R2D2

Dr. Li and I went out to Chinatown for dinner last night, and we stumbled across one of those new Star Wars themed mailboxes--pretty cute huh?

Mah Jong Newbies

A couple of weeks ago, Tara, Julia and I inducted a few noviates into the mysteries of mah jong. Brian, Paul, and Johnny seemed to enjoy it - hopefully we'll have a whole new crop of mah jong players by the time you get back. We played the last round with the three of them as a team and it was pretty cute to see them try to keep up with game play while puzzling out the intricacies of the game. Here they are:

You'd think it was life or death, the way they're concentrating on those tiles! Also, please notice that our new friend Johnny (closest to the camera) is a halfie! We definitely need some halfie guy friends, don't you think?

Pot Luck at Sang's

Sang had a green pot luck (it was a couple of weeks ago - bad blogger!). It gave me an opportunity to get a picture of the apron in action. It's still a little stiff, hopefully as he uses it, it'll soften up.





































And as the name promises, all the attendees brought green food. There were lots and lots of veggies of course, but April and I went for carbs and brought spinach linguine with pesto.


Mmmmmm, right?
Hung Yul and some friends of his (and possibly yours?) were playing some kind of poker that necessitated looking ridiculous. Evidence below.

















Anyway, the girl pictured said that she knew you from Hunter, but I've forgotten her name.
And last but not least, last night's sunset!


After four days of cloud cover and rain (some of it torrential enough to flood parts of Jersey), it's finally sunny and beautiful. It started clearing up yesterday, resulting in last night's sunset. And it's supposed to go up to 70 on Monday! Yay spring!!

Gothamist

I left a comment on Gothamist the other day to correct a minor error in one of their posts. But that correction apparently got me some recognition, because no less then three different people emailed me within minutes to tell me I was on the then front page of Gothamist. Blog fame is so fleeting.

Pics from April's Birthday Bash

Guess who went snowboarding today?

Damn Yankees @ HCHS

Audrey and I went to see Damn Yankees a few weeks ago. Here are the only non-blurry pictures from that day. Enjoy!

Below is snapshot roundup of what I've been up to over the past few weeks since slagging off on my blogging duties.

Homemade pizza and a viewing of The Three Amigos at Mina's (her significant-other Danny is standing in the center):


Audrey's slender fingers nimbly embroidering the cooking apron we made for Sang for his birthday. Somewhere one of us has a photo of the piece-de-resistance--the origami crane that she embroidered on the other corner of the front pocket. When we find it we'll post that too:


Mina looking cute, plaidsing it up with Dan (maybe you haven't met him but he's a good friend of Eric's):


James and I went on a weekend excursion to the DC/Virginia area right before I left for Texas. Here's me with James' mentor dude from law school, Mr. Wells:

Two people, three arms!

Penguins at the aquarium in Virginia Beach, VA. The saddest thing ever. Look closely, yes, the styrofoam ceiling panels are only a foot above the top of the penguins' heads. It made me claustrophobic just looking at them all crammed in there. We stayed for feeding time and these poor little guys were all so depressed that they wouldn't even eat, they just sat there and stared at the limp dead fish that were being shoved in their faces by the keepers:


And as an utter non-sequiter, I thought you guys would all be fascinated to know that I have FIVE weddings (and accompanying bridal showers) to attend over the next five months. Awesome!

Another Betty

You can actually see the "Betty" print on the fabric in this one.

Baby Clothes!

Nick burned me a CD of pics of Betty wearing the fine duds we made for/sent to her.



"There were lots of tickles in this pocket!"



We didn't make this one, but I love this picture anyway! What an angel!

Our Newest Halfie

Pics from a visit to Nick's house this afternoon.

Baby Betty enjoyed playing with Flat Aunties Audrey & Julia!




The family! As you can see, Betty's eyes are brown now.

Me and my 3D friend - more Kew

My friend Helen from Cambridge -- we had to strip down in the tropical greenhouse! A little taste of Pemba in England!



Pretty Victorian metalwork.

Flat Friends hit Kew Gardens

So I'm in London now, trying to nurse my Jeff-hangover. It's hard, trying to keep my mind off things, but I'm trying...

I'm staying with my friend Helena, and we went to Kew Gardens to convene with nature.

The Flat Friends enjoyed exploring London too! Here they are in front of one of the massive Victorian-era greenhouses.

Suburbia III

At the very end of our visit, Wai Gong busted out a picture of himself in Shanghai from when he was 26. As you can see, he had it all rolled up in the back of some drawer. He told us it was taken in front of the only Western-style bridge in the city. I like the picture on the right because it's almost like four people are in the picture. Also because we have real people, painted people, photographed people. Wai Gong seemed kind of saddened by the picture. He said, "Pretty good-looking, eh?" wistfully, and then lamented "So old, ugly, now!" Aw. We tried to assure him that we don't find him ugly at all, but he wouldn't listen. It's true, he was a handsome guy, as well as a sharp dresser! Here's the close up.

When we're old, we'll probably feel the same way about pictures from our youth.

Suburbia II

We went into the neighboring town (name forgotten) to check out the thrift stores. The ones featuring housewares were pretty expensive, but the clothing ones were more reasonable. We had to pass on innumberable fiestaware teacups and novelty Florida glasses with flamingos on them. I couldn't resist this book on Hieronymous Bosch though,

especially since it was written by Peter S. Beagle, the author of The Last Unicorn. Maybe you remember The Last Unicorn?
Apparently, it's just been rereleased on DVD in a 25th Anniversary Widescreen Edition. It seems Peter Beagle was shafted out of getting much money for it, so if you want to buy it (anyone? anyone?), buy it here. The other fun thing about anonymous New Jersey town neighboring Raritan was the creepy Shoplifters Beware poster we found in a window.

Scary, right? Both arms are so skeletal, with those malformed hands! I knew crime didn't pay, but who knew that it could twists your limbs like some disease only the debauched bachelors get in those Victorian novels! If that's what shoplifting does to you, I'm out!
Next post: a great picture of Wai Gong, age 26!

Suburbia

I have a lot of pics from visiting Wai Gong with Tara, Mina, and Julia this past weekend, so I figure I'll space it out over a few posts. But we set the scene first:
There they are, a sight from my childhood: detached, single-family homes, each on an acre plot! I didn't get pics (why? why??!!) but some of Wai Gong's neighbors got very excited about Easter, and decorated their lawns with all kinds of lawn furniture - bunny statuettes, large hanging banners shaped like carrots. Since we won't be back before Easter, I guess I missed my chance to document. I don't know if any of the summer months have holidays that engender the same level of lawn decoration. We can only hope. Wai Gong's house, as you can see here
does not have lawn furniture. I guess since he's eighty-five, we'll give him a free pass on hauling out bunny statuettes. But it was nice to be in such a spread out physical environment after being in the city for a few months. You forget what life is like when there aren't ten people in every square foot. Plus, you know, grass. Something about it made me very tired - both days I was all yawny and groggy. Tara thought that maybe we were constantly overstimulated in the city and so the suburbs gave us a chance for all our senses to take a break. Greg thinks that somehow there's more oxygen in the suburbs and it makes us tired, as opposed to all the toxins and pollution in the city, which, what, acts like caffeine? Well, okay, he's not a scientist.

Inside Wai Gong's house, a lot of the furniture was missing, since he's getting ready to move next month. You can see how much open space there is now, which I think actually looks pretty good.
Here's Julia under a painting by Wai Gong's deceased wife. I wanted it to be a subject of a picture of its own since it tends to upstage everyone else in any attempt to have it as a backdrop. And below is a painting of the artist (Wai Gong's wife) when she was young.