It's Never What We Think It Is

On the last day of 2008, one more disappointment pertinent to this blog: one of my favorite blogs, Mrs. O, is a fake. The New York Times has found them out. Mrs. O is not simply a blog by a well-informed, well-researched fashion-obsessed fan. It's a marketing tool for a global advertising agency, BBH, written by one of its employees.

I think I might have to remove Mrs. O from my faves list. Knowing it's just another piece of the marketing puzzle makes it not so clever anymore. I feel duped. At least I hadn't gone to Target yet for the oh-so-enthusiastically reviewed Thakoon pieces!

But I still heart Mrs. Obama, if not Mrs. O.

Christmas Eve Boots

Photo successfully snapped by Thalia on take #3 and actually did not cut off our heads!

Dylan and I in our Christmas Eve finery! Dylan, wearing the shirt he bought on his birthday and one of many Snoopy ties, and I in my just-bought-that-day sweater dress. Do we look our ages?! Do we look hip?! Ha!

I think my pointy-toe, high-heeled boots really made my outfit:


I just love wearing them, but not very often because you can't chase after a bunch of kids with them on! Yes, that's me taking a pic of my own boots while I'm wearing them . . . .

That evening, we went to the Children's Mass at church and then to Magic Time Machine for what is becoming a yearly tradition for us--Christmas Eve dinner with costumed character waiters! This time it was Captain Jack Sparrow, and he was the best waiter we've had yet. Very much "in character." Lots of food, bubbly potion and merriment enjoyed by all.

In the Doghouse, Or Memories of Hubby's Gifts Gone By

I meant to post this days and days ago after telling my friend Amy about it. This is in memory of all the "doghouse" gifts I've received from my better half over the years. And there have been many, many of them. Oh my yes.

I was cracking up watching this video with Dylan, and then realized that I have actually been the lucky recipient of some of those gifts! Ha!

The last few seconds of the video are kind of lame, but the video on the whole is quite brilliant. Cheers!

Just a Girl Who Once Fell in Love with a Boy

The Lovings of Virginia

Dylan and I have been married since 1998-- 10 whole years of (mostly) wedded bliss! When we married in May 1998, a marriage between someone like him and someone like me had been legal in this country for not quite 30 years. When I say "someone like him," I mean a Caucasian American male, and "someone like me" being an Asian American female. In the same year that my husband's parents married, 1966, it would have been quite illegal for Dylan and I to do the same in many states. Amazing and sad and true.

I was reminded of all of this today when I was reading an online tribute to famous people who died in 2009. One of those people was Mildred Loving, who passed away in May of this year. I would guess that very few people knew who she was. I learned about Mildred Loving in college while writing a paper on interracial marriages in the U.S. in the 20th century for a US history course. In 1958 Mildred Jeter, a black woman, married Richard Loving, a white man, in Washington DC, where it was legal to do so, and then drove home to Virginia, where it was not. They were in jail within a month. They avoided a one year prison sentence by agreeing to leave the state of Virginia for 25 years. And their marriage was still considered illegal in over half of the states.

In 1967, the US Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Loving v. Virginia that all anti-miscegenation rules were unconstitutional, ending the Lovings' 4 year legal battle to be able to return to the place they knew as home in Virginia. For eight years, the Lovings lived happily ever after, until Richard Loving was killed by a drunk driver. They had been married for 17 years.

Mildred preferred to stay away from the limelight for the rest of her life. She also said that "you see so many" interracial couples now, that they hardly turn heads or cause comment anymore. However, last year on the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, she issued a rare public comment on same-sex marriages:

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don't think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the "wrong kind of person" for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people's religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people's civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard's and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That's what Loving, and loving, are all about.

It's a privilege to be married to my husband, whom I chose to marry and who chose to marry me, and how fortunate we are to have been given that freedom in the first place. Today I am thankful for the Lovings and their marriage, which got us to where we are today. Mildred and Richard could have lived out the rest of their marriage under the radar, in exile from the place they called home, but chose instead to fight for the right of any woman to marry any man she loves anywhere in this country.

Dylan & Melissa

It's amazing to me as well that we have our new President-elect Obama who is himself the product of a biracial marriage (fortunately his parents lived in one of the handful of states that never enacted anti-miscegenation laws). How far our society has come to catch up with the reality of courtship and marriage, that love is color-blind, however cliche that is, and can't be reined in by rules or definitions of what is socially acceptable. Mildred Loving was, in her own words, "just a girl who once fell in love with a guy."

Stuff I've Been Reading

Photo from Google Images

Ok, I was supposed to post this at the end of November, but I totally forgot! The "Stuff I've Been Reading" list is my planned running tally of books I've read and books I've bought or borrowed (sometimes not the same books!) in a month's time. I got the idea from one my favorite authors, Nick Hornby, and which I wrote about last month.

The really sad thing is that I cannot remember exactly what I read last month! I don't ever write down what I'm reading. So starting today, I'll keep a running list of books read/borrowed/bought and try to post monthly. Call it my first New Year's Resolution for 2009!

Facelift

I've been experimenting these last few months with different Blogger templates, but I'd been envying our friend Tracy's cute background on her scrapbooking blog, along with all the other bells and whistles there. Today I finally figured out how to get this super-cute cupcake theme on my blog! So appropriate. Free background from The Cutest Blog on the Block.

I'll probably continue to tweak the color combinations. I love pink, but hate hot pink/magenta. As soon as a pink starts looking like magenta to me, on any given day, I'll get rid of it.

The new look makes me happy! I'm so easily amused and entertained these days, no?

Four, Four, Four, Four . . .

Received from my friend, Janine, via email:

Here's what you are supposed to do...and please don't spoil the fun...

Delete my answers, type in your answers and send it to a bunch of people, including me. It's not spam. It's fun! Happy Holidays!

A) Four places that I go to over and over: Target, Michael's, Costco, HEB (yes, I'm quite the retail queen, aren't I?)

B) Four people who e-mail me (regularly): Dallas, Rachel, Kelly, Anjali

C) Four of my favorite places to eat: Places with good enchiladas; The Salt Lick; Places with good steak; The Melting Pot (with friends)

D) Four places I would rather be right now: On vacation pretty much anywhere; In bed with my electric blanket keeping me nice and warm; Having lunch with friends; Shopping (when what I am really doing is answering emails, updating blogs, etc.)

E) Four people I think will respond: I don't know. I hope I get around to forwarding it to my friends!

F) Four TV shows I watch over and over: Sex and the City; Charlie & Lola (yes, the kids show); Thirtysomething; Biography (I realize my favorite TV shows are really odd!)

I'm Baaaaaccckk!

After a few weeks away from my blogs, I found that I really missed writing every day! I didn't miss the stress of "having" to blog however. That was a bit too much like school. So I'll be blogging not daily but more often than I was before, which was more like quarterly! I have so much "non-news" to share!

Anyway, I found out about this cool giveaway on the Steamy Kitchen's website through my found-on-Facebook-high-school-friend Archana, who is a foodie herself! Steamy Kitchen's keeper Jaden is a Modern Asian food writer and she is giving away some fantastic stuff she's found or received from other companies. And I like Jaden's writing so I'll be a frequent visitor to her site from now on. Because we can all use some culinary inspiration now and then, for sure. She has an awesome list of food links too. So if you're reading this (whoever you are), enter the big giveaway and maybe you'll win that really cool salt block.