduled bypass surgery. His hospital was walking distance from the bakery cafe, so I remember meeting my friend there for lunch one day, and also going there on my own a separate time to decompress a little.

On Friday, I took Kaia to the South Park playground to play while I caught up with an old friend there who drove out to meet us. She was meeting Kaia and also seeing me as a mother for the very first time. It was funny to be in that area after so long, as the last time I remember being in South Park, it was summer 2003, when I had a full-time summer writing internship at WireTap Magazine, a now defunct youth magazine that was owned by the Independent Media Institute (which also used to own Mother Jones). Over twenty years ago, I was an aspiring writer in high school, and today, I am living across the country and am a mother. The play structure had completely changed in the children’s play area, yet the park and surrounding buildings all felt the same. Even some of the fancy cafes that were there twenty years ago still remain today, like Caffe Centro.

People always say things like, “If these walls could talk….” The truth is that there are memories that are conjured every time you walk through old hallways, streets, and neighborhoods that you had frequented, especially when you call the city or town your childhood home. The memories are always a mix of happy, sad, infuriating, and even indifferent, but they are ultimately what colored our lives at a given point in time. Because Kaia is with me, I can see the city through her eyes now. On this trip alone, I’ve lost count of the number of neighborhoods we’ve taken her to and playgrounds/play areas where we’ve played: the Richmond, the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, Chinatown, North Beach, South Beach, downtown/the Ferry Building area, the Tenderloin, Noe Valley, the Fillmore. I love watching her run around and play on these local playgrounds. Of course, they are not the same as the playgrounds and structures I played on as a kid, as all of them have been redone regardless of the neighborhood. But when I asked her if she likes San Francisco and being here, she vigorously nodded, “yes.” And that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

San Francisco Columbarium – changing hands, charging higher prices, and reducing quality of service

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Back in July 2013 when Ed passed, the San Francisco Columbarium was owned by the Neptune Society. About a year later, it changed hands and got acquired by Dignity Memorial, the primary brand of Service Corporation International (SCI), which is North America’s largest provider of funeral, cremation, and cemetery services. They own over 2,000 locations across the U.S. and Canada. I never realized it changed ownership. My parents took care of all of Ed’s arrangements plus their future arrangements ahead of time. I wasn’t even aware of the change of ownership until today when we visited Ed.

Over the years, the service has been really strange and inconsistent. They used to provide a decent coffee/tea machine in the main lobby. That has been taken away. They also had a really practical and logical digital directory where you could look up a loved one to see exactly where and in which hall their niche was located. All of these things have been removed. There was a period when they actually closed as early as 3pm (WHAT!) on random days of the week, and we were rudely greeted by a locked and chained up gate when we tried to drive in. Today when we visited, the main door to the Hall of Olympians, where Ed is, was locked. The sign on the front said to sign in at the front desk before getting admitted. It made no sense to me. We did enter through a side door that was closed but unlocked, and an employee was walking around from the main office and asked us to keep it closed for security purposes. But, there’s no ventilation or air conditioning inside, so I started sweating almost immediately upon entering; it wasn’t even that hot outside, as it was likely 69 or 70 F when we arrived, but inside that hall felt like a sauna. Chris insisted to the employee that the door at least be kept open during our short visit, so the worker relented and said it was okay just while we were there.

This annoyed me for a few reasons. Clearly, vandalism was a concern here, but the security guard who used to walk in and around the Columbarium in previous years was gone. So this led us to the conclusion that they probably stopped paying for security services (because they want to cut costs) and instead wanted to keep all the doors locked. That’s extremely unwelcoming and creates an uncomfortable visitation experience for families and loved ones of people who are interred here. My parents paid over $20K for this niche, and the service has declined over all these years to the point where it feels like we’re getting ripped off. Yet there’s nothing we can do about it.

One of the workers who helped me cut flowers to put into Ed’s little vase made it pretty obvious she hated working here and wasn’t treated well. “But no one else would hire me,” she lamented in a bitter tone. Before she expressed this, she said that it was tolerable to work here, “If you do every little thing correctly and follow all the rules and make no mistakes.” Ouch.

In general, I have always hated the death industry. It’s a necessary one (sort of), but one that preys on the grieving, on the vulnerable mental states of those who have lost… and many who have lost too soon, like us with Ed. This whole experience was pretty infuriating. The only thing that made me feel better was when Kaia kept peering into Ed’s niche and waving to him. When I told her it was eventually time to go, she said “bye bye” one last time… walked away, but then ran back twice to look closely at her JiuJiu before finally taking my hand and walking out with me.

I don’t know when I will first have a real conversation about Kaia’s JiuJiu with her. I am sure that at some point in the next couple of years, she will ask, and I’ll have to figure out the right, age-appropriate way to explain this. But regardless of how the topic gets brought up or which way the conversation goes, I have a feeling that she will respond with empathy and love. She is not even four years old yet, but I can see my Kaia Pookie seems to care deeply and have concern for others, even those she has not even met.

Ferry Building Farmers Market and the whining and whinging in the background

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On Saturday morning, we decided to take a Waymo out to the Ferry Building for the famous Saturday morning farmers market there. I love that farmers market; it’s likely my very favorite one in all of the U.S. that I’ve visited. As a native San Franciscan, I quietly feel a lot of pride and joy when I walk through the endless fresh produce stalls there. Every time we walk by the stalls, whether they are selling various (all labeled by variety!) heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, strawberries, or peaches, it’s as though the perfume of these fresh fruits and veggies beckon to us. I have yet to visit any farmers market in the U.S. that has such rich fragrance coming from the fresh produce all around. If my parents’ house weren’t as cluttered and dirty, I’d be tempted to buy a bunch of the produce there to prepare simply and eat at home, but I guess that is not to be.

While I enjoyed seeing, sampling, and inhaling all the deliciousness around me, it felt like there was someone whining in the background every time I reveled in a tasty piece of tomato or local Valencia orange. No, it was not my toddler. It was actually my mom, mulling in the background, complaining that this peach or that strawberry was too expensive. Seemingly every stall we visited, she’d remark how expensive something was and how could anyone pay so much for any of this produce. It almost dampened my experience of the market. Unlike her, these people take pride and joy in the produce they grow and sell, and they should be charging what is a reasonable price to make a living and continue to sustain themselves. Not everyone has the luxury to not work and have several paychecks come in every month. But she is so out of touch that she never thinks about this.

My mom said she wanted to come with us to spend time with Kaia. But I think we all know there was no quality time spent together. The one moment I actually stopped to pay for a small basket of sun gold tomatoes, I asked my mom to watch Kaia. That didn’t work out. She held her hand for maybe five seconds, and then Kaia ran off. My mom ended up luring her back with candy, which I explicitly told her not to give. If it’s not one thing, it’s always something else that is going wrong.

A friend of mine, who also has a dysfunctional relationship with her mom, reminded me that our parents will never change who they are, and we’re incapable of changing them. The only thing we should be focused on is making sure we are an improvement from them and try to be better parents to our children than they were to us. Each generation should be “better” than the previous. I hope I am achieving that — I hope.

The evolution of Stonestown Galleria

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When I was growing up, malls were always exciting places with lots of different stores, various foods to eat, and experiences to have. Since I went to Lowell for high school in San Francisco, I was just a couple blocks away from Stonestown Galleria, what was then considered a more modern, chic mall in the city. Back then, it had a Macy’s, a Nordstrom, a number of mid-price-range shops, as well as a movie theater. I oftentimes would go there to get a quick smoothie or dinner during my late nights in the high school journalism room. Other times, I’d just go there and wander the mall with friends to kill time or procrastinate on studying. It was a pleasant, clean, fun place to hang out and just be.

Malls haven’t been doing so well, though, across the U.S. And according to the New York Times, the only ones that are really surviving are the ones that have successfully pivoted into experiential spaces… or become really, really Asian. Stonestown has become far more “Asian” since the last time I visited when Ed was still working at Macy’s. Almost all the restaurants inside are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or some Asian fusion, including Supreme Dumpling, where we ate with my cousins tonight (which had a wait of at least 75 minutes and a huge crowd outside when we left). What was a bit surprising is that they had a fast casual ma la tang restaurant (like individual hot pots) where you choose your proteins, vegetables, noodles, etc., and pay by weight. Then, they cook it all for you and put it in your chosen broth of varying spice/heat levels. The seating was all open, and this place was pretty busy! Even the dessert, snack, and drink places scattered throughout the mall outside the food court are heavily leaning Asian. As soon as you enter from the main front entrance, Onigilly, a Bay Area-based mini-chain of Japanese onigiri (Japanese rice ball) and Japanese snacks greets you. On the first floor, they had WanPo, a fresh bubble tea place from Taichung, Taiwan, as well as Uncle Tetsu, a Japanese jiggly cheesecake I already had familiarity with given that they have a location in both Melbourne and New York already. The food court was unrecognizable to me, as the only place that survived from my high school days was Panda Express (ugh, but it’s still pseudo-Asian, I suppose). They had a Taiwanese night-market-type stand named after the famous Shilin Night Market, a poke bowl stand, and Matcha Cafe Maiko, a matcha/soft serve spot I like, which is originally from Hawaii, but also has a location just around the corner from Kaia’s school in Manhattan Chinatown.

Macy’s and Nordstrom, the two major department stores that made up Stonestown once upon a time, are now a relic of history. Instead, they’ve been replaced by a chain-based fitness center, a bowling alley, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s. It was strange to be in there and see all the changes that have happened in the last twenty years. My cousin pointed out to me that Supreme Dumpling, where we were dining and sitting in, had previously been LensCrafters, which I had completely forgotten about. A sushi-boat eatery on the second floor was previously Banana Republic, which I used to browse all the time during high school breaks. But if he didn’t remind me of these places, I would have totally forgotten. I almost felt like I was outdated walking through the mall myself. I like the changes, and given the types of food are at the mall now along with Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, I could even see myself going here more often if I lived in the area. But the whole experience also made me sad to think that Ed wouldn’t recognize the majority of it if he just miraculously came back to life and plopped himself in there. The last time I remember being there when Ed still worked at Macy’s, Trader Joe’s was brand new, the main attraction. And Ed would occasionally go there and buy things. But now, Macy’s no longer exists there… And neither does Ed in this world.

Coming “home” and the “why” behind it

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“Are you looking forward to going back home… or, is that even an appropriate question?” my friend asked me over dinner on Wednesday.

“I’m… not really looking forward to it,” I said honestly. “It’s just something I do. There are parts I look forward to, but the idea of going home does not excite me at all.”

That sounds like a terrible thing to admit out loud, but it’s the truth. It’s like what a lot of people say about their family: they love their family, but they do not necessarily like them as people. Their bonds are due to blood, obligation, and history, as opposed to shared or aligned values or respect for each others’ respective lives. I want to see my parents in person, but for limited amounts of time to protect my sanity and mental health. I also want them to see Kaia, and for Kaia to know who they are and that they are her maternal grandparents. But I know the reality of them “spending” time together is very limited in terms of the type of interactions they will have — regardless of what age Kaia is.

After a bleary eyed 6am flight from JFK to SFO, we arrived in San Francisco just past 8:30am local time. After a car ride to my parents’ place, our driver stopped in front of the house, to which I looked up at and got really annoyed. “What the heck is all this scaffolding in front?!” The scaffolding looked precarious, as though it was so unstable that someone would fall to their death from it. Plus, there was this hideous sheer black tarp covering 80 percent of the house’s facade. And then when I opened the front gate… it would not open all the way because that wretched scaffolding was preventing me from doing so.

I hadn’t even entered my parents’ house yet, and I was already in a pissy mood.

Then we got into the house, and of course, it’s clutter central. There are so many rolls of toilet paper in the hallway that I cannot walk in a straight line to turn the corner and get to my bedroom. Frustrated, I took several bags of them and pushed them into the sun room. The door to the breakfast room is still removed, leaning against a large framed photograph of Hong Kong Harbour in the dining room. It’s been like that since pre-pandemic. All the cabinet doors are pulled out of the bathroom; the lighting has no covering, with the light bulbs exposed. There are so many cob webs hanging from the ceiling of the bathroom that I felt compelled to take out the vacuum and clean it all up — cob webs of a size that usually only exist in abandoned buildings or attics that haven’t seen life in ages. There are over ten dozen eggs in the fridge — for what purpose, who knows. And then there is a bunch of rotting fruit on the dining room table with fruit flies swarming it all. I looked out the window at my parents’ yard, and it looks like the same awful weed fest from last year. Nothing has changed. If anything, there is more garbage in the house and the backyard.

That’s not even the worst of it. At lunch, my dad barely says anything to us at the dining table. He’s mostly on his phone once again while Kaia attempts but mostly fails to get reactions out of him. My mom keeps telling my dad to talk to Kaia, as though my dad is a baby, but my dad doesn’t really listen and continues looking at his phone. Once he’s done eating, he gets up and leaves the table. Kaia then asks him why he’s not sitting with us. It’s funny and also tragic that Kaia not only notices this but calls it out. Children say things exactly as they are whether adults like it or not. My mom fusses around in the kitchen, sits for less than five minutes to eat, and then gets up and fusses around Kaia and the kitchen some more.

After some playground time and wandering along Clement Street this afternoon, we came back home. I had a shower after dinner, and it was, by far, the worst shower I can remember ever having. The water barely drips out of the low-flow shower head that my dad has installed; it’s no wonder Kaia hated her shower so much earlier in the evening. It was so atrocious that I ended up “showering” under the bathtub faucet. If that sounds awkward, it was, but it was necessary. Otherwise, I would have had a light drip down on me all night to get clean.

Sometimes, I wonder why I even go to the trouble of dealing with all this. I don’t really enjoy it. I hate the shower, the clutter, the broken things that will never get repaired, the garbage, the mouse traps everywhere. “Why do I even bother?” I even said this out loud to Chris this afternoon while Kaia was playing in the sandbox at my childhood playground. But the “why” is always a complicated, not-straightforward answer.

Americans need a Slip, Slop, Slap! campaign to protect themselves from the sun year round because they are failing at sun protection

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The first half of this week, it’s going to be quite the scorcher here in New York City. We’re seeing temperatures ranging from 92-98 degrees F, so we’ll all likely be finding reasons to stay indoors and blast our AC units (and drive up our Con Edison bills annoyingly). I took a short walk before hopping on a train slightly south of where we live to get some extra steps in. I took a yellow train to get down to Chinatown to pick up Pookster from summer camp this late afternoon. Everywhere I walked, whether it was around Columbus Circle, Times Square, SoHo, or Chinatown, I saw people sunburnt. Men with receding hairlines had the tops of their heads cherry red. I saw multiple men and women of various skin tones burnt on their cheeks, noses, shoulders, chests, and upper backs. It was pretty infuriating to see that people were not doing their due diligence to protect themselves from the sun.

The thing that bothers me pretty much every May as Memorial Day and summer grow closer here in the Northern Hemisphere is that most Americans seem to think that you only need to apply sunscreen… DURING THE SUMMER. If you walk into any Duane Reade or CVS or equivalent, you see all the sunscreen bottles front and center when you walk in. Sales go on at stores for sunscreen. It’s as though the concept of sunscreen is just for summer, and irrelevant any other time of the year. This is absolutely NOT TRUE AT ALL. The sun is shining its powerful rays onto your skin, eyes, and hair every single day, cloudy or not cloudy, and thus putting you at risk of premature wrinkles, sun spots, sun burn, and potentially even skin cancer. It’s even getting to you when you are indoors, assuming where you are has windows, because it’s shining through windows, plus you’re still getting exposed to indirect sunlight! Most people here do not think about applying sunscreen when it’s cloudy or not summer. It’s actually pretty scary how misinformed the average American is about the dangers of sun exposure.

Here in the U.S., we could do with a little lesson from our Southern Hemisphere friends in Australia. The Australian Cancer Council has a SunSmart campaign that’s stuck with our Down Under neighbors in a pretty simple slogan: Slip, Slop, Slap, (Seek, Slide). The first three S’s are seen on signs pretty frequently when you are walking around shops, storefronts, and beaches in Australia. They refer to Slip (on a cover for your skin, like sleeves or long pants), Slop (on high SPF sunscreen, and reapply when in the water, sweating, or every 2-4 hours if outside), Slap (on a wide-brimmed hat); the last two refer to Seek(ing shade/cover when possible) and Slide(ing on sunglasses to protect your eyes).

I was thinking about this slogan while also remembering Chris’s dad’s semi-frequent comment when he comes to visit us in the States every spring. Chris’s parents are very religious with wearing hats outside and seeking shade. Many times while going out, he will take a look at (who we assume are) Americans around us, and he will ask if Americans just don’t wear hats that often. And well, he’s kind of right: on any day here, regardless of what season it is, (and actually especially during the summer), the people who are walking the streets of New York wearing hats are not the majority at all. As I wore my wide-brimmed wrap-around sun visor to pick up Kaia today on this 90-plus-degree F day, I realized that I was still in the minority for wearing a hat. Even when I was in Chinatown, where there tends to be more Asians, and Asian people in general are more protective over their skin getting exposed to UV rays, people wearing hats were not the majority. We don’t have a fraction of the “Slip, Slop, Slap!” campaign happening here in the U.S., but we really should!

I told my friend and her husband on Saturday when we met that I have zero shame for my wide-brimmed sun visor, and I’m pretty darn proud to wear it now. I’m turning 40 in the next six months, and I have no reason to be embarrassed for taking care of my skin health. And I mean it!