Generations

We are blessed with the birth of our baby, Maya Catalina Lulu Tu. She’s wonderful and we are more than ecstatic. Rachel was a champ throughout labor and have endured more than I would have. Rachel had to have an emergency C-section because Maya was breached. The expert staff at Torrance Memorial was really nice and helped us throughout labor and eventually recovery.

Tonight 9/28/11 after sundown, the Jewish New Year ( Rosh Hashana ) begins! The shofar, a ram’s horn, is blown to ring in the new year.

L’shanah Tovah is the greeting that everyone uses and it means “For a good year”. Tomorrow Rachel and I will be joining her parents at Temple Beth El for services.

So Uncle Wayne has just sent us his first promised newsletter update from Taiwan. In it, he describes his new lifestyle, one that seemingly revolves around purchasing new things for his place instead of the imagined singing, fishing, strolling, and picture-taking, well, at least for the time being. The update has this wonderful line, quote: “I heard the Indian family who bought my Edison house was recently burgerized.” I was shocked because, due to a typo, the sentence suggests that the whole family seems to have been maliciously turned into burgers (I guess that is what “to burgerize” means).

I also realized now that it is September and that our multi-year family tradition of large reunions are officially over.

Encouraged by James and his desire that these pages therein will contain our family chronicle, I will blog about recent developments. It has already a little more than a month that I am working at G&W laboratories, the phramaceutical company from which Uncle Wayne retired today. It has been quite pleasant, especially the people. I do miss New York City though, I realized, primarily seeing other humans on sidewalks. While walking to the library here in South Brunswick, all I see are headlights from cars and rarely hear the sounds of quick footsteps or loud conversations on cellphones.

My sister has returned for her final year of college just as Remus is also headed for his first year of college. She recently, around a week ago, took the MCAT. I guess that means it is official that the cousins in our family are all grown up.

It’s been about a month and a half since I’ve been here. I have a bit of a farmer’s tan. Have been getting use to driving and navigating parts of Redondo Beach and the adjacent cities in the county of Los Angeles. Played some volleyball with a group I found on a social meetup website.

I’m settling in nicely here but I do miss my family. We’ve been keeping up with phone calls and occasional FaceTime or Skype video chats. Have used the cameras on my iPhone and iPad to give people virtual tours of our apartment.

Rachel is 31 weeks this week. I can’t believe that we have about two months left before the baby arrives. She’s still cute little Rachel with a big belly. She’s been feeling a lot of kicks lately and I’ve experienced them too when she holds my hand against her belly. I can’t believe that in two months our lives will really change dramatically.

We’re lucky to be here, close to her parents. I think without family support, mentally and physically, it will be a lot harder. Isn’t that the way people use to do it. Families stayed close to each other. I hope to provide the best environment for our little one.

I also have started a new personal blog via Gmail on Blogspot. The link is: http://ceffyldwramcymru.blogspot.com/
Based on James’ advice about choosing a quote from literature, I chose the title from a passage in Tennyson’s Tithonus.