monkey nonsense

i remember when i was a kid, our family would always participate in the annual “twin oaks” festival. i’m not sure what it was exactly we were celebrating, but it was sort of like a cultural fair that a lot of the chinese schools participated in. i just remember having to create a game for the little kiddies (remember toss the ball through the fruit game?! how is that really teaching chinese culture?…) oh oh! and the year that i, for the ONLY time in my life, beat my sister at a drawing contest. i drew pigs…. she drew a landscape of the twin oaks estate. mine (i was probably 8.) looked like a 5 year old drew it. hers (she was probably age 11) looked like an adult drew it. after entering our drawings in the contest, we had to draw a piece of paper. mine was randomly marked… so i won!! anyways….

they always gave one “goodie bag” per person… and inside the goodie bag would be a drink, a cheap plastic toy, a fruit, and a bag of combos! i remember this was the highlight every year. me and my sister would get all excited about the combos! whether it was because she couldn’t find them or she just didn’t think to buy them, my mom never bought combos. she bought all sorts of snacks when i was a kid, but never combos! so to get that bag of combos from twin oaks was great! it was like a treat for the year.

after my cousin hsi-yun’s wedding this year, i ended up going to valhalla to spend the night with my sister. in the morning, we were in a rush to go see her friend run a marathon so we didn’t have time to eat breakfast (not that i’m a big fan of breakfast food). as we were leaving, my sister asked me if i wanted any breakfast combo. i was surprised… i thought we were in a rush and here she was offering to make me a breakfast combo, like a full-service diner or IHOP! eggs and sausage? bacon and sausage? turns out she was just offering me some combos! she seemed to have started a habit of eating those tasty snacks as breakfast!

this morning, my tummy was ‘a rumbling. i woke up late so i was running late and didn’t have time to grab anything on my way in. so i went to get a snack from the vending machine. to my surprise, they had combos! i bought a bag of the cheddar cheese pretzel combos! what a delicious breakfast! great idea, jie!