Monthly Archives: November 2009

I comment therefore I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing…

November 30. Yeah baby!

I am finishing this NaBloMoFo with a special edition of “I Comment Therefore I Am”…

Unknown Mami

… because it is Monday. And Monday, especially Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend, absolutely sucks ass, especially if you work in an office…

In this edition, I will share with you how I abuse my privilege as a reader and commenter of blogs…

Eat me

Eat me



The Sky is Falling asked her readers this question:

So, if you were making a list of “Dat’s Some Funny Shit,Yo,” what movies/TV/books/blogs/etc. would you include? What has informed (or malformed) your particular brand of humor? What falls in the category of Sorry, I Just Don’t Get It? Any deal-breakers (for example, “If I found out you loved/hated __________, you would be dead to me.”)?

She had no idea what she had done: it’s like dangling fat dripping meat to a hungry cougar. I totally took the bait. So I commented at 8:14 PM:

Hey, the jokes made me cry and smile at the same time. {{{hugs}}} if hugs from strangers over the internet are not too creepy for ya. We are a family of cracking “inappropriate” jokes at “inappropriate” moments also. I eagerly clicked on all 4 YouTube links and realized: I need to spend some time watching them so I can test my love for you! So, I will be back. Also you left us a homework at the end. Maybe we (your loyal readers) need to write posts in response to this question. 🙂 Promise: I will be back.

p.s. You are making it very difficult for me to tend to my motherly duty. Your posts all make me think too much and I am now constantly distracted! LOL

An hour later… I wrote some more:

I’m back! Sorry it took so long since I have StumbledUpon almost all of them, and tweeted 2 of them! LOVE Eddie Izzard. (Confession: I only watched him on YouTube. We have no cable. And we don’t watch that much TV not because we are snobbish but because we have no time) I was also distracted because I found him pretty… That clip is funny as hell. “We stole countries with the cunning use of flags.” Bloody BRILLIANT! I want to go around and say “No flag. No country” now. I love the Strong Bad one too. (Confession: have never really watched the Homestar Runner show EXCEPT the Strong Bad email sections) I actually saw Louis CK when he was on Conan O’Brien. LOVED IT and then told everybody I know that travels frequently. Yes, we bitch about air travel all the time. I did curtail my bitching afterwards. Now I say to myself whenever my flight is delayed: “At least I am not travelling with my kids.” Being a parent does give you life-changing perspectives. LOL. I have to confess: I was not laughing at the Muppet Danny Boy clip. Sorry! BTW, I checked my StumbledUpon and saw that I had “favored” a Jackass clip. OH NO! But it’s the one where they dressed up as pandas and ran around in Tokyo. I liked it because they were clearly idiots, and the clip shows, at least the way I interpret it, that the Japanese have a great sense of humor and a great deal of tolerance for stupidity as exhibited by foreigners, i.e. they are our guests. We shall not laugh at them, but rather, laugh with them. I told you: I need to write an entire complete post to answer your question. Good one though!

In her other post, “If You Drink At Every Parenthetical in this Post, You Probably Should Not Drive” (by the way, isn’t this an awesome title? And of course I commented on it…), she asked her readers yet more questions. I think she has a death wish by Comment Hogs or something.

I haven’t told my sister about this blog. What do y’all do about the whole anonymity issue? Do you have a chosen circle? Are you totally incognito? Reasons for/against?

I absolutely rose to the occasion and commented THREE times.

NOVEMBER 25, 2009 5:21 PM

I love the title of this post. I need to stop by to say hi, but I need to go focus on Mr. Monk since it’s his birthday. BUT I will be back ’cause THIS topic hits right at home. From your loyal reader aka NOT Love Greg*

NOVEMBER 25, 2009 8:07 PM

Short answer for now because I need to clean up the house and put together a grocery list for Thanksgiving… Parents-in-law flight arrives tomorrow at 9 am! I am anonymous not because I am afraid of stalkers (Not that famous yet so no need. LOL) but because I am worried that someone from work may chance upon my blog and then the whole company would know. I don’t talk about work still since I am paranoid. I really want to complain about being the only woman in my office sometimes but I refrain from doing that now since well, just in case. A few of my very close friends who I can trust know about my blog. My husband knows but does not read it often. Sometimes I wish he didn’t since I wanted to complain about him really bad often… None of my family knows. Well, my side does not read English. My husband’s side… Well, let’s just say my MIL is a devout Catholic and my FIL thinks Fox News is the greatest (for which we have made fun of him and he’s ok with it…) They are really very nice and very kind and they treat me like their own daughter. We get along fine since we do NOT talk about politics or religions. Again though, I don’t complain about people in my life really JUST IN CASE. Any passing complaints directed towards people that you do care are best left unwritten. That’s my take. Because you never know when the written thing is going to come back and bite you…

If you do tell your sister about this blog, and if she does want to start her own blog, you two should think about hosting a blog together. This way it will definitely ease the burden of having to write a post every day (or even every other day). That being said: I don’t know how you would deal with “popularity contest”, “competition”, and “jealousy”. I am human, and I am bound to feel jealous if my sister’s posts are more popular than mine on the same blog… Think about WHAM! as an example… 😉

(Sorry for bad grammar and yet another long comment!)

p.s. Totally dig stream of consciousness writing.

NOVEMBER 25, 2009 9:55 PM

OK. What kind of SHORT answer was THAT?!

There you have it. Oink. Oink.

* The “Love Greg” joke requires the reading of this post Creepoid vs. Bitch for which I also left a long comment. Totally worth it, my imaginary friends.

The Internet has changed forever what we take pictures of…

… even more so now that Smart Phones are becoming ubiquitous. For the better… or for the worst?

To a certain extent it has changed WHEN and WHERE we take pictures. The way we interpret the world. The way we caption the things we see. Now every snap shot that comes through my daily life deserves demands a caption of its own. A running commentary, subtitle of some sort.

Got to go?

Got to go?



Need a job?

Need a job?



Bookstores are fun!

Bookstores are fun!



"Mom, that's you!" "Awww. You guys..."

"Mom, that's you!" "Awww. You guys..."



Sarah Palin's new movie?

Sarah Palin's new movie?

When in doubt, complain about your spouse…

I have nothing.

Tis 3 am 4 am on Sunday morning, I am supposed to have published a post on Saturday to meet the NaBloMoFo objective: Guess. One post every day. I have only three more posts to go. For someone who has not filled out a journal past page 10 since, eh, ever, I am actually quite proud of myself for having come this far. Yet, I have nothing. Is it possible to have Writer’s Block when you are technically not a writer? How bad you ask? So bad that I am humming this in my head …

Now THAT is bad, huh. You believe me now?

This brings me to present you with yet another filler post called…

Things My Husband Said that But for the Mercy of god My Children Didn’t Become Orphans with One Parent in Jail…

Scene 1

I suffer from severe morning [sic] sickness. So severe that as soon as I started heaving, I knew I was pregnant with Mr. Monk even before I peed on a stick, that I lost 10 lbs. in the first two weeks in my first pregnancy and almost 20 lbs., in my second pregnancy, that I practically lived by the toilet throughout the entire pregnancy, that I did not stop involuntary vomiting till Mr. Monk was born, that I felt I was starved for nine months and made the mistake of making it up by gaining weight after the pregnancy when clearly I should have done it the other way around…

This is not about how my husband took it upon himself to name the toilet The Porcelain Throne, as in “She is worshiping the Porcelain Throne again.”

On our way back from a routine checkup, after the doctor reassured me that my rapid weight loss during the first trimester was not endangering the baby especially since it happened the exact same way with my first born, my husband claimed that he had a theory about WHY I AM PUKING MY GUTS OUT, and also about WHY I AM HAVING IT TOUGHER THE SECOND TIME AROUND.

“Oh, really?” I was curious. With sincerity.

“How much did you weigh when we first met?”

“Hmm. 155 lbs. I think.”

“So when you were pregnant with [the oldest], you were like what? 165 maybe?”

“Yes…” I don’t care who you are or what kind of solid-fortress relationship you have got going there. Nothing good is going to come out of a pontification on a woman’s weight by her husband. Nothing.

He got really excited now. “You see. You lost about 10 lbs. in two weeks right? So you quickly got down to your ideal weight.”

“Ok…” Again. Nothing good is going to come out of the said husband mentioning the word ideal weight. Nothing.

“You were a lot heavier before you were pregnant this time, right?… [Mulling it over] You were like 180 lbs. no?”

Oh. For the love of god. Please see my comment above.

Taking a deep breath, I corrected him, “No. I was like 172. TOP!”

“Well, but you WERE heavier.” He got more excited because he could see his theory was going to be proven. Soon.

“Fine.” Heh heh. We all know what THAT means.

“So you see, this is the NATURE’s way to get you down to your ideal weight as soon as possible, again.”

He didn’t say it, but I could hear the “Ta da!” in his voice. Unfortunately, he was NOT joking. This was for him a scientific theory. Or, at least, A theory. I could SEE the words forming in 3-D gigantic block letters. With Jazz hands.

TA-DA!

 

“So… are you saying that I am throwing up because I am FAT? I am FATTER so I throw up MORE?”

 

In case you are wondering, NO, I did not murder him right then and there. No, I did not divorce him either.

My apology to all the foremothers before me that have fought for our liberation. My apology also for the fact that there is not going to be a SCENE 2. I thought there was going to be but I ran out of steam. I am now all indignant all over again. And as you know, indignation drains your energy faster than an amorous vampire bite.

As a consolation prize, here is a short vignette of Things My Husband Said… in case you haven’t got enough of this Tomfoolery Jackassery:

 

“What does NaBloPoMo mean?”

“It means National Blog Posting Month.”

“Huh?”

“*sigh* It means I have to write a post on my blog every single day for the month of November.”

“Do you know, *cough*, that December is NaBloJoMo?”

Nice try.

No dice.

Left-Handed

I have been thinking about my parents a lot lately, especially yesterday. Thanksgiving does that to you, I guess.

In all honesty, I try not to think about them because when I do, the sense of guilt soon becomes too overwhelming: I have been lost to them since 1993 when I came to the U.S. for graduate school. The originally temporary stint abroad that was supposed to last only two years became the reality of me and them separated by the Pacific Ocean. And, oh, yeah, the land mass from here to the West Coast. Tenuously connected through phone calls, calculated according to a 14-hour time zone difference.

I sometimes wonder whether my father had regretted telling me, “Don’t come home for the summer. Travel around the U.S. You will be home less than a year anyway.” THAT was the summer I met my husband…

Sometimes I get upset at myself on behalf of my parents. Then I turn towards my own children and warn them, abruptly,

“When you grow up, if you move to a different continent, I am going to be really, really, really mad at you!” My teeth gnashing.

I’d walk away and hide myself in the bathroom, work myself into tears, remember this is probably how my parents feel, then become even more upset and turn into a hysterical mess.

Oy.

I did not realize my father is left-handed until this March when we visited my parents. They noticed that Mr. Monk was writing with his left hand.

“He’s left-handed? I guess it is ok nowadays to write with your left hand. Your father is left-handed too.” My mother said over the phone when I was back in the U.S.

“No. He is NOT!” I defended myself, against an accusation of inattentiveness that was not there.

“Oh yes he is. He is supposed to be left-handed. He writes with his right hand, indeed. But, you have never noticed? he uses scissors and knives with his left hand.”

Of course I have never noticed it. I left home when I was twenty-four. I was too young, too educated, too busy to live my life to notice my parents. As I get older and know better, however, I am not there to catch up.

Ever since that exchange, I often try to remember my father opening a letter with a pair of scissors (He does not believe in letter openers) or dissecting a pork shoulder roast (his favorite) with a cleaver. I imagine him using his left hand.

I don’t know how to explain to my husband or my boss that I really need to fly home because I need to see my father use his left hand…

How pumpkin pies are made…

Happy Thanksgiving!



Thanksgiving has not been forgotten. Well, sort of...

Thanksgiving has not been forgotten. Well, sort of...



Well, yeah, you have to click on this thing below that says “click to continue…” to find out how pumpkin pies are made…

Ready?

Ok.

Are you sure you want to know?

Ok. Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

"How pumpkin pies are made" What do you expect?

"How pumpkin pies are made"* What do you expect?



You are welcome.

* This is one of those “Internet Memes” that have been emailed around. I do not claim any credit for the wit and skills involved in answering this specific mystery (Mystery #2854) in life.

Happy Birthday, G.K.!

Every Thanksgiving since 2002, I know what to be thankful for…

I had deep vein thrombosis when I was five months pregnant with my youngest. I limped for two weeks without realizing that, Hey, it is more than a muscle strain since it is not getting any better after so many days. Oh, and look! Your left leg is swollen and purple and you cry when you move. Is that normal? Oh, by the way, you are pregnant. Perhaps you should go have a doctor check it out just in case? You dumbass!?!

When I did see my Obgyn for my regular monthly check-up, one look, and she sent me to the emergency room. When there, I was whisked away to the ICU and promptly had an umbrella filter inserted to prevent any clog from going into my lungs. X-ray was involved. Blood thinner medications. Lovenox shots. I cried every day.

“What an idiot?! Now I am endangering my baby by being such an idiot!” I could not have been more upset at myself.

We were so relieved and grateful when he was born. Perfectly healthy. A beautiful baby boy.

My Thanksgiving Baby

He is the child that keeps me on my toes.

He is the child that asked me, “Is it hard to take care of us?”

He is the child that sidled up to me while I was doing the dishes, patted my hand, and asked, “Did YOU yourself have any dinner yet?” while his father and older brother were wrestling on the floor.

He is the child that is sensitive enough to suggest, “Don’t call me Mr. Monk!”

He is the child that dances the interpretive dance while the Casio plays Canon in D.

He is the child that speaks with a British accent after watching too many episodes of Charlie and Lola and Kipper.

He is the child that wears a fedora and tips his head at the ladies.

He is the child that is already really worried about what he is going to be when he grows up.

He is the child with an old, old soul.

He is the child that says, “I am different. Deal with it!”

He is the child that makes me question myself all the time whether I am good enough as a person.

He is the child that makes me wonder whether all the love you could give is still not enough to love your children with.

4th birthday

He turned 7 today.

Happy Birthday, G.K.!

Bohemian Rhapsody. The Muppets Style. You complete me.

Laugh all you want. But my one favorite song, if I have to pick, is seriously Bohemian Rhapsody. I am a walking cliche, I know. I can listen to it over and over again all day long. Thanks to the invention of the Internet (Thank you, Al Gore! <– This is a repetitive trope here), I can now watch and listen to all different renditions of this song.

On this Thanksgiving, I AM THANKFUL FOR YOUTUBE, despite the existence of Charlie the Unicorn

My favorite has been the performance in 2003 by UC Men’s Octet. Yup. Bohemian Rhapsody a cappella. How awesome is that? (You can see the video of this oldie but still goodie at the end of this post).

Now the Muppet Studio just posted on YouTube on November 23, yup, that’s yesterday, the HD version of the Muppets gang doing Bohemian Rhapsody. How awesome is THAT?!

Note to Self: Need to find a different word than “awesome” to describe things that excite me lest I be mistaken for a high school gal… On the other hand, it may be a sign of my ultimate Americanness... Awesome.

I had to do a Stop the Presses! thing and bring this to you right away, my imaginary friends. Enjoy.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Except, well, the bird…

Thanksgiving-Freedom-from-Want

Thanksgiving-reality

disney thanksgiving
thanksgiving super heroes
mad-lindsay-nicole-britney-paris
the truth behind the thanksgiving bird

But wait. There is more!

This is what I am talking about!

This is what I am talking about!

Thanks to Elly over at BugginWord for alerting me to this wonderful, modern rendition of Thanksgiving.

Elly has much to thank for: she beat cancer!

Now let’s all go over and say: Happy first year in remission, Elly!

Freedom from Want, Or The Case of the Golden Turkey

Even if you don’t know its name, you must have seen this iconic painting by Norman Rockwell:

Thanksgiving-Freedom-from-Want

The name of the painting is Freedom from Want, by Norman Rockwell in 1943. Ever since its appearance and subsequent permeation into the pop culture and the collective American consciousness, it is also known as Thanksgiving Dinner.

This is the quintessential image conjured up whenever a family feast/celebration is mentioned.

Books, movies, TV shows. Countless re-presentation of this painting serving as emulation, improvement, critique, parody, and commentary of the definition of (“an American”) family, the imagining / celebration / debunking of it.

Mr. Monk asked me to make a turkey for Thanksgiving.

“But I am ordering it from Honey Baked Ham. Just like last year. And actually, just like every year.”

“A real turkey?”

“Hmm. Yes…. Turkey breast.”

Truth be told: the whole family, including my parents-in-law who visit us every Thanksgiving, will NOT touch the dark meat, except me. We are also not big meat eaters. Therefore a small turkey breast makes perfect sense. Waste not. Right?

“That’s NOT a real turkey then.”

“What do you mean it’s not a real turkey? You ate it last year and you liked it.”

“But I want a real turkey. You know, like they show on TV with a lot of people around the table…”

“You mean a whole turkey with skins and bones on a big plate? With the wings and legs and everything?”

“Yup.”

“And there are things tied around the legs and the turkey is surrounded by pretty, fluffy, green, things?” It’s obvious I am woefully unaware of cooking jargons…

“Yup.”

So, he does not really want a turkey, he wants what the TV shows and movies depict as a proper family celebration. I may be able to produce a golden turkey, with silver things and red strings tied around the legs, BUT I would still be unable to produce LOTS OF PEOPLE…

Here is his expectation:

Thanksgiving-Freedom-from-Want

Here is what I plan to deliver:

Thanksgiving-reality

Clearly there is a gap.

This conversation sent me on a trip of soul-searching: Am I not making enough efforts to create the “right” family memories for my children? Am I guilty of depriving my children of living the “American dream”?

You have to forgive me: being a foreigner or maybe just being plain neurotic, I am forever self-conscious of “depriving” my children of the proper “American experiences”. Deep down, out of pride (which as I am well aware is one of the Seven Deadly Sins…) and sheer vanity, I want them to grow up just as American as the next kid can be, in addition to all the global perspectives I am trying to instill in them as well. I don’t want my foreignness to become somehow a liability. Well, like I said, sheer pride and vanity…

I was all ready to make Mr. Monk the turkey after an one-hour long conversation with my lone co-worker who drew diagrams, even a cross-section one, on the white board to explain step by step how to prep and cook a proper Thanksgiving turkey, including where and how and when to put on the silver things on the legs.  I asked Mr. Monk again:

“Mommy will make you a turkey if that’s what you really want for Thanksgiving.”

“He’s not going to eat it!” My husband stepped in.

“Mom. I am NOT going to eat it. Just so you know.” Mr. Monk said somberly.

“So you just want to look at it?”

“Uh-huh.”

Note to Self: Do not watch cooking shows with Mr. Monk again in the hope that he may be tempted to widen his palette beyond plain pasta, white bread, and rice. So far, it has not worked.

Note to Self II: Check Mr. Monk’s Letter to Santa in case he asks for Martha Stewart to be his new mom. Not that I could do anything about it. But it would be good to know if I totally fucked up by not cooking him the golden turkey…

Word of the Day: Disguise

“The secret agent is in disguise.”  The caption of the picture says.

Word of the Day: Disguise

(No, I didn’t draw the picture. My 6 year old did).

I thought I’d use this picture to comment on the following pictures:

Baking

These pictures were meant for a post on how I was trying to be the Best Mom in the World and gave in to Mr. Monk’s plea that we make an apple pie right after our trip to an apple orchard on a Sunday night, how I for a fleeting moment thought I’d been missing a lot of opportunities to build childhood memories with/for my children by not cooking/baking on a regular basis, how I was impressed that he was so meticulous when he was doing THAT thing along the side of the pie crust with the fork (What is it called again?), how the pie ended up being a disaster “Not as good as Baker Square. Maybe we should just get our pies there from now on…”, how I learned the true meaning of “The journey of getting there is more important than the destination aka pie”, and how I wanted to strangle my kids when they refused to eat the pie because “Mom! You know we don’t like apple pies. When have you seen us eating an apple pie?”

Just be patient please. I am getting to my point. *cough cough*

Like many parents, I struggle with whether to put the pictures of my children on the Internet and how, and how much or how little to share. So as you can see, here is my pathetic attempt to disguise the identity of my son by taking pictures only of his “profile” and by covering up his name that’s on the apron.

I looked at these pictures again today and I had to admit that the attempt was not only lame but hypocritical. Maybe not hypocritical, but I would definitely label it as self-contradictory. Definitely half-assed.

Secret agent man.




p.s. I was relieved when I realized he was trying to write “Train 88” and not “Tehran 88“. I don’t think I can deal with a 6-year-old that follows Middle Eastern politics and histories. Don’t get me wrong, I would be very proud of him, but I don’t think I would be equipped with the necessary breadth and width of knowledge to explain the complexities…