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So relieved the rain cleared up in time for the Lunar New Year 5K hyounpark and I did this morning in Chinatown!

I know, what, these words coming out of my mouth? But bike friends convinced me to sign up for the Hot Chocolate 5K in January, and I figured that was manageable, a one-time thing with friends and chocolate and a nice jacket for swag, and also Golden Gate Park makes for a pretty course. Then Rachel persuaded me to come out for a 7K in my town in February because community ties and meeting your neighbors and climbing my second of the four big hills in our town (Cutting and Moeser down, Barrett and Potrero to go) and cute bandanas. And then I told Hyoun we were doing the LNY 5K because the tech tees had dragons and also I needed cute long-sleeve exercise tops. His reaction: “YOU’RE FINALLY COMING AROUND AND IT ONLY TOOK 18.5 YEARS! 😍😍😍”

And now the Oakland 5K is in two weeks … which is kind of establishing a pattern of me averaging a 5k every month? Um. Lesson learned: make the swag cute enough and I’ll fall for it. (I know, I know, pukajenhas been priming this pump for years, too, as a friend and Orca Running ambassador ;) ) (Original post.)

14 years married as of today! Still the best choice I made, to love you, to continue loving you through all the twists and turns of our lives. You’re the bestest. (Original post.)

Valentine's chez us: @smittenkitchen's Belgian chocolate cakelets in heart-shaped tins. Light and cakey but still uber-chocolatey.

I was never one of those little girls Imagining My Wedding Since I Was Five. When I was five, I got this idea in my head that you had to marry somebody with the same birthday as you, even though I knew my mom and dad had different birthdays. But the only person I knew who I shared a birthday with in my Catholic kindergarten was another girl, how was I ever going to find someone to marry?! (Yes, I learned about girls who liked girls once I transferred out of Catholic school, LOL. But that still left me knowing nobody else who shared my birthdate!)

After that got straightened out, I stopped caring about weddings until I started being in serious relationships 15-20 years later, and even when hyounpark and I were planning our own wedding, making all the little choices and doing every last tedious bit associated with it - five years later, ( what do I remember? )

I'm a foodie, and I couldn't tell you what food we had at our wedding because I think I got to eat maybe two bites of it? There were M+Ms in various shades of blue and white and I remember that because we got our names printed on them!

Still, there is this:



And everything after.

(Three weeks ago, my brother's wedding started 20 minutes late because there was a miscommunication about the programs and we had to make a surprise last-second 15 mile round trip back to the hotel to retrieve them because primarily English ceremony with written guidance in Chinese. I joked to the pastor as we ran out to the car that we were upholding family tradition. He seemed a bit alarmed by that.)

Thing I want to tell hyounpark when he gets home tonight: "Biking makes me go PAITING!" ;)

That, and happy anniversary. <3

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I biked 13.5 miles on Friday after months of being out of the saddle, and it was awesome, aside from some knee pain that indicates it's time I move my seatpost up to the appropriate height, rather than the height designed to let me touch the ground while still in my saddle when I'm at a stop. I mean, it's only been two years since I started biking again ...

I got up at the crack of dawn to meet up with a bike convoy starting in Davis and heading down along the river. I love biking with other cyclists, and this definitely made tackling certain parts of the route easier - the Longfellow Bridge; Cambridge Street in downtown; the tunnel under the Harvard Science Center (which I will never repeat unless in another group, because the visibility factor is just too low and the cars in too much of a hurry). But the ride along the river is always lovely. Plus, they fed us breakfast when we got to City Hall! (Burritos of burnination, I called them - I got one first thing when I got there, and it was still too hot to eat by the time I had to leave, despite unwrapping it immediately.)

( pictures of the biking lifestyle, only two of which actually have bikes! )

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It's shaping up to be a busy June. We're kicking things off with our oh-holy-god ten year college reunion and several days in the Pioneer Valley to see old friends and partake of many delicious things. The weekend after that is Wellesley Reunion, and some of hyounpark's old friends will be in town for that, so we will probably crash the party. ;) The weekend after that, we'll be in Denver visiting some of my fambly (and meeting A VERY CUTE BABY who I need to buy a present for; we'll just be missing his 100-day celebration). The weekend after that, we'll be in Seoul for Hyoun's cousin's wedding. (And Hyoun's birthday. And our five-year-dateaversary.) The weekend after that, we'll probably be in Knoxville. The weekend after that we are not going ANYWHERE. :P Except maybe I'll venture down as far as Union Square to go to that farmers' market. Woo, two whole miles from home!

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Speaking of farmers' markets, they are FINALLY back in town! I went to markets just about every other day this week, and the early strawberries are sparse but amaaazing. We're still working our way through a nommy loaf of french bread; spread with ricotta and jam, or hummus, it's provided us with several delicious all-local breakfasts.

I also picked up some asparagus, which I'm going to pair with some chive ravioli for dinner. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Soon. I should probably go figure out what we're eating tonight - honestly, probably more of the awesome french bread. It's hot and I'm lazy. ;)

Happymaking: our engagement photos!

hyounpark, reading over my shoulder: "Wait, STDs, what?"
ursamajor: "Save the Dates. Apparently, it is standard practice in the Wedding Industry to abbreviate 'Save the Dates' as STDs."
hyounpark: "Wow, that's like, not even the third thing I would assume that abbreviation to stand for."
ursamajor: *puzzled* "The first is obvious, but what's the second?"
hyounpark: "Oh, standard."
ursamajor: "... see, I wouldn't have gotten 'standard' out of STD unless it was actually STDEV for standard deviation."
hyounpark: "Now who's the geek!"

Wedding Season 2009 continues; pictures from slwands and Kristen's wedding a couple of weeks ago are here! ❤ ❤ ❤ my Backstreet Boys, I mean my Taplin Boys. 47 weeks till their Reunion performance! We had Antonio's on the way to Judie's! And the Lone Wolf was a delicious new discovery :)


( piccies )

Before that, Hyoun and I were able to sneak in a Tuesday night date slash slightly belated dativersary and birthday dinner at Garden in the Cellar. Parsnip truffle soup, burrata with fig paste, foie gras with fluffy sugar doughnuts. Nom.

Also, slightly belatedly: nine years of constantly refreshing my friendspage. Love you all, xfr kids, even if none of us quite qualify as kids anymore.

Why I am now standing at the stove instead of watching the game:

Bottom of the 7th: I'm making peach chutney. I've set a timer. Mighty Mite at the plate, men on first and third. Petey gets a nice single into left and drives in a run. The timer goes off. Papi takes a strike. I have to go rescue my chutney before it burns. I walk to the stove, and as soon as I pick up my spatula, hyounpark is all, "DEEP RIGHT! DEEP RIGHT!" Papi hit a homer!

Bottom of the 8th: The chutney has cooled. I go back up to the stove to pack it up. JD Drew hits a homer!

UM YOU GUYS I'M NOT THAT SUPERSTITIOUS BUT, BUT, BUT.

AND THEN COCO CRISP DROVE KOTSAY IN WHEN I WENT TO STIR THE CHOCOLATE POT DE CREME OMFG

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( hungry mother is YUM OMG )

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( you spoony bard, or why I am always the little spoon )

Happy birthdays, girlmitzi and slwands and androshd!



I am marrying a person whose response to this video consists of:

hyounpark: "Yeah turtle! You tell that cat who's who. 'You can't fight this! I gotta shell!' Keep going, turtle! That's right, you know what you're doing! Unrelenting turtle! RAAAR. Uh-huh, that's right, cat, you better run away! Bye, kitteh-kitteh! Wark. Yeah, another cat! You don't know any better, you better stay away, that's what I'm talkin' bout! You know, this is my turf!"

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In the last week, besides Mario Karting at every free moment possible, I have also:

- had a BJ Novak look-alike sighting at Punjabi Dhaba! Almost spilled my pineapple lassi on him. Hyoun mocks because he loves, sigh.
- gone shopping with jennifer, jpallan, and volantwish
- had an elements bear mochi ice cream and gossip to my doorstep (NTS: the bubble tea shop near the K-School has a larger, more Westernized flavor assortment than the candy store in the Porter Ex.)
- gone drinking and tapas-ing with Hyoun's b-school friends. This included feather boas and princess tiaras:


- managed to throw a baseball all the way from the pitcher's mound to home plate
- walked absolutely everywhere. To and from noghri's on Sunday; home from Cuchi Cuchi Thursday. Gorgeous days. Then it got cold again and I had to find LONG SLEEVES. Protest!

Happy belated birthdays, hotsauce and stevieg!

SO GORGEOUS OUT ALL WEEKEND. So glad to spend this time out in the sunshine with people I love. :)

- aforementioned shindig to celebrate david_grana defending his dissertation

- hosting a barbecue Friday night! Learning *how to* actually go about barbecuing, thanks to the visiting rustnroses. ;) jennifer and david_grana brought over Brawl; stevieg and elyssa joined up in time for ice cream at Christina's. :)

- hyounpark wakes me up Saturday morning with, "It's absolutely gorgeous out, let's go have lunch at Judie's!" Judie's is out in Western Mass. We have to be back in Allston for Seder at 5:30 pm. We drive out anyway. Viva Pioneer Valley Food Runs ;)

- richenza has reset the bar for Seder food rather high. *g*

- Her friend T. makes really freakin' funny faces; when I have resolved camera-computer issues, I may share some of those expressions. ;)
- Not enough yarmulkes, so the two rabbis' sons in the room declared the roof a blessed head-covering for all of us. *ggl*
- We failed to MAAAAAAA at fractalspackle this year during Had Gadya. :(
- craftattack_rss made horseradish jelly, which was actually pretty damned good. I'd eat it on all other nights.
- The Manischewitz shots *bounced*. Next year, we'll go one better - make them in Star-of-David cookie cutter molds, so we'll have properly Jewish Jello Jigglers for Pesach Time.
- sandboxdiva was the only newbie this year and thus the only one required to eat gefilte fish, though amusingly enough, said fish is popular enough that we actually didn't have enough. Buh?
- No, you can't have Peanut Butter Pesach Time if you're Ashkenazi and observant. ;)

- Brunch at Z Square Sunday morning before mrieser went back home to DC. Making horrible duck puns on a "Make Way For Ducklings" postcard being sent out to an absent friend.

- Bestowing cider donuts from Atkins on rustnroses, knowing she had a six hour drive to be endured.

- Puttering around Cambridgeport yesterday afternoon - finally dropped that book off at jennifer's that I've been meaning to for awhile; visited with jpallan and acerbic and camieal for awhile and had girly time that resulted with me learning how to put my hair up in a French twist.

- Second Seder at Craigie Street Bistrot last night. YUM. When local asparagus comes in, I am so duplicating the asparagus dish I had last night; I'll just need to learn how to make gribenes. Which tasted rather like chicharones (fried pork skin, about as nonkosher as you can get!) to me. *ggl* (noghri and other local hungry Jews, they are offering a vegetarian version as well - don't know if they've still got spaces open for tomorrow, the other night they're doing this, but if you've got the time, it's well worth it. :) )

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I've also gotten to catch up with many others this weekend via the amazing device known as a cellular telephone. Dear self, stop being neurotic about thinking you're interrupting your friends' lives and being intrusive when you want to call. And also worrying about not being a conversationalist. Srsly.

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7/2/23: It is so delightfully fun reading between the lines here, with the secret hyounpark and I would be holding onto for a few more days. Mostly at my request, because there were people I definitely wanted to tell in person, or at least on the phone, before going public. But "let's go to Amherst for the day!" "Um, we have to be back for Seder and Chris found Passover Coke in Brookline so I was about to go meet him ..." Ha!

And then glowing, glowing, beaming at each other, sitting through most of the seder with the new sparkly on my finger waiting to see who would notice first if I was subtle enough. (My memory says Steve was the first to notice, quirking an eyebrow and wistfully smiling at me, but Micha was the one who, basically as soon as we were two cups in and dinner had been served, went, "Do you possibly have some news to share?" :D Though it's been long enough my memory might be mistaken!) Seeing more friends at Z Square Sunday morning who hadn't been able to make it to the seder the night before; squealing with them. More girly squee with the spr0tties; Heather shrieking as I ostentatiously handed her a bag of cider donuts with my left hand and she noticed the new adornment.

It was a good weekend. :)

Gonna be a busy weekend, so happy birthdays in advance, andrewshead and jaina!

Oh, Boston, you don't know how to cope with earthquakes, do you.

Last night: Torrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrri. Yay. :) Hey Jupiter and Crucify and Precious Things and Concertina and Take to the Sky and Hotel and Etienne and Cruel. Very weirdly hard rock and kinda '80s throughout; I was happiest when it was just her and her piano. Except when I had to turn around and tell the guy behind me to get off his goddamn cell phone, this was a *quiet* song, and I didn't need to hear him dissecting the Sox game during it.

Before that, no melissaagray's, and I saw some guy knocking on his door, so I sped up a bit to catch up. As I got closer, I saw the body shape wasn't right to be any of the usual guys ... and then I realized it was Max! Yay for surprise midweek special guests :)

Today: it is 72F and rainy outside. I am confused. It is supposed to be 66 and rainy tomorrow. I also have my first winter cold. No, I don't get it either. To smack down this cold: matzoh ball soup, tom kha gai, and kimchi rice.

Tomorrow: holy shit, little nolrak is getting married. WTF, dude, I've known you since you were *14*.

Oh gawd, Head of the Charles is tomorrow? Which means the best way to get onto the Pike is probably going to be either 93S or 2W-128S, rather than the usual JFK Bridge-Soldiers Field Road-Exit 17 ...