bear

It has been an exhausting year or three, but I am ready for this long December coming up. We'll actually be spending the vast majority of it away from the frigid Northeast! December 3, we'll fly out to San Francisco and have half a day in the city, then the next morning, we leave for HAWAII! I've never been, and I'm excited to get to go for a milestone birthday celebration :) We'll spend a week on the Big Island with my parents, then three days on Oahu with a college friend, and then fly to LA for the second half of December and the Park Family Christmas. Sad to miss Jewmas this year, but gosh, am I looking forward to this long holiday.

With that in mind, I would like to thank Joanne Chang of Flour and Tracy Chang of Pagu for making our Thanksgiving takehome meals this year; we just could not with everything. Sticky rice stuffed Cornish hens from Pagu, sticky buns from Flour, I pulled together mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry sauce, and we were done. And it certainly qualifies as part of an Asian American Thanksgiving! Next year, we'll do better.

How have we been friends for over two decades already?!

Five years ago, just before 9 am, I puttered off to the bath; it was a hot September Tuesday morning and I didn't have to be at work until 10. I'd been chatting with theducks and kudzita and several others since the sun had woken me earlier, golden dawnlight through my window warming the walls and drawing me out of bed hours before I had to be at work.

( that day, content warning for everything 9/11 )

I went back to work later that week; I joined a choir again a few weeks later. I sang at various memorials; at one of them, I got a phone number on a napkin from a boy for the first time ever. If anything, I travelled more that winter, spending time with those I loved in faraway places. I went down to New Haven, twice. I went home for Christmas, then up to Portland and Seattle to visit West Coast friends, and rang in the new year in Vancouver chez pukajen; on the way home, we stopped at a steakhouse, and thanks to prime_meridian and ascian3 and sleipnir, I finally understood what delicious steak could be. I started a long-distance relationship with a guy in DC thanks to geebee_x, and flew into National multiple times, becoming quite familiar with the DC flight restrictions; he actually made the first visit, on a chilly January winter weekend; returned for Valentine's Day a few weeks later; continued to come see me. All of us seeking connection with those we loved; all of us freshly reminded how fragile it all was. And at the end of that winter, I visited danialindenberg in New York (with Ingrid and Angie and Marvin), and we met up with Michelle and Peter and went down to Ground Zero to pay our respects, and for the first time, I stood at the base of the Towers-That-Were, and gazed up into the sky, following the shafts of blue light as they trailed high into the clouds, imagining what could have been.

Finally caught up on picture galleries! :)

Subjects include:
- the booze cruise
- 17-mile drive
- the monterey bay aquarium
- my 10-year high school reunion
- dania and jp's wedding

Yes, I took over 400 pictures in the last nine days. Yes, my camera is currently being held together by a ponytail holder. *grin*

( the promised trip update )

Took a couple of days to recover, and then Saturday was Meghan's 30th, and my first ever "booze cruise." And as I predicted to kazulrw, I spent all of my time running around taking piccies and none of my time actually consuming alcohol. Hee! But it was actually quite fun - there was a rockabilly cover band, and yummy little appetizers, and a cool breeze blowing in off the ocean. Then Friendly's with melissaagray and fes42 and stranger78, Apples to Apples at the afterparty, and then driving down Route 1 at 3 am. You're only as old as you feel!

Yesterday, I made the mistake of dairy when it was both 95f out and the first day of my period. So hyounpark brought me Tylenol Flavor Creator, since I can't swallow pills, and my god, this is like EXACTLY what I was hoping for as a kid. Granted, I also thought I'd be the one to invent it (since "normal people swallow pills" and thus nobody cared about making medicine taste tolerable), until I couldn't wrap my head around the chemistry involved, but still! I am going to be very sad when litigious American society eventually runs this product off the market because some idiot didn't keep their medicines locked away firmly enough, and their kid drinks an entire bottle and has to go to the hospital and the parents don't dare show weakness by assigning any amount of blame to themselves.

Anyway, it's funky. I thought it would be some sort of clear syrup that you mixed flavor crystals into, but it's a cherry-based syrup, and you get a bunch of flavor packets with the package. You pour out the syrup dosage into the measuring cup, then dump the flavor crystals directly on top, and then chug immediately. On reflection, I'm honestly not 100% sure this is actually kid-oriented, because I felt like I was doing a shot. True, I needed to take the full three teaspoon dose, and most kids will be fine with the recommended 1-2 tsp, which is much more "sip" and much less "down the hatch!"

So yes, that's how we spent our first anniversary, building furniture (well, okay, I watched) and me semi-loopy on new drugs. *snicker* We'll make up for it later, but tonight is girly night!