Seedlings

The seedling experiment has begun. I have four types of squash, egplant and tomatoes started.

Let's see what survives on the balcony.

Xiao Tai Bei Tu Zi

I walked out of my apartment door this evening to take Frankie on his last walk of the day. In the middle of the common driveway between my building and the identical one next door sat a little bunny rabbit. I stopped. Frankie bristled and grew still. We watched the bunny for a few minutes. I wished I had my camera, but I knew that if we turned around to get it, he would be gone when we came back. So we just stared. How odd, I thought. Little bunny, how did you get to my urban front door?

Finally, Frankie and I moved towards the “yard,” turning left around the corner. Simultaneously, the bunny twitched and ran; we watched him go. Then from a dark corner in the left, a little lady shrieked and tore after the bunny. She stared at us like we were monsters, aliens. Two big white beings who materialized out of the darkness.

It dawned on me: This was her bunny, her pet. She had come down in the night to let him roam free. Free to run in the street if startled, free to be hit by a car or lost. And she looked at us like we were the weirdos – we who were safely joined by halter and leash.

Playdate: Yu Kids Island

Gioia had her first playdate today with a daughter of one of my co-workers. We met up at a Yu Kids Island outlet, which was basically a playcenter full of balls, slides and bouncy things tucked away in a corner of a shopping mall. Gioia was very tentative at first, but by the end she had to be carried away kicking and screaming because she was having so much fun.


Gioia seemed to like the ball area most of all. She didn't even care when an older boy pelted her in the head with a big bouncy one. Intentionally, I might add.

It was a good day. The little ones didn't really play with each other, more around each other, but I think that is normal social interaction for 12-14 month olds. We need to find more opportunities for Baby G to get out an socialize, though. Chris and I decided to put her in a Yo-yo Ban (which means toddler) class at a local Montessori school, but that will not start until January. We want to make sure she learns how to play nicely with her peeps before then.



More pictures are available here.

Rainy Day Snail on the Porch

Since I Am Already Blocked in the PRC...

Here are a couple of plum news articles from the past few days.

For the Olympics, China designated "safe zones" where people supposedly can protest approved things. They were announced just before the games started, but you needed to apply for a permit to protest anything... which would take at least 10 days to process. HA. Apparently the three protest zones are hard to find and secretive.

And here is the kicker - two ladies* in their late 70s who applied for permits have been sentenced to one year in a reeducation camp. In the words of Ms. Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama, no I am not shitting you. Let a hundred flowers bloom, right?

Some Americans - crazy as it would seem - decided to try to protest against China's "involvement" in Tibet even without a permit. And then were promptly thrown in jail. Granted, these people probably should be doing time in prison for just being exceptionally stupid, but still.

Oh China.

Those women must have lived through some crazy times. It is one thing to stand up against the government, but it is a whole other thing to stay brave and strong after you lived through the Great Leap Forward.

And the Winner Is...

Kikilia of Mulberry Summer. She correctly guessed that we went to Thailand. Tokyo and Shanghai were also very good guesses, but Bangkok was the destination du jour.


Kikilia, I cannot seem to find your email address on your blog, so please contact me (rebeccacoke at yahoo dot com). I have a nice little prize to send you from Jim Thompson. Because a trip to Bangkok is not complete without some shopping at JT.

Thanks for playing y'all.

Shout Out for the Red Scarf Project

Do you know about the Red Scarf project? Sponsored by the Orphan Foundation of America, the project accepts donations of handmade scarves and sends them to college students who have grown up in the US foster care system as part of a Valentine's Day package.

This will be my third year of participating in the program. My last red scarf was knit in December 2006. When I got my needles out last Christmas to make a third scarf, I found out they had moved the deadline to early fall and I HAD MISSED IT. I was very bummed out. But the deadline was moved up because OFA received 15,000 scarves the previous year. So many, in fact, that it seemed to have overwhelmed their volunteer staff who sort and package the scarves. How excellent is that?

There are so many kids in the world who don't have families. It is hard for those of us with Moms and Dads and daughters who giggle when you tickle their bellies to imagine, but it is true. Participating in this program is is a way for me to connect - ever so slightly - with someone who is overcoming great odds. Someone working to get a college degree and better him or herself without the support of a family. Hopefully this one little scarf will send a message to the recipient that I think he or she is fabulous and can achieve so very much.

If you would like to make a scarf, here are the details. Apparently it is quality over quantity now, given the love in the knitting community these days, so make it a good one. Also, if you post about the Red Scarf Project on your blog or somewhere equally visible, you may win a prize thanks to Scout.

Tomorrow I will announce the winner and prize of my own little contest. Yes, there indeed was a winner....so check back.

Where in the World is Baby G?

We are taking a little weekend trip to meet up with Gioia's grandpa (wai gong). He is in Asia for a few weeks, so we get a chance to pop by and say hello. But where are we going? A few hints:

- We will be flying about 3-4 hours to get there.

- Chris and I have been there before, but Gioia hasn't.

Can you guess? Leave your answer in the comments to this post. The first person to guess correctly will get a prize from the city in question. If you already know, you cannot play. And I know who knows.....

Back on Monday night! Have a nice weekend.

Pinafore

I have been wanting to make Gioia a pinafore dress for a while now. In my mind, it needed to be A-line and have a pocket in the very front. Nothing less would have been acceptable.

The base pattern for this dress was a vintage ebay find: the Jiffy play-set from 1964 (#5480). This is a size 1, but I think it is a little bit big for my 14 month-old kiddo. But it should be useful for a while, even perhaps as a top as she grows taller.


I fiddled around a bit with the pattern. I made it reversible, mainly because I strongly dislike facings. I also used buttons in the back instead of a zipper closure. I added the pocket to one side, and an applique heart to the other.

The floral fabric is a Liberty lawn, and the plaid is of unknown origin (but matches the weight and hand of the Liberty).


For the record, MissG was not too keen on posing in her dress. She started by the chair, dropped quickly to her knees, then moved to her crib to kiss bunny. When I moved her back to the chair to see if I could get a good shot, she pitched a big fit (as you can see in the lower right quadrant above). Nice.

Like Father, Like Daughter

First Haircut

Gioia had her first haircut today. We took her to the Tony and Guy stylist who does both Chris' and my hair. He seemed a bit surprised to have a baby for a customer, but he did a great job.


Gioia was really good. She sat on Chris' lap, and hardly fussed at all. She only needed one water break.


As a treat after the haircut, she was allowed some gelato from the Italian restaurant across the street. She hated it, as you can clearly see from the picture below (jk).

Olympic Opening Ceremony

Is it wrong that we ordered take-away Indian food to eat while watching the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony?

So I will be the first to admit that I have been disparaging the Beijing Olympics for months now. Beijing traffic sucks, and the pollution is absolutely unbearable.* Yeah, I have been pretty down on the China Olympics lately. "Everyone will see the problems there," I said. "Just you wait."

But tonight, watching the opening ceremonies, I softened a bit. It was beautiful. Really beautiful. The tai chi, the sand painting, the choreographed oar routines. Give China enough time to throw a thousand people at a goal and they will make it work. Chinese culture does have graceful, dramatic, inspiring elements. They all came together in tonight's show.

The parade of athletes was exceptionally fun because the countries were sorted by simplified Chinese characters, not by the Roman Alphabet with which we Westerners are so familiar. It was a big surprise seeing which country came next in the line-up. Another surprise: the US team's outfits. White newsboy caps? Really?

So fun. My only regret is that Gioia is not old enough to see this.

* For the record, I have lived in Manila, so me saying the pollution is bad means it is really awful.

Breakfast Photo Shoot

It has been a while since I posted pictures of my pretty little baby. Since I was away last week, I have been using all of her awake time for playing instead of picture taking.

This week, she is working on walking by herself. The nanny is teaching her to hold her shirt while she walks, which keeps her upright and balanced. Without that trick, she tends to race along with her arms stretched out, zombie-like. Not sure how zombies do it. For little Miss G, arms outstretched while tottering is a recipe for a crash.

Look who uses the sippy cup without any help now. If you ask her how big she is, she will definitely tell you: So big!

Seeds

We have been making Gioia's baby food from scratch since we brought her home in February. Which means we have made a whole lot of trips to the grocery store looking for things to grind up in the Cuisinart. I don't think I have ever bought as many vegetables in my whole life as I have in the last six months. Of course, that statement doesn't count the summer we belonged to our Chicago-area CSA and had a bunch of excellent goodies delivered once a week. But for that, I basically just wrote a big fat check in the fall and boxes stuffed with greens and vegetables arrived the following summer. So while I bought a lot of veggies then, it really wasn't *intentional* veggie buying like we do now.

The problem is, though, that there is not really a big variety of veggies to be bought round these parts. Gioia has been living on weekly staples of winter squash (in tropical Taiwan, yes), sweet potato, lotus seed, broccoli, cauliflower, edamame, tofu, beans, and peas.* The carrots here frighten me with their scary florescent orange color, so I haven't made more than one batch of those. Carrots also have a high concentration of nitrates, so probably best to avoid homemade versions anyway. Spinach is also not safe for little bitty kiddos, which has made me wary of all kinds of greens. Chinese people eat a lot of greens, so that rules out half the supermarket.

There is not much else to be had. I am sure she is sick of the same old vegetables day in and day out. I am. Where is the summer squash, the zucchini? I did find sweet corn a few weeks ago, but that was after months of hunting.

So three weeks ago I broke down and ordered a bunch of seeds on the internet. Lo and behold, they actually made it through this little island's customs department (even though the package was clearly labeled SEEDS). When I was in Chicago last week, I bought 72 little seed starting pellets, the kind that expand with water.


It is quite late in the year to be starting seeds. But there are two reasons why I am going to try. First, Taiwan is pretty temperate. Even in the winter it is still above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Second, I am really, really bored of the blah blah blah I keep dropping in the grocery cart every week. Even if I try and fail, well, I will have tried. And perhaps I will learn something for next spring's round.


*Lest you think we are negligent, she eats other foods too, like yogurt, chicken, whole wheat noodles, fruit (apples, bananas, mangoes, pineapples) and Cheerios. Of course there also is the super baby cereal (with dried beans) from this book, which we mix with egg yolks every other day.

San Fran in Four Hours

On my way from Taipei to Orlando last Sunday, I had a six hour layover in San Francisco. I have never been to San Fran, so I decided to hop on the BART and see what I could see. It took only 30 minutes to get to the Embarcadero stop from the airport. I walked from there down to Pier 39, which apparently is a must do.

Seeing Alcatraz off in the distance was cool, and the sea lions were excellent (a big surprise too because I read somewhere that it was off-season). The Golden Gate bridge was fogged over, so I only saw one itty bitty cable. Other than those big things, Pier 29 was your typical tourist trap - Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant, Hard Rock Cafe, boat trips around the bay, magnets and T-shirts for sale.

Everyone says San Francisco is amazing. Fabulous. Totally the best city ever. I think that my little walk around the pier area didn't really throw off the BEST CITY EVER vibe, but perhaps I need to come back and tour the more neighborhoody areas of the city. Perhaps.


I forgot to bring a camera on this trip, so I bought a little disposable one and snapped some shots on my adventure. Chris always says that the tools do not matter, that your work (art) should not depend on the quality of your equipment. Well, probably that is true. But man, did I miss my SLR. Perhaps I am not very good at photography, because I really need my camera crutch.

The whole experience cost me about 50 bucks: US$10.70 for round-trip BART fare, US$10 for the taxi ride back to Embarcadero from Pier 39 when my feet gave out, US$9.99 for a Kodak disposable camera, US$4.99 for a book on the Great Fire (which really was a Great Earthquake, with a side order of military stupidity and bad luck). Best of all, I was able to avoid falling asleep in the aiport while waiting for the next flight.


More pictures are here.