Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Saturday morning cup

That first sip of coffee on a Saturday morning is the absolute best. It’s the weekend, and I have no concrete plans to be anywhere (certainly not work). That alone makes the coffee taste extra sweet. The rest of the day can wait; let me finish my cup of coffee first.

Mind you this coffee isn’t some fancy pour-over stuff that I’ve painstakingly measured-out to make. I don’t want to invest the time to grind fresh beans, and boil water to an exact temperature. The coffee I drink is simply K-Cup pods from San Francisco Bay Coffee (Costco has them in boxes). That’s right: it’s made on a Keurig machine, nice and easy. The coffee coming out of it tastes just fine.

Not to say I’m unable to savor a well-made “artisanal” cup. I simply don’t want to do it myself. If a gourmet cafe wants to open up at the nearby mall, that would be lovely (currently, there’s only a Peet’s and Starbucks). I definitely would walk the five minutes to have a freshly-made cup of coffee (of the non-franchise variety). Maybe sit down to read a book while I’m carefully sipping it down.

But no! Instead of a nice coffee shop, a bowling alley is coming to the mall. That does nothing to improve my Saturday mornings! Granted, we will for sure patronize that establishment on certain evenings. I haven’t gone bowling since Serra Bowl was still in business.

Alright, cup of coffee is finished. Time to get onto weekend business.

It's cozy season!

It’s gotten properly cold in the mornings around here, well into the 40s. It makes getting out of the warm and toasty bed incredibly difficult. I wake up well before I actually have to go to work, so the impetus of leaving the bed is totally up to me. There are indeed days I succumb to hedonistic incentives and simply stay in bed until I actually do have to get ready for work. Especially so during the winter months.

But not today! Because here I am typing this out this morning, with a hot cup of coffee as fuel. A woman walking her dog just passed by outside my window. She was reading a book while doing so, which is kind of weird because shouldn’t you be focused on the actual task? I guess it’s slightly better than staring at a smartphone that everybody else does. It’s a cool and crisp morning! Look up and take in the fresh air instead.

Having a pet dog does keep you honest about keeping a consistent schedule of going outside. That bit of exercise - three times a day - benefits the dog and the owner. I think if you’re stressed or otherwise in need of some movement in your life, adopting a dog from a shelter is as much of a win-win situation as there is. You can never have a bad day when you see the incessant joy a dog has when you come home.

Sadly for me, I’m more of a cat person. Nor do I have space in my studio for a pet.

But shoutout to the morning dog walkers! It cannot be easy leaving the warm cocoon of home and having to put on thick layers. People without pets like myself struggle to even get out of bed. I do love this winter weather though. As the kids say these days, it’s cozy SZN!

Weekend routine

Saturday mornings are the best. I wake up well-rested because I got to sleep in. Mind you that means waking up at around 8:00AM instead of the usual 6:30. Even if I wanted to, my body won’t allow me to sleep deep into the morning like before. Unless of course I absolutely had a very late night on Friday, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone out on a Friday. What with the pandemic and everything.

Upon waking up, I head straight for the iPhone. Not to browse twitter, because I’ve deleted that app from my phone (it’s the only New Year’s resolution I have). Instead, it’s the McDonals app. I’m ordering breakfast before I take the leisure stroll to the mall that’s three blocks away. Buy one get one free of the breakfast sandwich is always a good deal.

The walk is super lovely. Blues skies, early sunshine, and breaths of fresh air. There’s not a worry in the world. Because it’s Saturday; the Sunday evening panic won’t arrive for another earthly rotation. So I’m the calmest I can be over the two days of the weekend. Errands can be done later. My friends are still in bed at such an early hour. The Saturday morning is sacred, and mine alone.

I see grocery shoppers heading into Trader Joe’s. A silent high-five to fellow early risers. As I grab my order from McDonalds, I notice a woman also getting breakfast to go. However, she’s not heading home, but rather she’s off to work. McDonalds is the reward, a treat for herself before she has to face the arduous work day. I silently wish her well, and count myself lucky to have a job with proper weekends off.

So I can have these Saturday mornings.

People watching

Shoutout to the early-risers. As I type these blog posts out on (weekday) mornings, I greatly enjoy the view out of the window of people who are up as early as I am (about 6:30 AM is when I begin typing). Some are on their way to a slogging commute, and others are simply walking their dogs. Whatever the reason, it’s a kindred spirit of people who wake up early, an empathetic bond.

I just wish some of them would get their heads out of their smartphones. Look around! Take in the morning air! Listen to the birds!

The quiet hours in the morning radiates a calm that I relish very much. The theatre of the color change as the sky turns from dark to light is rather magical. It’s best observed with a cup of coffee, or whichever morning beverage of your choice. The only trouble is getting up early, because it means going to sleep early as well. I’m lucky to have a choice; I have two hours to myself before I even have to think about leaving for work. Kudos to those who must get out of bed at an ungodly hour because of work. You folks are the true morning warriors.

Yesterday’s morning sky was slightly ominous as there was an orange tinge to the morning sun. Alas, the smoke from the wildfires burning to the east have finally made their way to our coastal enclave. In what has sadly become a yearly tradition, wildfire season brings horrible air quality to much of northern California. Good thing we’ve been accustomed to wearing masks, thanks to the COVID pandemic. I guess it’s time to mask back up whenever I’m outdoors again.

Somewhat coincidently, my Coway air purifiers alerted me to needing to change the odor filter. In the process I’m reminded of how important it is to have this purifier, because the HEPA filter - not due for a change for another six months - already looks kind of horrible. It’s definitely doing the job, and I’m counting on this thing to get me through fire season and beyond.

Waking on time

It’s been, what, two months since the clock moved forward an hour for daylight saving time? It has taken that long for me to finally readjust my sleeping schedule. For the past two months, I’ve been content with not setting an alarm, and letting myself wake up whenever. Usually that occurs at around 6:30AM, about half and hour later than my usual 6AM alarm. On certain mornings it would be past 7 o’clock. Must have been tiring days prior.

Well, the natural wake experiment is over. Due to my tendency of scrolling through twitter in bed for at least half an hour, waking up just whenever is costing me time. The obviously solution would be to stop reading twitter in bed, instead of waking up earlier, but that’s far too logical and prudent for me. I enjoy my morning twitter read, the equivalent of reading the delivered newspaper every day.

But I also miss being up during the tranquil hours of early morning. On both days this past weekend, I forced myself up right at 6AM for various activities. Being up and active during those ungodly hours, while everyone else is still sound asleep, is the magic of having an early sleep-wake schedule. Nothing better than reading a book in absolute silence with a cup of coffee in hand, while the view outside the window does it morning color dance. Or a stroll through San Francisco chinatown before any shop have even opened.

This is why I’ve once again set an alarm clock for 6AM - everyday. No more “sleeping in”; morning hours shall be utilized to the maximum. The past few days I got my hour of daily reading in before I moved on to breakfast. It’s really nice.

Precious times

They say time is the most valuable asset we have, and we should try our best to not squander any of it. Sounds great on paper, but have these people ever try to get out of a warm bed in the morning? The eternal fight between the comfort and protection of the covers, and the dreadful cold of a morning bedroom. Keep the heat on during the night? I’m too Asian and not rich enough for that.

Instead of getting out of the bed promptly after wake, I waste about an hour scrolling through twitter on the phone. Having my phone within reach of the bed is probably one of my worst habits, but I simply don’t have the willpower to quit. Reading through twitter in the morning is like reading the morning newspaper for people back before the times of the Internet. It’s informational and entertainment. The real enemy is infinite scrolling: there’s no natural stopping point, unlike an actual newspaper. The dopamine drip can be as endless as your capability to stay in bed.

The productive thing to do would be to actually get out of the bed, and then check twitter on the MacBook Pro. This preserves the value of checking the news in the morning, but crucially, it also gets me out of bed. Crossing the physical barrier is what releases me from the intense hold of that warm cover. Back when I lived with my parents, feeding the cat was what got me out of bed immediately. I think I need something similar to that to serve the same purpose.

Ultimately, I can’t be wasting an hour plus stuck in the bed every morning. What’s the point of waking up so early if I’m just going to squander away those precious morning hours? Perhaps it is time: I shall charge my phone overnight on the drawer across the room. I’d have to get up and out just to turn off the alarm.

No Internet for early man

Yesterday morning I woke up to the home WIFI not working. Because I rent, and all utilities are included, I don’t control nor have access to the Internet modem. I’m an incredibly early riser, so I wasn’t about to wake up my friend and landlord upstairs at 6:30 AM in the morning, just so I can have Internet. It will have to wait until he has woken up, and realizes the WIFI connection has stopped.

At least I still had cellular network on my iPhone. I can never quit you, twitter!

It turns out I didn’t really need the Internet for the first two hours of my morning. Indeed, I did use my phone to check the socials for a bit. After that, I didn’t bother to tether the phone to the MacBook Pro, even though I could (my cellular plan is unlimited). Lacking an Internet connection, I wrote my morning blog in Microsoft Word instead of directly onto the Squarespace CMS, as I am doing now. And then I read a book until breakfast.

The Internet has given us many wonderful things; it’s good to be reminded that I don’t have to be completely reliant on it to function normally. My morning didn’t get ruined just because the WIFI was down. It reminds me back when I lived with my parents, when I was in charge of the home Internet. Whenever the system was down, I’d immediately get a knock on my door from my parents informing me of such. As if they couldn’t bare to be without connectivity for one minute.

Sometimes I would wryly retort that they should go read a book, or do something non-digital (have a conversation with each other, perhaps). Not having Internet for the 10 minutes it takes for the modem to reboot is going to be just fine. Take a breath! At home we either stare at our phone or the computer screen constantly, so it’s good to have breaks from it from time to time. Even if said break is induced by nonfunctioning equipment.