A Work in Progress

Usually when it’s my birthday, I like to do some self-reflecting. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in the marekting/PR field for all of my young professional life - I can’t help but take a look at the prior goals and aspirations that I had before and benchmark it with the past year’s accomplishments.

Although I am late with my list, as the saying goes - better late than never, right?

In my 25th year of life I ….

• Tried (and, sadly, failed) at learning how to ride a motorcycle
• Had a tour of San Francisco with my friends Lauren and Jon
• Ran another half marathon … and had my photo up on the SF Chronicle because of it!
• Changed jobs and took on new challenges
• Went on an immensely personal trip to Taipei for the FIRST TIME with Gogo and Didi
• Saw my grandfather’s grave
• Visited where my mother grew up
• Ate tons and tons of street food
• Rang in the new year by watching the fireworks at 101
• Soaked in all the sights of Tokyo, Japan
• Went to the public bath for the first time
• Walked around the streets of Tokyo by myself
• Visited the Ghibli museum and saw Totoros everywhere!
• Celebrated 6 years with the BF
• Had an amazing view from the Fairmont Tower from one end of the city to the other
• Went snowboarding again…multiple times
• Had a memorable camping trip with friends
• Moved to a new apartment

It must be a girl thing to love birthdays … at least, birthdays up to a certain point.  Somewhat luckily, I am still pretty thrilled with celebrating the anniversary of the day of my birth.  In addition to fully indulging in a day off work, I absolutely love stuffing myself full of good food and spending the day with wonderful people.

On Friday, I slept in until 11:30 - after languidly pulling myself out of bed I met up with some friends for lunch at Boulettes Larder in the Ferry Building where I had pasta with rabbit.  For dessert I met up with a friend for an affogato at Blue Bottle.

After the first round of eating, I meandered over to the public library and got my very own card.  I selected a book and headed over to Fort Mason to relax.  After thoroughly freezing, I met up with more friends for the highlight of the day: OFF THE GRID!

Unfortunately, the street food was nowhere as cheap as Taiwan…but the food was still delicious.

Lumpia from Adobo Hobo

Buns from Chairman Bao - baked Lion’s Head bun

Creme Brulee Cart - Dulce de Leche and Mexican chocolate

Amazing! Definitely needs a second or fifth visit.

On the day of my birthday, I had brunch at Olea with the BF and then drinks at the Top of the Mark. It was nice playing tourist for a day…and the views were amazing.

And then a fantastic birthday dinner at Foreign Cinema. If you’re interested in my thoughts on the place, you can read my Yelp review.

And….the most AMAZING cake of my life…ever. Red velvet ice cream cake (yes, ice cream) with rainbow sprinkles. It’s like my favorite things mixed with my other favorite thing crammed into…my third favorite thing.

Thank you to all of the wonderful people that wished me a happy birthday and came out to celebrate with me! If it weren’t for all of you, my birthday would not have been nearly as wonderful.

It seemed like a lot of people really liked the last post about oxtail soup (thanks!) so I felt inspired to continue to document some of my simplistic adventures in the kitchen. Before that though, this past weekend the BF and I tried out a new restaurant - Firefly.

If anybody is looking for a really quaint date place with good food, this would definitely be the place. If you’re curious about my thoughts, you can read them here on Yelp.

It’s been awhile since I’ve learned of any new sort of food, but recently I’ve discovered that a lot of places have been using olallieberry. Call me ignorant, but I have never heard of it before. In addition to olallieberry pie, Firefly had a really interesting lemon and olallieberry float with lemon sugar cookies.

Quite possibly one of my favorite desserts in the city.

At any rate, a few weeks ago I went to Ruth’s Chris steakhouse and I had one of their salads. It was really simple and refreshing, and I thought it was easy enough to replicate:

Tomatoes, red onion, a bit of pepper, blue cheese and - just to mix it up (not a part of the Ruth’s Chris salad) some cilantro.

Pretty decent…next time though, I’d definitely put in fewer red onions. Makes the stomach less unhappy.

It’s been awhile since I’ve put together a post, let alone a food post. In an effort to be more healthy and a tad more frugal, the BF and I decided to go to the gym and go grocery shopping in order to start cooking more at home. One of the things we decided to do was oxtail soup.

Oxtail (or ox tail, of course) is a rather gelatinous meat that boils into a really nice broth.

First, you fill a pot with ox tail and boil it for about an hour.

Afterwards, you drain the meat.

I think traditional recipes call for daikon, but the BF’s mom’s recipe called for potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, onions and two slices of ginger (that uh, we kind of forgot to put in).

After washing and boiling longer, we first threw in the tomatoes and onions to let the flavor seep out. Then we added the carrots and potatoes, and boiled it for…even longer.

Throughout the whole process we added salt and pepper. Although the flavor is light, the conglomeration of meat and veggies (with rice!) is always a comforting sight.

Although time consuming, definitely a worthwhile endeavor.

Yum!

I’m not sure why this is, but lately I’ve been switching to the country channel on my commute to and from work. Well, okay. I take it back: I know exactly why I started to listen to the country station. It’s because a person can only take so much of California girls, wishes on airplanes and some singer bemoaning how much they want to be a billionaire so freakin’ bad.

Anyway, the country station tends to be a welcome reprieve from all the pop/rap gibberish (and yes, I know I sound like a cantankerous old person here).

I remember my old college roommate absolutely adored country music, and I could barely hold in my disdain or keep my eyes from rolling into the back of my head from hearing the twangs and thick southern accents set to a melody. But I do give her credit for being right about the storytelling part. If you’re not a country fan, you might not realize that a good portion of popular pop and traditional country songs tend to weave stories in the lyrics which is, well, pretty cool.

I guess taking ballroom dance also helped develop my affinity toward the genre of music. After all, it’s much more fun to twirl and move about a room with a partner beyond the basic dancing skills we glean from awkwardly swaying at junior high dances.

To my point: I’ve been listening to some country songs, and I’m not sure if I happen to be much more moody lately or just becoming more of a wuss….but a lot of times these song really get to me. NO, not bawling in the car or anything…but just a little tug at the heartstrings.

Though it won’t be the same, here are the recent lyrics to one song I heard:

He was standing in the rubble of an old farmhouse outside Birmingham
When some on the scene reporter stuck a camera in the face of that old man
He said “tell the folks please mister, what are you gonna do
Now that this twister has taken all that’s dear to you”
The old man just smiled and said “boy let me tell you something, this ain’t nothing”

He said I lost my daddy, when I was eight years old,
That cave-in at the Kincaid mine left a big old hole,
And I lost my baby brother, my best friend and my left hand
In a no win situation in a place called Vietnam
And last year I watched my loving wife, of fifty years waste away and die
We were holding hands when her heart of gold stopped pumping
So this ain’t nothin’

If you managed to read through that, props to you. If not, well, the basic gist is that there are more important things in life sometimes, and we ought to be grateful for what we have. Not only that, but sometimes it’s amazing what people are able to get through.

I read through some of my old blog posts from college earlier today, just on a random whim. While I flipped through a few of them, I chuckled a bit at myself for some of the things I stressed over. I sent some to my friend. He half-joked, “you sound like a spoiled, whiny brat.” And, unfortunately, he is absolutely right. I was a spoiled, whiny brat and even more so in all the little ways I vented online. And perhaps when I’m 40 or older I’ll find a way to dig up these blog posts and cringe (and laugh) just as much at I did today.

More than anything - aside from the glimmer of hope that I’m no longer that whiny, self-indulgent spoiled brat from before - I hope that in 20 years, when I read my blog, I can look back fondly on a time where I felt a little lost as to what I want to do. And perhaps the reason I look back fondly is because I was able to pursue something I enjoyed and found fulfillment doing each day.

Also on a side note, I have a little pet project that I’ve been brainstorming up. Fingers crossed that I’ll have the dedication, energy and time to get it started. That’s the problem with me, I suppose - the “Jack of all trades” curse that has followed me for years. I always tend to have fleeting interest in something, promise myself that I would dedicate my energies toward it and then it never really comes through (yet, hopefully).

Downers and self reflections aside, in a bit of the same vein as my last post, I wanted to try to remember the things that matter and appreciate the small things in life. Here’s a photo I snapped of my companion at work.

Planty!

For you dear reader (or two if I’m lucky), I hope this post was able to nudge you to see the tiny sliver of silver on a rainy cloud.

I know that a lot of people talk about not sweating the small stuff…but honestly, sometimes the small stuff is just pretty neat.

On my way home today I was driving down Van Ness and I hit every green light possible until I got home.

Cool.

If you know me at all, you probably know that I’m a pretty avid Pixar fan. Not just avid, mind you, perhaps close to fanatic. And not just over Pixar…but Disney.

My love for Disney started as soon as I was able to form memories. Part of me thinks that it’s because the happiest hazy memories of my childhood were when my dad took our family to Disneyworld and Disneyland. Although I couldn’t understand the greater picture of what was going on, I feel that deep down I know I was somewhere special.

When I dig down deep into the recesses of my memory, I still remember that time I had the stomach flu and I was absolutely miserable. At the time we were living in Austin, since my dad finally decided to move our family closer to his work. We lived in a two story house where the carpeted stairs lead to the white front door. There was a kitchen in the back of the first floor where I made my dad a birthday cake with dinosaur sprinkles. We had a little television and the same tan couches with the black and red streaked bamboo print.

I was sulking in misery on the couch after my mom had given my medicine (which, I unfortunately must admit, was not taken by mouth but through another more painful means). It had been days since I had been able to eat anything, and the only thing I was allowed - or able - to stomach was Sprite with the bubbles thoroughly mixed out.

Although at the age of five sugar water might seem like the perfect meal all the time, it does get old.

My dad strolled in through the front door, briefcase in hand. He sauntered over to the couch and planted a rough kiss on my head.

“I have a present for you,” he said to me.

“What is it?” I asked, my interest mildly piqued. After all, nothing attracts more attention than the key word: gift.

“Here, I’ll let you see,” he replied. He took out a video cassette and popped it into the VCR. (For those of you who don’t know what a VCR is, you can stop reading now). Suddenly the screen came alive with music and colors, and I was captivated for the next hour or so with Cinderella.

Family portrait back in the day

In short, I love Disney because it was a part of a memorable childhood. And of course, when Pixar came along, my love grew and embraced the films from the award-winning studio.

Earlier tonight I was settling in after a run and a rather late dinner when I decided to watch the recorded documentary on the DVR about Pixar’s history. After watching it, it reignited something in me.

Friends had always joked that I was a ten-year-old at heart, and it’s true — to a point. Like John Lasseter, the man behind the studio and many of the brilliant films, he also had a major love for Disney. He even worked at Disneyland, and at one point manned one of the Jungle Cruises.

It made me realize that I didn’t merely love cartoons or animation BECAUSE they are cartoons or animation…I loved films from Pixar, Disney, and Ghibli (which, of course, is an affiliate of Disney) because of the beautiful stories.

Without the wonderful story that somehow puts my heart on a roller coaster, it just wouldn’t be the same.

From the day that man first began to share ideas - and form culture - storytelling had been a treasured art. We try to tell stories in everything we do. Heck, it’s even possible to tell a story with not only a picture, but 140 characters over Twitter. It’s the reason I love authors like Roald Dahl, who are able to spin stories and create memorable characters like Willy Wonka and Matilda.

Although a part of me hopes that I have the talent and wisdom to recognize the right opportunity to skyrocket to success - as well as the luck to actually have the opportunity presented to me - one thing I really hope is to be what all of those artists, animators, creators and storytellers continue to be: inspired. I hope I can learn to be curious again, to tell compelling stories.

In the meantime, although I might not make it as an animation whiz, at least I can still continue to have fun with what I got.

As an update to my prior post, the holiday weekend was pretty laid back. On Sunday I ended up waking up late, eating, napping, then eating and going out. And on Monday the BF and I ran some errands and then I met some friends for lunch. Afterwards I hung out a bit more at home and spent most of the evening watching the top episodes of the first season of Mad Men.

Because of my overly indulgent and lazy weekend, that means the inevitable guilt-ridden feeling when the work day rolled around and I tried to put on …. work pants.

It’s been awhile since I updated on any food adventures or attempts at cooking. Truthfully, other than being extremely lazy this weekend, I just haven’t found the motivation to check out a recipe, go to the store, prep the ingredients and then make myself a meal that can hopefully be eaten over the course of a few days.

Regardless, I recently decided to try my hand at making the super food quinoa:

It doesn’t look too tasty, but so far it’s been a fairly decent replacement for my normal bowl and a half of white rice. Although it does taste a little tiny bit odd, I’ve been able to pair it with some of my favorite Asian staples like rou song (dried beef) and vegetables. If you really have a tolerance for odd, try it with a bit of kimchi as well.

Not much else to report lately … other than the fact that I’m still eagerly awaiting the arrival of Illustrator so I can finally get some use out of my Wacom pen and tablet. In the meantime, I leave you with this photo of the cat:

I love my Canon S90! Pretty amazing shots for automatic - though I really do need to start weaning myself off and start getting used to the manual settings.

I noticed recently that I tend to write most of my blog posts in the earlier part of the week…and it usually tapers down during Friday and Saturday.

Probably because I spend most of my time on weekends doing random stuff or being lazy.

To change things up, I thought it would be good to recap how the weekend is going so far.

First of all, I have to say that there has not been a more welcome weekend in a long time. It’s been a pretty hectic past weekend as well as week.

After an early release day on Friday (hooray!) I headed down (ironically headed down when I normally try my hardest to stay in the city) to Palo Alto to meet some people for happy hour. After two hours or so, I came home to spend some time with the boyfriend. We had some really good drinks and appetizers at Waterbar, and afterwards had a final drink at Murphy’s Pub. Unfortunately, the good night was a bit tainted when we realized we locked ourselves out.

Yup… locked out on a Friday night before a holiday weekend at 1am in the morning. Awesome.

So awesome that it *only* cost $200 to get a locksmith to wiggle a rod under the door and open it for us. Probably the most expensive 2 minutes of my life. Sigh.

Today, we woke up at noon and spent the first part of it just being lazy. Finally, I managed to motivate myself to go outside and soak up some rare San Francisco vitamin D. I ran with a friend for about a mile or so, then headed home to change. We met some others up at the Fillmore Jazz Festival, a lively long street of food, music and wares. Although it was tempting to eat my face off, we limited ourselves to two buns and I indulged in some funnel cake.

Nothing screams summer like funnel cake.

After reaching the end of the festival we walked back and had a wonderful meal at Woodhouse (Yelp review to come) with oysters, clam chowder and a crab roll. Luckily we had to walk home, otherwise it would have been game over and food come would have won.

Good weekend so far…and I’m incredibly pleased that it’s only 1/3 of the way through!

Odd thing I learned this weekend: to check to see if you have bad breath, you lick the back of your hand, wait for it to dry and then do a tentative sniff. It’s not very pleasant but definitely an effective measurement of nastiness. Yeesh.

Have you ever really needed a moment of calm? I did today.

So I felt the urge to post this video.