As the baby’s due date is approaching, I’ve been making a list of things I want and need to get done before she arrives. One of the fun tasks is finishing our scrapbook through our Turkey trip this past summer. I hadn’t updated the scrapbook since September 2019, when we went to Georgia and Alabama for an extended Labor Day weekend, so I had a bunch of updating to do. I started creating the pages through Christmas 2019 and creating templates for the pages that will follow, and tonight, I did a bulk order of photos to fill the scrapbook with through September 2021. When the baby comes, I hope to have enough time and energy to document her life, both through photos as well as through a scrapbook, but perhaps a more basic one since life with a child will be a lot different than life without one. We already have a little album and an Instax Fujifilm camera ready to go to document her beginnings, so I hope everything turns out well for her.

I hope as she grows that she will enjoy arts and crafts, too. I have imagined having future crafting sessions with her, creating scrapbook pages, using glitter and stencils, and having her enjoy the fun that is colored pencils, crayons, and paint. Then, we can enjoy all my art supplies together.

Last night, Chris and I went to an event hosted by one of our favorite New York food people, Auria from Auria’s Malaysian Kitchen, also known as The Sambal Lady, in her huge backyard in Flatbush, Brooklyn. The theme of the event was Malaysian eats, reggae beats, and local beers cohosted by a beer curator/journalist named Josh. Auria runs a small business that really took off during the pandemic, selling her homemade spicy sambal sauces and kaya (a delicious coconut and pandan jam/spread). Her goal with her business was to spread the love for all delicious and authentic things Malaysian to New Yorkers and Americans, as she’s originally from Malaysia. She expanded her operation from being home run to a factory out in New Jersey. Since Chris discovered her last year, she and I have been in contact over Instagram direct message, and I’ve given her some of my footage to include in her promotional material. When she posted that she was hosting this event, we knew we had to go. So I finally got to meet Auria in person, and she really felt like family right away. She was exactly as I imagined: extremely friendly, warm, homely, and kind.

At the event, she served pai tee cups (these lovely fried cups filled with jicama and carrot, topped with shrimp and a sweet-spicy savory sauce), her delicious beef rendang, white rice, and Malaysian style cucumber salad. For dessert, she served a purple sticky rice topped with sweet and salty coconut milk. And her friend Josh provided all the local beers that Chris got to enjoy. She also unveiled her latest projects, which are spice blends in partnership with Burlap and Barrel, a local spice company that seeks to support small-scale farms from around the world. She has three that have been finalized and will be available on October 30, which is also her birthday: rendang (she used it in the beef rendang tonight!), chicken curry, and satay. I’m especially excited about the rendang and satay blends: those are INVOLVED cooking projects normally. I know from experience last year that making satay is intense; I got sore arms and hands from that video I filmed!

It was also just amazing to be in a BACKYARD in New York. I felt like I wasn’t in the city at all, as it felt like a very non-urban, very suburban experience. I also got my share of mosquito bites, unfortunately. I’ve read that mosquitoes particularly love the sweeter blood of pregnant women. What joy for me.

It was a really fun night, and I’m especially happy I got to meet Auria. I love being around people who love food, cooking, and sharing it all with others. If this could be my life, I’d be eternally happy.

Today I had the day off due to another company Wellness Day. Since it didn’t overlap with a day off with Chris as it did last month, I was left to my own devices. So I started the day with my usual workout, worked on updating this blog, answered a few personal emails, did some more online baby shopping to prepare for our registry, and then walked all the way uptown to check out a family owned baby store that is reputed to have good customer service. After looking at strollers first at Buy Buy Baby, Nordstrom, and finally here at Albee Baby, I can say with certainty that the service I got here was the best. The assistant knew all the models on the floor inside out, let me play around and stroll them all around, and also talked about the different accessories. I think we’ve finally made our stroller decision. It only took three store visits and endless hours of online research!

After my time at Albee Baby, I walked further up to have lunch on my own at Banh, a modern Vietnamese restaurant that opened during the pandemic. I’d already been here twice before and knew the food was delicious, so I ordered the dry hu tieu noodles and a house made strawberry lime soda. As I sat on my own and ate, watching all the action happening in their fully open kitchen, I thought about how this was actually one of the few times I’d be fully on my own, able to explore and galavant all over this city without a baby in tow. I should probably try to enjoy my freedom as much as possible while I can because soon, it won’t be that easy for me to go to any neighborhood I want and not have to think about feeding/changing diapers for a baby, a car seat, or how to navigate a stroller through narrow walk-ways or poorly paved roads or streets.

A few of my friends who have gone through pregnancy encouraged me to take a few days off sporadically leading up to labor and delivery just to do things for myself, whether that was read a book, get my nails done/massage/facial, or stroll through markets or have meals on my own. They told me I’ll never get this time back, so I should soak it up as much as possible. While eating my hu tieu today, I thought… that’s actually a pretty good idea. I will probably do that.

If you watch Sonny Side’s Best Ever Food Review Show on YouTube, you may notice that he advertises for and sells a shirt that says “micro influencer.” It’s basically a bit of a jab at people like me who *hope* one day to be a social media influencer, but really aren’t quite there yet (I recently barely passed 900 followers on Instagram. Granted, once I started my current job, I was far less aggressive in terms of social media interaction and trying to get new followers, so hey, it’s not terrible!). I follow a number of local restaurants and bakeries via my Instagram handle for YmF, and they also follow me, as well. One of the handles I follow is a favorite bakery out of Sydney, Australia, called Bourke Street Bakery. We’ve had a number of their savory and sweet treats, and I am just obsessed with almost everything they make. When they recently posted, saying that they were looking for product testers for frozen almond croissants, I jumped at the chance. I direct messaged them to let them know I was interested, and after a couple back and forths via email, they sent me via DoorDash two frozen almond croissants for “product testing.” In exchange, they asked for my feedback.

We tried out one of the almond croissants on Saturday. I followed the instructions as written. I hate to say this, but the delicious almond filling was almost too generous; it weighed down the bottom layer of the croissant and left it almost soggy, plus it was nearly impossible to hold in one hand without the whole thing falling apart. But the flavor was spot on, and the flaky texture of the croissant was perfect. It did what all perfect croissants do, which was shatter upon your first bite Mmmmm.

If this could be my day job, I’d be pretty darm happy. I’d likely gain a lot of weight, but boy, would this be a fun job.

Today, Chris and I went out to Port Washington in Long Island to visit my friend, her husband, and their two kids, one of whom was just born about four months ago. To get there, we took the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), which, for the small handful of times I’ve been out there, always seems to run at snail pace. In addition, my other qualm with taking LIRR or really any train from Penn Station is why they always have to update the track information for your timed ticket so last minute, resulting in everyone rushing up/down the stairs/escalators at the exact same time. Are there really not enough tracks at Penn Station to at least be able to update the stupid track 15-20 minutes ahead of time? There was a train scheduled to leave at 11:12 today, and the track wasn’t even updated on all the schedule boards until 11:07. That gives everyone barely FIVE minutes to get the information on the track and rush to the correct platform and train!

So we went out for our visit and spent the full afternoon hanging out with my friend and her growing brood, discussing life in the ‘burbs as parents of two and what our potential life will look like once our little one makes her arrival. Although we’ve spent quite a bit of time in suburban homes while in California, every time I visit a house in the suburbs, it’s almost like my amazement restarts at how large homes can be. My friend’s kitchen was like a chef’s dream! I also marveled at all the endless toys and dollhouses and kitchen sets that her older child had.

“Sorry about the mess,” my friend said when we came over. “Their shit just gets everywhere!”

When they took us on a tour of their home and took us to the basement area, which appeared to be a play area, I asked them if this was the play room. Her husband immediately corrected me: “Well, actually, the entire HOUSE is their play area, but yes, the majority of their stuff is down here!”

This is how kids can take over your space… and your life. And they were telling us to get ready for the fun… and the shit, literally.

If there is one area for shopping for baby items that is giving me some level of angst, it is most definitely what we will end up selecting for our stroller/car seat/travel system. For parents who own a car and plan to use it to transport their child everywhere, they definitely have less of a stressful decision to make given they can just leave their base in their car and snap in the car seat at any time, then dump the stroller piece into their trunk. Because we are city dwellers and do not own a car, we need to be able to pop a car seat in and out of multiple vehicles, whether they are ride shares, cabs, or rental cars, and be able to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible; ideally, we wouldn’t have to lug a car seat base everywhere (as they are pretty freaking heavy and LARGE!) and would find a car seat that doesn’t require a base. We will also need to take our stroller on the subway since that’s our main mode of transportation while in New York City.

It seems every “trendy,” or rather uppity, name-brand oriented mom can’t get enough of Uppababy products, particularly the Uppababy Vista stroller, which, by itself, without a car seat/base, without any adapters, costs over a thousand dollars. I can’t even count the number of Uppababy strollers I’ve noticed here in Manhattan in the last few years, and this was even far before I was trying to get pregnant. I told a relatively new mom about my stroller concern with living in the city carless and wanting to easily take these pieces on a plane, and she immediately, likely without thinking, just told me to get the Vista. But the Vista is a full-size stroller, which means it’s not only huge, but it’s extremely heavy, and with me at my pre-pregnancy weight of about 117 lb., I’m not sure how I’d be able to maneuver that along with the weight of a baby all by myself. I think I’d ideally want a more compact stroller that could easily click in a car seat and a bassinet, but there are many pros and cons for each of these options as it relates to cost, suspension, and durability.

As a last stop with our Zip Car rental yesterday, we stopped at a Buy Buy Baby in Jersey, and after looking at Chicco, Peg Perego, Uppababy, and Even Flo strollers, it seems that the best value option is the Even Flo stroller, which is modular (allows front and rear facing), and converts into a bassinet. It also comes with an infant car seat. But as I read reviews online, a lot of parents complain that this tends to break down and the wheels lose their power at around the 5-6 month mark, which would really be a hassle. I also wasn’t that trusting of the employees who helped us, as they gave us some factually incorrect information in regards to some of the strollers, which I later found out about just by doing a quick online search.

When I mentioned “travel,” “compact,” “we don’t have a car,” neither of the employees mentioned some of the most popular options available, including the Babyzen Yoyo, Bugaboo Ant, or the Uppababy Minu. So this just means my search and questioning will continue. What fun. I wish the search could be easier than this.

Now that some of our domestic travels have ended and our move is now complete, we went out for yet another Saturday to explore the other side of Mott Haven, the Bronx, that we didn’t visit last autumn when we went. Even before the pandemic was here, I think I did a decent job of going to neighborhoods where I didn’t live. It also helped that I lived in a lesser known and unpopular area like Elmhurst, Queens. I knew I had seen more of New York than the average life-long New Yorker, and far, far more than the temporary New York person who stays here for a year or so and leaves for another city. But the pandemic has really given us more time to further explore and appreciate our own backyard. You could actually spend an entire year or so exploring all the neighborhoods of New York and NEVER get through even half of all the businesses. That’s the range and diversity that New York has that most cities lack.

Just today, we visited a Dominican bakery for a fried potato and pork treat, a couple of different Latin bakeries, a well appointed and stylish Australian owned restaurant bar, a trendy sushi spot, a brick oven pizzeria, a super light (!) and delicious local burger spot with a secret “milk” sauce (they even had a delicious virgin pina colada — so refreshing and really hit the spot on a hot day!), and a local Bronx microbrewery. This was all within walking distance from each other up in Mott Haven. The diversity of New York is just subway stops away no matter where you are here, if not just a few blocks away.

As the global pandemic of COVID-19 continues with a delta variant that is quickly sweeping across the globe, attacks against Asian Americans has unfortunately continued. Many elderly Asians have been attacked, beaten, robbed, stabbed. Asian restaurant workers have been attacked going home after dark. It’s been an unfortunate time for Asians in America, and it’s instilled a lot of fear in Asian business owners, who not only want to continue running their businesses obviously, but also care about the well-being and safety of their workers. And for that reason, many across Manhattan Chinatown, as with some other Chinatowns across the country, have decided to shorten their hours to allow their workers to get home safely during daylight hours. Most businesses that typically closed in the middle or late evening are now shutting down for the day by 5 to 7pm. Others that used to stay open until 7 or 8 are now closing their doors by 4 or 5pm. It’s been really sad to see this. Even Hong Kong Supermarket is now closing at around 6pm here, and it’s a major grocery store in Chinatown. When we were planning to go have Thai food in Chinatown this evening as our usual tradition around the anniversary of Ed’s passing to have a meal he would have enjoyed, I checked to see if Chun Yang Tea would still be open by the time we finished dinner. I’d been wanting to visit here for a long time since they opened, as they are the spin off of the very original bubble tea house in Taichung, Taiwan. I especially was eager to go when I found out they started a partnership with a local, Asian owned ice cream business to make a hojicha ice cream latte. Unfortunately, they have shortened their hours, as well, as they close every day by 7pm now.

It’s been depressing to see the racist acts in the news, the rate of Asian hate crimes increase during the pandemic. And it’s also been sad to see Asian businesses close early out of fear. I hope this doesn’t continue forever. Chinatown will only lose business if this all keeps up. We need to keep Chinatown alive.