Aimee Eng, former Board Member of the Oakland Unified School Board, joins us to speak about her family's roots of living and serving in Oakland over multiple generations. Aimee's rich familial and personal history includes anecdotes about public service, allies who supported her family, and treasured Oakland favorites. She also shares about the joys and challenges of her decade long tenure on the school board. We appreciate Aimee's expressiveness and energy as well as her resilience and grace.

Send us your questions or feedback via voice message or answer the Q&A in the Spotify app. Thank you!

Sarah and I catch up as we are in summer mode, swapping observations and random thoughts that go from stunningly comfortable overalls to Korean - Filipino couplings (or the lack thereof) to childhood "benevolent lies" to Expose (yup, the 80-90s Top 40 girl band). We're all over the place which is exactly what summer sometimes feels like. Thanks for hanging with us.

On this mini episode, Sarah finds a way to talk about BTS (yet again), then we segue into the kindness of strangers, the ethics of keeping a library book after the due date, old bikes and candy, beans as dessert, different ways to prepare rice + coconut, and the basics of kimchi. Thanks for listening!

Learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinuguan

Florence is a multiracial new mom and journalist-in-training whose work has been published in The Oaklandside. Originally from the bordertown of El Centro, Calif., Florence settled in Oakland just a few years ago but has longtime family roots here. Florence made two big life changes during the pandemic - becoming a mom and switching careers - and shares what that experience has been like with authenticity and humor, including hilarious stories about pumping breastmilk as a busy journalism grad student. True to her journalist spirit, Florence is full of stories about the wonder and beauty of human connection and community here in Oakland. Happy listening!

Check out Florence's work here: https://oaklandside.org/author/florence-middleton/

In this next mini episode we share our thoughts on how we get stuff on the cheap or for free and the tactics we use to avoid annoying fees. And of course, there's all the randomness that goes along with our conversation, including my discovery of a surprising life skill that Sarah has yet to learn.

On this episode, Cheryl and Sarah attempt to discuss a few of our favorite things…except it turns out Cheryl doesn’t play favorites! Or does she? 

Though we started out with this prompt, our wide-ranging conversation led us to chat about dimsum (including some controversial takes!), our mutual love of Trader Joe’s, Paxton Hall-Yoshida, tiny ears, Sarah vs. United Airlines, and the Oakland Thai restaurant scene. 

Special links to:

Fun with Dumb 

Shawarmaji (grab a jar of toum!)

Portal

Sticky Rice 

Champa (get the house special fish!)