Throwback to the Vietnam trip, where mom talked me into buying a silk dress I didn’t need, got me a whole durian fruit even though I said it was too much, and made peace with me not getting married or having kids. May you all get to enjoy your parents as adults, while still being treated like a baby sometimes. Just the right amount.
When I was a kid, whenever Mom made bánh xèo (Vietnamese crepes), it felt like magic because they were always hot, filling, and crispy; mom would make a fresh one, fat with pork and shrimp, as we finished the last one. She wouldn’t eat until we had our fill. Then I became an adult, realized a good bánh xèo with the proper accompaniments of veggies and herbs is hard to find in New York, and started making them at home that I appreciated her silent labor and love. And how super hard it is to get a nice, crispy bánh xèo (soaked flour, bit of beer, a well seasoned mon stick pan). This took me six tries!
Moms aren’t appreciated enough.
Spent 5 hours at the spa for my birthday. I am rested, hydrated, and thankful for all the well wishes and love. I also forgot how old I was turning, which I think is what they truly mean when they say “age is a number.” It all means life after a while.
📸 my true love @eric_john_eigner_photography
Spent Friday night at the Met for the Raphael exhibit. We were there for two hours until they kicked us out at 9, though not before (on the way out) I was like “I forgot that Klimt was in here!” Easy to forgot how cool it is to live in NYC until you get to see Raphael’s “Young Woman with a Unicorn” in person. I gotta go back. 🦄
P.S. I made that dress I’m wearing. It’s my new favorite.
Happy Year of the Horse everyone. My sister sent me the sad horse to start 2026 off right (iykyk). He will live on my desk at work. Wishing everyone good health and some peace of mind this year.
Vietnam photo dump: food (unlimited carbs), family (including a 100-person house party), from mountains to sand dunes to castles to the sea, and that time I got head-butted by a goat. 2 weeks, 6 cities, 15 people, insanity and joy.
I have to admit: I was a nervous going back to Vietnam. As someone whose first language was Vietnamese but who only speaks it once a week when I call my mom, I was afraid that I had lost it and that my language skills were stuck in a state of arrested development. Worst, that the people here would know and be disappointed. But then something wonderful happened: I landed and it was like my brain and my tongue snapped back. Words I didn’t know that I knew came to me. I was making jokes in Vietnamese. A woman thought I lived in Saigon.
It feels like an amazing gift, to find something that you thought you lost. To be able to tell people my name and not be met with confusion. It’s nice to rediscover yourself.
Pictured: me, my cousin and her grandkid (!) in the countryside.
2025 kind of sucked. Some people I love, including my dad, got sick. It was a lot of hard days, making sure to be gentle with myself and the people around me, and taking the small victories when they come.
We’re slowly coming out the other side. But this year put a lot of things into perspective for me, and I was reminded that we all need to be telling each other how much we love and appreciate each other more often. That personal accomplishments are great, but it’s people that give life meaning.
Here’s to a gentler 2026 for us all. And here’s my dad on a boat in Vietnam singing “Row Row Row your boat,” while our family rows by.
Dad: “This is a nice photo. We’ll put it on the alter when we die.”
Mom: “I’m so happy.”
Wild that exactly a year ago, dad was in the hospital getting chemo for leukemia. Today, he’s mom’s pedicab in the Great Love Valley (tuyệt tình cốc) in Vietnam. Life is crazy.
(I would’ve helped except I can’t ride a bike. I did help push the cart when he couldn’t go up a slope.)
