Nanna's Handkerchiefs

It's been a while since we've updated, but I wrote this a few weeks back. Please forgive me!


While I was home on vacation in Maryland, my mom let me pick out some of my Nanna’s handkerchiefs that she got when she moved Nanna into a nursing home. They are beautiful, vintage, colorfully embroidered handkerchiefs that are still in pristine condition. My Nanna was always a well-taken care of lady. She always had to have her hair “just so” and if anyone ever inquired about her age, she would coyly answer, “I’m 39-plus”. She still gave this answer even when her face began to sag and her hands began to shrivel.

When we were kids, we’d visit our Nanna and Bompa in their house in San Francisco. Although it was a small house, we never tired of all the nooks and crannies that begged to be investigated. Nanna was old school. She never owned a clothes dryer or dishwasher and fought with all her might against getting a microwave or garage door opener. Nanna and Bompa owned just about every National Geographic magazine ever printed and we would go down into the basement to crack open the crusted, yellowed pages to see the monkeys of Burma, or the hill-tribe people of Thailand. My favorite discovery that I made in Nanna’s basement was the Re-Gift Cupboard. I am pretty sure that any time Nanna and Bompa received a present that they didn’t want or need, they’d put the object into this cupboard and stock up until a holiday or birthday came around. From this cupboard, we received very strange presents, definitely not intended for children. Letter openers, a pen, monogrammed handkerchiefs, and a thick-handled magnifying glass were some of the gifts we received from this cupboard. I would visit the cupboard from time to time, just to check on the inventory. Nanna also had an assortment of plants throughout her neat little house. I always noticed that they seemed much shinier than my mom’s plants and I asked her about it one time. She beckoned me over to her and whispered her secret into my ear. “I smear a touch of mayonnaise around each leaf and that really makes them shine!”

I saw Nanna the day before Aaron and I left for Taiwan and she was a little bit tired looking, but she was her old self-funny as ever, stubborn, warm and loving. While we were gone for a year, she had a series of mini-strokes and dementia slowly took over her mind. After many trips to California, tears, conversations with family, and tough decisions, Bompa informed my mom and uncles that they needed to be taken care of full-time in a nursing home.

Every time I visit Nanna I almost don’t recognize her. I never thought my own grandma would be one of those sad old ladies in the nursing home who doesn’t know where they are or why they’re there. Her decline has taken a toll on all of us, but especially Bompa. He is in his mid-90’s and although he’s very tired, he’s very much mentally there. Bompa worries about Nanna all the time, and he is heartbroken that he’s slowly losing the love of his life. Nanna lost a lot of weight and her formerly wavy hairdo has fallen to her shoulders in a straight, limp mess. Because their stages of health are so different, Nanna and Bompa have rooms on different floors of the facilities and Bompa tries to see Nanna every day but admits that it’s hard to see her declining so rapidly. When The Notebook came out, I thought it was a nice story but I never thought I’d be witnessing a love like that with my own grandparents.

Although Nanna was confused and a little delusional when we visited for Thanksgiving, she never failed to offer me food or something to drink. Taking care of people is so innate for her that I don’t think she’ll ever lose that instinct.

I think it’s strange that ladies used to keep handkerchiefs in their purses to blow their noses and stuff, but when my mom gave them to me, she said that they were to catch the tears. I think there are about six in all, each one so different and varying in color and pattern. As many weaknesses as Nanna had (she was so stubborn and maybe a little spoiled), no one that knew her could argue that she is possibly one of the most colorful people they’d ever known. Nanna had a big heart and always yearned to take care of people all around her, from the gays on Stockton Street in downtown San Francisco when she volunteered with the health van, to my ragged high school friends when we spent a long weekend at her house, to the ducks that knew where to get the good crumbs on her back porch. I will keep a couple ‘kerchiefs in my purse, just to remind me of Nanna and just in case someone around me gets a little weepy.

Another blog?

Yes siree...I have just launched a blog for my photo business, Rika Fotografia. The Facebook page just went out too, so make sure you "like" that, okay?

Read my current post on Rika Fotografia for free design downloads. And just 'cause some of you are asking, yes, the Rikon Expedition will continue. We'll just blog here on a more personal level.

While I'm on the blog note, I wanted to highlight a few of my fav blogs of people I know. Ed and Jaela have started a blog called "Marriage Flavors", and has discussion on various aspects of marital life. The most recent one asks the question on whether it's okay to have close friends of the opposite gender after you're married. Interesting.

Another blog that I just discovered follows a couple of my friends from Southern on their year-long quest to travel the world. I got hooked on it over the break and have been trying to get my travel fix vicariously through these wild guys! It's called the wholeworldround. Right now, the two guys, Jeremy and Bjorn are in China on their way to Siberia. So rad! On part of this trip that I think is great, is that these guys take time in some of their travels to do mission work.

Although this guy doesn't blog super often, his photos are absolutely incredible. I went to high school with Brandon and he's just totally taken the fashion photography world in the northwest by storm. He's also shot a few of our classmates' weddings and the photos take your breath away. His photos are intimate, a little vintage-y, funky, beautiful. Check him out, his name is Brandon Witzel! Update: I just talked to Brandon and he wants to make sure I let you know he's a wedding photographer. So go get him! Wedding Photographer man!

On a totally different note, I can't forget to mention a friend from college, Daniel, who is currently battling cancer, and has been for the last few years. His blog, Precision Points chronicles his treatments, his thoughts, and his faith. Daniel is such an inspiration and I get shivers reading some of his thoughts, such as how it feels when a seizure is about to hit, and all the raw fruits and vegetables he blends to treat his cancer with all forces possible. I did an audio documentary of Daniel and his wife Logan a few years ago and he is probably one of the strongest people I know.

The last blog that I'm highlighting on this slow Sunday evening always brings colorful inspiration to my life. Joy Nudd is the author of the Cobblestone Rue blog, which features very cute, modern styles for life. Joy was my boss/friend when I did my photography internship during my senior year of college. Joy is incredibly talented in business, marketing, hunting down great finds on the internet, and being a fantastic mom to her two adorable girls.

If you haven't yet, you should definitely add these blogs to your Reader.

A tribute to vacation!

Blog:

Christmas Break and then some:

I love working in education because we get nice long breaks. None of this “3 weeks a year” of vacation business. As soon as the kids left Rio, our minds were flooded with ideas and possibilities of things to do. Even though we were stuck with miserable, rainy weather, we still dreamt of setting up a dark room, turning some wooden bowls, visiting old friends, going Christmas shopping! I even had time to take a much-needed CPR class for work as well as work on my upcoming website.

After a week of doing random things around the house and town, (btw, Aaron set up a sweet sound system that goes through our house. We can even control the song and volume through our phones, which are attached somehow wirelessly to the computer which is attached to the tv, which is attached to the speakers. Don’t ask me how-he’s a miracle worker!), we decided to spend the day in San Francisco to check out the Christmas Eve action in the City. We went to the Exploratorium, which I used to visit as a kid, and Aaron got to experience it for the very first time. However, the museum closed several hours early, and our only other appointment that day was the midnight mass service at Grace Cathedral. We had SO much time to kill. So we went down town, and went to the mall like a couple of teenagers, then went to look at the ice skating rink in Union Square, then attempted to eat at the Cheesecake Factory at the top of Macy’s, and were rejected due to the 120 minute wait.

We eventually found some food and went to kill some time at a café and found ourselves at the only open espresso bar in the area which happened to also be a hookah bar. We did not partake of the hookah but it was rather entertaining and maybe slightly ironic to be spending Christmas Eve with a bunch of Middle Eastern guys smoking the hookah. Actually, it was awesome.

And so was midnight mass. So glorious! All the instruments and singers were in tune and their tones rose to the heights of the massive cathedral. It was very heartwarming, especially since we’d spend the entire next day, Christmas Day, traveling.

I love going home. I love my family and our rebellion against tradition. We opened presents one day late and had a big big Kwanzaa brunch to celebrate the day that none of us know anything about. We also brought with us a couple of kids from China, who are juniors at our school, so that they could experience the culture and entertainment of a “typical” American family. Or rather, that we could have an extra element of entertainment.

We took the kids almost every day to downtown DC to see the monuments, museums, trains planes and automobiles. We took them ice skating, shopping, and out to eat. Lucky kids!

My mom decided to start a new tradition this year of taking her favorite daughter (me!) to a spa for a facial. Wow! Mom, my face is still thanking you. We had some really great bonding time in between shopping and entertaining people and my parents remodeling their bathroom.

I got to see old friends-Juan Pablo Ariza and his lovely new wife, Erica. They are super cool and are changing the world for the better. I’ve known Pablo since 2nd grade and I’m always astounded at how grown up he is. He’s going to be a pastor, and will such a good one. I also got to see one of my best friends in the world, Ansley, who is another world changer. She’s studying public health/nurse practitioning/mid-wifery at Emery in Atlanta and not only is she a selfless, giving beautiful person, but she’s a lot of fun too. We ran all over DC area going to the Newseum, sampling coffee, trading in movie tickets for later times, and tasting delicious cupcakes. She is definitely one of those BFF, buy a friendship necklace, call up anytime kind of friends. Ansley, I love you and one day is not enough to catch up!

One of the best parts of this little vacation was our Gemmell music day. The 3 of us did music for church and then we had the 2011 Gemmell House Concert, where we had about 40 people show up and many of them performed. Random, unplanned, interesting, crazy. Technical difficulties have momentarily prevented these performances from being uploaded to youtube.

I love vacation! But I do have to say, it’s good to be home and surrounded by teenage boys who think it’s a treat to eat my burnt attempts at sweet potato fries.

Merry Christmas!!!~Meyer Newsletter 2010

Hi!

Some of you have recently received a Merry Christmas card either in the mail or handed to you. I think less and less people are doing newsletters and those have always been a pivotal part of the holiday season for me, so I don't want to let this tradition die. However, as postage is increasing, it's not always a financially viable task to mail out 100+ cards. So, lucky you-you get a postcard and a blog post!

A lot has happened over the last year, not just to Aaron and I, but to you too. It's hard to believe that it's been an entire year since we set off from the USA after getting married and moving to Asia. For those of you who haven't been following the blog, I'm going to insert some hyper links for you to relive some of those times. In a nutshell though, we moved to a rural town about 20 minutes outside of Taipei and lived in a high-rise apartment that was fully furnished yet still lacked the modern-American amenities such as a clothes dryer, dishwasher, and oven. We unpacked our two suitcases into our sweet pad and began a life filled with communication errors, exciting adventures, cultural misunderstandings, and just all around fun. Here's where we were for Christmas 1 year ago.

Soon after we arrived in Taiwan and started work, we were dismissed from work to have a holiday over most of January and part of February in celebration of Chinese New Year. Everything in Taiwan shuts down, down to almost every last grocery store so generally it's just a good idea to skip town. And skip town we did. We flew to Thailand for a grand adventure where we scuba dived, rode elephants, made friends with hippies, and did lots of laying on the beautiful beaches. We rode a train that broke down several times and I got bitten up by fleas. We surveyed the beautiful gold Buddhist temples and got taken for a ride (literally) by a money-hungry taxi driver. Vacation was exhausting and we were happy to be back for the last few days of Chinese New Year in Taiwan, only to find that the grocery stores were still closed.

In March, our English school finally opened after all the preparation and planning that we had all done. We had a grand opening a couple weeks after letting our first kids come and had local celebrities and talent attend. It was a big deal for Taipei County to have an outdoor school that not only teaches about nature, but also gives all public schools a week-long crash course in English. So Aaron, and I, and two other English teachers along with four Taiwanese staff ran English camp for one week at a time. Then we would rest for a week...yep, a whole week, while another team did the same thing. And we did this until leaving in August.

On our weeks off, we would travel or mostly just go on day trips to Taipei City or the surrounding areas. We never grew tired of all the cultural differences and challenges and really came to love the country and all the people who befriended us along the way. Read why I still love Taiwan HERE>. We began to get into vintage photography, and Aaron made friends with some local "herpers" and they would go snake hunting (only to look, not to kill) in the nights as the weather began to warm up. We also began our search for jobs in the States and had no idea as to what the future could hold.

We got the call to Rio in May and within days had booked our tickets to go interview for the weekend. Three days, two flights of 14+ hours, and one long interview, and Aaron had secured the job as Assistant Boys Dean for the 2010-2011 year. What a relief to have security at a really great and thriving school! We moved in August and Aaron started work while I, and my brothers and brothers-in-law, drove across the country with all our junk in tow.

Aaron is such a natural as a dean-even and mild mannered, good leader, strong, and he loves those guys. We live next to the lobby of the boys dorm and our apartment is open to the guys, and they hang out and eat and we really love it. For Aaron's birthday, we celebrated by getting a dog named Bam-Bam. (you can see in our christmas pic that he is so patient with us and I kept trying to see how many clothes and accessories he'd tolerate.) Bam is WONDERFUL! AW!

I have since found work at a local Boys and Girls Club and also do freelance writing and photography. I am launching my own portrait and weddings business in January and hope to keep meeting people in the Healdsburg community, because it's just a fabulous place to live!

We are having a blast and are so very blessed and thankful that God has really led us through it all. Really though, you need to visit. We have a hotel room across the hall from us with a private bath and it's at least 3 stars. And free...for you only. Please keep in touch and let us know what you're up to.

Love,

Rika and Aaron and Bam

Learning how to say Thanks.

Aaron and I went out on a date last night and ended up finding this cafe in downtown Healdsburg. It was freezing and I really just wanted some hot soup. We drove around, parked, then stumbled into the low lit and empty cafe on the corner and were relieved to find that it was open. We saw some couches in the corner and the nice hippie guy let us sit down with our menus. Soup was at the top and it looked delicious!

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving, for those of you who missed out on that news. We went and spent it with family and it was really nice. Luckily, we didn't go around the table and say what we were thankful for because that's so awkward, and really, everyone just wants to eat anyway. We played football with the kids and launched rockets that scared our dog half to death, and we finished up the dinner with pumpkin pie and charades. A good day.

We were pretty tired after all the festivities and decided to drive back home the next morning, and get a little relaxation time before the kids came back. Feeling really lazy on Saturday morning, we threw on semi-church clothes (I still wore my house slippers), and walked across the street to church to see if anyone showed up. There was a small gathering of faculty families and we studied about the 10 lepers in Luke and how only one actually came back to say thanks to Jesus. I was really struck by the other guys' sense of entitlement. Like Jesus was just a can of miracles, and all they had to do was pop it open and redeem their prize, and then just keep going about their business. But the last guy's heart was stirred in a way that he couldn't keep still and was just uncontrollably overwhelmed with a sense of thanksgiving and amazement that he jumped for joy and fell at the feet of Jesus and said Thank You a million times over.

I totally feel like those 9 guys, most days. I feel really entitled to all these "blessings" I even have to put quotes around blessings because honestly, it seems like a stretch to call every day things that I am authentically entitled to, "blessings". And what's wrong with this? Why should I have to be thankful for a hot shower, a warm bed, a loving husband, or a nice home? Didn't I work for these things? Don't I deserve this after all I've done?

The answer, of course, is yes-I sure do need to be thankful for this stuff! It gets so easy to complain about all the stuff going wrong in my life that I miss out on savoring the good stuff. Which brings me back to the Cafe Gratitude place. The whole theme of the place is thankfulness, and recognizing all the ways that you are blessed. There's even a box of questions on every table that asks insightful things like, "How do you take care of your body?", "Name three people who have been there for you in the past year", and "What are some things that you have that you don't deserve?"...etc. And as strange and slightly cheesy as it was, it did make us very grateful at the time, especially for the surprise that the soup came out cold, and we figured out that this cafe was one of those raw restaurants. But instead of grumbling, the theme had already set into our bones and we devoured our cold buckwheat-crusted "pizza" topped with pesto, tomato and cashew ricotta. Instead of feeling gypped for not getting hot greasy food, we kept exclaiming how healthy we felt after eating each bite.

Here's just a short list of things I'm saying Thank You for:

-healthy and loving family
-that Aaron comes from such a great family
-we are really happy here
-we love our jobs
-we get paid to love people
-we get to go home for Christmas
-we don't have immediate uncertainty about anything (which is how we've lived for the past 3 years)
-we have a warm bed, hot shower, cute dog, piano, tv, food
-we live in a beautiful place
-we have people who regularly encourage and support us
=facebook. i'm really thankful for facebook!
-we have health insurance
-we are led and loved by God-and that is all we need

Shooting up the town

Some of you may not know that I'm attempting to become a photographer. As frustrating as it can be to start a business in this economy, I've been having the feeling (well, really for most of my life), that I would not want to work for anyone else but myself. In an attempt to get there, I'll be launching the first part of my business, Rika Fotografia, in the beginning of 2011. So in preparation for that leap, I've been shooting local families, seniors, and friends for discounted rates to build my local portfolio. And holy cow! I haven't done that many family portraits before! It's a new and super fun challenge! So watch and listen for news of my mobile studio. Because, hey! I studied photography in college, dang it! It's about time I really used it! I'm not just one of those people who has a camera and newly discovered this art after taking lots of pictures of her dog and got inspired. Okay, I'm climbing off my soap box. (no offense to all you newly inspired photographers). Anywho, I've always loved shooting people most of all and hope to do it forever! Here's a preview of what's been happening-more to come!

From Portfolio

From Portfolio

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A Break!

This is the B&B we stayed at! It's over 100 years old.



All of us need a break every now and then. Especially the people who live in a highly social, intense environment, such as a boarding school. The last few weeks, we’ve all been a little more short with each other. The girls in my study hall have been messy and slacking off more and I’ve definitely snapped at a couple and banded food from our rec room where we study. The kids haven’t had as much energy lately, and walk around with these long, tired faces, desperate for a break of some kind. And now, we are sitting in this quiet dorm, waiting for the last couple of boys to leave, before we can all experience a little relief from each other and renewed energy.

Let me back up just a little, because I do realize it’s been ages since I’ve updated the blog, and hopefully this will offer you a bit of an explanation why. About a month ago, I was hired to work at the Boys & Girls Club of Windsor. (hurray! I got a job!) What a relief to have a reason to get dressed in the morning and get out of bed before 10 am! It doesn’t pay that hot, but hey, I get to work for a great cause, and it’s only 4 or 5 hours a day, leaving me time to work on my other projects. The work that I do there is mostly a kid-wrangler. We have 250+ 1st-8th graders and we do everything from tutoring them, to teaching activities, to entertainment, to mentoring. Actually, it’s pretty similar to our English Wilderness teaching jobs in Taiwan, only it’s half the day and we all speak the same language for the most part. I need to brush up on my Espanol!

About the time that I was hired, I also got a call to help launch the Healdsburg branch of Patch.com. For those of you who don’t know about Patch, it’s a hyperlocal approach to journalism, sort of like an online community newspaper. I was hired on as a freelance photographer and slowly started taking on more projects and am now a columnist! We launch Nov. 30, and I get paid to go to parties and events and take pictures!

I’ve also been helping the school with some articles and publication photography for the website as well as a future redesign of the marketing materials that they give out to prospective students. I’ve been trying to build my portfolio in order to launch my photo business by January 2011. (more of that later).

So wow, I have been so so busy! Aaron thinks I don’t know when to stop. Busy-ness is addictive and I love to say that magic word, “YES”, to all these great ideas that come my way. But I think I’m just about at my limit and I hope it starts to settle down a little. A few weeks ago, after a bit of rough patches in the dorm, Aaron and I decided to take a 24-hour vacation to the coast and we stayed at this Bed & Breakfast just yards away from the sea. It was so nice to be able to have no interruptions from people, and we had no cell service or WI-FI so we couldn’t be distracted by our iPhones. So peaceful. Now I hope this coming week off will bring a little more of that serenity. Because we want to give of ourselves to our kids here, but we need to be filled again to have the capacity to do that.