My colleague and I are menu planning for our team’s offsite retreat, which will be an hour and a half south of San Francisco the last week of November. We’re in charge of planning and buying all the food and ingredients we’ll be using. And I begrudgingly posted on our team Slack channel and asked if anyone had any dietary restrictions. Luckily, in our team of 16 people, only two people do: one person cannot eat dairy, and another is a vegetarian who eats seafood.

Asking about dietary restrictions is always, for me, a courtesy thing, but honestly, I really don’t want to ask it unless you are absolutely positive that you have an allergy. I just want to make what I want to make; so why can’t you just eat it and be grateful that someone spent time making it for you?

I had a tea break this afternoon with my colleague visiting from Amsterdam, who is originally from New York City and was here for a work offsite this week. We follow each other on Instagram, and so she oftentimes sees my Instagram story posts about food prep and cooking and said she even shares some of the videos with her husband. “Look! Yvonne roasts and even grinds her own spice mixes! Even your mom doesn’t do that!” She tells him.

She asked me how much planning I typically do for food whenever I am cooking. I told her that I spend so much time thinking about food and what I am going to make next that my own husband sometimes asks me if that’s all I ever think about. I told her that I usually am thinking at least a week in advance, so if I want something spur of the moment, it’s a bit hard unless I know I already have certain items stocked in my pantry or freezer. She said it’s more difficult for her to do that in Amsterdam given the types of markets around her, so if she needs certain ingredients, she needs to trek out of her way to grab them; they won’t always be at her local markets. I get why people don’t cook more than they do on average in cities like New York; there’s no real incentive to unless you really enjoy it, and not everyone is willing to go out of their way to buy spices or egg noodles the way I am. I actually enjoy that process. I just think it would be better if more people were cognizant of what’s in their food and what goes into making it. We should all be aware of the things we’re putting in our bodies.

The level of laziness I observe every day is so frustrating sometimes… even when it comes to things that are literally free to people if they just spent five minutes to get something done. I’m lucky to work at a company now that pays for my transportation costs to and from work, which typically amounts to a monthly subway card that today, is valued at $121.50. It’s a pretty nice savings to have, but to my shock, I have a number of colleagues who have never set theirs up, and they’ve been here for over a year. Why would they not do this? They made excuses like… “I didn’t know where to find the information” (maybe just ask someone?), “I hadn’t thought about doing it” (lazy), “I forgot about it” (you forgot about free money? Really?).

It reminds me of the topic at one of our weekly meetings where we discussed giving free services to customers for a month, and our leadership team just couldn’t understand why people would turn down free services. Well, at the end of the day, even if you give free services to someone, they still need to do something to set that up, and oftentimes, people are too lazy to do even that. Taking action seems to be happening less and less as time goes on.

Last week, we lost five of our employees in our office. We’re gaining a new employee soon, but she’ll be a remote employee who won’t be working out of our office. She may not be adding to the racial diversity of our office, but at least she is adding another occasional female to the office.

For the longest time, everyone on our enterprise east sales team has been a white male. We didn’t even have one female… until now. When I was in high school, I used to blend in because I went to a school that was probably 80 percent Chinese. Now, I kind of stand out because I’m one of just a few women and one of just a few non-white employees.

One thing I’ve noticed in my most recent trips to Hong Kong Supermarket in Manhattan Chinatown is that every time I peruse the aisles, I seem to encounter more and more non-Asian customers. When I first moved here back in 2008 and would shop in any Asian area, whether it was in Elmhurst or in Manhattan Chinatown, it was very rare to see non-Asian shoppers picking up produce or jars of pickled and preserved vegetables. Now, I actually regularly encounter white customers with little shopping lists or photos on their phones in hand, trying to find authentic Sichuanese pepper and a specific type of Chinese green for a stir-fry. Others shop by looking at Chinese characters that they don’t know how to read, but recognize the strokes in an attempt to identify whether they are choosing the right jar. It gives me hope that despite all the racism I read about that has been made more “justified” by having President Dipshit in the White House that people really are still trying to branch out and experience cultures other than their own. And the easiest way to do that is through food.

Ever since my dad shared his Costco membership with me this past August, I’ve been so excited. I grew up doing family trips to Costco, so in some ways, my love and attachment to this massive store and corporation is for nostalgic reasons. I even have fond memories of my parents picking me up from the airport when I’d return home from college, and because it would usually be around lunch time, my dad would have a Costco chicken-bake ready for me, stuffed with big chicken chunks, little bits of bacon, cheese, and Caesar dressing, all in a baked crispy bread casing.

But living in Manhattan, there are many challenges to having a Costco membership. The Costcos nearby are not very close — the closest one is in Spanish Harlem, and the second closest one is in Long Island City. The Spanish Harlem location isn’t anywhere as well stocked with the variety that I was used to at the South San Francisco location my parents used to take me to, and it’s also challenge when you live in a relatively small apartment that can’t easily handle, say, 72 rolls of toilet paper, since everything you buy is in bulk from Costco.

I still managed to spend a whopping $177 there today, which I never, ever spend even in two or three weeks on regular groceries at our local grocery stories near the apartment. I guess I did just stock up on the next year and half’s supply of oil and toothpaste, not to mention what is probably the next five year’s worth of turmeric and red pepper flakes, but there’s so much satisfaction in getting good value and high quality at the same time. I know there are haters out there who think that Costco is evil, but you know what… there’s nothing wrong with getting excited about value at a good price in today’s day and age when the gap between the rich and poor is just getting bigger and bigger. It reminds me of the time when I took a fashion design course at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco one summer, and the designer teaching the class scoffed at all of us for buying our clothes from places like Macy’s or H&M where a t-shirt would cost $10 or a jacket $100. She said that at those prices, they were made with sweatshop labor and that we really should be spending $200 on a t-shirt and $1,000-2,000 on a proper coat to ensure fair wages. Really? Do we all have the budget for that? We’re not all as privileged as she may be with that type of clothing budget.

My friend and I were at dinner tonight discussing the latest house guests that he and his girlfriend hosted. The couple they hosted also brought their ten-month-old baby with them, and so for a long weekend, it was all five of them in my friend’s one-bedroom condo in Long Island City altogether. While my friends were never with the baby alone for too long, they did have many hours when they did babysit the child, and it gave them a quick glimpse into what life as parents would be.

“You can’t just hang out with the kid and check your phone,” my friend said. “It’s like every second you have to be watching him to make sure he doesn’t bang his head or grab something fragile off the table! It changes everything about how you look at the world and everything you’re focused on!”

We both looked at each other with that understanding look of “shit, being a parent is hard.” We can’t be as into ourselves as before. I probably wouldn’t be posting as many Instagram photos of what I am cooking and eating. My friend wouldn’t obsess with his camera and the shots he’s taking as much. We definitely wouldn’t be able to see as many things when we’re traveling because of the needs of a child. All these superficial things would change for us.

I still want children, though. I’m excited for what’s in store in our future… assuming I still have some viable eggs left. I seem like I’m mentally closer to being in that mindset than my friend is after this conversation, though.