Appliances and Furniture

We're still hard at work getting the new house ready. Here's Tung lining the pantry shelves with his super high-tech tool:


Our front door now boasts extra security measures such as two deadbolts. Because I grew up in the Eastside, and you can never be too careful.


And here's the cute little peephole Tung installed for me:



In the past few weeks, we got our appliance and furniture delivered. Tung made me pose with our new washer and dryer set. . .



. . . so I made him pose with his brand new lawnmower. See how thrilled he is to go from pampered townhouse dweller to actually having to take care of his own lawn.


We got two sofa sets on President's Day. One is for our front, formal dining/living room: almond-colored leather with mahogany wood accents. I know, we need a coffee table. But for now, the empty box that our garbage can came in would suffice.



Here are views of the sofa and loveseat, with shipping styrofoam still intact on the legs.




Our other sofa set is ivory-colored recliners for our family room, where we can kick back and watch TV.


Here are the front views of the sofa and loveseat:




The family room set is a 3-piece, including a rocking recliner that I hauled to my study/office. Er, I mean, "our" study/office.



We also got our Frigidaire stainless-steel refrigerator delivered.

Today, Tung ran a copper water line from under the sink to the fridge. Hooray for finally having a source for food preservation, and for water and ice availability!



Side-note cuteness honorable mention: my bag holder that's supposed to match with the eventual all-stainless-steel appliances of my kitchen.


Now we've got to wait for good weather to get our roof replaced. The inside of the house, at least, is starting to feel a lot more like home.

Tet 2010

Lunar New Year--that which the Vietnamese call "Tet"--is my favorite holiday. The house has been cleaned, incense burns on the altar to welcome home the spirit of ancestors, fresh flowers decorate altars and tabletops, and an abundance of festive food is served, rare to find any other day of the year. The celebration lasts for three days, in which time people go around their relatives' houses to wish them a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year, and to give and receive little red envelopes with money. Red is considered lucky and auspicious, so from firecrackers to florals, it is a common decorative color. 2010 welcomes the Year of the Tiger, a bold year, a strong year, a year to go after what you want and take it without qualms or misgivings. Here are some pictures to brighten the blog wall for Tet.

Fruit and tea offerings sit on the altar. The red candles stay lit for all three days.



Red gladiolus are common flowers on display, along with cherry blossoms or quince for their pink-reddish hue.


Yellow chrysanthemums are another popular decorative flower. My name in Vietnamese means "pink chrysanthemum." These typically bloom in the autumn, when I was born.


Red firecrackers littering the ground are a common site for the first of New Year's. People traditionally light them during New Year's Eve to scare away bad spirits and to welcome in the new.

Happy Year of the Tiger!

3rd Kyu

I was worried about the usual things: forgetting to breathe, running out of steam, my throat going dry so I'd be longing for a sip of water halfway through. That I'd brain-freeze through sankyo and mix it up with yonkyo. I coached myself that nikyo from kata dori is the same as ikkyo except for the pin, but that nikyo from shomenuchi requires the hand change early on.


Keep the "Freddy Krueger fingers" pointing northward when executing an ikkyo lock.


Keep my nikyo-ura tight and torqued, as if "the opponent's palm is a mirror you're trying to keep turned towards you."


Keep my sankyo glued to my sternum, rise and twist.


And yonkyo! I have so much trouble with that one with my small hands grasping my various training partners' huge forearms that I just had to somehow pull it off and make it look halfway decent.

Funny thing after the test, because everything I worried about weren't the techniques Sensei ended up critiquing. Instead, I was told that my irimi hand needed to come over higher, reach to the ceiling, like a wave breaking over rocks. And that my lower hand during tenchi nage needed to reach to the ground, especially important for a shorty like me taking down often-taller training partners. That for my yokomen response in kihon waza, I needed to get in there and stop the attack early on.

There is a moment I remember vividly from my test, a kernel of meaning in chaos, a burst of sunshine amidst the fog of nervousness and uncertainty. When I was executing a kotegaeshi, one of the last techniques on my test, I felt a sudden shift from the normal sitfall-to-roll-over response from my test partner. A quick grab on my gi sleeve to prep, and suddenly he sailed through the air in a highfall, his body heavy beside me one moment, weightless and airborne the next. The first time I launched someone in a highfall, I was so surprised I almost let go--not very safe for the person taking ukemi. This time, it felt right and natural. Never during our practicing together for the past almost-three months did my test partner execute a highfall, and yet, without any former planning or communication between us, this spontaneity, this display of trust for my ability to take him down well, this self-confidence in drawing from my ki during a technique, warmed my heart and made me smile.


There are many things I need to learn how to do better, techniques I still have to work on. But for just a small moment in time, it wasn't a test I was taking, but the creation of a memory that exemplifies euphoria and zen. Because despite the long journey ahead, in that moment I was able to find the "ai" in aikido.

House Renovations

We've been busy repairing and renovating the new house. Here are some touches we've put on it so far.

Our sliding patio door now has new vertical blinds.

Here's a shot of the opened blinds, plus the embossed detail that we chose for the panels. The pattern/color is shell Maui.

The kitchen cabinets are quite old. Before we can afford to remodel, I lined the entire inside with shelf liner (the pattern is coffee marble). 'Cause old wood stinks.

Tung changed out the old (fobilicious) kitchen drawer knobs we some classier octagonal silver ones that we picked out:

Here's a shot with all the drawer knobs changed out:

Tung also put in some silver handles for the overhead cabinets. Now I can open them without getting gross, greased finger stains all over the wood panels.

The furnace (and probably air ducts) were mighty dusty when we opened it for the first time, so we got them professionally cleaned. Yay for clean air when the heater or AC run.



Tung had to change out the doorknobs on the exterior of the house, as well as all the ones on the bedrooms and bathrooms. None of the interior knobs had locks on them. We chose bushed chrome for the bedrooms/bathrooms and bright brass for the closets/storage.

That's it for now! Major repairs underway for the roof and repainting of the bathrooms.

Pre-Engagement Lunch

It's not every day you find yourself awake before 7:00AM on a Saturday morning, slicing up black duck eggs to be be presented on six plates of cold-cuts in a house decorated with pink-and-white streamers.



Today marks Tung's and my pre-engagement lunch--or, at least, what started out as a lunch that morphed into a mini-ceremony. The house has been cleaned almost to the point of non-recognition, with fresh flowers and a tea set displayed on the coffee table, awaiting the arrival of family on both sides.




Here's what was initially planned: According to the tradition of pre-arranged marriages (which I stress, was NOT the case with Tung and me), the groom's side of the family doesn't see the bride until the day of the pre-engagement when arrangements are made to further the nuptial agreements. Therefore, I am to remain in my room until called out to serve tea. Some time during my conversation with them the night before, my parents and I came to the agreement that this was too archaic, but we never really established a game plan for my entrance. So this was what happened instead: Naturally, everyone shows up super-early, and after a morning of food preparations and light cleaning, I am putting on make-up in my room when the guests arrive, bearing traditional gifts of tea and wine wrapped in festive, red cellophane.



Introductions are made on both sides of Tung's family and mine, and then the tea gets poured. Nobody comes in to get me, so I timidly enter the hallway to greet the guests, who are of course too engrossed in conversation to acknowledge me. I spend an awkward few minutes standing around, then mingle to the best of my ability with party guests who look wayward.



When my brother arrives with the last of the food to be picked up, we set the table with food, food, and more food.



Chowtime!



As if one cake is not enough, we end up with three:





Here I am, serving up dessert:



Some shots of family, with family...

With my mom:



With my snuggle-cuddle-able niece, Kaitlyn. She's a fraternal twin, but as she and her sister are growing up, I'm having trouble telling them apart.


The twins and their mom, my cousin Susan:


The twins and their uncle, my cousin Vinh. Ironically, Vinh met Tung before I did because they went to the same high school. After Tung and I started dating in college, we found out each other's relations to Vinh.



My paternal grandparents:


Finally, the guests depart:





It was a taste of what is to come, the realization that every young woman must have when looking at herself in the mirror, all dressed up, and discovering that she has grown up, ready for the next big journey in her life. Somewhere in the approaching distance, I can hear my wedding bells ringing.

Suwari Waza

These techniques done on the knees require a greater level of precision, a more forceful maneuvering through every step. Sitting kneecap-to-kneecap, there is less mai-ai--distance--between you and your partner. The cheats of using arms strength and vertical leverage do not apply, and balance becomes harder to take as your partner sits stable, closer to the ground.

Sensei explained that suwari waza techniques stemmed from the ancient samurai ways, where a warrior could not rise without permission from his lord. As a result, the samurai devised ways to attack while still seated in respectful seiza. Sensei also said it would help us learn how to move if, from a seated position, we were suddenly attacked--the rules of blocking, blending, and moving out of the way still applied, the most important lesson being, don't freeze.

I used to be good at shikko, the knee-walking that my former Sensei was so keen on using as a warm-up exercise. Now, either my knees have softened after having been out of practice, or my age comes upon me in the form of stiffer joints. My kneecaps throb and my legs burn from cut-off blood flow. I close the distance between my partner and myself, moving in tight to his body, trying to make every joint lock precise and controlled. One advantage of suwari waza is that, seated, I do not feel so much that my petite 5-foot frame is being towered over by a world of giants. Down now to my level, I slide, pivot, and pin, learning how to walk and move in an entirely new way.

Happo no Giri

The "eight direction throw" is also a bokken suburi exercise that can be used to cleanse the negative energies of the old year and usher in the new. Instead of the usual paired practice, Sensei had us spread out and taught us how to cut eight ways, facing a different direction for each cut, using the corners of the room as a guide. Suburis are meant to be practiced alone, but as a group, the collective energy became a palpable thing. Our bokkens rose and fell together, our ki-ai's were timed, and the swishing of our feet across the mat made a soft wind's song as we fed off this synergy.

A former boss once drew a helix sculpture to help me visualize synergy. He said we each go through our individual lives and different jobs, but the points where the helix met were where we communicated and what kept the structure together as a whole. So it was important not only to find the merging points, but to ride their energy.

Learning how to play a musical instrument had been one of those things that I had always meant to do but never got a chance to. "If you have a heart, "Sensei had told me, "you've got rhythm. Aikido is rhythm, and it is music."

We cut through eight directions in the dojo, like a compass star and all its sub-directions. Together, we cast our last year's sorrows, shortcomings, and negative energies out to the winds. The rain beat a staccato rhythm against the dojo walls, washing away the old year. I moved and cut with my bokken, thinking ahead to sunny days as I welcomed in the new.