Spring Cleaning

It's a beautiful day. I really want to go hiking or just go out and feel the sun but I didn't want to drive anywhere. So I decided to just take a walk around the neighborhood and check out people's gardens. This weekend is spring cleaning in our street and once a year we get to put out all our stuff on the street and the city will pick it up. It's also an official help yourself time if you see something you like. The streets are full of pick up trucks and people scouting for goods. There are many things that are good for picking up. People also use this time to put out large greens from trimmed trees. I saw a beautiful drawer. I enjoy artwork like this. Too bad I don't need a drawer with beautiful artwork.

Franklyn Wu's Wedding

Made it to Franklyn's place a little after 8am. I found Kristine already working hard with flowers for the event. Both she an Wayne had been picking out flowers from the garden early in the morning. Franklyn as a small garden but well utilized, full of beautiful flowers.


I came across Franklyn's father whom I haven't seen in 5 years with a new Fiji Digital camera for this event shooting away. It was good to him and his wife and their daughter Susan again.


M is so beautiful of a person and she has beautiful clear eyes. I find her graceful and classy, the air feels comfortable to breathe in when she's around. I translated for her as I chatted with Franklyn's parents about this and that. I haven't seen them for 5 years and somehow we can just chat and chat as if we've known each other my whole life. M was nervous about creating own original vows and not having it all memorized. At one point she started to get teary. I think it's cool they've come up with original vows. Here it is in Franklyn's writing which most people find it hard to decipher including the bride.


Susan who was a Bio Chem graduate is on her second degree in the art field. She is M's stylist today. She roomed with me for a few months after she graduated from college in the east coast coming out to the west looking for jobs in the field. I remember having lots of fun conversations with her over literature, art, food, and well, everything. We would chat till 3am in the morning until we both passed out. I was younger then, I could still pull it off the next day with very little sleep. I really enjoyed her company. Her parents seem to be happy that she is also in a field that she is happy in and they recognize and support her talent.

While I chatted with Franklyn's mom, his dad went at it with the camera and took many photos of me talking. He said photographers usually don't get photos of themselves because they are usually the one behind the camera and said today is my day to actually have pictures of me. I think he had a great time and I appreciate these photos of me.



Frankly was busy working on the getting his bike and Megan's bike ready with flowers etc.. Wayne was busy loading up the bikes with flowers with Kristine. All bikes got decorated. The ride is 4 miles uphill into Tilden Park. I have a bike. I'll ride a bike with my outfit for the wedding and put a biker short on underneath. But really, I don't want to ruin my make up or hair or accessory. Plus it is important to take photos of guests at the ceremony and reception site while everyone waits for the procession of bikers including the bride and groom to arrive.



Steven Chan came with his son Ansel and brought toddler bike cart. Rinaldi checked everyone's gear to make sure people were certainly set for the ride including sunscreen. He's great. He's the captain where ever he goes because he just is a detailed nurturing guy who has the heart and mind for these things.






Kristine drove and Stacy, Laura, Kien, myself all carpooled with her. Kristine and Stacy were both worried about getting lost, I joked about how that wouldn't be a problem because we have the food in our car anyways.


When we entered the park we saw Snjezanna and Alp walking, they walked from their home in Berkeley Hills. This was their second route, they had already walked to another place where they thought was the wedding site, but discovered it wasn't there. Now they are in their second route and I confirmed the direction they should be going.


We also came across David Yin who walked from downtown Berkeley. When we came across him he was going in the opposite direction of the ceremonial site. Pointed out the right direction and set him around.

Tilden Park

Fern Picnic Area




At the site, Tom, Shari, Upekkha were already done setting up the tables with red cloth, and cup cakes. We brought more flowers for the table setting and did some finishing touches on the cake too. Rinaldi and Yvonne picked up the tamales, taquitos, and soft tacos.


Franklyn changed into a pink shirt to go with M's biker wedding dress of which he picked out for her. It was beautiful and a good choice. She's wearing a passion fruit flower from her garden and the colors really matched the dress and her eyes well.




Marty officiated the wedding ceremony. People had opinions on where the actual ceremony should take place and the tree down the hill hanging off a cliff is where most people liked it. I liked it up the hill facing the redwood trees on clear cut grass but I didn't say anything. Franklyn had Marty pick out a spot and Marty has an eye for good Feng Sui and he picked out the spot I liked for the ceremony.






Marty's talk about being nervous when he heard Franklyn was having a bicycle wedding was funny, yes Frankly is famous for falling off his bike and getting shocked back to life by the EMT and then the other time was getting helicopter air lifted out to the hospital. Well, after both instances, he refused to follow his family's concerns for him and stuck by his love for cycling. Infact he became even more determined that he infected everyone else around him to become passionate about cycling. He's also known as the bike doctor. He knows so much about bikes and bike parts.


They both pulled out the vows and recited for each other. M got teary again. The blessing by Marty was beautiful and heart warming. Franklyn's father spoke also and welcomed Megan to the family and shared their joy for this union and hoped SOON there will be little baby Franklyns. It's good to see Franklyn so happy.




Although there was a seating chart, people pretty much ignored it and hit the shade. It was 69 degrees in high noon. I really like the sun, it felt great on this clear sunny beautiful day. But I needed two coats of sunblock and glad someone brought sunblock with them because I forgot. It just hasn't been this sunny and warm yet so I didn't think of it.


Lunch was delicious and great for finger food because the whole very green and Berkeley and picnic casual thing of bringing your own plate and utensil really didn't quite work. Only Megan's college friend from law school did and Stacy and Jason. The rest of us ate using the tamale banana leaf wrapper as the plate until the plates arrived.

Cake was chocolate with chocolate icing and the white icing is lemon with ginger cake. It actually tasted like carrot cake without the carrot. They were vegan and delicious. I had a good time chatting with Snjezanna, Alp, Tom, Jason over marble toilets in Turkey to squatting pits in Asia and the different salt content in this sea and that ocean.

This a photograph of their bikes together with just married garland.

After the wedding I sat with Shari, Franklyn's father to compile photos from all our cameras. The after wedding party was at Rinaldi's garden over Pu-er and Tie Guan Yin tea, cheese, apples, olive bread, crackers, and more cup cakes. It was nice of Rinaldi and Yvonne to host the post wedding party. The garden party lasted till it was pitch dark and we could no longer see each other's faces around 8pm. Then the 3rd leg of the party was moved to a restaurant. During the tea party more photos were compiled from Rinaldi's two camera and Upekkha's camera. She set the video motion in her point and shoot and had videos of the ceremony. It's was quite a productive afternoon to get all these photos ready for Frankly and Megan to view right away.

It felt good to sit and drink tea in the afternoon and have more cake. It was very relaxing. I don't live in the area anymore so I do miss moments like this. Rinaldi was busy running with hot water making sure the tea was properly brewed and hot in our cup. I totally appreciated this. Upekkha restocked the munchies. She's a great shopper who has an eye for deals and she has good taste. When in doubt, ask her, she probably has it and it's most likely beautiful and great quality, if not she probably knows where to direct you to get it. In general she's very sweet, nurturing and a wonderful host. I had a long but wonderful day today.

World Classic Baseball Japan vs. Korea

Hisashi Iwakuma pitched 96 pitches for team Japan. He was beautiful to watch and had great control over the game. I was glued to the TV from 6pm to 11pm. The game ran to 10th inning. Darvish gave me quite a scare when he gave up two runs because he walked two players. So the game went to 10th inning. Well, either way it raised the entertainment value because in the 10th inning Ichiro pulled through and shined like a star that he is. He swung at every pitch that came to him regardless if it was good or not. He made contact with the bat and wore down the pitcher and finally in the the last ninth pitch made a run that led to Japan winning the finals. I learned a lot by the announcer's commentary, they were very entertaining, definitely funny and informative. Japan played well today and showed themselves as the stronger team. Although Japan won, I felt having 4 separate times during the game with all 3 men on base and not scoring was hard to understand on my end. Well, great plays were made tonight and the Korean shortstop Ki Hyuk Park was awesome to watch.

World Baseball Classic Japan vs. USA

Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched for Japan tonight. He is considered the number one pitcher right now in Japan. He was beautiful to watch and pitched a strong winning game. I was glued to the TV and 4th inning was a beautiful inning to watch. I left with my family for dinner at a Japanese restaurant and then we went shopping at a Korean market next door. I stood and watched the rest of the game on TV. I realized the two innings I missed team USA made two runs and closed the gap with Team Japan. I stood there for the rest of the game with other Koreans watching the TV while my family shopped. Darvish relives Matsuzaka and closes the inning without giving up any runs. Yu Darvish is a 22 year old Japanese Persian pitcher who is also very tall and talented with a good slider. When the game was over one of the Korean guys was very upset that team Japan won because he didn't want Japan to face Korea in the finals tomorrow. Afterwards, my dad gave me a whole long repetitive lecture about watching out for who I cheer for in what kind of public venue I am in and who is around me. Well, I guessed I asked for it since I under estimated how passionate the guy was and how seriously he took the game. I just enjoyed for entertainment value but his interest ran deep, nationally deep.

Veg Fest 2009

Can't tell I've been ill and still is from this photo. Yeah, no one knew unless I told them. They just say I sound different. They all said I looked good, relaxed and calm and pleasant to be around with.

It was cold last night. I slept in my zero degree sleeping bag. I really wonder whether or not my sleeping bag is really for zero degree because it sure wasn't zero in my room last night but I had a hard time staying warm. Is this the reason it was on sale when I bought it? So annoying. Maybe it's because I'm still sick.

I had to drive 3 hours to the Veg Fest. I was worried whether or not I would be well enough to drive or even speak at the event. I prayed hard for a break in my 10th day of illness. Especially for a break in my runny nose. Who wants to watch someone blow their nose and cook? I was blowing my nose with one hand as I drove. My car was full of used TP when I arrived. I have no idea how I had the chi or the concentration to get myself there.

I made it to the event by 10am I was scheduled to speak at 11:15am. Still weak from being sick, still can't hear through my right ear. I think both of these things worked for me. I was too frail to be nervous because I didn't have the energy to spare. I can't hear through my right ear so the noise didn't bother me. The event was running behind schedule, I totally didn't mind, it gave more prep time to set up the table. Someone asked why I came alone, truth was I didn't know if I could make it physically and if I did, I sure didn't want to be late for my talk just because others were running late. It was simpler to drive I felt and it was a good instinct to follow because the people who I wanted to carpool with were actually 2 hours late to the event. I would have missed my talk completely.

Today was my first time to speak in public about nutrition, health, and do a cooking demo. I started off with too much info and kept chopping stuff out. I knew the cooking was the easy part because they were my recipes but the talking,..... I usually don't talk when I cook. I am usually in a cooking zone and quite enjoy it. So I was very nervous about talking, forgetting things, or just sounding very lame.I was pretty nervous over this for an entire month until I got severely ill. I had planned to work out the talk this past week but I was too out of it to be able to use my brain to think and pretty much lost the prep time I was counting on. I actually worked out the talk as I drove this morning. I can't believe that worked. I just had to trust that I know what I know and I can count on it. I also had to trust my the sagittarius and venus parts of me will step forward and pull through during the talk and demo. Honestly being sick my taste buds are all off. I can't quite taste sodium like my hearing, I can't tell if it's too loud. Well, thankfully I was just doing the demo and not a tasting too for the public.

During the talk I was actually captivated by the audience and the attention they were paying. They were actually interested and listening. Not only that, they had a smile on their face and their eyes were wide open in interest. Looking at all those faces, I realized I was actually standing on my own feet. Wow, I was not someone's someone, who is here on someone's this and that. I was not leaning on anyone nor was I standing in anyone's shadow, or totally invisible. Wow, how interesting it was for me to be multi-tasking with cooking, talking, speaking in public for the first time, getting filmed and photographed and still be experiencing this internally and having this awareness and discovery. That felt really good. Some things inside definitely felt healed.

Well that was all that I could remember of my talk and demo. I really can't recall what happened except from what feedbacks I got from the audience and other vendors. They said they learned a lot and enjoyed my talk. The MC for the event did try my food and really like it, well, at least he said he did. One of the vendor was from a Co-op and wanted to know if I catered and would be interested in doing demos at their Co-op.

But to summarize, I did a Balsamic Fig dressing over mixed greens topped with candied walnut and Bosc Pear. This dish I dedicated to detoxing the liver. I did recall I forgot to mention the importance of detoxing the liver and plasma protein efficiency process. Oh well, next time I guess. Dish number 2 was on Pumpkin Soup, good for your pancreas and spleen especially those who are chronic belchers. I got into talking about using herbs at remedies. At least I hopped I remembered to do so in my talk. I also did an Omega 3 talk on the tempe vegetable kabob. The last dish was on mashed potato and mushroom gravy. I talked about how potato was a brain relaxer and it's comforting. Then I ran stats on brain research with damages from stressed and inflamed brains. Yup, that's it in summary.

4th Day of Fever

I have been sick for a week and I am on my 4th day of fever. I can't really hear from the right ear. I hope this is temporary and not permanent. The first night of fever was so bad that I was barely conscious to take care of myself, so I just laid limp unable to sleep or do anything else other than lay in pain trying to make sure I can still breathe. I can seem to eat anything so I am drinking a Pu-rh tea. You can find me walking around hugging a roll of TP to blow my nose. Otherwise just follow the endless trail of sticky slimy green and yellow used TP.

Pasta with Chocolate Sauce

I was making heart shaped pasta and Naji suggested that since it is heart shaped, the only proper sauce should be chocolate. I took what he said seriously and actually did my first pasta with chocolate sauce. I felt like an Iron Chef from the Japanese series where creative inventive and very daring experimental combinations were attempted. My report to this experiment is,.... all I tasted was the chocolate sauce. The pasta was totally lost. The cherry hazelnut chocolate sauce was very good. Since Naji suggested it, I made sure he had a full plate full.

Kida

Henry's dog Kida is awesome. She is smart and is a guardian dog. In the dog world of brains and evolutions, I'd say she's higher up in the food chain and of the command if she was in a dog pack. She is so beautiful.
She's big for me. I would not be walking her, she walks me. Glad the few times I've walked her she didn't run. She would be literally be dragging me if I was to trip or fall. I would not have any control.

Ranunculus

Taken a liking to macro photography.

Santa Clara Valley Camellia Society

These camellias are from local growers. The exhibition and competition is held at Santa Clara community center.


This is my first time at a camellia show. I had no idea there would be so many wonderful entries.


I see the difference in the rank of categories in terms of competition grades. But in each I see the unique beauty and characteristics.


I find it very healing to look at flowers. It's just amazing how much beauty surrounds me everyday created by nature.


I realized that when I look at flowers like artwork I really don't care to make small talk with any one as one would in a art gallery or museum. But I kept bumping into people who came for various reasons with someone else and they were more interested in chatting to fill up the silence than looking at the flowers. I decided to chuck out social etiquette and ignore people. I actually ran out of juice in my battery for pictures and had to leave.

Windshield Karma

I seem to get lots of hits on my windshield. I regularly need to get cracks filled. It seems to happen mostly on highways. I like working with Doug. He comes to my place and everything is done in 30 minutes.

Fisherman's Wharf San Francisco

Different ways to tour San Francisco in a classic coach or in the classic famous San Francisco Cable car.

Lots of interesting vendors selling on the street full of tourist novelties.

I like to check out little things like this and see what creative works or in place or not.

We went to lunch in an Italian place. It wasn't very delicious or authentic the decor was good. Should have known with very little people eating inside.

Fisherman's Wharf

We stopped by the bread museum and bought sourdough bread at Boudin. Alice loves bread. Steven said when they went out on their first date he took her to a very expensive buffet and she only ate bread all night.

I bought her a turtle shaped sourdough bread to take home to her son tomorrow. Would have gone for the aligater but it was too big for her to stuff into her luggage.

The shop has running baskets of bread in the ceiling. I think it's more for the decor and not for any actual useful purpose.




I like caramel turtles. I also like candied apples. It's a must for fairground or carnivals or as a tourist. But too much goodies and not enough stomach room. I can only eat them with my eyes today.








Went to Ghirdelli Square for dessert. The ice cream was too sweet for all of us. But the place was more for Lena because she was getting cranky and has been a good sport and totally missed her nap time. The chocolate making process caught her attention for like a minute.