Philippe Lazaro
OCTOBER 2016

Those Expensive Surprises

About a year ago, I went through a little streak of unexpected and unpleasant surprise expenses.

One travel booking made in error, one last-minute dogsitter… even that time when FinnAir misdelivered our luggage in the winter and I had to splurge on a whole new snow-wardrobe for a four year old. No major mishaps, but just a bunch of things here and there that cost extra. I remember sharing with some friends, things are good, but man, it’s been a pretty expensive stretch of life.

If I thought this time a year ago was expensive, they’ve paled in comparison to things the past couple weeks. I’ve had some pretty serious home repairs I’ve had to take care of. Those repairs, more often than not, are the things that seem the most likely to turn into sudden pocket holes. They’re really expensive, and unlike spending on a new car you get to ride around in or on a vacation you get to enjoy, the big fancy treat is not having drops of water leak through your roof. Having a house is a privilege in the first place, but oof.

These things happen. Like untimely celebrity deaths, they often seem to happen in clusters. And they range in disruptiveness from ugh, fine, I’ll pay it to where the hell am I gonna get the money for that?!

Even though these aren’t especially fond memories, I’m actually glad I have them as memories. The reason why is that while these things were pretty bad financial gut-punches at the moment, looking back, they seem like pretty minor blips. Once the dust settles, I’ve walked away realizing that I still have enough to meet the needs ahead, and in life, money comes and goes like that. Much like how cuts and bruises heal, financial gaps tend to close one way or the other.

Things always feel a lot worse in the moment than they seem in retrospect, which is really important to remember the next time you’re in the moment.

The first house we bought as a couple was the two bedroom condo we brought our first kid home to.

We only lived in it for two years before having more kids and needing more bedrooms, but it was an experience. It was honestly a pretty good place, but not necessarily in the best part of town. We’d have people rifling through our dumpster almost nightly.

We had to deal with a roof leak, and although insurance took care of it, it meant there was a chunk of time when we all had to move into the nursery.

We had mice in the walls, which we could only do so much about since the unit was attached to others. This is how we learned our dog’s animal instincts were practically nonexistent after years of suburban living.

We were there for the pandemic lockdowns.

So even though we were only there for two years, we picked some memorable years.

The exterior of the place was managed by an HOA… a pretty awful one that I could never get ahold of to get me the right documents when making that roof repair. Within a few months of us moving in, they determined that the roof seal on the upper units had worn down and that they needed to replace it. Since our reserves were drained, they had to pass an assessment for a rather large figure. I love that you think I have all that just sitting around waiting for you, I thought. Since we just bought the place, it felt like I had just made the financial stretch to get in there.

It was a rough blow at the moment, but these days, I don’t think about it very often. Wouldn’t be thinking about it if I weren’t writing about the exact topic. You bounce back from that sort of thing.

When it comes to managing money, I’ve learned that there are at least two big pieces of the equation.

There’s the actual math of what’s going in and what’s going out. In theory, this should be simple. Have the former number be larger than the latter, make sure it can keep that pace for the future, and things should be okay.

The other half of the equation is one that’s a lot more complicated, and therefore more interesting… at least to me. It’s people’s relationship with money.

This is one of those things that comes up a lot in couples counseling, and for good reason. Two people who might have very similar backgrounds, interests, education levels, lifestyles, and values can still have wildly different relationships with money. One person may have been raised with a sense of scarcity and a tendency to hoard. The other might have found it normal to spend-it-if-you’ve-got-it.

Seeing someone with a vastly different relationship with money than my own strikes up so much curiosity. I know somebody who psychologically struggles to not spend all their income as it comes. How? I have no idea, that would cause me so much anxiety. To them, though, it’s almost as if it relieves anxiety. I’m glad I have running, instead. But I know these things are deep rooted, and are baked into us as muscle memory.

One thing I’m working really hard to avoid in my relationship with money is a scarcity mentality. I’m extra motivated to avoid this mindset as my relationship with money kind of sets the groundwork for my kids’. I typically save and manage carefully, and I’m on the frugal side. I like that about myself. I just never want it to get to the point of excess where I start living out of a sense of scarcity.

So how does one walk that line of having an abundance mindset while still exercising careful stewardship?

I have one practice I suggest.

Whenever I get hit with a sudden, big, unexpected expense… or perhaps a series of them, I try to look for an opportunity to also do something generous.

If you get hit with a sudden medical expense in the thousands, perhaps there’s someone out there for whom $50 of support would go a really long way? It doesn’t have to be a 1:1 ratio. It doesn’t even need to be financial support, necessary, if that’s totally not possible. But I do think being generous in a way that runs parallel to the unpleasant surprise you were dealt is pretty key to this practice.

The idea is that if your instinct to a financial gut punch is to immediately start looking for someone else you can help, you’re really helping to protect yourself from a scarcity mindset around money.

You’re also doing something else really cool. You’re shifting your own focus off of yourself and onto somebody else. You’re creating a worthwhile safeguard against ego, which tends to be fed by a sense of scarcity or threat.

If instead you’re asking, hmm, who can I help? You’re back in a position of agency, and back in a position to remember how much you really have been given and where that sits in relation to much of the world.

Doing a lot of work internationally has also provided a lot of helpful perspective. What might seem like very modest support coming from me can be a real game-changer for somebody else. And that’s true in a lot of areas domestically, as well. Whenever I look at stats around median income by state, and so on, it’s my reminder that a lot of people really are mid-struggle. In spite of whatever setbacks come my way, I’m still in an advantaged situation in a rather unequal world.

I don’t know if this practice will work as well for everybody, but based on how I’ve seen it benefit my relationship around money, I’ve found it worthwhile to share.

There’s nothing within it to support the first half of the financial equation: making sure you’ve got more coming in than going out. But it can work wonders with the second, elusive, psychological part.

I’ve usually been on the more frugal side, at least in a strategic way where I’ve realized being cheap in areas of life I don’t care about so much allows me to splurge.

When I was younger, this went to such extremes as couch surfing my way through a semester of school or living in my car… since skipping a few months of housing would save me thousands. That money could go much further when spent on enriching travel experiences abroad.

These days, those instincts might look more like realizing that the differences between a $20,000 car and a $60,000 car are rarely worth $40,000 to me, especially as long as the cheaper option goes between point A and B just as reliably. Cars never were a big priority to me. Traveling with my kids? I’ll be much more likely to splurge in that area.

Frugality for the sake of frugality, efficiency for the sake of efficiency, is not a virtue. It only makes sense if its in service of allowing you to pour more of your resources into something that matters. And that’s why I think it’ll always be a matter of importance to avoid seeing things through the lens of scarcity.

One of the best ways to go beyond that is to tap back in to the fun of being able to help someone else who needs it.

Seattle Eats!

Everything I ate in a weekend in Seattle:

🇦🇺 Australian Pie Co. (Burien)

☕️ Burien Press (Burien)

🫚 Rachel’s Ginger Beer (Capitol Hill)

🇲🇾 Kedai Makan (Capitol Hill)

☕️ Narrative Coffee (Everett)

🇵🇭 Fil Up! Food Truck (Everett)

🇻🇳 Lotus Pond Pho (N. Seattle)

🇸🇳 Heritage African Restaurant (Burien)

May to June

May 2025 could’ve counted as three months! Birthdays, concerts, little weekend trips, freestylin’, and wrapping up a school year.With a new month and the end of the school year, summer is functionally here, even if it has a couple weeks left to technically arrive. Now that my kids are older, summer is becoming more of a *thing* again, and it’s kinda nice. I made a list:

⚽️ Go watch games for all three of our local pro-sports teams.

⛺️ Go camping with the kids… first of our camping adventures kicks off this weekend!

🥛 Make horchata. I’ve got a mango horchata recipe I’ve been wanting to do.

🎙️ Go catch a stand-up act that I’ve been wanting to see. Some interesting names coming through town here in the next few months.

🍽️ Jump in on a Dinner with Strangers event.

🪃 Participate in my first longform improv festival.

🗺️ Take our first trip sans kids to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary!

Heung Min Son

Ten years in Tottenham and finally, a trophy to show for it.

There were a lot of points throughout the year where it seemed the years, the injuries, and the burden of having two teams on his shoulder (incl. the Korean Nat’l Squad) had taken their toll.

But he toughed it out and captained that squad through some choppy waters. Glad he’s got some hardware to lift.

Gulliver's Playground

Who knew I’d be so knowledgeable about play structures, but this is one of the most unique playgrounds I’ve seen… this to-scale Gulliver’s Travels themed play structure in Valencia, Spain.

I don’t know how many of today’s youth get excited about Jonathan Swift’s giant tale… even the Jack Black movie was long enough ago that playground kids wouldn’t care. But hey, it’s always fun to climb around and slide down a giant’s face.

Bill Walton

I’m a tad too young to have seen Bill Walton as an active player, but he’s on the short list of guys I know I would’ve been a big fan of if that weren’t the case. The rare triple threat of being a true baller, a total goofball, and a really charitable voice for important causes. Not to mention, a bit of a local legend. Drew this a bit after he passed, but just getting to post it now.

How Creativity Happens

It’s easy to think of time in the studio, in front of the blank page, or at your work station as your creative time and other things as a distraction. But those “distractions” are actually the world that feeds your creative work. Don’t be so committed to the output that you miss this whole other side to creativity.

The most daring thing is creating a community

It’s hard to be shocked by much these days. But I still find the oft-quoted statistics about how disconnected we’ve become a bit startling.

There are the men who can’t name a single close friend.

Nearly 30% of people my age report feeling "frequently" or "always" lonely.


But what really gets me? The stats on younger folks—high school and college students. Fewer are dating, hanging out with friends, or even going to parties. The kinds of reckless socializing that used to get kids grounded are now things we look at and say, “Huh… maybe that wasn’t so bad. Maybe it kept us connected. Maybe the kids should party more.”

Of all the issues former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy could have chosen to champion, he chose this one: loneliness. And he paints a picture that feels eerily familiar.

“College dining halls,” he said, “used to be the loudest places I remember. Now they’re quiet. People are listening to something in their earbuds, scrolling on their phones, on their laptops. And when conversations get uncomfortable? It’s easier to just pull out your phone.”

It’s tempting to blame failing institutions for our societal unraveling—but maybe the unraveling started long before. Maybe we missed the warning signs of social collapse.

Of course, I’m not the first to notice.

Sociologist Robert Putnam made this his life’s work. He studied what happened when Italy was reorganized into regions and found a clear pattern: the places with the most community participation—people in clubs, associations, leagues—were the ones that thrived.

Later, he spotted a strange trend in the U.S. Bowling alleys were still busy, but league participation was plummeting. People weren’t bowling less—they were just bowling alone.

This shift tracked almost exactly with the decline of institutional trust and civic engagement in America. Putnam’s findings, laid out in Bowling Alone, hit like a warning bell in the early 2000s. That bell has only gotten louder since.

A recent documentary, Join or Die, revisits his work. It’s full of small-town pastors, historical leaders with membership cards overflowing from their wallets, and moments that made me want to sign up for a book club, a rec league, and maybe city council all at once.

Because participation matters.

It might sound simplistic—even naïve—to say that joining a club or going to a party could be an antidote to social decay. But maybe it’s not.

The internet has made it easy to see people as little more than walking opinions. Some are constantly shouting theirs; others keep theirs tightly wound. Either way, online, we sort and shelve each other into neat categories: agree, disagree, block, unfollow.

But real life won’t let you do that so easily.

Face-to-face, we’re wired to seek positive interaction. There’s no handle to hide behind, no block button to press. Just another human being in front of you, shaped by a thousand unseen experiences.

Beliefs, after all, are snapshots. They shift over time. Mine certainly have. I’ve had to unlearn things, let go of assumptions, and open myself to perspectives I never considered. Reading helped. So did travel. But more than anything, it was being around other people—really being around them—that pushed me to grow.

One of the most underrated joys of community is that after-event buzz. A play, a game, a fundraiser—and suddenly, you're seeing familiar faces in the crowd. You chat with someone from your small group, nod to someone from work, hug a friend you didn’t expect to see.

It’s not just hanging out with friends. It’s the feeling of belonging to a larger circle. It’s a feeling I used to have in college all the time. These days? Not so much.

But every now and then, it still happens. A few months back, I went solo to a party at the improv theatre I perform at. There were games, karaoke, snacks—and for one night, the place was just for performers. I arrived alone. But the second I stepped inside, I felt like I was among my people.

I didn’t have to know everyone. I just had to know I belonged.

In 1974, Kurt Vonnegut told a graduating class:

“The most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”

It’s easy to scoff and say “kids these days” need to just go outside and socialize. But that’s not fair. Community doesn’t just happen. It takes time, effort, space—and those are all in short supply.

Even for me, an unapologetic extrovert, it took years in a new town to build any kind of meaningful rhythm. People are busy, burnt out, working two jobs, living hour to hour.

Putnam once argued that a decline in social bonds can be just as dangerous as an economic collapse. In truth, the two are often entwined.

There’s a theory that suggests a full social life follows the 5-3-1 rule: five interactions a week, three close relationships, one hour a day for connection. Sounds lovely. But who has the time?

Still—when we do get those chances, when we’re offered a sliver of connection—we can choose not to pass it up.

If you’ve got an interest, however small, find a group. If someone invites you to join something, say yes.

Because in the end, the most meaningful things we do will always involve other people. And it’s far too easy to forget that.

Thirtyfive

I turn 35 today, which makes me the same age as Steve Martin’s character in Parenthood (1989), see attached for reference.

I’ve had no shortage of reminders lately of how fast it all goes and what a gift it is to be here. Feeling grateful for it all.

May 2025

G. LOVE’S ART SHOW

It was a very good pre-birthday weekend.

Got to catch an art show & live set from G. Love at The Soap Factory… really fun venue for a show.

There was live painting…

A free roaming dog or two…

All the verses of Baby’s Got Sauce come right back like riding a bike. And we got a great moment of improvised jam with a local artist all while I’m still on my blues kick from Sinners.

WAVE AAPI NIGHT

Then AAPI Night at the San Diego Wave…

Pretty exciting match with a game-winner at the 95th minute.

gnx tour

Bing bop boom boom boom bop bam

Proud dad moment: Seeing Rhys nail the target with the Phillie Phanatic’s hot dog cannon.

Bravo Tina!

Chocolates Valor

Pretty pleased with this hat pickup from Gilda in Philly.

Only the quickest little pit stop in PDX, but actually my first time flying through here since they redid the airport.

KAMALIG

My ongoing mission continues… seeking out Filipino food in places you might not expect. One of Helsinki’s classic food halls offered up Kalamig. Talked to the owner here, and she’s been in Finland for 30ish years. Ordered up a simple roast manok, since sometimes in Filipinos cuisine, the simplest dishes impress me the most.

Pokémon squad’s about to be unstoppable with Rhys’ Mewtwo in the mix

Last Day of UTK

Cardiac walkthrough at The Franklin Institute in Philly… basically like living through a Magic School Bus episode.