Did I ever mention that Felix and I had a son? No, of course he wasn't really our child, but everyone called him our son, including us.

My dad's the oldest sibling in his family, making me and my brothers the oldest cousins. And although a good portion of the Chi's live in the US, about half the family is still in Taiwan. Taiwan, like many other asian countries, has this funny rule about military service - every young man has to do it. Pretty much no exceptions. My cousin Terry was quickly approaching his service age, and after some quick deliberating and long distance phone calls, his folks decided to ship him out of the country. I was actually really involved in the conversations, and I convinced my parents and Terry's that the best thing for him to do would be to live with me and Felix for awhile to get adjusted. Then, he could pack his bags and move to New Jersey, all set to start middle school in the fall. My mom really discouraged the idea, but I won her over. We all agreed that he'd pick up English more quickly if he was with all-English speakers. So I enrolled him in an ESL school, and we prepared our second bedroom for Terry's arrival. It couldn't be that hard living with a 13-year old boy, right?

Well, that was obviously a stupid assumption. I think my mom is still saying, "I told you so." Not that Terry was any trouble. On the contrary, he was quietest and most unobtrusive teenager I have ever met. I think that Felix and I just weren't ready to be parents. I mean, it's not like we had to actually parent him - no one expected us to do that. I simply didn't realize how much responsibility there is in having a kid, even an older one, in your care. No more spur-of-the-moment dinners with friends or co-workers. What would Terry eat if Felix or I didn't come home on time? Couldn't just run off for a weekend trip. Where would Terry go? There were all sorts of other random worries, too. Was he bored? Was his English improving? Was he eating right? We came home one night after work to discover he didn't want dinner because he'd consumed a huge container of mixed nuts. Crazy, I know, but what do you say? We had no idea, so we just told him he really shouldn't do that anymore.

The timing of his arrival was also a little odd. Felix and I had always had roommates to help with housing costs, and even after we were married, my brother's now-ex-then-girlfriend lived with us (that is a WHOLE other saga). The day after she moved out, Terry moved in. It was pretty soon after that our best friend Stan pointed out something that literally stopped me in my tracks. In our whole relationship, Felix and I had never been alone. We'd never lived with just the two of us in Felix n' Kathy bliss. Huh. And now we had a son to watch out for in our first year of marriage.

The other thing was that Terry was not at all what I expected. I worked very very closely with a lot of teenagers over the last few years, and Terry was totally different. My mom was right again, of course; moms always are. She'd warned me that Taiwanese kids aren't like American kids. From the small things, like Terry never having an opinion (he always deferred to whatever we wanted - drove us nuts), to the big things, like his views on other races and cultures, we were totally caught off guard. There were some odd things, too. Felix and I live in a very bright and airy house with lots of windows and light. That's actually a big reason why we bought this place. Terry, however, would close every door and every window shade while we were at work. Even our bedroom door and the doors to all the bathrooms! I'd come home at night to a total cave. And he did this day after day, for the whole time he lived with us.

Terry stayed with us for about four and a half months. And I don't want to give off the wrong idea - we definitely had fun, too. I learned more about nSync then I ever thought I would, Terry told some really great but really bad jokes, and we all went skiing together. I also got to have my turn. Now that Terry's living at my parents' place, they've gained a sudden appreciation for their own three kids. I've said, "I told you so" to my mom a couple times already.

Felix and I also discussed parenthood a great deal. We decided we aren't ready. Soon, but not quite yet. In the meantime, we're enjoying just being a couple and living with only ourselves for company. For the first time.

TiVo is my best friend and my worst enemy. There had been a number of commercials for it on tv for awhile, but none of them made sense to me until our friends George and Lisa bought one. Well, I guess I should say until George bought one. He's the biggest gadget n' gizmo person I know and has very little impulse control (a dangerous combination), although Lisa does the best she can to keep him in check. In fact, Lisa was NOT happy when he came home with a TiVo, but to give you an idea of it's hidden satanic powers, she was soon pleased as punch. Couldn't stop telling me about how great it was. I should have been more suspicious.

So, Felix and I are at their house, and George and Lisa give us the full demo. In five minutes, I was totally sold. Why? Well, let me first say that Felix and I probably didn't used to watch any more or less tv than the average couple, and there are some shows we never miss. Never. And there's nothing I hate more than realizing in the middle of the workday that we forgot to set our VCR or pop in a tape. Talk about panic attacks! More times than I can even count, one of us would zoom home, program the damn show, and zoom back to work. Not fun at all.

TiVo takes all of those problems away and more. Much, much more. It gives you ultimate control over your tv. Like watching ER? Tell TiVo, and it will promptly dig up every episode of ER it knows is coming on and tape them automatically for your viewing pleasure. Hate reruns? Tell TiVo, and it'll only record first-runs. Telephone rings? Hit the pause button, and live tv will come to a standstill, awaiting your return. Didn't hear what Ally McBeal said? Hit the instant replay and get your last 10 seconds back. After taking our friends' machine for a test drive, I knew that I had to have one.

The catch was the price. Ultimate power doesn't come cheap, and although I wished otherwise, Felix and I both agreed that we simply couldn't afford to get one. Sigh. Months later, our Christmas gift arrives from my family. A TiVo. I almost died from delirious joy. Then, Felix found out how to hack our TiVo's hard drive, and suddenly, we had over 130 hours of recording capability. I was in heaven.

Where is this all going?

This fall's shows are finally premiering, and for the first time ever, I have the ability to watch whatever I want whenever I want. Everything just gets recorded and is simply waiting for me to turn it on. Take yesterday for example. After dinner, I sat down with TiVo and watched Enterprise, The Practice, Frasier, Law & Order, and Oprah. That was after already watching four hours of TiVo earlier that afternoon (yes, I'm still unemployed). Felix and I have expressed horror about how much time we're now watching tv...but we can't stop. TiVo is just too good. And too clever. And now it's too late.

So let this be a warning. I gotta go, though. I haven't watched today's Oprah yet.

I think I'm obsessed with font color. No one warned me about the dangers of starting a webpage, all the pitfalls that an innocent person looking to post a few links and pictures can fall into. Icons, backgrounds, counters, and all the other crazy things you can do. No wonder I suddenly find myself parked in front of the monitor for hours and hours at a time, utterly racked by indecision.

Felix is a pretty good sport, but it's obvious he never had sisters. See, Tom and Rob both know what to say when I ask for their opinion. When we were growing up, they were my Roger and Ebert, sharpening their thumbs up/thumbs down skills through years of "Is this better?" and "Which do you like?" over clothes, earrings, food, books, and everything else an older sister waffles about. I have no doubt that the two of them will handle their future wives skillfully. Felix, however, is of the "Whatever you like" and "It all looks good" variety. Drives me nuts. Yes, I know that some women would probably be very happy if their lesser-halves left it all up to them. Well, I'm not really the decisive type, and when I want an opinion, I want an opinion. Which brings me to font color.

Before I fell down the deep rabbithole of web design, I never really thougt about the subtle joy that comes from surfing my favorite websites. Something about the way they're laid out, the way they look, the content they have - they're all very appealing. Suddenly, I found myself scrutinizing every detail. Is my page too dark? Too light? Too cute? Too cluttered? Argh! Then I read this truly evil commentary on terrible web design, complaining about faintly visible fonts on dark backgrounds. Immediately, I turned to my homepage again. I'd already painstakingly experimented with color after color, but doubts lingered. If you knew how many times a day I stare at the font color guide, you'd be frightened. Felix, of course, has tried to reassure me numerous times that all my choices look great...but that's what he always says. Sigh...the obsession continues. Maybe I'll try a silver-grey next...

Felix and I are a juice family. If you look in our fridge, you'll find orange juice, passion-orange juice, cranberry-orange juice, and...well, you get the picture. Soda? Very rare. Beer? One or two, maybe. Milk? Definitely not. We like drinking juice.

The hard part is trying to remember exactly how much we actually have in the fridge. We usually go grocery shopping about once a week, mostly on weekends. After the dilemma of deciding where to go (Albertson's only 2 minutes away, but their juice selection is pathetically skimpy; Safeway, though, is a whole 15 minutes away), Felix and I make our usual rounds through the supermarket. Produce and fruit first. Meats next. And then the juice section. Of course, as the cost-conscious shoppers we are, we always look for the "Bonus Buy" or "Club Deal" or whatever's on the member's sale list. You know, it makes me seriously wonder what people would do if they shopped without their member cards - would you just let the store rip you off at twice the price? I think it's all an evil conspiracy to dupe the consumer...but that's a crazy thought to pursue on a different day.

Anyway, we were in luck this past weekend. It was buy-one-get-one-free day! Although we've occasionally gotten into trouble on this one by getting a little too excited (who really needs two supersize boxes of cereal when only one person in the house eats cereal?!), it's always a great deal to support our juice-guzzling habits. Felix and I paused, surveying the depleted selection (yup, we went to Albertson's) and trying to remember how many cartons we had at home. He hesitantly said he didn't think we had any left. I racked my brain and came up with maybe half a jug. So we bought four for the price of two, in a array of our favorite flavors. Yum!

Turns out we actually already had four cartons in the fridge at home. Oops. Over cries of "How did we end up with this much juice?!" from Felix, we crammed our latest purchases onto the shelves. Turned 'em sideways, stacked them up. Whatever we needed to do make them fit. Oh well - good thing we love juice.

I am a total pizza snob. Yes, I admit it. Sadly, my East coast taste buds have never really accepted California's poor attempts at capturing the elusive taste of this seemingly simple food. I'm not the only one; Tom completely agrees. I also must say that this drives Felix nuts. From the time that we first started dating, we've been quibbling over pizza, snow days, fall colors, lightening bugs, thunderstorms - everything about the Northeast that kick's California's BUTT. It's enough to make him tear his hair out.

Now, I'm not saying that there isn't yummy "pizza" in the Golden State. There's definitely stuff that tastes good. I just don't think of it as pizza, not the real thing anyway. Over the years, however, Felix has dragged me all over the state, to all kinds of restaurants and dives in search of the special slice that will prove me wrong. I've eaten a lot of pizza. Of the many many joints we've tried, I would have to say that only two make the final cut.

The first would be Maldonado's Pizzeria in Mountain View. It's a tiny little takeout dive that makes surprisingly good pizza. The crust is a little on the thick side and their ovens are weirdly unconventional, but I gotta admit that it's pretty good. The second, however, is as close to real, thin-crust, greasy, New York pizza as I could hope for. That would be Vito's, right here in our hometown of Sunnyvale. I still remember when Felix came home, all excited about this place that he was sure would shut me up. And...well, it's definitely way up there on my pizza scale.

So, if you're ever longing for a taste of ol' fashioned East coast flavor, try one of those places. They're pretty close.

Last Friday, I went to Tom's white coat ceremony, inducting him into the medical brother(and sister)hood of UCSF. Surrounded by blue and gold balloons, which was very odd to my Stanford Cardinal sensibilities, I found myself feeling a bit shocked at how young the first year students looked. One by one, they crossed the stage and donned their short white coats, smiling broadly and looking...well, really young! When I think of doctors, I think of my dad. And his colleagues. And other grey distinguished characters. Not these grinning med students.

At the same time, I realized that everyone that crossed that stage was starting a journey. Tom was my kid brother - someone I joked with and cooked meals for (man, little brothers can REALLY eat you out of house and home!). Now, however, as I watched him put his coat on and smile his boyish smile, I saw someone growing up. True, he's still a total goofball, but I know it won't be long before he's a real doctor. Distinguished, surrounded by colleagues, and just like my dad.

I was so proud on Friday. SO so proud. That's my brother up there. Dr. Chi.

Over the last couple of years, my brothers Tom and Rob have become more and more fascinated by Japanese anime. The Vision of Escaflowne is one of their favorites, and I must admit - it's pretty interesting. Anyway, in my mindless websurfing, I ran across this website - kind of like an online comic book that unravels one chapter at a time. Very odd...but somewhat fascinating, too.

When my parents first immigrated to the United States, they landed in New York. They lived in a friend's cramped little apartment, scraping up money to find a place of their own and pay their brothers' and sisters' way to America. Over the years, even after they moved away, the city became an old friend, to my mom and dad and to us.

The grandeur of the Statue of Liberty, where as a child I was paralyzed in screaming fear by the dizzying heights of the winding staircase. My uncle had to pry my fingers loose from the iron bannisters and carry me, sobbing, down to the bottom.

Weekly trips to Chinatown to stock up on groceries, jostling through the crowds on Canal Street. My brothers and I would poke delightedly at the sluggish blue-shell crabs, while my parents haggled for fruit and vegetables.

The brilliance and beauty of Rockefeller Center at Christmas time, which we would stroll each year after watching the Christmas Spectacular Show at Radio City Music Hall.

The clear cold glass of the windows of the World Trade Center, as I leaned forward and stared down at the tiny people and cars scurrying about, stories and stories below me.

It was still dark yesterday morning when the phone started to ring. We ignored it. It rang again. And again. And again. Felix stumbled around the bed to pick up the phone on my side, while I fumbled with my glasses to check the time. 6:23 am. It was my brother Rob, calling from Boston. Turn on the TV, he said. Right now. While we huddled beneath our down comforter on the couch downstairs and tried to make sense of what we were seeing on CNN, all I could think about was Christmas. And Chinatown. And that cold cold glass, stories and stories above the world below.

I'm going to make a blatant plug here. I normally hate online advertising, especially all that junk e-mail that seeps through your filters to flood your inbox, but Felix and I found something that's just TOO cool to keep to ourselves. It's a book called The Big Island Revealed, and we both agree that it is the best giudebook to anywhere we've ever used. The best. I don't care how many times you've already been to Hawaii. The Big Island will be a different place if you have this book. Really.

That being said, this is Felix's first day back to work after a two week vacation. The first week was spent...yes, you guessed it...on the Big Island! It was absolutely wonderful, and I'm working on posting our pictures soon. More importantly, we made a FELIX-AND-KATHY PROMISE this week. These don't come up all that often, so when they do, we both ponder our promise very carefully and take it very seriously. What we decided is that we would pledge to take one week of vacation with just the two of us every year for the rest of our lives. Not sound like a big deal? Humph - you must not be married. Between work, obligations, kids (no, no, not yet, but we know they'll only add to our time constraints), and all that other day-to-day-mucky-mucky stuff, setting aside a week every year is a plenty big deal. In fact, before we went to Hawaii, we realized that our last vacation together had already been a few years ago. That's right - not months, YEARS. The shock to our workaholic hearts was almost too much to stand.

So that's my second plug. Since almost everyone else we hang out with now is married (creepy, isn't it?), I'm tellin' you to seriously think about the need to take time off. Ever watch Oprah? I love Oprah. And Dr. Phil, although Felix leaves the room when Dr. Phil comes on. My honey thinks he's rude. Anyway, she had on this inspiring show about marriage sabbaticals that planted the seed in our minds for our vacation PROMISE. So it's a spit-and-handshake done deal for us. And if you guys decide to get away, we're more than happy to babysit the kids. So long as you can take our brats when our turn comes around.

Despite the slew of dot.com deaths, shopping online can still offer some great deals. The difficult thing is juggling all the different coupons, rebates, and miscellaneous secrets to yield just the right bargain. Normally, I'm quite the impulse buyer. Something I like? Buy it! Something I'm not happy with it? Get rid of it and get a new one! Felix, however, is a bit more prudent and is often more willing to do the weave and dance to get a better deal. Take my recent cell phone purchase, for example. I had a Samsung flip phone, but the flip wasn't so good anymore. As a call came in, I'd flip it open, only to discover that no one could hear me or I couldn't hear them. But, ah-ha! This is what I'd been paying $4 a month for over a year for - the Equipment Replacement Program. So I call the customer service folks, and $35 later, I have a new phone on its way to my home via UPS.

But how come I have to get the SAME phone? I'm not down with the flippy phone anymore; I want something else. Wouldn't any normal person assume that you can trade a phone in for any model of equal or lesser value? You know what happens when you assume...

Enter eBay - the great equalizer. I discover that my Samsung sells for $50-$70. And the Sanyo I want sells for $80-$100. So. Let me think here. No, nevermind, I'm not big on math. I bid my way to a winner for $100 bucks, and justify my purchase to Felix with tales of my scheme to sell the new Samsung phone that's on its way from the insurance company. See? I didn't actually spend as much money as it seems I spent. Right?

Then my brother Tom calls. Amazon (who is offering $100 rebates on new cell phones and $50 off purchases over $100) has accidentally shipped him TWO phones. He's got a free one up for grabs, if I want it. But...it's a flip phone. And I've already paid for my eBay phone. Felix steps in with his own scheme. We can sell the phone I just bought, sell the insurance company phone, change his phone (which is not flippy) into my phone, and make Tom's free phone into Felix's new phone. Huh? I'm not big on math - did I mention that yet? Felix, engineer and data whiz, insists that this is the best deal yet.

Two dollar figure charts and several explanations later, I'm still confused. The stubborn woman in me takes over, and I declare that I don't care what's a deal and what's not. I bought a phone. It's on its way. And I'm going to activate it and use it. Happily, I turn over the rest of the sell, resell, free, not free mess over to my honey. He is, I tell him, more than welcome to squeeze out the other dollars on his own. Me? I got more online shopping to do.