One week down...

It has been a week since my mom has ventured to hk with her sister. So far, we have fared pretty well! We aren't starving; we are bathed; and we are living relatively peacefully. Ni and I just about bike everywhere and are feeling like true East Bay-ers minus the hella/hecka business (what's up with that?!)

Doubly lucky for us, we have nice cousins who live close by :). They stopped by on Friday to give us some groceries, cake, and champagne to celebrate our survival and Cheryl's Birthday...well, mostly the latter ;)



It was a great way to finish a great sissy day :).
Our agenda was simple: to watch UP and whatever else we felt. Ni and I played hooky from work and took Mel out of her after-school summer program to go to Emeryville.
Our adventure actually included a lot of waiting time:
...at the bus stop; at the bart
But we eventually made it to Emeryville without a moment to spare! Just in time for the 10:10 screening of UP. It was a really cute movie and had a really sweet ending. I was really amazed by the details that went into the animation and it sparked some pretty good discussion afterward as we walked around. We did a little bit of shopping (window and actual) and had lunch at Rubio's and dessert at Ikea ($1 frozen yogurt!--how can we resist?). haha On the way back to Berkeley, we walked through Oakland along Telegraph and stopped by Article Pract and bought some yarn. I'm really excited about the yarn so that I can start Mel's amigurumi elephant :)
And well, all good things must come to an end. But I'm glad that the end was a sweet one with chocolate cake, bubbly champagne, strawberry macaroons and smiles.
...read on!...

baby strawberries!!

Today we had fun playing with the baby strawberries that grew in our backyard. They weren't very sweet but smelled really nice! I love the smell of strawberries. It's has such a pleasant scent of fruity freshness, unlike the smell of citrus or watermelon (those are two fruits that kind of make me queasy to smell).

Because they weren't very tasty, we decided to play with our food! Why not?! Such lovelies should not go to waste. :)

---

Ode to the Strawberry


Oh strawberry, how delightful you are!

You nurture us with your delectable, amazing fruit
You humor us with your edible seeds.
We only wish we could be as lovely as you.
...read on!...

Sweet Surprise

In our household, we are extremely glad that Father's Day only comes once a year. This is mainly because my dad has an odd idea of what it means to be a father. In short, I believe he gets clues from old TV sitcoms where the perceived-to-be-uncool dad plays Mr. Tough to keep the rebellious shenanigans in line which, during the process, becomes the character for comic relief. But life isn't as funny as the sitcoms make them to be.


Anyways, I started my day missing breakfast because I had to tend to his dietary needs of red bean toast with strawberry jam and an egg over easy. Then I washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen with my sisters as he lamented how disrespectful children are these days that how people, unlike himself, just don't know how to think. I beg to differ. After wards, he sent us to do some yard work, pulling out some pretty defiant weeds in the backyard. Luckily, he is an injured man and let us be. Just as I was feeling that this day would turn out to be pretty bleak, this is what we found:



Baby strawberries growing in our very own backyard! I took this to be an optimistic symbol of the silver lining behind every gray cloud and a note conveying that everything will be alright. As much as I regret not having a better day, what has happened has happened and there is nothing to do about it except move forward. My older sister is very mature about topics like these, and my younger sister celebrated the situation by eating a strawberry.
Cheers to the glitters of hope that sustains us! ...read on!...

Bolinas Beach

According to Professor Rich, a lab education is never complete without a Bolinas Beach bonfire! And what a fun experience it was, especially since it was my first time going to the beach since moving up here. Bolinas is a cute little town on the other side of the bay and the drive to there was extremely picturesque. The roads were a bit windy but the view was amazing with trees, mountains and aquatic entities (lagoons, marshes....i'm not quite sure). It was amazing how quickly the landscape changed from a city to a "wilderness".




Bolinas itself seemed like a really close knit community with loads of dogs. Robert, Vicki, Natalie, and I walked around a bit and came across this artist's shrine.






We also came across this funny little dog who got itself stuck on top of a phone booth. How it got there...we have no idea; how it'll get down...same story!




In any ways, we had a lot of fun walking around the beach, enjoying the view, playing with Francis the dog, and hanging with a lot of Dutch/lab people. We grilled corn on the cob and hot dogs (which were delicious!). I like hot dogs that are a bit warty from the high heat and the dog that I had was a chicken mango sausage and it was really really good. but then again, it's tastiness may have been due to the ambiance. There were some garden burgers too but they were not as successful as the hot dogs on staying on the grill. There was sand, champagne, cheese and crackers. It was a fun fete! cheers to summer!! :)
...read on!...

how much is a brain worth?

This is my brain :) I'm quite proud of it. Way back in March, I volunteered to be a subject for Nola's fMRI study and it was really fun to lie down in the machine and do little tasks. It was actually a sleepy experience (from the strong magnetic field(???)) and at the end, I wished that my bed could be like that because sometimes I have difficulty falling asleep. HAHA Anyways, I was compensated quite well for this fun experience which allowed me to afford:


...a lunch at Gregoire's with ninili. (she also did an fMRI study for Dav on the day that we had a picnic luncheon)



and this is what was on the menu; Bay Scallop Quesadillas and a garden salad:






and basically....i think ni can be a spokesmodel for gregoire's! Look at that--thumbs up and all. It was a yummy and adventuresome day as we tried two very new things and were able to proudly say (in a quite literal fashion as well), "look what my brain can do!" ...read on!...

Come What May:

Seeing as I haven't posted in nearly half a year, it's time to recollect and reflect on what exactly I've been doing with my life.

In short...I've been lazy lazy lazy and most utterly selfish for trying to keep all my experiences inside my head. Studies in memory show that overtime, things that we vividly recall (aka remember) degrade over time to become things that we just happen to know as facts. I don't want my "youth" to eventually become facts--I would like to hold on to those moving pictures in my mind as long as possible.
THUS! I am making a summer resolution to photograph my life thereby priming memories into picturesque being. :)

Cheers to that! ...read on!...