Spotted: on a coffee run before work in Oakland
Occupation: Communications for SEIU-UHW, a healthcare workers union
What do you do for the union?
I work primarily on our political communications and our communications to bring new members into the union. So, basically we create online content, leaflets, mail, whatever is necessary to get people engaged with our union.
Have you seen a drop in recent union membership?
Yeah, well there's been a decrease in union density over the years. One of the things that I love about where I work is that our union is trying to reestablish itself as a powerful change in increasing people's standard of living, even if you're not in our union.
How are you doing that?
Well, one thing is to bring more people into the union. The other way is that we're working to fix the Medi-Cal system in California so that there are higher reimbursement rates, because we're the lowest in the country. When you're the lowest in the country, what that means is that doctors don't want to see you because you're poor and you're on Medi-Cal—it means that hospitals don't have funding, so trying to fix the Medi-Cal reimbursement rate is just one example of something that affects way more people than our members.
That's a tall order!
Yeah! I'm really proud of what we're doing.
Are you from the Bay area?
No, I'm from New York. When I graduated high school my mom decided to move to California, so I applied to colleges on the east coast and it California and I went to UCLA.
I love your necklace, where is it from?
My mother-in-law gave it to me as a graduation gift when I graduated from grad school.
What is your degree in?
Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
What brought you to the bay?
After living in LA for 11 years and finishing school, I moved to Boston to go to Grad School. Then I moved back here because my husband and I were debating between the Bay and LA—we chose the Bay.
How long have you been married?
Almost five years!
What do you like best about being married?
Its so much fun. You have a playmate all the time.
Is that your wedding ring?
It's my engagement ring. I don't wear my wedding band because it's too small on me right now. When I got pregnant I was swollen and had to take it off.
So you have a kid too!
I do have a kid. An eight-month-old named Dalia. That's super fun too. She's just super sweet and cute and snuggly.
What is your favorite thing about the whole family experience?
Its just fun. I guess I didn't expect it to be fun, a lot of people complain about having a kid like, "oh it's sleepless," and whatever. I happen to have a really good sleeper, which is really nice. But there are so many funny things that happen—like I was feeding her green beans the other day and she was just like, "EW" and she made the funniest face—she totally contorted her face. I don't know, just stuff like that is really funny. And it's sweet, you have someone to snuggle with all the time.
Does your husband love it too?
Oh he's great. I have been working like crazy the past few days and he's taking care of her.
Do you either of you stay home?
Neither of us do.
What do you do while you're at work?
We take her to an in-home daycare.
Is leaving her at the daycare difficult?
It's actually gotten a little harder lately. In the beginning she was still so young that she had very little personality, so even though I loved being with her it was just a matter of someone else taking care of her really basic needs. Now that she has a personality and she needs more bonding, it gets a little harder sometimes like, "Oh I want to spend the day with you."
How did you make the decision to go back to work?
I was only home for 11 weeks and I never thought I would stay home for longer. I think if I had a second kid, I would probably want to stay home for longer. I took two weeks off before my due date and she was 11 days late, so I was already off for about a month. I think by the time the three months were over, it was sad to leave her but I was also excited to be around more people and for some intellectual stimulation because there's a monotony in taking care of a baby.
Do you deal with any criticism from people for leaving your baby at an in-home daycare at so young?
I have not gotten criticism. When I was first going back so few of my peers that I had been spending time with in birth class were going back. They were like, "I don't think I could handle it." I started to second guess myself thinking, "What makes me think that I can handle it. I'll miss her a lot." But it just took drawing from my friends who were working at the time for strategies for survival and pep talks about how great it would be to go back to work and that it's not like you miss your baby all the time.
Any future plans for more kiddos?
I think we would like to have another one, but not in the near future.
You also write a food blog called Mezze&Dolce. Can you tell me about it?
I started it with a friend in November of 2012. It's a Mediterranean food blog based on the idea that our favorite meal would be a bunch of Mediterranean mezze and some desert. It came out of making a huge dinner for friends. We'd both taken this vegetarian cooking class at our favorite restaurant in Boston and as a thank you to everyone for the gift certificate to take the class, we made this big meal, but we could have just had the mezze and the desert. When it came to the main dish we were like, "eh, who needs it."
How often do you write for it?
We used to post twice a week, now we post once a week. She has a really busy job and I have a baby. Twice a week was actually pretty hefty, but we wanted to have a lot of content on there. We do mostly recipes and recently we've been doing inspiring ingredient posts where it's like our top five recipes for stone fruit. We don't do restaurant reviews, but if we find a good place we write about it. We just started interviews! In March we interviewed Chef Louisa Shafia who wrote "The New Persian Kitchen" cook book, which is really popular.
Can you tell me about your hair?
Well, I just cut off a lot of my hair, believe it or not. I cut off about eight inches. I go to Manifesta Salon—they're really awesome. I use Ouidad products, but I started feeling like I was using so much product to manage my hair, and my daughter was super into yanking my hair and it would just get in the way so I just decided, "enough!"
I literally brought pictures of my friend Sasha's haircut into Manifesta and they gave me her hair cut. I only shampoo it two times a week. I shower at night and I pin back my bangs. I put a little bit of product in my hair and sleep on it and when I wake up in the morning I just flatiron my bangs for two minutes. Best decision I have ever made, cutting my hair off.
