Shutterbug Mama

...that being SUMMER! yes, it's true. chicago only has two seasons, of which the chillier one lasts for about 9 months out of the year. it seems that the weather is finally thawing out for the summer season.

...one good thing about the hot weather is that i don't have to dress cadence so warmly any more. and she's just so darn cute in a sundress!

...the weekend was definitely a scorcher. we had a potluck dinner at our pastor's house on sunday, and folks pretty much took refuge in the central A/C. the only ones who ventured out were the kids, who don't seem to care about the heat, and pastor sherrie who was womannning the grill, and some of the dads who HAD to watch their kids because their wives were conducting a meeting on children's church (whew! so glad i had an excuse!).

on monday, my mom and my brother came over for my birthday lunch. my mom brought a ton of food for a korean BBQ which was absolutely yummy. unfortunately, i had a migraine AND an allergy attack, so i was feeling pretty much miserable most of the day. i didn't even have the gumption to go out and see my bro's new motorcycle. oh well. the thought of my brother on such a machine is kinda scary to me, so it's probably a good thing i didn't go look cuz i probably would've gotten even more nauseous. ted said it was a cool bike though, and i'll take his word for it...

...i think i've mentioned that ted's little sister lauren ('lore', 'orangeloren') is embarking on a new adventure and moving to sweden to be with douglas, her boyfriend of 3 years. after my statistics exam on friday, we met up with lore and dave and becki at victory's banner in roscoe village for a goodbye lunch.

...oh, the other big news is that dave and his girlfriend becki are now ENGAGED! i think it's okay to say that here, since we told yia yia last sunday, and i doubt grandma carol has internet access. anyhoo, yup, it's true, and we're very excited! so now becki is auntie becki, and i'm very glad because we are going to miss auntie lore when she's far away in sweden, and auntie ali is far away in seattle.

...anyhoo, lauren and her one way ticket are leaving on a jet plane to lund, sweden on tuesday. i personally cannot imagine moving to another state, let alone a whole other COUNTRY on a different CONTINENT. mainly because i can barely get myself to pack for a mere vacation, and when i do actually move residences, i end up with a ton of stuff thrown into about a dozen miscellaneous boxes at the 11th hour, and i can't imagine they'd let you on a plane with that many miscellaneous boxes without charging you an arm and a leg and a bubbo (cadencean for 'elbow').

...hopefully, lauren will be back for one of the holidays later this year, so she won't miss all of cadence's toddlerhood. and if i ever get up the nerve to fly across the ocean with a preschooler, maybe we'll go visit her in sweden. but cadence would have to become a lot more docile for that to happen and for some reason, i have my doubts about that...

...in other news, we have a new addition to the family. becki's mom sent a gift for cadence, and it happens to be a very life-like dolll. it's not 100% lifesize, but the details are amazingly accurate. i just hope this doesn't cause cadence to start asking for a brother or sister. hopefully, this doll will suffice for now.

...i love this picture of cadence giving her uncle dave a smooch! ha ha. i think it's the best photo i've gotten of her smooching something or someone.

...man, what a cutie. yeah, she can be a screaming terror at times, but usually she really is this adorable.

well, my birthday was yesterday. i can't believe i'm 34. my brother says i'm in my mid-30s now, but i'm gonna stick to the notion that i have one whole year before i have to admit to being in that demographic.

my cousin kris and friend connie came over for dinner last night. ted cooked a fabulous dinner of tilapia with tomatillo sauce, avocados with creamy maque choux (corn and peppers) and margarita granita. the menu was from rachel ray's 30 minute meals2 book, but i would have to say that this was more like a 2 hour meal. it was definitely worth the wait though. everything was sooooo goooood. it was great seeing connie and kris again, and i think ted had fun playing chef, bartender, brewmeister, and host.

now i have to get back to my reading while cadence is still napping. ted got me 3 books off my amazon wishlist for my birthday, and one of them is margaret salinger's 'dream catcher', a memoir about life with her dad j.d. salinger. and y'all know how i feel about the J.D....

...so i had a dream last night. in it i'm my younger self, maybe around 18 or 19. and in my dream, bob dylan lives in my attic. not only that, but in this dream, bob dylan is my dad. he also has a friend named pete who speaks with a cockney accent who's always hanging around him. so anyhoo, also in my dream, dylan (a.k.a. 'dad') is NOT the huge success he has turned out to be in real life. in fact, he spends most of his time in the attic sulking about the music industry, with his friend pete trying to cheer him up. he looks much younger than he does now, and he is definitely sans moustache.

this wasn't a long dream, but at one point, i find myself in a church, and there are people i know from my old church at the evanston vineyard, and then someone gets up and starts talking about what they believe as fundamentalist christians (note: evanston vineyard is NOT a fundamentalist church) and i feel like i'm in nazi germany. then i storm home, stomp up to the attic, and i say to my dad (bob dylan), 'dad! you know what? i like god. i like jesus. i like the holy spirit. but i CAN'T STAND THE CHURCH!!!!!' and i seek comfort from him as his intellectually, spirutally, and emotionally wounded child, but i don't really find any that i can remember. he just gives me this look like, 'uh, okay, and what do you want me to do about it?'

and that's it. what a wacko dream. happy birthday to me, i guess.

in other news, i celebrated my birthday today by taking a statistics exam as part of the certification program i'm in for work. i am happy to report that i somehow aced the exam. or at least i think i did. i either aced it or i have deluded myself into thinking that i aced it.

anyhoo.

...so our combined birthday dinner party for ted's siblings jason, lauren, and myself on sunday was a smashing success. we had a veritable mediterranean feast! everybody fit around our dining table, and it was like a greek thanksgiving in may. FYI, ted' grandma sophie is 100% greek, which means that cadence is korean-greek-polish-ukrainian, and i'm honorary all-of-the-above.

...ted's mom made this gorgeous and huge 3 layer cake. i think it weighed about 50lbs. but since there were 3 birthday people, i guess the occasion called for a hefty cake.

...we were glad grandma sophie (a.k.a. yia yia) was able to come and see our place for the first time. unfortunately, grandma carol couldn't make it.

...cadence was happy to have so many people around to play with. she got to sit in uncle dave's lap and read to him...

...AND she got to read with uncle jay and auntie lauren too! she was soaking up all that attention, believe me...

...by the end of the day, i was totally exhausted. i had to do a lot (ok, some) of the cleaning because ted was so caught up in making falafel. it ended up being a bit more complicated than expected, and i realized that if i didn't start cleaning, it just wasn't gonna get done. i had to sling cadence to be able to vacuum, and my back is still hurting. the good news is that cadence now has a play room with lots of space for, uh, playing. and it gets really gorgeous light in the mornings, so it'll be a good place for photos.

...and here she is, little miss 'dances-with-foot-massager' in all the glory of the morning gloaming...

all in all, it was a great time of just eating yummy food with people we love, and really, what more could you ask for to celebrate your birthday?

...this is my cadence joy...for the past i don't know how many months (like 5 or 6 at least) she has been able to count to two. one-two, one-two, one-two. that's how she counts the stairs. that's how she counts her cheerios. that's how she keeps rhythm in her daily life, simply marching right along. she has no interest in learning three, or four, or five. one-two. it's that simple. it reminds me of the time my dad, the computer science geek that he was, sat me down and taught me the binary system. i thought it was ridiculous then, but thanks to cadence, i have a new found appreciation for the binary system. ok, i realize that the real binary method uses a zero and one, but hey, it's close enough for me...

...cadence also loves to remind me over and over again every single day where her nose, eyes, and teeth are. and she loves to point out where mine are too. i just love it when she pokes me up my nose or in the eye or on my teeth. i'm surprised i haven't gotten sick yet with all those germs being spread around my various orifices.

...but she sure is cute, no doubt about that. i know that it won't be long when i'll look back on these days with great fondness. one of these days, i'll wake up and she'll be counting to 100 and pointing out her fibula, and i'll be overcome by nostalgia and pine for these simpler days...

...in other news, ted and tim painted our foyer a couple days ago. the color is called sangria, and i love it! i always said i wanted a red room, and although the foyer isn't exactly a room, i'll take what i can get.

tomorrow, we are hosting a birthday party for ted's twin siblings lauren and jason and for me too. our birthdays aren't until the 26th and 31st, but this happened to be the best weekend to have the party so we're celebrating a little early. it's just going to be ted's family--his mom, dad, dave, dave's girl becki, lauren, jason, grandma sophie and hopefully grandma carol. we'll be putting the extra leaves on our dining table and getting out our finest (read: only) linens. it will be a middle eastern theme for the cuisine, so it should be yummy! ted made baba ganouj from scratch, and he'll be doing the same for falafel tomorrow. dave's making hummus, ted's mom is making tabouleh and meatballs and cake, and grandma sophie is making dolmas and baklava. it should be quite the yummy dinner, and i'm getting hungry just thinking about it...

...happy belated mother's day to all my mama friends out there! we celebrated mother's day at our place with my mom, my bro, and take-out thai/japanese food...

...most relatively new moms are congratulated on this day by their own mothers who are usually proud of their daughters' attainment of motherhood. not my mom. for the 2nd year in a row, my mom forgot that mother's day applies to me too, not just to her. she said maybe next year she'll remember. i'm not holding my breath though.

we went to see our friends at wicker park grace in the evening, where they were having a spoken word event on the theme of 'hospitality'. i spent a good deal of time keeping cadence from going haywire, but it was still great to see g-dogg and nanette and the others. i also got to meet one of my latest flickr contacts in person. oh! and g-dogg got cadence this great book on skateboard monsters! not only that, g-dogg also brought the best coconut macaroons i've ever had, from artemios bakery (sp?). they were like the size of cadence's head!

yum...

...about my little cadence is...

...that no matter what...

...no matter how hard you try...

...you just CANNOT...

...separate this girl from her ball!

there is a manhunt going on for a rape suspect right outside our home. helicopters have been circling around for the last hour and a half. the schools in the area are on lockdown. there are dozens of squad cars combing the streets and alleys. so i guess we won't be leaving home for a while.

UPDATE: now i hear the police are going door to door looking for this suspect. i've been listening to the radio (since we don't have TV reception). apparently, the police originally had the suspect in custody around 6am but he escaped when the squad car was in the vicinity of pratt and hamilton.

...on sunday, cadence set a new household record for one’s personal level of crankiness. i’m talkin’ inconsolably crappy mood. so much so that we gave up on the idea of going to church because the mere thought of being in a public place with her in that condition was too overwhelming for me. i would’ve needed some tranquilizers and multiple melon balls to get through that one.

(ah, melon balls…remember melon balls, josh?)

anyhoo, ted decided to clean up a storm at home, so in hopes that cadence would forget for a few minutes that she was in the foulest mood known to humankind, i took her to not ONE but TWO playgrounds. alas, i was so mad at her at this point, i didn’t even take my camera because i didn’t want to record any part of that day for posterity.

yeah, these photos were taken last week, BEFORE i knew what a crankenstein my little bundle of joy could be. hard to believe, ain’t it?

hopefully, sunday will be an exception to cadence’s usually sunny personality. i suppose it comes with the territory of parenthood, and i really can’t complain. we all have our bitchy days. it really is a sign of how happy cadence usually is that we were so blindsided by just one day of crankiness. and she’s already done so many adorable and sweet things since sunday, that i’m already starting to forget how bad it really was.

cadence’s vocabulary is expanding every day, it seems. she says words that i didn’t even know she knew. for example, when our neighbor’s dog started barking the other day, cadence looked at me and said ‘it’s a goggie.’ i didn’t understand what a ‘goggie’ was, but the next time there was barking, again she repeated, ‘goggie!’ and i realized that’s her word for ‘doggie’. she had never tried to say that word before, so i was surprised that she retrieved that from her memory bank.

and then last night, cadence started pointing up at our desk and saying, ‘bubbo! bubbo!’ again, i had no idea what she was talking about because she’s never used that word before. and then i saw that she was pointing at a bottle of bubbles. i couldn’t believed she remembered what that was because we’d never blown bubbles from that bottle since we moved 5 months ago.

her favorite thing to say (or yell, rather) these days is ‘it’s a COOOOO!’ as in ‘it’s a clue!’ whenever she sees anything that resembles a pawprint. this is a reference to the kid’s program Blue’s Clues, which unless you have regular exposure to preschoolers you have no idea what i’m talking about. anyhoo, we don’t have TV reception but we do have a few Blue’s Clues DVDs which she LOVES. so much so that we’ve decided to wean her off of the boob tube as much as possible before we do permanent damage to her psyche.

well, ted’s been busy getting our home in order. we got a new computer armoire for our dining room (which cadence liked hiding in until actually put our computer in it) so that we can turn the 2nd bedroom exclusively into cadence’s play room. the plan is that someday, SOMEDAY, cadence will sleep in there as well. preferably before she turns, oh, say, age 5.

we'll see...

yesterday would have been my dad's 68th birthday. 4 years ago tonight, he breathed his last. watching my dad die in that hospital room was one of the most pivotal experiences of my life thus far. but his life was one worth celebrating, and so i just want to pay tribute to him here with some photos i found.

my dad was born on may 2, 1938. this is a photo of him as a cocky teenager. by this time, he'd already lived through the japanese occupation, world war II and the korean war. not your average childhood.

my dad's family lost everything during the korean war, and they actually had a lot to lose to begin with. my paternal grandfather and grandmother were both dentists, and they had acquired quite a bit of property before they were forced to leave everything behind to flee from the North Korean army during the war.

nevertheless, my dad had many happy memories from his youth, and he managed to graduate from Seoul National University, which is the top ranked university in korea.

and here's my dad on graduation day with his buddies. my, they look like a savory bunch, don't they?

after teaching high school physics for a short while, my dad, who's always enjoyed writing, became a newspaper reporter. here he is on the job at the 38th parallel, the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Koreas.

after almost a decade of post-college bachelorhood, my dad gave in to his mother's nagging to find a wife and was introduced to my mom. one of the first dates he took her on was to a meeting of the alpine mountain climbing club that he was an avid member of. for some reason, my mother still agreed to marry him.

my parents were married on september 28, 1968 in seoul. their facial expressions may look more appropriate for a funeral than a wedding, but that's the traditional Korean look for weddings. really somber.

this is one of my favorite photos of my parents. it was taken in wonju, my mom's hometown, right after their honeymoon. they look so freakin' young. and if you look very closely, you will see that there is a dragonfly on my mom's skirt, near her knee.

and here are my parents out on an outing with my dad's alpine club. my mom looks so cute in a beret, no?

my dad also loved skiing. when he was a kid, he made his own skis with pieces of wood. i'm not sure how well they worked, but i bet they provided hours and hours of fun, not to mention numerous injuries.

my dad loved skiing and mountain climbing so much that he actually traveled to the french alps to attend their alpine skiing school for a couple of weeks. being the reckless adverturesome type that he was, i believe there is a story that involved my father and a late-night alpine rescue team.

i don't know if this was taken upon departure for or arrival from that france trip, but he looks pretty sharp in that beret, no? my brother jim seems to think so. as you can see, back in those days, you wore your sunday best to the airport to see someone off or to welcome them home. that's my dad's mom on the right by the way.

although my dad's mom was a devout christian, and my dad had grown up in the methodist church, and he had even taught sunday school, by this time in his adulthood, my dad was more interested in climbing mountains on sundays than in worshipping god.

he spent all his free time and energy on his goal, which was to climb mount everest. he was in the middle of training to join an expedition to the himalayas when he experienced a serious illness that caused his kidneys to fail and cut short his dream of joining that expedition.

so there was my dad, lying in the hospital, weak and helpless, cursing god when my grandmother and her friends from church came to visit him and to pray for him. my dad defiantly and mockingly turned his back to them and refused to listen to their prayers. that night, however, as he lay alone in that hospital bed that night, he couldn't sleep. for some reason, he felt compelled to read the bible that my grandmother had left for him. and for some reason, he was deeply moved by what he read. that was the night my dad had his christian conversion experience, and his life was never the same since.

this is our family photo soon after my dad came home from the hospital. i was only 7 months old. see how puffy his face is?

and this is several months later in may of '73 when my cousin ike (the infant) and i were baptized at chongkyo methodist church in seoul. my cousin casey is the toddler on the left and my cousin kris is the toddler on the right. and that's my brother jim looking rather forlorn standing next to my dad.

and here we are going to visit my grandfather's grave in the hills. my mom didn't let me out of the house without a hat until i was about 3 because i was bald.

and here i am with hair finally. my brother's looking out into space again...i must be about 3 in this picture.

i have a vague recollection of this day. i think it might have been children's day, a national holiday in korea that celebrates children. i think we went on a picnic with my dad and maybe visited some park.

and this is our family on may 23, 1978 at kimpo airport in seoul, ready to get on a plane to our new life in chicago, IL. that's my aunt on the left and my maternal grandparents next to my mom. i am apparently busy getting a sugar high. i do remember losing my shoes on the plane and bugging the flight attendants. i also remember my mom crying a lot on the plane as she read a letter her dad had written her. my dad had just turned 40 years old a mere 3 weeks before getting on that plane to this country. he came here with barely any knowledge of the english language and without any prospects for a job. all he knew was that he wanted to tell people about jesus, and that's what he did until he died.

so that's about it for the photos. after that, my dad just gets older, and most of the photos i have are of him in that cult we were in, and i'd rather not get into that right now.

ok, one last picture...this is my dad and mom about a year before he got sick. he's visiting the rocky mountain national park in colorado. he always loved the mountains, so i thought it would be appropriate to end with a photo of him in the mountains.

my dad lived one heck of a life. he knew what it was like to be rich and to lose it all in a day. he knew hunger. he knew poverty. he knew war. he also knew the thrill of scaling great heights out in the open or of flying down a snowy mountain on nothing more than wooden sticks. he knew the joy of music. he knew the success of having front page stories and getting the 'scoop'. he'd survived avalanches and an almost fatal illness before he'd even turned 35. he knew what it was like to leave everyone and everything familiar to come to a strange and foreign land with a family depending on you for sustenance. he knew about the abuse that churches were capable of, and he knew the pain of realizing that he had participated in such abuses as well. he knew about pride, arrogance, fundamentalism, narrowmindedness. later in life, he learned a lot about humility and love and grace and mercy.

i miss my dad. i really, really do...