The role of the stars

We enjoyed the movie, An ideal Husband (1999), so much that we watched it many times since we recorded it from DirecTV.

In fact, I like the movie so much that I am reading the play written by Oscar Wilde. I enjoyed reading more details about the characters, but I was quite amazed by how the movie stars transformed the characters in their own ways.

Julianne Moore played the devious Mrs. Cheveley, and she did a superb job. I have never seen her played such a nasty personality at all. But her beauty actually made her likable in the movie. However, the book magnified her character's nastiness. If you have never watched the movie, I wouldn't be surprised if you hate Mrs. Cheveley immensely from reading the play.

Her compatible opposite, Cate Blanchett as Lady Chilton, also did a great job. She was so righteous and idealistic. She reminds one of a cold goddess, in a Katherine Hepburn kind of way.

I am very curious, just for the fun of it, how about if Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett exchange roles, how will the movie come out?

Imagine, the great Elf Queen, Cate Blanchett, as Mrs. Cheveley. It will be very interesting, indeed.

As we are watching "Golden Compass", Jack said Mrs. Coulter, played by Nicole Kidman, was a very sleazy person in the book. But how can one be upset at the beautiful Nicole Kidman? Sleazy or otherwise.

Developing a taste

Being raised in Southern China, I am not big with bread or any baked goods, or so I believe. Jack never believes me and always tease me of making this up. See we mainly eat steam rice as starch.

In truth, I didn't really know how to use the oven until 10 years ago.

This one time many years ago when I lived alone in a nice apartment, I tried to bake by reading a cookbook. That was before the Cooking Chanel. Unfortunately I got stuck at the very first step: "Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees." I turn the oven on "bake", then set the temperature to 350, and saw the light went on. I was puzzled when the light was turned off all by itself. I was like, what's wrong with this oven? So I gave up.

I found out, accidentally from Jack, that the oven light automatically turns off when it reaches the desired temperature. See I could have found a manual to read and learn, but I just didn't have the passion for baked goods nor desserts, which would have driven me to learn baking on my own. Even today, I leave baking to Jack. All the measuring and mixing are just too much trouble.

Lately I've realized that the key to good tasting bread was the freshness. (Isn't it true for all food?)

One day, I exclaimed: I am developing a taste for bread.
Jack said: Sounds like a bunch of bullshit.

Whenever I told people I didn't like dessert, Jack would remind me immediately how much I like fresh donuts with my coffee. Yes, I admit, fresh donuts are good, it's so dangerous that I stay away from them.

Fixer upper

I don't care much about the movie "Frozen". I first watched it on an airplane, then watched it a couple more times after we bought the blu-ray DVD. I guess I'm not big on musical and cute pricess stories. I enjoyed the musical, "Pitch Perfect", though.

There is a song in "Frozen", which I just started to appreciate, when I'm watching the movie right now. The one when the trolls sang about Kristoff and Anna, and I'll just call it "Fixer upper".

It's so true that everyone is a fixer upper, boys and girls, to each other. No one is perfect to each other initially, right? But that should not stop people from falling in love.

The big lesson of the story is: Love will thaw. This is so Yogic! We are ultimate love and we are infinity.

Listen to your mother

This happened many years ago, but it's actually an embarrassing story, so I kept it to myself. I'll make this a special topic to honor Mother's Day.

One morning I got in my car preparing to head to work. I took a sip of water from the coffee mug, which was left in the cup holder in the car for a few days. When I open the mug, I was shocked to find a live spider crawling under the cover. I rushed into the house to have the mug washed instantly.

That's when I realized, some rules of mom's must be followed, because they make sense: rinse the bottles and cups before drinking out of them; don't leave the cups in the car for too long; clear the clutters; keep your house clean ......

Why blog?

Y: Do you know why people blog?
J: No, why?
Y: It's because their significant others stopped listening to them.
Of course, J didn't hear this part...

Regimen

I just got over the worst sore throat ever. My throat on the left side felt like having acid burn. The worst time, the neck area was swollen, and swallowing would bring stabbing pain. At some point, I couldn't even open my mouth. Imagine living under such pain for 3 days? It is something I don't want to experience ever again.

I went to the doctor's office, she gave me a checkup and a test, then told me to go home and take some pain killer and drink a lot of water. She said the test results from the lab would take 2 days, so she would contact me then if I actually needed some antibiotics. I didn't share her optimism, but there was nothing else I could do.

Following the order, I took the pain killer, but it didn't help at all. So I kept my mouth shut and moped in pain. It was troublesome, because the pain did not reduce a bit. I could only eat soup and drink water. It felt like I was going to live like this forever, so I started get used to it.

Finally yesterday morning, I started a regimen. In addition to drinking water like a fish, I gurgled with light salt water and used sore throat spray every 2 hours since the beginning of the day. It seemed to be too simple, and it was hard to believe some salt water would actually did anything to diminish the gigantic swelling pain, but in the late afternoon, I actually started to feel better.

Who would have known?

Self healing

To me, self healing is a self discovery and self realization, which is awesome.

Not only my neck and shoulder pain wasn't worsen after I started kiteboarding last weekend, I actually felt better.

Yoga and foam roller everyday are actually doing the magic to my physical pain! 

Yoga is a good complement to any sports activity. Give yourself a good stretch on your legs, arms, upper body, neck and shoulder. Hold each stretch for 3 long breaths to start, and up to 5 later on. Do this in the morning before your sport, it will help lessen the stiffness of the body, and get it ready for the sport later in the day.

Here are some of stretches I do. Don't worry, you don't have to do sun salutation if you don't want to. Sun salutations help warm up the body, you can replace it with anything, like dancing or whatever works for you. Pick some of your favorites and work on them.

shoulder roll, neck stretch

cat and cow, 5-8 reps

warrior I, II, triangle, revolve triangle

standing forward bend

high lunge, low lunge, sideway intense stretch

pigeon, low cobra, down dog

tree

seated twist, such as half lord of the fish

bridge, shoulder stand, plow pose

knees to chest

Finally to cool down, use the foam roller for the upper back, shoulder area, and lower back. 

Teaspoon

Y: I put less tea in the chai, so that it is not too strong.
J: Oh really? How much did you put in?
Y: Instead of 3 teaspoons, I put 1 tablespoon.
J: But 1 tablespoon is 3 teaspoons.

A kiteboarder's yoga retreat

Wake up coffee 9 - 9:30
Yoga in the morning 9:30 - 10:30
Brunch 10:30-11
Dog walking 12-2
Kiting 2-4
Take nice sunset photos if available
Dinner
Movies
Yoga before bed

Repeat for 3 or more days

Life is good

A wholesome belief

In a group, we studied Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's commentary of the ancient Hindi text: Ashtavakra Gita.

Sri Sri said:
You are complete, now.
You are all that you need, don't undermine yourself. A Guru is here to show you who you are. Whatever I am, that's who you are.

I often feel incomplete, because my knowledge is incomplete. I'm always searching, seeking for more knowledge and skills, as I feel my life so far has been on a path of learning and growing. I attend to classes, workshops to learn from others and to find ways to make me happier, stronger and wiser.

To hear this from the Guru was an eye opener. I have never thought of myself as complete, therefore I have not been freed.

The Guru said: growing is like removing the husk to let the rice show. You are already complete.

Birthday rituals

Birthday rituals? I have none.

Today I wake up, nobody is going to ask me for any status or how to solve certain software problems, and I will not be looking at certain error stacks or sending emails.

Today, I am off.

My birthday rituals are:
chai making and drinking
yoga
blog until I drop
book reading
ukulele playing
love song singing
dancing, Zumba, in the bedroom
And I may even go kiting,. I did, and it was awesome!
Not sure why, but I thought I would watch "You've Got Mail".

The Chinese in me

America was a strange place for me who was 16 when I first got here. Luckily my family settled in the best place possible, as we lived in this melting pot or salad bowl, depending on your opinion, called San Francisco. I made friends with people from all over the world, and some of them still my best friends till today.

You may ask why I thought S.F. was the best place for me. The top reason is that it's such a friendly place for people of other ethnicity and I just love it.

I treasure the opportunities to introduce my American friends to dim sum; learn to make chai from my American brother-in-law who in term learned it from an Indian friend; self taught cooking Indian dishes from the videos recommended by my Indian co-workers.

Now I have been living in America for longer than I had been in China, the Chinese in me is still there. Through my accent, and the occasion incorrect use of words or phrases, which brought harmless laughter to my marriage. Jack is my pronunciation, grammar and spelling police, and I'm so grateful.

There were times when I felt out of place, especially in my younger days, as I had the so called identity crisis, but slowly I have learned to accept who I am. Without putting on a certain label for everything I do or say, I just go with it.

Yesterday on the drive home, Jack was explaining to me some "serious" hardware project he had been working on: putting a new 24-inch windsock on the pole at the kiteboarding site. He tried to explained to me the use of rivets.

I was like: "Can you first explain what a rivet is?"

He explained how you have this small piece of metal with a long stem and bigger on one end, which can be put through the holes of two or more pieces of thick metals, then you put a rivet gun through the rivet to press the metals together, and cut the excess stem. He said all airplane pieces were riveted together.

This morning he showed me how the whole thing works, and I finally understood.

"Oh, we just call it a nail." I said casually.

"But it's not a nail, it's a rivet." Jack protested.

"OK, it's a nail for metals." I compromised.

It's been my observation that we use Chinese language in a more relaxed way, while in English, there are very specific names for everything.

For example: we may be happy to call a bird: "a black bird" or "a big black bird", whereas you may call it a crow. Yes, we do have a name for crow, but at least I am not used to be that specific, because I couldn't tell between a crow and a raven.

Do you know what a kaleidoscope is called in Chinese? We call it: ten thousand flowers in a tube (万花筒).