Kokochi

THE massage I needed

I had a major knot in my shoulder, and it was increasingly painful to the point of me demanding help from Dav, and even rubbing up against corners to apply pressure to it. Holding chunky Tesla doesn't help, and neither did the accident. Elida had told me about Jeffrey MacMullen. I love deep tissue, and when I'm hurting, I want intense work, not tra-la-la rubbing. He sounded like the guy I needed, so I made an appointment at 8:30pm one night for a next morning session. I had to bring Tesla along, but assuming her past behavior, I thought she'd be chill and perhaps nap. I brought many toys and even her gymini just in case. Unfortunately, pretty much from the minute I lay down, she had a fit. Could have been Jeffrrey's mustache (he tried comforting her several times), could have been the herby smell of the office. Who knows. Basically, we tried for over an hour massaging parts of me while I held her, rocked her with one hand, and even fed her lying sideways as he worked on the other. In the end, I had to give up. I had just a taste of what Jeffrey could do, so leaving was difficult. Of course, as soon as I drove away, she snoozed. Jeffrey kindly kept the next morning free in case I could have Dav watch Tesla, and come back. Dav made the time, so off I went to be away from Tesla for about 3 hours. I've been apart from her only twice before, to run quick errands that took about 30 minutes, and recently for quick morning jogs that are about 15 minutes. So this was THE first time to be away from her for so long. She's just beginning to take the bottle with pumped milk so it was an experiment. I wanted to blog about the massage because Jeffrey's massage was pretty much the best massage I've ever had...and I've had quite a lot of body work done (even used to work in a massage therapy office/school and got tons of sessions then...). It's quite intense, so it definitely isn't for everyone. I mean, it was hard work. He'd focus on an area, asking me to breathe deeply, pulling, kneading, and bending me in ways that were in the pleasure/pain zone. And this went on for 2 hours +. It felt like a workout, had me groaning and moaning. But...at the end, I could not believe how different I felt. It was like a ton of bricks that I didn't know I carried had been lifted. I was in a daze and floated. It's taken a full day to recover with lots of H2O and deep long naps. But I feel so much better. He clearly knows his stuff. As I breathed and he worked on my body, he'd say, "ah, right there...breathe into it...beautiful...there we go..." As he admitted himself, he's a geek. So this is to thank Jeffrey. I'm delighted to have found a body worker who is my type (haven't done much deep work for quite some time) . I highly recommend him. And cheers to daddy Dav who successfully took care of Tesla for 3 hours. She didn't cry : ) We are scheduled to share a babysitter with our cool neighbors, leaving Tesla and their 2 year old so we 4 can go out at night. We'll stay close to home in case I need to rush back, but if all goes well, that means Dav and I can start going out as a couple again!! And we want that!

On the way to the Green Festival

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dinner chez Manisha

We got to enjoy Manisha cooking last night. She lives over in Russian Hill - it's an area I'm not very familiar with, but rather like. It has such a quintessential traditional SF feel with the hills, cable cars, and cute corner restaurants. Usually when we go to Manisha's, there is a large group all eager for her amazing cooking. Last night was more intimate with us, Sean, and Lani. Dinner was fish with a coconut/peanut sauce, walnut-stuffed zucchinis, couscous, and a salad. Delicious. We talked about our new hope in politics, and how we all used to have much more time to hang out together doing nothing really. Now we all have busy jobs, and we have Tesla. Gathering for dinner takes planning, and it takes half the evening for us to just unwind. Tesla was an angel and slept on Manisha's bed. She got a bit fussy as we dressed her in her furry coat when we left around midnight, but as soon as we were outside in the fresh air, she perked up and enjoyed it.

Thursday morning at the Potrero Hill Library

Babies arrive in their sweet rides to see the singing librarian

Girl time

Fabulous Toni had a great idea to gather us gals from Campalicious and friends. We've had several engagements, marriages, and mommy hood in the group. And we wanted to touch base (and have girl fun!) I forget how important it is to gather with JUST women. We all love hanging with our guy friends too, but it is different and somehow more inspirational when us gals hang together. We make the effort to honor each other...and boy do we all have different experiences. And that's basically what we affirmed this dinner party time - that as we get older and walk varying paths, we are still together and need to stick together - not just for support, but to also make sure we have fun together. Everyone had their own speech to make, when Toni passed a vodka filled "horn" around and had us all say something. For me, I really wanted to express that it means a lot that I have such strong amazing women friends who completely accept that I'm a mommy now. It doesn't matter...we are still together. I keep hearing about stressed out new moms...and seriously, because of this amazing group (and husband) that helps me feel completely normal, I'm having a ball. I took so many pictures to document how everyone had their share of holding Tesla. I barely had to care for her! Next girl meeting is chez De Haro!!

Reflection

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Day of the Dead exhibition in Oakland

Last Sunday, I joined my bro and his family + Tyler's friend Liam to visit the Oakland Museum. They had an excellent exhibition honoring the Day of the Dead. I had to zoom through it and feed Tesla as she wasn't too impressed and was more into the boob that day. But I found the artists' work quite striking even in my short visit. My main goal, however, was just to see the Kennedy clan, and have Tesla see her family faces. I love how Tyler and Julia fawn over her. Hopefully she'll soon begin to respond. I particularly loved a moment when I had Tesla feeding under the Hooter Hider, and Tyler came up wondering what I was doing. He opened the Hider and said, "oh, oppai ka" and walked away. "Oppai" is breast milk, and he knew it in Japanese, and was obviously used to seeing what that's all about. I'm so happy to have family to share it with! Heh. The pictures where you see us (Ian, me, the kids) is from the regular area of the museum. Pretty neat CA history stuff. See Mickey Mouse? It was cool seeing how excited Tyler, Julia, and Liam were to see stuff. They were so into everything that Ian patiently explained. Good day...

only in dreams...

I dreamt that I was talking to somebody who told me Katsuo had a credit card. In our weird conversation, somehow the fact that he had a credit card didn't appear strange at all to me. What did make me go "whaaaa??" was that the person told me Kats had a Nordstrom credit card. Only then I thought, "wait, Kats is *so* not a Nordstrom sorta cat. That doesn't make sense." I've been thinking about that. If my cats had credit cards, what kind would they have? Me thinks that Kats would have one from a random mailing that offered 1 year of free credit. He'd be sorta dumb about it and think, "cool, I got credit!" and go buy a nice sleeping pad. Then he'd forget he had to pay up, and he'd come to me for help. Wakame, on the other hand, would have credit with Nordstrom's. She'd buy high-end fashion, but wouldn't show me. Only when Dav and I went away, she'd prance around in her outfits. She'd pay off her bill by making Kats collect coins outside.

Hi!

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teaching civic responsibility

Starting early with Tesla. I will make sure she knows it's a privilege and responsibility to be able to vote. We are lucky. I couldn't choose which picture to use as every time I said, "hai, po-zu" (ok, pose time), she dutifully smiled perfectly. I think she liked the vote thing. She's so cute!