A little bit mooney

Thank you all for your kind words with regards to my previous post.  I appreciate the encouragement that each of you offered and the support for the "real life" challenges that we all encounter.

Now for the celebration!  This Sunday, September 30th is the Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival and is quite the opportunity for dinner parties and eating mooncake with family and friends.  There are many stories that my parents used to share with me and my sister when we were kids, all revolving around the moon (you can find many of these online).  But my favourite tradition that Siri and I clearly made up was, as kids, going out into the middle of our cul-de-sac in Texas underneath the bright autumn moon and doing our own rendition of a moon dance.  Our neighbors probably thought we were insane but quite honestly, we were probably just all hopped up on sugar from eating way too many mooncakes.  Maybe we'll choose to reenact our dance this weekend.

What will you do to celebrate the harvest moon this weekend?

Beautiful mooncakes (with recipe)

Moon Fox by Sergey Safonov

Moon ladder (Chinese character for "moon")

Full Moon Oil & Vinegar

Moon & Stars stationery via etsy

Moon tattoo

To be honest

This is my grandmother's house (with my sister looking weird and neon-y, sketching on the porch).  And this is the ramp at my grandmother's house that my dad and my uncle built so that she can be wheeled on and off the van that takes her to the dialysis center three times a week.

I know the blogosphere is generally a happy and positive place and my life is as well.  But life has its brutally honest moments and this is one of them.  A trip to LA isn't glamorous for my family and it's not full of shopping in Hollywood or Disney.  It's a chance to visit my grandmother the few times that we will be able to before she passes.  Before her kidneys fail, her heart will.  My cousin's a doctor and his diagnosis was confirmed by her physician.  Each day is harder and harder for her and she's scared of letting go.  Please don't feel bad for her though.  She's surrounded by loved ones - my aunt, cousins, uncle and lots of friends - and still has enough spunk and sass to order all of us around.  She has terrific doctors and access to some of the best medical treatment.  Grandma is stubborn as a mule and continues to live life more or less according to her own terms.  And at some point, as it will for everyone on earth, it'll end.

I don't mean to suggest that I know anything about death and I'm not presumptuous enough to pretend like I'll be ready for it when it's my time.  But I know that if my life is even half of what my grandmother's has been, I'll count myself lucky to live out my final days among the birds and fruit trees in the backyard, surrounded by my family.

Noshing lately

I can't help it - my Instagram is all food pictures.  Happily, fall means that it's brussel sprouts season.  Believe it or not, I actually never had these until a few years ago.  As many of you pointed out, they have a bad reputation but are quite tasty and very versatile.  And so cute too, these mini cabbages.  Hrrmm, I wonder if anyone has ever tried making kimchi out of them.  I found a wonderful baked homemade chicken nugget recipe as well - incredibly easy and way healthier than the fast food restaurant kind.  You don't have to feel guilty about eating 20 of these!  Lastly, this past weekend I went to a restaurant that was part of the local cooking institute, staffed and run by its students.  If you have one of these in your area, you should really go give it a shot.  Not only is it cool seeing the students working in the big open kitchen but you also get to be a part of their learning experience.  The value at this particular restaurant was unbeatable and they served quite possibly the most delicious sweetbreads that I've ever had.

What dining adventures have you been on recently?  I'm in La La Land and you can bet I'll have plenty of food pictures from this trip!

This is how they remember me

This is how they remember me at my grandmother's house.  Perched atop a little brown pony with my hair flying wildly around my gigantic bobble head, made more gigantic with the addition of the helmet.  I suppose you'll always just be a kid to your parents and your grandparents.

They'll always make comments on your weight, your eating habits, your sleeping habits, your choice in clothing.

Aside: I've been here for less than 6 hours and I've already heard comments regarding all these points.  Weight - "You got fatter."  Eating habits - "Why are you only eating vegetables?  Are you a vegetarian now?"  Sleeping habits - "Sleeping at one am is not that late."  Choice of clothing - "Isn't that dress kind of see-through?"

They'll be concerned when you're tired and stressed and happy for you when you have that extra pep in your step.  When you're at home or at grandma's house, they'll want to know what you're doing, where you're going, who you're hanging out with and what time you'll be home, whether you're 13, 30 or 50.

And I have to remember that it's because you're that little girl on a pony, you've always been that little girl on a pony, not even big enough to clamber on by yourself.  Yet they're letting you ride free.  So ride free, cowgirl, and know that you've got a family to catch you if you fall.

Hide your candy!

Do y'all remember Claudia Kishi from The Babysitters' Club (yes, I know my age is showing)?  She was the "Japanese American artist" babysitter and the club meetings were always held in her room.  One of the coolest things about Claudia was NOT that she was relate-able as an Asian American teen (I didn't think she was at all).  It was NOT that she had two, count them TWO, piercings in each ear.  It was NOT that she had her own private phone line.  It was most definitely NOT that she wasn't smart but she was good at art and that made it all okay.  It was that she had junk food (read: CANDY) stashed all over her room and would pull it out at random.

Okay, maybe it was only cool to me.  But it's really all because of my mom.

My mom was a trendsetter and I credit her with being the originator of the health food and raw food craze.  As kids, we brought dried seaweed and alfalfa sandwiches to school for lunch, drank chunky fruit smoothies (Smoothie is not really the correct classification.  It was more like fruit soup.  She took every fruit in existence and blended them into a chunky brown mixture that we drank / chewed) every morning and were forbidden to eat white bread.  The ice cream we bought on occasion, mint chocolate chip ice cream, was the least junky of the ice cream flavours.

Side argument: It's not real ice cream and you know it.  The mint chocolate isn't sweet and the whole creation is a bit like eating frozen toothpaste.

Even our birthday cakes were covered with fruit.

Consequently, whenever my sister and I saw junk food, we would freak.  To this day, when I see junk food, I still feel the urge to eat IT ALL NOW because my mom might swoop out of nowhere and take it all away. Which is why, at my house, I hide junk food.  From myself.  I mention this because I did not hide the above jar of candy corn Halloween M&Ms.  And now it's gone.

So maybe Claudia Kishi and I have more in common than I thought.

"It's not fall" farmhouse

Fooled again!  I really actually believed you guys.  All your blog posts and Instagram pictures of cute sweaters, knee high leather boots and pumpkin spice lattes / cakes / candles / bath soaps / toothpaste / deodorant convinced me that it was fall.  That I'd open the windows and a crisp breeze would whisk all humidity out of my house and I'd have to snuggle up with a wool blanket and steaming cup of tea.  That I'd have to wear a light jacket at night and pull the comforter up tightly under my chin at bedtime.  With all that in mind, I headed out to the countryside this morning to ride, without even applying sunscreen.  I didn't even look twice at my dri-fit sleeveless tops and had already mentally relegated them to the back of my closet.  I could not have been more wrong.  By the time I got out there at 10:30 am, it was already creeping into the mid-80s and sweat started trickling down my back at around noon.  Both the horse and I ended the afternoon dripping sweat and scrambling for any bit of shade we could find.  96 degrees Fahrenheit boys and girls - I'm such a sucker.

So in celebration of this faux fall, here's a farmhouse that you can tour without breaking a sweat, complete with pool for those fall sunbathing sessions that are so popular here in Texas (because let's face it, fall here is just everyone else's summer weather).

A little bit looney

Today's post is a Happy Birthday dedication to one of my favouritest crazy girls.  And by crazy, I mean that in the very best sense of the word.  She was crazy enough to claim me as one of her friends years ago when we were just kids, right out of college and running amok in NYC.  Somehow we have enough stories out of that summer alone to reminisce about for a lifetime.  She's crazy enough to take on the retail fashion world on her own - gonna be bigger than Rachel Zoe some day soon.  And she has been crazy enough to believe in me and support me in every one of my endeavors and stand by me in the good times and the bad.

I wish her and you all a very CRAZY weekend - drink some champagne, eat some cake, blow out some candles, dance on tables - who cares if it is your birthday or not?!  Keep the crazy alive.

Happy birthday crazy cake (raspberricupcakes)

And this is CRAAAZZYYY.  But I've been listening to Carly Rae Jepsen's new album nonstop this week

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Men, pay attention here (pinterest)

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If these are not the most insane birthday shoes you've ever seen, I want to know where you shop!

Everyone's favourite topic

It's time to delve into your favourite topic of all time: ME!  Lovely Meghan at My Wishful Thinking kindly asked me to answer eleven questions and how could I resist telling you all more about myself?

martha stewart

What would be the first thing you would do if you found out you won the lottery?  Throw a great big bash for friends and family, with lots of barbecue and beer.  Oh there should be a live band.  And cake.  Because what's a party without a cake?  Not delicious, that's what it is.  Don't worry, I would invite all of y'all.

etsy

What’s your favourite city (even if you haven’t been to it)?  Dear Austin, home of the Longhorns, No Pants Day, the Mexican martini and all weirdness in Texas, I truly do love you.  You were my first home away from home and the first place I felt like I really struck out on my own.  If any of you bloggers haven't experienced the magic of this town, you must go.  Now.  (Maybe this will be where my lottery party is held.)

Do you have a nickname? If so, what?  I have tons of nicknames - Roothie, Roothers, Rooth Anne, Fatty Lumpkins.  The last one is what my sister calls me... if you know where that is from, I'm giving you a HUGE Internet high five (hint - it's REALLY nerdy).  Oh, and Emmy calls me Auntie Rooth.

Favourite time of day?  For blogging - morning.  I read all of your new blog entries first thing in the morning and it takes me, oh around 1.5 to 2 hours.  Because that's how I show that I care, by reading your blogs still foggy-headed and bleary-eyed.

Do you prefer the beach or the forest?  I like pina coladas, caipirinhas, margaritas and daiquiris.  And guess what, they're all beach drinks.  So yes to the beach.  What are some forest-y drinks, hmm?  If you can name some, I might have to change my mind.

What made you decide to start a blog?  I actually started a blog a LONG time ago but as for this one, I started it because I wanted a creative outlet for all the random ramblings that would pop into my head during the day.  Plus, I started following several bloggers, saw how tight knit the community was and really wanted to be a part of that.

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Do you have any phobias? If so, what?  I'm not so much afraid of roller coasters as I really don't like them.  And it's not even the roller coaster itself, it's the feeling of G-Forces tightening up in my gut.

What’s your favourite dish to cook (if you cook)?  Oh yes I do cook.  My favourite dish to cook has got to be coq au vin, which I've featured here and here on my blog.  And I have a good 'ole Staub now so I can finally cook it properly.

How would you spend a spontaneous day off?  In the country on a horse, trundling along in the sunshine and roaming around fields of flowers.  We might stop off for an impromptu picnic in the shade of an ancient Spanish oak tree.  Also, there would be no bugs or heat / humidity.  Because it's my fantasy.

Do you read magazines online or from the shops? Any favourites?  Do you ever have to order magazines to keep your airline mileage?  Those are the only magazines I end up reading and they're more business-oriented I'm afraid - like Fortune or Inc.  But you can learn a lot from those magazines about successful entrepreneurs and how they tackle strategy and planning.

Scotch & Soda

If you could change your name, what would you change it to?  Something French and unpronounceable.  Like Gaellane or Praxedes.  Just because it would be fun.  I don't actually have to have a reason, do I?

Klassen's Coraline

You all may recognize Jon Klassen's work from his design on greeting cards, such as those that can be found on Red Cap Cards, or from his cover work and illustrations for The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place.  However, what I didn't know was that Klassen worked on the visual development and drawings for sets and props for Coraline, the stop-motion movie by Laika Inc. and based on the novel by Neil Gaiman.  This is one of my favourite movies, particularly because I think the 3-D effects are especially powerful when paired with the stop-motion quality of the film.  And as for the story, you all know that I'm a huge nerd for Neil Gaiman material.

On Klassen's website Burst of Beeden (clever), he's included some of the materials that he created for the film and these drawings are quite amazing.  I love looking at how the sets were composed, down to the specific detail of the "props" in the kitchen and the colour themes used in each scene.  If you've seen this film (and if you haven't, I highly encourage you to), you'll appreciate the contrast of the bare and stark "real" world to the rich tones and embellishments of the "Other" World.  It's not hard to understand why Coraline would escape to the Other World night after night.

All pictures are copyright Jon Klassen.  You can buy his prints and artwork here on Gallery Nucleus.

Cop out

etsy

Let's admit it, at this point, using vampires or werewolves as the antagonist(s) in books is, in my opinion, a total cop out.  It's the literary equivalent of watching an entire TV series and ending the final episode with the main character waking up from a protracted dream sequence, a la Dallas.  Your faithful reader has followed you through all the twists and turns of the plot, mishaps of the major and minor characters and you choose to wrap the story up with a villain that has been used in at least 50 movies and 500 books this year?  For shame.

Aside: Yes, this happened recently with a book that I was so excited to read and thought was a great debut novel... until the villains were exposed.  Then it was just hokey.  What a waste.

However, I understand that coming up with a complex, yet easily comprehensible, evil character can be difficult so I've gone ahead and pulled together a handful of villains, some more well known than others, that you can use, should inspiration fail to strike when you're trying to figure out how to shock and scare your readers.  Copyright Rooth.

• Gargoyles, bulimics of the medieval age.  These an author can operate almost like the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who - take your eye off of them, even to blink, and they move.  Stand underneath one and you risk being crushed to death or at least drenched with rainwater.
• Most dangerous to church-going type protagonists, particularly those who frequent cathedrals
• Hungry ghosts, Chinese ghouls whose hunger / thirst can never be satiated, much like Tantalus.  They roam the human realm, haunting kitchens of their friends and family.  As a child, my mom would always invoke hungry ghosts to scare me into chewing with my mouth closed and not bang my chopsticks like a pair of drumsticks.
• Most dangerous to small children, especially those who are left at the empty, dark dinner table to "clear their plates"
• Telemarketers.  Drop your land line, unlist your phone number and get caller ID.  You can run but you can't hide.  Particularly potent between the hours of 5 and 8 pm, they'll ruin the dinner party you've planned for months or worse, keep you on the phone for hours.  I'd rather get a call asking "What's your favourite scary movie?"
• Most dangerous to people who always wear their blue tooth headsets (then again, maybe they deserve it)
• Holiday creatures.  We're a bit familiar with these normally loving and cuddly characters going bad, what with evil Santas, Easter bunnies and tooth faeries.  But what about evil cupids that hand out double-fat chocolates, Thanksgiving turkeys who spring to life and chase after you with a baster and a warped alternate universe where you're forever trapped in Times Square during New Year's?  Shudder, no thank you.
• Most dangerous to people who stress during the holidays, aka everyone
• Evil referees.  Do you feel like you're living out this bad dream with the NFL replacement refs?  If black and white striped outfits and bad calls don't scare you enough, maybe the yellow flags bombarding the field and never ending piercing whistles will.  The cacophony of colour and sound is enough to make someone go mad.
• Most dangerous to professional football this fall and Michael Lewis fans

What kind of villain would you like to see authors use more often?

Swooner crooner

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You don't get to my age and attend as many weddings as I do without hearing more than your fair share of 1980s' and Beatles' cover bands and a wide assortment of wedding singers.  Typically you groan, inwardly, and wish they would stop wailing into the microphone and let you plug in your iPod.  However, I cannot WAIT to compare my past experiences to the performer that has been scheduled for my grandparents' monster birthday bash next weekend.  I got a sneak preview from my cousin last week, who told me this particular gentleman is a "famous" Asian singer / entertainer and also leans toward the ancient side (appropriate as my grandparents will be turning 90).  Sounds like a ringing endorsement if I've ever heard one.

Famous to the over-75 Asian population in the Southern California region?  Check.
Croons old Chinese songs that no one except the above group will recognize or understand?  Check.
Dead certainty of a tambourine appearance at some point?  Check.

I'm literally bursting with questions.  What will he be wearing, formal wear or costumes?  Is he going to have on stage makeup?  Will there be back up singers?  Is he emceeing the evening as well and how many family members will embarrass themselves by trying to go onstage and sing with him?  Can I request "Call Me Maybe" or "Boyfriend"?

So, as excited as I am to see my extended family, I am truthfully anticipating the entertainment for the birthday party the most.  This is going to be way better than a stripper jumping out of a cake.

Bleached white bones

As Gilbert Chesterson said quite famously, "White is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black."  The row house below, for rent, can be seen as sterile, bare and devoid of colour and life.  And true, this house's smattering colour palette of red, turquoise, brown and grey remind me more of a designer's tumblr page than a livable home .  But you've got to admit, this house has some great bones to work with.  Such as the windows that extend all the way down to the floor, acting as faux doorways and the vaulted ceilings that make the house feel a lot larger than the 1,900 square feet.  Or the European-style kitchen wall that allows you to add whatever size and style of kitchen island you would like.  Give me some interesting textiles and I can easily make this blank canvas into my type of home.  And my type of home, I mean mismatched and full of books and "character."