Cleveland, Ohio

The boss, aka, Bruce Springsteen, was the reason we went to Cleveland this past weekend. Unfortunately, we didn't see the man himself, only his paraphernalia and his long and impressive musical history.



Jim and Momo got to enjoy the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the home of many other talented musical geniuses. The girls, meanwhile, went to check out the West Side Market where a melting pot of culinary ingredients and people live under two roofs.



The kids and I enjoyed the Great Lakes Science Center that overlooks Lake Erie (almost completely frozen at this time of year) while Jim continued his pilgrimage at the R&R Hall of fame.



We also explored other parts of this city that is still completely new to us and unanimously agreed that it has an "East Coast" feel, rather than the "Midwest" feel.



There is the Cleveland Clinic, the world renown medical center, not too different from the Longwood Medical area of Boston. There is also a buzz-ling downtown food scene where we dined and were treated like Kings and Queens.



There is even "Little Italy", reminding us of the good old North End part of Boston, with little coffee shops, bakeries and pizzarias that look and taste more authentically Italian than their American counterparts.



Cleveland was decisively colder, windier and snowier than Columbus, but we know it would be fun to go back when the weather gets easier on us.

The other chef

When I saw Jim studying the cookbook the other day, I knew something was up. And honestly, I was a wee bit worried.

I can be rather territorial, especially in the part of the house that I find myself spending most of my time: the kitchen. I am occasionally joined by the younger members of the family (when they respond to my invitations). But it's not often that the oldest member of the family lingers in there.



And when he does linger, he is up to something rather grand.

It's true: when Jim cooks, or bakes, he is often doing something much more complicated than I normally am. For instance, the man made Beef Bourguignon a la Julia a few years ago. He even made beef consomme to go with it as an appetizer. That impressed even our Chef-friend whose jaw dropped when he found out that indeed it was Jim who made it, not me.

Jim's also known to make homemade Caesar salad dressing, homemade rye bread, and my favorite, lemon pudding.

These masterpieces, fortunately or not, occur once in a blue moon. And so, the kitchen (wherever we happen to be living) remains my domain.



Anyhow, the other day when he was studying the cookbook, and reaching for cake flour, and asking me to make him a pie crust (I just need one, he said), I knew to get out of my territory.

After a while of activity, and help from a little one, what did I see rising out of the oven, but a beautiful Banana Cream Pie, with a beautiful meringue top and all.



Not only that, the product tastes amazing, and was enjoyed by all. I think I even heard one of the kids saying:

Daddy, you are a really good cook!

Ah, yes, he is... But the kitchen is still mine!

Easing into the season

It might be silly to say that I am finally getting used to winter, since the season really started here back in November when the temperatures dropped and the leaves fell. I guess I was living in the period of denial this whole time, and it didn't help to have the three-week break in the tropics...that seemed to have stretched out the denial phase even longer (but we were in paradise, so who am I to complain?).



It also didn't help that I developed skin hives for no unknown reason except that maybe I am truly allergic to 'winter' in the general and physical sense.



And while that is still going on, and prohibiting me from taking warm (actually HOT) baths that used to be my winter sanctuary, I am slowly moving on from denial to acceptance.



We still have a good long time to go before Spring arrives around here, so let's hope that the acceptance phase will last a good long time, too!

Until then, we have plenty more bread to bake, lots more sledding to do, and a plethora of birds to feed.

Sunny Wintry Sledding

When life gives you sun, and snow...in this family, we go find a hill!



And go sledding.

Even if it's frigid outside...who cares...well, really it's more like, what else are you going to do?



But enjoy what is given to us...to its fullest!



Even I went sledding.

And so did Jim!

Much fun was had by all. Thanks to one of the few hills around Columbus!

A little sun goes a long way

The sun woke up after we did today, but it brought with it a clear blue sky. With the white snow still left on the ground, we had our first bright (albeit cold) day since we returned from the tropics.

We spent sometime outside this morning making our own sledding 'hill' by piling as much snow as possible into a mound, just about 2 feet higher than the ground. Good thing the kids are small, and still easily pleased... they seemed to enjoy it enough that they had several runs down the 'hill'. I even saw smiles in between their rosy cheeks.

Simple pleasures. That's what life is all about.

Reality

As we slowly emerge from jet-lag-dom, this is what we are finding.


Robin on a tree?? Aren't they supposed to have gone away and be back in the spring?

Life and beauty amidst starkness.



Pure falling snow.



Joy in the children, regardless of where they are in the world!

An Essay from Above

Another sleepless night. Another blog post about our recent visit to Thailand.

I wrote this note during the long plane ride, crossing multiple time zones, and the vast Pacific ocean. Around me, people were doing all kinds of things to entertain themselves from the ennui of being stuck with 500 other people, in a small seat, for what seemed like an eternity.

The children were asleep, tired from their last day by the pool, full from their first of several airplane meals. Jim, who was sitting on the other side of our four-seat section, looked like he was enjoying a movie. I tried to go to sleep, but thoughts and images ran through my head of the last three weeks in Thailand.

I pulled out the laptop, and wrote down these words:

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It may be too soon to reflect, and yet I fear that if I don’t jot down some thoughts now, they may disappear with the mundane-ness of every day life, back in the cold, lifeless midwestern city that we are calling home. The whole experience will gradually feel like a dream.

Even now, as I write this from 35,000 feet above sea level, the Thailand visit could have been a dream. Thankfully, I have some proof: over 1,000 photos taken almost every day of our 3 week visit, plus the sore on my neck and back, remnants from the two-hour Thai massage received on our last day of the trip.

“So tight!”, I can still hear the Thai masseuse exclaimed under her breath as she tried to soften away my knotted, tension-filled neck and back muscles. She ruthlessly pressed, rolled, squeezed on these muscles until I let out a vaguely tortured sound. “Hurts?”, she would ask in the normal demure Thai way. “Sort of,” I would bluntly lie. The pleasure-pain experience of receiving Thai massage from a good Thai therapist is too good to pass up. The white lie was worth it. Besides, knowing that I will not be tortured in this blissful yet therapeutic way for a long time, so I sucked it up.

Superficially, this visit to Thailand was not unlike our previous ones (the fourth visit for our seven year old children). We spent most of the time with my family. We spent most every meal together with them, talking, laughing, commenting on the diverse and delicious (and too much) food that lay in front of us. We visited my almost centennial grandmother who always adds a few extra years to her actual age (because she is Chinese); we spent a few days by the ocean where the children lived and breathed the salt water and became one with the sand.

There were also days spent by the poolside, hours looking for the primitive lizards that nonchalantly co-exist with the residents who live or hang out by ponds and lakes in and around Bangkok. There was even the biannual visit to the oldest Stupa in Thailand, Wat Prapathomjedi in Nakhon Pratom province.

Amidst the old and the familiar, the traditional and the familial, we experienced new and different things on this trip as well.

First of all, we had a fully lit and decorated, Christmas tree that my parents purchased out of their love for their grandchildren (growing up, our family never had Christmas trees before). The children even got to decorate for the season with tinsels and shiny balls and ribbons (also a foreign concept in our household). We played Christmas music on Youtube and celebrated Christmas eve and Christmas day with Thai food. The kids discovered presents under their beds on Christmas morning. Despite being in a tropical, non-Christian country, we had a jolly time during the holiday season.

We also experienced the sadder side of life when my uncle, my father’s older brother, passed away during our first week into the visit. It had been a long time since I last saw this side of the family. We all attended the cremation ceremony, the last day of the weeklong funeral process. As I entered the airy outdoor hall of a temple, lined with chairs and attendees, I saw familiar faces that I had not seen since I left Thailand 22 years ago. I was reminded of the last part of “Cinema Paradiso” when Toto also returned to his hometown, also for a funeral (of his own mother). In that scene, he, too, spent some time recognizing the aged faces of the people he used to know so well. They were older now, the older ones much more wrinkled and frail looking. The young ones had become grown ups, some had children in tow.

I remember watching this scene knowing that some day I may experience it myself. And sure enough, there I was, at a funeral back home, finding myself in the same position that Toto did. I greeted everyone with a Thai ‘wai’ as usual, making mental notes of the ones I recognized, all the while fascinated at the reality of life, and death, and the linear nature of time.

There were, of course, questions posed by our curious children. Where do people go after they die? What does it feel like? What came out of my mouth were almost the exact words that I remember my elders told me as a young child when I posed the same questions. I surprised myself that I was not more straightforward in answering their questions, now that I have learned a few more things about life. I didn’t even say, “I don’t know!” Instead, I painted the same picture of a serene, happy place for the dead ones. I told them about heaven. I reassured them that I would be around for a long time, so that they would not worry. They seemed content with my responses, which put me at ease, more at peace with the reality of life than usual. At least, for the time being...

Remembering...

I am about the face the real first day back to 'normal' life: work, school, chores...the unavoidable, but essential duties that make life proceed.

It's 4:17AM, however, so in some ways, I still have time to dwadle. I can still pretend like when the sun rises later on this morning, we can all head to the sea, and hear the orchestra of the birds and watch the coconut trees sway in the morning breeze.



Once the afternoon arrives, and the tide starts to go down, the children will have an expansive classroom of oceanography. Momo would hum as he stalks wind-crabs or wait for them to emerge from their tiny holes; Dara would skip into the shallow of the tide while announcing whatever was in her head to the world. If she found something interesting, she would run over to us, full of excitement, as though she had just found a block of gold.



Jim and I would lay on the much coveted beach chairs, next to some extra large, non-English speaking, too burned to move, Russian tourists who attempted to steal our chairs earlier that day. But we would be absent from that world, immersed in our books. I would continue to enjoy the trip through Europe and Asia with Paul Theroux as he retraced his steps from his earlier trip (and book) he called The Great Railway Bazaar, only to rename it: The Ghost train to Eastern Star.

Now, that's better. A little reminiscing during a bout of jet-lag goes a long way. I am now ready to pay bills, make lunches, await the sound of little feet coming down those stairs (hopefully in two hours). I am ready to face the new day.

Sweet scent

As we slowly readjust to our life back in Ohio, where it is at least 80 degrees colder than our vacation days, I can recount the sweet scents, the warm breeze, and the sunset that we all experienced a mere few days ago...

The Island

We just spent a blissful few days away from the hubbub of the big sprawling city that Bangkok has become. Koh Chang, the second largest island in Thailand, in the province of Trat, is a good 4 hour car ride away, plus a short ferry trip. It was the first visit to this mountainous island for all of us.



The first full day, the kids literally spent all day on the beach. From early morning until after sunset, the kids played, swam, treasure hunted. They had not spent anytime by the beach since we left California in July, so it was a treat well-deserved.



The grown ups were treated to the beach as well, the sea-breeze, the seafood, and of course, the Thai massages by the beach.



There was also a brief lunch visit to the other side of the island...beach-free, but it is dotted with small fishing villages inhabited by the locals.

We are well-rested, well-fed, and ready to spend the next 48 hours enjoying the rest of our time here in Thailand.

A Christian Nook of Bangkok

We had a pilgrimage of sorts today for Jim who wished to visit the very first Catholic church in Thailand.



That church, the Immaculate Conception, was built in the mid 1600s by the Portugese who sailed and settled in Thailand.



The church started out as a small building, more like a house than anything else. From there, a larger church was built in front of it.



Today, the church still stands tall, amidst a small Vietnamese Christian community in the older part of Bangkok, not too far from the Grand Palace.



The church is just nestled into the village, next to the Chao Praya River - the main thoroughfare for Bangkokian for many centuries now.



We walked by a lady decorating what looked like a sponge cake.



"This is what the Christians give to each other during the Christmas season," she said. She even offered to cut the kids a slice to taste. We politely refused, but I did snap a photo of this pretty (gaudy?) cake as a souvenir from our little adventure.

Loi Krathong

Before we left Ohio, the children's teacher assigned a little project for them to bring back to their classmates: a presentation about celebrations in Thailand.

With no doubt in my mind, I knew that one of the celebrations that we needed to cover is Loi Krathong. It used to be my favorite 'holiday' even though I have not been in Thailand for the actual Loi Krathong for as many years as I have been away (going on more than 20 years now).



As a child in school and at home before Loi Krathong, we would be busy making our own 'krathongs', a small float traditionally made with banana trunks and leaves made into the shape of a lotus flower. Each krathong would be decorated with fresh flowers, a candle, and whatever else one would like to include during the day to celebrate and thank the waterways (a widespread tradition in southeast Asia, adopted from traditional Indian culture, we believe).



Loi Krathong occurs each year on the full moon in November...so we are a month late. No matter, the river house is full of banana trees and of course there is a river to float the krathongs on.



And so, the kids got to make their own krathongs, just like I did as a child. Another Thai traditions has been passed down to the next generation. Next November, however, we will have to find an unfrozen river somewhere in the midwest to relive our tropical days.

The Stupa

The River House is in the town of Banglane, the province of Nakhonpathom, just north of the capital. When we go there, it is a ritual to visit Prapatomjedi, the oldest stupa in Thailand.



I have been going here since I was younger than these youngsters, long before our River House existed. I remember hearing the myths about the temple, the little caves that surround the circumference of the stupa, the birthday buddhas that stand in a row. Now these children get to do the same things, under the same warm sun rays.

Christmas by the River

It sure does not feel like Christmas around here. The heat, the humidity, the tropical greens...BUT, today is Christmas around the world. And because they are so loved, and despite this being a mostly Buddhist country, these kids found Christmas presents under their beds this morning!

And even the cookies and milk got eaten over night...

Hmmm....

Merry Christmas to all.