Free to be (crazy) you and me
This week I am starting a class and working on a deadline. So far in 2012 I’ve been meeting all my deadlines, but I don’t want to gloat lest I start missing them! Instead of a new post, I am re-posting the following entry from June 3, 2011. Thank you for reading, friends. A New […]
This Dog’s Life
These were my two dogs, Genji (left) and Saki (right), in 2004. Genji was five years old, and Saki was two months old. It wasn’t the best time in my life for a new puppy. Although I was in my 30s, I had an 18-month-old baby and was remodeling our kitchen and bathroom. For three […]
Happy Year of the Dragon!
Happy Chinese New Year! I must be honest: I haven’t done a thing yet to celebrate the Dragon Year. But our dear friend and Chinese teacher has given my kids hong bao (red envelopes), so at least that’s something. And just as soon as my mom — the Caucasian who’s more Asian than me — […]
The Meek Squawk of the Chicken Mother
Much has been written about The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the book by Yale Law School professor Amy Chua. If you are not a parent, or are not Asian, perhaps you have not heard of it, except possibly from your friends with kids. They probably either hate the book and wish ill to […]
The Big Move (B.M.)
My husband and I lived in the same townhouse for over a decade. The place suited us beautifully for about seven of those years and was too small for the last three, but we loved it. Last fall we moved into a new home, and though we are perpetually nesting (think Hobbits, but less hairy), […]
Swim (me) part deux
Last summer, I posted Swimmies, about my kids’ swimming despite the fact that I hate doing it myself. Nothing earth-shattering has changed between then and now. But on a recent trip with my family, I was trying to keep up the exercise routine (Run. Get sore/injured. Repeat.) when I discovered that I hate swimming slightly […]
The dreaded list
Lists of new year’s resolutions are the devil. The act of writing them down practically dooms the endeavor to failure. Keep it vague, and it’s just magical thinking, an amorphous wish to wake up with a new personality. Get too specific, and it becomes the incredibly detailed list of things you won’t do. At least […]
Wading
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year to you. This season has plenty of conflicting religious and secular messages, so I thought it would be an appropriate time to post this piece. Published in 2005 in the journal Dovetail, it’s one aspect of how I handled religious ambiguity when my first child was learning […]
Of all the dim sum joints in all the world
This weekend we’re taking my mom out for dumplings at a wonderful Taiwanese restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley. It’s quite a schlep out there from West Los Angeles, so we don’t go as often as we would like to. But it’s my mom’s birthday, and she loves Chinese food, so that’s our destination. My […]
Christmas carol
Warning: mournful post ahead. Tonight after dinner, my mom played some Christmas carols on the piano as my kids read the new books I bought them at their school book fair. My husband read too, flipping through the picture books when the kids were finished. It was pretty idyllic, just what you might hope for […]
