Party Kitty
When I went to sign out The Little Empress from school the other, the Director of the school happened to be standing nearby and told me an interesting story about TLE and how she plays.
The girls in her class were “having a dress up party” and TLE had joined in. Rather than dressing up with the other girls, TLE decided that she would be a kitty cat. She crawled around on the ground, mewing and rolling onto her back and playing with her friends as they played dress-up party. When the Director came in, TLE mewed and nuzzled her leg.
TLE’s quite the imaginative little thing! I love the fact that she’s not afraid to be original in a crowd. I can only hope that she will continue to not be afraid to be exactly who she wants to be.
Read MoreA desperate, open letter…
Dear Blogger,
You’ve got a favorite song or songs . Sometimes a whole frickin’ playlist of songs that you absolutely, positively adore and feel the need to share with the world. That’s awesome. We may even share musical tastes which would make it even more awesome.
You know what would make it more awesome? NOT MAKING IT AUTOPLAY ON YOUR BLOG. Just because they make a widget for it DOESN’T mean that you HAVE to include it on your blog.
Please, do your blog readers a favor. Don’t include auto playing music widgets. Give your readers the option of choosing to play the music on their own. Please?
Love,
Me
* *
This PSA was brought to you by someone who frantically had to search for the mute button before searching, fruitlessly, on a blog’s sidebar for the controls to turn off an aforementioned auto playing music widget. Auto playing music widgets are like the auto playing midis of the late 1990s. It wasn’t a good idea then and it isn’t a good idea now. Just sayin’…
Read MoreChoose one only, please

Choose one only, please
I’m in the process of filling out paperwork for The Little Empress’ school district assessment. On the form, they want me to identify her ethnicity.
Choose one only, please says the form.
But she’s not one only. She’s two. She’s (2) Asian – Vietnamese and she’s (4) Filipino. To claim that she is one but not the other is to deny a whole half of her heritage.
Yeah, I know it is just a form but it horks me off something fierce. It is stupid that in 2011, decades after Martin Luther King’s “I had a dream” and the civil rights movement that antiquated school forms still expect families to be of one ethnicity.
I wonder how many idiot forms like this I’ll encounter during her school career or if districts will wise up to the fact that more and more kids are coming from mixed backgrounds.
And for a side rant…
I find it interesting that Filipinos are considered neither Asian nor Pacific Islander on this form. We’re Asian, dammit. Geez.
Read MoreCatching Up
It seems that the more I have to write about, the less I actually write. Funny how that works. In the meantime, pictures are worth a thousand words so here’s the equivalent of 6k or so…
We took a road trip to see family in SoCal over Thanksgiving. Lots of food and lots of company was to be had. But perhaps the best part was seeing how much The Little Empress loved playing with her cousins A1 & A2. The boys showed her a favorite place of theirs to play: Dirt Hill! Forget fancy toys, all a kid really needs to have fun is a huge pile of dirt! TLE loved it!
Running down Dirt Hill
BIIIIIIG pile o' dirt!
While digging around in the dirt, the boys unearthed this fellow.
Burrowing dirt bug of some kind
We have no idea what he was but he was a big guy!
Ever since we left, TLE has been asking to go back to play with her cousins. Next summer, for sure!
While we were down there, we also went to the Santa Ana Zoo. The zoo itself is pretty small but it was a great place to explore and run around on Thanksgiving morning.

On top of a tortoise at the zoo
Since getting back, we’ve been getting ready for the holiday (holidaze) season. We took TLE to her annual visit to Santa, dressed in her new pretty velvet blue dress. She had waaaaaay more fun playing in the waiting area with the “snow” than she actually did seeing Santa.

Investigating the "snow"
The next week, we went to a friend’s house one afternoon to make “gingerbread” houses out of graham crackers. It was a lot of fun!

But TLE had way more fun playing with her friends and having candy for lunch than she did actually making the house.
Figures.

Chocolate for lunch? AWESOME.
In a blink
Generally, I use my iPod while driving but for some reason this morning, I decided to scan radio stations for something festive to listen to. In between stations with bad Christmas carols (though I have to admit, whatever punk rock Christmas carol I came across was pretty darned cool), this song came on.
This was just what I needed to hear. I really needed to be reminded to slow down, relax, enjoy and be thankful for what I have rather than rush, rush, rush into whatever comes next.
I’ve noticed that Things Happen ™ when I let go of my normal routine and just let things flow… just a little bit. I think God meant for me to hear this song today; I’m thankful that I stopped to listen.
Read MoreTwo sides
Good news: California (finally) has a budget. Please, let this be the end of state workers suffering from the incompetence of our legislature.
Bad news: The budget includes $3.1 billion dollars lost from public education.
Most people identify either as liberal or conservative. I’m just frustrated. No one can agree on anything and everyone loses.










