The Two Whos

Recently, as Cece bought some stamps at Walgreens , she was greeted by a very young cashier.  She was about 20 and was a very beautiful Hispanic woman.  Beautiful eyes, dark  makeup…hair pulled back in a lovely knot…in looking further…all dressed in black and goth- like…black nails, choker…….with a radiant smile.  Cece has to explain to Yun what Goth is.  Otherwise, Yun would not have the faintest idea what Cece is talking about.

No one else was in line and Cece still does not recall how they started to talk about making things. (Yun thinks it is the divine intervention)  The Goth told Cece that she had made her choker…all black with silver sequins and a radical bow….that she crochets, and knits and sews…..and all this “women’s work”, in Cece’s mind, did not fit the rest of her goth image…the way she looked, her age…not quite what Cece expected!

Cece is familiar with the 20 somethings as a lot work with and for her. She knows about the phone and texting, the clothes, make up  and the vampire movies, the boyfriends, etc.

But this woman….seemed very different!  Cece asked her, “How did you come to learn all these things.  “Well,” she said, “my mom taught me to crochet, I bought a book on how to learn to knit in one day…..and Cece  jumped in …”and you learned to knit in one day!  Right? ”   ”Yes, I did.  The Goth girl smiled so broadly and confidently.  Then she told Cece, “My grandma taught me to sew and my auntie taught me more about sewing.”

Cece wrinkled her nose at the sewing  part….Goth Girl asked, “You don’t like to sew?”  Cece told the Goth about her stress about sewing…and all these partially completed quilts that her mom had left her to complete as part of  her legacy…..

The young woman asked:”What about sewing gives you stress?”  Cece told her that sewing and having to rip out stitches when making a mistake gives her stress.  She looked at Cece with a big smile. Cece said, “You’re smiling.  Do you understand this?”  She giggled and continued to smile.

She said to Cece, “Well, I just figure.  Who is perfect anyway?  Ripping  it out and putting it back in are just a part of life… and anyway, I have learned that no one really looks that closely anyway…it is me that worries…no one else does!”

Cece walked out of there feeling inspired and encouraged.  After all, who says she has to do a perfect job to enjoy something…sewing in this case.  Yun is speculating that Cece will finish her mother’s  unfinished quilts soon as her way to honor her mother and her legacy.

Cece’s new therapist?    A 20 Something Goth!  Cece will be buying lots of stamps!

However, Yun secretly hopes that Cece will not become a Goth.  Yun  is not sure she could ride her bike with a spiked collar on!  But if she turns into a Goth , so what?  She might be an even better therapist…

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

For this week’s Mid-Week Symphony, we have a cartoon for you that we discovered by chance.  The caption inside the card reads,” A Bad Day is all about Perspective.”

Cece’s mom was not a curser ( Side story:  Cece likes cursing  when she rides bike uphill while watching Yun way ahead like the ET riding in the midair.  Cece particularly likes to spell the word S H I T when going up a 13% grade — her famous cursing and spelling uphill ritual!)  ANYWAY…. Cece’s mom did curse on occasions to get  attention and to make her point.

Her favorite saying was “In life there is shit and there  is  honey…and sometimes you can’t tell the difference between the two!“  — It is all about perspectives!!!

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About The Mid-Week  Symphony: Since Wednesday is hump day, we have decided to take this moment and bronze it and have a bit of down time from the writing.  We thought each Wednesday  we would like to bring you a symphony of ideas, a harmony of thoughts, beauty, silliness and all things that make the fullness of life.  When we started this blog we wanted it to reflect our entire personalities and interests..and that means yes…. Cece loves  the Far Side Cows and Yun loves the mumble jumble philosophical books.   Yun and Cece have many interests and we would like to share some of them with you each Wednesday.

Cece learned a long while ago that she  could use cooking much the same way that a person could use play therapy or therapeutic story telling .  Cooking can  help people  access their emotions, and to work on unresolved deep issues that are  not easily solvable through regular talk therapy.  Cooking  is much less threatening and confrontational since the person doing it  is distracted by their cooking.  The cook  is also dealing with the problem indirectly as they talk with the gentle guidance from  people like Cece.  Yun thinks this should be documented as a way of therapy and presented to the international conferences. She says this almost tongue in cheek!

Cece learned this while cooking with her  own mom….then by teaching violent children and then from working side by side with several psychologists and psychiatrists who “thought outside the box.”  Here is the secret of “Tortilla Therapy”, revealed for the first time.

A while back, one day when Cece was facing a challenging  situation with one of her clients. a psychiatrist “prescribed” that Cece work with her cooking Italian food in the hopes that it would bring up the client’s unresolved  feelings about her mother.  It did just that….. and they had tears and sympathy for dinner that night…with a little lasagne on the side!

This has  became  a regular pursuit with Cece and this client.  They would talk, write recipes,  express feelings, cook and ….they have even made a cookbook.  To this day when this client wants to express, she asks Cece to come over and cook with her.  Usually it is around  the anniversary of this woman’s mom’s death.

So, when one of Cece’s clients went off the deep edge ,  got arrested and went to the mental hospital…all the while Cece is out recovering from her surgery….Cece got a call from her boss saying that “We need you to help us. I cannot get through to him.”  So the client and Cece  talked on the phone, and made a plan to make homemade tortillas the next morning for a Saturday breakfast.

There he was…early in the morning….with his apron on…. standing on the curb, waiting for Cece.  Little did he know that he will be in a “Tortilla Therapy” session with Cece.  Here is how the session went:

“He hugged me and told me he missed me…”I am glad the Doctor did not cut off your arm.” he joked.  And so we began….to gather the ingredients, measure the flour, the  crisco ….we worked it all in  and melded  all the ingredients together….the tortillas were ready to take form….

Just at about that time, with a handful of dough he was shaping, he began to tell me his story and how he felt about things he had lost and never regained…how he thought he gets worried and scared because of this…he shaped the dough and rolled a tortilla.  “I feel afraid that people will leave me and never come back to me. ”  He put the tortilla in the pan to cook…we watched the little bubbles come to the top…and flip! All his feelings bubbled up too…..all the feelings came out…. as over… and over ….he rolled out and cooked those tortillas…..one by one they were made and  cooked….more and more talking ….. and then a seeming resolution… Tortilla Therapy.  This was the beginning of his opening up…the willingness to say things never said before..never dealt with before…and we made a plan…to work on this again…this time  not with Tortillas Therapy,….but with other ways he is now ready for.”

More often than not, we take cooking as a strict  activity  to fulfill the  task of generating food.  This is a nearsighted view about cooking. There are great side benefits of cooking.  Cooking is a good place to start with people…friends, family…the act of cooking builds intimacy and  is comforting.  It can open doors that have never been opened before, it is a great way to connect with people…and don’t  forget to add in the secret ingredient and the secret product of cooking…LOVE!

Here is an easy  tortilla recipe you might like to try.  Happy “Cooking”.

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

Yun is on her mission to be beautiful.  She knows she is pretty when she has a good hair day and cares to dress up.  So, under her beauty consultant Cece’s mentoring, she has a mission: “The Beauty Project.”

Well, for a while now, she has another project going: “The Happy Project.”  We’re talking the kind of happiness that is unstoppable and unreasonable. … the kind of happiness that is totally independent of any external stimuli…  Somehow, the two  have gotten on the parallel path…

Lately, life has thrown quite a few wrenches into Yun’s  life.  A single mom and  business owner, she is running into financial challenges. Her happiness project is facing a testing…”When life is raining shit, can you be happy?”  Well, she has a few moments of down in the slump crying for the mercy of the god.

On the other hand, “The Beauty Project” is on going.  Yun bought a hot roller and the project started rolling.  Well, we did not say it started rolling smoothly. One roller in her hair here, one there…but it was not orderly or even…pins stuck out here and they stuck out there….just like things stuck out  unevenly in her life ,  the rolling had  a rough and rather a messy start…….

But she sticks to it.   After all the messiness is cleaned up, she looks good. She is as beautiful as she ever been in past days.  “Hmmm, all I need is a hot roller to get my beauty project going.  “Piece of cake!”

What does this have  to do with the her “Happy Project? ”  It turns out that what the “Happy Project” needs is something as simple as the hot roller: the hot attitude.   The hot attitude is the productive mindful attitude in the midst of challenges.  The hot attitude is the attitude Maya Angelou describes in her poem: Phenomenal Woman

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Applying the hot attitude to life  can be awkward at first, just like the unruly hot rollers can be.   But if you really stick to it, beautiful things will come out of  it.

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos

Today our blog is one month old!  Cece called Yun, in her hoarse voice (maybe in bed nursing her shoulder and added sinus infection or maybe she is at the race track….) “we have 52+ visitors today, and 234 pages viewed…”

Yun answered: “Someone just added us on their blogroll….”

For the Two Whos, this is a moment to celebrate.  When we started the blog, we had no clue what to do.  We thought we just need to write something and publish it.  Little did we know that the venture has turned into an incredible journey.  Along the way, we have become the Ms. PR (Cece), and Ms.Geek (Yun).  Since Cece and Yun are very different,  we make sure we have the Ms. vice PR (Yun) and Ms.  vice Geek (Cece) to keep the Two Whos straight….

AND we have  learned about SEO and yes, Cece has stopped dreaming about writing HTML code….

We have learned to add pics,

figured spam from ham,

got  ads on our blog

and  read into  a reader….  ….wait a minute…Cece feels this could be a Dr. Seuss Rhyme….we have somewhat learned about RSS, Follow and Do not follow, how to get that commentLuv, how to make chocolate macarons, how to do a million things with cycling water bottles from the Fat Cyclist and how to train for an Ironman in one day, how to reunite with Troy Jacobson after a much too long separation, how to avoid a pick pocket and how to exercise in 10 minutes flat, how to attract good things in life, how to be a bossy boss in pajamas, how nakedness is soulful and wise, how duke city is fixed by Chantel….and this is not to mention the hot spicyness of Dad’shouseblog! Sometimes he makes us blush!  We just figure we are cougars, hear us roar!

The Two Whos have survived a holiday, a shoulder surgery, a leaky roof , a computer crash. a dead car, new pet birds when 2 cats are the king, and two restless little boys fighting in their pajamas ..and many other when it rains it pours life’s events… Nothing has stopped us from sliding down the SEO slope, or climbing on the feedburner( if only we really knew what that was…) …often times stumbling is more accurate…  We slide and climb in pajamas and in business suits, in a sling,  in tears, in pain and in hilarious laughter, always with a cup of tea….

Along the way of sliding and climbing, we have managed to make quite some blogger friends, not too bad for the clueless Two Whos in a month:-)

We know that  to make this blog serve you and us, we still have lots to do and a long way to go: we will continue to share our lives and thoughts, we will continue to learn and grow, and will continue to ask for your support…

Thank you for your readership.  Please let us know how you like the content and structure.  We would really appreciate your honest feedback.. Oh, we just snatched the Dofollow, not sure what does that mean, but we know your comments can make us popular:-)  (Really?  How?)  So, leave your comment, and help us grow…

“Bye for Now” from The Two Whos