Thanksgiving Returns

After last year's Thanksgiving forcibly spent alone (well, with neighbours who had plans cancelled), I spent the week up at Mei's and seeing family. It's been the first time seeing the cousins in a couple of years.

Mei, the kids and I had dinner with the 3's at Hong Kong restaurant in Palo Alto on Monday night. Delicious sticky rice chicken, crab and a bunch of other dishes. 

We also were able to check out Shu Shu's new electric Mustang SUV. Fancy! 

On Tuesday, Gugu picked me up for ballet class at Western Ballet. The teacher was Andre Reyes, who apparently danced at SFB with Mark Lopez (who teaches at Westside). The class was Intermediate/Advanced but I feel like after Chasen's Wed evening class, I'm better at picking up complicated choreography. Still stepped out of grand allegro though. After, we had lunch at a little strip mall place called Chef Zhao Kitchen. Food was pretty good, with XLB, shen jiang bao and walnut shrimp. We talked quite a bit about various and sundry things, which was nice to have that opportunity.

Later I started a couple of batches of chocolate chip cookies. I use Tara O'Brady's basic great chocolate chip cookies recipe. We found Guittard chips for the nut-free version for the family and Valrhona bars for our family. Neve helped with making the dough and we let them sit in the fridge before baking up. 

Tuesday night was Mason's birthday dinner. Mei made prime rib, new potatoes and bok choy, and his cake was a vanilla strawberry cream cake.

Wednesday we went to check out a new place in Sunnyvale that made souffle pancakes. We were told it would take an hour to be ready so we left to grab lunch at Dishdash, on a walk street. By the time we got back, the pancakes were just about ready. They are quite puffy, with a choice of whip cream, chocolate sauce or matcha (we got whip cream and chocolate). They are mostly air and took us all of 5 minutes to eat. Not bad and worth trying once, but very expensive and I don't need to go back.

On Thanksgiving, we did the local Turkey Trot 5k, walking the whole way. It was a cold but sunny morning and they adjusted the route to be a full lap instead of repeating a 1k lap as in the past. It made for a nice start to the day.

The rest of the day was making the dinner (small turkey, roast potatoes, air fried Brussels sprouts with bacon, cranberry sauce with orange, sourdough bread, kale onion stuffing, cheesecake bars) interspersed with playing Scrabble. Dinner was delicious. The cranberry, stuffing and cheesecake bar recipes were particularly good.

On Friday, I had arranged for the family to meet for a hike. Sandy suggested Stulsaft park so the dogs could join. Almost everyone was able to make it, including Foster from LA and Hunter visiting from college. Again, a beautiful morning, everyone could be outside, we got a nice family picture and then Shu shu treated us to fish tacos at Sancho's. I brought the nut-free cookies. Some people had one before the hike, some after lunch, some both times. 

In the afternoon, we visited Boba Pup, which is known for their corgi mason jar cups. Their selection turned out to be Totoro Xmas themed but I got a corgi one for extra. I wanted to give it to Kelly who is a huge corgi fan and has been so generous with her post-ballet treats all year. 

Neve drove us everywhere all day and did pretty well as a new driver. 

Then it was time to head to the airport for home. It was a great visit but I'm always happy to return home. 

Inspiration weekend

I started a coaching course this week to help me work through some issues I'm struggling with regarding work (but really regarding life post COVID).

I really like the coach, she's very insightful and has a nice way of asking questions to help me vocalize things I otherwise might try and think my way around.

The homework this week was to help open up and be receptive to intuition. I've been feeling like I haven't been all that successful with it, some very small things at the beginning of the week but nothing really stood out.

Then I thought of my weekend. I had a scheduled volunteer session at the cat shelter. I was not looking forward to it, feeling in a funk, didn't particularly want to drag myself into the shelter, etc 

Once I got there it was nice to realize there were quite a few volunteers working (it's not as fun when you're on your own). I first went through and fed all the cats in the Gen Pop room. Lots of new kitties since I was here last. Another volunteer was doing litter box cleaning so I started going around and hanging with the cats. There was a kitty who was very hissy, I stayed outside the cage but near him to see if he'd get more comfy with me there. Another cat kept meowing as I walked by so I visited her. I was only going to do a few quick pets so I stood bent over but she reached up and I realized I needed to sit down. She immediately crawled into my lap and stayed there while I pet her for a good 30/45 min. 

Today, in class a bunch of us hung out at the coffee shop after and a few people mentioned that I flowed really well and seemed really on my legs. I agreed that I did feel pretty solid-pirouettes landing, mostly staying on balance, everything feeling pulled up and turned out (to the extent my body does that).

Afterwards, I thought about the two things-cat and ballet. I realized the connection is in being in the moment and quieting my active voice. Cats are the epitome of being in the moment. They know what they want and the either go for it, ask for it, or figure out how to get it. If they can't get it, they do something else (often sleeping 😸). 

In ballet, analyzing is one thing, but overthinking doesn't help you. You need the active left brain to stay quiet and let the right brain do its thing. 

By taking the example I inadvertently picked up from the cats, I achieved better results in ballet class than if I'd tried to analyze it to death. 

It's not something I'm particularly good at but perhaps there's something in there about practicing the unused skill of learning to be in the moment that I need right now.

I'll see what my coach has to say about it but I'm already looking forward to the discussion.