putting the knit in shizknitz

I love having Holidays fall on Mondays. Typically, this means that the office closes early on the Friday before, and we return to a week that has been shortened by an entire day. Its Friday at 5 PM before you know it (my favorite time of the week) and another 2 days off. I suppose this sounds a bit cynical, but the evening before returning to work can do that to you.

I’ve picked up a new “thing” - I can’t figure out if its quite a hobby, or something else, but anyway, its running. I think I caught some of the “runner’s high” the last few times and ever since, I’ve been hooked. I throw my MP3 player on and I just keep going. However, I’m quite picky about when. I either like first thing in the morning (before I realize what I’m doing) or in the evening, right before sunset. The temperature is cool, and sometimes a light breeze. The only thing that ruins the scenery is the fact I have to dodge traffic and cars going ever-which-way. I suppose it would be worth a short trip down to the beach for a nice run. My current average length is about 2 miles, or 20 minutes, whichever comes first. My boyfriend had picked up a pedometer for me awhile back, but the damn thing is set to kilometers, and I’ve thrown the instruction booklet away.

I’m about a third way done with my Morehouse sweater. I’m almost finished with the main body area, then next would be the sleeves! The first one I finished came out too small, and so I opted to make it for the 46″ chest size - which Tienshiao was slightly humored by (since neither of us are that large).

On my reading list, I’m almost finished with Funny in Farsi which is a fantastic book written by an Iranian immigrant growing up in the 70’s here between Whitter, CA and SoCal. Although we come from vastly different backgrounds, there are many stories I and other immigrants and second generations can relate to - I highly recommend this quick, fun, short read.

All in all, it was another wonderful weekend. I’m a bit stuffed right now, as I just pigged out at Versailles. I don’t go very often, but when I do go, I’m never dissapointed. They bring you out some butter dipped bread which is crisp on the crust, and don’t even bother with the menu - jump right into their “special” which is the chicken and pork marinated in lemon garlic sauce. This comes with a very generous helping of rice, black beans and of course, plantains. The plantains in fact, was much better this time - ooy gooy, just the way I like it. Smash those bad boys in with the rice, douse with the black beans and mix in some of the shredded pork that has been mixed with the lemon garlic sauce. All together now, “ahhhhHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh………”.

There are millions of women with successful careers out in the world. If lucky, half of those women are minorities. What are the characteristics that make a woman rise to the top?

My life long search for this and other similar answers was accelerated by a wonderful year long program at my work place. I think the best investment an organization can make is in its staff. Time and time again, every organizational performance book, professional development, leadership and managerial book, manual and how-to dummy guide has pointed towards the importance in the most valuable commodity of your organization - the people who perform the work.

I’ve always been fascinated by people who know how to work the organizational ladder. These are the individuals who on any occasion are able to mix and mingle with everyone else in the room, even if they don’t know a soul. They also have the flair and ability to work their way up without necessarily much substance. These are the people who talk the talk.

The people who dazzle me are those who seem to do it all - they know how to do everything, and if they don’t, they know who can. They seem to be thoroughly knowledgeable in their jobs and are more than helpful with others while maintaining sincerity and staying “real” (or at least they’re good at acting). These are the people who walk the walk.

My goal in my personal career is to be able to be one who can do both - I suppose, have it all. This may sound cliche to an extent, but certainly not unattainable. I look for mentors everywhere - and I’ve been fortunate to be taken under the wings of the very best my work place has to offer. I may not know everything, nor do I know everyone but I try my best to always be helpful with others that are probably looking for a mentor - and possibly finding, in me.

Here I am in the photos above - if my work place was a company, this man is our CEO, and the beautiful red head is my all knowing mentor.

Mmmm… I just have to say, there is something about having Titos Tacos for breakfast that is so delightful. Some people may find this a bit strange, but there must be a reason Titos opens at 9 AM and don’t serve a breakfast menu and have been around for far longer than I have……

PS For Titos fans, they have a new menu item - Chicken and Cheese Tamale or was it Chicken and Chili? Oh whatever, it was better than their other tamale.

After almost 7 years of living in L.A., there are some areas that I still need a map to navigate - Beverly Hills, WeHo, Hollywood, Downtown LA. I’ve yet to really spend time on Melrose or bar hop through the nighttime labyrinth of Sunset.

Last night, Tienshiao, his friend Nelson and I got adventurous enough to go to another scene we are unfamiliar with - the real talent behind the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, the stage on which the future talents of tomorrow are groomed - an evening with the Asian American Sketch Comedy Group called OPM. Unlike the typical casts on media such as TV and movies, this was a group true to its roots - where the caucasians were the minority and asians were center stage using humor that would only resonate to the depths of our souls. The title of the sketch comedy? Asian for Dummies.

Of course, I had an underlying reason to stretch my wings to this unknown arena, my good friend from Jr High (YES, 7th Grade) Kim Chueh was one of the stars of the show. I think the last time we saw each other was back in, oh, I don’t know, 1997 ish for another mutual friend’s birthday? Going back a few more years before that, our true bonding came when we were in the same AB class (whatever the hell that stood for, it meant we had 2 class periods in the same classroom). We were probably the only asians on campus at the time - not including the Vietnamese folks (which were very few and inbetween at the time) who thought they were more French than asian - which of course, bonded us together. Okay, so perhaps it was a lack of options or perhaps it was a force of luck that took us through some fun and interesting times - Big Black Shoes, the Racist Substitute (remember the cheating incident?), B52’s, spraying the day care next door with a hose, tennis at CW, and of course, BAND. Now that I think about it, there was another asian - Brian Aung or something, but considering he was this short nerdy BOY he was a victim of our cynical humor than anything else. Wait, wait, I almost forgot another asian - Kunsan Kim (ha! I can’t believe I remember his name!) who was a casualty of my, well, unfortunate unrelenting crush. Kim was always much more level headed than I was, and didn’t partake in the time-wasting crap I did at that age.

Fast forward to now, and on my drive over to The Complex, I was thinking “oh, I wonder if Kim’s parents have seen this show, they would be so proud”. The first main scene I saw her in was as an asian porn star coming up to receive an award. Comeing was an understatement, as it was all over her face and chest as she rubbed the daikon trophy in her cleavage (see clip 4.2 MB). As she confirmed after the play, her parents have not seen her in this comedy (thank god!). The show in its entirety was really great! Funny, funny throughout - I especially love it when the humor is about taboo topics or generalizations made about each asian culture - Chinese, Filipino, Korean and Japanese from each other’s perspectives. The last show is this coming up weekend! Don’t miss it!!!

PS I have about 15 min worth of clips that are too large to post, so email me directly if you are interested!

Part II of Birthday Week:

Trying to be clever, I had gotten tickets to the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. What caught my eye was a particular concert entitled: “The Great Happy Birthday Concert!” - and upon checking, they were celebrating their 25th Birthday, just like Tienshiao. Happily, I purchased tickets for the earlier showing, since I had prior commitments for a Housewarming in the “promised land”. When purchasing the tickets, I thought it was a little odd that the concert was held at two times - 10 AM and 11:30 AM. Not only was it super early, but considering how close together the times were, the concert seemed pretty short.

Now mind you, Tienshiao has no idea where we are going, and he is not exactly a morning person. Costa Mesa is about 45 miles from where we live and depending on the 405 fwy traffic, this can range from 30 min to eternity. We ran late, of course and I drove down like a madwoman. It was my first time at the OC Performing Arts Center (which is a gorgeous bldg as you can see above) and as we were pulling up, I noticed a lot of kids (er, families). As we were walking up to the door, I see more kids. I was more wrapped up in “when is he going to realize the theme of this concert” when we walked in to find a kid-filled zoo - balloons, noise makers, kid games, young musicians playing - when he says to me “is this the Pacific Symphony’s Youth Orchestra?”. Sure enough, it turned out to be a series of kid oriented concerts entitled “Mervyn’s Musical Mornings”.

The actual performers were members from the Pacific Symphony, but they also had some from the Youth Orchestra join them as well. The conductor wore a birthday hat, and they played short pieces of music which focused on musical terms such as forte, fortissimo, dynamics etc - and let’s just say the concert was very interactive. At one point during J Strauss’s Champagne Polka, the conductor asked the audience to jump out of their seats everytime we heard the cork pop, and to waltz during Tchaikovsky’s Waltz from Serenade for Strings, Op. 48. Needless to say, it was quite entertaining and it was definitely a first for me.

After grabbing some lunch, we zoomed over to the “promise land“. This is located about 60 miles from where we live (so you can now do the math for travel from Costa Mesa which is in the other direction) and is out in the desert, far from the hustle bustle of LA. One thing about Palmdale is that it reminds me a lot of home, where land is flat and residential home building is in a frenzy.

One of my guys and his fiancee recently purchased a home. If you’re not familiar with certain urban areas of California, purchasing a home for a reasonable price is unattainable. Its a give or take - long commute and home, or short commute and condo. They purchased their 5 bedroom 3000 sq ft home for less than what it would cost for a 1 bedroom condo here in LA. It is brand new, and in a new development - the house is so huge that you would have to yell to find each other, and the yard is so large that you could have a pool, BBQ set AND a nice garden. The house and community is perfect - but the commute is not (I could not handle an avg 1 hr commute each morning and night) - so it makes me wonder where I will eventually end up settling…..

Which brings me to my next thought - I’m sure many people in their late 20 somethings have come across this very same phenomenon, where all of their friends are settling down - getting married, buying property, etc. It is such a strange change of life, where all of a sudden you feel like a little college kid in comparison, living life more spontaneously and still renting, for that matter.

I finally got to meet the fiancee, I had heard some terrific things about her. What I was shocked at, was how genuinely sweet she is. I suppose you have to have that in you, to be an elementary school teacher, but it really struck me in a way never imagined when she said, “thank you, Shiz. He says you treat him like a friend than a supervisor, talks about you all the time”.

Through life and work, you meet all kinds of people - those that have hurt you and have left everlasting impressions of negativity, but sometimes you really have to take a step back and look at the entire picture. On my long hot drive back to smog land, I thought about how lucky I have been, and am. I have been fortunate enough to meet and remain friends with some of the nicest and sincere people, lucky enough to cross paths with people that come from completely different backgrounds, and have had opportunities in my personal and professional life that have been amazing. As I head into another week, I’ll have to hold onto these warm, fuzzy thoughts to get me through another week of sheer craziness.

One thing that I can’t believe is how fast time flies. This time of the year always seems to come as a surprise - Mother’s Day and Tienshiao’s birthday. Its on the same week, but comes up faster than you think - then its a one-two punch and you have to be right on it. This year I was also gone for three days of that week on a company training conference, which made it even more harried than usual. Alas, in the end, everything turned out pretty good.

Dinner at The Melting Pot was fantastic. Credits go to Tienshiao’s mom who was probably shocked to see the excitement on my face when she mentioned it. This place should change its slogan to “little dips of heaven”, as there were times it tasted so good that there seemed to be no evils in the world.

First, it started with the cheese dipping and salad. To be honest, I was pretty full by the end of this course. I liked the fact the entire dinner was a show, where they bring the dipping ingredients straight to your table and explain everything as they stir it together.

Second came the ‘main course’ where you can choose from a variety of meats, and seafood of which we had both (I love the way his mom thinks!). We could barely finish what came - lobster, filet, tuna, chicken etc etc (you see above that Tienchiev is finishing the last of the lobster).

Once we were good and stuffed and in a food coma, the best was still to come. Dessert. How can one word entice such emotion? You see an example of Matt’s choice, the Yin and Yang above. I had to concur, since half of it was white chocolate, my absolute favorite. You can see we had everything under the sun to dip into it - and let’s just say my preference goes to the strawberries dipped in white chocolate (MmmMMmmmm……..). Tienshiao doesn’t have a food obsession like I do, so I felt a tad guilty that I seemed to enjoy everything more than he did, but he sure did enjoy the very useful gift from Matt. The only issue was that it was a Wednesday night, and the entire dinner took 3.5 hours, but it certainly was well worth it.

I’ve been on a slight hiatus from knitting for awhile - quite ironic, considering it was around when I first started this site. I guess we all need breaks from things once in awhile, and one of the projects I left uncompleted was this wool sweater. The yarn from Morehouse is beautiful and their service was terrific. It came out too small, so I had to frog it, and started over last night. I forgot how good the yarn felt through my fingers.

::In my Sex & The City SJP Voice::
There are two main physical attributes which differentiates skinny people from curvy people. I like to refer to them as, the dimples and the hollow ‘v’. What is it that makes them so stand out?

::Shiz Voice::
The only dimples I’ve ever had in my life are both found on my cheeks - the ones when I smile, and the ones on my ass. What the skinny people (we will refer to them as SP from now on) have are these two dimples found on either side of the spinal chord in the lower back area - SP know them as “the small of the back” - and can be seen because of the low cut skirt or jeans they wear. I, on the other hand, am still searching for my spine.

The hollow ‘v’ is quite sexy, especially when found on buff men. I don’t quite know where this is located on my own body, as I am still in search of my hip bones. When you are a SP the hip bones stick out just enough to cast a shadow on the rest of the abdomen area found below. The hollow ‘v’ coupled with a tight abdomen and set of abs can complete the look. My oh-so-lucky-I-didn’t-go-through-acne-or-weight-issues sister has had them her entire life.

::In my Sex & The City SJP Voice::
These SP are their own animal. They purposely wear short skirts and low rise jeans to show off these anatomical parts that are not possessed by non-SPs. What does it actually mean to attain these parts? Once attained, is it a sign of becoming a SP, or are you still forever a non-SP inside?

What do you do when you entrust your vehicle to a well-known service shop in a ritzy area of town and they get a ticket with your vehicle and don’t tell you about it? Read more!

RANT: My site has been down for 3 days, and I lost the last 2 week’s worth of posts…. counter got reset….. I suppose I should have made the adjustments to the DNS settings when I was first notified, but…. well… these are the reasons I am not a Net Admin. Backing up? What do you mean backup!! I’m afraid I’m starting to sound like one of my users. I have sent a formal complaint to my web hosting contact and will have to refuse payment until backup data is restored
Note: I luckily still had my last post’s edit page open on my browser, so I was able to redo that one.