It was a colleague’s birthday last Saturday, so her boyfriend had a gorgeous bouquet of mixed flowers delivered to our office for her the Friday before. Although they’ve been together several years and even live together, for whatever reason, he doesn’t know that she’s allergic to pollen… or if he does, he forgets. When the flowers arrived, my colleague immediately moved them away from her desk, and then asked if she could leave them on my desk. It was kind of a weird request, but since she knows I enjoy flowers and am not allergic, I figured it would be a positive externality for me, and all I’d need to do is replace the water every other day.

I kind of don’t understand how you can be in a long-term relationship with someone, though, and not be aware and remember something so basic as their allergies to something like pollen. Isn’t that a massive partner failure right there?

A couple of colleagues I’m friends with were in town from San Francisco this week, so a bunch of us went out to catch up over Korean barbecue, beers, and soju, adding to a very gluttony eating week for all of us. Seven of us went out, and while we’re digging in, one of my colleagues, who happens to live in a suburb of New Jersey that is right outside of Fort Lee and Palisades Park (which are known for having large Korean populations and thus a lot of great Korean food), says that he’s actually never had Korean barbecue before. He’s just a year younger than me, and we’re all sitting there looking at him incredulously. Of course, we’re all being a little judgmental, thinking, how could you not have ever had Korean barbecue before when you live just minutes away from one of the largest Korean suburbs in the tri-state area? He was certainly enjoying himself while eating, but since everyone at the table was generously eager to try new foods that they weren’t familiar with, we really didn’t understand his lack of discovery and curiosity here. At least we’re here to de-virginize him in this regard.

Tonight was our end of quarter celebration dinner at Dinosaur Barbecue, where we feasted on pulled pork, brisket, ribs, Mac-and-cheese, among other delectable artery-clogging delights. And as these events always go, I end up hearing extremely random anecdotes where I am left with question marks in my head afterwards.

A colleague of mine, who is pretty much a creature of habit, a homebody who, in theory, likes travel, but in practice, actually really hates it (for a three day trip, she thinks she should pack at leas 6-8 outfits because… how will she know what she feels like wearing on any given day of the trip when she wakes up?), mentioned to me that when she and her husband are having fights, usually after having a bit to drink, Chris and I often come up as a heated point of contention.

“What?” I asked, quizzically.

“Well, the two of you lead such an exciting life!” my colleague exclaimed. “You two are always traveling all over the world all the time that I cannot even keep track of where you are! And (husband) and I — what do we do? We just stay home, fixing things in our house. We don’t go anywhere! We don’t see anything! We haven’t seen any of the world!” (If it was not already clear, she was a bit buzzed).

She continued. “So I told him, “Yvonne! You met Yvonne! Yvonne and her husband travel and see the world! They know the world! We don’t know anything of the world! I want us to do that! Why don’t you ever want to take me anywhere? EVER? We are so boring compared to them!” 

I gently reminded my colleague that she hates packing, she always complains when she takes work trips, and she doesn’t like being outside of her comfort zone, so I don’t really think she wants to travel the way Chris and I do. She laughed and said it was probably true, but she wanted to do different things (in theory, again), but her husband didn’t want to. And they were always drunkenly yelling at each other to the point of saying they would leave each other, but then they realize at the end of the day that they have no clue what they’d do without each other and make up. Then, a week or so later, it starts all over again.

How romantic. And how very functional.

If it wasn’t already clear, I’ve been really getting into my Instant Pot. Five perfect and delicious dishes later, I’m completely hooked and want to try to cook as many things as possible in this stunning cooking machine. A colleague friend of mine who is based in Europe who still has yet to buy one, said she was inspired to want one after reading this inspirational profile in The New Yorker called, “The ‘Butter-Chicken Lady’ Who Made Indian Cooks Love the Instant Pot,” which also includes this woman’s infamous butter chicken recipe at the end. The recipe seemed simple enough with most things in my pantry and freezer, so I figured it would be something fun to make within my first ten uses. I made it yesterday for dinner with a couple of tweaks, and it was delicious, probably just as good, if not better, than any butter chicken I’ve had in a restaurant. I posted about it on Facebook and Instagram, and multiple people messaged me for the recipe.

And if that was not already encouraging, a colleague told me at the office today that he was planning to make it for dinner in his Instant Pot with his wife. He was asking me about what I tweaked and even texted me a few times with preparation questions. Another colleague and her boyfriend were so inspired by my Instagram Story posts on my Instant Pot usage that they ordered their own Instant Pot last night. And this coming weekend, a third colleague is planning to make the same butter chicken recipe with his fiancee!

Maybe I’m the equivalent of my office’s Butter-Chicken Lady now, or Instant Pot Lady?

Chris was not happy with me today. After having a Sicilian pizza slice craving this week, especially after my colleague was raving about her obsession with L&B Spumoni Garden in outer Brooklyn, I insisted to him that we had to venture out to another borough in search of this famous institution’s pizza. When we go out for pizza, we’ve never really had Sicilian style in the city before, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to try something new-ish.

When we arrived, the seating situation was a bit fuzzy. You have the choice of sitting outside at benches and under umbrellas and ordering from a counter, or you can sit inside (where there’s air-conditioning) and have table service. Chris immediately headed inside, and the service was immediately nonchalant, with an air of “We know we’re a Brooklyn institution, and therefore we don’t really give a shit about you because we know no matter how poorly we treat you, you will still want to eat here because we’re famous, and we are very aware of that.” What we didn’t realize is that after about 15-20 minutes had passed, when our server came and we asked to order slices, he said that we weren’t allowed to sit inside and only have pizza slices; we either had to order a full pie (which would have been far too much food for us), or order other mains. We couldn’t eat that much food, so we walked out to the benches.

So, the good news about this is that the counter service was friendly and swift. I even got asked whether I wanted corner, side, or middle square slices (I obviously wanted side slices to get the crunchy edges). But when we tasted both the round and the square slices, Chris was not impressed. “This is good, but this is not 1-hour-on-the-subway good, and the service was shit.” I personally enjoyed the Sicilian slice — the tomato sauce was perfect, and the textural contrast in the bottom, crust, and the soft, chewy middle was quite satisfying. But I do admit that it probably was not worth the hour train ride, and we could probably get Sicilian slices in Manhattan that were just as good if not better. And what’s also bad: their spumoni ice cream was so artificial tasting that Chris didn’t even want to finish it.

This just adds to our list of overrated New York institutions, which also includes Peter Luger Steakhouse, which pretty much no one else agrees with us on.

Today was one of my favorite colleagues’ last day in the office. He would have been here for another week if it weren’t for his two-week planned holiday to Italy with his husband, but today is his last physical day with us, and I was so upset. He’s the kind of person who is always positive, smiling, and calm, no matter how stressed out and annoyed he is with work or anything in his personal life. He listens to pretty much anyone’s problems and is like a pseudo-therapist to some of us. When I’ve been stressed or mad about anything, he’s done everything from listen to me, take me on walks, send me kitten videos, and even give me a shoulder massage and many hugs. I’m going to miss his presence a lot. He’s probably the most generous colleague I’ve ever known… really ever. Whenever there’s been a quarter-end, he’s brought croissants or doughnuts into the office. He’s baked for the office at least a few times since I’ve been here. Today, he presented the colleague who referred him here a $70 bottle of very fancy whisky (frankly, I’m not sure that was that much deserved or will really be fully appreciated… but it is what it is). And on his very last day, today, he brought in two massive boxes of Dough doughnuts, the very popular doughnuts that this city is obsessed with.

All I have to say is — if it were my last day at a company, any company, I wouldn’t be bringing in squat — not out of bitterness or anger, but rather… why? His generosity is really limitless. We need more giving people in the world, and now our office has lost one of these rare giving souls.

A colleague with whom I’m friendly who is based in our San Francisco office is here for the next two weeks. She’s originally from Queens and is back in town because her mother had surgery, and she wanted to be here to help take care of her during this time. We took a walk together today around Madison Square Park, talking about our experiences at the company, how we chose to switch coasts (I’ve now been here just over ten years, and she’s been in San Francisco for over eleven now), and how it’s hard for both of us to realistically consider moving back to our original hometowns. It was a funny conversation because we’re both fairly direct yet fun-loving people, and we both, as Asian women, do not at all fit into the stereotypically passive Asian stereotype mold that people might assume of us. She swears a lot; I make frank comments about situations that surprise people. Neither of us is afraid to say what’s wrong in any given situation, even if it means annoying someone else in our presence. A lot of the times, it ends up being comical, but it’s nevertheless always a little shocking for some in the room who do not know us very well.

Later on, at the going-away happy hour of our colleague based here, she was exclaiming, “Yvonne, you’re so New York! You’re way more New York than I am now!” I guess I kind of am. I’m much more impatient now than I was ten years ago. In conversations around people with whom I feel comfortable, I try to be more direct and less beat-around-the-bush because I don’t want to waste time. I don’t really want to keep people guessing (except the times when I do… but that’s another story for another day). I’ve always been a fast walker, even in San Francisco, so that was easy to get used to here. I also said that I can’t stand delusional people who cannot accept and deal with reality… which is definitely not something a typical sunny Californian person would say.

You have to handle the truth. It’s part of survival, right? New York makes people a bit harder, which I’d like to think makes you fitter for survival.

Our team’s manager was in town this week, so he took us out for a team dinner tonight. We ate at an izakaya and shared many small plates, reveling in how lucky we were to live in a city with as plentiful of dining options across all cuisines as New York City. Given that we were sharing and the nature of what an izakaya was, I was quietly thankful, being the one ordering all the food, that we had no one with any food allergies or picky food inclinations at our table. Whenever food is a topic, people on my team and in our office tend to look to me for advice and suggestions. And it’s flattering when not only they ask my advice, but they actually follow through and try the different dishes or restaurants and find that they enjoyed their experiences.

“I think our team out here in New York is so great because it’s like every single one of you has a passion that is really obvious,” my manager said. He motioned to one of my colleagues and mentioned how into animals she is (she has a puppy she adopted from a local shelter), another colleague who is obsessed with sailing and has a goal of owning his own boat (and is obsessed with the band Phish, and then of course me, who is clearly passionate about food and travel.

Knowing what you are passionate about, what you deeply care about, is really important in life… especially if you are at my age, in your late twenties or early thirties. I kind of think that by this age, you really should have some idea of what you love. It gives your life meaning, direction, a sense of purpose. Otherwise, what are you doing — are you really living, or are you just existing and watching your life pass you by? It’s like this article I read recently about the most resilient people who are able to overcome massive life obstacles — the death of a parent at a young age, the sudden death of a spouse, a near-death car accident, etc.; the way that they got through these difficult life circumstances was by continuing to do what they were passionate about and loved, whether it was a hobby like sewing or painting or singing, or by volunteering and giving back to their communities if that was their thing. If you don’t have any of those things to fall back on, then what really is the point of living?

Oddly enough, my manager said that when he’s been asked what he’s passionate about, he cannot answer the question in a straightforward way and is still struggling to answer it. It sounds like he needs to do more soul searching, as well.

I was finally allowed access back to the office today as our office manager is overseeing asbestos testing in the office after the city has given its approval that there’s supposedly no asbestos that’s leaked into our HVAC system. I went in to retrieve my work laptop before heading over to a shared space that we rented for the day. We won’t know for sure that there’s no asbestos contamination inside our office walls until tomorrow morning.

During midday, a number of us in the shared rented space and those brave enough to work in the office met up to get bubble tea from Boba Guys, and it felt really comforting to be in the presence of my colleagues after nearly a week of not seeing each other. Unfortunately, one of my colleagues will be leaving us soon to join another organization, and it made me feel a little nostalgic for what once was: an organization where everyone seemed really committed not just to the cause, but to each other. The more our personnel changes, the more our culture will change, which leaves a big question mark when it comes to what this office culture is going to evolve into. Is it going to be a happy place to come to work every day, or are we just going to become a corporate machine in an attempt to be more of the “enterprise business” that our CEO wants us to become?

So I’ve been working from home the last two days due to a massive steam pipe explosion that occurred just two blocks from my office in the Flatiron district downtown in Manhattan. Generally, these explosions have happened throughout the city due to ridiculously old infrastructure that the city is too cheap or careless to deal with, and every now and then, there have been fatalities and injuries. The city seems happier to deal with these fatalities and injuries in payouts than they are to prevent them in the first place. If you think about it, it’s actually the way our healthcare system is: it’s happier to deal with you being sick (and taking you for everything you are worth because healthcare here is the most expensive in the world) than it is to prevent you from getting sick in the first place. Luckily this time, no one was killed, though a few people did suffer some minor injuries.

Based on discussions with our office manager, who has been in contact with our building’s super, who of course has been in contact with city officials, we’ve learned that it’s very much in the air as to when we will actually be able to regain access to the building. The city blocked off entry into the general area due to potential asbestos contamination. I was sulky because I actually do not enjoy working from home and prefer to be in the office. I like the camaraderie at work, the free air conditioning, and my free lunch. I also miss my work computer, which I stupidly left in the office on Wednesday night.

But the scariest part when I think about it is how old the infrastructure is in this entire city, and how many old buildings that are not up to code are being inhabited all over this island, all over these five boroughs. An incident like this one could happen pretty much anywhere, and we all know this will not be the last. Chris always says that the biggest irony of our being required to have renter’s insurance in our building (which is only two years old now) is that we’re far safer and less likely to have a disaster happen here than in our old Upper East Side co-op apartment, which is far, far older, creakier, and who knows when it was ever last inspected for safety? And we never had renter’s insurance at the last place.

We just have to hope for the best.