who your friends are

random assortment of easter pictures. MMMEAATTTT!

we smoked 2 chickens, a turkey breast, a pork butt and 2 sets of pork ribs from noon to 7.

matt's roommates come to all of our holiday dinners now. david and johnny. they are so much fun.

ripley wanted to get in on the easter action so we dyed her paws pink, blue, purple and orange. only the pink and blue really showed up well.

 

it was delicious.

three little things

!

andd..
giada had a recipe for squash blossoms today, but they're too pretty and i don't have any goat cheese. :)

then jeff gets home and i go out to tell him to try the quiche i made.. we're chatting..

megan: are you wearing mom's jammie top inside out?

jeff: it isn't inside out, but it is mom's shirt

me: i thought it looked weird. it has a scoop neck!

jeff: i was at tapadero getting something and my shirt was kind of gross so i found this in the laundry room, and it was soft, so i put it on.. but i was in the car driving to school and saw the flowers but i was like 'whatever, i'll rock some flowers today.'

mom: you can't even tell. it just looks like a blue shirt.

jeff: no, it's definitely a feminine shirt. it's kind of delicate looking.

jeff: so i'm standing outside waiting for class and this girl is looking at me funny so i just said to her 'yeah, it's my mom's shirt.' and she said she really liked it, and she wanted to trade shirts. but her shirt was too small. then she wanted to trade pants, but she was wearing really short shorts.

that is my family. you can't make this stuff up.

it was all yellow

when i was in middle school i used to wish and wish that my brothers were the sporty, social brothers that everyone else had. but now, by and large, i couldn't be happier with who jeff and matt are. jeff and i spend a lot of time together now that we're both home a lot of the time, and he's one of my favorite people.

he's really thoughtful and kind. he can read people better than anyone else i know. he doesn't care what other people think about him and he's just a good person.

baby all i got is this beat up leather bag

some days are slow around here and the highlight is moments like these. eating dibs out of the carton and bumping jeffy's hair.

before:

after:
he commented on his natural highlights when he looked at the after photo. he has a point.
and look who has a new favorite spot.

o come emmanuel

i don't know the story of how my parents ended up together well enough to tell it without heavy editing.

my favorite story about them is really about me. my mom had a tumor on her pituitary gland that was taken out when she was 21. the doctor told her that her hormones would be screwed up and that she should check in with a fertility doctor if/when she thought she wanted to have kids and they would figure it out.

actually aunt carol told me this weekend that my dad had come to her after he found that out.. my dad really loves kids.. and asked her about what he should do since he knew my mom probably couldn't have kids. but aunt carol said if he loved her enough to marry her, it would no problem to adopt kids.

..here is the church and here is the steeple..

anyway they had just gotten married in august and they were going on a napa valley wine tasting tour that my dad had paid big bucks for and was excited for it to be a romantic weekend. so they were sitting in a restaurant, about to have a glass of champagne, and my mom took one sip and got sick. just looking at alcohol made her feel sick to her stomach.

faj was super angry that he had paid all of this money and my mom wouldn't drink any wine. it got to the point that she thought she was an alcoholic because of her reaction to the thought of alcohol. she called my grandma and gram said all of her symptoms sounded like a pregnancy. my mom said impossible. but lo and behold, it was me.

i think it's cool that my mom was that in tune with her body that it wouldn't allow her to drink alcohol when she was pregnant. and i'm a miracle. we'll end there for tonight.

my dad circa 1984.

kuo

called the kuo's this early morning while it was their evening. makes me cry. i miss them so much. i think i'm going to call them every sunday. that will just be our thing.
(ripley got a bath. this is the scene of the crime).
yesterday was jam packed full of stuff. will, abha and i met with our journalism adviser from high school for lunch at chuy's, which is such an austin-y restaurant. we meet with her once a year or so and discuss what's gone on, what everyone's doing. since she worked at school, she knows everyone we know. the fact that everyone keeps in touch with her speaks to what a formative experience working on the hs newspaper was for all of us. for me, it lead me to work at the daily texan, which was the only reason i got a job when i graduated.
after that, will, abha and i met up with andy at barton springs which is a freeeezing cold spring in downtown austin with kind of a giant community pool. we hung out on a hill for a couple hours and people watched/critiqued bad tattoos.

then i went to dinner at the neighbors house. we've lived here 13 years and our neighbors have a son my age, so we've always hung out. we had yummy chicken a l'orange (heck if i know how to spell that) and cupcakes for my birthday!
(just to be clear, this is an 'after' photo).
after thatttt i went to a house party downtown and chatted with people i used to work with at the paper in college. i ended up spending quite a bit of time chatting with a linguistics major, now law student in a pink shirt. he was camp as christmas but we had a nice time.
THEN, i come home, i'm exhausted, i'm taking my shoes off and the power in the entire neighborhood goes off. jeffy isn't home, i just let ripley outside. luckily i had JUST used the wind up flashlight for something the other day so i know exactly where it is. pretty creepy to brush your teeth by the light of a flashlight.
and after all that, did i sleep past 7:30 this morning? nope. jeff and i are headed to the lake though so i knoooow i'll be able to sleep when i'm in MY REAL BEDDD!!

brotherly love

jeffy and i are going to be besties by the end of this weekend. we're going to be the only ones home until tuesday. luckily, he's the animal whisperer in our house.
tonight he was "dancing" with ripley and the cat.
it might look cruel and unusual but i think they all enjoy it.
going to the doctor tomorrow. i've finally broken down.
now we're taking turns playing songs. death metal vs indie.

these vagabond shoes

i feel like i've kind of failed at showing you pictures of what taiwan actually looks like. i have a bunch of pictures of food but hardly any of anything outside of the big park or this dorm. in the last week and a half, i'm reaaalllly going to try to suck up my foreigner-shyness and take my camera with me everywhere i go. i'm definitely going to get the fruit market, tea shops, guei shan and da chu areas, the train station, etc.
food is easy. it's right inside my house and it can't make me blush. this was dinner tonight. deeeelicious skewers of pork wrapped around mushrooms or scallions ($1 each), and some grilled bell peppers and green beans with a little bit of spicy sauce from a BBQ stand in guei shan. can't beat $4 dinners.
tonight i told my baby class i'm leaving. they were not thrilled at all. carol asked them if they wanted a guy or girl to replace me and they just said "MEGAN! MEGAN!". i'm going to misssss them. one more week though. and my older kid, favorite class ever, class was asking me animals in english and i'd say the chinese. they were super impressed that i knew hippo and crocodile.

p.s. do you think my mom had any influence on my sense of style?

like mother..
(this is her new office space for designmyyard).
like daughter..
(my room 2007).
though i think my yearlong obsession with design blogs has seriously influenced my sense of style. i guess we'll see what post-DC apartment looks like.
hopefully something like..


i've since lost all of those sources. no copyright issues intended.

but another to mean it from the heart

i am so ready to go to school tomorrow. three days off is pushing the limits of free time in taoyuan. a bunch of us spent three hours at debbie's this evening, chatting and drinking coffee. it was fun to see jaime and joyce. joyce seems like she grows a few inches every time i see her. she sat with me for about 10 minutes and then she was done. maybe i can find some babies to hold in DC. (i was watching a set of new twins in austin once a week just to reach my baby holding quota).that's me and hayley. she is so big now! walking and sort of talking.

when i was leaving debbie's, i ran into a woman who moved to taoyuan a couple of months ago. turns out she's from houston. it was really nice to hear an honest-to-goodness texan accent, even though my family and i don't have it. it just felt like home. it was funny because she was at debbie's while we were and when she walked by, she set off the mom sensor in my brain. her hair and jewelry and shirt looked a lot like my mom. it made me jump.
i'm chatting with maj on her new iphone. she's sitting on the porch at the lake. fajjy sent me a picture of ripley all tired out from chasing deer, apparently. a week and a half until i see puptown!

p.s. check out the woohoo! report. it's a site with all good news. this commencement speech is the best.

"And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done."

p.s. no accidents moment of the day:
during the tru blood marathon of 2009, we were talking about food that comes from the south like po' boys and ho cakes, and everyone thought ho cakes had a funny name and not many people knew what they were, and we talked about them for probably 30 minutes on and off throughout the day. then i made it the title of my blog that night. so tonight i'm watching top chef masters episode 8 and what is art smith using as the buns for his burgers in this challenge? ho cakes.
it's a small thing but it's a big thing.

AAAND i was perusing the internet tonight and in the process of following a bunch of random links ended up on this kid's site and he walked from florida to DC to raise awareness about homeless children. now he's collected all of these letters and he wants to get them to president obama. and DUUHHH i'll be in the mail room for 4 months! so i messaged him to see if i could help.

i will never love you more

the first couple of these are pictures from friday when we had typhoon day #1. this picture is my room at 3pm when it was sooo dark outside.
it was an odd weekend because we had our friday classes canceled on thursday night at around 10 because there was a huge typhoon headed right for us.
then we had the tru blood marathon, and no one wanted to go to work on saturday because we thought it was going to be crazy windy/rainy. so we got a call around midnight letting us know we wouldn't have class on saturday.
saturday was pretty long. i slept in late, went to lunch, tea and the stationery store with tess because she's going to canada today and i'm not going to see her again in taiwan. sad! tess is so much fun. she's girly and fun.
look what i found at the stationery store:
i've been dreaming about taiwan puzzles for a long time, i'm glad i found one. taoyuan county is that blue one at the top.

last night tess, katie, justin (katie's bf who's visiting) and jimmie made me delicious veggie dinner! mango salsa, black bean burgers, cabbage salad and chips. i brought cherries for dessert. it was so yummy. it makes me consider going veg if i could teach myself how to make food that tasted that good.
tess bought/made me some presents. this egg planner. it is so asian. the inside is even better.
and this picture frame! it's filled with stickers from school and 7-11, and funny asian things and a picture of our realtor, eddie. aaand it's bedazzled.
it says peng you which is 'friend'. i'm going to miss her! but her parents were both in the airline industry so she flies all around for cheap, so there will surely be a trip to texas in her future. love tess!
p.s. matt wore the thai fisherman pants to a play downtown and jeff wore them to a concert. i love my brothers.