Older and Wiser

On friendships, meet ups, and ridiculously refreshing drinks

In high school, I was close to a group of girls, some are in the photo below. We were as tight as kin, bonded by our shared ethnicity, our nerdiness (we were all basically straight A students with practically zero experience with boys) and our desire to feel connected. We were all just girls from lower middle class families who immigrated to the U.S. at various ages and hung out throughout the four years of high school.

Can you guess which one I am? Here’s a hint: I wore the flashiest outfit…it’s my favorite color!!

On Easter Sunday afternoon, I hopped over to a cafe just ten minutes from my house to meet up with some of these friends. I may have been a complete hermit for the past decade (and certainly during the pandemic) but after reading psychologist Dr. Marisa G. Franco’s book on friendship, I was reminded that friends are essential to our overall well-being, an idea that’s hardly revolutionary but important to be reminded of. And so, I reached out my friends and asked them if they wanted to get together. To my delight, they were all for it.

I also spent a lot of time with these two girls, one of whom were not part of the ‘Asian crew’ lol

My friends Chau and Tam were already waiting at a table when I arrived. Minutes later, Vivian strolled in looking as fabulous as a headliner at a concert with her brand new baby. She, or rather we, spent most of our time ogling over the baby, who squirmed a lot but was otherwise a delightfully mellow one.

I read somewhere once that your identity is pretty much cemented by the time you’re a teen, and I could see how similar my friends are now to their high school selves. Sure, we all have jobs and kids and responsibilities and spouses and some wrinkles, but underneath we’re pretty much the same people.

During this meetup, I learned that one of us moved to Hawaii, another simply disappeared somewhere after she had a baby, one moved to the nearby town of Vancouver, Washington, and one is part owner of the very same cafe we were sitting in, Zero Degrees! All the more reason to support local (franchise) businesses. Their drinks were fancy and delicious, made better by excellent company.

Later that evening, I texted them some photos of our younger days in our group chat. My friend Tam lamented, “We were so young” to which I replied, “We are still young!” and Vivian echoed with, “Young at heart, as always.” So true. We may be women in our 40s, but we’re still the same kids hanging out in the northeast corner of our high school cafeteria giggling over boys and girl problems while taking small bites of our tasteless public school free lunch. Yes, that was us then, and this is us now.

If you’re a longtime reader of this blog, then you probably know about my love for bubble tea shops. Zero Degrees was so delightful that I couldn’t not introduce them my own kids. And so, several days later, I took them there for the first time and we ordered a Lychee Crunch and an Ube Horchata and settled in to wait by the corner, admiring the decor and the 90s themed toy vending machines and video games. When we finally had our first sip, it was absolute heaven.

I turned to my kids and said, “This is yummy, right?”

They nodded enthusiastically and fought over who got to have more sips. The jury has agreed—we will be going back to this cafe again.

Later, I learned that Zero Degrees is a small franchise with locations in eight U.S. states. So if you happen to live in a state where a cafe is located, I highly recommend paying them a visit. Is it as affordable compared to other bubble tea shops around? Nope. But is it tasty? You bet!

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Delightful Discoveries of the Week

Every post, I’ll share a few delightful things that totally made my week. Here’s a few this week:

Strawberry Passion Fruit Sandwich Cremes

If you have a Whole Foods near where you live, then run to a store and get this ASAP!!! However, there’s a chance it may not in stores anymore as it is a very limited edition cookie. But my kids and I loved this so, so much. Take it from Lily who said, “Oh my God this brings back feelings of nostalgia…from our Vietnam trip.” Yes, indeed in Vietnam we had this incredible passionfruit jam every morning at our hotel; unfortunately we haven’t been able to find passion fruit jam here in Oregon so this is the closest thing.

Oprah Winfrey on emphasizing gratitude (courtesy of James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter, which I highly recommend).

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. When you concentrate on what you have, you'll always end up having more."

SO TRUE.