It's been two months

since I posted. It's May! We're two-thirds done with Spring already. And what have I done since I last posted? Not much of note. Work. Parenting. Spending time with friends and family.

Oh, there are a couple things to mention.

One: we interred my dad's ashes a few weeks ago at the cemetery in Palo Alto. There was a short, small Buddhist ceremony. It was lovely and was good closure (for hopefully everyone, not just me). I facetimed the event with my brother, who sadly couldn't make it up in such short notice with his demanding schedule.

It's strange to know that all that physically remains of my dad fits in a brick-sized box, and is kept inside a hollow brick wall in a park filled with other people who no longer live.

Two: Mother's Day. I spent the morning with my dad's cousin (Auntie Barbara), her husband, and my mom. We drove down to Salinas to visit Auntie Barbara's mom (Auntie Mary, blogged here), who is essentially dying. She also suffers from dementia and often doesn't recognize a lot of people in her life anymore, including her family. I hadn't seen her in about a year, and it was arresting to see her in such decline – skin and bones, minimally responsive, confused and agitated, with not enough energy to stay awake for more than five minutes at a time. She hardly eats. She was always vibrant and active before she "got old" (she's in her 90s), and in my mind that's how I visualize her, so to see her like she is now just about made me cry. Sunday's visit might have been the last time I'll see her alive.

The rest of my Mother's Day was good. Spent the evening with Yoshi and Tom. They took me out to a swanky Japanese restaurant where I had a fancy multi-course dinner. I haven't had a meal that nice in a long time. At the end of the night, they dropped me off at home, where I relaxed and enjoyed the rest of the night in solitude until I fell asleep.

Three: On a happier note, I have a sewing project. I'm making a skirt for Coco's wedding in a couple months. I bought some flowers and took some macro, out-of-focus photos of it so I could get a very abstract, watercolor-type image, which I had custom printed on five yards of fabric. It's going to be fantastic. I have tentative plans to make a top to go with it, but I might run out of time and/or motivation and just end up buying something off-the-rack from a store.

I never know how to end a blog post.

May in review

And yet again I've lapsed in my blogging. All the time I spend reading other people's blogs could be better spent hours on mine--'cause I know you're dying to read this.

May was nice. For Mother's Day Yoshi made me this awesome card:

It reads: "Happy Mothers' Day!! I love you because you take care of me. I like when you do fun things with me. I like when you showed me Come Home Snoopy even though I cried. You are the funniest mom I ever heard of!! From your Yoshi!!"

She also picked some flowers from the backyard to make a tiny bouquet. She always makes the most surprising and interesting flower arrangements, like choosing mint as greens for a fragrant filler. She's got a knack for it.

We went to the Legion of Honor to check out the Cartier exhibit. I can't even begin to wrap my head around the worth of that collection. So many glittering diamonds, velvety sapphires, shiny platinum. There was even a little jeweled Snoopy! When we got home, I busted out my costume jewelry inherited from my aunt and grandmother and played dress up with Yoshi.


What else...

As a very generous thank-you for shooting their wedding, Lech and Drea gave me a macro lens. It's way cool as it allows you to see a vastly different world that is often overlooked ('cause, really, who can see that tiny?). Here are my first shots with the lens. Tiny white flowers (like the tiny ones in Yoshi's bouquet above) and firewood.


And how I can forget the annual Relay Race? This year Team Sweet:Cheeks dressed as the Village People. Plus Tom the Nerd, who always dressed up as something completely different just to keep ya on your toes. I was really sick though, so I had to bail after running my leg in the middle of the night. 200 miles from Calistoga to Santa Cruz. We placed 27th overall in 27h25m10s.
Plus a couple impromptu roadside dances of YMCA and other VP classics. Sweet:Cheeks!



I photographed The Great Cookie Bake-Off, which was a fundraiser for Stepping Stones International, a non-profit that helps children in Botswana get an education. Tom entered the competition, but unfortunately did not win, although I love his chocolate chip and kirsch-soaked cherry cookie is a winner in my book (and Yoshi's as well). You can see some of my photos on the blog and all of them on their flickr.


And coming up in a future post (hopefully), I'll share with you my adventures in decluttering and organizing my home. Wishful thinking has it that if my house is organized and simplified, then the rest of my life will be too. Am I crazy?