February 2018
It was hot, but snow still filled the crevasses of the mountains in the distance.
Whenever I'm in Bishop, I always find myself staring out into those mountains, wondering if you're there.
It was a really good weekend.
Bishop is so far away, but the drive isn't so bad with good company.
We camped and climbed and I felt really good bouldering on this trip. I got to get on a lot of things I'd never tried and got to send things I felt terrified of sending. Really, there were a lot of good sends all around!
Most importantly, I got to spend time with good people.
We woke up early to catch the sunrise over the hot springs.
Magical moments.
Like exploring the ice caves.
And poodles pooping in the distance.
Real magical moments.
I went bouldering by myself in hopes of sending this thing I've been trying to send.
I didn't send, but another friend who had also bouldered at the same park that day later complained to me about how horribly cold and humid it'd been that day.
Oh, good. I wasn't sure if it was actually humid or if I was just being bitter!
But really I should'a just sent it anyway.
Next time!
I take the same photo of cherry blossoms every single year.
It's the same angle of the same tree in my front yard, year after year for four springs now.
It's silly but I love these flowers so I end up taking this photo endlessly.
I really miss the seasons of Korea. The transition from winter to spring here is slow and gentle-- trees blossom one by one as the days go by, and the flowers drop one by one, so you don't even realize that the seasons have changed.
In Korea, spring came suddenly and aggressively. Overnight, every single tree, sick of winter and sick of waiting, would burst with color to announce the changing of seasons.
You couldn't not notice it-- it was as if someone had taken a microphone and screamed it into your ears. The explosive yellows and pinks of spring. The torrential monsoon rains and emerald greens of summer. The gentle breezes and deep browns and dusky reds of fall. And the endless cold and silence of winter.
You knew, without a doubt, that time was moving forward whether or not you were ready for it.
Somehow, here in the Bay where the seasons are so muted, where they bleed into each other so you never know where one ends and the other begins-- it feels like time isn't real, like I keep waiting for it to go but it doesn't, not really.
When my mom finds out I like a food, she assumes I want to eat it every day for the rest of my life.
In high school, I ate S'mores flavored Pop Tarts every single day for breakfast for 4 years straight. Not once did she buy a different flavor.
I never had the heart to tell her I didn't want to eat it anymore.
And so went my high school breakfasts.
Over Lunar New Year, I told her I wanted to eat these traditional Vietnamese dumplings, so she went ahead and made probably over 200 of them-- 100 for the house, and 100 for me to take back up with me to the Bay.
I helped her make them. When presented with a plate of these cooked dumplings, it is very obvious which ones my mother made and which ones I made.
Hers are perfectly half-moon shaped, and are very 'oo', a word I'm assuming refers to the roundness of the dumpling. According to her, I didn't make mine 'oo' enough.
I'm not sure if this is a real word in Vietnamese or if she just made it up, but yes, my dumplings are definitely not 'oo'. I would say they're more limp and misshapen.
But as long as they taste good, I'm okay with them not being 'oo'.
Lunar New Year feasts.
It makes the 6 hour drive down to LA worth it.
We lay out plates of salt & pepper basil chicken, pork stuffed grape leaves, shrimp egg rolls, mung bean dumplings, sauteed fish, green beans & Vietnamese pork, and of course lots of fruit.
Delicious.
In the past, our New Year parties were overflowing with relatives-- aunts and uncles and half-uncles and cousins of cousins of cousins and oh my god the endless babies and children!-- but over the years, people moved further and further away.
This year, my cousin's 2 and 5-year old kids came. We taught them to pray properly (with your hands clapped against each other, lift them up and down 3 times, and on the 3rd down, you kneel onto both knees and press your forehead to the ground. Repeat x number of times, where x is a number of times I can never remember and always have to ask my dad about). Their faces looked confused the entire time they went through the process-- it really reminded me of my childhood, where I would peek over at my older relatives to make sure I was doing it right.
I'm a little bitter though that I didn't get any red envelopes of money. At what age do we get cut off from this?
Am I supposed to give the little ones envelopes?
Oh nooooooooooooooooo.
I bought this silly Japanese food/toy thing from the Asian market. You're supposed to follow the directions and mix things together, resulting in cute, colorful gummies.
Needless to say it didn't turn out quite right and also tasted gross.
Disappointed.
Meanwhile Xan cooked real food. It was delicious. He is a kitchen wizard.
He might be a normal wizard too but I don't really know. If he is, he keeps that secret hidden better.