When we planned our trip to the Hudson River Valley for the day yesterday, one of the things I really wanted to do was pick up some fresh, local produce grown in the area. Since it’s summer time, stone fruit, berries, and tomatoes would be at their peak, and I was hoping we’d stop by a stand or two. We drove by a spot that had a good variety of produce, but the local fruit was the cheapest and juiciest: I don’t even know how many pounds each basket was, but we got at least 5-6 lb. each of “drip down your arms” peaches and perfume-like, deep red tomatoes for $5 per basket, and they were some of the juiciest and most fragrant fruit we’d ever bought. The sheer amount was hilarious, as we’d never purchased this much fruit before. Chris looked at the fruit, puzzled over what I’d do with it. “What are you going to do with all these?” he asked.

“Lots of things!” I exclaimed back. “For tomatoes, we can just eat them! Put them in salads! Make fresh tomato sauce! Tomato onion masala! And for the peaches, eat them! Make peach syrup and soda! Smoothies!”

There’s something about fresh, local, (and cheap!) produce that makes me so excited and happy. Even if I have no idea what I’m going to be doing with all of them, I will find uses for them since no food goes to waste in our home.

After sucking up the fact that we’re likely not going to be doing any travel out of the state or country this year due to COVID-19, we decided to rent a car today for a day trip to the Hudson River Valley for some hiking, nature, local fruit, and local wineries and distilleries. We started the day with a short hike up Mount Beacon, the highest peak in the Hudson Highlands and the highest point between the Catskills and the Atlantic coast. Although the description said the hike was only 1 mile each way, what it doesn’t tell you is exactly how steep that one mile is and how you better get ready for a truly uphill climb. After only about five minutes climbing up on a very rocky, uneven surface, I could already feel myself huffing and puffing. How much longer to go? Although I’d been doing HIIT workouts that are intensive with cardio as well as plenty of strength training on my mat in my room given COVID-19 no-gym conditions, clearly I was unprepared for this extreme uphill hike, as my breathing kept getting heavier and I felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest at any point. Stopping didn’t even help, as it just made me feel like the air was heavier. Why do I feel so out of shape?!

We finally got to the top after what felt like forever, but my Garmin said we had hiked up only about 5,000 steps (could have fooled me). The view was worth the hike, though, as well as the odd ruins up top. It also felt so good to breathe in really fresh air amidst all the green and woods. These are the moments that make it worth it to leave the concrete jungle of New York City… but also make me miss traveling further away…. Hopefully, that will happen in a distant future for us.

When I went to see my dentists at their Yonkers location yesterday, it was actually my very first time ever on Metro North. I’d been to Grand Central Station so many times taking the east side trains and also just as a tourist stop for photos, but never to actually take a train out of the city until yesterday. It was… completely underwhelming. Just to take an old, crappy train to a destination that would take about 20 minutes to drive out of the city, it cost me $17.50 for the round-trip ticket. Yonkers really isn’t that far away; if I were to go during peak hours when the trains would have limited stops, it could take as little as 15 minutes from Grand Central. Not to mention that because I went early in the afternoon during “non-peak” hours, the trains were running only once each hour, so if I were to miss a train, I’d have to wait an entire 60 minutes for the next one to leave, which is pretty terrible.

This evening, we had a family chat with Chris’s parents and brother, and his dad said that they had seen my Instagram stories noting that I visited Yonkers the previous day. So they asked what the highlights were. Well, I got picked up and dropped off right at the Yonkers train station, and the area where it was… I wouldn’t even say it was a real town. There was nothing even remotely exciting about the area. It just seemed like an average, working class town. There were a couple of chain restaurants, a local library, two banks, a few shops, and that was really it. Even though my dentists have an office they actually own in Yonkers, they themselves have never really explored the town at all; they even got lost on their way back to the office from the train station picking me up, and they’ve owned this office for nearly two decades! If they don’t even care to explore it after all this time, I guess that means I’ll never really see it myself, either.

In the U.S., it’s not uncommon to hear about people griping about their dentists — the out-of-pocket costs for this, the pain from that; why so many recommended procedures? Is this suggested treatment really necessary? And it’s all with some warranted suspicion: dentists are known in the U.S. to try to get every last dollar out of their patients and their dental insurance plans as possible. That’s why some even force you to get X-Rays or CT scans just to get a basic dental cleaning; hey, that’s another line item to bill your insurance for, so why not “require” it?

It’s easy to not feel sorry for them during the pandemic, as it’s pretty likely your dentist has been screwing you (and/or your dental insurance) for as long as they could. But today, for a moment, I actually did: after about 9 months of not seeing my dentist, I texted them a week ago to see if they were open now and if I could come in for a cleaning and to get a new mouth guard. They called me, explaining that their Manhattan office actually had to close, as they could not renew their lease under the current circumstances, and once the city had opened more, they would then look into a new Manhattan lease. In the meantime, they were operating out of their Yonkers dental office, which they own, and so they asked if I could come see them there. They would even pick me up and drop me back off at the train station! I hesitated, thinking about how atrocious it would be to find a new dentist who would probably force me into treatments I didn’t need or convince me I needed jaw surgery, another coat of braces, or even root canals…. fine. I’d go. So I went today and made a half-day trip of it.

For months, no dental office could operate here. They received warnings that randomized inspections would occur, and if they were caught working, their license to operate could be permanently taken away. And when they received word of “essential” treatments they could operate for, it was a very narrow list that was extremely restrictive: gum bleeding, multiple abscesses (yes, multiple, not just one!), implant replacement for rupture (not usually done by a regular dentist), and emergency oral surgery (they’re dentists, not oral surgeons). Nothing else. Wait, what – that’s it? That explains why my colleague told me that she chipped her tooth about a month ago, and when she called her dentist, the dentist said she couldn’t see her because repairing a chipped tooth wasn’t “essential service.”

I felt bad.. for my colleague, the dentists, the dental industry in general, as weird as that sounds. If no patient visits happen, they don’t see any money at all. No money means no income, which means nothing to pay rent with other than savings, so it’s no wonder they shut down their Manhattan operation. The Manhattan office was actually shared by other dentists, and those dentists also did not renew their leases, either. And what’s worse is that the entire building they were operating in had shut down during quarantine, so the landlord shut down all gas and electricity! My dentist even said that many of the labs he relied on shut down operation completely, so even something like a mouth guard or X-rays could not be created or processed. He ended up buying his own machine during this time since mouth guards are in high demand, and I waited to have mine made, finished, and fitted.

Everyone was hit by the pandemic, even those who we think have glitzy lives and endless money coming in.

We spent our Saturday afternoon wandering through Astoria today, creating a mini food-tour of sorts with stops at Venezuelan, Vietnamese, and Chinese-ish spots. It’s crazy to see how much this neighborhood had changed since the last time I had visited; a corner produce market that I remember buying vegetables at had changed quite a bit. Its prices had risen, and the clientele was completely different. The area overall has become a lot more trendy and… well, White for lack of better words. The area used to have lots of Greeks, Egyptians, Middle Eastern restaurants, bakeries, delis, and grocery stores. They still exist, but it seems like their influence is less obvious now. Now, it’s a lot more brunch, fusion, and expensive bars and eateries with flashy signs, single menus that have a mind-boggling variety of dishes from bibimbap to al pastor tacos to grain bowls (talk about trying to appeal to EVERYONE), and brand-new condo buildings.

It’s not all necessarily a bad thing. There are a number of great places that have opened in this area. The arepas we enjoyed were hearty and delicious, and the Vietnamese place that was on my list had the most unique and creative version of pho I’d ever tasted. On the menu, it was called herb and wood-smoked brisket pho. When it came to the table, it was piping hot, revealing a crystal clear, pristine broth that my mom would have been proud to drink (she hates the floating fat that is oftentimes found in broths served at restaurants and assiduously removes them all before digging in). The first thing I always do when I am ordering a noodle soup at any restaurant is to take a taste of the broth. I took my soup soon, dipped it into the soup, and slurped. And inhaled it. It was exactly what the description said: it tasted herby, smokey, woody, in addition to all the complexities you expect when you have a truly delicious, multifaceted beef-based pho: beef, coriander, charred onions, star anise, cloves, LOVE. And the cuts of brisket were like the brisket you’d get at the most delicious barbecue house, just with a hint of Vietnamese flair. Every last bit of that bowl, we devoured until we couldn’t stomach any more liquid. It was so delicious.

If more places like this opened in Astoria, or in any neighborhood for that matter, I’d be really excited about it and happy to support them. It’s the generic places that try to cater themselves to yupsters and Gen Z people that I cannot stand — the ones that want to have Korean AND Thai AND Japanese AND Chinese AND… hey, let’s throw in some fish tacos, too! Those are the ones I despise and want to leave. Specialize in a certain area and go with it. Don’t be a generalist with food at a restaurant — it just makes you forgettable.

I think I need to take a break from all of the anti-racism education I’ve been doing for myself over the last two months in the form of books. It’s been educational, enlightening, upsetting, infuriating, and freeing in many ways to read all of these resources and books in an effort to understand racism better and be able to respond to ignorant comments (such as… racism doesn’t exist anymore/we live in a post-racist society/racism against Whites is the biggest issue now), but it’s been emotionally exhausting to have this on my mind throughout the day, nonstop. I recognize that there can be some criticism here from Black and Brown people of color, that it’s a luxury to not have to think about this every single day on the top of their minds… but I’d turn that question back to them and say… Are they reading all these books and resources, too?

I also fear that in most cases as with most issues, the people who need to hear these responses and rebuttals will never be open to hearing them. I still have a long list of other race-related books I want to tackle, but I’ve decided that for my sanity’s sake, I will need to space them out. In the meantime, I am reading Colson Whitehead’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize winning The Nickel Boys (okay, so maybe it’s not REALLY a departure from reading about race given it’s based on the true story of the Dozier School, a reform school in Florida (read: reform school for black boys) that operated for 111 years and abused black children, but you know what? There’s no wait list for Kindle borrowing on it right now given it’s a Book of the Month through New York Public Library, so I’ll take advantage of no wait lists for an in-demand book!).

These are the books I’ve read thus far this year on race and would definitely recommend for different reasons:

1. How to be an Anti-Racist – Ibram. X. Kendi: Provides a historical lens as well as personal anecdotes shared by the author/historian/educator Ibram X. Kendi. Examines how many quotes/phrases from famous anti-racist/anti-segregation advocates such as MLK have been twisted by conservatives who believe we live in a post-racist world. Seeks to provide definitions of what racist vs. not racist vs. anti-racist are, as well as many other terms and concepts that oftentimes get misused by the media and thus misunderstood by the American public. This book is pretty U.S.-centric, so be aware of that.
2. White Fragility – Robin DiAngelo: Provides viewpoints from an antiracism educator over 25+ years of anti-racism classes and workshops done by a wide spectrum of age groups, corporate for- and not-for-profit organizations in an attempt to increase diversity and inclusion in schools, organizations, and corporations. Acknowledges my most often-thought of point, which is that it is nearly impossible to have a discussion about racism that will leave everyone feeling comfortable, included, or welcome, and that is exactly the point of addressing racism: to be brought to a state of discomfort to then be propelled into real action.
3. Me and White Supremacy – Layla Saad: Based on a month-long Instagram challenge to examine how the concept of white supremacy has been drilled into each and every one of us since birth, and what we can personally do to dismantle it. Oftentimes, when people think about “white supremacists,” they think of David Duke, the KKK, when in reality, we actually adhere to a white supremacist society because of what we considered normal: normal is white, “other” or “abnormal” is seeing Chinese, Persian, Black, etc., people on TV, in Congress, in the White House, etc. That is just one example. This book helps people examine their own white supremacist notions and how to challenge them. A painful book, but a necessary read.
4. So You Want to Talk about Race – Ijeoma Oluo: A compelling and concise read that walks through various race-related subjects, such as intersectionality, why you should not touch a Black woman’s hair, affirmative action, and the concept of the “model minority,” which many Asian Americans sadly embrace but really should be doing the opposite. The best part about this book is that Oluo acknowledges the fact that in the U.S., the unfortunate discussion about race tends to always be black and white with some brown occasionally, but the general discourse completely ignores the various groups that make up Asian Americans and Native Americans. An entire chapter is devoted to the model minority myth, which was really refreshing for me to read. It illuminates on why and how the Asian American community has been pitted against the Black American community in this country and how this was a construction basically created by those in power (read: White people).

Racism and anti-racism education does not have a beginning or and end. It should always be ongoing for each and every one of us. And for those who deny that racism still persists and is going strong in society, well…. you are the kind of people I don’t want to have any discussion with because you are just goners in my mind.

Since restrictions have been easing up here in New York, and since we have absolutely nothing else better to do, Chris wants to start visiting apartment buildings again to see what is available and what the market looks like. Viewing apartments is now something we can do here, so Chris insisted we must. We’ve heard of some incredible deals on rentals – anything from $200-400/month off rent, 2-4 months free at certain buildings — it’s pretty insane. For the most part, getting one month free on a one-year lease has been relatively standard in Manhattan, but getting $400 off per month or FOUR MONTHS free is just totally out of this world. It’s truly a renter’s market right now due to COVID-19. So many people are leaving expensive cities like New York and San Francisco in favor of less populated, less expensive cities that have housing with more space for less money.

We visited a few buildings walking distance from our current building, and while overall, the fixtures were nice and the lobbies were plush and expansive, I still have failed to be impressed. Every place wants to charge for everything — $200 per person PER MONTH for gym and other amenities? $100+/month for in-building storage, as these buildings do not offer storage outside of the unit for tenants. Charges per day for guests to use the amenities, even entering the lounges? Not to mention that the bedrooms don’t seem particularly big (a queen bed, perhaps two nightstands, and if you’re lucky, a dresser) fit in the bedrooms, and the refrigerator/freezer situation seem smaller than what we currently have. Every time we go to one of these places, the more I think about how lucky we are to have all the amenities and space we have, plus the additional storage outside of our unit. It’s as though we just scored with every single thing you could ask for as a renter.

Maybe we will live here forever? It seems like it at this rate!

Other than my first job out of college, I have never taken advantage of any network that I belong to, whether that’s my work network through LinkedIn and previous jobs. During college, I used my Wellesley network to help get me a coveted PR internship at Fleishman-Hillard (and since, have had absolutely zero desire to work in public relations ever again, but hey! It was a good opportunity, and I felt very lucky and privileged because I knew those internships were hard to come by). My cousin referred me to my first tech job after I graduated from college. And since then, the only way I’ve ended up landing my next new job was literally applying on companies’ websites or applying via LinkedIn. So this time around, I’ve been doing more networking, and it’s resulted in a number of positive leads and referrals. I’m kicking myself a little for not taking advantage of my networks before, but I guess it’s better late than never, right?

So far, I’m keeping tabs on leads at five different companies all based on my connections. If I am lucky, at least one or two of them will come into fruition.

Dear Ed,

Seven years. You’d think it would have passed by slower than it has, but it actually seems like just yesterday when you left us. I don’t even know what to say anymore. I’d like to say that I’ve learned a lot since you died, but I’m not totally sure that’s even accurate. I feel like a lot about my life has been at a stand still. I’ve tried really hard to maintain my integrity, to keep with my values, to be my genuine self. But I feel like that is just being chipped away slowly working in the corporate world. I’m tired of the pressure to suck up to people I don’t like or care about. I’m sick of the backstabbing, the lying, the fabrication of stories. I’m sick of the HR gaslighting, the racial injustice, the white fragility constantly on exhibit at work where no one does a single thing to address the issues at hand. I’m tired of not being recognized for my achievements, and instead, having them be overlooked simply because others choose to be louder and flaunt their pointless and revenue-less activities. It’s no wonder you rejected the corporate world, the idea of just being another rat in the rat race. There’s no value in the work that we do. Who cares about making rich people richer, about getting acquired, about going public? At the end of the day, we are all disposable, and the work we have poured ourselves into will be forgotten. No one ever wrote on their tomb stone the number of upsells or deals they worked on or sold. No one’s eulogy ever talked about the success playbook they wrote for a scaling startup based in San Francisco. All of this work is meaningless at the end of the day. The only thing that really matters are the relationships we take away from this white supremacist, capitalistic society we live in.

In the last year, though, I think you’d be excited. I’ve been actively working on Yvonne meets Food. You’d be so happy for me with my YouTube channel. It may not do much now in terms of money, but it’s part of my passion and a part of my future. I’m now at 205 subscribers, which is still small, but hopefully, fingers crossed, it will only grow. I actually can see your face light up now when I think about how you’d react at the work I’ve been doing on the channel, and even all the time I’ve spent learning how to video edit.

I honestly don’t know if I’ve done anything else in the last year you’d be happy about. I’ve thought about it, and I just cannot come up with anything. I haven’t spoken with our mother since the end of February. She falsely accused me of speaking ill about her to our aunt, and I refused to tolerate her false accusations and constant comparisons anymore. It seems a bit abrupt to stop talking to her about this, but this was truly years and years in the making. I’ve really had enough of the constant criticism, the constant false accusations, the constant comparisons to our oldest cousin, who she sees as the “ideal child.” I know you can relate to this. I’m 34 years old. I just can’t take any more of this negativity. She can call me whenever she wants to apologize. She won’t do it. So the ball is really in her court. If we never speak again, while I may feel sad about it, I will not regret that I chose this path. She did wrong, and she needs to acknowledge it. She should acknowledge her wrong for the both of us.

In that moment on the phone when she started comparing me to our oldest cousin, I immediately thought about how she constantly compared you to all our older cousins from everything to grades to school to college to attitudes. It makes me sick to the stomach to remember all this toxicity. I don’t know how you put up with it for so long… too long. I’m sorry I didn’t help you enough. I’m sorry I didn’t defend you enough. I was young, naive, powerless… she does the same to me and always has, but never to the degree she did it with you.

I thought about you a lot during the worst points of the pandemic here in New York, in the U.S. I thought about how miserable your life would have been if you had still be alive and at home with our parents. Just the mere thought of it made me angry. I can’t imagine you being under the same roof as them and not being able to go anywhere other than the grocery store. That would have been like a different type of suicide.

We like to think our lives move forward, that we move on. But I haven’t really moved on from your death. I woke up in the middle of the night a few nights ago thinking you were still alive, and that I had to call you. And when reality sank in that you were gone, I felt sullen and immediately went back to bed. This happens to me occasionally. I can’t really help it.

I want to talk to you all the time, to tell you about things I’ve made, what I’m filming, what I want to do next. But I can’t. I’ve considered going to a medium to talk to you, but when I think about it more, it seems pretty ridiculous because she’s probably going to rip me off, and I’d likely not really be talking to *you* you. It sounds childish for me to keep saying this, but life just isn’t fair. It’s not fair that people like you have to suffer and die and others who are just awful, toxic, two-faced human beings can continue on this earth, seemingly thriving and conniving through life. It is not fair. But, I have to keep going. I think about revenge for all the people who have wronged you, have wronged me, but I realize it’s all pointless.

It’s why I feel like I have no more words to say. I just feel sad and angry about so many things – the state of our world, the state of the working world, the state of the world without you in it with me. This world really sucks right now. It’s like there is nothing to look forward to.

So… when do I get to see you again? You haven’t showed up in my dreams in a while, and you seem to do that to be a bit of a jerk. You are my brother, after all. Can you come swing by for a little? I really need a hug from you right now. I hope you are doing well, and that your mind is clear and free from any negativity. Hope to see you soon.

Love,

Yvonne

I was on the phone for over an hour with my work mentee today. She was lamenting the layoffs that have happened at our company, saying that she felt like she tried so hard to be nice and kind to everyone, but in the end, it didn’t matter because she was still disliked. She still got laid off. She mentioned to me this one person at work who is a manager on the team. She clearly got there because of politicking internally, constantly advocating for herself and talking herself up every chance she got, even when she wasn’t actually the one who achieved anything. People like that in our work world get ahead. The general theme that has rang quite loud and true for me since the beginning of my career is that activity is valued more than genuine achievement. Activity is what will prevent your getting laid off, not the achievement. Because when it comes to “achievement,” even when there is hard data, real numbers, to back it up, even when you have killed your retention rates, expanded your customers by hundreds of thousands of dollars, company leadership who is against you will do whatever they can, smear you however they can, to get your job eliminated. It’s the dirty capitalistic society we live in.

I tried to console my mentee. I told her I really empathized with her, but at the end of the day, she needs to get over the desire to “be nice to everyone.” That will never get her ahead. It will never get her recognized. If anything, people would use that against her to manipulate her, take credit for her work, ignore her, gaslight her, and do anything they can to undermine her. Hasn’t that already happened here to her? This needs to be a lesson to her. “Nice girls finish last.” There’s a fine line between maintaining one’s integrity and playing the game. I still haven’t mastered it at all, but one thing I never strayed from while working at this current company is maintaining my integrity. I’ve stayed true to myself no matter what, and perhaps at times, that has costed me, but I have zero regrets. She shouldn’t have regrets either, but she needs to wean herself off the “be nice to everyone” mentality and put herself and her values first. That is such a female way of thinking that we women are taught; what BOY is ever taught to be nice to everyone and to value that above everything else…?!