Whoever stole our tree - you SUCK!

Pedro is our carpenter and resident vaquero. He's an elderly gentleman who comes early each morning to tend to the garden in front of our office. He, my mom, and recently my dad, have become avid gardeners. About 2 weeks ago, they decided to redo a patch of land and planted some nice flowers and transplanted some nice palm trees from another area.

When I arrived at work this morning, Pete had already been working in the garden and waved for me to come see something. On a normal day, this could be his pepper tree or a pretty blossom. Today he pointed at several random large holes. There was nothing in the dirt. Just some mangled roots and freshly turned soil. He asked if I had taken some of the plants home. Nobody had.

We had been robbed!! Somebody dug up our nice plants and stole them! What is wrong with you (you who stole the plants)?! If I ever see you in our garden again I'm going to run in a big pile of manure and throw my shoes at you!!!

A Virtual Disagreement

Last week Ken and I had a disagreement. He had written an entry in his online journal describing some challenges Asian American men encounter when dating in mainstream America. It wasn’t that I didn’t think stereotypes exist because they do. What I didn’t agree with were the generalizations made to explain how/why these stereotypes are perpetuated.

In response I wrote a very mean comment. It was excessively harsh and I felt (or still feel) bad for posting the comment. Instead of taking the time to understand how his negative expereinces have effected him, I just called him some mean names, and that was wrong. In short, it seems like both Ken and I are weary of having to deal with other people's preconceived notions.... so in a way, we share the same frustration. I also felt bad because I knew Ken would never intentionally hurt my feelings.

During lunch the next day I explained the situation to my dad. Without much hesitation, he said I was wrong and asked why I was fighting with my friend. My dad then gave me the following scenario: Walking down the street you see a man. His appearance offends you - it can be whatever, his hair, his cologne, etc. Do you continue to walk and let him be or do you take a stick and try to pound some sense into him? I would leave him alone and let him be. Dad said that sometimes people get too caught up in trying to define right and wrong that they forget how to coexist with one another. Everyone has a different life experience and it was wrong of me to render Ken's perspective as invalid or less valid. He then added "That's why there's so many flavors of ice cream."

Crash Into You

11:50am Valentine's Day. It was a little before lunch when we heard a screech of tires and a deep thunderous thud. By the sound, you could tell that something had stopped aburptly and that that something was big. Our office is located near dozens of distribution warehouses and there is a constant flood of trucks on a daily basis. After a while you learn how trucks behave. They're like dino-robots that are quite laborious to set in motion but once they're at full speed, difficult to stop. You learn to anticipate and to not get in their way or blind spot. As it turns out a truck had hit a small compact car on the driver side. It's actually the first time that I've seen an accident on our street. The person driving the compact car was scared out of her wits. She must have been severly firghtened to see that massive grill and those tremendous tires skidding towards her. It was kind of both their faults.

The street was closed for about an hour. By then it was well past my lunch time and I had eaten my last kimchi ramen yesterday. I left to make a quick run to the post office and McDonald's. After a few minutes of debate between an ambiguous Asian salad and chicken nuggets, I decided on the 10 piece chicken nugget and since it was Valentine's Day and my valentine was out of town, I bought myself an ice cream cone. While waiting for my nuggets the lady behind the counter hands me my cone. I'm happily eating my cone when in walks two young guys. One guy begins to order and the other is walking around and twirling something. It's one of those long fabric key chains that we all had in college. The guy ordering asks if his friend wants anything. The friend continues to twirl the key chain and walks towards the counter. Some kids begin running in the opposite direction of the guy walking towards the counter and he moves aside to let them pass. He moves towards me and the keys at the end of the chain smash my ice cream cone and white soft serve is everywhere. I knew I should have put my contacts on this morning - my glasses were sticky sweet. The cone had no chance of surviving. I was super bummed out but was offerd one (1) McDonald dollar. I took it.

Bear Bear

The Bear is chilling at my house this week while Bill's in Vegas for the Magic show. Now, now, it's not a magic show with crafty tricks and slight of hand. Its a trade show. I think it stands for Men's Apparel Guild In California. Since Bear is a guest he gets lots of treats. Here he is working away on a blue dental bone. I had to smear a little bit of toothpaste on the bone to spark his interest. He really likes mint and always trys to get into my purse for the gum. I'm not sure what he does the rest of the day but I think he follows mom around as she works on the garden and plants.

Here is a picture of Bear reading a pet supply catalogue. It almost looks like he's smiling.

Kitchen Love

The kitchen is almost done and I am totally in love with it. The tile work was just completed last week and it looks so good. The kitchen tiles were all purchased from a store called Monterey Tile in Rosemead. They had a comprehensive selection of tiles that rivaled other fancy schmancy tile boutiques but had better pricing across the board.