This blog is moving!!!

We are relinquishing the helava.com domain for Seppo’s dad’s business, so we’ll be moving all our __.helava.com domains, including this one, the food one, and the rarely active inciteanovel one. This one may end up on papercupgames.com or on blogspot. I am not sure yet. I will need to decide by tonight though!

I will post a note here before I actually move the domains.

No, I have not started my own business…

… selling dvds, cameras, and printers.

My yahoo account’s contact list has been compromised. 🙁 I am sorry if someone or spambot sent you email pretending to be me. It’s not me. You know I don’t use that email account anyway. Still, so sorry.

Gardener love

I am working from home today because I had to see the doc about some weird cyst in my hand that appeared then ruptured, but it is apparently one hundred percent benign, so please don’t worry. I am cyst-prone anyway and have developed a bunch in the past.

Er… anyway. So I am working from home. And the yard crew has done — and are currently doing — amazing things. All the trees are pruned and all the brush has been cleared away. We definitely have to figure out what kind of ground cover we want before the next rainy season, as the ground is bare and expected to be for as long as they are coming back to maintain.

There is just so much land back there that it’s insane. Everyone should drop by to see. It makes no sense how clear it is. How can human beings have done so much in such a short amount of time, and in this sweltering heat?

Speaking of sweltering heat, I felt so bad for the guys that I bought a bag of ice and a pack of gatorade and set them up outside next to a giant pitcher of ice water. I don’t think the ice will last long in the heat, but at least I tried. I also invited them inside to take a break, but I don’t think they felt comfortable doing so. 🙁

ZOMGBACKYARD!!!!!!!!

I’m sorry; the world does not have enough exclamation points to cover how many I need to express my amazement and sheer, overwhelmed awe at how much work the gardner did today.

I MEAN, OMG.

I swear there will be pictures at some point. We hired this guy because he quoted a flat fee to do all the clearing of the backyard as well as the front yard. I came home to our entire left fence wall completely exposed and bare, with nothing between it and the stone walkway that Seppo built, with the exception of the apple tree, which had been rescued from a thick, overgrown thatch of blackberry bushes. The tree itself had been pruned into an actual tree shape, which, tee hee.

The loquat tree had been similarly pruned, the bamboo brought under control, and the entire area around it cleared. I can’t begin to describe how different the yard looks, even with piles of yardwaste that they couldn’t haul away today. Tomorrow, he’s coming back to finish the right side and presumably, the front. Or if he doesn’t finish, he’ll simply keep coming until everything is clear. OMG! Seppo just said, “In this way, he’s very much like the T-1000.” 😐

WOW. I mean, he didn’t just clear out the brush and bushes and prune trees; he brought everything that is not a tree down to the ground. I AM SO EXCITED. The sheer potential of our backyard has been re-exposed. Actually, I am not sure that we’ve ever seen things this clear, even when we first saw the house. We are definitely going to have this guy continue to come for maintenance.

This means that instead of working on trying to tame a tiny corner of the yard or feeling stress & guilt that we are not outside trying to do the same, we can actually just start using the backyard and doing crazy things like buying more sand/gravel/stones to build a FIRE PIT OF DOOM (with all the necessary safety precautions x 10000, since we do not want to have our house and/or Oakland go up in flames) or a stone patio. And we can do it slowly over time because we won’t have to worry about the growth coming back to hamper us, because we’ll just have a guy who magically makes that headache go away.

Seppo and I are both in agreement that while we wish we could have done this years ago, that it’s only in the last couple of years that we could have paid for this kind of thing, even though this guy works at a GREAT price, so we are both happy and have no regrets.

This, combined with the stairs means that this house is really starting to feel like a real home inhabited by real people. The stairs, in particular, are no longer a death trap! Since we no longer have any secret place in the backyard to hide bodies, it’s a good thing the stairs are fixed.

WOO HOO!

My, what a delicious couch you’ve got!

A.k.a. the blog entry where I go test crazy.

Created by OnePlusYou

Disturbingly:

Created by OnePlusYou

Dammit! I got one wrong. 🙁 I think it was the last one:

Created by OnePlusYou

And why shouldn’t this score correspond to the last one? No reason.

87% Geek

Created by OnePlusYou

Privilege test

This meme would be interesting to do with a group of friends all gathered in one place, in person as originally intended by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka of Indiana University, but I’ll just do as the rest of the blogosphere has done and bold the items that apply to me. I think it has a bigger impact in real life because you’ll see your peers standing many steps apart from each other.

Step forward one step if:

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. But the one is younger than me, so does this count, since he was not a part of the environment that raised me?
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children’s books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 For a month.
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Had or will have less than $5000 in student loans when you graduate
Had or will have no student loans when you graduate
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs*
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs*
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp It was an academic camp for one summer that I applied through school then earned a scholarship to go to… so, again, does this count?
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child For two years before I went off to college, because my sister had by then gone off to college. Until then, we always shared
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 Ok, I feel like this one really doesn’t count. The one time I flew before 16 was to immigrate to the US from Korea.
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

Note from the website I got this from:

*These two are edited because Christine pointed out that the previous wording didn’t clearly delineate between people who had their tuition paid for them and people who worked for their college expenses.

Other key notes from the original site:

Note that the people on one end of the room had to work harder to be here today than the people at the other end of the room. Some of you had lives of more privilege than others. There is no one to blame, it is just the way it is. Some have privilege and some don’t.

…

Having privilege does not mean that you worked less hard. All it means is that you had a head start, so maybe it does mean you didn’t have to work as hard…

That last one is a bit vaguely phrased, but if you just drop that last clause and end with “… you had a head start,” then I think it makes perfect sense.

Some of the things that they suggest discussing are:

• What were the feelings that you had during this experience? Who was angry? (Anger will be a primary emotion at this point.)

• What, specifically, makes you angry?

• Who are you angry at?

• Who was happy?

• Which item do you want to argue about most? Why? Do you want more or fewer steps?

My future kids will have almost everything checked off. It’s kind of crazy.

Stairway to…

… heaven the upstairs.

The contractor and his crew dismantled our downstairs-upstairs inside stairway today. THe $$ hurts but it’ll be up to code, then we can close out our kitchen permits and think about drywalling all the of the upstairs. A couple of bigger area rugs after that, and we can call it a day for a loooooooooooong while.

After this long while, we’ll probably eventually have to tackle the upstairs bathroom and the floors, but we can absolutely live with them as-is for years.

Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes well.

Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Can you smell it in the air? The warm breezes carry a hint of that inexplicable something… It’s So You Think You Can Dance season! 😀 Woo! My favorite show is back.

The undeniable gem of the first episode of the season was Robert Muraine:

HOLY MOLY. It was even more impressive in HD. Does he have any bones in his body? I was impressed with his showmanship and musicianship as well as his technical abilities. I could watch him all day and night. That was amazing.

Breathing, sleeping

Over two years ago, I had an insight into my sleeping issues.

Sometime in the latter half of last year, I went to visit an allergist who gave me one of those skin tests where they prick your back with samples of a bunch of allergens and see how badly you react to them. Ah, torture for pay! Anyway, it turns out that I have a very, very, very severe dust mite allergy. Dust mites live all over the house, especially in environments like the bed, what with its warmth, darkness, skin flakes, and moisture (from human sweat — sorry to be gross). Also, washing your sheets in cold (without several extra rinses) or warm water will not kill most of the dust mites, and we only ever do laundry with cold water if we can help it, since it is better for the environment. I have to make a note to wash in super-hot water when we do sheets…

In retrospect, my sleep problems all make a great deal of sense. I get into bed, become exposed to dust mites, trigger my allergies, which causes my sinuses to get inflamed and clogged up, have trouble breathing, then wake myself up out of sleep.

I’ve been using my prescription nasal spray and taking generic Claritin every night now for the past several months. And I have been sleeping better than ever before in my life. I can take deep breaths, my nose is not always stuffed, and I can sleep most of the way through the night (except when I foolishly down too much coffee :D). It really feels like a miracle.

Now, if only I could keep Mobi from whimpering by the side of the bed and waking me up…

My Korean Parents

I saw this hilarious list on a blog. I’m sure it’s made the rounds before, but I was chortling through the list. Not everything applies, but for the most part, this list makes me feel that I shouldn’t have wasted so much time telling stories about my family life on this blog and just posted this list instead.

How you know you have really Korean parents…

1. Your mom keeps her rubber bands around the kitchen sink faucet handles. I have a tendency to do this too, which I have been successfully fighting for the last several years.
2. Your mom uses water and an old rag to clean everything.
3. Your mom has a bag of frozen anchovies (meh-ruh-chee) in the freezer.
4. Your parents have a free calendar hung on their wall from church or the local Korean market.
5. Your mom randomly tells you what their friends’ kids have done, especially if they did something good for their parents. You feel like they are comparing you to them…which they are.
6. A date night for your parents, is lying in the electronic heated blanket with thick puffy faux fur Korean blankets in the living room watching Korean videos. I don’t believe a child of Korean parents actually listed something called “date night” even if just to make fun of it. Also, this situation was really every night.
7. When going to the beach with your mom, she’s covered from head to toe with her 10-inch sun visor, her Robotech sunglasses, lightweight jackets and such. In fact, they will most likely drive to the beach, look at the water, say ‘Choop-TAH!!!’ and then drive back home after one hour. This is the only one that is really blatantly wrong.
8. If your parents call you ‘Kah-She-Nah’ or ‘Jah-Sheek’ if you haven’t called them in over a week and then feel guilty about it.
9. When you were in 1st grade, your parents used rice instead of buying Elmer’s glue. This really went on well into high school. And anytime I run out of glue, I still do this. What?!
10. Your mom has a collection of empty kimchi jars for future use, big rubber basins in the backyard for making kimchi, a gallon of koh-choo-jang and a 20lb bag of rice. I also often have a 20lbs bag of rice. Not right now though.
11. Your dad will even comment on the koh-choo-jang or gihm being really good b/c it’s from Korea but you can’t tell the difference. Only if his mom had sent it. 😀
12. Your mom washes dishes by hand (only using the dishwasher on special occasions)
13. Your parents rarely show teeth or have big smiles in pictures. Nah, my mom is a big smiler. 🙂
14. You get straight A’s on your report card with one A- or B+, and they have a huge fit about it -OR-Your parents are worried about the A- or B+, and say do better next time and pray about it but then tell you no TV or going outside to play until next report card time. Let’s not tiptoe around the issue: most of us got our butts/legs/hands/back/whatever whupped pretty damn badly whenever this happened. Not going out to play as punishment? Yeah, right.
15. A son or daughter of someone they know gets into an Ivy League school and their parents are touted as being the greatest parents ever!
16. When your mom cooks, she never measures anything. And when you ask her how much you should put it in…she says ‘ah…you know… a little bit here…a little there. Just taste.’ This makes me insane. 🙂
17. If someone walks into a room/house with shoes on, it makes you highly uncomfortable and nervous. I’ve finally gotten used to it after living at our fixer-upper. But after we get the floors redone, it’s off with shoes and on with slippers with the lot of you! 🙂
18. Your parents are looking for a toothpick after they’ve eaten at a restaurant. When they find one, they cover their mouths with one hand while picking their teeth with the other.
19. Your parents have lived in the U.S. for over 20+ years, and they still don’t vote. By God, my mom will vote this year.
    
20. Your church parking lot has more Lexus, BMW, and Mercedes cars than the local dealership.
21. Your dad or mom planted something in your front yard, backyard, wherever there’s dirt – they’ll plant and grow. Betchoo? Genyip? Something…
22. When you’re around your parents, your tone changes and you speak like a baby or little kid ‘Uhhhhh-MMMMMaaaaahhhhHHHHH! Nah beh goo pahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!’
23. If you are a girl, you spend $150-$250 getting a straight pah-mah to make your hair look ‘naturally’ straight. Don’t judge me.
24. When you go to the beach for a BBQ, camping or an amusement park, your parents bring the 3 golden Ks – kimchi, kalbi, kimbab. I could eat these three things everyday, for every meal.
25. Your parents have embarrassed you in public before by their mannerisms (dad yelling too loud ‘Eun Jung AHHHH!!! YUH-GEE-WAH!!!’, parents swearing in broken English at another driver).
26. Your parents are part of some sort of social group. It usually involves secret group money collecting/exchange (pyramid or “gehh”).
27. Getting toilet paper, toothpaste, or any highly practical item is an appropriate and wise prize during team games at Church Picnics or Christmas Parties.
28. When eating a grilled fish, your mom or dad eats the fishhead and eyeballs like it’s filet mignon.
29. Your mom always dresses up when going out of the house. At home, she dresses like a homeless woman wearing your old clothes/sweats and mismatching.
30. Your mom works more than full-time, cleans, cooks homemade meals, sews, serves, is always go, go, go and worries so much that she nags you about what you’re going to do with your life.
31. Your dad has never cooked or washed dishes in the kitchen but man, when it’s time to grill that kalbi….he’s all over that! Not even grilling gets him out of the couch.
32. You communicate through your mom what you need to tell your dad and vice-versa
33. Your dad is always on the couch after work, quietly reading the Korean newspaper or watching the Korean news/videos.
34. The Korean newspaper is the 2nd bible to your parents.
35. Your mom knows a friend, who had a friend, who had a friend….that something bad happened to therefore, you need to listen to your parents and do as they tell you although there is no logical connection whatsoever to the story they just told you (usually that ‘friend’ is just a news article they read from the Korean newspaper)
36. Your dad would explode and yell with a passion about once every few months or year. The rest of the time, he’s quietly reading the newspaper. *cough*every two or three days*cough*
37. Your parents never paid for napkins…they just took a whole stack from McDonald’s, restaurants…etc. And we also had “salads” from the Roy Rogers hamburger fixings bar. The horror.
38. When you were younger and at a restaurant with another Korean family, your parents would fight over the bill…usually the dads…they start grabbing it out of the hand and/or try to pay and the other one pulls him down going …’ah yai..yai..yai”…sometimes this back and forth process will take 15 min. – everyone else waiting until the parents duke it out and pay. My friends (esp U, who is not Korean, but clearly we have been brainwashed by the same kind of mindset) and my cousins do this too.
39. Your parents always eat some sort of fruit for dessert…apples, Asian pear, oranges…and your mom peels the apple skin, the core and slices it into ‘crescent’ shape pieces.
40. You just love, love, love them Korean faux fur blankets and/or heating floor pads. (Nowadays it’s Ceragem!)
41. There is some piece of Korean furniture in the house somewhere like a folding Korean table or a black ebony chest with cranes all over it. Mine is in the closet. 😀
42. Your mom has bulk packs of Korean nylon knee high stockings – and wears them with sandals.
43. You’ve been called an ‘Ee-nuhm-ja-sheek’ or ‘Kah-she-nah’ by your parents many times in your life
44. You eat seaweed soup on your birthday prepared by your mom! Hopefully, by Seppo this year!
45. When you or guests are leaving your parents’ house, they wait for you to get into the car and leave before they go back in the house. Won’t close the door, until you’re gone. Doesn’t matter if it’s freezing cold outside…they’ll linger and wait until you’re gone first before they go back in the house.
46. Your mom has short-permed her hair several times since you left the house for college, each time you come home it is a different short perm style. She probably has a short perm right now.
47. You have an aunt (emo) that always slips you a $100 bill when they see you. They try to do it discreetly too which makes it all super secretive but then your mom sees and says ‘aii…uhnee’ and your aunt goes ‘ah..dehsuh..dehsuh..’
48. Your parents have told you that you will die in the middle of the night if you leave the fan on running…. I still half-believe it, even though my rational mind knows it’s 100% wrong.
49. Your parents ALWAYS want you to stay home and not go out – read a book instead, etc. They never had to tell me to read a book. 😀 But yes, home by default, permission to leave by Special Grant Only, which only happened like once a year, except for church activities and after-school clubs. I was in so many clubs…
50. When you ask your parents if they need help, and they say no, but they really mean ‘yes’ so don’t ask, just do it! Corollary: They also will believe that if you really want to help, you will just do it, and not ask, so if you ask and take their word for it, you really didn’t want to help. 🙁
51. Your parents eat kimchi with their spaghetti. They don’t eat spaghetti, but kimchi goes with everything, yo.