December 2017 — Tamarinding

As a grown-ass woman with a stable job, I decided I would be a Good Daughter and try hard to provide for my parents this winter.

As a present, I bought them a fancy air purifier, to help watch out for their health in their old age and in this age of California Wildfires All Day Errday In Yo' Lungs. I also bought a fancy tablet, so they could watch their Vietnamese dramas from the comfort of really close to their faces.

My parents said thanks, and two days later, left the tablet in a shelf with their books, and left the purifier unplugged in a corner.

Later that week, we went grocery shopping at a Vietnamese market, where my mom stocked up enough chicken broth to see us through the next nuclear fallout.

After we checked out, the cashier handed us a complimentary calendar for the new year.

"Wow, look at this! It's so pretty! Isn't this pretty? Wow, this is really great!"

Mom was ecstatic.

When we got home, she held the calendar in front of her to admire for a few more minutes, quite obviously pleased, and then hung it up proudly in the dining room.

Mom, this is why we don't have nice things.

Admittedly, this is the nicest free calendar I've ever seen.

I wonder sometimes, what it would have been like to grow up in a family like the kind you'd see on TV in the 90's, like in Clarissa Explains it All or Doug or Full House.

The kind of family that feeds you things like meatloaf or mac n' cheese instead of eggrolls and Vietnamese dumplings. Where the kitchen soap dispenser just dispenses soap and doesn't say "To Really. To Beauty. Kevin".

But who am I kidding.

I love these things.

I want all my hygiene products and stationary to say ridiculous things to me.

"You can do it, everything!"

Lately I've had trouble making decisions.

For whatever reason, I can't decide what to do and so I don't decide and instead just do.

I'm not really sure it's the best way to do things.

But it's how I've been doing things.

One day at a time.

So I didn't know what I was going to do for New Year's until the week of.

I'm glad I ended up in Red Rock.

It's really beautiful.

I didn't have any major aspirations.

Just climb.

And be with friends.

Sport climbing was a ton of fun. I hadn't done very much of it in the past few years.

I think for 2018 I want to get back into sport. I miss it. I miss that feeling of flying.

Trad has just been a little too much recently.

As evidenced by my unpictured attempt at The Fox in Red Rock.

That definitely did not go down as I'd hoped.

I'll have to come back to it to get revenge one day.

I'll do it for sure.

Picture this: A young (?) helpless Asian woman gets her car stuck in a ditch in the middle of a desert. She tries to reverse out of it, but cannot. What to do!

And then: As if in a scene from an early 90's film, a black car pulls over just as all hope seems to be lost and 5 strapping young Canadian men step out. "Can we help you push your car out?"

Swooooooooooooooooooooon.

Ultimately though, we realized Andy had a truck and the Canadians had a tow cable for whatever reason, and with the magic power of team work making the dream work, we freed my car!

I am truly #blessed.

But don't tell my sister because she doesn't know about this and also it was her car, not mine oops.