Sigh

There are too many bumps on the road right now. Tough people and project issues on the office front and kids issues on the home front and the Man is leaving on a jet plane tonite, leaving me with two bored teens at home, a loose cannon north across the border and a lonely young adult screaming for love and attention in ox-town. What's a working mom to do? I need love and attention too!

Lethargy

Nic is off to Yosemite today with her friends and the boy and I went off to his golf lesson and then to Walnut Creek for a bit of errand. It is a hot, lazy summer Saturday afternoon. We should be out making most of the long hours of sunshine but we are stuck at home listening to the boy at the piano and feeling sleepy. Must really get a move on, making the most of summer. Like going to Six Flags (where unfortunately, a teen just had her ankle tragically sliced off by a loose wire on the superman ride in Kentucky) as I had been planning in my head for months, waiting for the cold of winter and early spring to give way to warmer temperatures. And now that the warmer days are here, we have not made the plans. Shame. But I did get us tickets to watch a baseball game on the eve of Independence Day, Jul 3 at Oakland. Of course, the Man will be far away in Asia then so we will try to enjoy ourselves without his company. Doris wants to watch the game with us so I must get an extra ticket. Best part is, because it will be hours away from Jul 4, there will be fireworks. I am looking forward to soaking in a bit of Americana.

Can't wait to receive the cameras I won. But that won't be for some days yet cos I just mailed off the checks. Which reminds me, I oughta collect my poor ol' Coolpix from the darn camera repair shop.

Wonder what we should do for the rest of the day. Maybe go ride the bikes. More later.

Pre-dinner stamping as moron. Post-dinner, post-fruitless drive to Danville to collect my camera, ice cream and leftover watermelons and pointless stabbing conversation with a dour teen and sarcasm disguised as humor. That's how this day ended. Sighness.

Click Click

Success! Maybe one two many. I got my camera alright from eBay but instead of just one, Sniper got me two. I was even aware of it because there was so much going on in the office so when I finally had time to check, there were two successful bids. But that's OK. I can always have a spare for a present to someone special.

Doris is still with us and a wonderful presence she is. Since she has been here, the Man has been less grouchy and we have been eating more healthily and exercising a bit more. She has convinced my two kids to go swimming and made us eat more salads and sushi. Wish she can stay with us all the time.

Bidding Binge

It has been a humbling experience - being beaten at the game of auctioning on eBay and being taught a lesson by a complete stranger on how to bid because he was not pleased that I drove up the price he eventually ended up paying, hee hee. I comprehend now how addictive this game can be. I have been at the PC for hours. Wish my Coolpix did not give up its ghost. Then I would not have been so hooked. The estimate to repair poor Coolpix is about as much as some of the winning bids for a newer Coolpix with higher resolution, greater optical zoom and larger LCD. Such is the consequence of the relentless march of technology. So a throwaway society we become because it makes no sense to repair anything remotely electronic anymore.

Doris has been learning how to drive with my Civic. She is really quite good despite having been deprived of driving privileges for almost 20 years. I know she will pass easily.

It is late and I am about to retire from a day on the eBay. So far I have lost 3 bids, all within the last few seconds. Wish me luck for the next 2 days. Good nite.

Lull

I have been bidding on eBay for a camera to replace my whitened Coolpix and not getting anywhere yet. Just trying to see if I get lucky. I am getting point and shoot withdrawal symptoms. It is this darn blog and picassa. Feel like I must upload something now and then. And the idiotic photo shop where I took my Coolpix to get a repair estimate has very poor customer service. Promises to call back with an estimate are not kept so I am still waiting, one week after I sent the thing in.

Doris is here to stay with us. We like. When family comes, it seems more complete. Went up to Santa Rosa yesterday tp pick her up and we were a full hour later than anticipated because traffic was just so bad at many stretches on the 90 miles or so from here to there. Friday traffic is always bad on the highways. It was so slow moving at some points that I was seriously getting drowsy and had to shake myself once in a while or rolled down the windows, anything, to keep the brain working. I had set Nuvi to take the fastest route and of course, since we do not have the traffic functionalities on the poor guy, it continues to think that the highways should be the fastest. I should have trusted my instincts and reset to shortest routes. Then Nuvi would have taken us on the nice scenic but oh so many traffic stops way we traversed last week. Lesson learned. Over the years, I have found that oftentimes when I mistrust my instincts, there is a price to pay.

I wonder what we shall do today. The man has just left us all behind while he goes to the driving range.

The weather has turned very hot. Last few days have been a sizzling 90+ fahrenheit and the days are fabulously long. The sky is still light past 8:30 pm. Yum. Must enjoy while it lasts.

School's over for the girl and boy so I am a little fearful the house will be more messy than usual. Hope they know how to pick up after themselves on a daily basis. That's all for now.

Bodega Bay

Yesterday was pretty enjoyable. We drove up to Santa Rosa to pick up Doris for a day out with her. The journey up was not the usual route I usually took when I came on business trips in the past, i.e., on the highways and interstate. Nuvi was set to choose the shortest route so it was 2 hours of a mix of Highway 680, cutting through Walnut Creek to rejoin 680 and then through small winding country roads in Napa. It was a pretty route but on narrow single lanes for a large portion of the way and took more time than I anticipated because of the many traffic stops.

First stop, lunch at a small modern Mexican fast food joint with the run of the mill mix of burritos, etc. Then off for a drive up to Bodega Bay. We turned off at Doran Beach where we spent an hour or so. We admired the emerald green water, romped a little on the fine grayish sand, tried to get close to a pelican who seemed very comfortable among the human species and climbed some large evil looking rocks to watch a family fish for crabs using a tomato sack, fish heads in the sack and a piece of rope. Cheap way to spend a Sunday morning with some nice catch to bring home for the dinner table. It was cold, mainly because of the relentless wind, although not as cold as Half Moon Bay was. I am just a bit flabbergasted at how some of the picnikers can withstand the wind chill with their singlets and bikinis. I was wrapped up in tee, a denim shirt and a UBC sweatshirt from my MBA days.

Then off to Tides Fish Market where we stopped for oysters and some fried calamari and fries. The oysters were very big, fresh and actually cheaper than the calamari, fries and clam chowder that the kids wanted. Not much there except for a lone seal by the wharf, a couple of seagulls and your typical weekend visitors. So we spend a relaxing hour or so just sitting and chatting.

By then, it was late afternoon so we went back to Santa Rosa for a nice Japanese dinner topped off with some Baskin Robbins ice cream.

Seems crazy to say this but apart from the one time we went up to Vacaville for some outlet shopping and then to Lake Tahoe in December with the family crowd, this was the only time we have driven up North to spend a day. In all the time we have been here, we have been mostly holed up at home and only driven around on errands mostly within the Tri-Valley. But it is expensive to live here and each time we leave the house means a fair sum of money spent whether on gas or food or something else. Sigh!

Dropped Doris off and took the fast route home on 101, 580, 24 and 680. The way I have always done it.

School ends Thursday. What are we going to do with 2 kids who have no plans for summer?

Howdy

Wow. There are a lot of refineries and chemical plants in Port Arthur, Texas. Unlike Jurong Island, these are further apart because there is just so much land. Amazing landscape. Other than that, very flat in every direction except for the bridges which look like roller coasters from afar, maybe to provide some elevation because even the houses are low single-storey affairs. Interesting contrast - very industrial looking yet so sparsely populated it is also kind of rural. And Texans love pick up trucks. So I spent my birthday in a plant, looking at machinery and hardware and software. Hardly idyllic yet rather interesting. I guess I am more like my father than would first appear - he was a self taught electrical and electronics man for the age in which he lived. The folks here are very nice and so friendly.

Jamming June

June seems to be a very productive month. Here are June birthdays I know of and there may be some out there that I am missing, all in the month of June:

June 1 - Lilian Tay
June 2 - Doris Tay
June 3 - Lai (San Ramon)
June 4 - Florence Tay and Auntie Nik (San Ramon)
June 6 - Moi
June 7 - Hong Bee

I know Danny and David also celebrate their BD within the space of the first week in June. Could one of them be June 5? And Johnny Tay in Ho Chi Minh has his birthday in June too but not as close as the lot above.

Well, yesterday's invitation to Keng was of course for Nik's birthday. They had a self serve buffet spread and two tables of mahjong kakis, most of them from Hong Kong. While the kids (boys outnumbered the girls like 2 to 1!) make a racket with the playstation, we ended up chatting to a new friend originally from Macau but his wife is from Singapore, Opera Estate no less. He was very friendly and the Man and he spent hours talking about golf, fishing, food and schools in California. Then Lai and Lay Keow came and we ended up cracking all kinds of jokes as usual. Lai really is a humourous chap, full of funny ideas, much like UJ. Nic has this intriguing idea of putting Lai and UJ together to see what kind of chemistry will ensue. Actually, I think it is definitely worth exploring. The rather unfortunate thing is, by some weird twist of fate, just when YY and UJ arrive in San Ramon in August, the Lai's leave on the same exact day for Singapore. The twain are destined to stay apart, maybe for the sanity of those around them :).

The gamers went round after round of mahjong so by the time Nik was ready to cut her birthday cake and we can belt out the song with gusto, it was about 11 pm. While those with kids start to take their leave, the diehard gamers started on yet another round of mahjong. Looked like it was going to be an all-nighter.

Cruising

Another weekend dawns and I am flabbergasted. What have I achieved all week? We have been in the US almost 10 months and in that time, what have I accomplished? Was it worth the expenses and efforts to bring us here?

I have struggled to break through the well that my workteam has dug themselves into. Have I made any inroads? Hard to judge when you are right in the center of it all. How would someone looking in from the outside rate my performance? Have to speed things up a bit but so so hard...

Monday after a few hours of interviews to select a new employee, I will be off to Texas for a project at one of our plants. It should be an interesting experience.

My camera is giving up its ghost. I don't know what happened. We used it last at Half Moon Bay and it was just dandy. Sigh, just after I got the 2GB SD card too. The lens seems to have stopped communicating with the engine - the screen is just a patch of white and if you cover the lens and peer hard enough, you can just make out the words and graphics that tell you how many shots you have made, how much battery life is left. etc. I tried to resuscitate it by unscrewing the chasis to see if I can figure out if any part has broken loose (like I fixed my laptop external hard drive) but the screws were too tight and I did not have the proper tools.

Found out the camera was sick on Monday when we decided to go for a long drive down Pacific Highway 1. Put paid to my hopes of getting shots of this very scenic route that goes all the way from San Francisco to Monterey Bay. Long, beautiful coastline with picturesque scenes of waves from the Pacific Ocean crashing and foaming against cliffs, boulders and rocks and isolated pockets of beaches and of cypress trees bending in defiance against the onslaught of cold winds. We had lunch at Half Moon Bay and drove all the way to Santa Cruz. Didn't even realised we had reached Santa Cruz until we saw the street signs. Tried to get to the Boardwalk but traffic was moving at snail speed and parking was horrific so we went to main street downtown instead and just window shopped. Well we window shopped but Nic had to spend at a Gap store. She is getting to be a shopaholic. Not a week goes by without her bugging me to tears with demands for money or shopping trips. In reality though, her shopping is limited. At least she knows where to draw the line. Hope the money sense continues to grow in her.

We took the shorter route home, relying on our trusty Garmin to bring us along windy Highway 17 to Fremont where we picked up some groceries at Ranch 99 and had yummy hot spicy Szechuan dinner at a small and very reasonably priced restaurant right next door. I love the food there - oily spicy and oh so good and cheap.

With the days getting warmer and longer with each passing day, it was still light when we returned from Fremont

Today, we are supposed to go to Nik and Keng's home for some kind of event. Not sure what it is but Nic has some Physics project with her classmate, Arin, and so here I am blogging instead of tucking into lunch with our new friends. Hope the two of them finish up quickly. I am hungry!