Hello, Friends! I’ve been MIA for a bit and thought I would kick-off my return with a little catch-up of what I’ve been up to.

Not much. Ha. Not much is what I’ve been up to. August is when the heat finally found us here in NY for real so I mostly just went from air conditioning to air conditioning, but I did see some sky and did a couple things with friends…and I was on vacation the last week and into September. So.

I just spent a lot of quiet time alone. Ahhh.

 

I threw out all – alright, most – of the expired goods…and now I feel like Old Mother Hubbard with a very bare cupboard

I brunched and decided we need to normalize alcohol for breakfast.

Went to a local production called “In the Next Room: Or, The Vibrator Play.” “Set at the dawn of the age of electricity in a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating “hysteria” in women: the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor’s laboratory, his young and energetic wife Catherine tends to their newborn daughter – and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room.” It was entertaining.

Many days it was just too hot to do anything.

Went to Korean barbecue with a friend.

Went into the city to Japan Fes, a street festival with tons of Asian goodies. I had a half-sausage/half mozzarella corn dog rolled in sugar – that was pretty amazing – and a red bean filled French bulldog taiyaki, yummy and cute πŸ™‚

 

Went to a SamsungxBTS pop-up with a friend…and while there, made 7 new friends, ha ha

 

Got swag πŸ™‚ It’s going on ebay, ha ha. More STUFF, I do not need.

And life goes on.

What I’m Reading

My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store by Ben Ryder Howe. Married couple sets out to buy a Brooklyn (which should really have been the name of the book: My BROOKLYN Deli) deli for the wife’s Korean mother to run in her retirement. They quickly learn it takes a village to run a Brooklyn deli and the book shares the trials, tribulations, and characters involved in such an exploit. My favorite chapter (aka the only one I really liked) was the last chapter that sort of wrapped everything up. And brought me a moment of tearing up. As you know I am an emotion junkie, so to read an entire book for ten seconds of “ohhh noooo,” is not a good investment to me. It wasn’t poorly written, just…nothing about it was really grabbing me. Maybe the stories weren’t as entertaining to me as someone else cuz I worked in multiple 7-11s in my youth, before the days of everything being self-serve. I was the 7-11 “barista” making the roast beef sandwiches, scooping 1/8lb of rice pudding, and making the coffee for customers. And there WERE stories (once I got Eddie Murphy’s autograph on a sales receipt when he came in to buy beer and condoms)…and there were DEFINITELY characters (I actually originally met He Who Ghosted Me when I was 20 and working in a 7-11 in 1980)…so nothing seemed all that surprising to me in the book. But that’s me. I’ll give it a 2.99/5.

 

Shrimp to Whale: South Korea from the Forgotten War to K-Pop by Ramon Pacheco Pardo.Β Now, one I’m REALLY enjoying, although I’m having to take it REALLY slow cuz…well, I’m really slow…is this history of modern South Korea, from 1948 when the country was first divided from one Korea to North and South, to the present. I’m very slow at retaining and following facts. And history is a lot of facts, dates, names, timelines, wars, regimes, etc. That’s a lot for me to hold in my sad little brain. BUT – Mr. Pardo (ooh, wonder if he’s related to Don Pardo?? I’m gonna say probably not) is making it FEEL like a story to me…so I’m able to follow it better. Anyway, I’m nowhere near done yet, I can only do it in small pieces (while jotting down questions) but so far, so good.

What I’m Listening To

My favorite song discovery this month is 기얡을 κ±·λŠ” μ‹œκ°„ which, as close as I can translate is something like Walking Down Memory Lane? I don’t even know exactly who sings it, the album name is λ‚¨μž κ°€μˆ˜ 히트 λ°œλΌλ“œ λͺ¨μŒ 1집- which again, I’m translating (probably badly ha ha), seems like Male Singers Ballad Hits 1st Album/Vowel/Home? Ha. I’m at the point in Korean where I’m a little dangerous. ANYWAY, it’s a very nice song.

For some reason my blog is being wacky, can’t get consistent font/spacing/etc, very annoying.

Can you believe it’s September? And it’s practically the MIDDLE of September already! Yay. And ugh.