10 | March | 2017 | Rabbits & Foxes

I’ve been noticing very recently that it’s much easier for me to clump all of my thoughts into lists. I enjoy shortening my thoughts & ideas into short blurbs, rather than write while whole posts about nothing. I’m not that clever. Hey, I’m not Jerry Seinfeld. (*chuckles*)

I love apples. Fuji apples are my favorite type of apples, but I especially love them when they are cold, crisp, & juicy. Yeah, I love to eat juicy apples. I’ve been eating apples more often lately, mostly because my mom likes to use apples as a food offering to her Buddhist shrine whenever she says her Buddhist prayers. We always have a good amount of apples in our kitchen leftover from my mom’s weekly prayer offerings. I especially enjoy eating the apples after my mom has already used them as an offering to her mini Buddhist shrine. I kind of feel like the apples have been blessed by the Buddhist statues after they’ve had their share, which to me, makes them taste even sweeter.
Piggy-backing off the previous bullet point, I don’t think I’m a strict, devout Buddhist. My mom isn’t really one either. Well, she’s more of a semi-devout Buddhist. She performs many rituals & prayers to her carefully displayed shrine in our home. She even believes in the power & energy of carefully selected Buddhist relics. However, she does not regularly visit a temple or celebrate much of yer Buddhist holidays. I kind of, sort of loosely follow the parts of Buddhism my mom teaches me that is important to our family. Like my mom, I say a few prayers, I light incense, I provide offerings to our home shrine, but I don’t do much other important or significant rituals associated with it. I wouldn’t call myself devout to any one religion. My mom grew up in a strict Christian family before she converted to Buddhism along with her siblings. My dad was raised Catholic through & through…even going so far as to sign up for the priesthood, before dropping out to get married early & start a family. Neither of them pushed any sort of religion on any of their children, but I’ve been loosely following a few customs of the Buddhist religion because it interests me & brings me closer to my mom.
I have an easier time writing my blog posts when I’m at my local big box coffee shop. Today I’m writing in a different coffee shop location. I hate this location, but at least it gives me a change of scenery from the coffee shop down the street from my house. The coffee shop I’m sitting at is right next to a high school. Once school lets out, all of the super annoying teenagers come swarming in to get their stupid frappy, iced berry, sugary sweet drinks. They come in packs & annoy the masses with their obnoxious jibber-jabber. Like I said, I hate coming to this location because it’s always crowded with annoying teenagers, but I need a change of scenery from my usual blog writing place. At least this place is still very close by to my house, & the baristas here don’t muck up my order. At the big box coffee shop next to my house, the only thing they get right is the spelling of my name on the cup. Other than that, they’re always forgetting one thing or another, like forgetting my drink altogether, or forgetting my food order until I’ve been standing at the counter for well over 5 minutes. The baristas always apologize for the mistake, & always mention that they recognize me as a regular customer, but every time I go there, they always treat me like I’m a stranger, even when it’s the same barista serving me a few days in a row.
I’m so incredibly excited, chuffed to bits, to be going to London next month. I wish I could speed up the date of my departure, but I also don’t want time to pass by so fast. Jian & I have been almost meticulously planning out all of the things we want to do & places we want to eat at or drink a cocktail at, but we also want to let things happen naturally. Before most of our major vacations, we tend to carefully plan out all the little details of our itinerary, but more often than not we end up doing things spontaneously, like on the fly. We talk & talk & talk, make up spreadsheets & checklists, I make up little travel scrapbooks (with my amateur Photoshop skills), but mostly make up stuff as we go along our trips. I guess that’s the fun part, finding lots of random, local things that isn’t written in some stuffy, glossy guide book. Everyday our list of things to do & eat grows & grows. We only have 7 days to explore London, & we want to make the most of our time there. I want this adventure to begin, but not to end too soon.
In a couple of weeks I’m going to a concert I’d never imagine going to for a second time in my life. My all-time favorite band, SAVE FERRIS, has reunited after nearly 20 years & is coming back with a vengeance, releasing a brand new album & doing a U.S. promo tour. SAVE FERRIS was the very first band I ever saw in concert back in 1998. They were performing in a relatively small music venue alongside a very new, not-so-well-known band called Incubus, who was merely the opening act for SAVE FERRIS. Also co-headlining the concert was my other favorite band Goldfinger. That concert changed my life. I had told my parents I was having a sleepover at a friend’s house, & since she lived on my street & my parents were cool with her parents, they totally bought it. Luckily for my friends & I, the parents of the friend were totally easy-going & cool & allowed us to stay out late for a concert. I was so obsessed with SAVE FERRIS that I got a fully autographed poster & a concert tee which I wore almost every day. One time my cousin went to one of their concerts too & was able to get the bassist of the band to write me a birthday greeting on a piece of paper which I framed & kept next to my bed. I’ve got all this memorabilia tucked away somewhere in the far outer reaches of my storage closet, & one day I might take it out to reminisce. For now, I’m going to enjoy this upcoming concert, listening to songs new & old. I never really thought I’d ever see this band in concert more than once, but I was able to see them perform at the Van’s Warped Tour that same year back in 1998. Seeing them live for a third time in my life is just blowing my mind away. I can’t wait!!