Best Chinese Ever!

When we arrived in Waco for a visit with my family, we were greeted with a spread so unexpected that I had to write about it. My grandmother (mom's mom) had been prepping a Chinese meal for the previous few days, and she was pulling out all the stops for our arrival. Because it's so infrequent that we're in Texas for a visit, she made sure that plenty of people were there and all had something special to eat.
While she was cooking the last dish, we managed to get the entire episode on video and let me tell you, my grandmother would make a great cooking show host. I'm going to try to get more videos of her doing things like this.
Mom and Dad had gotten there a few minutes after we arrived, and Mark and Uncle showed up shortly thereafter too. Including Popo, there were 7 of us who sat down to the following meal:
Beef and broccoli (Mark's dish)
Chicken in lettuce cups (Uncle's dish)
Chicken in black bean sauce (Mom's dish)
Piccadillo (a Cuban alternative, just in case Mark didn't have enough to eat)
Chinese soup
Lobster Cantonese (sort of Dad's dish, sort of just special)

All of it was outstanding!

Back to School

I went back to work this week, and I’m happy to be back. I started on Monday and it’s been a pretty low-key week, so far. I expect it will pick up at some point, but right now I’ve had the luxury of trying to get up to speed without a million things coming at me. Lucy’s starting to fall into a nice rhythm too. Before bed I get hers and Grendel’s food ready, Grendel’s seaweed glucosamine snack, and fresh water out. In the morning, Todd gets up and takes her out while I get Grendel out and fed and then I run to work. I take care of both of them when I get home until Todd comes home. Lucy’s getting better every day. She’s been a little troublesome in the crate over the last couple of days and I suspect it’s because of the stress of change so we loaded her up with a nice bully stick and she’s a little better. She was great on the walk last night, so I think she’s getting better still.

Mark spent some time here last weekend and it was good to see him. He was here for Microsoft Gamefest, a conference designed for game studios to learn best practices around submission of their games to MS. He’s been at it a couple of times and came for the networking opportunity and for fun. We got some tasty eats at the Kingfish Café before he left, and Saturday night we took him to the Palace Kitchen.

Sometime over the last couple of weeks we’ve had an infestation of spiders here in Seattle, and I had a nasty bite on my arm that finally cleared up this week. Oddly enough though, I have a bite on the back of my leg. It’s been there since the end of July and is getting larger, so I’m heading to the doctor tomorrow. It’s a couple of inches large and looks frighteningly like a bulls eye, the hallmark of lyme disease. But I don’t have any of the other symptoms so I’m hoping it’s just a nasty spider bite that never cleared up!

I've lost count...

So many of my friends are having babies (or have just had them) that I'm losing count. I got away with my 20s and early 30s avoiding many weddings, engagement parties, and baby showers, but it seems to have just hit me pretty late.

As of this morning, I can think of 5 friends who have either just had or are about to burst forth a new person.

It's kind of a strange feeling - I get simultaneously curious/envious while also sort of realizing that might not be for me. Or rather, I'm just not sure we're willing to give up everything for that right now.

On Again, Off Again

I have what amounts to a love affair with writing. Sometimes I want to bathe in it, enveloping myself in words, words, words. Other times I just want to be left alone to ponder and think about it. 'I need space,' I tell myself when I'm not in a writing mood. Such has been the last 10 months. And then before that, with my lame post entitled 'Accounting.' It was like reading one of those awful Christmas letters that people feel obliged to write and others feel obliged to snicker at in the company of those who know better. I've been so busy writing I haven't felt self-indulgent enough to document it. At least not here.

So I have no excuses and I won't give an accounting. You'll have to figure it out for yourself.

What's happening now? Immediately, I'm working on a blog for our garden and I'm about to quit my job at the Port and take a month off (see the right pane for a list of some things I want to work on during July!). We're starting the search for another dog. I still expect to hear Papa's voice answer the phone when I call Granny. It's the same thing as everyone else, life.

Stay tuned for more changes.

Tripping Over Myself

Sometimes I don't really realize I can break my own fall. Problem is, I'm responsible for the pace at which I move, the clumsy footwork and the sometimes searing, sometimes blinded focus that gets me into trouble.

I said only last week that I was having trouble writing. My friend Geoff and I talked about this a bit - he's a comedian, and it turns out, has noticed this too. When everything's good, the well dries up. The bitter seems overly bitter, the ascerbic too sharp. He joked that the best comedians were addicts of some sort - alcohol, drugs, pain, whatever - and I'd have to argue the same for good writers. Not that I fall into that category, but I understand how it's difficult to get that clarity when your world is so blindingly happy. It's when life is interrupted that the words flow so effortlessly. When things come into sharp relief it's usually a sign that something's amiss, even if it's just a little off. Or that it's all hormonal and lunar. I'll give you that.

So it's time to brace myself. I can see the ground approaching only because I know I've gotten sloppy in my walk. I don't need to be in a hurry, sometimes I forget that that's not the goal. Yes, there is a goal, but that's not the point. I don't have some Britney-driving-towards-stardom hunger. Sometimes I need to just slow down. I'm sometimes startled by my own intensity, god know what this does to those around me. If it drives you as nuts as it drives me, I'm so thankful that you're still here.