Hey Elise // by Elise Hu

Even though I gave him a hard time for, oh, our entire childhood, I’m really proud of my little brother, Roger Hu. He is risking his lungs to live in frighteningly-polluted Beijing for the sake of his startup, TeeKart. TeeKart is teaming up with golf courses across China to allow golfers to book tee times online. (I’m told that’s not a widely available service in China right now.)

TeeKart held a big launch event this week at a gorgeous course on Hainan Island, China. Cousin Cary, who is the company’s CTO, took a bunch of pictures. For some reason, Roger Hu and team decided to look UTTERLY RIDICULOUS in almost all of them. I had to share a few — he’s in the orange:

I don’t even…

Maybe they were being ironic?

I guess this is to show they were tired after a long day of golfing.

Midway through our homemade version of the game Taboo, which featured disgraced politicians, sports stars and entertainers.

Feeling too lazy and overwhelmed by a short month that included returning to work after maternity leave, two trips to Miami and the heartbreaking season finale of Downton Abbey, I barely wanted to celebrate my birthday this year. Too. Tired.

It’s a definite shift from the annual norm, since for all five of the birthdays I spent in Austin, my fellow February 17th-ers  and I would throw a massive “Three-Way”  birthday bash that got bigger and more drunken with each passing year. And last year was the unforgettable (and also libation-laden) birthday week in Costa Rica.

So this was the hangover birthday year, if you will.

But my spouse Stiles still managed to make the day quite lovely by inviting a few of my favorite people over to eat brisket and birthday cake. And play a competitive team game in which we all pitched in to provide the content. And watch “classic” YouTube videos together on our big TV. (Grape lady, anyone?)

While I’m overwhelmed by life this month, I also feel overwhelmed by gratitude. My friends and family members are adventure partners, life coaches and constant inspiration. So I want to take this birthday evening to say THANK YOU:

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The presidential motorcade as it headed to the Capitol for the swearing-in.

The single best thing about living in DC is that people I love come into town frequently for one reason or another. Since presidential inaugurations only come around every four years, MANY people I love came into town at the same time. I had been training my liver for this weekend for awhile.

My only other DC inauguration experience was when I covered Bush’s first inauguration in 2001 as an intern for WFAA-TV. Attending that swearing-in ceremony was the coldest I’ve ever been. I remember getting dressed up for the Texas State Society’s Black Tie and Boots ball in the public bathroom of Belo’s DC bureau building at 13th and G.  I remember anchor Gloria Campos being in DC to anchor the coverage and wanting her scripts printed in bigger type, and how I had to help rush reporter Jim Fry into a cab so he could go do a post-parade live shot.

I remain on maternity leave, so I got to take part in this inauguration as a straight-up spectator. I skipped the weekend balls but was looking forward to the Common/T-Pain/John Legend concert since, as many of you know, Stiles loves loves LOVES Common. (BTW: Where WASN’T John Legend this weekend? Anyway.) We waited until the day before to respond to the ticket email and it was too late. Instead, we went to a delicious Indian restaurant for our 2nd anniversary dinner, seven months late. (Hey, 2012 was a little busy, okay?)

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Last sunset in Costa Rica. An amazing way to celebrate my 30th this year.

What a year. We didn’t go a moment without a GIF, said final farewells to Andy Griffith, Neil Armstrong and Big Tex (tear) and the S&Mish Fifty Shades of Grey staved off publishing’s decline. (I wasted money on two of the books before totally losing interest.) In other news, I paid more attention to Twitter outrage over the Olympics than the actual games and all my post-election day reading was rudely interrupted by General Petraeus’ soapy sex drama.

I guess the dominant headline of my year was spending 75% of 2012 in a state of pregnancy, oddly appropriate during what often seemed like the Election Year of the Womb (Uteruses up, y’all!). By fall, Baby Eva arrived. There are finally the same number of humans in our house as cats.

Great ’12 Distractions: The return of animated .gif’s. Spotify. Soups. TripIt Pro (continued). Breaking Bad. Blogging about Mad Men after it finally came back (check out my ’08 distractions to see how little has changed), pub trivia at The Argonaut (we still haven’t won), being on airplanes (again), The Accidental Chinese Hipsters Tumblr, which might be the best Tumblr ever.

Fave YouTube Finds: Aaron Paul’s appearance on The Price Is Right many moons ago. The 11-year-old Ryan Gosling’s amazing dance moves.

Recurring Themes: Not drinking alcohol, OMG. Motherhood. My denim jacket, originally purchased in 12th grade. Turning 30. Being unsure whether I’m ready to be an adult. Being unsure whether I should be doing what I’m doing with my life. Watermelon.

Noteworthy Discoveries: Weather.Ericson.net, @PimpBillClinton, Uber, Hipmunk, Dr. Weissbluth, the amazing baby sleep doctor

Happy Places: Those starry nights in Costa Rica. Trivia at Nellie’s with the gays. My pals Virginia and Keith’s badass renovated house in Austin.

Disappointments: Not visiting all the countries I wanted to in my New Year’s Resolutions. Fantasy Football performance in both leagues. Not getting to go see my parents — sure, they came to us, but it’s more fun to visit them in Europe.

Most OUTRAGE-inducing people and situations of 2012: The entitled Washingtonians who just cross Rhode Island Avenue at any point and in any place. DC Water. I STILL GET A PHONE BOOK, WHY!!?

Biggest Victories: Delivering Eva without meds. Winning the battle against DC Water. A 3.2% interest rate on the house.

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Two years ago, one of my bridesmaids and best friends, April, unwittingly fell victim to a TOTAL ROMANTIC CATASTROPHE. There’s no need to go into the details except to say I learned of this in the middle of a busy downtown street and was so stunned that I froze there on the asphalt as cars honked to avoid running me over.

In the blur of  time following the news, April and I spent night after night out at bars, rooftop parties, dives featuring wood paneling and karaoke, sketchy dance clubs full of cougars, and, you get the idea. All along, we kept our friends Keith and Virginia, parents to a then-newborn, updated with new developments in the TOTAL ROMANTIC CATASTROPHE.

Around that time, Keith had begun a friendship with a super smart engineer named Chad. And he decided that Chad should meet April. So he enlisted my help in bringing the two together. We organized a happy hour, ostensibly to casually hang out, but mainly so the two could meet.

Within a month the two were dating, by Christmas they’d met one anothers families, and by this Easter, they were engaged. Keith and I spent their weekend wedding in the Texas Hill Country gloating over our matchmaking success.

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Well folks, the fetus is now a tiny human. She (yes, it turns out fetus was a lady) is now home from the hospital after a quick delivery and a less-than-24-hour stay. I awoke Saturday morning with contractions — which happened to be the same day my parents were getting to town from Amsterdam to support us postpartum — and by Saturday night, Eva Blythe Hu-Stiles made her grand entrance.

Like a good journalist baby, she waited until right up against her deadline to arrive. (She was due on Sunday.) The metrics: 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 22 inches long. Full head of black hair (which the nurse and midwife made me very aware of while she was crowning) and dark blue eyes, for now.

As for the name, I just needed to pick something simple that any of my Chinese relatives could pronounce, hence Eva with the Spanish pronunciation. Blythe is after Matty’s late paternal grandmother, who worked in a newsroom and was a supporter of the civil rights movement way before it was cool.

Just as she was awesome as a fetus, Eva has been awesome as a baby, sleeping for long stretches, eating lots and passing all her random medical tests with flying colors. Thanks to all of you for your love and support during the pregnancy, as I know the real ride is just beginning.

P.S. While she’s in town, my hobbyist photographer mom is taking some fun shots of Eva, which inspired me to start Eva Everyday, a tumblr that posts a select Eva photo each day. Check it out if you’re interested.

The Fetus has yet to arrive, but he/she is pretty lucky to have so many aunties and uncles around. Not to be outdone by the Texas BBQ Shower, my old friends Sudeep, Beam, Fiscus and Andrew (some of those are not their legal names, natch) hosted a travel-themed fete in our new hometown of DC to prepare our future jetsetter for all his (or her) adventures. This was fun times, y’all. And it’s already earned many superlatives, like “the most irreverent/funny/inappropriate” shower that guests had ever been to.

Instead of the traditional all-girl affair, my closest gay pals joined the gal pals in this fete for Fetus. So we were DQ-treated to such entertainment as Friend Dave, a veteran DQ employee, explaining the art of making a Buster or Dilly bar from scratch (it’s all in the wrist), internationally-themed cupcakes and food, lots of Mommy-Loves-Vodka jokes, airline mini-bottles for party favors, and raucous debate about the ethics of circumcision. (And apparently there are different ways to cut — the “bald eagle” versus the “shaggy dog.” Yep.)

As an added bonus, Friend Denise is not only a friggin awesome baker (her German chocolate cake was a huge hit), but a talented photographer. She took some pics to show off all the detail these hosts and hostesses put into throwing a truly fun, boozy afternoon. Thanks again my friends. We’re so grateful.

Because I’ve spent most my career as a visual journalist, photographers are pretty much my favorite people. In television, I got to work with some of the best of them around and it made me sorta picky about shooters. So when it came time to get married, the only person I wanted to shoot our Amsterdam wedding (besides war photographer Damon Winter, of course) was Channing Johnson, my effortlessly talented, immensely humble photojournalist pal from college who I got to know during my senior year, when I harangued him into shooting stills for a terrible documentary I made. His work never disappoints.

Channing is a nostalgia-junkie like me, and we just like hanging out with one another, so when I told him we were going to be in Boston a couple of weeks ago he offered to join us at MIT and just shoot a few bump photos to mark this whole family-expansion experiment. What he got, of course, was way more than we expected and I’m so grateful.

I’m constantly awed by the generosity and kindess of my loved ones, but especially my gal pals, who are a group of gorgeous women who are constantly giving of their time and talent. It was in full display on Saturday, when I returned to Texas where eight of my girlfriends hosted an amazing, classy baby shower that did not involve cheesy games or awkward gift opening sessions and was so-well orchestrated that my pal Blake called it “a sight to behold, those eight women putting that shower together.” Another pal, Brett, joked, “It was like watching a group of Amish women put up a barn.”

How awesome are these hostesses? Let me count the ways: I learned Saturday that Melissa put together an idea board with the color themes and plans for decor (including some badass balloons she ordered from Etsy) so that all eight women could coordinate according to a general plan, Virginia had my fave chicken salad flown-in on dry ice from Shreveport, and knowing how much I love Texas BBQ, they arranged to get Franklin BBQ (best brisket in Central Texas) picked up for barbecue slider sandwiches. Laura made insane cake balls. Nisha opened up her perfect party home and headed up an “optional craft”. Crystal, knowing it has been torture for me to abstain from drinking, created “mocktails” so that no one else would be drinking, either. As a surprise treat, the girls got their geek baby-daddy’s data visualizations printed onto onesies.

Photographer Callie Richmond, who shot for us at The Texas Tribune, stopped in for photos. I’m so glad she did, because this baby shower was the shizz.

I love being a girl, and especially being a bro-girl, as some of my guy friends consider me. (Some also use terms like “chick with a dick,” which is less cute, but I understand the notion.) But I am not a boy. That became piercingly clear this year, when I was confronted with an unexpected job offer just a week after learning I was (also unexpectedly) expecting.

Suddenly, I had to consider the oft-discussed clash of career and family. Whether to stay at my entirely satisfying job at NPR, where I knew I’d be guaranteed certain paid leave and other flexibility because I am no longer “new” here, or whether to try a new challenge at a place where I’d have to prove myself as a baller whilst growing larger and inevitably unavailable during maternity leave.

I decided to stay at my job for many reasons that have nothing to do with family, but I can’t deny that I did have to consider the whole work-life balance issue for the first time. I sort of bristled at even being faced with the notion.

It’s my grandma at age 87. She’s a heroine to many, including me.

I come from a line of ceiling-breaking women; my grandmother, after fleeing China during World War II with her brothers and sisters, was one of the first female legislators in Taiwan, and a working mom (a high school principal) since the 1940′s. She says she never thought much about job versus family, because she considered both her service to society-writ-large and her obligation to her husband and three children as part of the natural order of things. She believes that really loving and caring for your family didn’t necessarily mean doing all the diaper changing and cooking, but that being a rockstar earner and a role model was just as valid a way to care for your kids.

Consequently, my mom didn’t love being raised by “help.” She says some of her most formative memories from childhood were with the servants and driver, and not with her mom, who was busy with work-related meetings and dinners on most evenings. My grandma has never apologized for what she had to do, and (in something we’ll discuss later in this post) Asian culture makes having several servants at home to help far more affordable and culturally-ingrained than here in the US. (more…)