A while back, Bree shared a funny story from years ago in Taiwan.
Back in the summer of 2015, Angela spent a month with Evan, Liya, and Bree in Taipei so the kids could take a Mandarin summer class at a school in Taipei. Towards the end of the month-long program, the school took the kids on an overnight trip.
At dinnertime, Bree ended up with another girl and, for some reason, they had access to some uncooked baby corn. Bree ate one of the baby corn cobs. The other girl told her that, if you eat raw baby corn — you will die.
Most of the other kids had fun on the overnight trip. There was some activity involving lighting paper lanterns and setting them aloft. Bree didn’t enjoy any of that, nor could she get much sleep, because she was certain she was going to die.
Angela and Jan go out with friends Sherri and Neil to dinner downtown at Chan, a Korean restaurant, to celebrate Angela’s upcoming birthday.
If anyone leaves their phone around the house, Bree may pick it up and send a message from that phone to another family member. These messages follow a set format.
If Bree finds Jan’s phone unattended, for example, she will send a message to Angela:
hello wife it is i your husband
Because this is the way husbands and wives talk to each other, and this is the sort of everyday message they send.
To celebrate Angela’s birthday, we go out to dinner at The George restaurant at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. We haven’t been to this place in ages — we used to come here when it was The Georgian Room. The new restaurant’s not as fancy, but we still enjoy a nice meal.
Angela heads out early on a family trip to see Liya on the East Coast. Angela flies to Boston and then takes the train down to New Haven. Liya shows Angela her room in Davenport and introduces her suitemates.
Jan and Bree leave the house very early in the morning to join Angela and Liya. Jan’s happy that both he and Bree are ready to go by the appointed time of 5:30, and that everything is ready for a new catsitter who will be looking after Moxie and Mojo while we’re away.
We’re just putting on our shoes when Bree absent-mindedly opens the door to let the cats out. “Ack! What are you doing!” says Jan. Both cats bolt outside into the dark. “I forgot!” says Bree.
Jan and Bree head outside in search of the cats. It’s dark, cold, and raining. They can’t see either cat.
After a short while, Mojo appears. Bree grabs him and puts him back inside. Jan gets the kibble container from the kitchen and walks around the front of the house popping it open — the cats often come running when they hear that sound. Not this time, though.
Eventually Bree spots Moxie hiding under Angela’s car, which is parked in front of the house. Jan and Bree approach him and try to offer him kibble, but he can tell something’s up. He retreats further into the gloom under the car.
Jan gets a long, thin board from the garage and tries to use it to sweep Moxie out from under the car and toward Bree. He streaks out from under the car and shoots across the street under another car. Jan and Bree try sweeping him from that car, then a third car.
Finally Moxie runs onto our neighbor’s property. Bree slowly walks up behind him — then snatches him up. Whew! They finally get into the car and head to the airport.
Jan and Bree land in Boston and check into the XV Beacon Hotel just a short while before Angela and Liya arrive on the train from New Haven.
The four of us head out to dinner at a seafood restaurant called Oceanaire. There we meet up with our friend Evrim, who’s come up to Boston for the night from Brown University. She’s brought a friend from Brown, Hlib, who’s from Kiev, Ukraine. We enjoy a nice dinner, then Evrim and Hlib have to head to the station for the train back to school.
After breakfast at the hotel, we had outside for a touristy walk along part of the Freedom Trail, which runs just a block away from the hotel. It’s a nice, clear day, but quite cold.
Our first stop is the Old South Meeting House, followed by the Old State House building the British had used as an administrative center to oversee the Massachusetts colony.
We eventually walk to Faneuil Hall and spend time shopping for manga in a comics shop that seems to be 10% comics and 90% merch. By now it’s lunchtime, and we hunt unsuccessfully for a decent place to eat before finding Mariel, a tasty Cuban restaurant.
Bree expresses interest in getting a nice black wool coat like the one Angela’s wearing — a coat Angela’s owned since she was Bree’s age. We try several department stores but come up empty. We make one last search at Nordstrom Rack, and find a single black wool coat — which happens to fit Bree. We all agree that the coat looks pretty snazzy on Bree. It is proposed that Bree be referred to as “The Snazz” whenever she is wearing this coat.
Dinner is a Japanese izakaya pub called Nagomi, but it’s just okay.
Angela goes to a local church for their Sunday morning service. Jan, Liya, and Bree set out in search of breakfast. Jan’s search for nearby cafes turns up one called Ogawa Coffee.
He’s intrigued — when he was at Cozi, one of Cozi’s investors was a Japanese family named Ogawa that had a coffee business. Could this cafe be one of theirs? It is! Jan even recognizes some of their products on offer. The coffee and pastries turn out to be quite good.
Back at the hotel, Liya and Bree both study as we wait for Angela to return.
For lunch we go to Hei La Moon Restaurant. The food isn’t particularly amazing, but it is fun — it’s been ages since we had dim sum served from carts.
Angela and Bree go back to the hotel, while Jan and Liya take a cab to the USS Constitution museum.
In the late afternoon, Jan, Liya, and Bree say goodbye to Angela. She’s going to stay in Boston for the night and then head back to Seattle the next day. Jan and Bree, meanwhile, will accompany Liya back to New Haven.
After arriving in New Haven, Liya takes Jan and Bree to Taste of China — a restaurant we had eaten at back when Liya was a college applicant touring Yale. The Szechuan food is fantastic, but so spicy that we’re all a little distressed.
After dinner we head to Liya’s suite in Davenport and meet her suitemates Caleb and Sadie. Bree is going to spend the night on the spare bed in Liya’s room. Jan heads to The Study hotel around the corner.
Liya has classes the next morning, but uses the time to study for a midterm she has to take in the evening. Bree uses the time to do some schoolwork herself. Jan meets up with them, and the three head to lunch at a tasty creperie called L’Epicerie Choupette.
After lunch Liya takes Jan and Bree on a short walk to a small wooded area. Last Fall, Liya took a class called Forest Dynamics, and for that class each student had to select a spot in some local forest to study each week for the duration of the term. Liya shows Jan and Bree her own little Place In The Woods.
Liya has a chemistry lab for most of the afternoon, so Jan and Bree stop in at Atticus Bookstore and then hang out in Jan’s hotel room.
At dinnertime, Liya and most of her suitemates come over to join Jan and Bree at the hotel restaurant, Heirloom. We’re sad that Liya’s suitemate Winnie isn’t feeling well enough to join us, but have a nice dinner and conversation with suitemates Caleb, Sadie, and Jordan. They’re all wonderful people — something we’d say even if they weren’t subscribed to our family newsletter!
Liya has to leave the dinner early to make it to her evening midterm exam. After the exam, Liya takes Bree out for some evening exploration of some interesting corners of the Yale campus. Bree spends the night in Davenport again.
Liya joins Jan and Bree for a final breakfast at the hotel restaurant, then she has to rush off to Statistics class. Jan spends a little bit of time walking around the Yale Art Museum, then he and Bree pack up and head to the train station.
They buy lunch at a Subway outlet in the station. When they’ve got their lunch, they hear an announcement that their train is boarding on Platform 2. That’s a little strange — the train isn’t scheduled to leave for another 25 minutes. They walk quickly to Platform 2 to find… there is no train at Platform 2. There’s another announcement that everyone should board the train. Other travelers come rushing up the steps — and, like us, wonder where the train is. Finally, after some more minutes of wondering if there’s some other platform we’re supposed to be at, the train finally arrives.
After the train to Boston and a flight home, Angela picks us up at the airport and we’re all finally back home.
We’ve only been home for two nights, but now we have a second short trip — this time, down to Stanford to see Evan.
We once again have some cat corralling to do. About an hour before we have to leave for a late afternoon flight, Jan is beginning to worry that Moxie has been outside for hours. It’s a nice, sunny day, so maybe Moxie’s sleeping in the sun somewhere? Jan thinks Mojo is inside, but can’t find Mojo to confirm that. Angela and Bree help out, and all three of us fan out around the house and neighborhood in search of Moxie. Jan eventually finds Mojo sleeping on a dining room chair, and Bree finds Moxie right by our house and brings him inside.
We fly down to SFO. It’s extremely cold, wet, and windy in the Bay Area, so our ride is bumpy on the way in.
Angela waits at the airport for her mom, E-moon, to arrive from D.C.; she’ll be joining us to see Evan too. Jan and Bree take a cab down to the Stanford campus, but have the bad luck to get in the cab with the worst cab driver Jan’s ever had. He drives for 10 minutes with his left turn signal on. He doesn’t pay attention to which lane he’s in, and drifts between lanes at random. Despite the pouring rain, he has his wipers set to wipe very intermittently, so he can barely see where he’s going.
Jan and Bree are relieved to get out of the cab at the Stanford student union. Evan comes to pick up Bree, then the two go off together — Bree will be spending the night in Evan’s dorm.
Jan, Angela, and E-moon converge on the Graduate Hotel in downtown Palo Alto. By now it’s late, so we all head straight to bed.
Jan, Angela, and E-moon have breakfast at Blue Bottle Coffee on University Avenue, then wait until Evan and Bree are both awake and ready for the day. This weekend is actually a Parent’s Weekend at Stanford, so we go over to a building where we can register for the weekend. (In the end, none of the arranged events are actually compelling enough for us to attend; we’d all rather just spend time with Evan.)
It’s raining, so we hang out for a bit near the bookstore with Evan and his Choate friend Sen-ching. She’s studying product design like Angela did when she was at Stanford. We also bump into Evan’s roommate, Helen. Later Evan’s friend Ya-yo joins us for lunch from food trucks near the student union. The sun finally comes out, and it warms up a bit.
One of the classes Evan’s taking this term is about immigration. The class is taught in Spanish. One requirement for the class is that all students taking it have to spend a certain amount of time volunteering for an organization that answers phone calls from detainees at ICE immigration camps that need help. Evan has to break away from our group for a couple of hours to do that volunteer work.
In the evening have dinner in downtown Palo Alto at a good Vietnamese restaurant called Tamarine. Bree once again spends the night in Evan and Helen’s room.
Jan and Angela have breakfast with E-moon at the Graduate’s small restaurant, then go to Blue Bottle again where Angela can do some work on the sermon she’ll give back in Buckley tomorrow. Evan and Bree come to the hotel around 11:00, and we walk down the street to Steam, a dim sum restaurant. We just had dim sum in Boston last weekend, but Evan’s been missing it.
Angela, Evan, and E-moon catch a cab from downtown Palo Alto back to campus. Bree and Jan want to enjoy the sunny weather, so they walk. When they get to the main oval, Jan’s surprised to see snow on the foothills behind Stanford.
After lunch we go to the Stanford bookstore so we can buy Evan a new laptop. They’ve been using the laptop we bought for them for high school, and its battery is unreliable. At the bookstore, Jan spots a girl he recognizes from Seattle — Piper Belfiore, whose brother Alexander is now a freshman at Stanford. We spot the rest of the Belfiore family as well and chat for a bit.
We have to leave soon for our flight back to Seattle, but before going make a brief stop at Evan’s dorm so Jan and E-moon can have a chance to see his room. We pick up our bags from the hotel, then catch a cab to San Jose Airport.
Every time we have people start any kind of work on our house, there’s a moment early on where the foreman comes and finds one of us to say, “Um… can you come take a look at something?” Our house was built in 1928, and all the services like ducts and plumbing are tightly crammed into small spaces. Usually a work crew hits some unforeseen issue in the first hour or so that dramatically complicates the plan or throws the whole project into jeopardy.
Case in point: Workmen arrive early this morning to begin removing our old gas furnace and electric air conditioner and replacing them with a new electric furnace, a heat pump, and fancy air filter. The furnace still works, but is nearing the end of its expected lifetime.
(Back in November, we had a small issue that required a repairman to come out. He asked how long we’d had the furnace. “Oh, not long…” we said, “let’s see, we got it when… um, Liya was born… and now she’s… twenty. Huh, guess it’s 20 years old.” In other words, our furnace is old enough to be in college. Those little furnaces… they grow up so fast!)
After an hour or so, the project leader comes to Jan and says, “Um… can you take a look at something?” It turns out that our tiny furnace closet is too small to hold the furnace and air filter in the necessary arrangement. They’ve already removed the old furnace, so we don’t have heat. There doesn’t seem to be any way to accommodate the new equipment.
Jan makes some suggestions about cutting into the inside of the furnace closet’s door frame and some other parts of the closet interior — we don’t care much about what it looks like inside as long as everything fits. After much measuring, experimentation, and cutting, the crew is able to make just barely enough room to fit everything inside the closet. Even with the door frame trim removed, the furnace just barely fits in — it leaves behind scrapes on the side of the frame where they had to squeeze the furnace through.
Mojo is slowly developing into more of a lap cat. Moxie and Mojo often like sitting under Jan’s desk lamp or sleeping on his warm laptop computer, but today Mojo wants attention and goes one step further to step onto Jan’s lap. It’s very nice — but he’s also so big that it’s hard to get anything done.