My Family

My family is huge. HUGE. Ok, not huge in caps. My dad has three brothers and three sisters, and all of them have kids. Two of the families have two kids, two of the families have three kids, and three of the families have four kids, bringing the grand total to 22 kids, if I’ve done my count right.

Until last week, I had only seen three of them since 2001, and not frequently. Most of the extended family live in NY and Philly. We used to get together a lot, maybe every two months or so, for a big weekend of hanging out. As a kid, I really enjoyed it a lot, but I guess at some point, my dad and his brothers and sisters had various levels of falling out or simply falling out of touch. When I lived in Korea, I used to see two of the families a lot. Back then, only four of the siblings were married and one of them was in the US already, so all the available cousins played together a lot. There was a lot of affection between the cousins, with the older ones watching out for the younger ones.

Well, like I said, I don’t really know what happened, but no one seems to keep in touch anymore. My cousin E and I recently discussed how as we both were getting older, we wanted to reach out to family more.

Through a series of strange events, I was able to attend my little cousin’s wedding in NY last weekend. 🙂 I saw aunts, uncles, and cousins I hadn’t seen in something like 16 years, except the cousin who was getting married, whom I had seen a “recently” as nine years ago. I was so overwhelmed with gladness to see them that I immediately choked up and started sobbing like a baby, all the while grinning like a fool. 🙂

And this weekend, I got in touch with another of my cousins! Yay! He lives out in Hawaii as he is stationed there with the Marines. He will apparently be leaving in October. The funny thing is, I was able to get in touch with him because I found another cousin’s MySpace page and found him linked on his. And the other cousin? I contacted him when I saw him logged on AIM because I thought he was yet another cousin of mine. It’s all very convoluted.

Anyway, here’s to a future full of cousins once more! I ::heart:: family.

One of those "I’m never too old to grow up more" moments

The other day, I had a conversation with my mom in which she said something to me that pretty much indicated that I fell short in some way, that I was disappointing in some measure. And reflexively, I felt like I was disappointed in her because she couldn’t accept me for me in that respect.

Then I realized, sheesh, we are doing the same thing to each other: holding the other person up to some internal measure of who we want the other to be, and constantly feeling disappointed that the other isn’t exactly that, instead of just accepting each other for who we are and loving each other and leaving things at that. For my mom, it has to do with how I present myself and my personal habits. For me, it has to do with her caring about things I consider unimportant.

Rather than holding her up to some detached ideal that she can never measure up to, I choose to accept her and love her for the awesome, wonderful, giving, loving mother that she’s always been to me. I choose not to dwell on the fussy details that obscure our affection for each other. I choose not to get offended or hurt when she holds me up to a standard I don’t feel fits me, because I know she does it out of love.

I’ll think of this as my real Mother’s Day gift to her. 🙂 I’ll send something else, of course. 😉 I love you, Mom.

Eet has been fahr too long, dahlink

I just got back last night from an 11 day trip to Toronto-Ottawa-Toronto (again)-New York.

I have a lot to write about, a lot to catch up on. I met a bunch of Seppo’s family members for the first time, and got a chance to catch up w/ some of my relatives that I hadn’t seen in 10-15 years! Yowza.

Pics and reflections to come. Dun dun dun.

Taxes = done

I filed our first joint taxes on Sunday evening. Seppo and I both ran through our taxes separately and then jointly to see how things looked. It came out almost exactly the same, but we opted to file together since we only have to pay one set of fees to TurboTax.

We are getting a return, which pretty much means we were withholding too much during the year, but frankly, I prefer this situation to underwithholding and having to pay.

Carnival

Carnival
Originally uploaded by eingy.

On Saturday, Seppo and I headed over the local carnival. I love carnivals, nonsensically and nostalgically. I love the noise, the lights, the rides, the terrible games, the ripoff prices, the atrocious food, the dingy atmosphere, the whole package.

Pretty much anytime I see a carnival going on, I want to go. This is how the evening broke down for us:

9:00 PM: Pay $3 per person admission fee to get in, scope out the lay of the land.
9:10 PM Buy a ride ticket bundle
9:11 PM Get on the Ferris Wheel
One second later: Grip each others hands in sincere fear and tell each other what a terrible, ironic death it would be if we died one day before our one year anniversary. Tell each other we love each other because we are both sure we will not live to say it again.
9:15 PM Get off the Ferris Wheel, glad to be alive.
Ten seconds later: Get on the Himalaya.
Ten seconds later: Start to scream and laugh that this was the worst idea ever. Involuntarily head bang to the speed metal that they’ve chosen to accompany this ride every time we hit the two fake bumps in the track. I was pretty convinced that I’d get whiplash and snap my neck off.
9:20 PM: Get off the Himalaya, ears ringing, eyes bugging, laughing hysterically.
9:35 PM: Buy more tickets after scoping around to see how many more tickets we need in addition to what we already have so that we can ride one more ride together.
9:40 PM: Get on the Gravitron.
9:45 PM: Get off the Gravitron, convinced that it is the BEST. RIDE. EVAR. and wanting to puke.
Ten seconds later: Lean against tree, stumble over to a bench and sit, trying not to hurl.
9:47 PM: Buy cotton candy while Seppo still sits, trying not to hurl.
9:50 PM: Walk around a little. Realize that we are just not going to be functional for a while.
9:55 PM: Drive back from carnival.

The rest of the night was spent trying to recover from the Gravitron, i.e. trying not to puke.

All in all, a great night. 😀

Duh/A-ha!

I just had one of those moments “a-ha” moments. Yes, you know, when you walk through a comic book and turn from a real life person into a line drawing, but when you look backward, you can see the real world you just came from.

Not really.

In reality, I was IMing with my friend today when the following conversation snippet ensued:

me: man, i wish i were wealthy sometimes
friend: ya? what would you do with it?
me: not work!!! 😀 read, write, sew, cook, watch tv, travel

Guess what, me? I already do all those things. I would want to quit work so I’d have more time to devote to the other things, but not because I dislike work or working. I enjoy a lot of what I do. There are things here and there as there would be for any job, but for the most part, I really enjoy my work, my coworkers, and my working environment.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that the things I’d really like to do, I’m already doing. What the?!

This reminds me of a blog entry I had made last summer and h’s response to it. It’s not even that I need more time to the degree that I need to quite my job or replace it with another job in which I’m being paid for what I enjoy, which is what I worried about in my response to her. I’m already there. I need to get better at time (and downtime) management, but that’s really it.

The mind boggles.

Gay Seniors Crash My Wedding!

Not really. 😀

Seppo and I got married at Madison’s at the Lake Merritt Hotel last year.

I randomly stumbled upon an article entitled, “Closets are for clothes, not for seniors” which outlines a new LGBT retirement community in Oakland, slated to open in the fall of this year. In the same hotel we got married in. Awesome!

Hoping to “revolutionize senior housing,” three openly gay housing specialists announced today the opening this fall of one of the country’s first urban independent-living communities for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) seniors—in the historic landmarked Lake Merritt Hotel.

The project, Barbary Lane Communities at Lake Merritt, takes its name from the address of the lively community in the book “Tales of the City” by San Francisco novelist Armistead Maupin.

I think it is fantastic. Seppo and I support our LGBT community and friends wholeheartedly. When we got married, we specifically questioned the person who did our ceremony to ensure that she wouldn’t object to performing gay marriages. So I meet this news with welcome and a touch of bemusement. According to the website, we’ll be able to go to the restaurant (renamed Madrigal’s Terrace Room) for lunch and Sunday brunch! Brunch with the seniors!

I’m looking forward to it. 😀

Teaming up

Seppo, Uyen, and I have formed a little team through Hands On Bay Area to volunteer for stuff! I’ve been wanting to volunteer again for a long time now, but have always been too chicken to go on my own.

We were all psyched for cleaning up the Morcom Rose Garden, which is about 10 minutes walking distance from our house, but sadly, Seppo and I will be out of town the weekend of Earh Day. Instead, we’ll be cleaning up around Lake Merritt next weekend, if the signup process all goes well.

We are thinking about doing something with kids and old people and the homeless in the coming months too. There are a lot of one-time volunteer opportunities, which is great for busy people like us.

I’m so excited!

Otters Hold "Hands", Achieve World Peace, Stop Global Warming

Via cuteoverload, of course:

Please, I beg of you, watch to the end and tell me you didn’t squeal in your seats. I want to watch this over and over all day.

Rollerskating

There are a few places around the Bay Area that have actual rollerskating open to the general public. Anyone interested in going? Please?