Month: November 2005

 
 

 
 

 
 

Well Well. It was an interesting night. At work Jason, Don and I decided to go night riding since Don just bought a Fisher Cake 1 – otherwise known as a 5″ full suspension mountain bike.

Don and Jason go to Don’s house in San Mateo, and since I have to go home to San Jose to pick up my riding stuff, I also drop by Jason’s place in San Jose to pickup his bike. Apparently his girlfriend as semi pissed cause she had to grab all his stuff and had to cancel her dinner plans with some friends. She doesn’t really touch Jason’s bike stuff, but anyways…

We meet up at 8, and then we get to the trailhead. We find out, that..

1) Jason has 2 lighting systems. and both don’t work.
2) Don forgot his shoes.

we tried to jury rig a rear red LED bike light to Jason’s bike, but the plastic clip snaped and that was that.

Don ended up putting platform pedals on his bike and riding in sandals all night.

We basicalyl rode around with Jason in the middle the whole night. it was a short ride, but it was fun. relaxing. moody in a way at night. we’d stop every so often and the air was sooooo still. And the views from Waterdog are pretty nice at night.

Home now. tomorrow’ the road ride with Arif, Hasnain, Ray and co.

Today we went to the world-famous Singapore zoo. Vince was very, very pissy at the beginning – we had to sit for a family portrait for our membership pass and he refused to look at the camera. Our pass has 3 faces smiling and one back of the head. But slowly, slowly, we fed him a pepperoni pizza and some milk and he came back to a normal demeanor. The best part of the zoo is not the animals, it’s for sure the water play area and the ball pit and the KFC that is located in the middle of everything. I think we just ate pizza, fried chicken, played in water and plastic balls and then headed for some ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s yum!) and headed home. We waited at home for a delivery of a car dog crate and 40 pounds of dog food, but it didn’t come today.

OK, Jeremy is reading this and he wanted me to tell you that we did indeed see a few animals, the most impressive of which was the alligator which are huger than you think they are and also Jeremy was impressed by the swimming cats. Jaguars? Leopards? Dunno. Anyways, they swam completely underwater – Yeager would have been flabergasted…

I hope this one is better:

That Little Wooden Bridge

Mom and I knew that we are not going back to our Washington DC home till, may be, at beginning of next year. Since we were not at home for almost 2 months, I decided to make a trip back on late Friday (10/4) evening alone.

While there, I watered our house plants; did some yard work; winterized our home and jotted down the odometer reading for my “auto storage policy”. Then, I came back in early Sunday morning after a brief ~30 hours stay.

In our yard, there is a little wooden bridge which Mom and I designed & built several years ago. This bridge has only one post at its mid-span. Part of the bridge is skew to the left about 30 degrees, toward the edge of our yard. It was built on a grassy dry trench for rain storms. Together, we spent a lot of time building and sitting on that bridge. Also, a plan centered on that bridge is already on our minds. It features a well-laid scheme of:

-Digging a water-lily pond with enough depth and hanging rocks that fish can hide from its predators,
-Putting all those small rocks along the water; rocks that Mom collected from all over the world, including a brick from her village house,
-Adding a bench under nearby trees, and
-Planting a lot of flowers on the far side of our yard.

Also, in our yard, we brought back different kinds of trees from different places, over the years. We planted them together and most of them grew into lovely green things.

That night, by the time I parked my rental car on our driveway, it was already 1:00 AM in the morning. The sky was crystal clear. The moonlight shined, penetrated and rained down through the nightly sky, laid across and sparkled on that little wooden bridge. Consciously, I took a special look. For that special look, the sparkling light on the bridge reflected back a lot of memories – memory chips full of pictures, pictures of us, families and friends. Since then, these memories did not fade away all night even when, finally, I laid in bed around 2:30 AM in the morning ready to sleep.

Next morning (?), when hand-pulling weed out of the ground, fertilizing our lawn and sowing the seeds, that little wooden bridge was always in the back of my mind lingering around. Of course, the moonlight was long gone, but not the memories.

That day, while tending our oak trees from Pennsylvania farm; fig trees from New York, magnolia tree from Texas; bamboos from Oregon; persimmon tree from a Chinese nursery in Maryland; ginkgo tree; local clematis climbing up, wondering through the white wagon wheel from Alabama, and of course, the asparagus bed, memories about tree planting and that little wooden bridge were once again there, keeping my mind occupied.

Saturday night, it happened that there was an outdoor bon-fire dinner at the cul-de-sac for the entire neighborhood, about 30 families. All neighbors knew that most of the time we were not there. We were there, once in a while, as resident strangers. This time, much to their surprise, they found me there. Of course, everyone asked about Mom.

One of our neighbors chatted with me that she knew her husband a lot before they got married, therefore, no surprises and no alarms. She knew all his ex-girl friends, all his bad habits, all his likings, sizes of his shirts and pants, all ex-this, all ex-that, etc. Then, I uttered my “own lines” in response to her. After 35 years of our marriage, sometimes, I just don’t know Mom that much and, may be, even myself. For example, today, I still don’t know why my “I do” was echoed back across the pastor, and for what? Either, I must have something special that I can’t recognize or fathom, or maybe, it was just pure luck. I think, most likely, “Good Luck Fools”. Sometimes though, I thought right choices were made. It is attractively contradictory, isn’t it?

The other neighbor, while cooking hot dogs on her portable min-propane grill, was equally sentimental, because that grill is still working after 20+ years of service. Still, there are propane bottles available that can snap right on to her grill. It was a gift from her boy friend who, now, is her husband. For that reason, she treasures it very much and, hence, uses it very rarely. May be just once a year. I said I could relate that to myself, I bought Mom an inexpensive heating pad from a discount store 35 years ago. It is still in use today. She brings it with her all the time, to anywhere everywhere.

Well, many couples were there talking and laughing and, of course, together with family exchanges, the memories about that little wooden bridge was once again coming out of their hiding places in my mind.

That night, after the bon-fire dinner and before retiring to bed, I packed some Mom’s scarves, mittens, gloves and winter clothes for early flight back to Denver. While packing, I just picked and packed the ones that I could find and like. With her belongings and clothes in my hands, the memories of that little wooden bridge were there again waving at me sporadically.

At that moment, I thought I would like to tell Mom about dreams of sitting together on that bench, under the trees, enjoying the pond as well as my memories of that little wooden bridge – “the sooner the better”. And I did, just minutes after landing at Denver International.

The kids need more sleep. Especially Vince, by 4:30 or so, he’s wiped out from the day. So we are trying to pull bedtime in. Last night was a record 7:30pm. Tonight we tried pretty hard, but it was 8 before he was in bed. Ahhhh, sleep.

Mom and I knew that we are not going back to our Washington DC home till, may be, at beginning of next year. Since we were not at home for almost 2 months, I decided to make a trip back on late Friday (10/4) evening alone.

While there, I watered our house plants; did some yard work; winterized our home and jotted down the odometer reading for my “auto storage policy”. Then, I came back in early Sunday morning after a brief ~30 hour stay.

In our yard, there is a little wooden bridge which Mom and I designed & built several years ago. This bridge has only one post at its center. Part of the bridge is skew to the left about 30 degrees, toward the edge of our yard. It was built on a dry grassy trench for rain storms. Together, we spent a lot of time building and sitting on that bridge. Also, a plan centered on that bridge is already on our minds. It features a well-laid scheme of:

-Digging a water-lily pond with enough depth and hanging rocks that fish can hide from its predators,
-Putting all those small rocks along the water; rocks that Mom collected from all over the world, including a brick from her village house,
-Adding a bench under nearby trees, and
-Planting a lot of flowers on the far side of our yard.

Also, in our yard, we brought back different kinds of trees from different places, over the years. We planted them together and most of them grew into lovely green things.

That night, by the time I parked my rental car on our driveway, it was already 1:00 AM in the morning. The sky was crystal clear. The moonlight shined, penetrated through and rained down the nightly sky, laid across and sparkled on that little wooden bridge. Consciously, I took a special look. For that special look, the sparkling light on the bridge reflected back a lot of memories – memory cards full of pictures, pictures of us, families and friends. Since then, these memories did not fade away all night even when, finally, I laid in bed around 2:30 AM in the morning ready to sleep.

Next morning (?), when hand-pulling wild weed out of the ground, fertilizing our lawn and sowing the seeds, that little wooden bridge was always in the back of my mind lingering around. Of course, the moonlight was long gone, but not the memories.

That day, while tending our oak trees from Pennsylvania farm; fig trees from New York, magnolia tree from Texas; bamboos from Oregon; persimmon tree from a Chinese nursery in Maryland; ginkgo tree, and local clematis climbing up and wondering through the white wagon wheel from Alabama, memories about tree planting and that little wooden bridge were once again there, keeping my mind occupied.

Saturday night, it happened that there was an outdoor bon-fire dinner at the cul-de-sac for the entire neighborhood, about 30 families. All neighbors knew that most of the time we were not there. We were there as resident strangers, once in a while. This time, much to their surprise, they found me there. Of course, everyone asked about Mom.

One of our neighbors joked to me that she knew her husband a lot before they got married, therefore, no alarms and no surprises. She knew all his ex-girl friends, all his bad habits, all his likings, the sizes of his shirts and pants, all ex-this, all ex-that, etc. Then, I uttered my “famous lines” in response to her. After 35 years of our marriage, sometimes, I just don’t know Mom that much and, may be, even myself. For example, today, I still don’t know why my “I do” was echoed and for what? Either, I must have something special that I can’t recognize or fathom, or maybe, it was just pure luck. I think, most likely, “Good Luck Fools”. Sometimes though, I thought the right choice was made. It is attractively contradictory, isn’t it?

The other neighbor, while cooking hot dogs on her portable min-propane grill, was equally sentimental, because that grill is still working after 20+ years of service. Still, there are propane bottles that can snap right on to her grill. It was a gift from her boy friend who, now, is her husband. For that reason, she treasures it so much and, hence, uses it very rarely. May be just once a year. I said I could relate that to myself, I bought Mom an inexpensive heating pad from a discount store 35 years ago. It is still in use today. She brings it with her all the time, to anywhere everywhere.

Well, many couples there were talking and laughing and, of course, together with these exchanges about family, the memories about that little wooden bridge was once again coming out of their hiding places in my mind.

That night, after the bon-fire dinner and before retiring to bed, I packed some Mom’s scarves, mittens, gloves and winter clothes for early flight back to Denver. While packing, I just picked and packed the ones that I can find and like. With her belongings and clothes in my hands, the memories of that little wooden bridge were there again constantly waving at me.

At that moment, I thought I would like to tell Mom about my dream of looking forward sitting together on that bench, under the trees, enjoying the pond as well as my memories of that little wooden bridge. I also decided, “The sooner the better”. Of course, I did, just minutes after landing at Denver International.

Note: Jeremy got his new Ipod to replace the one broken when Vince accidentally dropped the old one on the floor. Vince got his first Slurpee from 7-11. Big day for all.

Today we rented a car through our carshare. Last night we had to vacuum out the sludge from the old car seats and put them back in working order. We got a Honda Odyssey and the first thing we drove to was the dog park to see if it would be a good place to bring Ruby. Nice park, but no parking left at 11 am. Then to the mall where we had a great lunch at Din Tai Fung. Great, great food! (here’s when J. bought his new toy.) Then we drove around looking for a shopping center, the kids fell asleep, we got lost and then headed home.

So the day started out grumpy enough. Our trip to Little India was a disaster. Everyone was grumpy by the end and it was only 1:30 pm by the time we got home. But it was rescued by quick thinking Jeremy who got me to get my butt out of bed and moving a little bit and by dinner we were all feeling better. Vince has a new Scrabble game for little kids and he’s learning to string letters together to make words. Edda is learning to walk, tonight we weighed them an Vince weighs only 5 pound more than Edda – he’s 33 and Edda is 28!