OakMonster’s Den

Mike and Nan and Owen welcomed their newest addition, Phoebe Akiko, yesterday, March 15 at 10:26 a.m., weighing in at 6 pounds 12 ounces and 18 inches long.

This marks the end of the baby season for me until May when Shane’s sister Toni and husband Erik will welcome their little boy.

Oh, and actually, there WAS one more baby on my list this past month.  My friend Jen’s little sister Erin welcomes baby girl Payton a few weeks ago.  I KNEW there was one more pregnant friend!

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James was over at the party at Paul’s house last night.  Last night was his last one alone in the house before the household of 2 becomes 3 when Aurora and Dresden return tonight.  He recounted the surprisingly easy delivery.  Dresden might have held out 1 week past his due date, but boy when he was ready, he WAS ready.

James said while they were waiting, the nurse asked Aurora to do some practice pushes.  After a couple of them, Dresden crowned and surprised the heck out of everybody.  Needless to say, Aurora was told to halt any and all pushing until the doctor arrived.

When the doctor arrived, he told her she was doing great and to give him a few pushes.  At the second push, Dresden’s head was out and, of course, it was the doctor’s turn to be surprised.  Only a few more pushes and Dresden was completely out.

At this point, one would start to look around and see if someone was sitting on that “Easy Button”.

Greg, Dresden’s Godfather, 6′ 2″ with shaved head, walked through the door of the delivery room to share the news with the family waiting outside.  James’ mom, who didn’t know that Greg was in the delivery room, quipped, “Good lord, this Dresden kid is HUGE.  James and I will need to have a little talk.”

So far, James reported that Dresden only fusses when he’s not swaddled, and he seemed a bit irritated with the mittens they put on his tiny hands.  Them tiny but long nails are problematic for the kid so far.  Dresden turns bright red when he’s upset and his eyes seem to bulge out when he cries.  James says he looks like he’s going to explode, but at least it was really easy to see a crying fit coming.

The new parents here are in good hands though.  Their friends Jim and Karen have two kids, a 4 year-old and an 18-month old, and they live less than a mile away.  James’ mom will help baby sit a couple of days a week, and friends all over are helping out all they can.  I sign on to be one of the provider of dinners, so I’d better get cooking this week.

It’s fun being an auntie, I tell ya. 

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By the way, I added the Q&A page to “The Whole Story”.  Got inspired while on Vanity Fair’s website the other day.  Check it out.

After a week of the baby watch, Dresden is finally here!

Brandon has just told me earlier that Aurora went into labor last night. I planned on calling James to say happy birthday anyway, so I gave him a ring. That was around 9:45.

“Hi, Oakley.”

“Happy birthday, James.”

“And guess whose birthday it is also?”

“Oh my god!”

“In fact, perfect timing.”

I heard a baby cry.

“OH MY GOD!”

“I gotta go.”

“Okay, bye.”

ETA: Dresden William “spawned” at 9:36 a.m. weighing in at 8 lbs. 3 oz. and 21.5 inches long with a head full of curly dark hair.

Quote and photo from the January Vanity Fair article “Quirks by Nature: England Made Them”

My brother Onk emailed me that one of dad’s employees is collecting used toys to take to an orphanage over the weekend.  Apparently, he’s been doing this for many years.  Onk asked if he could pick “the ugly ones” of my stuffed animals to give away.

Have I mentioned to you guys that I have a massive collection of stuffed animals back in Thailand?  As in, when we renovated my room when I was 13, dad had built-in wall-to-wall 3-level shelves for my “friends”.  And yes, the shelves were stacked, some double layers, with stuffed toys.

I mean, as far as I know, growing up, I had more stuffed animals than anybody in my class, and possibly, more than anyone I knew.

My mom and I had talked about donating the stuffed animals for years. When I left home 15 years ago, mom had all of them wrapped up in clear plastic bags and cellophane to keep out the dust. I would come home to stay in my room, surrounded by my old friends.  Even when “my” room became mom’s walk-in closet in recent years, I would still go in to my room to at least say hi to the toys.

I mean, how can I not say hi to my old friends?  They have witnessed me growing up.  They were my confidants, my co-stars and captive audience, my guests at tea parties, my rescues and hapless victims need rescuing.  Among them was where my imagination grew and where I learned to keep my inner adult in check.  But I digress.

I have asked my mom to donate the majority of the stuffed animals, keeping only the sentimental ones many times. Same goes with my clothes I left behind. But she always said, not yet, not yet. My dad said deep down the stuffed toys and my clothes in the closet reminded her of me, and that was why she kept them.

Those stuffed toys gave me so much happiness growing up. Now that mom is gone, it is as good a time to share my joy with the less fortunate children just as I have meant to do all these years.

I gave Onk a list of the ones with sentimental values that I can recall off the top of my head. I told him if he actually sends me the picture of the shelf, I can tell him exactly who to be given away.  But in our case, I will have to have faith that my brother knows who gets to go to a new home.

And yes, I realize I called them “who”, not “which”. Hey, they were my childhood imaginary buddies. They will always be somebody to me.  In my mind, all the toys are just like in Toy Story.  They are alive when you’re not looking.  But I digress again.

It’s just strange not getting to personally say goodbye to some of them though.  I hope they would forgive me and learn to love their new friends as much as they have loved me all these years.

I may be the last person on the planet to realize this, but it just now occurred to me that Nemo is “omen” spelled backward.

Fun!

Since Erik has lost over 30 lbs. (so far), we can no longer call him Little Chris Farley.  So over the weekend, we went shopping with him at Kohl’s for new “skinny” pants.

Irony was not lost when we spot this lovely ensemble outside the men’s dressing room.

Yes. That is indeed a tuxedo for your belly with another set of red bow tie for your neck.  A dream in crush velvet.  Button fly, no less.

More disturbingly, we find THAT at a Kohl’s where families and old folks crossing in from Seal Beach Leisure World shop.

And even more disturbingly, there is this video.

…for…

Arrival of Peanut/Dresden. We have been on baby watch all weekend for Aurora and James’ first child. Or as James’ WoW gang would say, “We’re waiting for Dresden to spawn.” Apparently, Nan is on baby watch as well. Let’s see who’ll be here first!

Tuesday. Because Stargate SG-1 The Ark of Truth comes out on DVD. Now we can put the whole damn Ori crap to rest. AND hopefully give SG-1 a better sign-off than the stupid time traveling series finale.

March 19. The day I head to San Diego to hang with Olaina and Justin for 3 days. Hooray!

Summer. Because I just bought this dress at Target.

I HEART Jovovich-Hawk. Only if I can afford their regular collection too. Haha! I mean, I have been a fan since I heard of the line. Milla is my Goddess to begin with when it comes to being sexy without having any boobs. My mantra is, if Milla can wear THAT, so can I.

Now I have to figure out what I can top this off so it would be work appropriate.

April 19. Because that is when I find out if I win the local photography contest. I am submitting the following photos. Brandon decided that none of his is competition worthy this time around. Next year is a different story.

Memorial Day Weekend. Because we’re going to take a road trip to Red River, NM. The road trip we had to abandon because of last year’s Summer of Sorrow.

Me to finish organizing my office so I can actually sit in my chair and type this instead of kneeling on the floor, reaching up to the keyboard tray, and looking up at the screen. Why am I on the floor in such precarious position, you ask?

Well, I have been battling with the mess in my office for a while now, as you all know. Since I couldn’t locate our super old shredder anywhere, I went and bought a kick-ass confetti shredder so I can organize ALL of my files.

The problem is, I’m taking up all of the floor space in my office. The chair has to go away over there because there isn’t enough room to maneuver.

Oh, and here are what we bought for my “new office”. 90% of them Brandon put together.

But hey, my office is so much more efficient now. And all matchy-matchy with Ikea Birch! I will take a picture for you guys once I clean up all this mess.

Out of sadness, comes hope.  And a renewed energy to get on with life.

Brandon and I are entering a few photos into the amateur photography contest in our little city.  I have been looking forward to this since winter, and damn near almost miss the deadline!  Brandon will drop our handy works off on Monday before he goes to work.

Nhien, a quasi-professional photographer, helped me pick a few more options out yesterday.  She had entered a few contests herself so she knows what to look for.  I told her if I win, I’ll give her a framed print as her commission.  I am pretty sure of my 3 entries.  Brandon may pick some of his as well.  Once we know which one we’re submitting, I’ll post them here and you can tell me what kind of chance we have to winning this thing.  Heh.

Along the line of getting on with life, last night Brandon and I went to Ikea and picked up a new computer desk and filing cabinet for me.

It all started at our appointment with the accountant on Thursday.  Brandon mentioned that the hand-me-down metal filing cabinet I have, the bottom drawer doesn’t open properly.  Somehow from that conversion, we decided on buying me a new computer desk and rearranging my office as well.

Here we are.  Yet another redecorating project for the apartment.  Hahah.

And finally, I will be spending 3 days and 3 nights in San Diego with Olaina and Justin a few weeks from now to take a 2-day Cascading Style Sheets class.  I head down from the office on AMTRAK on Wednesday and Brandon will come down to visit and pick me up on Saturday.  This plan here has been a total pain in the butt to finalize, but it is now done.

The original plan had to do with a $900 course in San Diego next week.  I bought the AMTRAK tickets and arranged my plan with O&J.  A day after that, the class was canceled.  At least this one is more trustworthy and I KNOW they will not run off with my money.

Ah, the joy of those big training companies.  If a class is not popular enough, they reschedule again and again until you probably want out.  (With CSS, everyone seems to be learning from the book or the website.  I tried unsuccessfully to learn from the book and my experience of online classes has been bad–as in I don’t really retain much of anything.)  Then, they will offer you a private class for the same price.  If they had told me earlier on, I might have stayed with them.  Unfortunately, while waiting to hear back from these guys, I found another vendor who will do one-on-one on site training for almost half the price.  I arranged to have this session at Olaina & Justin’s apartment instead.   What a deal!

I look forward to finally learn CSS so I can stop “borrowing” codes, but I am extremely excited to spend time with Olaina and Justin; especially when I get to be there to celebrate Justin’s match day and go to church with Olaina on Good Friday.  Soooo stoked!

Positive changes are abound, my friends.  My life is coming back to me in a grand way.

Ninja Grief strikes again.

This time, the door was left wide open for an attack from visiting with Ray and Hsiao-yen who were in town from Hawaii last night.

Ray and Hsiao-yen go back a long way with my parents.  Ray and my dad went to college and grad school together.  Naturally, when my mom came over with my dad during graduate school, the wives were buddies as well.  I knew them my whole life even though we were living in different countries.  And of course, my recent visit to Hawaii to attend Ray’s daughter’s wedding has strengthen this lifelong bond.

Last night after dinner, Brandon drove me out to La Mirada where they were staying last night to drop some stuff off.  We didn’t expect them to be home already but they were.  So we went in for a visit. We talked about our families, work, and politics.  And of course, the subject of mom came up.We recounted our last time we saw her alive.  Ray saw her when we was still talking.  I saw her not long before she passed.  I didn’t want to go there, but we sort of ended up there anyway.  How could you hang out with your family friends and not go there?

Telling someone new that my mom passed away, I expect that to hurt and it does.  But I never quite expect that remembering my mom with friends of the family would be equally painful.

Being with Ray and Hsiao-yen last night was like being in the living room with my dad and my mom again.  They are one of the closest people I have to my family.  Being there with them brought me great joy and at the same time great longing to have my family put back the way we were before.

I want my mommy and daddy, dammit.

I guess I have been trying to put everything about my mom’s passing away.  You know, I’m trying to get on with my life.  Most days I can do that successfully, but of course the feelings do surface occasionally.

Once in a while, this grief would pop up and swing that 3×4 of Pain and Sadness quite literally right in my chest.  Sometimes I deflect the blow and walk away with a few tears in my eyes.  And sometimes, like today, I get knocked off my feet and reduced into a puddle of tears, especially when the 3×4 is wrapped in barb wire of Homesickness.

Like today.

I cried while getting ready for work, and it just didn’t want to stop.  I had to call in sick.

Maybe it is because I didn’t grief properly like Olaina once wrote about Justin’s way of dealing with his mom’s death.  But then like Celeste told me, these sad days are going to continue for quite a while.

Things happen for a reason though.  I mean, this entire chapter started with a chance meeting two days ago.

On Monday, Nhien asked me to help her bring up a few boxes of stationery from our messenger waiting curbside.  As we rolled our dollies out of our building, I spotted a guy that looked remarkably like Ray.  It couldn’t be Ray…could it?

He swung around again, and now I saw that it was indeed Ray.  I called out to him.

Ray was out of context to me at first glance.  I too was out of context for him, he said.  So out of context that it took him a few more seconds to realize who I was.

“What are you doing here!?” I asked as I hugged him.

“Actually, I’m lost,” he said.

“Where were you going to?”

“XXX Flower Street.”

“You’re in front of it!”

“Seriously?”

“Yes!  THIS is my building too!”

Serendipity is the word Ray used.

I was meant to go downstairs to run into Ray and effectively help to find where he was going. I was meant to get to Ray’s place late last night so we could visit instead of just dropping off stuff.  I was meant to be with my “family”.  I was meant to remember my mom.

Buddha/God/Gods/My karma/The Universe wants me to deal with my grief and to remember what it is like to have a family, to be with the parent figures.  It was a round and about way of doing it but He/She/They/It makes damn sure I get there.

Now, if He/She/They/It could turn down the volume knob on my crying, that would be awesome.

I have official joined the LOL Cats madness. Blame it on Brandon’s brainwashing us the other day at Justin & Olaina’s.

moar funny pictures