Baby is still incubating

I look like I'm ready to pop, but the baby is not ready to greet the real world yet.
My due date is coming up in 3 days. Yesterday, I naively asked the doctor, "So, is this my last visit to you before the baby comes?" She laughed and said, "No, you will actually be seeing me more if the baby hasn't arrived by Tuesday." She is worried by the low level of amniotic fluid in the placenta. Because it's not producing enough urine, the baby may experience stress. This would be cause for inducing labor. I will go back into doctor's on Monday & she will recheck my amniotic fluid. The levels of amniotic fluid have nothing to do with the amount of my liquid intake. It's just physiological, natural.

Induction may begin on Monday!

Robby & I both wrote letters to the baby yesterday. We exchanged our letters, read them, & discovered that they were very different. Robby's was much more humorous than mine. We got a little teary eyed, then sealed and dated the letter. This baby will be smothered in so much love.

We're still juggling a few possible names. Baby books are an impediment to our brainstorming, actually. We are too unconventional to either choose a traditional name or to choose an exotic cultural name that has no significance to our culture or life journey.

Jeanne got tired of losing

Instead of watching our two movie rentals, Mulholland Drive and The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly (both of which are over 2.5 hours long), we decided to give Scrabble another ago. I had a renewed sense of ambition to win, though I feared what tricks Robby might pull out of his hat this time.

My first slew of letters contained no vowels, so I had to let Robby go first ("oar"). I started out my first 5 turns with only one & a half vowels (A & Y), & although Robby suggested that I give up some letters & risk losing a turn in order to draw better letters from the bag, I just couldn't give up my consonants of many points.

Just when Robby had given up trying to win, he blew me out of the water with his seven-letter word "eq(u)ines", in which the Q sat on a triple-letter space, earning him a total of 93 points. An all-time high for one single letter. He had been drawing many vowels & trading them in for better letters, only to receive vowels again when he drew from the bag.

Robby's best words: "eq(u)ines", "fawn", "unsaid".
My best words: "deign", "undie", "torpor", "coot".


Jeanne 376
Robby 296

P.S. I wouldn't mind being 9-months pregnant a little longer, if only to postpone all the uncertainty that lies ahead. My nine-month mark starts tomorrow, & I have no idea what to expect when early labor begins.

Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Chinese New Year, AND Happy birthday, Robby!

Valentine's Day is always special because it's Robby's birthday.

I planned a few surprise activities today.

First, we began with a breakfast at Bistro du Soleil in Marina del Rey. Robby ordered a poached salmon eggs benedict with avocado. He was very happy with his meal.

Then, we took a sombering spin around the Museum of Tolerance. A bunch a people called Robby with birthday wishes, & when they asked him what he did for his birthday, they would hesitate with uncertainty when they heard that he spent his birthday learning about the Holocaust & modern human trafficking practices. I know, I did not plan the most romantic activity for Valentine's Day, but Robby had never been to the museum before and I thought that he would appreciate the interactive nature of it.

"I can't believe we're bringing a child into this world," Robby said in the middle of the Tolerance exhibit about hate speech. Of course, that's a depressing thought, but I find comfort in knowing that people come to this museum to learn more about our ugly history and what we can do to change it. That's what I want our child to learn from coming to the Museum of Tolerance.

We listened to an Indonesian woman talk about her experience in the human trafficking industry, which is the biggest illegal money-making, international scheme
right under drug trafficking and arms dealing. The talk was sponsored by CAST LA - Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking. She came to the United States with a wealthy Singaporean family, and she was paid $150 a month to work for them as a housekeeper 18+ hours a day. She told a moving story about her life, eating her bosses' leftovers, learning English from watching Barney, possessing no understanding of English or of the value of her work, driven only by the opportunity to send money back to Indonesia for her daughter's family...She was a brave woman to seek help from the police when she understood that her own exploitation.

After resting at home for a few hours, we drove to Venice Blvd. for dinner at Mayura, an Indian restaurant inspired by Kerala cuisine. The waiter said my Mayura Special Appam Chicken Curry was not at all spicy, but I beg to differ...It was very spicy! Robby had to eat most of it. I ate the appam, a white, spongy bread very much like the bread in Ethiopian restaurants. Robby ordered a fish curry, which had an interesting flavor to it. The next time we come back to Mayura, I'll order a safer, foreign-friendly dish, like tandoori chicken or biriyani, to avoid the spiciness.

We dropped by Zabumba, a gross little dive bar/restaurant also on Venice Blvd. Robby discovered amateur comedy night, in addition to live hip hop & salsa music. The comedians were pretty bad. Luckily, each set was short. The live hip hop was all right, but the speakers were pretty bad. Everyone there was either a performer or a friend of the performer. Disappointed, we left early.

Indulging Robby's action movie urge, we came home and watched the rest of a kungfu French movie called District B13. It has a horrific plot, but it's not the kind of movie you watch for complex plot or meaningful character development. It's all action. There was a few gnarly parkour (originated in France) scenes & lots of well-choreographed fight scenes.

Time to open presents!

Getting out of the House

Robby & I joined a few friends, Ben, Kiki, Neil, & Jen, at the first annual Los Angeles Street Food Fest, where all the lunch trucks converged in one spot in downtown LA for a eating extravaganza. It began at 11am, so we arrived at 11:15am to find a long line that wrapped around the block. In 75-degree weather, we waited in line for 45 minutes to reach the entrance of the food fest. I thought I might get heat stroke having not eaten in the morning.

As soon as we walked in, we searched for lunch trucks with short lines. They were difficult to find. Kiki & I grabbed some icees & stood in line for Vietnamese sandwiches. Robby, Neil, Ben, & Jen soon joined us & we sat down with Korean tacos as well. I had a deliciously ice-cold Mexican Coke. The food fest offered a tasting of everything in small portions for $2-3, so lines were long & people were patient. I think the longest line was for the grilled cheese taco truck. You'd think that grilled cheese isn't special enough for such a large following, but the truck served fancy sandwiches, like grilled brie with mushrooms. There was also India Jones, which Robby patronized just outside of USC campus. & there was also a slider (tiny hamburger) truck, homemade ice cream sandwiches truck (called Coolhouse...Koolhaus...get it?). We also had exotic popsicles: lemon basil, avocado vanilla, lychee...

Unfortunately, a few of our friends did not enjoy standing under the hot sun for so long. Nor did they like the overwhelming crowd.

So we left after an hour for Robby's video games lab at USC. We stayed indoors for the rest of the afternoon, playing the Nintendo Wii & the Beatles version of Rock Band. After ramen at Mitsuwa Market, we headed back to Culver City to watch Zombieland, which was surprisingly funny & entertaining (in the same vein as the humorous horror movie Shawn of the Dead). Jen & Neil bought a beautiful & tasty Cuban fruit tart for Robby's birthday, & we ate ourselves silly.

On the whole, a wonderful summery Saturday. It felt good to get out of the house for once.

Happy Chinese New Year!

From the Year of the Ox, we move into the Year of the Tiger!
Happy Chinese New Year!

This year, Chinese New Year falls on Robby's birthday, which also falls on Valentine's Day. He has been talking non-stop about the possibility of our baby being born on his birthday day. As much as this coincidence might impact our future child's identity, Robby is absolutely thrilled by the chance of sharing his birthday.


Yesterday afternoon, we were invited by Jingfang to a Chinese New Year dumpling-making feast. She had invited lots of Chinese graduate students from USC to her home in the lovely Redondo Beach. We got there early, grabbed a volleyball, and headed out to the beach, two blocks away. Then we returned to her apartment & began wrapping dumplings (chives+shrimp, beef). Robby got to make his first dumpling. After awhile, he gave up & volunteered to chop vegetables. By 8pm, everyone had arrived with food & as the Chinese people chattered away by the dining table, the non-speakers of Chinese sat in front of the T.V. & watched the opening of the Olympics in Vancouver. This was followed by a chocolate birthday cake, tiramisu, & a trip up to the roof to see the dark ocean.

It was a fun night full of Chinese people, Chinese food, and Chinese language. Being one of two non-speaking Chinese guests, Robby handled himself well. He always impresses me with his ability to immerse himself in a foreign culture & foreign language. He owes that to his mom, who traveled with him around the world when he was young, & by being around his loving & affectionate Russian family.

What a way to start the new year!

Robby Rules at Scrabble

Any tips on how to beat Robby at Scrabble?

At first, I was pretty proud of my first word: "docile". But then Robby puts down "flog" & earns 43 points from capturing the triple-word space. Not only that, but I have the gumption to challenge "fe", which turns out being a Hebrew letter. Ugh. Why are Hebrew letters & Chinese words in the Scrabble dictionary? I checked up "li" & found "a Chinese measurement of distance." Ugh. Are Turkish and Danish words in there too?!

Continuing, I lost any hope of winning, so I decided to put down creative, long words instead of point-heavy words. I was only able to come up with "hive", "adroit", "butt", & "garb". Almost got "coitus". That's what happens when one pulls too many vowels.

Robby did the impossible again & put down a seven-letter word: "tirade(s)". Whoa! That really damaged my chances of winning. I played futilely until the very end, dreading each time I had to reach into the bag for new letters.

By the way "mo" is a word.

Robby 372
Jeanne 265

Scrabble isn't always fun...

Tonight's game was pretty torturous. We cornered ourselves out of the top left-hand corner. Even getting to the lower right & left-hand corners was difficult. You'll see how short our words are. We were straining to get at least 10 points for each word, so our expectations were pretty low. No seven letter words this time.

This time, Robby got three triple-word spaces, while I got two. & the two I got were only measly two-letter words.


Robby 284
Jeanne 272


Post-game ritual: Robby adds the points & Jeanne takes a photo & cleans up.

Robby Wins Again!

After watching an exciting Superbowl game, we played another game of Scrabble, and Robby won again. I started out strong, but mid-game Robby played a seven-letter word, which was not in the online Scrabble dictionary but was in wiki-dictionary: "retears" (74 points). We made the stupid mistake of not double-checking Robby's tile placement & 6 moves later, I noticed that the word he put down was "rereats". I think we totally ruined the game by missing this error, but we kept playing. I bluffed Robby with a non-existent word - "krag", instead of "crag" - and I lost when I challenged him on his word "om".

Final score:
Robby 329
Jeanne 321

A torturous game after we found out mistake, but a close game nonetheless!

Jeanne's Scrabble Revenge

After being thoroughly beaten twice by Robby at Scrabble, I finally won tonight's grueling game. Actually, I "pwned" him: 428 to 232. It was by far my best game, mostly due to lucky draws. I consistently drew the perfect balance of consonants & vowels. Plus, I stumbled upon a seven-letter word that I was able to place over a triple-word space: "boori(s)h" (95 points). Robby was able to use a seven-letter word too: "ti(n)gles" (74 points). I was also able use four triple-word spaces: "boori(s)h", "ounce", "feuds", & "qualm". Robby was able to get away with using "exe" and "da", which are not real words. I was afraid to challenge him, so he got away with the points. But I did challenge him the third time, on "pe", which ended up being in the Scrabble online dictionary (a Hebrew word).

I usually don't mind losing to Robby, the Scrabble Master, but tonight, it felt good to win, especially with lots of luck on my side.

Sci-Fi doesn't let us down this time!

Robby & I finally finished watching Battlestar Galactica tonight. It's awesome. After 6 months of renting this Sy-Fy Channel's show, we completed Season 4.5. Wow, we highly recommend it.

Of course, no T.V. show will ever beat The Wire, but Battlestar Galactica is certainly one of the most entertaining and exciting shows we've watched.

Thumbs up!