Chinese food

Blogging on the go is certainly a welcome addition to my bag of tricks, but I'm still working the spotty formatting that comes with the territory. What looks fine on the phone has some dubious line breaks and that means I have to get back into blogger, eliminate all the "br" html from the page, and then republish it. Not difficult by any means, but a hassle nonetheless. So for now i'll be emailing myself the post, and just plugging it up on blogger when I get to a computer. I could always write directly to blogger, but then anxiety causes my brain to freeze up and i'll have nothing to write about.

One of the things that my Mum enjoys is to watch the kids, especially Alex, eat Dim Sum. So we went again today, and the boy was trying to eat his equivalent in weight. Everything that was put on his plate was devoured with precision and gusto. I tried not to let my hand linger too long over his plate in fear that it might get eaten too. The boy had three baos and an assorted of Siew Mai, Har Gow, and other assorted goodies. As always, by the end of the meal I turned into the human recycling project, eatiing all the leftovers that others couldn't or wouldn't finish. Leftover Dim Sum is not any good, so I might as well just eat the damned things.

But Alex would maneuver his chopsticks patiently, squeezing the two sticks with enough pressure to get the food in his mouth. And then he was in his own world, chewing on the food and just enjoying the bountiful tastes dancing on his tongue.

He doesn't quite believe he's Chinese, but he did choose a dragon t-shirt today because he knew he was going to have "china food". He knows that grandma and Daddy are Chinese, but he has a different idea about what it would take to make him Chinese. Zoe also did well, perhaps their appetite in the morning is a little stronger and more adventurous, who knows.

Well, the tough part of planning for our road trip to San Fran is done. I got a room through hotwire and so now, the vehicle and lodging accomodations are done. Now we just have to worry about time management, what to see in the city, and how much advil and dramamine to pack. I've got some pretty good ideas, but now with my sidekick's internet accessibility coupled with my GPS, I'm practically unstoppable.

I welcome and dread the return to work tomorrow. Earning money is a good thing, but I just wish there was actually something to do at work. But it certainly is the end of me taking extra days off. I've already burned through half my PTO so far.

Alex is like the terminator of trouble. He scans the room, looks for the thing he's not supposed to do the most, and gets to it. Was I ever this cheeky? I think later on in my childhood, maybe.

Nice, he just kicked me in the neck. Paralysis will soon follow.

Yesterday was a Clown Day

Too lazy to post individual photos, so I'm sticking the whole flash slideshow on the page.

Anyway, we weren't going to go out yesterday, but since the weather was so nice and the sun was beckoning us to go out and get its warm goodness, we went to Chinatown to catch their celebration. Last year we went to the same thing, and it was overcrowded, with no place to sit, and we didn't have fun at all. So we decided to head out earlier this year, went down there about 40 minutes before it started, only to be turned away because they said they're not letting anyone in till noon.

We trolled around until then, and then got some nice photos outside of the lion dance. But even though we stood in line to get in, after the crowds gathered for the lion dance, the line was just absolute garbage. By the time we went it, all the seats, which weren't many, were already taken. So we did the same annoying thing we did last year, which was to set the kids on top of our shoulders, to watch the performances. And like last year, because Alex is like 40 pounds, I got tired really quickly, so down he went. And we didn't last past ten minutes. I got irritated because the venue did not ensure that there were enough seats to accomodate the crowds, and it's not like it's a surprise. Seriously if they moved the vendors out of there they could have more seating. It's a stupid, stupid setup.

So we wandered around Chinatown, but everything was just crowded and too boisterous. At one point I was crossing the road, and some idiot decided to go in reverse, always hitting Alex and me. You couldn't get a seat anywhere to eat. We killed some time, and then tried the train station again, but again, no seating, and left again. We headed toward home, but went to Marymoor park so that the kids can get some playground time.

After that, we headed home while the kids were watching a movie, I laid in bed with my iBook waiting for photos to download, and I fell asleep for like 3 hours. Needless to say, I woke up very confused, and hungry for human flesh. After devouring one of the neighbors, I decided that hey, I'm just screwed for the day. So I proceeded to not do any work for the rest of the day, perhaps the best decision I made all day.

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Not very often do I find the need to talk about celebrities' hair, but Britney Spears just made everyone's jaw drop yesterday morning by shaving her head. And then watching the video footage of some eyewitness made me sad, because the people in the crowd were acting like high school hecklers. They were saying the usual, "oh my god" and other expressions of disbelief, but when she came out to go to her car, people were saying things like, "How do you like your haircut" and just mean things. I feel a little sorry for her, and I don't know why she decided to shave it all off. But I did that once too, in college. Just was tired of it all. I was sick of trying to look a certain way, and I didn't want to deal with my hair, so I just shaved it all off. It was kind of a spiritual cleansing in a way, a screw you to what I thought people were thinking of me. It's a rebellious middle finger to trying to maintain an image, and I'm sure she wasn't just doing it because she was being wacky.

Would I shave my head again? No. Did I regret doing it? Not really. After that I pretty much didn't obsess as much as to how I looked like. I still do, but not as much.

It's Me!

DSC00686, originally uploaded by KateChan.

I looked into Flickr and since I saw so many cameras out, I thought I'd find myself... and there I am in the red shirt!

Some Photos

They were both sitting on a cement block that held up the handicapped parking sign, and both mesmerized by the activities.



I love this shot because it's such a wonderment type shot. I think even though we don't see his face, one could imagine what it'd be like.



I wanted to take a photo of Alex smiling pleasantly as he was enjoying the Lion Dance, and I was surprised that he lifted up his hand to kind of acknowledge me. In the other photos, he looks like he's trying to block his face, but he was just giving me a nice little, "Hi Dad" wave.




At the end, it became all worthwhile - we hadn't planned on going up to the dancers, but other parents were doing it but we managed to finagle one last photo op just as they were leaving, and Alex got his wish. He was holding his hand out through most of the Lion Dance because we teach him if he wanted stray cats to come to him, just hold out his hand and wait for them to come to you. So he held his hand out, hoping for contact. So when the Lion bent down and even let Alex put his hand in its mouth, you know the little boy had a pretty neat day...