ho chie's blog: 03.2005

So thoughtful. Thank you.

First, I really love being a pediatrician.
Second, kids and babies make me smile.
Third, I refuse to grow up.

Many reasons to smile today:
1) I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Michelle, Viv, & Jess this morning! It was quite a surprise, and I always love receiving flowers! I'm such a softie.
2) I had lunch with my dear Alice, who is back from LA for the week. I simply adore her and think she is one of the most fabulous people in the world.
3) I went to work this afternoon only to discover that I wasn't scheduled to work. So now I have a couple of hours for cafe bumming.
4) Cat is visiting town tomorrow, back from a year of medical school, and it looks like we're meeting up for dinner! Yay! She's a cutie-pie.
5) I found a cheap flight to go to LA next month to see Anna and Gene at the conference, be in Rick's wedding, visit Alice, visit mom, and probably see a whole bunch of other friends. Crossing my fingers for some additional sponsorship...
6) I bought tickets for Welly's musical, Making Tracks, now showing in San Jose. Anyone care to join me?
7) Spring is here, the days are getting longer, and the sun is shining warmly on me.

I just found out that I'm one of the groomsmen for Rick's wedding next month. Apparently, this has been the plan for awhile... I guess I should make arrangements to be there...

Anna makes me so proud. Seriously. I admire her from a distance and wish I could just give her a big hug. Everyday. In April, she will be a presenter at the Asian American Studies Conference. Her name can be found among all the well-known academicians and published authors who will be presenting there as well. I can only dream of doing such ground-breaking work for the APA community.

Who's stuck at home on a Friday night with nothing to do? Ummm... that would be me. Oh, but wait, that's been the story of my life for the past few years.

Anyways, I'm going to continue my baking/cooking obsession tonight by making sweet potato fries. Chef HoChie says the key step is to bake dry the outside of the thin-cut fry prior to deep-frying in order to get that excellent crispy texture. In the coming days, I'll be making some limeade-based strawberry/banana smoothies and also home-made mochi ice cream.

I'm making you hungry, aren't I?

I joined Jesse, Rochelle, Dave, and Grace for a delicious BBQ dinner tonight. Then, like the little boys we are, we played video games and watched silly movie clips for the remainder of the evening. Yea, a little slow to mature...

Mmm... I'm baking some chocolate croissants. I must say, dark chocolate is so elegant.

I wonder if I'm trying to avoid making some major decisions for my future.

Spring is finally here, and I'm in no mood to work.

Karen to Chinese waiter: "Don't you WANT to see my ID??"

Chinatown dinner. Lost wallet returned. Bad mochi ice cream. Nice friends.

Karen is back in town! I've lost track of how many times I've seen her this year alone...

Happy St Patrick's Day?

More Asian American films. More food. More late night chillin'. I'm sleepy now. I can't keep up...

After getting out of work this morning, I went to jury duty, but luckily didn't get selected. So, I had an entire day to play with the girls in the city. After shopping around on Haight, we went to Japan town and had dinner there before going to see a Taiwanese film at the AA International Film Festival. We topped off the evening with a little Twin Peaks tour and some internet games late into the night. I guess the day couldn't get really more diverse than that. Yea, not too bad. Plus the girls are darn cute.

The Haight Ashbury neighborhood.

Dim sum at the Golden Gate Park.

Spring blossoms in the Japanese Tea Garden.

Relaxing in the sun.

The waterfall.

Michelle, Jess, & Viv are on spring break!

Silly at sunset.

"in bed."

Happy Birthday to Linda & Vivian!

I wonder if I'm starting to outgrow this blog. More often than not, I find myself without much to share, nothing interesting to post. I may have to consider phasing out my web site too. I need to just disappear anonymously into the ether.

I'm on a mission to watch as many films as possible at the Asian American film festival this week.

I'm a sucker for love stories.

My day off has been one of irresistible indulgence. I lounged in bed much too long, enjoyed the sunshiney day at an outdoor cafe, drank that 2nd cup of coffee, quenched my thirst with some fresh-squeezed lemonade, ate my favorite greasy cheesy pizza, rented three thumbs-up movies, grilled an entire rack of juicy ribs, and lingered in some fantastical daydreams. I should've bought those Girl Scout cookies, too...

I just completed all my tax forms. It sucked real bad. I ain't gonna lie: I had no idea if I did it right or not. But the way I figure it, I worked alot of extra "moonlighting" shifts to try to make some extra cash. That, however, put me into a higher tax bracket, so now I owe a major sum of money to both the government and the state. So, now I have to work more shifts just to pay off my taxes. Something is not right with our system. The Man is keeping me down. Yea, did I say? Sucks real bad.

Daffodils from Anny. Cafe lounging with Nancy.

A little more Nance before she returns to Michigan.

What I really need is to go on an exotic vacation with a nice group of friends...

It has been a very API political-cultural-artsy weekend for me, starting with some excellent thought-provoking plays by the AATC yesterday night, and now today with the API Issues Conference on the Berkeley campus. I had the chance to watch some short independent films as well as preview part of Lane Nishikawa's new film on the 442nd Japanese American Regimental Combat Team - an exciting film featuring some well-known APA actors/actresses! The conference also featured performances by local bands, John Cho's band Left of Zed (he has a band?), some spoken word artists, and ex-Chicagoan Denizen Kane (aka Dennis of I Was Born with Two Tongues). I'm starting to feel the pulse of Asian America once again...