bear

Being away for a week and then out of commission due to covid for another week plus after that means that I'm slightly confused it's November, feeling out of step with time. I mean, that's felt like the new normal for almost five years now? *shrug* We skipped Halloween because neither of us was up for fighting crowds to get last-minute candy on October 31, but at least our next-door neighbors decided to spread the quirky internet potato love to our neighborhood.

Getting back into the swing of things meant choir for the first time in three weeks, first rehearsal with our brand-new orchestral conductor. Overall, I think things went pretty well, but we have got to get our noses out of the scores because there were a couple of movements where he is clearly conducting for a faster tempo than we are keeping up with, heh. I need to email the sopranos about "seriously, we know this better than we think, EYES ON KEDRICK PLZ," and it makes me understand conductors in other choirs that were just like "nope, we are doing this concert sans scores because at least your eyes will be glued to my baton," hahaha. Carmina Burana next Friday, November 8, at the Paramount, for anyone local to the Bay Area :)

Likewise, making it to coffee ride for the first time in a month this morning. Out the door before sunrise, biking with friends through West Oakland to Proyecto Diaz, mazapán latte and a pumpkin mole tamale on the (giant!) patio. They keep improving their outdoor space - there are now *swings* there, and it's an easy ride up the Mandela Parkway, only a couple of blocks from Raimondi Park where the Ballers play. (Instagram has been the opposite of subtle re encouraging us to pick up season tickets for next year; I expect our Facebook ads to be full of this by the end of the weekend.)

I do need to get in a run or two this weekend, and probably two more next week, just to re-establish lung function dependability; I'm running the Pacific Grove 5K Saturday morning. Hopefully it should be relatively cool - not as cold as when I was running in New York, but a morning run along the coast in the high 40s/low 50s should feel comfortable. Maybe spend the afternoon at the aquarium, then head over to Mezzaluna to carbo load hyounpark for his corresponding half-marathon on Sunday. My Sunday plan is to sit on the patio at Alta at the 1 mile mark of his race. Eat a yummy breakfast and debate between the maple peppercorn latte and the passionfruit-jasmine mimosa and devour whatever book I end up bringing with me and then meander down to the finish line and stuff H full of bananas and recovery drinks. Stop by Elroy's on our way to the highway, and then make our way back up the coast, hopefully before the traffic gets too bad. (And when it does, usually by Union City, we'll hop off and go to Jollibee. :D )

Just trying to ignore that there's an - as always now, consequential - election between now and then. And that we have 300 pages of reading to do this weekend to be relatively informed for the downballot races and propositions on said ballot, sigh. At least there's new Vienna Teng music getting us through it?

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.)