OakMonster’s Den

I have to wake up in about 5.5 hours. Finally, the sugar I have consumed while making and decorating my Devil’s Food Cake with Chocolate Rum Frosting has worn off. Oh, I made some marshmallow skulls and treasure chests…so I kinda had to eat the ones that didn’t look good. Heh.

Talk Like A Pirate Day is tomorrow. Captain Bubbles be strikin’ dah investers’ meeting in her “Professional Pirate” outfit that oughtta shiver yer timber. Yarrrr!

I’ll put the pictures of the Pirate cupcakes and the 2nd annual pig cupcakes up soon. I promise! In the mean time, I uploaded the old, OLD pictures of the family. Go on over to Flickr to giggle at how cute I was as a child before I was hit by the ugly stick around 12.

…of mom.

Apparently, mom has been paying a visit to a few of us here and there.

Last week, I woke up sobbing hysterically and freaked the hell out of Brandon.  After a long crazy dream about me being a failure (..something about burning something on the stove top when all I had to do was reheating a frozen block of soup, someone came into the house with a pet meerkat, and everyone was looking at me as if I just came off the short bus for burning that fucking soup…), I somehow ended up in a mall with my dad and brothers.  They were ahead of me and had already went down the escalator.

As I stepped on, someone also stepped on from the other side. I looked over, and it was my mom.  I looked at her.  I touched her arm.  She looked at me and smile.  I started to cry.

“Oh, mom.  I really miss you.”

“I miss you too, baby.”

And I woke up bawling for another good 5 minutes before going back to sleep.

My dad just called to tell me about mom’s visiting him too.

The first part had me in it.  Dad and I were in his room, watching TV, when mom came in through the door.  Dad told me, “Look!  It’s Mommy.  Go to her, quick!”  And I ran to her as if she had just returned from a trip.

I asked him how old I was in this dream of his, and he said just like now.

And then his dream changed into yet another familiar scene.  He and mom were at a buffet at some posh hotel.  He asked her if to go see if anything look good.  She shook her head.

“I just kind of want roasted duck curry (gaeng pedd bpedd yang).”

So when he woke up, he informed just about anybody about the dream.  Pueng, of course, went out to the first food stall she could find the next morning to buy duck curry as alms for the monks.  The aunties followed suit with their temple visits, bringing to the temple duck curry.

There you go, folks.  I think Mommy had checked in to see if we are all doing well.  It’s too bad she doesn’t believe in gambling or I’ll ask her for the next winning Mega Million numbers.  Hehee.

USC Trojans football team.  How I love thee!

Oh, yeah, baby.  I am soooooo back with the football season after having missed the opener two weeks ago.  There was no college football on Thailand’s cable, by the way.  Just, oh, I don’t know, 3 channels of soccer and one that seems to be alternating between ML baseball and rugby.  I think once NFL starts up, you get a few games in there too.

Anyway.  I got a big ol’ welcome back to the realm of the Trojans by spending the entire evening in front of James and Aurora’s gigantic screen TV and pizza…which after the Gaffey Street Diner’s egg florentine this morning, I wasn’t sure I would be able to have any more food.  But man, Me & Edd’s pizza…they’re something else.

Oh, and Aurora and I had a 2-hour pre-game Karaoke Revolution bash.  They bought the American Idol version and it was sooo much better than the original!  I brought over my microphone and ‘Rora and I just went to town.  We had so much fun that during half time, we fired up the PS2 for a quick 5-round of short singoffs.

The game?  The Trojans dominated and spanked Nebraska up and down the field.  It was like 49-17 when we switched off to watch Torchwood on BBC America at 9 p.m., about 4 minutes left on the last quarter.

Oh hey, we didn’t lose when I watch the game out of my house!  It seems my good luck charm of staying home and watching the game has been broken.  Hallelujah to that, brothers and sisters of Cardinal and Gold!

Now, back to the game.  We did really well and I am very proud of that.  Sure, Maualuga needs to chill out and cool off his crazy head, but that boy is just phenomenal.  That Stefan Johnson kid? Holy hell did I have a vision of what Reggie Bush might have been when he started out.  It didn’t surprise me that the final score is actually 49-31.  After all, we put our newbie team led by QB Matt Sanchez down by that point.  Like Pete Carroll always said, hey, we won, right?  Who cares how close the game was.

And happy birthday to you, Uncle Pete.  Your boys gave you quite a nice present today, didn’t they? 

Now, back to the James & Aurora’s big screen television for a minute.  Mind you, the thing with its stand is about my height, widescreen that is longer than me, hooked up to surround sound and is HD compatible.  This was the first time ever for me to watch the Trojans on big screen this size and so personal!

James promises to invite me back over to watch the game once they subscribe to HD channels.  Actually, he did say I can come over to watch the game there every Saturday.  But I think I’d leave the expecting parents to their deserved weekend rest more than a screaming college football fanatic.

Hey, speaking of expecting parents, do you realize that I have 3 sets of expecting parents all due in March 2008?

James and Aurora currently call their first (and long awaited) baby Jalapeno, an adjustment according to the size of the baby.  Last week it was Peanut.   Nan and Mike announced that their son Owen is going to have a sibling.  And finally, Rude Cactus and Beth Fish, parents of the adorable Mia Bean, thus far have called theirs Wally.  On Monday we’ll get to find out the sex.

I mean, a few weeks ago, we were floating my mom’s ashes off in to the ocean.  And a few of my friends lost their parents within months before I did.  Now, looking around me, my friends are having babies.

Circle of life, indeed.

P.S.  Want more football talk?  Go visit with Amy the Gridiron Goddess.  Seriously, she KNOWS her football, probably more than some of the guys I know! 

I know I do rant about how boys make cool friends once in a while, but when it comes down to what a girl needs, a small girl’s night out is always the best therapy.

I’m happily suffering a bit of a discomfort from stuffing my face with sushi, washed down with a bit of sake, and topping off with a mini cup of strawberry cheesecake frozen yogurt. An evening out eating and chatting with your girl friends, although may not help with possible indigestion, totally enhances the warm and fuzzy food coma.

Aurora, Lupe and I were the remainder of the monthly dinner gang this night. We hit our usual sushi joint, Mama’s Sushi in Cerritos. You know, that joint with the Thai chefs? That’s it! So I went up to the bar to say hello to the boys. Tong, the one we chat up last time, did a double take and he said, “Whoa! Where have YOU been!? And where’s your friend?”

I pointed to Aurora and Lupe at the booth. Aurora waved. Then Tong said, “Oh, good god. Looks like someone’s getting drunk tonight.”

“Nah. Just me probably. Aurora can’t drink.”

“Why not?”

“She’s pregnant.”

“Ohhh!” Tong looked over my head at Aurora, holding his hands over his stomach and made a “really?” face at her. She nodded. He gave her thumbs up.

“Good job!”

“That’s what my husband keeps telling me,” Aurora shot back.

The rolls we had today were mainly cooked ones because Aurora is not supposed to eat raw fish. Crunch Roll is always good here. Then we had BSC which is California Roll topped with baked mini scallops and a plate of baked mussels. Lupe and I ordered a few pieces of sushi for ourselves and polished off the large sake together. We later on sent the boys a bottle of Asahi which was after that fact that we already ate but nonetheless much appreciated. Greasing the chefs for better food and some more comp stuff next time, we were. Heehee.

After a long day/week I had at work, sushi, sake and girl time may just be exactly what the doctor’s order! (No offense to my ever so loving husband though. But tonight is all about my girls!)

You all know my obsession with getting into cardboard boxes. I think it’s time to share my passion with the world at large.

Join me at my Flickr group, People in a Box, where we celebrate people of all ages, shapes, sizes and species (because some of us think our pets are people too) getting inside a really big box.

I also added some random pictures I took around my house on my Flickr album as well, so go check that out too.  Okeedokey?

And here’s an interesting view of Downtown LA the other day.  Please excuse my giant finger…

The loss of my mother, although hurts like hell (as the whole emotional tsunami crashed in on me yesterday), doesn’t hold a candle up to the 9-11 and post-9-11 loss.

So, one day of break from my emo phase to remember lives lost on this tragic day. And many more lives lost as the aftermath of that.

I was up at 6:30 a.m. this morning.  Jet lag is getting better!

I did end up getting to work at 6 a.m. on Thursday morning.  LOL.  I drove in and left promptly at 3 p.m. and miraculously got home without killing myself.  I did steal a solid hour of nap later in the afternoon though.  How solid?  I started the nap laying on the couch.  When Brandon came in to wake me up, I was sitting and I had no idea how I got there.  Yeah…interesting, isn’t it?

But a sleepy Thursday worked out to my advantage as I slept through the night and woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed right before my alarm went off on Friday.  Yey!  The day at work was quite normal except for massive sleepiness in the afternoon.  Thank god for the bus as I slept like a rock all the way home.

I have been talking to some people about this recent trip.  While I was in Bangkok and still the same way since I returned, I felt as if I have always been there.  You know, since my last trip in July.  I tried very hard to remember what all happened between my last trip and this one, and that two months don’t even register in my brain.

I mean, I have to look at the blog to remind me that I really was here between July and August.  The last thing I remember was the day of fun at San Diego Zoo.  It seemed, much like me sitting up on the couch in my sleep, I sleepwalked through a few months of my life and I didn’t even realize it.

*

It has been odd being back.  I came home to many many cards.  My coworkers left one for me at work as well and got me crying my first day back.  Heh.  The outpouring of sympathy and support is more than I expected.

At the same time, I suddenly understand what I have read in many books about how everyone around you who knows seems to be tiptoeing.  I know people mean very well when they ask how you are doing.  But when some of them returned my “I’m fine” with “Really?  Are you sure?”, that starts to get a little irritating.

I understand that if my mom’s death was sudden, I could be a lot more devastated that this.  But with my mom’s long history of the illness, it seems I had the time to come to terms with her death.

Every time the phone rang and I got news that she was worse, I cried my head off.  It almost felt like I was putting a deposit into an account.  By the time we got to the actual death, that Bank of Sorrow was full.  And I could hurt no more.

Like I told a few folks, with me and my mom, it seems that we had said our goodbyes when I left her after her very first chemo.  I still have that image of mom, standing on the top of the stairs, looking at me leaving in my mind.  That was the last time I saw her whole.

We had said all sorts of things to each other then, solving some of our issues and perhaps starting a few new spats.  But it was us, being us as if there was to be no next trip.  Ever the practical one, I want to believe she wanted to make it so that just in case something happened while I was gone, neither one of us would have any regrets.

Regrets?  Oh, I have plenty.  More like a heap of guilt topped with anger, really.  Angry at the way she was treated.  Angry at the shenanigans that was her final hours.  Guilty that I wasn’t there for any of her ordeal since the discovery of the cancer all the way down to her last breath.  (Actually, outside of Kob the Caregiver, none of us were there.)

Guilty that I never aspired to be the dutiful and glamorous daughter she could really be proud of.

*

When I received the call from my dad around noon PST on August 20,  it was 2 a.m.  August 21 Bangkok time.  My family and Aunty Sida along with her daughter and son-in-law were getting to the hospital after receiving a call about mom’s rapidly worsening condition.

The week leading up to her death, mom’s jaundice had slowly settled in but it was the infections she was fighting off that made things more complicated.  A few days before, her digestive system started to shut down, her stomach started to swell, and her breathing became more laboring.  They finally started her on morphine, but it had been a blessing that up to that point, mom wasn’t in any pain.

The day of her death, the nurses were doing the routine suction to clear my mom’s air way.  And as always, mom put up a little fight.  But this time, her tooth was knocked loose.  Having been on many medications including a blood thinner, her tooth bled quite profusely and in turn her blood pressure dropped to dangerous degree.

That was when the family was called in.  They said that if they couldn’t stop the bleeding, this could be the end.  If they could stop the bleeding and add some platelets to her in the morning, we could extend her life for a few days.

The platelets were unavailable at that hour because Monday was a holiday for Thais.  Stupid “Go home and vote on the new constitution referendums over the weekend and we’ll give you Monday off”policy.  So they couldn’t get to the blood facility for the platelets, nor the equipment to make new ones even if the family was to offer their blood right then and there.  Oh, and there were only med students on the duty as the “real doctors” were off on holiday so they didn’t have the authorization for the platelets anyway.

Another thing for me to be angry about.  But my dad told me that, like they said, even if mom held on through that morning, the platelets would only give her hours or a day or two.  It was better that she went the way she did.

By 4 a.m., her bleeding stopped and blood pressure stabilized.  The “doctors” on duty told everyone to go home.  Now they had to just waited for 8 a.m. office hour to get the platelets.  Everyone said their goodbyes for the night and went home.

Around 6 a.m., mom took her last breath.  Kob said she was just laying there, breathing.  But then she took a breath, and that was it.

At my mom’s wake, Kob told me she wondered why everyone went home that morning instead of staying around.  Well, for one, I told her, if the doctors said there was nothing to worry about, then there wasn’t anything to worry about.  And for the other, if mom had anything to do with it at all, I think that was her way of once again, being the gracious host.  Everyone got out of bed in the wee hours to see her once, she wasn’t about to have them out again.  Not wanting to cause trouble or inconvenience, as Thais call it Kreng Jai, she’d rather go quietly than having everyone rushed back out.

*

In my head, I have played that recount of my mom’s death several times.  Feeling again angry and disappointed at Thailand’s health care, but at the same time grateful that mom has gotten the best care she could.  At the same time, I have a picture in my mind of what happened that morning and I was happy that mom went peacefully.

Her long journey has wrapped up.  Mine without her has just started.  But funny how her lack of physical presence in my life is opening up all of these memories of her.  Everywhere I look and everything I do, there is her story.  There is a thought of her.

I miss her more now that she’s dead and maybe perhaps a plane of existence away than I have ever missed her when she was alive and merely half a world away.

And ironically, my own prediction came true that “Your head stinks” is REALLY the last thing my mom would ever said to me.  (See 3rd from last paragraph.)

See time stamp.

Been up an hour before this.  And if I’m still up the next hour, I’m just going to drive in to work.

Ack.

It’s good to be back.  And yet, it’s so strange.

My body thinks it’s almost midnight.  Obviously, the sun’s up.

All is quiet but the hums of the multiple fans in the house.  No city noises.  Although I am already missing the morning doves and the sound of the bottle man sing-songy, “Sell your bottles!”  (Kuad ma kai!)  Everyday, you’ll hear the bottle man, pedaling his cart down every nooks and crannies of our street, yelling for customers to come out and sell their empty bottles the same way his professions have done for longer than I have lived.  It’s amazing and refreshing to still hear that in the bustling metropolis Bangkok has become.

My brain also thinks I was still back in Thailand as I woke up startled a few times last night a) not knowing where I was and b) because I have Brandon in my bed.

Brandon in my bed.  Now THAT is a good change. 

I came back to an immaculate home.  Someone has been nesting!  Brandon even filed my papers for me!  Now I just have to do my part in unpacking my stuff and sort out the rest of the place.

And my god, did I bring back the heat with me?!  Nah.  Apparently SoCal has been this hot since I left.  It’s weird being back in the oven instead of the sauna.

The flight back was very pleasant.  Apparently, even though my ticket purchase said “Economy”, I indeed bought Premium Economy tickets for both directions.  I ain’t complaining as everything was just perfect.  And as the best option for all of the last minute tickets I could find at the time at $1,700 while the rest was $2,000+?  Oh yeah, it’s worth every penny.

I also ran into my friend Maylanie at the airport.  Maylanie’s mom was in the ICU last time I was home 2 months ago, remember?  Well, she’s still in the hospital and they’re footing half of the bill.  You see, Maylanie’s mom has intestinal cancer and she has got sepsis after the surgery which at one point, while I was there that was, she had 10% chance of survival.  Now she’s recovering also from a pneumonia that came while she was fighting the sepsis,  and still has a drainage tube for her stomach.

Maylanie’s sister Meena, as it turned out, was on my flight!  We met up before boarding and ended up just a little bit away from each other.  The funnier thing is that she was spending the night with her friend before heading back to Arizona from Long Beach airport.  Pretty much, if Maylanie and I had known about each other’s plans, Meena might have ended up staying with us last night!

I also got word that another one of our friend’s mom is also battling cancer.  It’s the weirdest thing!  Suddenly, all the moms of my generations are battling cancer all about the same time.  Gotta be something in the water.

Not to sound totally pessimistic but my Mater Dei group has gotten the drill for a funeral visit down to the tee now.  Everyone seems to have a stock of black clothing handy.  They all know what to do and who’s in charge of sending the wreath alternative.  Too many funerals in the past 6 months, they said.  Too many, indeed.

Anyways.  I’m trying to stay awake.  I have to unpack still and also have to get out for some sun.  Last time, the sunshine therapy TOTALLY helped me back on my feet faster than anything else.

Off I go.  Thanks for sticking with me this entire time.  You guys rock!

Getting ready to leave the house for the airport now.  We’re waiting on my brother.

Let me just say that I have never gotten choked up leaving the house before.  And here I am, teary-eyed just thinking about it.

It seems the past few years, the house has never been the same.  Mom was sick back then. The change was the fact that we didn’t have her out and about with us much.  Then mom got sicker, but she was still able to converse a bit.  The last time, the house once again went empty with a little bit of hope.

And now it is just empty.

We cleared out most of her stuff.  A few drawers here and there I will come back to clear out.  Emotionally, I can’t do any more tossing things out.

Everyone is adjusting well.  Dad is finally willing to let go of mom’s things in his room. We are introducing Pueng to a little bit of new policy at a time as one big sudden change would totally throw her off.  I taught her to make oatmeal for dad this morning.  She started to change her routine a bit too.  Dad and I bought a bunch of new dishes and silverware yesterday as well.

It’ll be next year before I return here.  By that point, the construction of the new family  business, Portico Langsuan, should be close to finish.  Things are going be different around here…

Alrighty.  Off I go.  See you over there!