the decade, those we lost and 2009

Gone Too Soon lyrics
Songwriters: Grossman, Larry; Kohan, Alan;
Like a comet
Blazing ‘cross the evening sky
Gone too soon

Like a rainbow
Fading in the twinkling of an eye
Gone too soon

Shiny and sparkly
And splendidly bright
Here one day
Gone one night

Like the loss of sunlight
On a cloudy afternoon
Gone too soon

Like a castle
Built upon a sandy beach
Gone too soon

Like a perfect flower
That is just beyond your reach
Gone too soon

Born to amuse, to inspire, to delight
Here one day
Gone one night

Like a sunset
Dying with the rising of the moon
Gone too soon
Gone too soon

good bye Ben

A kid (who is probably in his 50’s now) from my Cumberland/Chinatown past, passed away from cancer on Dec 23.  Wow do I remember him and his punk ish ways.  At the time of his death, he was still single, never married and was suppose to be the care provider, living at home for  his aging mother.  Ben was the next to the youngest of a humongous family of older sisters and one younger brother, Robert.  He and Robert were in my “Extended Session” class on Sundays and I was their teacher – a high schooler that was just barely older than him and the class of boys I lead.  We spent a lot of time playing kickball at the nearby playgrounds, and bonded.

As time passed, Ben became more of peer and was ready with his big bright smiles, a flirtatious wink, and always soooo cool.  He was short in stature, but big in personality, and can that boy charm you to death.  He was a talker and a charmer and everyone that knew him will remember him that way.

At the end, he didn’t want a lot of visitors at the hospital, and it was noted that up to the end, he was talking and encouraging the hospital staff and his friends. 

The Kingdom has lost a great encourager, joy maker, fun loving, sweet man.  I know you are rejoicing in the presence of our Lord this very moment and we will see you again one day.  If only we can be all a little like Ben!

Summer Extravaganza

So in the depths of Kindergarten soon, we can still recall the glorious days of summer staying in our pjs till noon, drinking coffee, eating haw flakes, watching Korean soap operal/historical fiction videos (Bruce more than me, thank God), watching The Shield, all the Resident Evil series, reading New Moon, trying to work on a class and finishing it for my ACSI credential, getting new glasses (“do they make me look like those old ladies who are trying to look young with these young-ish looking glasses?…no, Mom, they’re ok [smirk, smirk]), knitting till my hands are frozen into a witch hand pose, teaching Sweetie new tricks, playing Bejeweled and having Lisa, Matt, Kandice, Leah, Julianna, et al beat the crap out of me (what’s wrong with my 4,200 score?), doing some DWWDWP days with Pauline, hanging out with Bruce, the brave and available, and learning my hobbit name, which hogswart school I belong to and the MJ song that fits me– PYT, of course.

But we did some more mentionable memorable things like the Monterey Bay Aquarium and saw the Seahorses and Jellies.  Had a great crab sandwich too.

Nathan has Emmett pictures at the Aquarium and we have UBruce.

We also went to the Asian Art Museum via BART  in SF.  Great Sumarai exhibit but they wouldn’t let us take photos and great time at the museum. 

Of special note also was the impromptu trip to Vacaville with Gma Choy who found the best deals on her slacks, tops, purse, flip flops, a shirt for Richard and much more.  We also got puma pants for nee for $15 and a top for me for $6.  It was pretty amazing.  When we got home we went to the Korean Market on Homestead and Lawrence Kyo Po and was in Ko Chee Cheung heaven…a whole aisle with well stocked shelves.  It was a heady experience.  We also bought the requisite kimchee (2 types, eat your heart out Barbara and Mary Ann), side dishes, kamaboku, and aloe drink in a big bottle for gma to keep her young.

here with her youngest grandchild, the spoiled Princess Stephanie (circa Dec 08).

The aloe drinks are working, Gma.

Still to come the Angel Island Grand Reunion Tour.  Stay tuned!

Me and Samantha Bowling with Dads Field Trip

Sweetie Ministry

Sweetie’s new ministry – helping out with Jems Special Campers.  Sweetie and Nee Nee went to help Auntie Lisa’s Special Campers.  This will be great on Sweetie’s resume when she applies for grad school.  She’s ready now that she can search and rescue and also go “bang”.  Still working on “shake”.   No preference for foods too.

“You have a friend in me…”

Michael Jackson passed away this week and I’m one of those people that watched him grow up on the world’s stage.  For all the wierdness, there’s no denying his talent and giftedness.  He was an original and watching him dance lifted your spirits.  I feel that he was apart of my youth and something will definitely be missing in our music without him.

Summer time and the loafing is eeeeasy…

Yup, spent one day this week in my pjs all day long…confessions of a lazy person.  We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, ate a delicious crab sandwich on sourdough, went to San Francisco to the Asian Art Museum to see their special exhibit on the Samurai and saw the rest of the museum too.  I think I saw Maybelle Ng manning the information desk.  Went to see Transformers with Brandon and Tara in IMAX…it was big and loud and a lot of fun.  Went to a Mexican restaurant and had lunch with them.  Got Sheida’d Saturday and ate Japanese food with Pauline for one of many more DWWDWP days.   It’s been a great summer so far, but it’s hhhhhhot!  Glad we have AC.

No More TV for me

Forced fasting of TV since the conversion…we got the box like they told us to; we scanned as they told us to; we got a new antennae like they recommended we do; and we have 2 pbs stations, KOFY tv and Channel 36 in English and the rest of the channels are Spanish or Korean.  It’s very bad and our many years of holding out and not buying cable may be coming to an end so we can watch the news.  sigh….   And by the way, we got more channels with the box BEFORE the conversion than we do now; from 21 channels to 14 (mostly in Korean and Spanish).

I loved UP

Very heart warming, very cute, well paced and I cried through many parts of it. Loved the old man, Russell, the dog, the bird, the pack of dogs that could serve appetizers, etc., even the villains were fun to watch. On FB I answered the questions of which character in UP I’m most like…I was Ellie. You got to see it to appreciate that! Made me happy.

pfftchang

Got a very generous gift card for PF and haven’t been there since a “company function”.  So being short on cash, B & I went on a Sat night.  We waited for over 30 minutes for our table.  There were a lot of large parties, weddings looking gathering, families, company functions, etc.  The servers and hostesses dressed in proper black were friendly enough.  It just was unnerving to NOT see a lot of Asian staff nor Asian guests at a restaurant with clearly an Asian name — maybe it should be called PF Clan, or PF Clam, or PF Calamity, or PF Can’t, or PF Rasmussen, whatev…

The restaurant is called a Chinese Bistro.  Really?  I see the terra cotta soldiers and the giant horse statue (had to face his backside while waiting for our table – isn’t that a little non-fen shu-ayed?), there’s some mural type thing on the length of the wall and giant lantern like fixtures dangling from the ceiling (don’t want to be under those during an earthquake).  So Chinese Bistro means you get your “Asian” decor from Macy’s right? or World Market? or a museum shop?

We decided to order from the pre-set dinner for 2 menu.  Appetizer – salt and pepper calamari, soup – one of each – hot and sour soup and egg drop soup, main course – spicy chicken, pepper steak and we side ordered spicy green beans, dessert – carrot cake and strawberry cheesecake (very Asian dishes, I’m sure — the Empress Dowager had a hankering for Tiramasu, we hear).

Calamari (squid) was from Gorton of Gloucester, until you added the salt and pepper powderly mixture onto the little bands of squid (didn’t look like squid at all – more like narrow pieces of clams – so as to not offend the white folks, I guess.  No tentacles!).  These were served on a pile of crisped deep fried white noodles.  Those were fun and tasty to crunch.

Soup was adequate, but not the hot and sour wasn’t hot or sour enough.

Main course – we got our 2 bowls of white steamed rice which had some dried crusty parts to it having sat under the light too long, I guess.  The chicken had a flavorable deep fried outer crust, but the chicken inside was dry bland white meat pieces.  Serving size was adequate for 2.  String beans were good, but I don’t think the cook stirred it completely – there were beans that had no spices at all in more than one or two random bites.  What happened?  The peppered steak was the best of the 3 dishes.  It had a black bean kind of taste with bell peppers.  The meat was over cooked and very dark (which means it wallowed in marinade forever). 

Dessert was fun and delicious, but not very Asian at all.  The server came with a tray of glass cyclinders filled with plastic dessert.  The novelty was fun, but I felt that it didn’t seem very Asian.  Maybe some green tea ice cream?  lychee over vanilla ice cream would be nice?  But tiramasu? cheesecake? chocolate decadence? carrot cake?  red velvet cake?   I went along with the choices and had the carrot cake and  B asked for tiramasu but they were out (which meant the folks that go to this restaurant are tiramasu types – if you know what I mean), so he had the strawberry cheescake.  It was fun to eat these and the presentation was cute – with tiny spoons to get every last tidbit from the cocktail glasses.  One good thing is that the desserts were the right size after a big meal.  We ate it all.  The bill came out to be pretty hefty — about $35 per person which included oolong tea (which you can’t share), 2 non-alcoholic beers and 2 root beers.

The server offered only one glass of water, was a little befuddled since she seem to be assigned quite a few tables.  The clientele was varied, different ethnicity, little kids, young-ish career types, swingles, large gatherings and smaller groupings, lots of families (which shocks me since the food is not cheap), but not a lot of Chinese people. 

So FP, or CT, or MF, whoever you are, you found a niche, but it’s not a Chinese niche.  It’s more like what white people think Chinese are about, terra cotta soldiers, lanterns, chopsticks, and, oh yeah, food.  “If Yan can cook, so can you, PF!”

Why we still like cowboys

I'll serve you all coffee anytime.

Randomly netflix’d this movie and was treated to the best western I’ve seen in a long.  Ed Harris has always been a favorite since “The Right Stuff” and Viggo, who doesn’t swoon just saying his name.  Since Aragorn, I’ve renewed my allegiance when we saw “Eastern Promises” (even if they didn’t include the sauna fight scene) to Viggo. 

Back to Appaloosa, good cinematography, framing (see above), historic authenicity, characters, details, details, acting, plot, and just a lot of sheer enjoyment.  Didn’t feel there were any shortcuts here.