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December 2002
December 31 - Gasa Gasa
Been busy prepping for the new year's thing (aside from last night where Tony e-bayed for at least 8 hours and I watched a marathon of Frontier House) and trying to get rid of our colds. Tony cleaned the carpets yesterday with our new carpet cleaner and I went to work for a few hours and wrote my column. Have to finish putting all the furniture back, we've been sorting through old clothes and knick knacks, etc. for days. Need to check to see if our bbq works and clean off the backyard furniture. Because we're trying to do things as organic, healthy, economically and culturally it means going to several stores. By the end, we will have gone to probably 8 different stores for our groceries and ordering from at least 3 or 4 restaurants. Chinese food from Hop Li and Lei Loy, tamales and ossechi (Japanese good luck dishes) from Boyle Heights. Today we have to do our major shopping, everything so far has been in bits. We could potentially have 25-65 people going through here tomorrow. It's a bit much. Which is why this will never be an annual event - bi-annually at least. Tony just walked in and said, "you gotta respect our grandmas and those Issei and Nisei people who did this every year." Yep.
December 28 - Friday Five on Saturday
I have recently enjoyed reading people's lists in their blogs like Friday Five or This or That Tuesday. Thought I'd take a try at it. We'll see if it continues.
1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year? Doing almost daily yoga from July 1 to October 26. It was amazing how well my body responded to the daily exercise commitment. Creating and keeping up this website was very satisfying. I had a lot of support and help, but getting Great Leap out of the hole and back on track... major.
2. What was your biggest disappointment? No baby. We know people mean well, but when and if we have "news" to share, we will. Please don't ask us about it or try to give unsolicited advice.
3. Will you be making any New Year's resolutions? Not on Jan. 1 per se. I make resolutions all year round. I recently re-started my daily yoga routine. I'm on a daily health supplement regime.
4. Where will you be at midnight? Do you wish you could be somewhere else? Will likely be at home either cooking or cleaning. At least we will enter 2003 with good food and a clean house. I will try to do Jenni's Year-in-Review in my actual journal.
5. Aside from (possibly) staying up late, do you have any other New Year's traditions?
For Japanese Americans, visiting relatives, eating authentic sushi, the whole Oshogatsu thing is harder to do with the Issei almost all gone and the Nisei traditions dying out. Tony & I did Oshogatsu 2 years ago for the first time, but it's a lot of work. We plan to do it again this year. It's up to the Sansei and Yonsei to keep these traditions going. No one will ever make sushi like my grandma did, but maybe our "make-your-own-sushi handrolls" and newer traditions can be created.
December 26 - Christmas Fun Pix
Had a lot of fun on Christmas. Tony's Mom and husband Don came over for the first time. Having a digital camera means this is the first time in years I've taken photos. We took tons. Tony got a 128 MB compact flash card in the gift exchange. It can hold over 1400 photos. Check out the photos of our Christmas (Part 1) and Group Photos (Part 2). Spent today mopping the kitchen, updating the website and cleaning up the Christmas wrapping mess. I re-started my daily yoga yesterday, did 29 minutes yesterday and 43 minutes today. Hope you all had a nice Christmas. Now we got to clean the house for New Year's Oshogatsu.
December 24 - Tamales & Pups
Worked all day, came home, wrapped gifts. Went to the Ayala's for tamales on Christmas Eve. It was nice quiet evening. The newest addition to the family was Hector's puppies. See photos. Got home by 11:30 pm, just in time to start the Rainbow Jello. It takes 20 minutes for each of the 7 layers to chill, total about 2 1/2 hours. It's cooking for anal retentives. In between each layers, I continued wrapping, tried to take mini naps, vacuumed, etc. It was my 4th nite in a row being up till after 2am.
December 22 - Uh-Oh
Uh oh. Only 3 more shopping days. Well I have to just accept that I won't get everything done. Did a few hours of shopping yesterday. I walked down to the closest mall, and then it started pouring! Luckily, Tony knew where I was and came to pick me up after his errands. We had lunch at a new Oaxacan place we found last week after a not-so-good dinner at the Mar Vista Bowl. Afterwards we went to Kent's 40th surprise party. Kyle (nephew-2 mos.) and Kai (Lisa/Jay's baby-6 mos.) were there with grandma's (see photos). Feeling a little run down and stressed. Gotta get back into daily yoga routine. I did daily yoga from July to the end of October, when I got the flu and haven't gotten back into it yet. Current Boggle score is 1384-Tony, 1532-Jenni after 175 games. He still holds the title for the longest word (8 letters) and highest single game points (39).
December 18 - One week to X-Mas?
Oh what a beautiful day! Driving downtown to work, I could see snow on the mountains and not a cloud in the sky. It's supposed to storm again tomorrow, but the day was brisk and gorgeous. Hard to believe Christmas is in a week. You'd never know at our house. We did order a few gifts online and I got a few small gifts, but haven't been in a mall yet. We've been getting some cards and photos in the mail. I don't know if I'm going to get to them this year. We were going to make postcards with our website address and a photo, but we haven't moved on it yet. If you don't get one this year, it's not because we don't care. Friends who call our answering machine have been asking us to change the message for months because it said "Happy New Year." The other day Glen said we didn't need to change our machine because New Year's is coming up. See, wait long enough and everything comes back in style.
Last night, Nobuko and I took the staff to the Korean bath/spa and dinner. It was nice and relaxing. Afterwards I went to pick up Tony at Uncle Bill's and we ended up hanging out with him and Tony's dad for several hours. I was so tired after the spa, I fell asleep on the couch. The picture at right with the zucchini from my garden has nothing to do with this entry, but I thought I'd share it. It's the last zucchini of the season from a few months ago. Maybe I can put lights, ornaments, tinsle and call it a tree. O tanenbaum.
December 16 - Soy to the World!
Rained pretty hard today and it's pouring right now as I write. We can really use this rain. I got Silk Nog (Soy Eggnog) at the health food store tonight. I thought I loved egg nog, but Soy Nog is terrific. I don't think I'm lactose intolerant, but it was so smooth and easy to down several glasses of Soy Nog. The carton said "Soy to the World" which I thought was appropriate. Tony made a delicious soup for dinner with chard, onions, yellow potatoes, beans, corn, lentils, rice, and cilantro. I need a lot of cilantro right now because I have tested with heavy metals in my system - lead and aluminum. I guess cilantro is used to remove metals from your body. The current Boggle score is 1194 Tony, and 1312 Jenni after 154 games. Tony beat me by 14 points today, only down by 118 points.
On another note, "Auntie" Lois passed away a few days ago. She has been part of the family for the past 50+ years. My mom said that my grandpa sort of adopted Lois back when mom was in grade school. After living and working in Japan for over 45 years, she retired and moved back to LA three years ago. She has been living in Boyle Heights at my uncle's church. Tomorrow is her funeral at Fukui Mortuary. She was 82.
December 13 - Boyle Heights N' Friendship
My best friend Maria and I met for our 4th Quarter dinner last night at Sushi Gen for a belated bday dinner. Even though we only had an hour and a half, it was time to catch up on our lives and eat a lot of sushi. Afterwards, I went to the Boyle Heights workshop, which was fun. The "To All Relations: Memories of Boyle Heights" performances will be happening from January 25-February 2nd. Looks like I'm going to be "performing" as one of the community participants. **nervous laugh** More photos will be up on the GL site shortly, but for now, here's a few with some of the participants, who are feeling more and more like friends. In the photos are Debra, Roosevelt cheerleader and homecoming queen from 1975, Maceo (Demon Drummer of ELA), Danny, Cougar & Roosevelt Class of 1937, Aurora and Jo Anna, two Chicana sistah writers.
December 10 - Shoulda
My back went out yesterday. I was stretching in the morning and I think my mid back just went into a big spasm. I couldn't move or inhale for several hours. I laid flat on the floor with a heating pad all afternoon. Since I was home from work, I should have finished the CCLPEP grant reports for Manzanar which are months overdue. I should have thought about holiday cards and gifts, and our plans to host New Year's Oshogatsu. I should have finished my nephew's gift. I should have gone to deposit some checks and balance the checkbooks. Instead, I read 3 People Magazines and played Boggle with Tony when he got home from work. The score is now 882-Tony, and 985-Jenni after 115 games. I actually made dinner (well, I boiled spaghetti and heated up some Prego sauce from the bottle). Shoulda coulda woulda. The important thing is that my back is feeling much better today. Back to work.
December 8 - Keiko Matsui Benefit for GL!
Last night, Great Leap held its 2nd fundraiser in 5 weeks. It was a big success. The 45 people who came were treated to a private house concert with Keiko and Kazu Matsui in Huntington Beach. We also got to see the Huntington Harbor Boat Parade, an interesting spectacle of Orange County holiday spirit. Afterwards, Captain Tim took everyone on a boat ride through the harbor! Toi Nakamoto catered all of the delicious food, salmon curry, kabocha noodles, Thai appetizers, wonton custard raspberry desserts. She is the best cook. I was happy that my brother Darin brought Saori for her 30th birthday which is tomorrow, their first night out since Kyle was born. Tonight, we're having dinner at the Curry house on Sawtelle for Sao's birthday. Tony was in Manzanar over the weekend. I had a Manzanar meeting this morning. Weekend flew by. No shopping done.
December 4 - Boggling and 9/11
First it was Game Boy. Then Diablo. Now it's Boggle Time! The kuidaosumi's are going crazy for Boggle. Do you remember Boggle? Shake the letters and see how many words you can find in 3 minutes. In the last 5 days, we have played 77 rounds of Boggle. As of tonight, the cumulative score is Tony-586, Jenni-640. High score for one round goes to Tony, with *39* points. We are having a lot of fun with the Bog competition.
On another note, last night was the Lil Tokyo for Peace's "Speak'n at the 'Machi." Mo Nishida asked me to be one of 3 presenters to talk about 9/11 and Subsequent Events. I was nervous, but it was very casual and informal. I spent the day writing out my thoughts about 9/11, solidarity with Arabs, Muslims and South Asians who have been removed from planes, beaten, and murdered. I also did some research on the Total Information Awareness program from the ACLU. Cool performances by Miwa Lyric, hip hop artist, and Ken Koshio, a Japanese singer who gathered 10,000 cranes and took them to Ground Zero in NYC. I also got to see friends who came.
Jan-June 2002 | July-September 2002 | October 2002 | November 2002
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