Nainai's poetry, part 1

I was telling my new friend Jen that my mom and I have begun translating a book of poetry my Dad's mom wrote, my grandmother, my sisters and I called her Nainai--as in "til morning is nigh". She said I should blog about it. And so here we go. A fourth repurposing for this blog. To sum up the time since my last post, I spent the rest of the summer in NYC at Deutsch, the beach, and at church. At the end of August I moved to Seattle and found a place in the neighborhood Rainier Beach that I've been in since October 1. Working from home has been nice. Visitors have been fun. Church hunting has been encouraging. And friend-making very pleasant. Best of all has been more regular time with my family.

So, to the point. Chinese poetry has strict forms and also free form.

This is a non-standard couplet Nainai wrote about visiting her first son, an adoptee, after thirty years of separation. The backstory I'll have to tell you in person. His name was Ceng and the description she wrote says: Ceng’s whole family and three of her nieces bidding farewell at the train station.

1. [3 lines of 4 words, 2 lines of 5 words, 1 line of 8 words]
We parted as children
White-haired, we meet
The years in between
 
Full of ups and downs.
Together now, we must rejoice 
 
Don’t let go of the good old days.
 
2. [10 lines of 5 words]
Mother and child meet again
Enjoy fleeting happiness of family
Our lives like morning dew
Together less, mostly far apart
Happy, sing a high song
Leaving, sing a farewell song
Now I ask one departing,
“When are you coming back?”
“I cannot give an answer,
Who knows what will be?"

Let's go crazy!

Washington State is so fun for me now. I mean, it always was, but more in that 'home' sort of way rather than the vacation I now see it as. Started off my July visit with a triathlon!
"Don't worry, everyone looks like a sausage." (encouraging words from) Tina Chan

   

Then there was Sarah and Joe's wedding out on the farm...

...and Seattle to see my family...

 

 

...including walking around Mt. Rainier National Park with my mom...

 

 

...and I still have another weekend in Richlandia coming up! :)

The balance of my NYC summer is ripe with visitors: Shannon from VA, Drew and Jasmine from Boston, and Amber and Kristie from Richlandia. AND I'm going to see the revival of RENT on Broadway! :) Very excited.

And because even my family is confirming with me, yes, I'm returning to WA at the end of August. No one, and I mean no one, believes me...

Recalling spring

Eats first! Particularly vibrant snack plate that highlights my resurgence in grocery shopping and dining at home.

I've been thinking a lot about wealth and consumption lately, having re-read The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn and finished Revolution in World Missions by K. P. Yohannan. Both excellent. What am I supposed to do with my money? Is it really so I can buy more stuff and eat at fancier places? I realize I'm more like the rich, young ruler and my call is more like his than I'd like to think.

Back in April, the tree across the street burst with publicly beheld beauty despite all the signage and fence.

My second (mini) dinner party: Chicken Marsala tacos with Tiffany and Juanita. We watched Planet Earth. I made the guacamole and gave them my secret on easy authentic-looking salsa: put some Tostitos chunky medium in the blender. :) That's nappa cabbage next to the chicken.

So I came to NYC to cover my friend's maternity leave. I'd been back in 2009 as some of you may remember for her first maternity leave. I finally got to meet her new baby last week and here's her big firstborn son!

After I met the boys, we went to Queens for Thai by way of Williamsburg where we saw another colleagues lovely new apartment and Greenpoint where we got some pre-lunch Polish pastries.

After lunch, Tiffany and I went to MoMA and got hot cocoa with marshmellows (see the link to Terrace 5, it's in the slideshow) in tradition and this blueberry tart. There is a blueberry theme to my blog, I think.

View from the Terrace 5. The rain poured down and we enjoyed watching it fall. 

The summer is nice. I'm playing softball with my company team, training for a sprint triathlon in Richlandia in July, watching lots of TV  (SYTYCD, The Voice), and seeing old friends. Hopefully making a few new ones too. We'll see...

Half Year in Queens

photo by Shana Wernow

Since January, I have worked at Deutsch, helped out at my NYC church's Friday night youth service, visited Debbie & Josh in Ohio, cut my hair, run Bloomsday, visited my family in Seattle, and become a complete reality TV addict (Top Chef, American Idol).

"Coincidentally" in early April both my Deutsch supervisor asked me to stay and my roommate asked if I wanted to sublet through the end of summer. I asked for a raise and lower rent, respectively, and they both said yes. Providence.

I'm on an unpaid leave of absence from my WSU job to which my boss has graciously permitted me to re-start in September ("Are you sure you're coming back in September?" "Yes, I'm sure." I realize I don't have a very good track record here.)

So now that I'm in NYC for the summer, I am trying to re-create the Richlandian utopia of last summer--swimming and fresh veggies. So far the swimming part is going well. Although I am very impatient with other swimmers at my pool. God has a lot of work to do in my heart. It's as if the combo of pre-coffee and morning and slow swimmers who can't seem to congregate in the same lane but have to hog three of the four lanes for their various (slow) speeds leaving one lane for us faster people [insert foot stomp] precipitates in unusual intolerance and disdain. Hopefully unusual. I hate to think I'm like this often.

Veggie-wise: this photo is a rooftop farm down the street from my apartment. Amazing! I've also started contributing to urban composting which takes me to Union Square farmers market several times a week. AND my friend Juanita and Shana have alerted me to two other Saturday morning markets in Queens. So I have a lot to choose from. Somehow nothing is as good as having a friend whose house is a CSA drop off location but...let me be thankful. That is the only will of God for my life that I can discern for the present time.

Looking forward to many trips to the beach and dreading my utility bill after all this running the AC. I've definitely gone soft. I survived the previous eight years residence in NY with ceiling fans and cold showers. Now that I'm on the fourth floor and most recently from AC-friendly Richland, I pre-cool my room and leave it running all night. Eek!

Three unexpected things among others

Knowing I'd be here for four months, mostly wintry, I brought more clothes than I have for my 2009 travels. But it's still just a fraction of my entire wardrobe. So it amused my friend Nancy greatly that I chose to pack my (1) ice skates. I bought them back in 2006 when I frequented Kate Wollman rink in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. (I have lifetime sharpening from Paragon.) Well, I put my skates to use on Martin Luther King Jr. Monday and it was worth the cargo allotment. At City Ice Pavilion in Queens, I ran into an acquaintance of mine from church. We spent the rest of the day together skating, going to see True Grit at the Ziegfeld, finishing off the evening at Five Napkin Burger.

(2) Jar of canned peaches from Stacey. I finished them off this week with my new favorite breakfast: yogurt, granola and peaches. The washed jar sits on my shelf. Overall, I've been cooking more. In fact, my roommate asked me the other day, "Do you always pack your lunch?" To which, after I stopped laughing, told her, "No." This is new for me. But indeed, I can see why she was misled: I've grocery shopped every Saturday with a list and reusable cloth bags and the whole shebang. Lots of fun salads: black beans, goat cheese, avocado, tuna. My mother was so proud when I told her. Tonight I made a little stir-fry (ala mom) and vegetable curry couscous from Shana's Mayo Clinic cookbook.

So it's been snowing about every fourth day here. The most recent one was 'how silently, how silently' and debilitating to the city. Several of my colleagues worked from home. My 'M' train is so perfect, I arrived on time. I joined a gym around the block that has a 20 yard swimming pool. I've gone three times so far and weighed one pound less every time. Must be a fluke. But it is amazing the caloric burn swimming is. For me, it's more than running, that's cuz I run so slow. ;)

(3) Is the place mats and cloth napkins. I was thinking of hosting another dinner party this coming weekend but I haven't been organized enough. The place mats I got in Bangladesh and I've been looking forward to using them. They're made from recycled foil wrappers.

Long Island City Home

Per Kristie's request, here are some pictures of my lovely apartment in LIC/Astoria, in the order you would walk through the apartment were you to come visit in the flesh. It is a railroad apartment meaning one room goes into the next, into the next. (I hate the auto-formatting on this, cannot figure it out.) Anyway, you can tell they have chosen lovely colors for the paint. When I saw the yellow kitchen for the first time, I was sold. :)

Entry way

Living Room

Living Room again

bathroom

in lieu of a mirror, there is this textured window over the sink.

Across from the bathroom, there is a built in china cabinet.

Kitchen

Kitchen looking south

dining room

dining table

So you see, the dining room isn't really much to speak of from a West Coast vantage point but for The Apple, it's a bit of a marvel.

night stand

bedroom

Snowy funny

For the past two days, on my way from the train to the office, I've crossed paths with a man in a fedora playing the ukelele. Very Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Today, I didn't see him. Maybe because there was a car being towed and traffic was all backed up and the honking cars made him choose another route. I have to say I missed him. The first day I smiled. The second day I said, "Every day?" And of course today I didn't say anything because I didn't see him. Maybe our relationship will be like the one I have with Clyde--the long-haired retiree who bikes all over Richlandia. I'll see him once in a while. Or maybe only on snowy days. I wear a big red puffy coat on especially cold days: read below 40. If I pass [whoa, the carbon monoxide alarm just went off--smart that the noise is so piercing as to wake one from artificial slumber] Mr. Ukulele on a warmer day, chances are he won't recognize me outside of my large tomato sleeping bag.

Tonight I'm eating rice porridge Chinese style, ie savory with chicken, ginger, and I threw in some daikon radish for good measure. It is a sort of Dad meets Mom method as she's the chicken rice maker and dad swears by daikon during the colder months to stave off sickness. Again, no pictures, it's yummy but not pretty.

Ok. I'm still awake. Hopefully the CO monitor will keep me from any real danger but I've opened both windows for cross ventilation in my room even though it's below freezing tonight.

Shout out to Windy!

Training

Not 'training' as in 'for Bloomsday in May', but rather riding the subway--"taking the train". This confuses some visitors, this referring to the subway as the train. But that's what it is. Rambling. Maybe that should be the title of this post. I'm rambling a lot lately because I'm not really talking to anyone. Living alone has its challenges. I did have a nice for-real conversation with a colleague today over the phone. I think it was because I asked her "how are you?" in a tone that indicated I really was asking. So she really told me. That was nice. For real. Nice. Not 'nice' as in "that's nice, Irene, but get on with your post", but rather--

Imaginary Someone: Sweet dessert photos!

Me: Yes, it was nice.

Ok. So I stayed up real late the other night re-reading most of my blog. And one particular post I enjoyed was the itemized list of my luggage contents. Inspired by this, I thought I'd list the subway lines I've used to commute over the years in NYC. Maybe if you, my dear reader, would comment on what you want to hear about, I wouldn't waste your time with my OCT (obsessive compulsive tendencies).

1998 - B
good: view of the Statue of Liberty while crossing the Manhattan Bridge
bad: smelly and slow

2000 - F
good: hipsters
bad: hipsters

2003 - 2/3
good: always a seat
bad: the guy asking for donations for the homeless every morning like clockwork--I had his schpeel down cold.

2009 - C/E
good: brief
bad: dark

2011 - M
good: new
bad: stopped running early tonight! Dang. Had to revert to the R and I don't like the R.

Huh, that wasn't nearly as interesting as I thought it was going to be. I'd better turn on the TV for my own good.

Pt. 2 & The Conclusion

It was a success, Juanita's Birthday Dinner. Here's Friday night's activity: Butternut Squash Soup (recipe). My reco is to take the time and effort to buy the squash, gut, peel, and chop it, yourself. Way better color and fragrance than a box of ready-to-go pieces.

And it really doesn't take too much extra time and effort. And it's pretty. Sculptural, in fact. Kind of Henry Moore.

Two of Juanita's friends with the finished soup and you can get a little idea of the place setting.

I'm skipping the main course (chicken lo mein--not photogenic enough) to reveal the hit of the evening: the finished panna cotta with persimmon and blueberries. This is actually a re-creation as I forgot to take photos on the night of the event. Juanita came over for leftovers tonight and so I took the opportunity to re-plate. I was rather pleased. And, to quote my father, when people like the food they don't have to say anything--the empty plate speaks all.

Happy Birthday, Juany!

Prepping for Juanita's Birthday Dinner Party, Pt 1

My dear friend Juanita is coming over Saturday and we're hosting her friends for a dinner party in her honor. Gleaning from what I learned helping Debbie at the last dinner party, I planned the menu several weeks ago, sent out invitations (ok, not hand-written this time), ordered groceries for delivery, and drafted an action schedule for Saturday. Part of my plan was to make dessert tonight, which I did! Tomorrow is soup--hopefully. And Saturday will be the majority of the cleaning, cooking, and decorating (again, hopefully--I was going to abuse my freelance job and design some pictures of Juany as place cards).

Panna cotta. It will chill over the next two days. Got the recipe from here. The ramekins are going to be the party favors.

Local

I love getting asked for directions. Because it makes me feel helpful and in-the-know. Yesterday morning, I was hailed over to the curbside by a Vietnamese daughter and her dad. "Which way is Northern Boulevard?" At that point, it was straight and to the right. Amazing that staying at Juanita's last month enabled me to know this. This morning, after shooting out of bed realizing it was light but I hadn't set my alarm, walking down the street to the train, I was stopped by a nicely dressed woman, "Can you tell me where is 37th Street?" Two blocks that way! I am so lucky. God blesses me with strangers. It is better to give directions than to receive. But in doing so, I am receiving direction, in a way. :)

For Debbie / Six Month Summary

Well, I'm in NYC until May. But as far as what happened between June 2010 and today 2011..."There is too much. Let me sum up." I finished my pool job. Then my mom and dad decided to move to Seattle, for real. They sold the house. I said goodbye to all my Richlandia friends and two large fistfuls of commitments I made over the fall (did you know winter, spring, summer, and autumn all have six letters?).

Between Christmas and New Years, I helped Debbie (she's the other woman in this photo) host a dinner party.

My new goal (a fourth thematic change for this blog) is a sort of merging of two previous iterations (reviews of fancy restaurants & me+friends): reports on the monthly dinner parties I plan to host in Queens. The primary inspiration for this is that my sublet has a dining room! Practically unheard of in my experience in The Apple.