Memento from folks’ Hawaiian cruise. It tastes exactly like nuts sprinkled with Spam powder.
Oh hellzya!
Archive for the 'Photography' Category
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Inspired by Mark Menjivar’s photo essay on people’s fridges, here’s a peek into our fridge. Taken at 3 pm on Tuesday, March 8, 2011.
What’s in your fridge?
The way we were.
A man on a mission.
Thumbs-up if you know what you’re doing.
The hole. In the ground. In our bank accounts.
Building a foundation in Seattle winter is not for the faint of heart.
Did I say winter? Yeah. I meant winter.
Looks like a hot mess, but this is progress.
I mentioned the rain, right?
Praise be the Concrete Gods! We have foundation!
Somewhere, in some forest, there are a lot fewer trees.
Jay is single-handedly willing this house into existence.
Well, hello there!
We just killed someone’s view.
Don’t look now, but I think they are building the roof.
You can’t see it here, but the Frame Masters are working double time to create rooms in the house.
We have roof. We have skylights. We have hope this house is going to be complete!
Ready, set, WINDOWS!
Now the work moves inside. Follow the build.
All you parents, pet owners, plant owners, and assorted carers of other living beings: If you thought your life was already complicated enough, I SUGGEST YOU HAVE ANOTHER KID.
Life doesn’t just get busier, it gets exponentially crazy. I’m talking if you didn’t schedule your own poop time, you ain’t getting no relief, you know what I’m saying?
This announcement is two weeks late, but here it is. Introducing our latest time-sucker: The Maxine Project. She makes up for late-night feedings and constant pick-me-up yells by playing cute.
She gets away with it. For now.
Brace yourselves, Blog Followers. This is going to be an epic year for the Family Dokken-Ho.
I am in the home stretch to being Formerly Pregnant.
We are in the process of building a house. From scratch. As in dirt. As in we dug a giant hole in the muddy Seattle ground and are filling it with a structure that is not imaginary.
We are still raising a petulant toddler. Whoever coined the term Terrible Twos obviously stopped observing kids after two years. I would like to politely point out that Threes is shaping up to be the Year of the Inexplicable Tantrums followed by Excessive Make-Up Hugs and Kisses. “Why are you crying?” Silence. I swear, toddlers are more forgetful than women in their third trimester.
Check back in a week or two.
We’re going to have two crying folks in this household (and I’m not talking about Ruby and Baby Sister Tree.) If we all survive 2011, it’s going to be a bloody miracle.
My new year’s resolutions?
Stay sane. Stay funny. Stay in love. Rock a mohawk.
Matty, who hosted the DC Xmas Party, made shirts for everyone. Thing is, you don’t get to wear your own face.
Guess who Dave’s wearing.
The DC Crew.
The DC Crew in Disguise.
You’ll never know who this deep undercover agent is.
Ruby meets Kinect. She sorta, kinda, gets it. Or not.
Right before her turn with Santa, she said, “I’m not going to cry, mom! I’m not going to cry!”
But here we are.
I’m in a random coat with my hair from hell. Jay’s got his sunglasses clipped to his tee. And Ruby is definitely crying.
Yo Gabba Gabba comes to town! How can I miss it?
Of course mom’s paying. I made her buy the tickets six months in advance.
I guess I’m not the only two-and-a-half-year-old groupie.
Moooooom! I really don’t think it’s cool to take a photo right now.
Sure I got one of these flashlights they were hawking on the floor. Don’t you know it’s my generation’s lighter? Who cares if it costs $10? Mom’s a pushover.
That’s me. Excited.
That’s me. Making sure I don’t miss anything.
If you don’t know the names of these rock stars, you ain’t no friend of mine.
OMG. So totally into Foofa! My closest brush with celebrity!
Now did mom take a photo of my meltdown? So not cool.
For the record, I was merely resting.
How do you open a kids’ rock concert? Like this.
If those foam creatures aren’t already millionaires from the merchandising, they certainly must be thousandaires from the sale of tens of thousands of $10 concert flashlights.
Now why didn’t I think of being an orange-spandexed DJ leading a group of children’s monster drawings brought to life?
I just heard a radio program on summer soups. (Okay, for the uninitiated, there’s SUMMER soup, and there’s REST OF THE YEAR soup.) Summer is hot, ergo you drink cold soup. Winter is cold, ergo you drink hot soup.
Now, for a girl from the tropics, the idea of cold soup is as appetizing as melted ice-cream. It’s the same thing, if you ask me. For Singaporeans, and I assume, many others in non-seasonal places, hot soups are a daily – and delicious – reality of life.
I remember how flabbergasted Jay was on his first visit to Singapore. Aside from being overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and smells, he couldn’t understand how we could eat hot spicy food in the middle of 100-degree humidity.
It’s funny how you never really consider something you do every day, your whole life, until someone looks at it from a different perspective.
We’re used to what we’re used to, until we’re not.
Still, there are some mysteries I cannot fathom.
Don’t come and bluff me with this “Suckling Pig.” Lola, I’m talking to you. When Chris visited Seattle with her family, we made a dinner date at the restaurant and eagerly anticipated “Suckling Pig” as advertised on its menu. After the waitress described the dish, we were sorely disappointed. She lamely told us there was crispy pork rinds. Stewed pork with some skin thrown on as an afterthought isn’t suckling pig. Am I being too harsh if I want them to get it right?
I am constantly tickled whenever I encounter “Singapore” dishes. I’ve seen “Singapore Noodles” in almost every US city, but this was the first time I saw “Singapore Chicken.” Depending on who you believe at the Vashon Island restaurant – run by Hong Kongers – the chicken was either in some brown sauce, or curry sauce, or brown curry sauce. If there was any Singapore dish that deserved a national title, it would have to be Char Kway Teow.
I still have mixed feelings about sandwiches, especially cold sandwiches. We made these Cream Cheese Salmon sandwiches for Ruby’s second birthday this year, in addition to Cream Cheese Cucumber and Nutella Apple sandwiches. I have not had as much cream cheese as I’ve had since moving to the US. They eat a lot of sandwiches here. I guess a sandwich is like a bowl of noodles. Only to me, it’s still not really.
As a result of our schizophrenic diet, Ruby has developed a rather unique palate. She loves cream cheese, pickles, fish balls, sushi, noodles, and char siew; but does not like mac and cheese, tofu, eggs, sandwiches, or pasta (cold or hot). I can safely say she is the only one in her preschool to pack rice or noodles in her lunchbox instead of sandwiches.
What does this mean for our family?
Grocery runs to two kinds of supermarkets to get both Western and Asian ingredients. A kitchen where you can find instant noodles and salsa. Dinners where Jay makes a sandwich, and I make a bowl of noodles.
Because when you’ve got to eat soup noodles, you’ve got to eat soup noodles.
I don’t believe in any of the homes I read about in interior magazines, architectural magazines, or design magazines. Or, for that matter, any “Habitat Profiles” in newspapers.
You know why?
NO ONE LIVES IN THOSE HOMES!
There is no way that people live without stuff lying around, without a dustball in sight, without a shred of human evidence! I think there’s a conspiracy. The home owners have TWO houses – one for the glossy magazine shoot, and one they actually live in.
It is not accurate to show a home devoid of the very basic thing that makes it a home – life.
So I’ve decided that it’s only fair I show you an honest-to-goodness lived-in 700-sq-ft bungalow house occupied by two adults and one toddler.
When you enter our home, you will most likely trip over a shoe or two. Sorry about that.
Next, your eyes will immediately be assaulted by Jay’s and my workstations on our former dining table. We used to try to eat on the end not occupied by our computers, but as a casualty of day-to-day living, we’ve transformed that usable space into a dumping ground for whatever we’re doing at any time of the day, or whatever we happen to be carrying as we walk through our front door. For the record, this drives Jay crazy.
Look left and what was once our living room is now merely referred to as “Ruby’s Play Area.” It is not a pretty sight. A clean living room lasts about 10 seconds, the amount of time it takes Ruby to run into her room and pick out a new toy to play with.
This is Ruby’s Big Girl Bed. Not bad, you think, until you see…
…this. Her closet.
Our kitchen is the size of many of your bathrooms. (This is no excuse, but I wanted to point that out.) Yes, the counter is full of crap. Yes, Ruby has many toys. Yes, I eat a lot of cookies, and there is no room to open that microwave door. Yes, those are dirty dishes and I sometimes wish I had a dishwasher.
This narrow passageway to our backdoor serves as a mini laundry room. Jay’s piece de resistance of organization is right here. Boxes and boxes meticulously labeled, with random objects such as stamps, hair clips, tape, etc, all nicely squared away.
There is always unwashed laundry in my house. If you open that dryer, there is probably a load of unfolded laundry. Clothes happen. Those fancy schmancy homes? They have housekeepers. Or maybe they don’t change clothes. As a G-rated blog, I’ve made one edit. You don’t need to know I have something personal drying on that rack.
There is soap scum on my shower curtain. Don’t hate.
This is part of my floor. Duct tape is the answer to everything.
You’re probably thinking, “How in blazes do they live like that?” right after you think, “Damn, that Dot sure is one messy person!”*
Look, I’m just being honest here. If no one was visiting, this is what my home looks like 90 percent of the time. I’m betting there are others out there whose homes look a little like mine. So ‘fess up.
This is a real home. Shouldn’t there be a magazine catering to readers like me who appreciate a neighborly snoop into other people’s homes? We can call it “Surprise Habitat Profile.” I don’t care if you have unfinished laundry on top of that high-end Samsung washing machine or your kid’s naked doll and all her accessories are sprawled on your Eames lounge chair.
Because that’s the truth.
Don’t let your $80-an-hour housekeeper tell you otherwise.
*Please note that this is mostly Dot’s doing. Jay tries very hard to keep this place clean but he’s up against the tsunami of messiness that is me and Ruby.
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