It's the Altitude

While I was in Denver, I heard this quote about a billion times.

"It's the altitude."

As in: "I'm so drunk and I only had a glass of wine. It's the altitude."

"I'm so tired. It's the altitude."

"My skin is soooo dry. It's the altitude."

I think that this phrase should be the official slogan of Denver.

My friend Jim said, as we were walking down the streets of Denver, "Am I just really horny or are the people here REALLY good-looking?"

I don't know. People are exceptionally attractive there. Could it be the altitude?

I don't know how they do it because, although I loved it in Denver, my skin was totally scaly and I couldn't stop taking afternoon naps, I was so tired. And yet, everyone in Denver is biking and hiking and running. I'm serious, I've never seen more in-shape people in my life. According to my friend Andrew, Denver is the thinnest city in the U.S.

I loved Denver.

The main reason? I did not have ONE BAD MEAL the entire time I was there. Yes, that can win you some converts.

My favorite place was Snooze, a breakfast place where they serve this marshmallow sauce-soaked challah bread with whipped cream sauce and rice krispies. It was like a grown-up rice krispies treat. It's the sort of breakfast that makes you want to go to this place morning, noon and night.

I was told that on weekends, the wait for a table could be as long as 2 HOURS!

We had breakfast there a bunch of times. They put a layer of hash browns in their huevos rancheros. GENIUS!!

I wish we had a place to go to like Snooze in New York. The good breakfast places tend to be divey or completely fancy.

I was telling everybody at the conference I attended about this place and my friend Jim turned to me at one point and said, "Why are you trying to sell me so hard on this place? Do you know the owner or something?"

No, I'm just trying to make your life more wonderful, but if you have enough wonderfulness in your life, well, good for you. You don't NEED the most scrumptious Cherry Cobbler pancakes ever created. Congratulations.

The last morning we were in Denver, I woke up at 5:30 am (and I am NOT a morning person) so that we could grab some Snooze takeout for the plane ride. I was so sad that I wouldn't be able to have any more of their pancakes, my friend Andrew asked the girl behind the counter if they sold pancake mixes.

Her answer was:

"Well, no, because our ingredients are secret? Because our chefs make up the recipes and they're secret so because they're secret, we can't really sell mixes, because of the secret ingredients."

Yah. I got it. SECRETS.

After we arrived home, Peter turned to me and said, "I miss Snooze."

I know honey. So do I.

Tortas! to Gorgeous!

California is full of strange juxtapositions.

Case in point:

Tortas! Tortas! Tortas! Tortas! Tortas!




About an hour later:



Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous! Gorgeous!

By the Side of the Road

Look what I found while driving in the Rocky Mountains.

Note on My Car

So Peter gets to the car and finds this:

Upon closer inspection:

Am I the only one who thinks that this is completely obnoxious?

Each time I have ever left a note on a neighbor's door, I have left my name and phone number. So that they know it's me, the annoying lady from apt #5 who is asking you to fix your air conditioner so it doesn't leak into my apartment. It's the anonymous part of the note that irks me the most.

But it kind of makes me laugh because we've lived here for almost a year now and usually we don't park the car on the street. We just happened to leave the car out for four days because neither one of us needed to move it and I guess whoever left the note just couldn't take it any longer. She must have been getting angrier and angrier every day the car was out there. The only reason I wouldn't park my car there again is that there was a ton of bird poop on the car today. They can HAVE their bird-poopy spot in front of their drivewayless house.

Although I do feel like writing this person my note:

If possible, If you can please not leave obnoxious notes on my car. It would be most appreciated because I don't like douchey notes.

Thank you douchebag

Signed by the annoying lady across the street

Easter Card: Lost

So I lost the Easter card I was going to send my mother-in-law. 

The Valentine's Day card I got her is still sitting on my end table because every time I asked Peter to fill it out, he kept saying, "Later, I'll do it later." 

And now the Easter card has gone by way of the black hole we call our living room. 

I feel like I've been spending my entire life looking for lost stuff. 

Mini-Marathon? Why?

So the Mini-Marathon last weekend almost prevented me from going to a doctor's appointment. Because of this damned thing, a zillion streets along mid-town were blocked off and no one was allowed to cross the street. Of course, this spun me in circles trying to get to Columbus Circle, where my doctor's office was and of course I was s'late. 

Instead of showing up on time, I encountered THIS:

Why do we need mini-marathons in NYC? Can't they do this in a less populated place, maybe somewhere in Omaha? 

The Family Compound

My sister Jenny and I were talking and I told her that my parents wanted to build out their house so that Peter and I could move in. When I told my mom that there is no way Peter would want to move into their house in New Jersey, my mom asked: 

"Is it because he doesn't want to move farther away from him mom? Because she can move in with us too."

I mean, isn't my mother the sweetest person on the face of the planet? Who else in the world would move in the most bitter 85-year-old on the planet? 

And Jenny said, "Well, you know she wants to build a compound so that we could all live together."

"That makes sense. That's how they do things in Taiwan. The ultimate desire in every family is to have everyone live together in a compound. Why do you think Akong has one?"

"Oh my gosh! Akong DOES have a compound! She gets it from HIM!"

My mother's father has a compound. He has several buildings flanking the main house. There are actual outdoor bathroom stalls for all the buildings peppered throughout his property. Jenny used to think it was fun when we used to chat while we pooped in adjacent stalls. Yeah, it didn't take much to amuse a four-year-old. 

"Remember the row of bus seats he had in his office that he used as a sofa?" Jenny asked. "I used to love sitting in them and thinking how funny it was that I was sitting in bus seats, but I WASN'T ON A BUS!"

"I guess since he was a mechanic, he always had stuff like that lying around. So instead of getting a sofa, he was all, 'Well, I already got THIS,'" I said. 

 I told Peter that my mom offered to move in his mom also and he also thought it was sweet. The other day, when he went to visit his mother, she burst into the guilt-tears and Peter shut her up by saying, "Ma. If you REALLY miss me so much, my wife's mother has offered to build out her house and we could all move in with her."

Peter's mom's reaction was so not,  Oh, that's sweet. It was more like, Why does that woman want to RUIN MY LIFE? Never in a million trillion years would I EVER want to live with them and you shouldn't either!

"But why would she look at a nice gesture like that in such a negative light?" I asked him.

And Peter said:

"Because she's awful."

The Guilt Complex

Today I was part of an event where I sat down with writers to talk about their short stories. Out of the 23 people I met with, I had 2 bad experiences. One lady just kind of had it in for me the moment she sat down. I felt this barrier almost immediately. And everything I said to her she resisted. 

After she left I was so frazzled that I had to take a moment when I was with the next person. It was kind of obvious that she was unhappy and I told the next guy that sometimes I rub women of a certain age the wrong way. 

"It's because I look young, but really, I'm old," I said.

He laughed and said that he had the opposite problem. 

But I do feel that when I talk to certain women they get annoyed because the feeling is that I'm this young pipsqueak who shouldn't be telling them what's wrong with their short stories. 

I once taught a GRE class when I was in my mid-twenties and although I am an EXCELLENT teacher who has increased students scores tremendously as a mercenary of knowledge, this particular group of wannabe nurses asked for a different teacher because, although I was very nice and taught the material well, they wanted someone who was older. I was older than most of them! 

I mean, I look young, but I don't look THAT young. And yes, I'm still getting carded at the movie theater. For rated R movies. Which means that people think I am 16!! God forbid I try to get two tickets for me and my 43-year-old husband for The Hangover. 

And this other guy just really felt that I missed a key element in his story---and even asked me how many times I read it. I was a bit taken aback. I had read his story TWICE! And I didn't SEE what he had intended because it wasn't there! 

I came home kind of down and feeling bad until I opened up my email account and I got a bunch of emails from other people I met today thanking me and telling me how I inspired them to work on their stories to make them better. 

I turned to Peter and said, "Why is it when I had 21 good experiences do I concentrate on the 2 bad ones? Does everyone do that?"

And he said, "Only people with guilt complexes."

Why do I have a guilt complex? It's probably because I'm an oldest sister and I was brought up believing that if I didn't help my younger siblings, then they wouldn't be able to reach their full potential and then they would live horrible lives and it would ALL BE MY FAULT.

So I went through my day and I remembered this one guy who said that he had been looking forward to our mentorship session all week and that he was SO HAPPY that he came to the event. 

I decided that THIS is what I'm going to remember about today from NOW ON.

That Teacher is a LOSER

Recently, a teacher wrote the words, "loser" on a child's exam in North Carolina. 

Now, North Carolina is a place that Peter wants to stay the hell away from because BAD THINGS have happened in North Carolina. A childhood friend of his was arrested for a crime he didn't commit and almost got convicted. So whenever we drive through that state, Peter wants to go AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, which is why we've gotten several speeding tickets there. 

Everyone has a lot of opinions about this one, but I've had my share of mean teachers. Mr. Catapano used to hand out exams and make snide comments right along the lines of "loser." Boy, was he a jerk. But back in those days, kids just sucked it up. No one ever complained to his/her mom about it, I don't think. 

The thing is that as a child, I looked up to my teachers, and I think that teachers tend to forget what it was like to be a child. An adult can say something offhand to another adult and know that whatever is said is taken with the same intent that it was said. Uhm...did I just take you down a corn maze? You got that, right? 

Children, on the other hand, tend to internalize things more and blow small stuff out of proportion. 

I remember in second grade, when my family first moved to Bergen County, New Jersey, I attended the public elementary school and LOVED my teacher Ms. Adams. I thought she was so cute with her curly brown hair and I had never encountered anyone that young who was a teacher. 

I had transferred to that school from a Catholic school in Queens which hadn't started teaching us how to read. And keep in mind, that I had just arrived in America just a year before that--so I was learning Taiwanese and English at the same time as well as trying to keep up with my first language,  Japanese. 

So yeah, I didn't learn how to read! 

One afternoon, Ms. Adams had us sit in a circle and she had her students take turns reading from our textbook. When it came time for me to start reading, I had such a difficult time sounding out the words, and I could tell that she was getting impatient, which, of course, made me all the more stumbly and stupid and made me stumble over words I already knew. Let's just say I don't do well under pressure. 

At one point, Ms. Adams took her big spiral teacher's textbook, raised it and whacked me over the head with it. Of course, I was still trying to read the words, but as I was reading, I was crying and it was SO embarrassing. The other kids just kind of stared because Ms. Adams was usually nice and this reaction was completely out of left field for us. 

Now, I don't know how Ms. Adams felt about it--she sure didn't look very sorry at the time, she just seemed SO ANGRY. And I was scared at just how angry she was--thinking back, it was SUCH a huge deal for me, but it was probably just a little blip for her. 

This memory will be with me FOREVER and that is what teachers need to understand when they deal with kids. 

Teachers represent learning and bad teachers make kids not want to learn. 

Oh, and by the way, I got into a Master's program for English that only accepts ten students out of 2,000---so even though I got off to a slow start, I'm doing just FINE with my reading skills. 

It Was a Dizastah

Last Saturday we can this crazy storm in our area that knocked out the power to 420,000 homes according to the news. We were really lucky that we were spared because I hate not having my electricity. Then the fridge just becomes a big box of rotting vegetables and what would Peter and I do if we couldn't sit on the sofa in front of our TV with our laptops? What would happen to our quality together time? 

On Sunday I went to Brooklyn and of course, had to turn around twice because there were downed trees and darkened traffic lights and scary black wires that had been toppled down.

I turned on 1010WINS. When I was younger, their catchphrase, "You give us 22 minutes. We give you the world" made me think that they were a real estate agency. 

On the air was a newsperson from Hartsdale and she was reporting on all the damage in the Westchester area. It was pretty crazy. People died when trees fell on their cars. The newsperson said, "In the weehrds of one of the firemen, 'It was a dizastah.'"

Okay. 

I don't know what made me laugh more--that she had such a thick Westchester accent, or that she thought that the "it was a disaster" quote was s'good.

I mean--It was a disaster? Really? 

How about, "The worst storm in the past 100 years and for three generations to come."

All right. THAT may be too extreme. But "it was a disaster" is almost an understatement--it is NOT something that I would have thought to myself, "Oh, I better USE that in my report on the news!"

C'mon Westchester newslady! Step it up!

Oh, yeah...

The other day, I said to Peter, "That was really stupid of NBC to let Conan go. But I think they should have thought ahead and put someone in his time slot. I mean, NOW what are they going to do after Jay?"

"Uhm," he said, looking at me like I was totally nuts. "They have Jimmy Fallon."

"Oh yeah....I totally forgot that he had a show."

SHIP!

I was watching this interview with Seth Godin and he said something that has been my mantra for the past few days and it's this:

Just SHIP!

That means, don't just daydream about your wonderful product or idea, but self-actualize it--you have to SHIP the product. Don't think. SHIP!!

So that really did get me going, especially since I have such a looooooong bucket list now that I wrote down, which was really helpful to me--to see all the things I want to do so that it's more concrete and it gives me more of an impetus to get things going. 

I am so happy to say that I FINALLY got around to opening up Photoshop and tooling around with the design of my new site. In a few weeks (hopefully this month), I'll be putting up my new site.

I will be going through my old blog posts and eliminating anything that is not good to have out there after I non-anonymize. Hmmmm, that's probably a new word I invented, along with the Italian word Totamente (which means Totally....as in, "That is SOOOOOO Totamente Awesomedente!") I'll write up a glossary some day. 

Basically, when this blog was mainly anonymous, I wrote some gripes about certain people I am related to by marriage...some people who are not very nice. 

The lesson I learned a few weeks ago when someone from my elementary school discovered my blog was the kick in the pants I needed to realize that I DO NOT want my in-laws to be s'totamente PISSED. My reasoning in the past was, "What? Like, they DON'T KNOW that they're jerks? I mean, if I acted like a jerk and someone wrote about it, I wouldn't care..."

Well, people do care. And I know that my in-laws would act the SAME WAY those people in elementary school did--they will have totally forgotten every mean thing they said or did and think I was just plain old crazy and be all, "What is HER Freakin' problem?"

So, all bad stuff about my in-laws will be done away with in a few weeks, so don't be alarmed. But before I pull everything out, I will write part DEUX about the Surprise! party, which I hadn't had the energy to do--the party turned out great, but it SUCH a mistake to invite everybody. I'll put that together in the next few days. 

On a side note, Peter and I went to Nashville about a week ago to pick up an 80's Rick. Internet, that's a vintage six-string Rickenbacker guitar. Yes, we took the dogs and drove a zillion miles to Nashville, TN to buy a Rick from a guy Peter TWITTERS with...and who says Twitter is useless? This is the sort of thing we do that makes me think sometimes that we're living out the script to some silly indie film. 

Until last month, I didn't know the difference between a twelve-string Rick and a hollow body Gretsch. Today we went to Borders and when Peter picked out Vintage Guitar magazine, I was all, "That's a Hollow Body Gretsh, Sunburst pattern Fender Stratocaster, and a 1960's Fender P-Bass." 

And Peter said, "Whoa...I think you're right."

By the way, for all of you guys in NY, the radio station WNYZ 87.7 FM, also known as the indie darkroom, is playing a few songs from Peter's old band Pepperfarm from an album Mutiny Records put out. Isn't that AWESOME? You can listen online here. 

I realized that the reason I love The Smiths so much is that distinctive feeling I get when I listen to their songs, which is, as Johnny Marr says, "turning your daydreams into sound." I also think it's funny that he says that his dream guitar is a 12-string Rick, which Peter just bought on ebay. Yeah, he's going a little nuts right now, but I'm glad he's playing again. 

I found a video that shows a Rick that looks EXACTLY like the one we went all the way to Nashville, TN to get. I've now named the guitar RiiiiiiickRickRickRickRiiiiiick, like Amy Poehler's skit she did with a stepdad named Rick. By the way, notice that there's a GUITAR STORE behind Amy Poehler in that skit? S'Twilight Zone!

What's Up With People Looking Like Sam the Eagle?

I've written about this phenomenon before. 

Stephan FRY!!

So Craig did a whole show with no audience with Stephen Fry.

Who?

Stephen Fry.

Who's that?

He was in that vampire movie.

You must be mistaken. Craig would never feature a guy on his show for a whole hour who I've never even heard of.

Why? Just because you've never heard of him, he isn't popular?

Yup. 

You know EVERYONE who's popular.

I know EVERYONE. And where do you know him from?

He was in that vampire movie. 

Yeah. That's real specific. 

The vampire movie with Tom Cruise...Interview With A Vampire.

You're thinking of Stephen Rea. Is THAT who Craig is having on his show?

No. It's Stephen FRY. I heard him say Stephen FRY. Google it if you don't believe me.

Fine. I will. 

(a minute later)

I guess you're right. Stephen Fry. 

I told you. Stephen FRY. Stephen FRY.

He's the guy from Wilde.

Oh yeah! He's the guy who played Oscar Wilde! 

You know who Stephen Rea is, right? 

Yeah, he was the guy in the vampire movie and The Crying Game. 

Remember the SECRET in that movie?

I saw that movie in Paris. And when they showed that transvestite, I was all, this better not be that BIG SECRET because I knew from the moment they showed him that it was a guy.

I thought it was a girl. 

Well, you didn't practically grow up in the Village. 

Scout's Tennis Ball

This was a dog tennis ball:

Why don't tennis balls made for dogs last as long as regular tennis balls?

If I Knew Then What I Know Now

A few days ago I found out that a blog post I wrote about a year ago had been discovered by the person I wrote about. Why? Because I actually used the person's real first and last names. That was a colossal mistake. Let this be a lesson to ye all. 

I'm actually quite embarrassed about this after having been given a stern talking to by Peter for putting the names of his family members on this web site. I had systematically gone through and changed all the names to extremely long and difficult to cull together strings of "Peter's sister's husband's children from his first wife" and "Peter's brother's wife's sister." I guess I missed that particular blog post during my slash-and-burn session. I've gone through and reworded things so that it's more generic and not quite so caustic.

The thing is that blog posts are written quite off-the-cuff and so posts get written quickly (and sometimes in an emotional rant) without input from editors...SOME people find that trait charming and others find that they would rather lie down for a colonoscopy than read some stupid girl's trite internal monologue. 

Suffice it to say that I received a ton of comments that I did not post--mostly because it ranged from, "I knew those guys in high school and they are SO NICE. You need to GET OVER IT" to "God, that guy is still SUCH an ASSHOLE." None of the comments really added more to the conversation and it actually just kind of regressed people back to junior high. 

I mean, we're all supposed to be adults now. In fact, we're all middle-aged! Wow, how did THAT happen? 

The "These guys are nice to me" comments made me laugh because people are so narcissistic that they think that the only thing that matters is their own experience. Yes, I'm sure SOMEONE loved John Wayne Gacy and thinks he was TERRIFIC. But is that what I was talking about? I mean, if I read that some kid I knew in high school acted like a bully, no matter how well I knew the kid, it's still within the realm of human behavior. This is just a pet peeve because I hate that kind of comment. It's ignorant. 

We all did stupid things when we were young. We all did extremely hurtful things to people that we never thought twice about. I'm sure that Tom from high school could rant on a blog about how once he wrote me a love note and I threw it in the trash in front of all my friends. I had my reasons, among them, when he gave me the note I told him, "I DO NOT want it," and handed it back to him four times. He thought my being a generally nice person who did not want to treat him like an outcast like everyone else was (since I understood what that felt like first-hand) repaid me in dividends I did not want. Boy, I never made THAT mistake again. 

If he had used my real name, I would have written:

You know Tom, I'm really sorry that I did that and you're quite right to post anything you want on your blog, but can you please take down the part with my last name on it because I really don't want this rant to show up first on Google when I go for a job interview and my potential boss types in my name.

It's embarrassing to go back into your childhood and see all the crap that you once did or said and I'm glad you could make a funny story out of it so people on the internet could laugh about it. In fact, it's great that we can ALL laugh about every stupid thing we used to think was so insanely important and The. End. Of. The. FUCKING. World. when it wasn't. Aren't you glad you're not 14 anymore?

If I had gotten an email like that, I would have totally dug it. And I would have posted it. AND opened it up for comments.

I think the rant I wrote wasn't really about some jerk in junior high, but it was about the whole oppressive nature of the elementary school I attended. It was all uniforms, "boys-on-one-side, girls-on-another" and "stand in line" and "open your books" and "repeat after me." Of course, that, along with the whole fire and brimstone and Jesus will send you to the devil thing. 

In elementary school, when I read the Bible, I couldn't understand it. It was so confusing being a non-Catholic in a building full of Catholics who genuinely believed that they were going to heaven just because a few drops of water fell on their foreheads as infants regardless of how callously and cruelly they acted in life. We studied the Bible in school, but it was just pretty words on a page. In their day-to-day life, the teachings of Jesus were just fairy tales and their actions were, let's just say, not full of Christ-love.  

After junior high I entered high school and the experience was like Dorothy entering Oz. Black-and-white morphed into Technicolor. I checked out of elementary school and never came back. 

In high school, the teachers wore jeans and you could call some of them by their first names. They were passionate and supportive. There was no lines and girls and boys were all mixed together. Everyone in school was there to LEARN and even as a teenager, a lot of the kids were at the top of their game. Some were dancing at the American Ballet Theatre or taking lessons at Juilliard on weekends or singing opera on Broadway when they weren't at a science lab pursuing research for their prize-winning Westinghouse project. The craziest part about this school was that the door was wide open. No one was forcing you to be in class. If you wanted to cut class, you just walked out that door. Greenwich Village was just a few blocks away, so it was pretty damned tempting. 

But if you wanted to read To the Lighthouse as a sophomore like I did, even though the whole Virginia Woolf modernist psychologically deep philosophical story with no plot whatsoever is really WAY over your head at that age, your teacher will take you by the hand and guide you through it because if you NEED TO read Virginia Woolf before you're ready, then BY GOD, WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER. And yes, it was WAY over my head and I didn't understand it at all, but when I read it now, as an adult, Mr. Greenburg's kindness makes me want to cry and that kindness, internet? That is SO VERY To the Lighthouse. In fact, that kindness is the very reason why To the Lighthouse EXISTS. 

My elementary school experience became a sort of thing that I made fun of and told people about at cocktail parties. I would tell people about that time a girl in my class accused my race of taking over everything and wanting all the jobs, and my punch line was, "Yeah, like I wanted to become a checker at the Silver Barns grocery store." 

I did not maintain one friendship out of that group of kids. I left that world behind. I saw my ex-classmates as people who were stuck in that world and I wanted OUT. 

It was meeting Peter that helped me feel differently about this because he grew up Italian-Catholic in the Bronx and came from that world of Catholic school--he was an ALTAR boy, if you can believe it. He also grew up feeling different from all the kids he went to school with and he was one of them. He became vegetarian and his friends did not get it, they're still trying to convince him to eat a Big Mac. When Peter quit his promising job at CBS to go on tour with his band, they were the first to attend his gigs and buy his band's CDs. When Peter came back home flat broke after the band naively spent ALL of their six-figure signing bonus on recording their album, his friends took him out and paid. 

I always felt that I had such a difficult time because of my race and perhaps that wasn't fair. Yes, kids made fun of me for my funny lunches and the shape of my eyes, but I really could have given as good as I got instead of retreating. I mean, IRISH people making fun of immigrants and the way we look and talk? C'mon! And at least Chinese people are known to be smart in pop culture, unlike Italians. I could have opened up a dialogue but I didn't. And perhaps I missed out on something there. And perhaps I didn't. We'll never know. 

Sent From Heaven

The past few days I've been mulling over the plot of an epistolary novel that I'm working on and I've been thinking a lot about my grandfather because one of the characters is inspired by him. For the past few weeks, I've been thinking about scenes from my childhood with him. 

My grandfather, who I called Akong, was the only doctor in a very small, rural part of Japan and his patients were mostly the older rice farmers. Some of them had spent so much of their lives hunched over their fields that they were permanently hunched over and could no longer stand upright. And yet, they were always quick to smile whenever they saw me. 

Akong's office always smelled like iodine and he had a leather examining table that had felt the weight of everyone in town. There was such a sense of security growing up in his house because whenever something ailed me, I knew that he would have all the answers. 

Akong earned his license during a time when a Taiwanese medical student had to learn Japanese and German because the professors were Japanese and the textbooks were written in German. He also spoke Russian, Mandarin Chinese, a bit of French, and since my great-grandfather understood that if his children spoke English, they would be able to communicate in any part of the world, he hired an English tutor (a real English tutor from England) for all of his children. This would explain why I have relatives who live all over the planet, including several Parisiennes and a South African uncle. 

My sister inherited his love of languages. She speaks French, Mandarin, Taiwanese, English, and Swahili fluently. 

My mother told me this story which is a scene in my novel. She said that whenever he would finish with a patient, he would come into the kitchen (his office was at the front of the house) and ask her what color she dressed me in that morning as he washed his hands by the sink below the window. And then he would search for me in the schoolyard. She said that he was always so happy to spot me and he would tell her whatever it was I was doing. Hearing my mother tell this story always made me feel so cherished. 

Akong died the day after the Chinese New Year in his sleep. He had been in good spirits because his entire family in Taiwan had visited for the holiday. He couldn't stomach the rich foods and went to bed early. The next morning, my aunt came in to check up on him and he told her to go back to bed because he was still tired. When she returned, he was gone. He was 94 years old.

When I heard the news, I thought how strange it was that I had been thinking about my grandfather so much the last few days. And then I realized that for the very first time, I was living on this earth without him. It was difficult to grasp the concept. Because he lived so far away, I told myself that I could pretend that he was still there on the other side of the world. But even as I told myself that, I knew that it would be impossible. I feel as if a part of me has become a bit untethered. Perhaps that's what we all go through and we keep getting untethered until it is time for us to leave the earth. 

I asked Peter, who lost his father four years ago, how long he mourned for his father. 

"I'm not sure how long it lasts. I might mourn him for the rest of my life," he said.

When I called my father, he told me that when he was young, his mother had taken him to an oracle of some sort and she had told them that my grandfather was a god who had been sent back down to earth. 

My father said that at the time, he didn't quite believe it, but hearing about Akong's amazingly peaceful death, he was reminded of this and thought that perhaps it was true. 

Akong was such a kind man and a gentle person. While he practiced medicine he saved countless lives and genuinely took care of his patients. He was a brother to eight sisters and truly loved his wife, so when he birthed babies, he understood that this took time and never rushed the process. Years later, women would approach my mother and tell her how lucky they were to have had him as their doctor. 

He and my grandmother taught me what love could be when you found the right person. Every morning, he would bring my grandmother a hot towel as she was waking up so that she could wash her face. Witnessing this relationship gave me the faith not to settle and to search for the right man for me. 

Akong was a lucky man. Unfortunate things did happen in his life. He lost his hearing in one of his ears as a child when an uncle clubbed him on the side of his face. He lost out on his father's medical practice when he had been sent to mainland China during the second world war. Later, he would have to lead his young family aboard a smuggler's ship and brave the pirate-infested seas to return home so that his children and grandchildren would not have to live in Communist China. He borrowed money on some very bad terms from an old friend which ruined their friendship. He underwent major surgery, I think it was an appendectomy, without anesthesia because the surgeon, ignorant of Akong's identity, didn't want to waste anesthesia on a patient who wouldn't be able to afford it. Imagine his surprise when my great-grandmother came to visit her son in her mink coat and imported European fashions. I always picture this surgeon quaking in his shoes once he found out that my great-grandfather was a member of the Taiwanese parliament. 

Akong was lucky because he was born the eldest son in a wealthy and generous household. He was beloved by his family. He had a father who valued intelligence and encouraged Akong to study, and study he did, for his favorite story of his schooling was that he never scored lower than a 96 percent on a mathematics examination. 

His eight sisters filled the house with music on the piano my great-grandfather had bought for them (at a time when a piano cost as much as four houses). Akong was able to work in a profession he loved. After failing his hearing test three times, he valiantly strived to take it again and was rewarded with a broken machine and a lax administrator to become the doctor he always wanted to be, a profession that suited him. 

Later, he married my grandmother, a beautiful woman who was the love of his life, and they were together for more than five decades. They had two sons and two daughters.

Then, during a time when most men were considering retirement, Akong embarked on another adventure, and that was moving to Japan to take up residence as the town doctor in a small village. He was able to invest wisely in this new country and that's where he made his own fortune. 

It's almost impossible to fathom the world Akong was born into during the early part of the twentieth century. He loved technology, so this was an exciting century for him to live through. He was an avid photographer who fashioned a darkroom out of my father's childhood bathroom. Towards the end of his life, he was converting all his files into digital format and Akong was on his computer every day answering emails from his children and grandchildren.

I know that Akong was afraid of death. I think that's partly the reason he was so careful about his health. And as a doctor, he always monitored himself carefully. His own father died in early middle age of a heart attack while hiking in the mountains. I'm glad that his last moments were in his comfortable bed with his family by his side. 

When my father told me the story about the oracle, it does make sense to me. Perhaps Akong was a god sent back down from the heavens. And now he has returned home. 

My Brother Has One of You

For Valentine's Day, we decided to go up to Kingston, NY to look at a Roadtrek RV. Yup, I'm interested and Peter was dragged along so that he could convince me that these were a TERRIBLE idea. I bribed him by enticing him with a trip to The Apple Pie Bakery at the Culinary Institute at Hyde Park. 

All week Peter kept asking me to call the place to MAKE SURE THAT THEY'RE OPEN SUNDAY. I looked on their website and it said that it was closed on Monday for President's Day, but no mention about Sunday, so I assumed they were open. 

When we drove up to the place, there were hardly any cars in the parking lot, which kind of made me nervous, but I was still hopeful...I'm an optimist (or maybe simply delusional). When we reached the door and it was LOCKED, Peter was s'mad.

"I told you TO CALL THEM!" Peter said.

"Yeah, uhm. I guess when you said, 'Make sure that they're open on Sunday,' I just went to the website and it didn't say that they were closed THIS Sunday--it didn't occur to me to check their hours because it's a bakery--why would a bakery close on Sunday?"

"It's not a bakery, it's a SCHOOL and SCHOOLS ARE NOT OPEN ON SUNDAYS."

Apparently, this turned out to be true.

Wow, this was turning out to be the most terrible Valentine's Day ever.

Fortunately, we had discovered another great bakery, Bread Alone, in Rhinebeck last summer so we headed on over there. It was super-packed, but it was OPEN! Yay! 

When I ordered my food, the cashier asked me for my name. Here's the conundrum that I face whenever restaurants ask for a name--I have such a strange Taiwanese name that it always throws people off. Most of the time I use Peter's name, but this time I chanced it and told her my name. 

She smiled and told me that it was a pretty name, so of course, I thanked her. And then she said:

"My brother's girlfriend has a name that sounds like yours. I love her, she's so cute. And my brother's learning her language. It's Korean or Japanese, I can't remember which one."

That was sort of strange. My sister speaks Swahili. I know which African language she learned. I'm not telling someone,"Oh, Swahili or Bantu, one of those..."  

I mean, she can't be bothered to learn what country her brother's girlfriend is from? What kind of person is she? 

Valerie-ing

I was IMing with my friend Andrew, who is one of the funniest people I've ever met. He can make me laugh just be saying one word. (The word is HUUUUUUUGE--it's not the word, but the way he says it--he's mocking someone we used to know in college and it's DEAD-ON)

When we talk, we tend to come up with our own phrases and today, he wrote that he lost 23 pounds! And afterwards, he said, "I am SO Valerie-ing!" 

So funny! I'm going to start using that phrase for weight loss--such as:

"In order to Valerie, I had to stop eating carbs."

"I'm gong to eat this cheesecake now, but I'm really REALLY going to start my Valerie tomorrow."

"I got s'Kirstie that I totally had to do some serious Valerie-ing."

You Can Go Purell Your Iphone Now

It's no secret that I am severely paranoid about germs. I hate shaking hands with people, I hate touching doorknobs, I hate touching shopping carts, I mean, I'm not Howie Mandel-crazy, but I'm crazy enough that it can annoy people around me. 

The other day, we had trouble with our cable service. Our phones kept dropping calls and the internet was constantly not connecting to whatever it is it's supposed to connect to so I called the people over at Cablevision, who, by the way, are a bunch of budonkadonk-heads.

The first time I made an appointment, they never showed up. When I called the next morning, their records said that the guys fulfilled the appointment. Hmmmm... Fine, whatever, so I set up another appointment between 2pm and 5pm the next day. 5pm came and went and when I called, they said that the guy was running late and would be here by 10pm. Then 10pm came and went--soooooo the long and the short of it was that FINALLY by the NEXT day, one of their guys miraculously found his way to our house. 

He fixed some stuff and replaced some wires and kind of chuckled when he asked me to check the modem for some stuff that I was apparently not checking the modem for because I was looking at THE ROUTER the whole time, which apparently is an entirely different thing altogether.

Peter called when the guy was almost done and the guy asked to speak to him (since Peter's the only person in this house who actually knows the difference between a router and a modem). I reluctantly handed him my iphone because he's a stranger and carries germs and I hold that thing to my face! But I didn't want to appear rude so I gave it to him. After he finished talking to Peter, I took the iphone back and Peter said:

"Okay, everything seems to be working okay right now. I'll be home in a few minutes. YOU CAN GO PURELL YOUR IPHONE NOW."