Chris was especially eager to get out of the house around noon today because as the days progress, and as October ends, this ultimately means that the days are only getting shorter and shorter. Daylight Savings Time will sadly be ending next weekend. So our daylight hours are more limited, and sooner rather than later, it will be 4pm and completely pitch black outside, which is something that makes me feel a little bit depressed every single year, no fail. And while most years before last year, we had a Thanksgiving in Europe and a summer in the Southern Hemisphere to look forward to, currently, we have zero trips planned… other than to the hospital to welcome Pookie Bear into our lives.

We went to Williamsburg and Green Point today, and Chris kept pointing out all the babies, strollers, and little kids running around in the Halloween costumes that their parents dressed them in. We’re at a point now where I can pretty much call out with high accuracy nearly every stroller brand that passes us. Chris does not embrace Halloween or Thanksgiving. He thinks Halloween is only fun when there is a place to go to to show off what you are dressed up in, and he thinks traditional Thanksgiving food is boring and bland (well, that’s why we tend to put our own Asian spins on these “classic” dishes). But in the future, I do hope to introduce Pookie Bear to Halloween costumes and how to carve a pumpkin because I love pumpkin carving (especially with the right tools!). While I don’t really care about dressing up in costume, who could possibly say that babies and kids aren’t adorable in costume? And I want my little baby to know Thanksgiving foods and how her mom likes to change them up, even if it’s just a few of us eating together. Good food should be part of every family gathering. And yes, at the same time, she should also know the terrible history of Thanksgiving, too, not the white-washed version.

Since my own boss once upon a time was on bed rest for her last four weeks of pregnancy and gave birth to her child at 32 weeks, she’s been extremely empathetic in making sure that my transition into motherhood from a work perspective will be smooth. We’ve been talking a little at a time about my transition plan for all my customer accounts for the last six weeks, and right now, the plan is to have all my accounts fully transitioned to a handful of my colleagues by mid-November, or the 35th to 36th week mark. We never know when the baby will choose to come, especially early, so it’s best to be prepared. By mid-November, I will no longer have any active role in my accounts and will only shadow calls and provide guidance if and when needed by my colleagues. It feels really good to have a manager who is supportive, empathetic, and doesn’t want to see me suffer through the transition into motherhood.

I officially get 16 weeks of maternity leave off at my company, but my manager is completely fine with my taking paid time off on top of that whether it’s before the official leave begins or ends. I’m grateful for the time I get off plus the flexibility from my manager, but I cannot help but think that while this is great by U.S. standards, it’s pretty sad by global standards since most developed, rich countries will give an entire year off to new moms. In addition, our own Congress right now is deadlocked trying to roll out a paid family leave plan, and while the Democrats originally wanted 12 weeks, it’s now being slashed to barely four weeks if not less to appease idiotic, short sighted “moderate” Democrats and selfish Republicans who think that lazy Americans shouldn’t be relying on the government for benefits. It is so disgusting to me how little this country values parents and children, and it’s clear from the way we spend money that we truly do not give a shit about the plight of parents, caregivers, and the future generations of the people who will eventually be taking charge of this country. It’s even more disgusting how some people choose to justify the status quo and insist that it shouldn’t be on the government to help and give money to those who “choose” to become parents…. as though society does not benefit from these children, who will eventually become adults and our future.

Since I first moved to New York City in June 2008, it’s clear that Asian food, whether it’s Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese and beyond, has really been taking over neighborhoods one by one throughout Manhattan. Once upon a time, each kind of food kind of had its own area: Chinese food had multiple Chinatowns ranging from Manhattan Chinatown, Brooklyn Chinatown, Elmhurst “Chinatown” along Broadway, Flushing (obviously); Vietnamese food had certain blocks occupied in Manhattan Chinatown. Japanese food had the 40s on the east side of Manhattan with a sprinkling of places throughout the East Village. Korean food had “Korea Way” on 32nd between Broadway and 5th Avenue. Since then, Koreatown has spread so that Korean restaurants have gone all the east along 32nd Street to Madison, and even a little north to 33rd-35th Streets. East Village has become a haven for many Asian cuisines, including a number of ramen and xiao long bao (soup dumpling) spots. Even more high-end, Michelin rated Japanese restaurants are spread throughout the island of Manhattan that I cannot even keep track of them anymore. And Chinese food, well, it has no boundaries whatsoever. You can even find authentic, western Chinese food up in Harlem/Sugar Hill.

Today, we went to the Sugar Hill area of Manhattan up north and of many places, tried The Handpulled Noodle, which has been on my list for over two years. The noodles are a bit flatter and thicker than the traditional and well known Lanzhou, Gansu-style hand-pulled noodle that tends to dominate hand-pulled noodle shops in Chinatowns around the country. Some of the noodles are more like pulled and flattened small rectangles and squares that are quite toothy. We shared a bowl of their stir-fried cumin-beef flat and pounded pull noodles, and according to Chris, I was totally addicted. We nearly inhaled that bowl of noodles; the noodles were super al dente and chewy, totally mesmerizing. The sauce had a good amount of fresh cumin spice, not to mention a hint of heat from the chilies. And the meat was light and shredded. If that place were near our apartment, I’d likely have them on speed dial for takeout on the regular. Unfortunately, they don’t deliver to our area since we’re too far south from them, but maybe that’s actually a good thing for our waist lines.

So much delicious food is out there to explore and try, even in cuisines that we think we are familiar and well-versed in. I’m always discovering new Chinese and Vietnamese food despite them being the cultures I grew up in. It just feels boundless what you can discover and taste.

Tonight, Chris and I went to see the Broadway show Chicken and Biscuits, our first theater show since before the pandemic officially shut down New York City. While we have already been to the Comedy Cellar plus two other comedy shows (Ali Wong and Neal Brennan) in the last few months, but this was our very first theater show. As per the New York City law, proof of vaccination (along with an ID to confirm who you actually are) was required to enter. Each venue has its own rules regarding masks, but at this theater, which was right next to the Wicked theater, they required masks upon entry. The entire theater district was buzzing. There were so many people lining up and getting excited to see shows this evening. It’s like a huge part of what makes New York City New York City is finally back.

Chicken and Biscuits was a really good first return-to-broadway and going to theater again show because it was really funny, is about a seemingly dysfunctional but hilarious family, and had a happy ending. The more I think about how miserable and bleak the world is, the more I realize that I am a sucker for happy endings. It’s hard for me to say that a show or movie or book is a “favorite” unless it has somewhat of a positive ending. Yes, that’s the fairy-tale, unrealistic side of me, but hey, it’s fiction for a reason, right?

In another story of the moving-in-tale-from-hell, I discovered earlier this week that something seemed wrong with the ice dispenser in our freezer. Instead of dispensing ice, the ice maker was leaking a massive amount of water and ice, which would then freeze over and cause none of the ice to be usable, as it would just be a huge ice sheet. As the water continued to leak out of the ice box, it dripped down to create huge icicles around the drawers, which froze the drawers solid, rendering them incapable of being moved in and out. This also resulted in a near inability to even open or close the freezer without a ton of force. I wonder what the baby was thinking in the womb when I was doing these forceful movements so early in the morning this week, just trying to get some ice for the water bottle for my gym session.

The valve ended up being faulty, so our handyman had to have our management call GE to come inspect and ultimately replace the valve. But given the shelves now seem to be malfunctioning and tiny shards of plastic keep flying everywhere every time I open the freezer, this also means our drawers will need to be replaced. And early tomorrow morning, our handyman is going to come out to reinstall drawers taken from another apartment, and to help clean up all the ice collecting on the bottom of the freezer.

I have no idea what would have caused this total freezer madness, but I never before realized how complicated a freezer could be.

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.