Days of My Life

This is a post that I had started in August/ September 2015, shortly after I returned from camp (see below). I had begun to summarize my Asia trip at the bottom of the post, and then closed out of the draft window, opting to sleep, telling myself that I'd continue and finish it the next time. It is now July 2016, and the only update to this piece are the added pictures. Everything else to come later, in a separate post... Before I start with what I've been wanting to write, let me tell you this: if you are considering broiling/ boiling vegetables with coconut oil, don't do it. Or if you really want to, use only a tiny bit of the oil, because it certainly is strong. The last few months have been a true blessing, for lack of a brief description. However, since I rarely lack a brief description, here's a skeleton of what I feel fortunate enough to deem a blessing. I'll start backwards chronologically: Camp Ronald McDonald . It's truly the best life decis...

Frequently, it occurs to me how little immigrant parents know--and I don't mean that in any negative way. Knowing little of the English language and little about American culture, they assimilate how they can, and what they see is what they absorb and subsequently "know." For instance, until last year, my family had never had a dog--or any pet, for that matter, other than the occasional goldfish we scored from carnivals at Alpine Park. The only kind of dog that we ever "regularly" came in contact with was a distant (but not really, because she lives in El Sereno, which is adjacent to where we live) relative's guard dog, a German shepherd of whom I was stupidly afraid. A little over 1.5 years ago, my dad began contemplating getting a dog; then it became getting a guard dog; and then, of course, it became "getting the dog that 'mumu' [Cantonese translation for a non-blood related grandmother] has." At some point, he found out from mumu the na...