wedding progress

Posted on February 14, 2007 by jeannie

Just to balance out last night’s black post I thought I’d list some of the wedding planning that has been accomplished.

1. Chad’s getting a 4 mm platinum wedding band (size eight) from bluenile.com. He thought he was a gold man, but changed his mind when he tried on rings at the local jeweler. We didn’t plan it this way, but now his band will match my engagement/wedding ring. And as much as I want to support local business, the local store said his ring would be $1500-$2000 and we can get the same ring at bluenile.com for $700.

2. We’ve finalized the wedding ceremony and reception guest list. The wedding ceremony will be attended by family in Joshua Tree National Park. The next night will be a big party with Korean BBQ (at my house). We created three excel worksheets (does it always have to be three? is it possible to add a fourth worksheet?- couldn’t do it, though I tried) One lists all the invites by household with columns for names, # of adults, # of children, and the mailing address. Another will keep track of gifts and thank-you cards and the third is a guest list is for my shower (!!) which a friend has started to plan.

3. The bridal shower will not involve any games – or at least none that involve clothpins or toilet paper. Looks like it will be a raucous camp-out in the spring. Whooping around a campfire, tearful story-telling, booze, and lots of hugs and love in the outdoors.

4. One hundred pale grey drawstring organza bags arrived in the post yesterday. Thanks Sue!

5. My brother, sister, and I have decided to pitch in together and get airline tix so a favorite auntie and her son can attend the wedding.

6. The first installment of stationary has arrived. Save-the-date cards will be sent shortly. Envelopes are “sage” and the cards are “cement.”

7. We’ve started cleaning the yard (= we planted the christmas tree…) I’ve also had some thoughts about renting or borrowing a tractor to level the backyard and building a retaining wall. Possibly too ambitious and/or expensive, although a contractor friend said it would add value to the house.

8. I’ve started stocking up on the alcohol; each trip to Costco I pick up another bottle of booze. The first purchase was Blue Sapphire gin.

9. Got a lead on a cake-maker.

10. Inquired about flowers at the local market, just because driving to Los Angeles the day of my wedding for flowers seems like it might need a plan B. The local flower guy says that he can’t drop the price, but his prices are good so $200 would buy me eight 5-gallon buckets full of seasonal flowers.

Here are the flowers I got from the flower guy this last weekend. He grows them all himself. (I am continually impressed with the quality of photo I get from my razr!)

Posted in marriage, wedding for $2000 | 1 Comment

because Tiff asked

Posted on February 14, 2007 by jeannie

Sue sent me some lovely tea for Christmas this year from a company in Australia called T2 (t2tea.com.au). The exotic loose leaf teas (buddhas tears, gyokuro, and pai mu tan) came in a stacking white matte tin -  a great example of how good packaging makes something even more desirable. I love the packaging so much that I reassemble it and put it back in its box after each use. I also have old T2 packaging saved in my closet (another gift came wrapped in a Chinese newspaper wrapped in a strip of orange wax paper and tied with twine – one square sticker that said “T2” held the thing together).

According to my sister, white tea is all the rage in Asia and Australia right now. And according to wikipedia, white tea has more anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties than green tea.

This wikipedia article explains what white tea is:

“White tea is tea made from new growth buds and young leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis. The leaves are steamed or fried to inactivate oxidation, and then dried. White tea therefore retains the high concentrations of catechins which are present in fresh tea leaves. The buds may also be shielded from sunlight during growth to reduce formation of chlorophyll. White tea is a specialty of the Chinese province Fujian.

White tea is made from less mature leaves than green tea, and has undergone less processing, resulting in different catechin profiles and yielding greater medicinal qualities in some trials. For white tea, the little buds that form on the plant are covered with silver hairs that give the young leaves a white appearance.”

Posted in food, says sue | Leave a comment

thesis pain versus wedding planning pain

Posted on February 14, 2007 by jeannie

In my first year of writing my thesis, one of the original members of my thesis committe (Alison Pearlman, who wrote Unpacking the Art of the 1980s) made this casual comment: Maybe you should just forget the old draft and start fresh… you have all the information in your head, right?

At the time, sitting in my favorite garden cafe in Pasedena, I could not even begin to fathom holding all the research I had excavated, all the tiny thoughts I had expanded – in my head at once. Now, many, many drafts later, every sentence I read is nauseatingly familiar; I can’t see what I am trying to say or tell whether I have said it already.

But I am getting close, very close. Close to where I could pound out the final draft with a couple of all-nighters. But the closer I get, the more it chafes to reread and the more difficult it becomes to focus.

And the wedding planning has also become painful – so much so that now I procrastinate wedding planning by working on my thesis. I have come to realize that the fusion of two families may be almost as excruciating as the fission of a family. Could I really be saying that marriage (or approaching marriage) is as agonizing as divorce? Well, if tears are any measure, wedding planning is gaining by the hanky-ful.

My mood is so foul I should really just stay in my bedroom until it passes. Instead, I’ll brew another cup of black tea, work on the thesis an hour and then post. And repeat.

I probably should not be watching war movies filled with soldiers clutching hand grenades to their chests (Letters from Iwo Jima and Silmido), or reading a book about a man slowly going crazy in his midlife (A Spot of Bother by Mark Hadden) and alternating it with a book about an odorless murderer (Perfume by Thomas Suskind). But I can’t help myself. I want to wallow.

Nothing is wrong with my life. This is just me in a black mood. It’s funny; people think I reveal so much when I post, but really, it seems like there is so much more that I choose not to disclose. Hell, it’s all painful – relationships, mothering, friendships, decisions, and especially change…

Posted in marriage, thesis | 2 Comments

nutrition for runners

Posted on February 10, 2007 by jeannie

Chad’s parents are convinced that Chad and I are getting sick more frequently this winter because we lost too much weight at once. Chad’s lost about thirty pounds and I lost about fifteen pounds over a period of three months last summer and fall. It’s true that we’ve both been sick quite a bit this season (but hasn’t everybody?) so I’ll share an article that Chad’s mom passed on to us from Runners’ World (October 2006), called “The Best Grocery List of All Time” It’s about nutrition for runners.

The article points out that most shoppers toss the same 10-15 items in their cart every single week. I know it’s true for my household and probably true for most folks. (Come to think of it, I once made an old roommate laugh hard by spontaneously generating her entire grocery list just by what I saw replenished in fridge and cupboard every week.) Then the article lists fifteen foods that should be in the runner’s shopping cart, and includes their rationale and recipes. Here’s the list:

1. Almonds

2. Eggs

3. Sweet Potatoes

4. Whole-grain Cereal with Protein

5. Oranges

6. Canned Black Beans

7. Mixed Salad Greens

8. Whole-grain Pasta

9. Chicken (“Runners need about 50 to 75 percent more protein than nonrunners to promote recovery after workouts.”)

10. Frozen Mixed Berries

11. Dark Chocolate (!!!)

12. Salmon

13. Whole-grain Bread

14. Low-Fat Yogurt

15. Frozen Stir-Fry Vegetables

Posted in chocolate, food, losing weight, running | 1 Comment

say no to easy hikes

Posted on February 9, 2007 by jeannie

 My fiance’s parents lead monthly the Sierra Club hikes in the area (during hiking season, which around here is Sept-April). Instead of passing down family recipes, Ann and Al will be passing down a GPS full of hikes, an accumulation of over thirty years of hiking experience. Information, as I always say, is the best thing to share.

Last month we hiked to the Paymaster Mine. My friend Ellen snapped this panoramic vista. I surprised by the vast perspective because we spent a lot of time focused on close-ups on the different cacti we found out there.

And here’s one of Ellen and I at our lunch spot.

Posted in desert, local entertainment | Leave a comment

this is me helping bella with her algebra

Posted on February 9, 2007 by jeannie

Bella: Mom, you have to help me study for my test tomorrow. I’m serious.

Me: Fine. What are you studying?

Bella: We’re factoring polynomials.

Me: OK, factoring polynomials is fun.

Bella: That’s what my teacher said! (surprised that we would both agree on such a thing)

Then she proceeded to tell me what a great teacher she has and explained some great trick her teacher had taught her. Of course I didn’t have the faintest idea how to factor polynomials with a big “X” thingie. Instead, I studied a few examples in the math book and tried to show her how the book was explaining the problems. We ended with Bella basically shouting, Stop! stop! I don’t want to learn another way!

and then, Fine, you can show me after my test tomorrow.

Fine, so I stopped. I checked some problems she had done and they were all correct. We finally got to a problem where I had to show her the “book” technique and after much grimacing and eye-rolling she got it. I kept telling her to write down the formula first, and she kept saying, Why bother if I can do it in my head?

What a smartie pants.

Painful, but ultimately a productive homework sess. We finished by racing to factor a cubic polynomial – one that was not a homework problem – and we both got it right!

Then she turned back thirty or so pages and said, Now will you help me review the rest of the chapter?

Since she clearly knows her stuff and has more integrity about learning it than I ever had – I refused and told her it was time to go to bed.

It’s fun to have a kid who loves math, but also a little freaky.

Posted in mothering, says bella | Leave a comment

a noteworthy web log

Posted on February 8, 2007 by jeannie

This blog is written by Dr. Saad Eskander, the director of Iraq’s National Library and Archives in Baghdad. Puts a perspective on things. Here is an excerpt from an article in yesterday’s NYTimes:

“In mid-January, he published a chart on the impact of sectarian violence on his staff for just the month of December. It included 4 assassinations of employees and 2 kidnappings, 66 murders of staff members’ relatives, 58 death threats and 51 displacements. “

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typical job interview schedule in academia

Posted on February 7, 2007 by jeannie

Songbae’s girlfriend has her Ph.D. and is in the process of looking for a job. Anybody need an ethnomusicologist? Here is her recent job interview schedule (it’s scary to think about having to teach a class in front of your prospective employer!):

Day 1
9:45 Hotel pick-up by Dean
10:00 Orientation meeting with Dean
11:00 Meet with Search Committee
12:00 Lunch with committee and interested faculty members
1:30 Presentation (lecture, demonstration, and/or performance (30 –
45 minutes)
2:30 Meet with interested students
3:30 Meet with Associate Dean for Administration
4:30 Meet with retiring World Music instructor
5:30 Dinner with committee (meet at front desk)

Day 2
9:15 Hotel pick-up by Dean
9:40 Teach musicianship class (30 minutes) on a World Music topic of
your choosing:
10:30 Meet with Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
11:30 Exit interview with Dean; return to airport.

Posted in job hunting, says Songbae | Leave a comment

a dose of Korean women

Posted on February 6, 2007 by jeannie

Donna, the woman my brother is dating, is featured in KoreAm magazine! (Hey – they’re looking for a full-time staff writer in Gardena…note to self: apply for this position after finishing thesis.)

And on the topic of Korean women; I’ve found a new entertaining blog called Kimchi Mamas. Check it out here.

Posted in blogs, korea | Leave a comment

dark chocolate or white tea

Posted on February 6, 2007 by jeannie

If I had money to invest, I might invest in dark chocolate or white tea. Apparently the X-treme sports mentality has infiltrated my life – the darker the chocolate the better, the whiter the tea the better – where will it end? Last night at the coop order (a group of ten women order a $2000 minimum order to get the same – or nearly the same – price as wholesale) there was much ado over the kinds of chocolate ordered. One case of the darkest chocolate Endangered Species makes went like hotcakes. That’s the one with a black panther on the wrapper; it has a 88% cacao content; and it’s called “Extreme Dark Chocolate.”

The second case of chocolate bars was also by Endangered Species: the “Dark Chocolate with Hazelnut Toffee.” That one has a picture of a rhino on it – and it may be my favorite, but it’s too sweet for everyday. I’ll put those by my all-time standby bars: “Dark Chocolate with Espresso Beans” (tiger). I need a minimum of two bars of Tiger stashed in my cheese drawer of the fridge at all times.

The third case was a brand we had never heard of: Chocolove. We’re giving it a shot because they were on sale. I’ll tell you how it goes.

And last chocolate reference; there is a new chocolate company out there called… darn, something like Mommy Nutrition and they were advertising a new chocolate bar called Baby Needs Chocolate (!!!)

Oops, no time for white tea; I’m 23 minutes over by thesis break.

(More info about Endangered Species chocolate at their website chocolatebar.com)

Posted in chocolate | 3 Comments