Tag: family

Fun day

Going to bed when I’m supremely tired has been working three nights so far.  It works better on the weekend, I’m sure.  Man, trying to get up to wash the Korean BBQ smoke out of my hair this morning was tough. It’s starting to cool at night in California a little bit. Cool when I left the house and when I got home.  It makes it really hard to get out of bed in the morning.

When I got work, I gave my dad a call.  Of course, I caught him watching his nightly news and he filled me in on Thailand’s current madness.  He recommends the recent article in Time Magazine.

“Somebody’s funneling money into the PAD,” he said.  “Someone’s paying daily stipends for people to not be earning a living but to sit in at the Parliament House.  And it’s a pretty good bet around here that it’s the old-money elites.  They want the Democrats to be government and Abhisit as PM.”

“But I want Khun Mark [Abhisit] to be the PM…” I whined.

“I know. But not like this,” dad replied.  And I agreed 200%.

“Brandon said if this shit is still going on by the end of October, he’s not coming home with me,” I told him.

“Tell him this is the BEST time to be in Thailand,” dad replied.

“I told him the protest doesn’t bleed over to the tourists so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“It’s not just that,” dad added.  “All the other tourists would’ve canceled.  Hotels would be empty, and then we could get any room at any hotel we want in Phuket on the cheap!”

My dad.  There could only be one.

*

And there could also be only one Brandon.

A text message this afternoon sent me into a giggle.

“Hahah. The cats attacked [The traveling Couch] Monkey!  Jumper walked by with Monkey in his mouth then the little ones [Brandon’s folks’ new cats as oppose to Jumper, the elder statesman] ran by and stole him from Jump.”

My poor traveling Couch Monkey, covered in kitty drool!  Later on tonight, as Brandon was reading before bed with the cats, again, Monkey was taken.  Brandon had to chase the cats down to get him back.

And my poor husband, for him to be on his cell phone to text me these things, Brandon had to step outside and down the driveway of their house in the mountains of New Mexico.  It was 27F when he called me an hour earlier.

Now THAT’S love.

*

The day of much love and laughter ended well at my first Lyrical Jazz class with Sizzle at Moondance Studios tonight.

I LOVE Sizzle!  She’s totally awesome.  Not only does she have lessons planned for the next 6 weeks, she also taught us the history of each week’s style.  Today, we learned the basics of Fosse style and did the routine from the first 2 verses of Chicago’s All That Jazz.

Jazz hands. Fosse’s port de bras. Hip pops. And other signature Fosse moves.

Ow, my quads. And my back.

The zombie moves I was going to practice before I go to bed should look awesome now that my back is a little bit stiff…

The Day

The first anniversary of my mom’s passing is here.

My heart is heavy.

I picked up red roses, her favorite, at the Farmer’s market yesterday. Looking at them in the elevator, tears welled up.

But I didn’t cry.

Brandon held me this morning before he left for work.

I didn’t want to wake up this morning. I just want to stay asleep.

But I did wake up. I had to.

Somebody has to put the roses in a vase for mom.

I talked to my dad a while ago. The entire crew of aunties and the family went to the temple.

I thought about going to the temple too. But it was hard going by myself last time. I felt that I should be with my family for this. I didn’t wan to go there alone again.

Instead, I just stayed home and arranged those roses into a vase.

And I thought of mom.

Her laughs. Her pouts. Her walk.

How she ran her fingers through my hair the last time we talked and told me my head stink.

How it felt to hold her hands while we watched Meerkat Manor the last time I was there.

I will be thinking of her all day today.

I will try not to cry in class this afternoon.

I will try not to cry when I make lasagna for dinner tonight.

It was one of her favorites.

God.

I miss her.

15

Never our plan II

The Christian God has been vying for my soul a bit heavily these past few weeks.

Observe the long list of Catholic and Christian coincidences.

#1

August 6 was the day of the dinner party with people on my last bus home. The bus was so unusually full in the morning that Tony who always sit in the back ended up in the front. Next to him was Robert, a gentleman who used to ride the bus when I started. We work in the same building. Since then he had stopped taking the bus, only popping up on the bus a few times a year.

The last time he was on the bus, he asked me to pray for him as he was going in for a lung biopsy. After that few bits and pieces of news were passed around on the bus that it was cancer, but he was okay. No one on the bus had seen him until that day.

Tony, being a friendly man, went ahead and invited Robert to our cliquey little bus party after the last bus. So I gave him my card so I could call me later.

Robert didn’t make it to the party. However, he asked if I would like to be his carpool buddy the following day on the way home. Of course, I said yes.

On our ride home that day, Robert told me about his cancer and the surgery. His case was eerily similar to my mom’s. About the same size, about the same spot, but I’m not sure if it was the same type. He currently is not doing chemo, again, similar to my mom’s case.

Not wanting to scare the man, I didn’t want to tell him about my mom. But the inevitable question of “Are your parents still in Thailand?” led to “If you dad and your brothers are there, where’s your mom?” And I had to tell him.

Robert was very grateful that I shared my mom’s story with him, and he was sorry that he asked so many questions. Then he mentioned something along the line that his view of religion has changed since his surgery.

And then he mentioned that he is Catholic.

#2

After the bus party, I came home to discover that Joy’s Mom Mary’s blog was coming to life. I set her up with the blog and am staying on as administrator to guide her (and a few of her children who are helping) through the wonderful world of blogging. However, her 5 posts a day was disconcerting to me. Perhaps :Mommy” didn’t get the idea of one or two entries a day is enough. So I wrote her an email full of tips for new blogger.

“Mommy” wrote back a few days later telling me that she didn’t post the entries. Her younger daughter Jan was working on the blog as a Mother’s Day surprise present, but didn’t know that I would be monitoring the movement. “Mommy”, a devout Catholic, has told me that God must have sent me to help her because I kept popping in at all the right time.

The day after this, Robert from #1 called me for that fateful drive home.

And of course, in true fashion, I passed along Mary’s blog address to Robert.

#3

The auspicious August 8, I was at my friend Katie’s wedding. It was a Catholic one. I needn’t say more, but there was more.

When I attend a mass with Nora, during the Communion, I would always go up for a blessing. At Katie’s wedding mass, when the priest blessed me, I felt something. The religious would say I felt the Spirit. But it was like a cool breeze washes over me and I felt a little shaky.

Brandon said the blessing might be exorcising the demon out of me. After all, I did make a joke in mass. Kind of.

I misheard the lyric in Here I Am, Lord. The actual lyric is “Is it I, Lord?” but what we heard was “Is it time, Lord?”

I leaned over to Brandon and asked, “Did they just sing, Is it…Time Lord?”

What self respecting Dr. Who fan wouldn’t crack up at that!

#4

August 12 was Thai Mother’s Day. So I blogged about waking up humming Que Sera, Sera, one of my mom’s lullabies.

My brother Onk emailed me later on that as he was reading my post, his MP3 collection pulled up Que Sera, Sera! A jazzy-bossa nova version of it that he didn’t know he had.

Okay this is not a Catholic/Christian coincidence, but hey, it was a MAJOR coincidence!

We both missed mom horribly that day, by the way.

#5

That same day, we were at Sony Studios for work. There were two brief studio tours given. Me and 25 people went on the early one. Naturally, when it was announced that the second and last tour was available, the rest of the people rushed for it. They ended up having to split the big group up into 2 smaller groups.

Somewhere in there, half of the first group got lost. They tried to join the second group but the guide told them to go back to their original group. Unable to find the first tour guide, the separated came back to the party. The second group also returned to the party close to closing time.

What we didn’t know was that the first group’s guide, probably thinking the second half went to join the other tour, kept going with the tour with only a handful of people. (They actually got a better tour than the rest AND caught a glimpse of Tom Cruise!) The rest of us, having heard the story of the separated half, thought that everyone had returned to the party which was now being herded out of the premise. So we packed up.

We found the Coworker’s canvas bag but she was nowhere around. Being it a canvas bag, not a purse, we thought that she might have gone home and forgot the bag. Before we left the office, the Coworker and I swapped phone numbers. I gave her a ring, but no answer. (As we found out, the phone was on mute, naturally.)

So we loaded up Celeste’s boss’ car (for easy unloading at the office the next day) with all the stuff including the bag. We didn’t really pry and see what all else was in the bag. We just checked that there was no food container. We didn’t hear any plastic thunking and we saw the bible on top, and that was enough for us.

Celeste and I stayed behind a bit to talk and to discuss my best route home from Culver City. I was following her car around and out of the parking lot when I spotted our guests waving at Celeste. At first I thought they were waving goodbye, but they were actually yelling FOR her. (Later Celeste told me she thought they were waving goodbye as well so she waved back and continued on her way.)

I stopped and asked if something was wrong.

“A girl, your coworker I think, is missing her bag,” he said through my window.

Oh my god.

The Coworker was still on the tour. Her phone was in the bag as that bag WAS her purse! Her wallet, her keys, everything was in the bag. She would’ve been completely abandoned without the bag.

Here’s the freaky part.

Earlier that morning, I went to the flower mart with Celeste. She was driving so she couldn’t call her boss, so I called her from my cell phone. The Boss’ number otherwise wouldn’t be in my contact list.  I would’ve had to call Celeste for the Boss’ number, but she couldn’t really answer because she didn’t have a hands-free device.

I did get in touch with the Boss and to top it all off, she lives in Culver City.  She was not too far away, so she turned right around with the Coworker’s bag in minutes.

The Coworker is a very spiritual Christian.  I’m thinking God was on HER side more than mine on that one.

#6

You might have seen a seemingly angry comment on my Olympics post. Just like any other comments (with return email address), I replied personally. I told Robert I agreed on all counts why China shouldn’t have the rights to host the game. However, I support the Olympics and the original Olympics spirit, just not this year’s host.

Robert wrote me a very touching reply and apologized for his knee jerk reaction to my post. He also offered to light a candle for my mom at church and kept her in his prayer as the anniversary dawns tomorrow.

A Christian friend from the blogosphere I just made today.

*

I’m telling you. God is gunning for me. 🙂

Sunday Morning

What I wrote to my brothers:

I dreamed a lot last night. But one of the last thing was that I was home for Onk’s wedding.

Don’t laugh.

Who am I kidding. Laugh away!

That’s the gist of the dream because it was all quite a bit mumbo jumbo. Something including the fact that dad’s was the only working shower in the house, that Ake still lives in his room and I am in mine, that we have a hot tub in the backyard (where I ended up having to take a bath in because daddy was STILL in the shower).

And that I was setting two seats for the parents, poignantly missing mom.

I didn’t wake up crying, but I did cry promptly after I woke up.

I miss her something fierce today.

I guess I have been missing her for a bit since Mother’s Day a few days ago. Just didn’t have time to process it all. I have been so busy with everything and at some point I was trying not to feel it, occupying my time and my thought with something else.

You can only fight it for so long.

I have cried today. The hollow feeling in my chest is there. And it is just weird how your “heartache” could physically manifest.

Since I mentioned Mother’s Day, the hole in my chest has just been sitting there. That day, the office had that event at the Sony lot so I was preoccupied with a lot of things. Partly, I didn’t want to have time to dwell on the fact that I was missing my mother.

I kept pushing that through the week, busying myself with work and with Celeste’s going away. Losing one of my good friends at the office, although just across the street, is hard too. The dynamic of our little fun corner is already a little off, and now the glue is gone. It’s going to be interesting adjusting next week.

Friday night, I swore I didn’t want to do anything else. I left work on the early bus, feeling completely spent. I didn’t want to ride a bike to get dinner, but I made myself ask Brandon if we could. I didn’t want to sit and watch TV for the rest of the evening, but I couldn’t get myself to do anything else. All the while, I didn’t want to admit that my heart was aching and that there was a gaping hole in there.

Saturday came, as if he knew something was wrong, Brandon plotted out the day full of activities and I, not wanting to acknowledge my feelings, went with it. We got my bike fixed (the back fender was loose when I took a spill last week), bought a new door handle for my car (plastic is so old and brittle it broke off in Brandon’s hand), got pampered (Brandon got a 30-minute massage next door because the kink in his neck wouldn’t go away while I got a pedicure and extra long foot massage), and picked up groceries (made this awesome Spanish garlic chicken thing–will blog on Hmm…Food…Good soon).

But this morning, I wasn’t so lucky. The dream pretty much topped off the “I miss my mom” tank and spilled over.

I cried. Brandon held me for a while. Then he brought all of the stuffed animals in the room over to hang out with me, a “group hug” from my soft and fuzzy friends, not unlike how I used to do when I was a kid. I made me cry more but at the same time very comforting.

Mom’s first anniversary is already a few days away. And I am already a mess.

Does yours do that?

I just wrote an email to my brothers.  It goes something like this:

You don’t know what it is at first but suddenly your heart flutters and you feel like you couldn’t catch your breath.  Then your heart sinks.  It feels so heavy as if it’s pulling your shoulders the floor along with itself.  Anxiety attack?  Sounds like it.  But it isn’t.

But then tears well up in your eyes, and you realize it’s mom you’re missing.  What you feel is a hole left by her absence.

And then you cry.  Sometimes the whole sinking heart thing goes away.  Sometime it doesn’t.  Someday you wake up crying and you feel fine for another week. Someday you feel it through out the day as you march on with your day, just to come home and surrender to it once you turn off the lights.

Well, there I was. Lights out. Tears came.

Does your heart do that too?

A friend of mine who lost her mother to cancer a few years ago said that grief creeps up on you like that.  She said it was hard the first year.  You thought you were doing fine and then wham! it hits you out of nowhere.  So far I had about 3 of these in the past month.  A few pangs and one of the day I could barely get anything done at work.  I thought keeping busy would be better, but man it was hard trying not to burst into tears every 5 minutes.

I think the first call home to talk to Daddy was the trigger for that one.  It felt odd calling home and not having to ask about Mommy.  And today’s melancholy is probably also triggered by calling dad yesterday.  And the fact that, surprise!, Brandon’s dad is coming to town in the next few days.

So here I am. Awake. With my heart slowly sinking down this bottomless pit of whatever it is. Trying not to cry too much.