Under her control in the house of misery

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Sometimes, certain objects, images, conversations, or current moments remind me of things from the past that I thought I’d forgotten, but were just buried deep into the back of my psyche that it’s almost like I chose to forget them. And there’s probably a reason I might have subconsciously chosen to forget: they were not healthy and likely did not serve me well at all.

In the few weekend days I’ve been at my parents’ house, I was reminded of how controlling my mom was even with the most basic things. If she knew that Ed or I was home and even when she and our dad had their keys (which is… always), she’d ring the bell multiple times and demand that we open the door. If we didn’t come within seconds, she’d ring the bell multiple times at once, indicating her impatience. And by the time we got to the door to buzz her in, she’d lash out at us and asked what took so long, as though we were just standing by the door idly, simply waiting at her beck and call to let her in right away. If she needed help with anything, whether it was with something that went wrong with an appliance, clearing dishes from the dish rack, or even locating a missing Tupperware lid, she’d yell one of our names and expect us to come to her immediately and do exactly as she said. It wouldn’t matter if we were on the toilet, in the bathroom, studying, reading, or really anything — she always expected us to drop everything that very second and do exactly as she wanted. And if we didn’t, she’d rush us, yell at us to come right away, and then get angry that we didn’t come fast enough. “I called you several times,” she’d say in her icy tone. “Didn’t you hear me?” It was infuriating as a child into my teen years, and I really started resenting it in my college and then post-college years. And this time, Chris noticed it. “Why is she ringing the bell when they have their keys?” he asked, annoyed, as I was helping out with Kaia as he was washing her up. “We’re in the middle of something. She has a key and can let herself in!”

That’s the thing, though. Nothing we ever did mattered, and she didn’t care if we were in the “middle” of anything. Everything we did had to revolve around her and what she did and wanted. And it seems that she operates like that now with her Jehovah’s Witness “brothers and sisters.” She doesn’t have any kids under her roof to control anymore, so I guess she had to move onto another group, which is her JW crew, all of whom have no spine to stand up to her. A JW friend of mine in her congregation revealed that my mom is even controlling about which seats people sit in when she’s in one of their cars, which is one of the stupidest and most senseless things ever.

It’s okay, though. Oftentimes in the last ten years to be passive aggressive back, I just ignore her when she calls me and expects me to come right away. Depending on what I am doing, I let her call my name anywhere from six to ten times before I actually come. She can wait until I am done with what I am doing. I am not in a rush for her. And when she gets mad now at this, I am just indifferent to her face.

My mom also loves leaving bedroom doors locked, but she gets angry when we lock the doors. She constantly would lock her bedroom door while I was in the house. She insisted it was because Kaia kept coming in to mess up things, to take their candy (why are there bowls of candy in their room, anyway…?!), but I think it’s because she just didn’t want to expose all the crap she stores and hoards in there. But if we locked the door because we were changing clothes, she’d get mad and passively aggressively say in yet another cold tone, “There’s no reason to lock the door.” Actually, there is, since she and my dad have zero sense of what the word “boundaries” mean, and they constantly open bedroom and bathroom doors without ever knocking or asking. I think we’ve lost count of the number of times both of them have walked in on Chris. I don’t believe in bedroom door locks (they seem very excessive to me: once you have broken into someone’s home, what’s stopping them from breaking your bedroom door lock?!), but I use them in my parents’ house because I know if I don’t, they will walk in on us at the most inopportune times.

My mom has always liked to pack me food when I go back to the East Coast even when I’ve told her I don’t need anything or I don’t have luggage space. I know food is a big love language for her, so usually I try to humor her and take what I can. But sometimes, she legitimately just buys too much stuff, and I have to be honest and say I don’t have the space. She called me while we were at the playground on Saturday to tell me she bought six zongzi (THAT IS A LOT) and wanted me to take them back to New York. I told her I didn’t think I’d have the space for all of them, but I could maybe fit two or three. She got really angry at this and responded, “Okay, okay, fine! You do what you want! I am not the troublemaker here, so you just do what you want!” and then hung up. The irony of this statement is that in more cases than not, my mom is most definitely the “troublemaker,” but she not only refuses to see it, but almost no one in her life is willing to call her out on it. It’s only in the extreme cases, like when she tried to endanger my daughter’s life, that I have to yell at her and call her out on her genuine bullshit. And even then, it still doesn’t get into her head.

It’s okay, though. Once I leave their house and go back to my new and adopted home of New York, I get back to my own calm and slowly forget all that stupid and unnecessary trauma from the past… and then get reminded of it once I step foot in that house again the next time. And then again, I feel grateful I was able to escape and live my own life free of their control and toxicity.

What changes in ten, twenty-plus years

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I feel like every time I come home to San Francisco, I notice yet another thing that has changed. I hadn’t passed 6th and Geary Blvd in ages, and I was shocked while walking along Geary yesterday to see that the entire area that used to be the Ashley & McMullen family owned funeral home was not only demolished, but completely replaced by a multi-story condominium building. There’s no way this happened in just the last year, and I guess I hadn’t passed this part of Geary to notice it. I don’t know why that felt so strange to me, though; condos replace older buildings all the time everywhere, especially places like San Francisco that have a housing shortage. Both my grandma and my uncle had their funerals at this funeral home, in 1995 and then in 2000.

The Alexandria theater at 18th and Geary is still abandoned and looking worn down, a pigeon-poop filled home that is blocked off to humans by aggressive gating. Gaspare’s, the neighborhood Italian American restaurant in the Richmond, still seems to be going strong; we ended up getting takeout pizza and clams with linguine from there on Friday night for family dinner at home. B. Patisserie, a popular (and at that time, very innovative) bakery run by a Chinese American female pastry chef that opened in 2012, is not only humming along in the same location on California at Divisadero, but they have even opened a second location in the heart of downtown now. We went there yesterday and enjoyed some pastries and coffee before walking to Japantown. While I was there, I thought about the week and a half I spent at home in November 2014 because of my dad’s scheduled bypass surgery. His hospital was walking distance from the bakery cafe, so I remember meeting my friend there for lunch one day, and also going there on my own a separate time to decompress a little.

On Friday, I took Kaia to the South Park playground to play while I caught up with an old friend there who drove out to meet us. She was meeting Kaia and also seeing me as a mother for the very first time. It was funny to be in that area after so long, as the last time I remember being in South Park, it was summer 2003, when I had a full-time summer writing internship at WireTap Magazine, a now defunct youth magazine that was owned by the Independent Media Institute (which also used to own Mother Jones). Over twenty years ago, I was an aspiring writer in high school, and today, I am living across the country and am a mother. The play structure had completely changed in the children’s play area, yet the park and surrounding buildings all felt the same. Even some of the fancy cafes that were there twenty years ago still remain today, like Caffe Centro.

People always say things like, “If these walls could talk….” The truth is that there are memories that are conjured every time you walk through old hallways, streets, and neighborhoods that you had frequented, especially when you call the city or town your childhood home. The memories are always a mix of happy, sad, infuriating, and even indifferent, but they are ultimately what colored our lives at a given point in time. Because Kaia is with me, I can see the city through her eyes now. On this trip alone, I’ve lost count of the number of neighborhoods we’ve taken her to and playgrounds/play areas where we’ve played: the Richmond, the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, Chinatown, North Beach, South Beach, downtown/the Ferry Building area, the Tenderloin, Noe Valley, the Fillmore. I love watching her run around and play on these local playgrounds. Of course, they are not the same as the playgrounds and structures I played on as a kid, as all of them have been redone regardless of the neighborhood. But when I asked her if she likes San Francisco and being here, she vigorously nodded, “yes.” And that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

San Francisco Columbarium – changing hands, charging higher prices, and reducing quality of service

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Back in July 2013 when Ed passed, the San Francisco Columbarium was owned by the Neptune Society. About a year later, it changed hands and got acquired by Dignity Memorial, the primary brand of Service Corporation International (SCI), which is North America’s largest provider of funeral, cremation, and cemetery services. They own over 2,000 locations across the U.S. and Canada. I never realized it changed ownership. My parents took care of all of Ed’s arrangements plus their future arrangements ahead of time. I wasn’t even aware of the change of ownership until today when we visited Ed.

Over the years, the service has been really strange and inconsistent. They used to provide a decent coffee/tea machine in the main lobby. That has been taken away. They also had a really practical and logical digital directory where you could look up a loved one to see exactly where and in which hall their niche was located. All of these things have been removed. There was a period when they actually closed as early as 3pm (WHAT!) on random days of the week, and we were rudely greeted by a locked and chained up gate when we tried to drive in. Today when we visited, the main door to the Hall of Olympians, where Ed is, was locked. The sign on the front said to sign in at the front desk before getting admitted. It made no sense to me. We did enter through a side door that was closed but unlocked, and an employee was walking around from the main office and asked us to keep it closed for security purposes. But, there’s no ventilation or air conditioning inside, so I started sweating almost immediately upon entering; it wasn’t even that hot outside, as it was likely 69 or 70 F when we arrived, but inside that hall felt like a sauna. Chris insisted to the employee that the door at least be kept open during our short visit, so the worker relented and said it was okay just while we were there.

This annoyed me for a few reasons. Clearly, vandalism was a concern here, but the security guard who used to walk in and around the Columbarium in previous years was gone. So this led us to the conclusion that they probably stopped paying for security services (because they want to cut costs) and instead wanted to keep all the doors locked. That’s extremely unwelcoming and creates an uncomfortable visitation experience for families and loved ones of people who are interred here. My parents paid over $20K for this niche, and the service has declined over all these years to the point where it feels like we’re getting ripped off. Yet there’s nothing we can do about it.

One of the workers who helped me cut flowers to put into Ed’s little vase made it pretty obvious she hated working here and wasn’t treated well. “But no one else would hire me,” she lamented in a bitter tone. Before she expressed this, she said that it was tolerable to work here, “If you do every little thing correctly and follow all the rules and make no mistakes.” Ouch.

In general, I have always hated the death industry. It’s a necessary one (sort of), but one that preys on the grieving, on the vulnerable mental states of those who have lost… and many who have lost too soon, like us with Ed. This whole experience was pretty infuriating. The only thing that made me feel better was when Kaia kept peering into Ed’s niche and waving to him. When I told her it was eventually time to go, she said “bye bye” one last time… walked away, but then ran back twice to look closely at her JiuJiu before finally taking my hand and walking out with me.

I don’t know when I will first have a real conversation about Kaia’s JiuJiu with her. I am sure that at some point in the next couple of years, she will ask, and I’ll have to figure out the right, age-appropriate way to explain this. But regardless of how the topic gets brought up or which way the conversation goes, I have a feeling that she will respond with empathy and love. She is not even four years old yet, but I can see my Kaia Pookie seems to care deeply and have concern for others, even those she has not even met.

The things that give my dad joy: his compost pile and worms

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Years ago, my therapist asked me if I’d ever thought that maybe my parents actually are happy, that they might just define “happiness” or “joy” or even “fun” differently than me. I agreed with her and said that yes, they most definitely define all those things differently than me. But I did not think that living in spaces that are cluttered with literal trash and junk up to the ceiling was hygienic, healthy, or joyful.

My mom tries her best to clean what she can. But I know her fatigue and spine misalignment do prevent her from doing as much comfortably, so she has let go of caring of a lot of cleaning that she used to be obsessive about (and constantly yell at Ed and me about growing up). My dad isn’t a very clean person sadly. It’s almost like he doesn’t see the thick layers of dust accumulating on the shelves or the gunk accumulating in his soap dishes. But while he fails to keep clean and tidy, he seems to be very into his compost pile in the backyard. Right now, it seems to be his mini source of pride. He was talking about it when we got home today, and I suggested that maybe he could show it to Kaia. My dad, almost like a kid lighting up at the mention of “candy,” immediately agreed and offered to take us to the backyard to show us. We bundled Kaia up and brought her down to the yard.

My dad showed us the black bins where he stored fruit, veggie, and shredded paper scraps. And in it was mixed dirt which had been turned into very rich, dark, (and stinky) soil. He used a shovel to see if he could show Kaia some worms, and he found three of varying sizes, all wiggling around excitedly at being moved. Kaia was extremely intrigued, looking at all the worms squirming around just inches from her face. And like last year, her eyes were glimmering with fascination at the extremely messy, weed-strewn yard, with endless piles of dirt, overgrowth, potted plants, and zero sense of order. It’s almost as though lack of order, untidiness, and piles of junk are a young toddler’s paradise for treasure hunting. She ran around it a few times, poking and peering at random plants and pots. She seemed to find the chaos and mess fun — that’s youthful “ignorance is bliss,” isn’t it?

Even though the yard is a total mess, and has continued to be a weed fest since my grandmother died in 2005 with signs of only getting worse and more cluttered, my dad seems to have his own blissful ignorance about it. My parents have both propagated and bought new potted plants that do seem to be faring well, even in the last year. But there is zero chance that any of these plants will be properly planted into the ground with any real landscaping work to be done to make the yard into a welcoming garden or a place of pride. My dad was happily explaining the way compost works and how the worms help the soil get richer to Kaia. It was likely the happiest I’d seen him during this entire visit. I asked him if he was planning to use this enriched soil for his plants, to which he responded… No, because he just wanted it to keep regenerating and feeding!

I thought the whole point of having a compost pile was to a) reduce waste by recycling food scraps and b) create rich soil to help other plants grow. The rhyme and reason never quite makes sense to me in this house.

So, maybe I do think it’s a bit senseless to create compost soil and not do anything with it to help other plants or with up-soiling the yard. But it seems to make my dad happy and give him some purpose. Maybe in that sense, I should just accept that as something that brings him joy. And if it partially keeps him occupied in a way he finds productive, then that’s all that matters. It’s ultimately his life and what makes him happy.

My mom’s first ride in a Waymo

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On Saturday when we went to the Ferry Building Farmers Market, my mom said she wanted to come with us while my dad waited for workers to come remove the staging in front of the house from having the facade painted. I figured it would be a good idea since now that she hasn’t worked in over two decades, she rarely has any reason or desire to go downtown. Plus, she would never be interested in visiting any San Francisco farmers’ market without me. Before we even arrived in San Francisco, Chris had declared that he wanted to take Waymo, the self-driving cars, as much as possible while we were within city limits (Waymo only works within the city and on local roads now). We took it a couple times while back here in August 2024, and Chris was eager to have the self-driving experience again.

So without telling my mom, Chris ordered a Waymo to appear at the house to take us to the Ferry Building. When it was coming up the block, my mom panicked when she saw it and asked if that Waymo was for us. “Oh, no, no, no!” she cried. “I’m not getting into that! This is so dangerous!” I urged her to get in and not make a fuss. We buckled in Kaia with her ride-safe belt as she giggled in glee and excitement. “WAYYYYY MOOOOOOO!” she kept yelling happily. Kaia is absolutely obsessed with Waymo and can spot any of them from far away on the street or through the window. Every time she spots one, she yells out, “WAYYY MOOOO!”

When the doors closed and we started the ride, my mom began to calm down. She liked the welcome message, that it says hello and urges you to fasten your seat belt and enjoy the ride. She loved how clean the car was and the (at-the-speed-limit) speed it was driving at. And she especially loved the message that came at the end when you are approaching your destination — it reminds you to take all your belongings, and not to leave your phone or wallet in the car. “Oh, that’s so nice!” she laughed at the auto reminder message.

Later, my mom admitted to me that she was really scared and didn’t think that self-driving cars should be legal. But then once she got into the car, she realized how comfortable, clean, and nice it was. “It’s so clean and well maintained!” my mom exclaimed. “And it drives so safely (read: slower)!”

The very first time I got into a Waymo in August 2024, I was a bit leery initially. But after the first 30 seconds, I got used to it right away and love it. As Chris loves to create verbal bullet points for all the pros of self-driving cars, his points are all true: these cars are safer. You don’t have to worry about a driver judging you for any reason (what you look like, how you talk, what you talk about, how long it takes you to load the trunk/get in the car/get your child properly fastened in). There’s no need to feel rushed when getting in and out of the car because the driver will negatively rate you. If you need to take a phone call or call someone, you can do it without annoying the driver. You also don’t have to worry about whether you are slamming the door or trunk too hard, whether you are bothering your driver with any seat preferences you may have (some Uber/Lyft drivers really don’t like it when you sit in the front seat alongside them). And you have full control over things like heating/air conditioning and music and can calibrate them yourself.

And as someone who has always hated driving and hasn’t driven a car since 2008, I think that self-driving cars really should be the future!

The friends/kids dinner that did not go as “hoped”

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Tonight, we went over to a good friend’s house for dinner. She has two kids similar in age to Kaia. Last minute, her husband decided to not stay home for dinner with us and instead to go play pickleball with friends. “It won’t be that bad,” he insisted to his wife (my friend). “They’ll just play together, and you guys can talk.”

It never goes as you hope, though. My friend had just come back from picking up both her daughters, and they were both cranky. One of them was particularly unwieldy and roaring at us like a wolf. And as we were attempting to eat dinner, and my friend had already reheated her dinner more than twice, it actually felt like the three girls could be in the living room all playing relatively harmoniously together. But out of nowhere when none of the adults were paying attention, Kaia started crying hysterically. She had the long, high-pitched wails, the big fat tears rolling down her face. I ran over to comfort her. I asked her what happened. Maya looked angry and kept staring away. And Maya’s little sister Juni, as though “protecting” herself behind the window curtain, yelled out, “She hit her!” Juni paused for a little bit. “And then, she did this!” Juni motioned and took a toy and crashed it down (on a head).

My friend then sent Maya to her room. She did not stay there, though: she kept popping out to roar repeatedly at us. My friend proceeded to call her husband multiple times, leaving several voice messages with the general message of, “Your daughter is being extremely NOT well behaved. YOU NEED TO COME HOME NOW AND HELP ME.” My friend was definitely struggling and increasingly getting frustrated and feeling helpless. She also just relented and ate the rest of her dinner cold.

Eventually, everyone calmed down. The kids played alongside each other, then together, then started running after each other while giggling. And of course, at that point, it was time for us to leave before all the tots got overly tired.

Once we left, my friend texted me several times to apologize for not having the night we “hoped” for. She said she blamed her husband for bailing on us so last minute. But she also blamed herself for not knowing “what was really bothering” Maya.

Parenting is hard, even when you have an involved spouse, even when you have paid and/or unpaid help, even when you try your absolute best with the best intentions. But as much as I hate to admit it, it’s in times like this when I think… I love having “just” Kaia. To me, it’s not *just* her. She’s my everything, and I love being fully devoted to caring for her as my one sweet baby.

The day you would have turned 46.

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Dear Ed,

Happy birthday – today if you were still part of this world, you would have turned 46. How crazy it is that you will eternally be stuck at 33 years of age in my mind. I turned 39 this year. How did I actually become older than you? Is it even possible to get older than your older sibling?

I’m back in our home city with Chris and Kaia. On Sunday, our mother let Kaia out of the house unattended, and Kaia almost ran up the entire block by herself. I ran out to get her just in time and brought her back down to the house, but all I could think of during that time was… first, they let Ed die, and now, they want to let their grandchild die, too? How could they possibly be this irresponsible and stupid? Or, maybe I am really the irresponsible and stupid one. I was the one who allowed Kaia into their dungeon of a house. I was the one who left her unattended with our mother to lure her out of the house without Chris and me in the first place. Maybe I’m the real problem here for allowing this situation to even happen. Maybe I just cannot accept that this house could not be more “normal” and welcoming than it actually is.

I get told by my friends who knew our parents that ultimately, I allow this emotional exhaustion to happen. I need to set better boundaries — everyone seems to tell me this, including both therapists I saw. Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, we didn’t really have the verbiage to describe things like mental load, emotional load, emotional exhaustion. But now, we do. Now, I know that the feeling of exhaustion and heaviness was real whenever I’d go home and then leave home to go back to New York. I know now that when Chris would say I’d come back to New York really tense and seemingly uptight from San Francisco that it was all just the residual effects of dealing with our parents — emotional load. And it really took a toll on me. It still does.

“Why do you even bother?” a friend asked me yesterday. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. This is all on you.” I feel sad that our parents won’t ever be proper grandparents to Kaia. I want them to have a relationship. But I know it really won’t happen. You can’t really have people be real grandparents when they didn’t even figure out how to be decent parents. It’s just a pipe dream that I am still struggling to come to terms with. There’s what you rationally and academically know, and that always seems to conflict with the feelings and desires of your heart.

I think I’m out of words. You’re the only one who knows how bad it can be in that house with them. And you’re gone. No one else has first hand experience of it. And sometimes when I think about it, it makes me feel even more alone. I’m not saying you should still be here just to shoulder the burden of this knowledge. But it would be nice if we could still be together to empathize with each other… and just be. There is a hollow in my heart that will never be filled because you left this world far too soon.

Did you know that Kaia knows who her JiuJiu is? I told her it was your birthday today. She even recognizes your face sometimes when I show her photos of you. She’s over three and a half now, and she’s constantly surprising me with all the things she’s learning and absorbing, and all that she remembers that we’ve told her. I know you’d be so happy and proud of her if you were here. My sweet little Kaia Pookie will never meet her JiuJiu in real life. And that loss is not just a loss for her and you — it’s a loss for me, too.

I’m trying to do what I can to be a good mama to her and not perpetuate intergenerational trauma. I say that almost every week to myself, if not every year to you when I write you. I’m almost like a broken record about this in my head. I’m just trying my best. I hope you know and can see this.

I really miss you, Ed. It’s strange. Even twelve years after your death, when I am in that house, I still have this weird feeling of anticipation that out of nowhere, the front door will open, and in you will come. It’s 100 percent irrational, but I still have the feeling in the back of my mind and in my body that it will happen. It is depressing to have a feeling of anticipation for something… that you know in reality will never actually happen.

I love you. Take good care of yourself wherever you are out there. I am always thinking of you — I hope you don’t ever forget that.

With all my love, and with the deepest desire to see you again,

your little sister Yvonne

Ferry Building Farmers Market and the whining and whinging in the background

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On Saturday morning, we decided to take a Waymo out to the Ferry Building for the famous Saturday morning farmers market there. I love that farmers market; it’s likely my very favorite one in all of the U.S. that I’ve visited. As a native San Franciscan, I quietly feel a lot of pride and joy when I walk through the endless fresh produce stalls there. Every time we walk by the stalls, whether they are selling various (all labeled by variety!) heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, strawberries, or peaches, it’s as though the perfume of these fresh fruits and veggies beckon to us. I have yet to visit any farmers market in the U.S. that has such rich fragrance coming from the fresh produce all around. If my parents’ house weren’t as cluttered and dirty, I’d be tempted to buy a bunch of the produce there to prepare simply and eat at home, but I guess that is not to be.

While I enjoyed seeing, sampling, and inhaling all the deliciousness around me, it felt like there was someone whining in the background every time I reveled in a tasty piece of tomato or local Valencia orange. No, it was not my toddler. It was actually my mom, mulling in the background, complaining that this peach or that strawberry was too expensive. Seemingly every stall we visited, she’d remark how expensive something was and how could anyone pay so much for any of this produce. It almost dampened my experience of the market. Unlike her, these people take pride and joy in the produce they grow and sell, and they should be charging what is a reasonable price to make a living and continue to sustain themselves. Not everyone has the luxury to not work and have several paychecks come in every month. But she is so out of touch that she never thinks about this.

My mom said she wanted to come with us to spend time with Kaia. But I think we all know there was no quality time spent together. The one moment I actually stopped to pay for a small basket of sun gold tomatoes, I asked my mom to watch Kaia. That didn’t work out. She held her hand for maybe five seconds, and then Kaia ran off. My mom ended up luring her back with candy, which I explicitly told her not to give. If it’s not one thing, it’s always something else that is going wrong.

A friend of mine, who also has a dysfunctional relationship with her mom, reminded me that our parents will never change who they are, and we’re incapable of changing them. The only thing we should be focused on is making sure we are an improvement from them and try to be better parents to our children than they were to us. Each generation should be “better” than the previous. I hope I am achieving that — I hope.

The moment I wanted to bash my mother’s face in

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Before I became a mother and would tell older colleagues and friends that I’d never trust my parents with my future children alone, many of them scoffed at me and said I was just saying that. They insisted that once the reality of how expensive daycare, nannies, and babysitters are had hit me that I’d relent and give in — to allow my parents the pleasure of having “quality” time with their grandchild, and also to relieve my bank account from paying exorbitant sums for mediocre childcare.

Kaia is over 3.5 years old now, and I still have not relented. And the few moments I do, I regret it because she gets exposed to all kinds of dangerous things just in my parents’ house. Their pills, both vitamin supplements AND prescription medications (who the hell can keep track of which is what?) are scattered all over random surfaces and tables and benches. My mom leaves sharp knives and scissors in her reach. My dad has razor blades and high blood pressure medication just inches from her little hands as though it’s no big deal. And the place is just filthy with mouse droppings everywhere. She got her hand and foot snapped in mouse traps. And to make things even worse, my mom refuses to listen to me when I tell her not to give her any candy. My parents’ house has so much candy in endless forms in every nook and cranny of the house that I cannot even keep track of it all!

I got so mad at the cob webs all over the walls and ceilings of the bathroom — these have been there likely since the pandemic and no one has made any attempt to clean them up. So, this morning just before 8am, I took out my dad’s old vacuum, climbed up on top of the sink, and started vacuuming. Both my mom and Kaia were confused as to why I was vacuuming. I looked at my mom and said, “Do you think these cob webs are clean? A spider will come bite and kill you!”

Shortly after my vacuuming stint, my mom said she was leaving for her JW Sunday morning. So I figured we’d have some quiet time in the house before we left to meet my friends and their kids for a morning at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. But then Chris came over and asked, “Why is Hoj outside with your mom?” Confused and annoyed, I went outside to see that my mom was standing in the driveway, and Kaia had already run up half the block on her own, completely unattended. I could actually feel the blood rushing to my face to see her just standing there, looking down at me. I ran up to her, grabbed her hand, and walked her down with me. The driveways are small and narrow on this block, and the visibility is low when cars are backing out. A driver could easily miss someone of Kaia’s size when backing out. Not to mention that at the top of the block is Fulton, one of the busiest, high traffic, and high speed streets in the Richmond District. What if she had run all the way up there on her own and gotten hit by a car? So many awful, deadly incidents could have played out if the timing were all wrong.

My mom stood there, looking at me helplessly when I brought Kaia back down to the house. “My leg hurts!” She cried in defense of herself. “I have a dislocated disc! If I ran after her, that would be it for me and I’d be dead!”

I could barely contain myself. It was like fire was coming out of my mouth. “Anger” didn’t even describe exactly how infuriated I was. “WHY DID YOU TAKE HER OUT OF THE HOUSE?” I screamed at her, knowing full well that this was in public in the early morning and could easily wake up the neighbors, but I truly did not care. She needed to hear how stupid and irresponsible she was. “SHE COULD HAVE GOTTEN HIT BY A CAR COMING OUT OF A DRIVEWAY AND DIED! SHE COULD HAVE DIED BECAUSE OF YOU! HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE WHAT YOU DID WAS WRONG?! YOU WERE JUST GOING TO STAND HERE AND LET HER GET HURT? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

My mom proceeded to protest, but nothing mattered at that point. If I got any closer to her, I would have wanted to bash her face in and inflict serious bodily harm on her. The idea of my little daughter, my only baby, dying on the watch of my mom was far too much for me to bear or think about. All I could think was, first, you let Ed die, and then, you want to let your only grandchild die, too?! I slammed the gate and then the front door so she would realize how badly she fucked up.

Well, that was naive of me. After 39-plus years of dealing with her twisted logic, her lack of rationale, her constant victimhood, her holier-than-thou attitude, apparently I refuse to accept that she will never admit wrongdoing in any situation where she was, point blank, in the wrong. Of course, my mom wouldn’t acknowledge she did anything wrong. When has she ever admitted fault in her life with Ed or me even once? Instead, she spent the rest of the day thinking… how dare her daughter raise her voice and yell at her, her mother. How dare she be so cruel to me. When Chris brought Kaia back to the house before I came home from my spa afternoon, my mom confronted him about the situation to try to “explain” what happened — all defensive, zero remorse. Regardless, he wasn’t going to deal with her; that was my job since she’s my mother. He simply told her to keep Kaia in the house and walked away.

Then when I did laundry this evening, once again, she tried to defend herself, saying she would have died if she tried to run after Kaia (the cripple sob story because she just let her 3.5 year old grandchild out of the house, completely unattended where cars could potentially hit and kill her — no big deal, right? If she ran, she’d push her disc further out of alignment, and thus her back would be ruined and she’d die, etc.). My mom said she was upset because the real problem was that I actually had the guts to yell at her. “What kind of child speaks to their mother this way? What kind?!” Refusing to admit wrongdoing is a theme in my family – and something I want to break the cycle of.

“You can talk to your husband or your mother-in-law like that, but never to me! I will not accept it!” she hissed.

I insisted she was wrong, that she put my child in danger, that I could never trust her to care for Kaia, that neither of them could ever be trusted with her unattended; and how insane that she would ever suggest I leave Kaia with her at home while I went out with my friends. “She would be dead by the time I got back!” I yelled at her.

I ended the conversation by walking away. I refuse to normalize stupidity and irresponsibility. I refuse to accept child negligence and constant verbal abuse and gaslighting — even of adult children. I will not.

The evolution of Stonestown Galleria

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When I was growing up, malls were always exciting places with lots of different stores, various foods to eat, and experiences to have. Since I went to Lowell for high school in San Francisco, I was just a couple blocks away from Stonestown Galleria, what was then considered a more modern, chic mall in the city. Back then, it had a Macy’s, a Nordstrom, a number of mid-price-range shops, as well as a movie theater. I oftentimes would go there to get a quick smoothie or dinner during my late nights in the high school journalism room. Other times, I’d just go there and wander the mall with friends to kill time or procrastinate on studying. It was a pleasant, clean, fun place to hang out and just be.

Malls haven’t been doing so well, though, across the U.S. And according to the New York Times, the only ones that are really surviving are the ones that have successfully pivoted into experiential spaces… or become really, really Asian. Stonestown has become far more “Asian” since the last time I visited when Ed was still working at Macy’s. Almost all the restaurants inside are Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or some Asian fusion, including Supreme Dumpling, where we ate with my cousins tonight (which had a wait of at least 75 minutes and a huge crowd outside when we left). What was a bit surprising is that they had a fast casual ma la tang restaurant (like individual hot pots) where you choose your proteins, vegetables, noodles, etc., and pay by weight. Then, they cook it all for you and put it in your chosen broth of varying spice/heat levels. The seating was all open, and this place was pretty busy! Even the dessert, snack, and drink places scattered throughout the mall outside the food court are heavily leaning Asian. As soon as you enter from the main front entrance, Onigilly, a Bay Area-based mini-chain of Japanese onigiri (Japanese rice ball) and Japanese snacks greets you. On the first floor, they had WanPo, a fresh bubble tea place from Taichung, Taiwan, as well as Uncle Tetsu, a Japanese jiggly cheesecake I already had familiarity with given that they have a location in both Melbourne and New York already. The food court was unrecognizable to me, as the only place that survived from my high school days was Panda Express (ugh, but it’s still pseudo-Asian, I suppose). They had a Taiwanese night-market-type stand named after the famous Shilin Night Market, a poke bowl stand, and Matcha Cafe Maiko, a matcha/soft serve spot I like, which is originally from Hawaii, but also has a location just around the corner from Kaia’s school in Manhattan Chinatown.

Macy’s and Nordstrom, the two major department stores that made up Stonestown once upon a time, are now a relic of history. Instead, they’ve been replaced by a chain-based fitness center, a bowling alley, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s. It was strange to be in there and see all the changes that have happened in the last twenty years. My cousin pointed out to me that Supreme Dumpling, where we were dining and sitting in, had previously been LensCrafters, which I had completely forgotten about. A sushi-boat eatery on the second floor was previously Banana Republic, which I used to browse all the time during high school breaks. But if he didn’t remind me of these places, I would have totally forgotten. I almost felt like I was outdated walking through the mall myself. I like the changes, and given the types of food are at the mall now along with Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, I could even see myself going here more often if I lived in the area. But the whole experience also made me sad to think that Ed wouldn’t recognize the majority of it if he just miraculously came back to life and plopped himself in there. The last time I remember being there when Ed still worked at Macy’s, Trader Joe’s was brand new, the main attraction. And Ed would occasionally go there and buy things. But now, Macy’s no longer exists there… And neither does Ed in this world.