Monthly Archives: December 2011

Going Home. Again.

Waiting to get on a plane that will take me to Tokyo Narita, and then onto Taipei. I am making my annual solo trip back home so I can pack 359 days of homesickness, guilt and filial piety into a 3-day visit. (I will spend 3 days traveling due to time zone change and the sheer expansiveness of the Pacific Ocean).

As my parents get older, the necessity of going home as often as I could becomes unbearable. The anxiety and sadness I feel every time I see them though becomes unbearable as well. I long to see the joy in my dad’s face as much as I dread seeing his tears. March on, little soldier. That’s what I have been telling myself since I gave the TSA agent my passport and boarding passes.

I will try not to talk about feeling like a Godzilla as soon as I land in Tokyo. But I will feel that way while stuffing my face with food that I have been missing all year.

And I will try and send in pictures to be posted here (and below if the Flickr plug-in works). Just in case you wonder what I have been up to. *Megalomaniac laugh* *Megalomaniac laugh*

Love and peace.

Please specify a Flickr ID for this gallery

Merry Christmas dear, and oh by the way…

Santa is not real.

I am worried that I may have ruined my son’s childhood. On Christmas eve nonetheless. Before he went to bed full of anticipation for Christmas morning, I decided to tell him THE Truth.

Well, I did not really decide per se.

He turned 9 this year and he’s always known that Easter Bunny is not real because, well, he is not a fucking idiot. He had suspected for a long time that tooth fairy is also not real so he went CSI on us: When he lost one of his teeth, he did not tell us. In the morning he came to the side of my bed, showed me his tooth, and said, “See. I put this under my pillow and it is still here this morning. I know tooth fairy is not real. This proves that YOU are the tooth fairy because I did NOT tell you about the tooth.”

Fine by me. I actually feel relieved because to prolong the lie as they grow older, the mechanism that goes into putting up the show becomes more elaborate, and then it goes from a harmless childhood tradition to full-blown deceit. When I heard about people that left footprints in the backyard, cracked the window open, sprinkled ashes by the fire place or reindeer droppings in the front lawn, I cringed. How much is too much?

At some point the child becomes old enough to just know  and though it is not discussed, tooth fairy will simply stop visiting. At least that was how it went with my oldest boy.

With my youngest, Mr. Monk, it has been a completely different experience. He really wants to believe in the magic despite the contradictions he himself acknowledges. Throughout this year, he’s been hinting that he’s ready to let Santa go. Or rather, he knows that we the parents are Santa all along, “Just like the tooth fairy.” But he has never come right out and said, “Santa is not real.”

When my mother-in-law called me to confirm that Mr. Monk no longer believes in Santa, therefore we do not need to “do the Santa thing”, I said, “Sure. He’s outgrown it already.” All the presents were wrapped and labeled, and none of them were from Santa. Then when Mr. Monk and Grandma were making Christmas cookies, he said, “Remember to leave a cookie out for Santa.” With all the sincerity and conviction of a young child. My heart skipped a beat.

After the Christmas eve party, when we were trying to get him and his cousin to go to bed, the two of them begged for a cookie for Santa. And a glass of milk.

“Are you sure about this? Is Santa coming tonight?”

“Mom, you forgot? Santa is coming and he will eat the cookie and drink the milk just like he did every year.”

Never mind that my husband was always the one that volunteered to be Santa by taking a big bite out of the Christmas cookie, finishing the milk, and for good measure, leaving a crumpled napkin on the table.

My niece does not believe in Santa. She knows that Santa is not real because that’s the way her parents decide to bring her up. They have been kind enough to play along, and every year, my mother-in-law would prepare a present from Santa for my niece just to be convincing. I looked at her enthusiasm and excitement as she and Mr. Monk prepared the cookie and milk and the accompanying note for Santa, and realized that for a child sometimes knowing something is not real is different from wanting to believe in that something.

When I put the kids to bed on Christmas eve, I whispered to my oldest, “Do you think Mr. Monk still believes in Santa?”

“I think he knows. He just does not want to admit it…” He turned around and asked his brother, “Hey, ____, do you think you will get anything from Santa tomorrow morning?”

“Of course!”

“How do you think Santa is going to get here?”

“On his sleigh. Pulled by his reindeer of course.”

After a prolonged dance around the touchy subject aka beating about the bush, finally my oldest sighed, “This is like that saying ‘How do you find out a bomb really works?’ Don’t make me ask you that question that if I ask you you are going to know…”

“Just make the big presents the Santa presents.” All of a sudden Mr. Monk said.

“No. Make the small things the Santa presents.” My oldest countered, “Otherwise you never get to thank mom and dad for the big presents.”

“No. I want the big presents to be from Santa.” Mr. Monk protested.

“This settles it then.” I thought, “He knows the truth.” Feeling relieved, I said to my oldest, “So, [Oldest Boy], do you want a Santa present too?”

All of a sudden, Mr. Monk’s face fell and he pulled the blanket above and over his head, visibly upset. “Do you have to tell me this on Christmas eve? Can’t you wait until the day after?”

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

“Do you have to ruin my childhood? And on Christmas eve?”

SIGH. KILL ME NOW. Not sure though whether I’m more disturbed by how I potentially single-handed ruined his childhood or by how he sounded just like me, a master of guilt-trip…

Yes I know. I am the worst, most evil mother in the whole world. Oy ve.

 

“Hey, it’s better you know now. Do you really want some old creepy fat guy crawling around your house and watching you while you’re sleeping?” My oldest intervened. This made Mr. Monk laugh and we once again skipped the subject at hand.

After a long while he stopped alternating between sobbing and laughing at his big brother’s antics and finally fell asleep. I went downstairs, pulled out three presents from under the Christmas tree, rewrapped them in the special wrapping paper reserved for “Santa gifts”, and slapped a sticker on each of them that said “From Santa”…

 

Conversation with my mother, or, why I dread it

The phone rang. At this hour I knew it has got to be from my mother.

What does she want this time? Is always my first thought. Then I feel guilty about it. More often than not, however, I get to stop feeling guilty because she is calling to add to my shopping list called “Shit to bring home to my families because that’s what you do when you are a Chinese living abroad and you welcome all ways to help assuage your guilt”.

Mom: What are you doing?

Me: Nothing. Putting the kids to bed.

Mom: I am calling to confirm the date and time when you arrive at the airport. Is it 10 pm on December 27?

Me: Yes.

Mom: Ok. … … … What are you doing?

Me: Yelling at the kids to take a bath.

Mom: Why are you always doing that when I call?

Me: Because you always call around this time?

Mom: Oh. Ha ha. Have you eaten yet?

Me: No.

Mom: What time is it now? How come you have not eaten yet? [Then why did you ask me in the first place?!] What are you going to eat?

Me: I don’t know. I am thinking of Ramen noodles.

Mom: What kind? Is it the Korean spicy kind?

This went on for a while. Then my mom repeated the same story she’d told me twice already.

Mom: So and so’s daughter is married to a foreigner too. Her grandson is so cute. Mixed kid, you know. And oh, he’s so adorable when he speaks Chinese. Oh yes, her daughter teaches the boy Chinese at home.

Me: … … …

Mom: Oh, yes, he speaks perfect Chinese.

Me: … … …

Mom: And they are back in Taiwan now.

Me: … … …

Mom: She also just went on a tour around the world [ok, probably not around the world…] with her daughter and her son-in-law. Oh. They took her everywhere.

Me: … … …

Mom: And her daughter is back in Taiwan now with her grandson.

Me: … … …

Mom: Hello? Are you still there? Why aren’t you saying anything?

Me [sighing silently]: So let me guess. Her daughter does not work. [Maybe the bitterness in my voice came through]

Mom [relenting]: Oh right. You have a job. My daughter is so smart and capable. [This was said without sarcasm. My mother does not do sarcasm. I don’t think she knows how.]

Me [wanting to die]: Ok. So why are you telling me about your friend who I do not know. You have told me this a few times.

Mom: Ha ha ha.

[I hate it so much when she says something that bothers me etc, then she tries to cover it up by saying, “I was just joking. You need to lighten up.” Well, no, mom, you were not joking. I have never heard you joke in my whole life.]

Mom: I was just telling you about my friend. You have to be very careful and not overdo it on the computers. She’s so near-sighted that she’s almost blind because she’s spent all her working years on the computer.

Me: Ok.

Mom: Not good to get too high a degree.

[You don’t need a subject when constructing a sentence in Chinese. IMO this greatly contributes to Chinese mothers’ passive aggressive ability because you never know whom they are referring to in their laments. It could be nobody. Yet it could be everybody.]

Mom: So smart. What’s the use? Get a degree and leave and not come back.

Me [bracing myself for the impact]: … … …

Mom: Just like my daughter, right?

Me [really wanting to die now]: … … …

Mom: Now just counting the days until my daughter comes home again.

Me [Must. Pretend. I. Did. Not. Hear. This. Because. There. Is. Nothing. I. Can. Do.] … … …

Mom: Alrighty then. You must be tired. Have you eaten yet?

Me: No.

Mom: Why not?

[I thought to myself, “We are waiting for Godot”, and became more depressed because this would be a joke that my folks would never ever get…]

Me: Because I have been talking to you on the phone?

Mom: Oh. Ha ha. Remember to add an egg when you cook your Ramen noodles.

Me [Still wanting to die]: Ok. Bye mom.

 

 

So far in my luggages, there are FOUR Coach bags, 1 pair of Coach shoes, expensive eye cream, face lotion, anti-wrinkle lotion, unicorn magical hair to eliminate wrinkle from someone who’s almost 80, etc etc etc.

Why do I still feel guilty?

Why do I feel guilty that I did not goof off at school, drop out, work at some seedy places, meet rich older men, become their mistresses, bear boy children for them, become a lady of leisure so I can hang out all the time, and buy houses and cars for my parents?

Fuck. this. shit.

 

 

Some of the Best Decisions I’ve Made

1. Buying a duvet cover in DEEP RED rather than white like those nice glistening duvet covers in hotels

Around 1 am today, as I was wrapping up my work and was looking forward to hitting my head against that pillow, I heard my 9-year-old boy make a familiar sound. A sound from the past. A sound I have forgotten. A sound that makes every mother’s heart skip a beat while screaming “OMFG Not again?!” inside. I rushed upstairs and confirmed my worst fear.

He looked like this.

The green plants covering his entire upper body, shoulders, back, neck and cheeks would be regurgitated broccoli.

And the green swamp would be my bed.

And like the Swamp Thing, Mr. Monk has left a trail of bits and pieces of his green self as he moved about.

2. Agreeing to settle for the fake, and cheaper, down comforter that The Husband found at an outlet. Can we all cheer for the words “machine wash” on the tag?

Broccoli. Mr. Monk had eaten a whole bowl of broccoli for dinner. And cupcakes with blue frosting. And chicken. I was able to remember the dinner menu while surveying the aftermath. It’s amazing how the frosting retained its neon blue color.

3. Deciding to leave the plastic cover over my bed long after the kids had stopped wetting the bed. Deep down I know it’s because I was too lazy to do anything about it. Laziness pays off sometimes, just remember to pass it off as being laid-back, or zen-ish.

Otherwise there would be no trash bag big enough to toss my memory foam bed into it the way I was forced to toss my memory foam pillow into a trash bag and sealed it with a hazardous material sticker.

4. Buying the Christmas Tree bedsheet set on massive sale from a website that is not Pottery Barn.

I followed my first instinct, crumpled up the bedsheet and tossed it into a trash bag. I am sitting here right now staring at it, trying to decide how awful it would be if I simply throw it away so I do not have to deal with the swamp within.

Since I only paid $20 for the fitted sheet, I now have the liberty to even ponder this. If it were one of those $300 Pottery Barn gilded* bedsheets, I’d be crying right now.

5. (The credit should go to The Husband for this one) Buying new washer and dryer for me even though I strongly dislike receiving appliances as gifts. Don’t try to kill two birds with one vacuum cleaner, just sayin’ man. You would not like to receive an iron, do you? But tonight? Hallelujah for FRONT LOADING, baby!**

My 9-year-old. Before he turns into the Swamp Thing.

This is why instead of having my head firmly on my pillow, I am listening to Maroon 5 on Spotify while laundering the duvet cover, bed cover, comforter, towels and pillow cases in the comfort of my own home.

6. Starting my blog many moons ago.

Minor disasters and mishaps in life seem so much more tolerable, even humorous, now that I can see all of them as potential blogging fodders. “Oh, I am picking up regurgitated brocoli at 2 in the morning. How funny!” Standing from outside looking in. Everything seems hilarious as if I were watching a sitcom based on my own life.

 

So. This is my Monday morning. How has your Monday been so far?

 

* For the price they are asking for, I simply assume their sheets are gilded.

** Is it just me or does this somehow sound dirty to anybody else?

 

A Piece of TV Reality

A couple of guys were giving out rims of paper at a street corner this morning when I was inching my way to the office. I was mildly puzzled: Really? What made some paper company think it’s a good promotional ploy to give away a whole pack of printing paper? And why would I want to be carrying around something this heavy?

Well… I am very happy to stand corrected.

 

 

Circles

Scene: The basement of an upscale restaurant in a hip Chicago neighborhood

Cast: Her. And a throne of other women. It would be accurate to add “mostly young and attractive (and white except her and one other woman, though this has nothing to do with anything really…)” Being young adds 20% at least to the overall attractiveness btw. Youth is something the young does not know to appreciate.

Setting: A “women @ company” event aiming to “unite” women in the company. Tonight’s event is for a popular Chicago chef to share with her exclusive audience how she overcame the male-dominant restaurant business.

There have been several emails going out to all the women in the office promoting this event. Come meet your co-workers, listen to someone who’s braved the male-dominant world and made it, be empowered (well, they have never actually used the word “empowered” in any of the communications. It’s like we are so liberated now, and all these “women @ company” events have to be coached in a non-militant, non-aggressive way), and oh yeah, have some cocktails and food while you do all of the above. She was not planning to go because she does not have any friend in the office. She just joined the company this past year and for all her work duties, she works with a different office remotely. For all intent and purposes, the space she occupies may as well be a rental space. Proof? This office location had two holiday parties and she was not invited to either. Sorry.

Somehow she decided that it’s her duty to support this bourgeoning group, “Women @ Company”. It’s simply not nice to poo-poo these events and cry about women not being valued (or valued less) in the company. With the sense of duty and “Oh, how bad can it be?” thought, she walked the 3 blocks.

She was relieved upon entering the room reserved for private parties to see one of her cubicle mates. Great! Someone she knew. She quickly got a vodkacran from the bar tender who listened sympathetically as she recounted how the office holiday party in another city that she went to last week had only a not-open open bar. The bar tender, probably feeling sorry, gave her a heavy pour of Ketel One.

She stood around awkwardly with her cube-mate and a couple of women whom her cube-mate knew. She instinctively sensed that one of the other women would rather not be in this circle that they formed. You just know these things, right? You could tell from the body language. The angling out. The slight turning-away. The “Oh I am so relieved you are here because now I don’t have to be talking to this woman whom I don’t know and have no interest in knowing” expression when someone else showed up. So now the circle was broken into two. Inconspicuously. But not, unfortunately for her, imperceptibly.  Leaving her and her poor cube-mate whom she suspected was cursing her own bad luck, “Wait. I want to be in that other circle. The new one!”

Cube-mate quickly announced, “Well, I have to leave. I have to be home by 6 to relieve my nanny.” Yes, cube-mate is one of the few other women in the office with kids, even though cube-mate is probably almost a decade younger than she is.

With cube-mate gone, she’s left in an awkward position. “No matter. I will go get another drink!” Bar tender was happy to see her friendly face again. “Another one?” “Yes.” It’s amazing how almost all the bars she’s visited she never had to tell the bar tender what she wanted after the first round. She turned around with her new drink, and was faced with one of the most horrifying realizations. She did not have a circle to go back to.

AWKWARD.

 

She went back to the vicinity of the aforementioned new circle, just to test the water. No. Nobody made that slight movement to welcome her. She’s now faced with a tough decision: “What the fuck should I do now?”

Cellphones.

She took out her phone and pretended to check her messages in the midst of women engaging in delightful conversations. “This probably looks really rude. People are going to think that I am being a-social.” Chastised, she put away her phone quickly and braced herself. She turned around, took a deep breath, and slowly made her way to the bar. With a FULL drink.

The few seconds felt like eternity and the short walk felt as if it’d never end. Sorry for the cliche. But it is what it was. Nobody. She did not know anybody. Nobody acknowledged her presence. No circles opened up. She positioned herself by the bar, with a FULL drink, pretending that she’s waiting in line. For what? Her drink was fucking full. Yes, she could have finished her drink quickly so she could get another one. But she’s going to be faced with the same hell with a 3rd drink in her hand. She quickly decided that drinking heavily and fast by yourself in a small, and worse, well-lit room where it’s easily seen that you’re drinking heavily and fast by yourself was probably more pathetic than the situation she was already in. She moved back to the new circle and she forced herself into the circle by physically tresspassing the invisible line that formed the circle.

“Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt. Hi, I am XXX. Nice meeting you.”

Now, this was not her imagination: If people want to include you, they will move slightly to make room. If not, they will simply turn around in order to address you, without moving.

It was made very clear to her.

“Fuck. This is even more awkward than before.” She quickly thought. “Do you know what time the chef will start speaking?”

“Oh. She’s supposed to start at 5:30.”

“Ok. Thanks!”

The women went back to their conversation.

She moved away from the force field and looked at her watch. 5:15. She turned around to survey the sea of circles and felt her eyes getting warm.

She needed to get out of there now.

On her way back to the office, her tears started swarming out of the corners of her eyes. Luckily it’s winter and it’s already pitch dark. The turn of the event caught her off guard. This was one of the selves that she was not prepared to confront.

She resisted looking at the darkened shop windows as she walked by, as her vain self was wont to, afraid that she’d see someone from the past.

“I thought I’ve left you behind many years ago.”

And she’d been proven wrong. So. very. wrong.

Tis the Season to be Jolly

Tra la la la la la la la la.
Don we now our gay apparel
Fa la la la la la la la la.
 

Gay apparel as in holiday parties. Of course. Tis the season of office holiday parties where alliances are formed, enemies are made, and by the end of night, everybody is drunk enough to tell the person whom you absolutely hate when sober, “I love you. Seriously, man. You. are. the. best!”

New York Magazine is kind enough to give us a guide on “How Drunk Can You Get at Your Office Holiday Party” with a handy dandy notebook printable guide that you can tuck into your bra and bring with you. Better remember to check on it though while you are still sober enough to read it in the bathroom stall because any good office holiday party will not have adequate lighting for reading. Duh.

 

Cog in the machine, while suffers in silence the rest of the 364 days, gets to have the MOST FUN EVER at the office party. “I hate my job so much I don’t even fucking care any more.” That’s the attitude that will get you through the night!

 

I’ve told you that I get typecast all the time, right? Well, it happened again. A friend of mine Facebook-tagged me:

CHRISTMAS OFFICE PARTY– Use the first 10 people on your friends list. Don’t Cheat:

Running around topless singing Jingle Bells: 
Spiked the punch then drank most of it :
Dancing on the desk singing “Can’t Touch this”:
… Has Rolodex making prank calls:
Spinning around in office chair screaming:
Locked in the bathroom hugging the toilet:
Passed out under their desk:
Sitting on copier making Christmas cards:
Throwing fruitcake at people outside:
Playing spin the bottle with cleaning crew:

Guess where my name fell? Yup. The first one. I just don’t think it will ever happen because I cannot sing worth a damn.

Also? I just survived our mega office holiday party last week and I’ll have you know that I kept my clothes on the whole night. And I did not spill any drink. Woohoo! WIN!

The sad truth is I could not have gotten hammered even if I wanted to. The OPEN bar? Was not really open. They only served beer and wine. INCONCEIVABLE. ikr?! So the whole night I kept on going from the 5th floor to the bar at the hotel lobby to get my own drink on. Yes, my dear Internet, I paid for my own premium vodka at an office party with an open bar. I had four with a heavy pour and I woke up with NO hangover and NO headache whatsoever. Win? WIN!

Despite the open bar not being really open, I had a lot of fun at the party talking to random people, including coworkers whom I had never actually spoken to until that night and their wives, my boss, his wife, his boss, his boss’s wife, someone else’s bosses, someone else’s bosses’ wives, etc etc etc. Problem is? I kept on thinking, “The missis must be really really bored. Probably want to poke their eyes out with a fork if they have to face another forced conversation. Quick. Let me say something genuinely funny to amuse them.”

At one point, I offered one of the missis to beat up her husband for her. I guess I am not going to get a promotion, again.

I also told a coworker whom I had not really spoken to before until that night that I love his wife. Huh. I don’t think it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between me and him…

 

But the BEST part of the night? I finally got a picture taken of me in which I do not have ginormous fat arms that look like they are about the size of my torso.

Finally. A picture of me with NO fat arms. Yeah! This goes to prove that lighting is everything.

This heavily cropped picture somehow focuses on the cruel fact “Where the fuck did my waist go?”  Oh hell. I will be happy with the NO fat arm for now. At least I am not making my friend look like she’s naked…

 

 

It's that horrifying moment when your friend's "fat arm" makes you look naked...

 

p.s. Yes. YES! I confess. I wrote this post just so I could post this picture. You are welcome. And if you spill anything on your clothes, take them off, take a nekkid picture, send that and the dry cleaning bill to moi. xxoo