Author: Doris

The light is so different here in New York, so sharp and bright and clear.

I’ve been trying to find some schools for Vince – actually day care and then something they call wrap-around-care for after kindergarten lets out. We went and toured two programs today and I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to find out that they’d be willing to care for Edda as well. I assumed that they would take one look at her and turn her away, but both programs said “no problem!”. Totally cool. We found ourselves at the Jewish Community Center which runs a nice program. I’ve been on a Jewish jag recently, trying to play up the 25% Jewishness of the kids, thinking about Passover (not this year, maybe next!) Things are in the works for Edda’s school as well, but it involves a lot more paperwork, appointments and evaluations.

We still hate going grocery shopping with the kids. Ugh. Never again.

Still more hiking and geocaching. Today we weren’t able to find the cache, but it was nice just to be outside. Ruby’s so delighted to be back in New York and in the woods again.

Then off to Friendly’s for a post-hike burger and a nap for Edda.

Emy’s up for the weekend to hang out. Today we went geocaching and found a cache about 100 feet from our front door.

We also went to the Cohoes Public Library. There is a mastodon presiding over the stacks.

Yesterday, we started at Jeremy’s parents’ house. Took a morning dog walk.

Edda, Vince and I played a harpsichord. So cool.

Then we moved into our apartment.

I can not escape my responsibilities any longer. Starting Monday, I must find the kids schools, I have to find us a house and I need to look for a job. I’m nervous.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve already been to two classical music concerts (free and open to the public!)

First was the Chimeng Quartet with members from the Bard Conservatory. They are in the finals for next week’s prestigious Coleman Chamber Music Competition which is held at Caltech!

Tonight, I went to see Soovin Kim and Jeremy Denk play sonatas by Charles Ives (who was an wealthy insurance salesman during his life and his music was largely ignored).

I’ve finally done it. I’ve loaded all my photos into Flickr. Man what a pain in the butt! But I’m liking the photostream orgtanization now. Too bad they don’t have Smart Sets tho – sets that you can auto sort based on a certain tag – kinda like filters or Smart Playlists like in iTunes.

The other highlight of today, was that Josh invited me, and Pei-Sun and Pei-Yean over for the much vaunted Google lunch. Yes he did blow past the more than 2 per month limit, but whatever. It was a really good meal. Salmon, really tender beef tips. grilled artichokes. A spread of bread, cheese, meats, a spread of 4 different frou frou spreads. Even the water wasn’t just plain water, but have lime and oranges mixed in for taste. All in all, probably better than most meals that I have eating out. If I ever worked for Google, I can see myself weighing 10 lbs more.

The highlight of the day came after lunch tho. Josh works about 1/2 a mile away from main campus. So we all hopped on some free bikes provided by Google and rode on over to the main campus to take a tour. They were fun cruisers with coaster brakes and spray painted in different crazy colors with orange safety flags. Neat. Reminds me that I should bring my camera with me all the time. I missed the photos of everyone riding around. 🙂

Jeremy been spending his days in Albany moving into our apartment. I have never seen the apartment, I only have a vague sense of where it is located. This, I guess, is marital trust. The kids and I have been struggling with jet lag.

The poor soybean, Edamame, is not sleeping well and spent all of last night wide awake and all of yesterday asleep. I swear, she was making backward progress on the jet lag, falling asleep at 9 am (9 pm Singapore time!)

The highlight of my day was the cheese aisle of the supermarket. Drool.

Vince and Katherine manned the shopping cart.

Edda was asleep.

Laff. So tonight I went to my first baseball game ever. The Oakland A’s vs the Anaheim Angels. JT was the main organizer and most of the people were from his church. (I’m finally starting to remember everyone’s names from their church.) Anyways, it was a nigth game, and it was freakin’ COLD. 50’s and windy. I had 3 layers on and a winter hat, and I was still freezing. It was a good thing that tonight they gave away fleece blankets to the first 10,000 fans, cause everyone needed them.

Honestly, I didn’t watch the game that much. I was mostly talking to people and eating food. Apparently, eating food is such a big deal at a baseball game. We had everything, nachos, 10″ hot dogs, pretzel, soda, garlic fries, chili fries, churros. Even some insane people bought frozen malt thingies. Ouch. We had to stand in line for the garlic fries forever. They were good tho.

In the end the A’s won 4-1 off a 3 run homer in the 4th. Here’s JT celebrating the homer..

 

And here’s Sandy after a food run:

 

I must say, I’m beginning to really start liking the photos that are coming out of my camera now. I think I’m getting the hang of the digital thing – After only 4000 or so photos. 😛

We made it over the Pacific Ocean and met up at Jeremy’s parents house only to discover that their basement has been flooded due to the recent rainy weather. Now this is normally no big deal except that the flooding incapacitated the water heater in the basement. No heat and no hot water and it is freezing outside! We are wearing our winter coats inside the house. No one has taken a shower and even doing dishes in the icy tap water is no fun. Of course, this hasn’t stopped Vince from playing with the sump pump discharge in the back yard and getting himself all wet in the 38 degree weather.

Edda and I are at Changi airport (woo hoo for free internet access)! Vince, Jeremy and Ruby left last night. I am truely homeless now. I have no car, no apartment, no hotel. We live in limbo. It’s kind of exciting. We slept well at the hotel last night and had a good breakfast and we will be boarding in a few minutes. Can’t wait to be back home.