Geisha School Dropout

Our Hyundai Santa Fe Epic Playdate Experience

Last Saturday, we were in for an incredible treat: an Epic Playdate, with activities led by some of the best-known parents in the blogosphere!  

The invitation was mum on details, other than to show up at 9:00 am dressed for play, and all food and drink will be provided by Hyundai.  We had the kids go to bed in activewear, as it would be an early start.  

Tim and I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, carried the kids to the car, and set sail for Dos Pueblos Ranch in Goleta (20 minutes outside of Santa Barbara).  The car ride up was refreshingly uneventful, given Emi's penchant for backseat barfing (we always travel with a bucket for this reason).

We had no idea what to expect, but our imaginations ran wild: will there be bass guitar lessons by Flea?  Would jumping out of airplanes be involved?  Would we represent different districts and have to slay each other in wilderness combat for a chance to eat lunch?

Luckily for us, it was none of the above (actually, the bass guitar lessons would have been cool).  It was so low-key, all the activities were family-bonding-centric and easy to replicate at home, and most importantly, the kids had a BLAST!  This is a small subset of what we experienced:

 

Emi took this gorgeous photo during Dooce's nature photography walk!   I love how she framed the shot!

Isaac's Foil Viking team, the Foil Fighters, won the whipped cream beard relay led by the goofy dudes from How to Be a Dad.

Emi and her paper rocket professor, Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Make Magazine and founder of BoingBoing (said Emi: "I want to be a rocket scientist because I'm good at it!").  Mark rigged up a foot pump, some PVC piping, and a lovely red button to make the rocket launcher.  The look on Emi's face, as she pressed that button, craning her neck to see her rocket disappear for a bit into the sky, was priceless.

Emi filling out our section of the sand art "quilt" led by Say Yes to Hoboken.

Isaac at Epic Hula Hoop Bubble Making class, taught by Oh Happy Day.

Emi illustrating a collaborative poem ("My dog is a cute dog. My dog is a hot dog.") from the Poetry in Motion class taught by Girl's Gone Child.

Isaac loved playing Epic Volleyball using beach balls and blankets taught by Oh Joy.

But wait!  There was SO much more!  Here is a slideshow of the rest:

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Silent Sunday: The Lin Effect

Early Morning Reverie

 

Oscar wakes up this morning at 4:47, whining to go outside.  This is an hour early for him, but I throw on a sweatshirt and pick him up.  The motion sensor spotlight attached to the garage clicks on to greet us.  The chickens grumble at our intrusion from inside the coop.

The rooftops are covered with frost, the grass crunches underneath my slippers, palm fronds litter the streets, Oscar's pee steams like coffee...now and for the next couple hours at least, it really feels like winter here in Long Beach.  

My heart is heavy because my friend lost his dad yesterday after a long fight with cancer.  I am acutely aware of how the air feels when I breathe it, sharp and cold as it goes in, yet warmed up by the time I exhale.  

And for now at least, I am so grateful to be here, for the opportunity to experience the quiet before the flurry of life and activity that commences when the light strikes the horizon.  I tell myself to remain grateful once the flurry does commence.

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PS: So many things have happened since the last time I truly wrote on here.  Emi is at yet another new school, Tim has a time-intensive new job, Isaac is struggling with making and keeping friends, I am very busy trying to juggle an increased workload with the increased domestic responsibility.  I'm also not feeling very reflective as of late, therefore my radio silence.  I steal blips of material comfort from food, Facebook, and retail therapy.  If left to my own devices, I will turn into one the passengers of the Axium in "Wall-E."  I need to metaphorically get off my hover chair.

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PPS: Tim and I are deep in the grips of LINsanity.  We spent our Valentine's dinner reading up on his game that day, watching this clip over and over again:

Wow, right?

He's amazing.  He will continue to amaze.  And he went to HARVARD???  Be still my ajumma heart!

Tim is absolutely in love.  He even has LINsomnia; he stays up to ungodly hours devouring articles, watching game clips, learning about basketball and how Lin approaches it.  It's cute to see him get into sports.

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PPPS: How YOU doin'?

Storytime with Isaac #4

Isaac's writing sample this week was 5 pages long, and it chronicled the apparently epic bowling night we had a few weeks ago.  My favorite sentence: "'Giggle, giggle,' I whisper to myself."  How creepy is that?

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A Trip to Cal Bowl

One lovely, beautiful evening I was ready to go to a bowling stadium called Cal Bowl!  I felt as if I was an angel in heaven.  It was about 5:46 p.m. when we left home and 5:56 p.m. when we got there.  They're was at least sixty-seven bowling alleys in the bowling stadium.  Inside my cranium I thought that either I'm just imagining things or I'm seeing things again.  I went with my lovable, lovely Mom and my noisy, whiny, and snory sister named Emily which is a scaredy-cat!  "Giggle, giggle," I whisper to myself.

The bowling stadium looked shiny, neat, unbreakable, and fashonable.  I started to look around.  I'm starting to like it here!  Then Mom said that friends were coming to bowl with us!  I was almost going to faint!  I was obviously jumping up and down with exitment right that second Mom told me that piece of "information."  

It was almost 6:15 p.m. which is about dinner-time for us.  I was almost famished.  There were about 4 restaurants.  I picked the first one of all 4 restaurants.  They didn't have names on them.  Inside, there was a TV, 24 chairs, 12 tables, and the manager.  I ordered shrimp and mac-n-cheese, Mom ordered fish and a salad with ranch dressing, and Emily ordered...Well, I forgot.

We waited otuside the restaurant for food in the bowling alley.  We waited for about 10 mins.  It felt like it was an immence amount of time!  "Yawwwn," I yawn to myself.  Now I'm famished for sure!  I was also thirsty.  I felt as if I was in a drowt.  Finally, we got our dinner.  We all ate on a bench next to the loud, noisy bowling alleys.  

After we're done, all our friends arrived.  First was the dad, then the child and Mom.  I was a little shy and nervous, but I got used to it.  "Blah blah blah," they say to each other.  We were going to get our bowling shoes.  We had to take off one of our own shoes.  Then we got to our bowling lane.  Our lane number was 65.   We all typed in our names.  I thought the pins would be battered.

Anyways, Moms friends dad bowled first.  He was an excellent, fantastic, unbievable pro at bowling.  He got a stupendous strike!  We were amazingly still for a minute.  Then an aplause broke the silence.  So it went on.  Mommy bought us chips with melted, creamy, delicious cheese.  

My score at the end was 124, Moms was 65, moms friend was 221, and Emi's score was 42.  Finally, we said goodbye to our friends and went home.  It was a stupendous outting.

Lessons Learned from Christina Aguilera

My blogroll and Twitter feed were abuzz with comments about Christina Aguilera's performance of the National Anthem on Sunday's Super Bowl.  I actually missed the game, deciding instead to go to Disneyland, but I had to check it out for myself:

All I could think of was, "WTF." But not "Christina Aguilera, WTF," but rather "America, WTF."

In today's nano-judged world, where you can elicit a million belly laughs by pasting the word "FAIL" in white sans serif font on any image, and where even the world's most beautiful people supposedly need the help of a Photoshop expert every time they pose for pictures, Ms. Aguilera's lyrical gaffe is more than enough to fill one's social media tittering quota for the day.

But do you want to know what I saw in this video?  I saw a consummate professional teaching us a lesson on how to handle crisis.

Po Bronson, in his book Nurture Shock, introduced me to the concept of stick-to-itiveness.  It turns out that when we praise our kids for being smart or fast or any other innate talent, we don't actually raise their self-esteem; by praising something that seems to be "either you got it or you don't," kids feel powerless when faced with challenges and actually feel less confident in their abilities to overcome the challenges.  Rather, if you praise the kids' effort and stick-to-itiveness, they feel motivated to put in further effort, i.e., something they are in control of.  A quick summary of the book can be read here.

I am always looking for ways I can teach stick-to-itiveness to my kids because I am a person constantly crippled by the spectre of perfection.  As Voltaire said, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."  And Christina Aguilera's performance was a great example of the amazing good that can come out of imperfection.

I think while she was singing that line, Ms. Aguilera knew she messed up.  Of course she did; she has sung the National Anthem countless times before.  And without pausing, starting over, apologizing, or in any way pulling the focus away from the song itself, she decided to let her mistake go and corrected the lyrics mid-sentence.  She didn't even stop the note she was on.  In front of tens of millions of live witnesses, she just. kept. singing.  That is PhD-level stick-to-itiveness, and that is what separates her from lesser entertainers and performers of every stripe, and that is what we should be focusing on if we want to show our kids how to truly succeed in life.

Dory knew it all along!

Honto Ni Umai Desu Ne!

This just in!  Area Asian Man Deemed Sexy Enough for Calvin Klein!

 

I'm not normally a fan of the uber-athletic washboard stomach, but the way he's looking at me is so hot, my wedding ring spontaneously combusted.

Hidetoshi Nakata, you can play in my world cup anytime. 

(Thank you, seriously, THANK YOU, to the Disgrasian Nation for the scoop.)

An Open Letter to Serena Williams

Dear Ms. Williams,

Not a lot of people know this, but I played some tennis back in the day and I love the sport.  I have always been a fan of yours (and your sister's), and have had the honor of watching you play on several occasions.  Always a delight.  But wow, you have just rocketed yourself past the world of man to become an astronomical object, a celestial body.  Literally.

Holy Moses, lady.  You are Wonder Woman.

I know there will be some trolls out there saying "OMG WTF FAT."  Please ignore them.  Do not allow their brain-curdled exclamations get within 100 miles of your gorgeous ears.  They are maggots.  There will also be some people who will say "Finally!  A real woman's body with real curves!" but they are naive in their inclusivity.  *I* have a "real" body.  It does not look like yours.  Yours is the body of a gladiator; a body that comes once in a millennium and only from a lifetime's love for sport combined with an otherworldly work ethic, and should be worshiped and celebrated as the divine ideal it is.

Please keep doing what you're doing, preferably in the buff.

Sincerely yours,
Julie Kang

(Image from Just Jared)

Dodger Day Line-Up

This past weekend we attended Stanford Family Day at Dodger Stadium.  I could pretend that it's rewarding to connect with alumni in such an LA institution, but in actuality no one talks to each other because they are too busy stuffing themselves with all-you-can-eat Dodger Dogs and crudites. 

The Dodgers played the Marlins and got their butts undeniably whooped.  We stayed until the 5th inning when the score was 9-0, which was in stark contrast to last year when Manny hit a home run on his first at-bat and the rest of the team actually knew how to field.  Still, the kids could only handle 3 innings last year, so at least we have improved, and at this rate we can probably watch an entire game by the time they graduate high school.

There was another stark contrast: how much the kids had grown since last year.

Exhibit E:

2008	2009

Exhibit I:

2008	2009

Can you guys see any differences?  I think both kids lost a little bit of their baby cheeks.  Also, Isaac's face has developed some more dimension and Emi looks like she got a nose job.  I swear to you though, even when living in southern CA, dangerously close to Orange County, I will not allow Emi to have a nose job until she is at least 8.  

Which reminds me of this hilarious video:

A Few of my Favorite Things

Despite Little Miss Emimoo desperately trying to ruin my nights and dampen my good spirits through flying food and supersonic screechiness, a blood-filled tumor causing my middle finger to swell up and blush in various shades of purple, and a slew of other responsibilities competing for control of my sanity, I shall now share with you a few reasons why I am still relatively happy and giddy.

1. March Madness and the WBC

A little unknown fact about me: I love college basketball.  I especially love The Big Dance every March, and I participate in an NCAA men's basketball tournament bracket pool every year.  And every year I lose really badly.  But this year will be different!  I really feel like I have it in the bag this time.  Click through to see it full-size and please ignore all the red already:

From Bracket 2009

If your bracket does not look like mine, then you are going to lose.  To ME.

And to put the icing on the professional sports spectator cake, part of this year's World Baseball Classic is being held in southern California!  Last night I got to watch Korea vs. Japan at my parents' house.  Let's just say that I was screaming and throwing dried squid at a Sony television when a Japanese pitcher hurled a fastball into the brain stem of one of our players.  Then I got mad at my parents for buying a Sony instead of a Samsung.  I get really, really, REALLY jingoistic when it comes to Korea vs. Japan on anything, and to a lesser extent, Korea vs. USA.  I trash-talk and spew racist epithets like the Occupation and the Korean War are simultaneously still happening.  Take it from my poor husband, who unfortunately is both Japanese and American, whose face gets all scratched up during World Cup, WBC, and Olympic years.

DAE HAN MIN GUK MAN SAE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Fruit Punch

I have recently rediscovered this magical elixir.  Now they have all-juice varieties which aren't nearly as sketchy as the powdered Red Drink of my youth.  But let's face it, all-natural crack is still crack.  Lots of last-minute shit on your plate and you feel like you're going to cry, explode, or beat a bitch?  Go to the fridge and take a hit.  Instant sunshine and happiness.  Don't give it to your kids, though, I think the shit causes cancer.

3. Unbelievably cute baby shoes, I HAZ DEM

If Emily is going to be a bratty 2-year-old, might as well have the shoes to match, right?

4. Spring Blossoms

All around the city, stone fruit trees are beginning to blossom.  From the bright magenta of the peach trees to the whisper pink of the almond trees, petals are bursting from lifeless branches.  Mother Nature absolutely pwns any human technology every spring.  I can barely suppress my urges to burst out in song, like "SAKURA! SAKURA!  YAYOI NO SORA WAAAAAAA!" but then I remember that I hate Japan right now.

5. Vicodin in Bed

Mommy's Little Helpers.  The best thing about having a pyogenic granuloma on your finger is that it hurts so bad, doctors give you Vicodin.  I don't go to sleep anymore without popping one.  And it makes the nighttime Emily care so much more manageable.  She wakes up about 4 times a night complaining about too much blanket, not enough blanket, too much snuggling, not enough snuggling, too much fluff in the pillow, you get the picture.  I used to get mad, now I smile like the Virgen de Guadalupe and can honestly tell her she's such a good, beautiful, flower of a girl and Mama loves her, even as she kicks me in the face.  Ah, the precious little moments of motherhood!