On the death of your loved ones

“There’s a club, the dead dads club. And you can’t be in it, ’till you’re in it.” Grey’s Anatomy’s quotes are almost always on point, but out of the hundreds quotes the show shared during its 10 years of airtime, this one stays with me the most. When my father died, I thought I would

5 Things That I Learned a Little Too Late

A friend of mine sent a cute gift in the form of Conversation Starter cards for couples. There are 100 cards with different open-ended questions, supposedly to start deep conversations. Honestly, I think you can use it with a group of friends too, although the questions might be a little too private. One of the

Photo Diary: Snowy Boston

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So This is Christmas

As I wrote Christmas cards for our friends and families this year, I kept repeating “this year has been a crazy one” and alternated it with “this has been an unusual year”. After a while, I paused and was a little annoyed with myself. But no matter how hard I tried, “this has been an

On Making a Home

When I studied in Japan, I stayed in a dorm of 18 students, ran by a Japanese family. We called the Sugimoto family okaasan and otousan, literally translates to “mom” and “dad”. I remember okaasan as a very strict figure. My relationship with her was complicated as often times, I saw her as a bully.