Author: Doris

Incidentally, I mentioned to Ronnie that you might want to get an Apple. He’s and employee and can give you one of his 15% off discounts for pretty much anything except for the new stuff – re. the Mac Mini. I’d recommend an iBook for your purposes. You should also check out their refurbished deals online. Looks like there are some really good buys out there…

With some pretty fast people. Me, being a slow person, dragged behind. I was out of shape, out of breath, and felt like throwing up. I’m recovered, but still gots the phelgm stuck in my lungs and throat.

I had lunch with Joy and Sunny at Applewood’s Pizza in Menlo Park. Yum. Pizza. Althoough I didn’t have Vince’s favorite pepperoni, it was still a good pizza. I haven’t eaten out in awhile. Joy and Sunny are labmates and it’s funny how much they go off about their kooky advisor. He’s random, has a low attention span, and highly confrontational. He rags on everyone’s presentations and provides very little help to his grad students, yet apparently he loves helping out other students and projects a good first impression. Anyways, sounds like a circus in there. I suppose every lab’s has it’s quirks tho. Just glad I’m not a part of that.

Tonight, I made roast chicken legs with a walnut/roasted red pepper sauce. Yummy if I do say do myself. Edda is especially fussy these days, perhaps a molar is coming in.

Oh yes, mom, there is spell check. Just look for the “ABC” button on top of where you post.

Last night, I made pork chops and a butternut squash salad from Martha Stewart’s Everday Food (an excellent cooking magazine for the regular home cook) before Jeremy got home and we ate quickly and went to Bright Horizons for cozy hour from 7-8 pm. Stories, hot chocolate and kids running around with pajamas. There is a little girl from Korea in his class named Yebin, who on Friday swung a bag of craft supplies and hit Vince in the head. Vince got a little bruise and, of course, in this litigious country, an “accident report” had to be filled out by the parents of both parties and signed. Now Yebin’s mom (who pretty much only speaks Korean) is understandably concerned about the paperwork because it makes it all seem so serious and so now she stops me whenever I see them and asks about Vince. Last night, she finally asked, “Do you care?” and I laughed said, “No, I don’t care!”

And your poop too. So when you come over, you may have to show him your poop before you flush.

While driving to work this morning, I heard a sound with lyric saying “I would invite my Dad to dance again”. Something like that. The singer was in memory of his Dad postmorten. Suddenly, I felt another lyric in my ears saying “… tears in my eyes …”. I was deeply moved & pretty moody and hoped you all doing well.

Okay, another 3 1/2 hours I am off to see Mom. Exciting.

I am all famous about my pennies and “request for receipt” on the PA turnpike. Almost everyone in the booth of my section knows about me – a guy with an oversize piggy bank, paying toll with pennies, a lot of pennies. One gentleman even introduced himself as “Tim” and asked things about me. Where I work? What kind of profession I am in? Why I need receipt all the time? etc. They are all very friendly after they know me. Of course, I am friendly too just trying to get rid of my pennies.

I’m not sleeping that well these days, hmm, stressed about moving? Dunno. Nothing interesting to report – the prednisone seems to be helping Jeremy, he woke up this morning alert and talkative which was absent in his demenor the last few days. Vince woke up by peeing in his bed. I’ve been doing the morning dog walks for the past few days since Jeremy’s feet have been too swollen to walk on and the mornings have just been beautiful. Granted, we live in a development where they are constantly doing construction, but at 7 in the morning, the light is beautiful and everything is quiet and it seems as if all possible roads can be taken and enjoyed and to quote the the Donald-meister – it’s all good.

Oh yes, and right now, there is a ladybug crawling across my desk. I take it to be a good omen.

Last night, Aunt Liz called for the first time in 5 years. To be honest, I was real surprised. She was very interested and concerned about my current situations. We talked about 10 minutes. So far, she has tried to avoid me about 5 years right after grandmom’s death. The reason, I guess, was very simple. I disagreed with her about the way of handling the situation with grandmom. I thought we should let her go peacefully. I guessed she felt terrible that I was not on her side during the heated discussions among our siblings. You know, of course not everytime, all the time, people should agree with you. Even, wife and husband, sometimes can not agree on something. But, the big picture is that there are other things beside this need to be taken of. What a wasteful 5 years? I am glad she can forget and forgive.

Again, during the heated discussions about grandmom, I was pointing out that Uncle Robert would not make any decision on how to handle grandmom situations even though he had grandmom’s written will that he was the sole one to decide. I am complaining that if he promised grandmom of anything, he should definitely take the responsibility to do just that. Well, after that, that was absolutely no communication between us. He even turned down politely my suggested visit to him back at the time that there was a Martin’s family re-union in New Mexico. I think this one will drag on for more than 5 years. Hope, it is short though.

The lesson, I am trying to pass on to those having our genes, is that please don’t just let one thing (or couple of things) stands in the way to ruin everything else. Our family traits have the tendency to do just that. Understanding, flexibility and communication are the key. No two people think alike, act alike. There are a lot of other areas, beside one or two things, that common good & interests should bring people together, not to agree, but at least to work together of getting satisfied solutions for everyone involved.

Time is up. I need to go downstairs doing exercise.

Okay, start anew. Here are my three sentences:

1) believe in yourself, get all the help that you can out there
2) keep looking and smiling (set a goal for job hunting, 5 resumes a week?)
3) communication, communication & commnunication