san francisco

moving / san francisco — Comments Off
11
Jan 10

All moved in!

This weekend MB and I had the easiest move ever.

In case you’re behind on the trivia that is my life, when we moved to San Francisco, we opted for a furnished studio. It was cheaper and we wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of getting furniture. Our lease was up at the end of December. Quickly we found a place we loved right down the street, but unfortunately didn’t get it.

Luckily however, our landlady had a furnished one bedroom available, which turned out to be bigger than the original place we wanted. Sure, the rent is slightly more, but we don’t have to buy furniture, aside from a bed that we had already ordered.

MB had actually never seen the place but trusted my opinion. I had told him about the big walk-in closet I thought would be perfect for his “studio.” On Saturday our bed was being delivered so he went down to tell the girl cleaning the apartment. The first closet he saw was the one in the hallway, which while bigger than ours, is still small. He actually thought, Is that my studio? Then he found the walk-in closet and was very very pleased.

Oh ye of little faith.

Sunday morning we woke up and I swear it was like Christmas. “Let’s go!” MB said excitedly, grabbed his guitar and some other gear, and hurried downstairs.

Our new place is just one floor down from our old one, so “moving” was throwing stuff in suitcases, bags, and boxes, and taking a few trips up and down. We were done within a couple of hours.

If only all moves were so easy.

Our new place is almost three times the size of our old one. There’s so much space, I don’t even know what to do with it. I put some clothes I don’t wear often in the walk-in, leaving the rest for MB. So the hall closet is half-empty. There’s even room in the foyer for a small shoe rack. And there’s a perfect space in the living room for our keyboard. We just need a piano bench now.

The only drawbacks are a small kitchen, which you can’t really get away from in the city; we face the street so will have some traffic noise (but the bedroom is towards the back and closing the sliding doors helps); and something’s up with the cable, but that may be a blessing in disguise.

But no matter how much I love this place, I still need to get my ass out and to the gym.

SF Firsts: Yoga and EARTHQUAKE!

Two San Francisco firsts this week.

Yoga

I’ve been doing yoga on my own for years, but probably not intensely enough since I’m not very flexible. I mean, I can touch my toes and do downward dog pretty easily, but my hamstrings and inner thighs get really tight from running.

My gym offers tons of classes so this Tuesday I finally tried yoga. When I walked in, I saw that everyone had their own mats and were decked out in yoga gear. I wondered if I had to run home to get my mat, but then saw someone grab one of the foam gym ones. I followed suit.

I was afraid there’d be a lot of spiritual mumbo jumbo, but there wasn’t. We started off just sitting with our eyes closed and breathing deeply (which these chatty girls next to me didn’t get for a good minute, continuing to chatter while the rest of us tried to relax), and then went right into lots of poses.

I couldn’t really hear the instructor sometimes, and she didn’t always demonstrate the pose. Luckily there were plenty of people in the class who seemed to know what they were doing, so I copied them. Still, if I hadn’t been doing yoga on my own, I’d have been totally lost.

So actually that meant a good intense workout. She didn’t waste time teaching us how to do poses, we just did them.

Well, most of them. There were a couple where I thought, She wants us to do what? I realized how inflexible my arms and shoulders were. Also the balancing with one foot in the air was great but HARD.

About halfway through, I noticed I was sweating profusely and my mat was slick with sweat. (Nice, I know.) By the end my muscles were shaking.

I had run two miles before the class, and originally thought I’d run another two after. No way in hell. I was so tired I could barely lift my arms for the rest of the day. The next day I was massively sore, especially my triceps, pecs, and upper back. (My legs were pretty okay, except my tush was a bit achy.) MB kept massaging me while we watched TV, which was SO painful, but good for me.

Yesterday I was still sore but at least could lean against things without wincing. Today I’m a bit tender but much better.

I think I’ll be ready for my next class on Tuesday!

Earthquake

Yesterday morning I was sitting at the kitchen table working on my computer. First I heard the toaster rattling, then the coffee pot. I thought there were just cooling off, but then the table and my chair started rumbling.

I jumped up and stood in the doorway. There was another rumble and the bed shook MB awake.

“Holy shit!” I said.

He leaped out of bed and joined me in the doorway. Then it was over.

It was so short, we wondered if it was actually an earthquake, or if a heavy truck had just gone by outside.

“I’ve totally felt heavy trucks go by,” MB said.

“Yeah,” I said. “But they don’t make our furniture shake.”

Apparently, there was an earthquake with 4.1 magnitude near Milpitas, which is south of San Francisco and not far from San Jose.

The shaking lasted just a few seconds, but for an east coaster who’s never experienced anything like that, it was CRAZY.

food / holidays / san francisco / writing — 3 Comments
26
Dec 09

Two french hens

MB and I had a lovely Christmas.

Christmas Eve MB made a yummy pasta dinner with a spicy puttanesca sauce and spicy Italian sausage. Afterward we just bummed around. Watched a few episodes of the Ghosthunters marathon, as well as The Empire Strikes Back and part of Return of the Jedi. Too much TV! MB crashed around one, but I had had Vietnamese coffee in the afternoon so I was up till almost three.

In the morning, we called my parents. My mom liked the Snuggie though it’s a bit big for her, and sounded happy and not worried for once. My dad thanked us once again for the wine, then kept MB on the phone for quite a while, just chatting, which makes me laugh because he’s not usually a big talker.

I was also delighted to find out that my father is reading my copy of The Secret History. I was surprised since he doesn’t usually read contemporary literature. Such a good book! He said at first it was boring, but now he’s very interested in unraveling the mystery.

In the afternoon MB and I saw Sherlock Holmes at the Sundance Kabuki theater. It was packed! I guess the movies is the place to be on Christmas Day. The movie was fun but not amazing, not like Avatar. Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law were great, as were the sets, but I didn’t find the storyline too exciting.

My popcorn was delicious though. Splurge!

For dinner MB cooked up a couple of cornish game hens. They were smoked but he also bisected them and fried them in peanut oil. As well there was wild rice and shitaake mushroom stuffing and a lovely arugula and tomato salad.

Everything was yummy. Those little hens have a lot of meat on them. I was only able to eat half of one.

Later in the evening, we wanted some dessert. We expected to find nothing open, but quite a few restaurants were, surprisingly. We stopped at the Vietnamese place near us – where we get our evil and delicious cafe filtre – and MB got fried banana a la mode. By then I decided to be healthy and just had some yogurt instead.

Today most places are open again. I worked out – yay! – then we had lunch at Mel’s, this kind of cheesy, ’50s style diner on Van Ness. The food was decent though. I had pancakes, a fried egg, AND bacon – oink! Now we’re back at one of our favorite cafes, Wicked Grounds.

I applied for a job this morning. This art school is looking for a marketing writer. The idea of doing marketing again isn’t ideal, but it’s writing copy as opposed to developing bullshit strategy. I’m also going to apply for a temporary librarian job at SFPL. That may be a better fit for me: it’s no more than twenty hours of week, and I’d be filling in at whatever branch needs a substitute.

Today I need to:

Revise Corporate Celebrations article – For my freelancing gig. After several years of scheduling a variety of celebrations at my old company, I have plenty of material.

Revise “The Beautiful Girls” – For The Nervous Breakdown. It’s about my junior high/early high school years, and the friends I had then.

Revise/submit “Buzzed: My Love Affair with Coffee in Nine Parts” – For another publication.

Getting to work!

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22
Dec 09

Being a lazy bum

I’m being a lazy bum this afternoon. The TV’s on (Steel Magnolias), the heater’s whirring, and I’ve got almonds and cranberry juice (trying to relatively healthy).

I should be finishing up the article that’s due tomorrow. Rosemary Oil to Get Rid of Acne. Exciting. Apparently rosemary has a lot of good qualities – antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial. And using an oil cleanse on oily skin is supposed to be better than soap.

This is the second acne article I’ve done. Will look for something different for next week.

I feel like I’ve been neglecting my blog so I thought I’d do at least a brain dump. This weekend MB and I saw Avatar in 3D. I kept hearing it was supposed to be a bomb, but it was really good. I mean, I know it was cheesy and the story was predictable, and the Na’vi are basically Native Americans, but I still got totally sucked in, the way I got sucked into Titanic. I cried at both.

Plus the special effects were really amazing. The Na’vi had so much expression, I’d forget they weren’t real.

We saw the movie at the Sundance Kabuki Theater in Japantown. Love that theater! It’s one where you reserve seats beforehand, which costs a couple of extra bucks, but then you have the cheaper, matinee option, which doesn’t exist in New York anymore. Also I noticed people don’t talk during the movies here on the west coast. Back east, I had grown to hate going because the audience ALWAYS chatters. Some even answered their cell phones.

Saturday I didn’t spend much time in the house, for a change. Went to the gym in the morning (since I didn’t go Friday), lunch out, movies in the afternoon, then a cafe. Sunday MB and I hung out at Wicked Grounds for a while. We like it, but there’s one Asian woman who works there who has the LOUDEST laugh. It sort of reverberates throughout the whole place.

Yesterday was just a regular day of morning writing at home, gym, lunch at home, then writing at Bittersweet. Today I wrote in the morning, hit the gym, then met MB for lunch. With the holidays, his office is pretty dead. We went out to the Mission and had really good barbecue at Baby Blues BBQ. Pulled pork, creamed spinach, and baked beans – yum! I have leftovers, which I’m tempted to dig into now. We walked all the way back, hence my currently lazy butt.

On my way home, I needed the bathroom so I popped into the Marriott on Post Street. That’s a pretty nice hotel. In the lobby there are all these tables and chairs. Seems like a nice place for drinks.

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a job. I like the way I spend my days, but I’d like to have some cash coming in. The freelancing pays just $7.50 to $15 an article, which basically pays for my gym membership. I’d prefer to have a job related to writing – or more freelance work – but it might be easier to get some low level job at a library. I’ll do some detective work.

I’m not sure I could work in an office again. Temping occurred to me – I could do it for a finite amount of time, but the idea of being in an office environment is so – bleh.

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11
Dec 09

Friday catch-up

Well, we didn’t get that apartment. On Tuesday I got a call from one of the office managers and was very hopeful, but she then she gave me the bad news. I guess they’re pretty strict about credit checks around here. I was sooo disappointed. I called back and offered a higher security deposit, but no go. She was very nice about it though.

Luckily it turned out our landlady had a couple of one bedrooms available that was she showing that day. We hadn’t bothered asking her because when we first visited in August, the one BR she showed us was much more than we wanted to pay. But since we’ve been living here a while, she was able to give us a discount.

That plus the facts that we won’t have to buy furniture, the move will be even easier, there’s a laundry downstairs (none in the building we applied for), and this place is even bigger than the other one (at least I think so, but I’m spatially challenged), taking the apartment felt like a really good decision.

Added benefit: in addition to the hall closet, there’s a good-sized walk-in that can double as MB’s studio. If that’s MB’s room, you might ask, then where’s mine? Why, the rest of the apartment of course. ;)

The weather continues to be cold here. I didn’t think it’d get this chilly so all I brought from New York were a bunch of hoodies and fall/spring jackets. I’ve been wearing a hoodie-fall jacket combo, but this week it just wasn’t cutting it. I finally broke down and got a winter coat from this sporting goods store. It’s puffy and warm as hell. Plus it was more than 50% off!

MB was jealous of my puffy coat so he ran out and got one too. It’s ridiculously huge and has a fake fur trimmed hood. He got an XL although he’s skinny so he looks like a seal hunter/pimp. I kept pulling up other ones: “How about this one? Here’s a large.” But he had made his decision. You can fit a small child under his coat but he’s toasty and that’s all he cares about.

Wednesday night we saw Silicon Valley Rocks. The bands were a mix. The first one was very good. The second was a trio in jumpsuits and Flock of Seagulls hair doing electronica dance music, which is really boring if you’re not a) dancing, or b) tripping on some sort of narcotic. The third band looked like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and sort of sounded like them, but then all of their songs sounded the same.

The fourth band did all covers. When the guy sang it was pretty good. Their rendition of Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy was fun. But the two female singers were embarrassing. They could definitely carry a tune, but their performances were like karaoke versions of Pat Benatar, Blondie, and why yes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We left after that.

Yesterday I hung out with my SF pal, and this morning I had breakfast with a longtime blog bud. We waited a while to get into Mama’s in North Beach, but it was worth it. My Farmer’s omelet – goat cheese, bacon, baby spinach, and leeks – was really yummy, and my friend’s french toast sampler was gorgeous with fresh sliced fruit. Plus we had fun chatting while people waited outside in the rainy cold (hey, we waited too).

The plan for today is hit the gym soon, and more writing! I have another essay all ready to go for The Nervous Breakdown, but I want to wait till next week since it was only a week ago that I last posted.

moving / san francisco — 1 Comment
06
Dec 09

Apartment search

Our four-month lease is up at the end of December, thank goodness. While renting a furnished sublet was a great way to find a place quickly and to not have to deal with buying furniture and other household items, we’ll be really glad to be moving to a place where:

1) we’re not forced to show our apartment in place of another, sometimes without warning, and then are told ours “doesn’t show well” with the bed out, and we should really move all our boxes from the bed storage area down to the basement, although we’ll be moving very soon

2) a surly cleaning girl won’t kick me out of my own home to take two hours to Swiffer the floors and Fantastick the bathroom

3) our bedroom, living room, and office won’t all be in one room.

We went to three open houses yesterday, and looked at six apartments. As always, we loved the first place we looked at. (The second was in the same building, cheaper but smaller.) Just two blocks away, the building used to be a residence for single working women (not THOSE kind of working women, like MB thought). The lobby is very pretty with ornate fixtures and stained glass windows.

The apartment itself is a real one bedroom with a billion closets. I can’t remember how many, at least three, maybe four. There are definitely two giant ones in the bedroom. Right now we have one small one, as we did in New York. Some NYC apartments don’t have closets at all.

The living room has bay windows, and everything is pristine. Very clean and brand new. The only downsides are that there’s no laundry in the building, though there are plenty in the area, and the kitchen is kind of small. But we both agreed: the moment we walked in, we thought, Wow! Plus the building managers seem really nice.

While we applied for that place, just to be sure we looked at a few more. The next open house was nearby. That was a no-brainer: the kitchen was part of the living room. No thanks! The next three places were in a building a little further out, in Pacific Heights near Fillmore Street. While the apartments were quite big for around the same price, everything looked very dingy and old. I asked if the walls and fixtures were being redone. Nope. I’d rather live in a smaller place that’s pristine than in a yucky somewhat bigger place.

Yucky how? The hardwood floors were scuffed up and stained in some places, the tiling in the bathroom looked used, and the fixtures in the kitchens looked like that cheap fake wood stuff that doesn’t handle water or stains well.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed about the first place, though if they don’t accept us, I don’t know what place will. Also, it’s available December 15 so we could overlap a couple of weeks and take our time moving our stuff in. That would really be ideal.

family / new york / san francisco — Comments Off
20
Nov 09

Missing New York

I really miss New York lately.

MB caught a cold and has been working from home, which means breaking up our days with strolls around the city. Walking around here is not the same as walking in Manhattan. I miss wandering through SoHo, down the cute, cobblestoned side streets lined with boutiques and cafes, battling our way through congested Broadway, and eventually getting over to Bond Street and the crazy ass building there.

Sometimes we’d hike all the way across Houston Street and pop into the Jacques Torres Chocolate Factory. Then over to the Village, still confusing to me after all these years. Being in the Village at night reminds me of when MB and I first started dating. After my company Christmas party, I was drunk and hungry so MB took me to A Salt and Battery for fish and chips. New Year’s Eve we went to P*Ong, which is now closed, sad to say.

We have yet to find a replacement for one of our favorite LES restaurants, Zucco: Le French Diner. Oh, how I miss their risotto des legumes! Their pain perdu with their mind blowingly delicious syrup! Their delectable pate and cornichon sandwiches! The French places around here seem to be more stereotypically chi chi.

Makes me want to fly back to the east coast for a visit soon.

In SF Union Square, there’s a ice skating rink and Christmas tree. It’s funny to watch people ice skating when it’s 60 degrees. Then again, it seems to be about the same in New York. Also it’s far less crowded here than around Rockefeller Center. It’s nice to be able to sit and relax, and breathe in the piney scent of the giant evergreen.

Next week it’ll be great to see my family. My parents are flying over on Sunday, and we’re traveling on Tuesday to my brother’s. My aunt from Connecticut is also going over at some point. Thursday we’ll all go over to my uncle’s, where my parents will be staying while my uncle and his family are away, to help look after my grandmother. It’ll be the first time I’m seeing her in more than two years. In that short time, I know she’s changed a lot, and I’m a little scared about seeing her no longer vibrant. Bony instead of fat, white haired instead of dyed jet black, silent instead of loud and boisterous.

I talked to my cousin earlier this week, and she and her family are still coming on Turkey Day. Yay! The last time I saw them, their daughter wasn’t even a year old. Now she’s three.

And of course everyone will meet MB. My parents, brother, and Connecticut aunt already have, but it’ll be the first time for my grandmother and cousin. I wonder if Puo-puo will even know what’s going on. I wonder if she’ll recognize me.

friends / san francisco / writing — Comments Off
09
Nov 09

The social experiment

I’ve been trying to be more social, and last week I was actually successful.

I can’t remember if I mentioned this already, but at a recent work party, I met the girlfriend of one of MB’s co-workers. We have a lot in common: we’re both new to SF, originally from the east coast, and interested in writing. We’ve been hitting it off really well. Last Thursday we met at 2 PM to chit chat over coffee and hot chocolate. The next thing we knew it was five hours later. Crazy! I only noticed because I was getting hungry.

On Sunday I went to this writing “marathon.” As you know, I’m doing National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and was looking for a meet up. There were just a couple, and were either at weird times (10 PM to 3 AM) or way the fuck out in some part of town I’d never heard of (which isn’t saying much I guess). But then I saw a posting for a general writing meet up inviting people doing NaNoWriMo.

We met at Jumpin’ Java in the Castro at 10 AM. I’m ashamed to admit I still don’t have a handle on SF public transit and so either walk everywhere or take cabs. Sunday I took a cab.

At first I thought I had the wrong street because it seemed to be all houses. But there nestled on a corner was the cafe.

I got a lot of work done very quickly. It was both comforting and energetic to be surrounded by six or seven other people also writing. You’re buffered from the freaks, and there’s also this unspoken, subtle pressure to KEEP WORKING. The organizers scheduled it pretty well: 10 to 11:30, writing; 11:30 to 12:30 break for lunch; 1 to 2:30 more writing; another break; and then the end of the day. The scheduled breaks keep people from chatting too much, and give you a target to work towards.

As for lunch, when you walked in, they had you write down your order so the cafe could prepare everything beforehand. By the time 11:30 to 12 rolls around, they have your sandwich or whatever all ready, and you just pay. And then to sit there and eat and talk about writing was really nice.

I thought I’d stay all the way till 4, but I pooped out by the 2:30 break.

Afterwards I met MB in Union Square (walked this time), and from there we took a little stroll around SoMA and hit another cafe we like in the area. Thank goodness the game show host barista wasn’t there. It made hanging out so much more peaceful.

By the time we headed home, it was after 5:30. I had been out the whole day, from 9:30 on. Wow!

Today I made up for it by being a bum and writing at home. Around three I decided I really wanted some chocolate, did some Yelp research, and found the Blue Fog Market. It’s a little bit of a schlep, but I thought a walk would be nice, and I wanted to stop at the Macha Cafe along the way, which someone on Yelp described as having Japanese-style snacks.

But they don’t. I was very disappointed to find a totally American menu. I asked the woman about the Japanese snacks, and she said they used to have some, but not anymore. Bummer! I had wanted a green tea and a mochi. Instead I got a peppermint tea and a croissant, which actually really hit the spot. Next time if I want Japanese snacks, I’ll just go straight to Japantown (which is where I hung out and ate my croissant anyway).

The Blue Fog Market was equally disappointing. I mean, they had some fancy stuff, but it wasn’t that great. Plus the chocolate was way more than I wanted to spend. On the way back, I stopped in a random grocery store, and they had just what I wanted. A small bar of dark chocolate for under $3, and which will last me a good week.

I forgot to mention: when I was telling my mother about the writing meet up, she said, “Oh, it’s for other housewives?”

Hunh? First off, I said, “It’s for writers.” Secondly, “It’s on Sunday,” ie, not on a work day. Third, does she think I’m a housewife?

I don’t know how my mom’s brain works sometimes.

family / san francisco — 2 Comments
08
Nov 09

Full Circle

I was telling someone the other day about how my parents met here in Berkeley, and how I was born in Oakland.

“You’ve come full circle,” she told me.

My parents were born in China but left during the Communist Revolution. My father was about ten, and my mother eight. While their families had been well off on the mainland, in Taiwan they were poor. My mother always talked about how there was never enough to eat – no milk, no meat. Her father was a teacher and didn’t make much money, and there were five kids to raise.

My father had just one sister, seven years his senior, but I don’t know if they were worse off. His father had stayed behind in China. I’m still not sure why. Something about his job being government-related. When I was kid, my mother told me how my paternal grandparents’ marriage had been arranged, the handsome engineer and the plain, even ugly, farm girl, and that eventually my grandfather would marry someone else and raise her daughter as his own while his wife struggled with their two children in Taiwan.

I don’t know how she did it. She wouldn’t have gotten a job. Maybe her daughter, already 17, was the breadwinner, while she and her mother told my father to concentrate on his studies. I knew he felt guilty. My grandmother stayed with us for a while and once used old magazine pages to wash a dirty pot.

“Why use that garbage?” my father yelled, which he almost never did. “We have perfectly good paper towels.”

Now I think, What a good idea to use recycled magazines. What a waste to use paper towels.

My parents came to the States in the mid-60s, part of the wave of Taiwan folks going to American grad schools. My mother went to accounting school in Utah, where she also worked as a nanny. What culture shock that must have been. When I was crazy with homesickness in China, my father told me how my mother had been the same way, crying every night to her mother that she wanted to go home to Taiwan.

But she got used to it here, discovering things like chocolate. A sweet tooth, my mother would eat bags of it while riding the bus to and from work. Little did she know it was fattening, and promptly gained twenty pounds.

My father came to the States to go to UC Berkeley, and I know less about how he adjusted. In the Bay Area he probably fit in better, and was busy with school. The only story he told was how one of his professors didn’t like him. She had asked her students to order their own lab coats. My father didn’t understand, and when next class he showed up without one, she took personal offense and from then on, held a grudge against him.

After finishing grad school, my mother moved to the Bay Area too. Her older sister lived nearby, and she had lots of friends from Taiwan there, including one who thought the tall, quiet PhD student would be a perfect match for her. The friend and her husband held a mah-jongg party, where my parents first met.

It took a while for my shy father to ask my mother out. In fact, she had to pretend to want guitar lessons to spend time with him. “Pretend?” my father said, twenty-five years later when I relayed the story my aunt had just told me.

A year or so later, they were married, and a few years after that, I was born in Oakland. Now here I am again, over thirty-five years later.

I don’t know how long MB and I will stay here, but it would be funny if we stayed long enough to have kids. Then I’d have truly come full circle.

random / rant and/or rave / san francisco — 2 Comments
03
Nov 09

10 Random Things

I have this inexplicable sharp pain in my ankle. It’s not like I twisted it. It’s like I’m being stabbed with a needle, but there’s no mark. It comes and goes, and seems worse after I run. Weird.

I’m at 3,869 words for NaNoWriMo, which means I’m slightly ahead. I signed up for a writers’ meet up (yay for being social!) this Sunday. It’s a marathon session of writing at a cafe, from 10 AM to 4 PM, with snack and lunch breaks.

I was planning on growing my hair out into a bob, but I don’t know if I can stand it. I may end up chopping it all off again.

I dreamed the other night that I was at a show with my family. We were two hours early, and we all dispersed and agreed to meet up later. Then I found out they had all had dinner together and didn’t tell me. I kept yelling at them but found I had no voice. My aunt shrugged like, “Oh well.”

I started reading Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Rings, book number one on the BBC top 100. I like it so far, but I’m glad I saw the movies a billion times so I know what’s going on.

The crying I kept thinking was a newborn baby is actually a cat. I realized this last night when the cat seemed out of control.

The people in my building are drunk with power. 1) The cleaning girl – the same one who gave me a hard time a few weeks ago – grilled MB the other night about whether or not he actually lived here, despite the fact that he had keys. You really think you’re going to remember all seventy odd people who live here? Unless you’re the doorman who sees people come and go all day, you just won’t.

2) Some dude informed me the other day that the exterminator had to come up to *my* apartment that exact moment even though a) there are more than sixty other units in the building, b) I was in my robe, and c) MB was in the shower. He generously gave me half an hour, and we rushed out of there. Then it turned out the exterminator was only doing the first two floors.

The Whole Foods near us is old school. The check out lines are set up traditionally – you unload your groceries on the moving belt while the anxious person behind you climbs up your ass to unload their stuff. The newer set ups are way better: you wait till your number flashes and then it’s just you and the cash register person.

Today is Free First Tuesday. In other words, the first Tuesday of the month all museums are free. This afternoon I’ll probably check out SF MoMA.

Just three weeks till Thanksgiving! MB and I will be flying to LA, where we’ll stay with my brother. My parents and aunt will be staying with with my grandmother nearby, and my cousin and her husband (the famous Huang Lei and Shane) and their daughter will be joining us on Turkey Day. It’ll be the first big family Thanksgiving I’ve ever had (in-laws don’t count). Usually it’s just me and my parents since my bro’s out here. Should be fun.

Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.