costumes

so tonight i went to dinner with the guy i've been hanging out with.. and me being me, i just couldn't keep it in any longer. so after dinner and a game of scrabble, i asked why we hadn't kissed since the second date because i'd like to, and it seems like he would too.. until the 3 minutes while we're saying goodnight. he said he thinks you shouldn't rush into relationships before you know the person, and it's important to be friends first and then see what it turns into. but he does feel sparkle for me.

and while we were sitting there, that all made sense to me and sounded alright.

but on the drive home, i decided that doesn't sound fine at all. becca and abha are married to men who look at them like the world revolves around them. and they looked at them like that from the first day they met. and they knew they wanted to be around that person forever.

so i don't know. i'm going to hang out with this guy as friends and maybe he'll be right, but i want to be in a relationship where you think about me throughout the day and you look forward to the next time you see me, and you can't imagine me not being in your life. and you're not afraid to start something and see where it ends up. ..and to be honest, i'm lovely. and if that isn't obvious to you after 5 non-dates, then we probably shouldn't be together anyway.

so, that's that. i'm bummed because it felt so right, but it's better to know a month in instead of getting more and more invested only to be disappointed. on to the next!

zaijian

cate and i went to sushi for lunch today. we needed to get out of the house. i had only planned to get it to go because she has very limited patience for sitting still, since an 8 month old has not fully mastered that skill quite yet.. but the woman who owns the restaurant with her husband was very insistent that i stay. 'it's best fresh. it will only take a minute. she has kids of her own and she knows that mama's never get to eat their own lunch with a baby running around.'

so first i explained that this is not my baby. i don't know why i feel the need to do that, but i do. anyway we decided to stay. luckily, no one else was in the restaurant, so we had the run of the place. she threw snacks all over the floor, we walked around, she stood at the fish tank and watched the fish.

i took a piece of tofu out of my miso soup for her, and she loooved it. it was also the messiest thing i've ever seen her eat. and i didn't bring a bib because i figured she would be fine with these little crackers i brought. 

the owner came to chat with me while i walked cate around. turns out she's from taiwan (could you see that coming?). she lived in taipei until she was 5, so she knows of taoyuan, which is about an hour south. we spoke chinese, we talked about bushibans, we bonded. she taught cate how to say ni hao and zaijian (hello and goodbye). or tried to, since cate can't say anything yet. 

so it was a very pleasant afternoon. glad we went. the sushi wasn't that great though, so jill and her mom took me to a fancy sushi place for dinner. it was delicious. and we had a cosmo and hot green tea. i was in sushi heaven. 

last day with the baby tomorrow! 

secret society

so while i've been in houston, i've been meeting up with several long lost friends. last night i met up with a guy who i met one time at a birthday party in 2006. we hit it off then, and we've chatted once or twice a year since then. so when he heard i was in houston, he said he had the perfect place we could go to.

his text was kind of like a treasure map. 'go to this location, take a right, park in the first garage. it's on the first foor, i'll meet you there.' so i got there a bit early and sat outside while i waited. there was a bouncer checking ID's and greeting everyone by name. and when i say 'everyone' i mean, men in suits, women with high high heels, people with fancy bags, people my age in button downs and slack. my favorite was an asian businessman with a gray suit and bright blue (like M&M blue) patent leather shoes. he waltzed in like he owned the place.

so my friend got there and we went in.. at the desk there were 7 or so iPads for you to check in on, and then they gave you 3 gold coins as drink tokens. turns out the place was a popup bar for Chivas called 1801 club. there are several throughout the US, apparently. you 'become a member' by filling out a form online, and then they have lots of promo events like last night with free drinks and whiskey tastings and things.

it was all marble and dark wood inside. my friend said the man who used to own the building worked for bernie madoff, and he was liquidating his assets now, the club being one of them. i forget the guy's name.

anyway the most amusing part was making friends with one of the waiters who was walking around with the passed hors d'oeuvres. they had seared ahi tuna on a cracker and a little chicken thing with spicy guacamole, and chocolate, but our favorrrite was a teeny pancake, the size of a quarter, with fresh mozzarella and sun dried tomatoes on top. the guy got a kick out of the fact that we loved them more than anyone else in the club, so he kept swinging by with more. it was fun.

and that was my tuesday. jill left for work an hour later than usual today and she gets back almost 2 hours early, so today is easy.

fish face

went to dinner with mark tonight. we used to work at the paper together in college. his family is from taiwan, so we always discuss taiwanese things. today we met in chinatown and went to get rose milk tea (my faaavorite. i bought some loose oriental beauty rose tea to make at home too. soo excited.) and hot pot. it was so yummy. his family always has it with noodles and without rice. i've always had it the opposite way. yum though.

in china, they do this double hot pot with the divider in the middle. usually one side is plain and one is spicy.. whereas everywhere i've gone in taiwan, there's either one big hot pot in the middle with plain broth, or everyone at the table has their own individual one. i like having my own. i also like the taiwanese style broth and dipping sauce better. they have all sorts of interesting stuff you can mix into your sauce.. peanuts, peanut butter, soy sauce, fish flake stuff, scallions, spicy peppers. i guess everyone likes what they're used to. 

and this is how the rest of my day looked. cate is such a good girl. she took two long naps today. we're working on her walking and holding onto only one of my hands. she's strong enough to do it, but she doesn't know she is.

sunday

i went back to austin this weekend for a couple of parties and a day at the park with the boy. it was a lot of fun, but exhausting. i don't know why my legs are so tired after a three hour drive. i guess just lack of movement?

friday i went to karaoke with friends. i've never had so much fun at karaoke. i don't like to sing up at the front, but i do like to sing seated with everyone else. saturday was a house party. the people who own the house are two of my most austin-y friends. they used to live in a bus. they have chickens and ducks. they have a foreign exchange student house mate. they have a garden. one's a physicist and one's a journalist. at the party, people brought honeydew wrapped in prosciutto and all sorts of interesting potluck fare. you could hear groups of people speaking spanish-from-spain and there were lots of boys in tight pants and glasses.

and today the gentleman friend and i spent five hours lounging at the park, chatting and eating early dinner.  it's really odd to talk to someone who's so much like myself. i don't have any friends who i have sooo much in common with when it comes to how we think about things and what we want for the future. so that's been fun. also kind of an interesting mirror into what it looks like when you overthink things, as i tend to do, as you might have noticed. ;)

one more week of babies!

stop to hold their hand

i used to be a really good girlfriend. i often ignored the rules of waiting to call such and so amount of time or the appropriate time to bring up certain topics.. but i always felt like i had a good sense of how things were supposed to go, and i'm good at dinners with parents and dinners and a movie.

but it has been so long since i've done any of that properly that i've completely forgotten how to do it. i say that keith was my boyfriend in taiwan, but we were only there together for like 2 months, and we really weren't in a relationship. and 'bf' is part of 'twbf', but we never even kissed. so. not counting them, it's been almost four years since i've been in a relationship. !. (jim just got engaged a few weeks ago, incidentally).

also before i go too much further, i should mention that this guy is definitely not my boyfriend. it's been two dates since we even met, but my point is that i feel like i've never done this before. suddenly i'm thinking too hard about how often i text or email or call.. and all of the protocol for the time period before you're officially dating someone. now that we've kissed once, do we always kiss goodnight now? do i invite him to group stuff as my date? when do we chat about exclusivity?

..i guess the only thing you can do is let it happen naturally and all of that just works out. it's definitely fun to have butterflies and someone always running through your mind though. it's just a little bit hard waiting to define it when i really want it to stick. keep crossing your fingers.

barefoot

we made it through half the week! it's downhill from here.. until monday when a new week begins. jill and zach are very interesting parents. you could have guessed it if you knew her in college, but jill is one of those moms that eats the food of of cate's face. the most disgusting thing that happens is the snot sucker.

(photo from amazon.com)
it sounds gross, it looks gross, it is gross. but jillian and cate both love it.

other than that though.. everything is good. cate kind of has a cold and a cough, but she was really happy today, and i think i've mastered nap time. she starts face planting on the carpet when she's tired, so we just get a bottle, lay her down in her crib and she's usually out within 5 minutes of me closing the door. it's baby magic. today we walked around in the grass outside because it was so nice out. windy and in the 70s. she can stand holding onto one hand now.

she may or may not have eaten a few pieces of grass.