6.12.2003 Boston Commons

Elizabeth has been feeling lots better. She had one visit with an orthopedic doctor so far and her soft cast and crutches were replaced with a temporary plastic splint brace like thing. Apparently, she hurt some ligaments in her ankle and things should heal in time. And yes, the baby has been doing okay too. Things that day were quite the scare.

It was now time for us to get into the swing of things with the beginning of summer.

My sister Shirley, Elizabeth and I hobbled around parts of Boston, actually, Cambridge I think it was. We were there for our cousin Joel's graduation where we were also going to be meeting up with some of our relatives from San Francisco. Joel graduated from Harvard with a doctorate in Education; Dr. J. we say. He's always been quite the smart dude.

Funny story--the first time that Elizabeth got to meet cousin Joel was about 3 years ago. We were visiting the Boston area and decided to meet up with him and his wife, Felicia -- you know, say hello, have dinner, the whole bit. And Joel, he's sort of an exotic mix of Asian and Latino. If we had to compare him to someone as a visual, he sort of looks like Dean Kane, the fella who played Superman on a television program a while ago. Well anyway, when we rung the doorbell and Joel came down to answer it, Elizabeth just got all giddy. This doesn't happen to her quite often and it doesn't last very long, but while it does, it's really quite the sight. She gets all funny and stuff. It's all in great innocence.

hehe.

Anyway, the graduation celebrations went really well especially meeting up with some of the Aunties and cousins again. It always is. I've been trying to find a common thread through all the experiences we had over the couple of days to record for this here memory book, but instead, I think I came away with glimpses of short conversations and events that are just plain nice.

Item - During a boat trip along the Charles River, we had a chance to catch up with Daniel. He's one of the youngest and certainly, one of the most talkative, which is quite excellent, cause we always come away with a great lasting effect with our conversations with him. Daniel's actually an aspiring actor and I remember watching videotapes of his performances -- he's very talented. In a weird and empathetic way, he reminds me of myself when I was younger. Not that I was an aspiring actor (I wanted to be, I wish I had the courage). But, he comes off as being very innocent and playful in nature, but he's a lot more than that. He's possibly the best at reading other people. We know this. And he probably knows that we know this.

Hmm.. anyway. We have this old digital answering machine that is now retired and just sits on the shelf. We erased all the messages on there except 2 messages that Daniel left us on Sept 11, 2001 asking if we were alright.

Item - Joel is like, really really intelligent. In a way, I wish I was more like him.

Item - My relatives grew up in San Francisco whereas my sister and I grew up in New York City. We've always been family, but needless to say, we weren't in each other's daily lives. I've always wondered about the nature versus nurture controversy regarding behaviors -- whether certain behaviors are biologically inherited or actually learned. On our last day there, we all joined together at Joel and Felicia's new condo (nice place). I've come to realize that to a certain degree that I probably gained my sense of humor from this side of the family. We all cracked jokes and all laughed a lot and I know that my sense of humor is one that may be unorthodox at times -- one either loves it, or hates it. And apparently, the unorthodox sense of humor is quite common among most of the family present there. Nature definitely. Nature.

It was memorable.