Author Archives: Yvonne

Happy 45th birthday, dear Ed

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Dear Ed,

Happy 45th birthday. I wonder what you are doing to celebrate… another year not around the sun?

Guess what? I managed to survive the trip to San Francisco this year, and it was actually quite enjoyable, more so than the last one two years ago! It’s likely because I had very small windows to have one-on-one time with our mother, who would likely use the time to complain about our dad or me. But all in all, it went better than I expected. Our dad actually had small spurts of a minute here and there interacting with Kaia directly, after our mom would hiss at him to get off his phone (which he had, up to his face, almost every time Kaia was around), play with, and talk to her! Was it pathetic? Of course, but it was still more than I expected. Our mom took my words to heart when I told her that she barely spent any time with Kaia when we came two years ago and instead, always made excuses to go clean or walk somewhere. So this time, she actually did make an effort to play with and talk to her.

I took a photo of our parents’ yard. It looks just as awful, if not worse, than two years ago: completely overgrown, weeds galore, and turned over buckets and flower pots everywhere. At least Kaia enjoyed rummaging through it and searching for big sticks. The one tiny thing that my dad did to improve the room going into the yard was that he actually put in mini blinds (ugh) instead of those ugly black tarps used in cheap housing. At our family dinner the first night, our uncle was showing the family his flourishing orchids (you know, the ones our dad got me one birthday that he failed to take care of, so our uncle took them off his hands… and then now, so much time has passed that now, he thinks they were his all along. He denied that they were actually mine…!), and our mom makes these ridiculous remarks about how — of course he’s able to grow things in Pacifica because the weather is better there. The weather in Pacifica, as we all know, is the same or worse as in San Francisco. How about we just say what this is really about: one of them was able to put the time and effort into the flowers blooming, while the others didn’t and so that’s why they have the yard of shame? I didn’t bother taking photos of the inside of the house. I think the outside yard says everything about what inside looks like. It’s the house where nothing thrives or grows, just as that dream I had in my senior year of high school so clearly illustrated.

Our mom whined to me and said that she spent so much time cleaning the house before we arrived. I don’t doubt she did. I know she probably spent a lot of time taking care of all the bedding and cleaning the bathrooms. But honestly, with everything else, you could have fooled me. There was not an uncluttered area to walk in a straight line through, not even from the living room to the damn dining room. All table surfaces in every single room were completely covered. The few surfaces of my book shelf in the bedroom I could see were covered with at least a half-inch of dust, which I actually cleaned off (but they’ll never notice). She said our dad is filthy and never cleans anything. How did he get like this? He was once a minimalist and always throwing things away. And now, he hoards like the world is ending. Is this what old age has done to him?

Chris, Kaia, and I went to visit you at the Columbarium on Saturday. When we arrived, Kaia had to go to the bathroom, so Chris went to take her (with her little potty seat). And in those moments alone with you, just staring at your urn in your niche, I started sobbing. I felt so terrible looking down at you, knowing you weren’t here to see and hold and play with Kaia. You’ll never be able to see her, and she’ll never be able to see you. I felt like she and I had been robbed. It didn’t seem fair to me at all. You should be able to meet your niece and enjoy her company. Kaia should be able to enjoy time with her jiu jiu; that was the way life was supposed to be for us. And it isn’t. I also felt guilt I hadn’t come back to see you last year, but I honestly just could not stomach it as I told you. But it felt like in not coming, I was also abandoning you. And that made me think about all the guilt I felt about leaving home, and leaving you to rot there under the constant bullying and criticism of our parents. I’m sorry I was never enough for you. I’m sorry I could not save you.

I told Kaia it was your birthday today, and she said, “Happy birthday, Jiu Jiu.” She has seen lots of pictures of you. She even recognizes your face when I show her photos of you. I thought about going to the Golden Gate Bridge to see the suicide barrier this trip, but a big part of me didn’t feel I was ready to see it myself. A former colleague had messaged me about it late last year when the construction had completed. It made me happy to hear it had completed, but I also just felt sad thinking about you. Maybe I’ll go see it next year. At least that barrier will hopefully save other lives.

I’m getting older every day and aging without you, Ed. We were supposed to age and get old together. You’re eternally 33, and I’m 38 going on 39 soon. I’m not sure how this happened or why. Kaia will get older every day and not know what it’s like to know you, and that will always be something I’ll be sad about. Though I will do my best to have her know you as much as possible. We won’t ever forget you or pretend your life did not matter. You will always, always matter to us and live on through us. I love you so much and hope you are feeling peace.

Love,

Your little sister, Yvonne

California produce >> New York produce, and another excellent San Francisco dim sum and friends experience

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Every time I come home to San Francisco, I am always immediately reminded of how much better all the produce is in California versus New York. Aside from the obvious point that a lot of the produce we eat in the U.S. is grown in Mexico, and thus travels a far shorter distance to California than New York, California also produces a sizeable chunk of the nation’s produce. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, as California, if it were its own country, would stand as the fifth largest economy in the world. Plus, the produce in California just comes out tasting better. I’ve long thought that California peaches and oranges are far superior than any others grown in other states. Florida oranges are shit; I stand by this statement. I don’t even know why people think Florida is great for oranges when Florida Naturals, the juice brand, makes the most hideous processed orange juice I’ve ever tasted. There is something about California oranges that makes them so delicious, perfect for both juicing and eating. They are extremely sweet with just a hint of tart (and just enough), but their flavor is complex, and far more so than oranges grown in Florida and elsewhere in the country. Georgia and New Jersey loves their peaches, but I have always found them a bit blander and more one-noted than the California peaches. Is there a water issue with California? Yes. But that’s completely beside the point that California grown food just *tastes* superior.

Here’s something seemingly silly I always marvel at every time I come home to my parents’ kitchen: when my mom has bought cilantro (which is fairly often, since she loves it and uses it to garnish almost every Vietnamese dish and many Chinese dishes), I always notice that it just looks that much fresher, healthier, almost fluffier or bouncier, if that makes any sense. I’ve never seen cilantro wilt in her kitchen; it seemingly always wilts in my New York kitchens. In addition, it also seems to last longer, and my mom doesn’t even store cilantro in the “recommended” ways that food guides I read suggest!

After dim sum in the Embarcadero with friends yesterday morning, we walked around the San Francisco Ferry Building farmers market, which I haven’t visited since my early working days back in 2011-2012. It seemed so much bigger than I remember: there were far more prepared food stands than the last time I remember visiting. There were cider stands, many types of pie and cake stands, even an Indonesian dessert stand. I loved seeing all the fresh produce at semi-reasonable prices, looking and smelling quite vibrant. I marveled at all the varieties of heirloom tomatoes, clearly marked, all looking like they just got plucked off the vine yesterday morning. The sight of all this fresh produce was really stimulating to me, even though I had zero intention of buying any since we were leaving today, and I knew my parents wouldn’t appreciate any fresh farmers market haul. I was excited to see that the Roli Roti stand was still there, humming along with its very long but efficiently moving line, churning out the most delicious roasted chicken, porchetta, and crispy pork belly that we could smell, served in local, crusty Acme Bread loaves. I fondly remember working out of my then-company’s San Francisco office and asking my colleagues what their favored lunch options were. A bunch of them insisted we all walk over to the Ferry Building Farmers Market to get the famous Roli Roti sandwich. And before we even got to the growing line, I could smell the irresistible scent of slow-roasted rotisserie chicken and juicy, crispy porchetta. We were a chatty bunch, but when we sat at a bench and ate our sandwiches, we all became silent, just enjoying the taste of that amazing sandwich.

I almost wish my stomach had space for that sandwich, but sadly it didn’t after the sumptuous dim sum we had at Harborview Restaurant and Bar, which was one of the best dim sum experiences I’ve had in ages (next to Hong Kong Lounge Bistro on Monday with my parents); every single dish was perfect. I am normally not a huge siu mai / shao mai person, but the ones at Harborview were truly exquisite (and I never use that word). They looked beautiful with their intricate pleating and were topped with some sort of fish eggs. The mouth feel and crunch of the shrimp against the rich, fatty, silky kurobota pork were the biggest highlights for me in this siu mai experience. I also loved the custardy, silky milk pudding with a hint of ginger juice (it just dissolved on contact with my tongue!), the creamy yet firm and fruity mango pudding, and literally all the sugary-crusted buns we got, ranging from cha siu to coffee. And though I was full at the end, I still was tempted to keep slurping the pi dan shou rou zhou (century eggs and pork jook), which was made even more special with finely shredded dried scallops. Dried scallops were also shredded in the nuo mi ji, the sticky rice with chicken and mushroom wrapped in a fragrant lotus leaf. Harborview is an upscale dim sum experience, and with the scallops and other fine touches and details, it was certainly more than worth it.

My friend (who I have known since I was in middle school), her husband, and their almost-2-year-old met with Chris, Kaia, and me for dim sum. We sat the two kids together in their high chairs at the restaurant. Given we were all eating out with our two toddlers and attempting (and mostly failing) to have a meaningful conversation, it was definitely a little chaotic. While it would have been more peaceful without the kids, it also wouldn’t have allowed for all the cuteness to be witnessed and documented by our phones. Neither child ate particularly well, but when they did eat together and interact with each other, it was a little bit of magic. It was endearing to see our babies interacting with each other since we have been friends for over a quarter of a century now. I always hoped that Kaia would like the children of my closest friends, but I wonder if they will know each other well enough to want to be friends and maintain contact with them given they will not see each other as often as their school friends. But I suppose only time will tell.

Visiting Sacramento after three years

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If you asked me ten years ago if I had any interest in going to Sacramento, I would say… absolutely not. I had visited once years ago with my parents, and I found the place fairly lackluster and dull, especially when you compare it to other cities across the U.S. But given the increasing cost of living in major metro areas in California like L.A. and San Francisco, a lot of people who would have liked to live in those areas have now been moving further north to the capital of California. One of our friends grew up in Sacramento, so she and her husband returned to Sacramento to settle down several years ago. Then, my good friend from college ended up getting a job in Sacramento, and she relocated from Arkansas for work. Now that we have friends in the area, it makes more sense for us to go visit.

As more people have moved to Sacramento, the food options have gotten better and better. There’s two major Vietnamese areas with good restaurants and grocery shopping. It has a budding Indian population; I was thinking of the South Indian spot we went to three years ago and thought it would not be the worst idea to go back and eat there again. And tonight, we went to a delicious Burmese restaurant called Burma Light in Folsom, where pretty much everything we ordered (especially the tea leaf salad and the Burmese style lamb curry) was very, very good, minus the garlic noodles, which were quite plain. I didn’t think the garlic flavor was that pronounced.

Our friend who grew up in Sacramento had a baby, and sadly, just weeks after her baby was born, her husband, our friend, died. We still don’t know what the cause was. Sometimes I think about it, and I’m still haunted by his death. When we last visited, it was just months after his passing, so it was still raw for her and the family; it was terrifying for all of us. Three years later, she’s adjusted to life without her life partner, raising their son alone. She used to have the support of her mom and younger sister, but since her other siblings (she’s one of nine kids!) have been having babies, her mom hasn’t been helping her much anymore. So somehow, our friend manages to work from home full time AND care for her son, who is now 3, full time. Luckily, she has at most 3-4 meetings a month, but still: I have no idea how she gets anything done at all. Babies and toddlers are so demanding. She manages a full house, all chores and errands, a full-time job, and a toddler all on her own. I was just in awe when she told me this. She’s truly super woman.

Pandora’s box gets opened: the endless piles of letters from my middle and high school years

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A few months ago, one of my close friends from middle/high school said her mom was cleaning out her garage, and she noticed that there were two boxes with my name on it. My friend retrieved the boxes, messaged me, and asked if I could take them back the next time I was in town. I remember asking my friend to store these for me back in high school: it happened after a very painful and excruciating episode of my mom going through all my belongings (even my electronic files on my computer) and reading things that people had written me, as well as things I had written. My mom even went so far as to call one of my friends and ask what she meant when she wrote, “I don’t know how you deal with your parents.” My mom never wanted to have conversations with me about life or how I felt; instead, she always went through my things and claimed that she had a right to given that she birthed me, raised me, and put a roof over my head. We screamed and yelled. I even considered suicide for about a minute. I felt trapped in that prison of a house. I felt angry and violated, and I wanted to remove anything that could be spied upon or read far away from my parents’ house and in a place where they would be safe.

Fast forward 23+ years later, most of these letters and their contents are completely meaningless to me. Though there are a handful of funny and sentimental gems, nothing here could possibly be “used against me” today. Though I will say: I am truly amazed at the sheer volume and quantity of letters and cards from a number of friends who still remain and are close to me today. After spending a lot of time reading and sorting through old cards and letters this week from middle and high school friends, I realize that I’m really lucky to still have a handful of those friends still in my life in a meaningful way. As life goes on and people mature, have different experiences and priorities, move away and come back (sometimes), have intense jobs and have children, people evolve and grow apart. Yet, we’ve managed to stay friends and make the effort to keep in touch. Not everyone is as lucky as me in this regard. I went through the piles and piles of letters, each organized by the letter writer, and I could not count with all my fingers and toes how many letters (and even more pages) were all handwritten just for my reading pleasure. I admired the cute stationery (ranging from Tare Panda to Hello Kitty to various other Japanese characters I no longer know the names of) and the still-in-tact writing done by endless glittery and sparkly Sakura Gelly Roll pens (one of our teen obsessions!). Some letters were painfully emo. Others were more on the mundane side obsessing over SATs and grades. A handful were so heavy with then-current slang and Asian ghetto expressions that I could barely understand what the point of the correspondence was.

Of course, I couldn’t go through everything; to save time and effort, I immediately discarded all piles from former boyfriends, guys who were interested in me, and friends/acquaintances I no longer keep in touch with. Some of the letters were absolutely atrocious to read (oh, the teenage angst I had managed to block out of my memory all these years!), but some of them were truly endearing and laugh-out-loud hilarious. In one letter, my friend wrote: “You are like my mommy, always scolding me and making sure I stay in line.” I laughed to myself reading that.

I also had some cards from people I had completely forgotten about: a good friend of my mom named April, who she knew from work, would regularly send me very fancy (for me back then, anyway) birthday gifts every year along with a card. She gave me beautifully wrapped and packaged gifts, things like wallets and watches, in brands I never thought I’d ever own. In one card, she wrote, “I’m so sorry that I am late, but happy belated birthday!” I laughed, thinking, why are you even apologizing? You don’t need to send me anything or acknowledge my birthday at all! Then, there were a few birthday cards (which likely came with accompanying gifts) from my mom’s former boss Chris(tine), who she got along with very well. And lastly, some of my most treasured (and all beautifully handwritten) letters came from my sixth grade English teacher, Mary Rudden, who I still think of today as one of my all-time favorite teachers in the world. She was the one who made me feel like I had a voice, a real talent in writing and expression, and as though I actually mattered as a kid. I look back at my childhood, and I truly credit her plus two other teachers for my general confidence and self esteem. Adults who speak to young children like their voice and opinions matter can truly help children grow into good, self-confident, well-meaning adults who contribute to society. These are letters that I am definitely not tossing into the recycling bin.

The rest got ripped up and tossed into the recycling bin. I re-read them, wished them well and thanked them for their place once in my life, and bid them adieu. I don’t want to hold onto the past… well, maybe just a handful of them.

A complicated history with our dad

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Since the incident with my dad calling me a bitch over nothing about two years ago, I actually haven’t had a real conversation with him at all. I haven’t had the desire to engage with him and just have not felt up to putting in the effort. He never calls or texts me unless I initiate. He also doesn’t e-mail me unless I’ve sent him a gift. Even when he does e-mail me to thank me, most of the time, it’s because my mom has urged him to reach out to thank me because he doesn’t have any commonsense himself to thank anyone for anything. 

We were altogether on Saturday for a few awkward and pretty quiet meals. We barely talked about anything at all, if any words were actually exchanged. And the few times Kaia was playing in the same room, he barely engaged unless forced. My mom would yell out orders to him repeatedly, as though he was blind, deaf, or just a child: “CAL!! Hug her! Hug her! Give her a high five! She wants to see you! She’s trying to play with you!” This is all while he had his Android right up to his face, too busy in his own world called the Internet. While he did engage more with Kaia for these three days than he did during our last visit two years ago, the bar was already set quite low. He constantly needed to be directed (by my mom) to interact with Kaia. He just doesn’t know how to be a grandparent, much less a parent. 

Needless to say, I’ve had a complicated relationship with my dad over the course of my 38+ years. As a child, I used to be terrified of his outbursts; while they were quite rare (especially when you compared them to my mom’s almost constant yelling), they were very explosive and violent when they did occur. That’s why Ed used to be so terrified of him. All our dad had to do was yell out one short, harsh sentence, and he could render Ed to immediate tears. He oftentimes belittled and name-called us. I do not remember a single time when my dad ever expressed any compliment to either of us. He definitely never complimented Ed. Our mom often times spoke to our dad like he was a child, so once I got to my teenage years, I started thinking that our dad was like the third child of the family. 

My dad was always busy, or at least, he gave off the perception of being busy. When he wasn’t at his day job, he worked most weekends at one of his apartment complexes, which he owned and managed. That was his way of making “real” money and freedom from working under “the white man.” And when he was actually home, he never really engaged with us or spoke to us in any meaningful way. He’d tinker around in the basement. I used to think he spent more time with the family parakeet than he did with either of his actual children. Ed and I rarely interacted with him, and when we did, it was mostly when our dad would criticize us or act like a child with us. I didn’t quite get that when I was young, but I do remember the stings of my dad’s name-calling me as young as four years old. Still, I loved and admired him, as most young children do love their dad. He provided for us. He made sure we had a roof over our head. I always had the necessary school supplies bought on time and in order. He indulged me in little hobbies, like reading (he never said “no” to any book club order I requested), teen magazines, beading/jewelry making, and painting. He was the reason I even got a pet parakeet as a kindergartener.

 As I grew older, I realized that while my dad was certainly adept at many things, such as general trade work, house repairs, and making money, he was sorely lacking in general maturity, emotional intelligence, socialization, and basic communication and understanding of the entire world. He had strong opinions on food, things, and places that he had zero experience with; he could not carry a simple conversation with almost anyone without assistance. He had only one friend, who he spoke to maybe once a year (and only when that friend called HIM, never vice versa; that friend died just months after Ed died in 2013, from a sudden heart attack). My dad could barely even write a coherent sentence without a grammatical error, even as someone who was born and raised in the U.S. I always thought it was strange that I received so many clear, thoughtful, and eloquent emails from his younger brother and sister (my uncle and aunt), who were just a couple years younger, yet their communication with me was like night and day vs. with my own dad. You would have thought my dad was the immigrant who learned English as a second language based on his writing proficiency, but he actually wasn’t. And while he was certainly capable of many home repairs and renovations, he rarely ever did them to the house unless my mom yelled or threatened him. The main bathroom tiling rotted during my elementary school years, and for over two years, we had to take showers in the crappy in-law shower downstairs. My mom had to scream at him to finally get his act in order and repair the bathroom. The carpet was hideous with age, installed from the time my grandparents first moved into the house in the ’60s. In the year 2000, my mom finally stopped waiting on my dad and sought out a carpet installer to get new carpet in place. Any time of major repair or furniture decision (like sofas) always happened because of my mom, never my dad. My dad was generally a talker and never a doer. That can be interpreted as laziness, cheapness, or any combination of the above, but it was always infuriating to experience as a child. 

Later on, his laziness and inability to see any project to completion just became more apparent and painful: he started renovation of the kitchen and even pushed back a wall around 2010, but then he never completed it. The wall still has holes in it, and it looks dilapidated and as though rodents could make a home in it. He half installed a hood over the stove, but then he never completed it, so it cannot be used. All of that is in the same state it was back then, and now it’s 2024 with zero plans for completion. He started growing some plants in the garden, but then he got bored of them and tired of weeding, so now the whole yard is overgrown, covered in weeds, with endless piles of dirt and homeless flower pots lying around everywhere. He keeps saying he will work on a compost pile to enrich the soil, but he’s been saying that for over 10 years. None of his efforts have any visible return or benefit. The backyard, which used to be a flourishing garden under the care of my grandma, his mom, has now been a wasteland, a total eye sore. So, that’s been 30 years of rotting away. When she died, the garden died, too. 

My mom has complained and said that my dad is filthy and getting worse. He doesn’t clean anything, so it’s up to my mom to do all the chores to clean the house, despite her misaligned disc in her back. And the hoarding he has done from all the Craiglist and Next Door groups has truly been out of control. The basement does not have a straight line you can walk through. When I am not there, my bed, according to my mom, is covered with “all your dad’s junk.” It reminded me of my grandma yelling in Toisan all the time, that her middle son (my dad) “just likes to break things.” I’ve contemplated hiring a housekeeper for them, but that idea is almost immediately squashed when I think, How the hell is a housekeeper supposed to navigate all their junk?! Spider webs are hanging in almost every room. most surfaces, even the uncleared ones, have a thick layer of dust on them. It’s the house of rot and decay. 

Part of me wonders if my dad is depressed. He has so much time to do things, yet he wastes it all away on YouTube and his supposed “compost bin.” He doesn’t exercise or do anything active. Sometimes, it almost feels like he is just waiting to die. I always hoped that when my parents reached retirement age that they’d actually do activities that they enjoyed and found fulfilling. But all they do is…. nothing. The rest of the time, they spend too much time criticizing others, gossiping, and complaining about how bad San Francisco is becoming. They are both too stubborn to listen to me. 

I wonder if my dad ever thinks about Ed in any deep way. To date at his current age of 76, my dad has lived 12 years longer than he ever expected, given the lengths of the lives his own dad and older brother have lived. Ed used to say, with deep hurt in his heart, that he looked forward to the day my dad died (he anticipated 64-65) because he’d be free of his bully. But Ed took his own life, so instead, my dad had to see Ed die. The house was already rotting and piling up with clutter when Ed was there, but it’s only gotten infinitely worse since then. I only wish Ed had moved out, as if he did, I always thought he’d still be alive today because he wouldn’t have been so heavily oppressed by the two people who were supposed to be his parents. 

It’s hard to fully fault my dad, though. It’s not like he had supportive parents who spent any time with him at all during his youth. His mother, my grandma, was deeply critical and criticized pretty much everyone every chance she got. She didn’t know how to be loving or affectionate. She was cold and never hugged or kissed any of us. That’s why he was so mean and abrasive to us every time we asked him to teach us anything or showed any emotion outwardly; he had no one to teach him anything and had to learn it all himself. He had no one to show him affection. And he lacked the emotional maturity to take the time to think about how he could improve as a parent. The one thing he did do far better than his parents, though, was provide food and shelter for Ed and me. The reality is that our dad is just a product of intergenerational trauma. He had terrible role models, and so he became a not-so-ideal role model and father figure to his own children. The trauma persists through generations. I am trying to be the one who finally breaks it. So we shall see if I am successful.

Mumu

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Living in a multi-family, multi-generational household certainly has its pros and cons. The pros are that even if you have zero or only one sibling, if there are other cousins in the house, it will feel like you have multiple siblings; you have more of a “village” when it comes to child-rearing, getting chores/errands done; you, by default, will have larger family celebrations and gatherings because no one has the excuse of cost/time for travel to see each other. Just based on proximity, you will be close to your aunts/uncles/grandparents without even trying. You don’t have to make an effort to see anyone if they’re already there living with or just steps away from you.

As for the cons? This will vary by family, but I think the annoying things that can happen include: jealousy amongst in-laws, unequal treatment of in-laws to their daughters/sons-in-law, constant comparison of the youngest generation (who has more As, gets into what schools, etc.), and endless gossip.

One of the biggest pros of being raised this way, with my dad’s older brother, his wife (my mumu), and their three sons was that I was very close to my aunt growing up. I also saw my three cousins like another set of siblings; two of them doted on me quite a lot. Even though she is not my aunt by blood, my mumu definitely treated me as such. She always wanted a daughter, never had one, so I got showered with a lot of the love she wanted to shower on a little girl of her own. We did lots of baking and cooking together growing up. She always indulged me with endless toys, clothes and gifts, some of which she even made by hand.

She eventually ran away to escape her abusive husband, my uncle, and she left for about 2.5 years. She moved to Boston to be with her mother, who ended up passing away at the end of her stay there. As much as I loved her when I was young, I didn’t quite realize how incompatible we were until she came back to San Francisco. Shortly after she moved back, my pet parakeet Willie was dying. We found out he had developed a tumor from all the lead he had ingested that was stuck in his stomach. It likely came from the terrible lamps he used to play near and lick in the house (what does that say for what Ed and I were exposed to…?). I cried endlessly because I was so devastated that my pet of seven-plus years was going to die. And within earshot of me, she repeatedly told my parents, “Just buy her another bird.” I felt so hurt and misunderstood; how could she just think another pet parakeet could replace my Willie? That’s like saying that if one of her sons died, she should just have another child or adopt, and all her woes would be gone!

Years later, in 2013, Ed died from suicide. He jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. He was in so much pain that he thought if he ended his life, he could also end his pain. My aunt mourned with us. But she also told my mom multiple times that Ed was selfish for turning to suicide because he didn’t realize how much pain he would cause others by ending his life. I remember feeling infuriated when my mom told me this because I realized that as sad as it was, my aunt just lacked depth to truly understand pain. How could Ed care about others’ suffering when he was suffering so much himself? You can’t see the light when you are trapped in the darkness. How could she not understand something so basic, especially knowing Ed and knowing he was such a selfless person who always put others ahead of himself? Was it because she converted to Jehovah’s Witnesses that she became so shallow, or was she just always like this, and as a young child, I just wasn’t able to see it?

Another time, a few years after that, I had a difficult visit home. My aunt knew it wasn’t good. My mom had made several passive aggressive remarks to my aunt in my presence, and so I knew they were not getting along well at the time. When I went upstairs to see her, she sat on the couch and opened her arms to me, signaling that I should come over so she could hold me in her arms. I went over to her, and without even realizing it, I burst into tears. She didn’t even have to ask why I was crying. She simply rubbed my back and kissed my forehead while holding me close.

“I always know when your mom is upset with me,” Mumu murmured into my ear. “I’ve known her even longer than you. She’s not an easy person to get along with, but she’s had a hard life. I know it’s hard for you. You’re a good girl. You treat your parents well. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

So while sometimes I think my aunt has been very shallow, other times, I wonder if it’s all just a facade. Maybe she just doesn’t want to deal with big feelings or huge life problems and tries to let them all go. Because if you pretend that everything is okay or happy in your life, maybe everything actually will be okay and happy?

Team offsite, bonding at dinner, and discussing poop amongst other parents of littles

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Today was day one of two of our strategic team offsite. The last time I had a team offsite was two years ago, also in San Francisco, but with our wider customer success team. This offsite was a much smaller, tighter-knit group, more cross-functional… and a bit more “all business.” As much as I like this current team, it’s clear we don’t have the same “magic” and camaraderie as our wider customer success team did. One of our sales leaders knows an owner of an Italian restaurant called Pazzia SF, so he was not only able to get a good rate for our large group, but also a private dining space complete with its own large bar, fireplace, and comfy couches.

The sad thing we found out when we arrived at the restaurant was that they actually got robbed earlier this morning. A few guys had thrown massive rocks into their front floor-to-ceiling windows and stolen a bunch of their restaurant supplies and furniture. The owner almost wanted to shut the place down for the day to recuperate, but he said he couldn’t do that to our large group. So, it ended up being business as usual, luckily for us. The meal was delicious, with perfectly mixed cocktails, good wine, and delicious pizza, pastas, proteins, and salads. The family-sized serving of tiramisu was satisfying, but ever since that incredible and ethereal tiramisu we had during our last dinner in Buenos Aires, the one at Pazzia really couldn’t hold a candle to it.

I had a lot of fun conversations at dinner with my colleagues. It reminds me of all the laughter-filled and stimulating conversation and banter I used to have while working full time in an office. It also made me think about how luxurious it felt to have conversations with other adults and not have to worry about my toddler eating, running around, or breaking things. Chris and Kaia were having dinner at the hotel lounge at the time of my team dinner. While catching up with a team member, who asked me how Kaia was doing, I quickly looked at my phone after it buzzed to see that Chris had sent me two photos: one of a wide-smiling Kaia, standing by her little potty with a big lump of poop in it, and a second photo of just the little potty with her huge, adult-sized poop. That’s what happens when you are backed up, I suppose, even as a tiny human.

I responded, “Things are going well! We’re potty training now, and Chris just sent me a photo of Kaia with a big poop in her potty. Pretty sure you don’t want to see that.”

I will say that despite a fear of pooping in the potty, now being in week three of potty training, I’m quite proud of how far Kaia has come. Just over two weeks ago, she was running around in diapers and being cleaned up on a changing pad. Now, Kaia is self-initiating pee and had very few pee accidents. She tells us when she has to go, and when there’s not a suitable (haha, clean enough) potty for her to use, she very maturely holds the pee in and waits to go. When we had to put a diaper on her for our in-transit time on the plane, she said she didn’t even want to wear the diaper. Our sweet baby is growing and maturing so quickly, even with this one milestone activity (or process, really). Soon, diapers will be a distant memory for all of us, and she won’t even remember what it feels like to have her butt wiped by one of us.

First delicious and fancy dim sum experience in SF this trip, plus the freeing space that is the hotel

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Our family’s former favorite Cantonese restaurant, Hong Kong Lounge II, closed down several years ago due to a fire. The owner decided not to reopen and renovate, and instead to open in the South of Market on Folsom in a much smaller space with a more “refined” and upscale menu. So for example, instead of beef chow fun, you can order ribeye chow fun. In place of baked cha siu bao, they have “baked Berkshire BBQ pork buns.” Of course, with fancier names and more premium ingredients, the prices would be much higher, as well. The owner got interviewed, asking if she felt like she would abandon old loyal customers. She simply smiled and responded that those who love them will appreciate the higher quality ingredients and be willing to pay the higher prices. My parents had been wanting to try it, and so we decided to go here for dim sum today at lunch time.

Unfortunately, another downside of the smaller space and the given location in SoMa is that they are not stroller (and by default, child) friendly. They have a sign right on the front door that said, “No strollers inside.” That did not sit well with us, and it was even worse because Kaia fell asleep on our walk from the hotel to the restaurant in her stroller. So we had no choice but to leave the stroller unfolded. I had to beg the manager to let us keep her in the stroller unfolded and give us a table in a corner that would be unobtrusive to other guests. At that point, it was already past peak lunch hour, so he relented, even though he did tell me that he’d get in “big trouble” if the owner randomly decided to show up and check on things. Although the prices were probably 3-5x higher than what we’d normally pay at run-of-the-mill dim sum places, I will admit that the quality was top notch. We rarely have dim sum in New York, and it’s definitely not because we do not like it; it’s more because for dim sum, I prefer larger groups so we can order and eat more things, and it’s never as fun with just the two of us and Kaia’s tiny belly. The highlights at this spot today were the Chinese donuts wrapped in rice noodle roll; the shrimp wrapped in fried tofu skins; the steamed chicken feet in a slightly spicy, black bean sauce, the pan fried shrimp and chive dumplings, and the fried durian puffs. The donuts in rice noodle roll is likely the number 1 dim sum item that almost always is terrible because the donut gets soggy while wrapped in the rice noodle roll for too long. At this place, it was clearly just fried and super crispy, and just wrapped with the rice noodle likely minutes before serving. It was the best rendition I’ve had of this dish by far. The chicken feet were perfectly steamed and had this lightly seasoned, unctuous sauce. And the shrimp and chive dumplings had a nice homemade, almost translucent thick skin with a delicate pan-fried bottom that was delightfully crunchy. For the four of us (since Kaia was passed out the whole time), the bill came to $214 with tip. So it was a pricy dim sum experience by far, but it stands out as one of the very best I’ve ever had.

The funny thing about a work trip sandwiched between two stays at my parents is the immediate juxtaposition of space and luxury vs. cramped spaces and clutter. When we dropped off our bags and unpacked a bit at the hotel before meeting my parents at the restaurant, Chris said he always feels a bit more loose and free once he leaves my parents’ place and goes to the big, open spaces of our Marriott Marquis hotel room, where we inevitably get upgraded into a suite with lots of open space for Pookster to run around. And sadly, I always feel the same. I feel more relaxed, loose, free, and like I can breathe a bit easier once we leave their house.

Cluttered, dirty, and disorganized = the default way it is at my parents’ home

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The way this trip has been set up, I really won’t have much, if any, alone time with my mom at all. It’s usually the times when Chris would go to the office or leave early to go back to New York when she’d corner me and chew me out about something she didn’t like or got mad about that I did. But we don’t have those windows this time because a) Chris isn’t working and b) Chris and Kaia will be with me the whole time. The little bit of alone time we got yesterday was during our walk to the pie shop in the Outer Richmond. I was getting annoyed at how cluttered, dirty, and dangerous the house has become. When I look back at my childhood, our home, for the most part, wasn’t very cluttered at all. My dad was anal retentive with organization back then; he always knew where everything was, and everything had its place. In his older age now, he is dirtier, more cluttered, and hoarding like never before: multiple toaster ovens (“in case ours breaks”) are stacked on top of each other in the basement. A dresser is sitting in the corner of the dining room table. An exercise bike is positioned blocking a dining room chair in the dining room. Piles of boxes, cans, and who-knows-what completely cover the breakfast room table. You can barely see any of the dining room table surface. The amount of hoarding has really gotten out of control. It’s almost like some switch got turned on in my dad’s brain when he hit his 60s, and he just wants to hoard everything humanly possible. My parents could not conceivably enjoy living in their own home. And if you cannot be comfortable in your own home, then where are you going to be comfortable?

I made this case to my mom, and she insisted that she “is disabled,” and she doesn’t make the decisions of the house. I pointed out to my dad that the kitchen floor was buckling and bubbling; he stepped on it to confirm it, then had no reaction. I pointed out all the spider webs growing on the ceilings of both bathrooms and all over the kitchen. My dad nodded to acknowledge he heard me, but he did nothing to change it. In some way, the amount of dirt, dust, and cob webs that have accumulated everywhere is like a sign of death and decay of the house.

Ten years ago if I noticed this stuff, I would have immediately been all over it and vacuumed up the cob webs, dusted and wiped down all the surfaces, and cleaned up all the clutter. But I wouldn’t have been able to throw it away; I would only have been able to toss it into some bin or box. So once I’d leave, it would all become a mess again. I did this cleanup once before, years ago, and my dad was completely up in arms and hissed at me, even though all his little screws and tools were scattered all over the sun room floor. I don’t do it anymore because I know it will be a temporary fix, and once I leave, it will all be in a disarray again. Plus, I don’t have that much time here anymore. I also have a toddler to care for, and she’s my priority while visiting in that house, not the nastiness of the state of my parents’ living situation.

In the short time we’ve been here thus far, Kaia has already managed to get her foot stuck in a snap mouse trap (which luckily was weak and did NOT snap on her), got her hand glued to a mouse glue trap, and also taken out almost all the detergents and cleaners within reach in both the toilet room and the main bathroom. She’s taken my mom’s vitamin/pills mini plate, stolen my dad’s pill containers, and grabbed endless of my mom’s little trinkets at her sitting area. She’s also tried to open bottles of Lysol, Pine Sol, and other harsh surface spray cleaners. I told my mom that Kaia was grabbing everything, and why didn’t they clean up before we arrived (she claims they did)? And her response was, “You have to watch her!” Ummmm, yeah. We cannot watch her every second. We’ll be lucky if we leave this house once this trip is over and don’t have to call the Poison Control Center.

First time back home in San Francisco for two years

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The last time I came back to San Francisco, it was exactly two years ago, in August 2022, for a team offsite. That was a much larger team offsite, whereas this one is for a smaller and slightly different group. But I did the same type of trip, staying in San Francisco at my parents’ for the two surrounding weekends and staying at a hotel during the weeknights. This time, we’re going up to Sacramento for two days. This time, Kaia is also two years older, bigger, and very, very verbal. She takes in everything around her, sizes people up, and decides who she likes and who she doesn’t pretty quickly. She had heard my mom over speaker phone during our calls over the last couple of weeks, so when my mom called yesterday and I had her on speaker, Kaia immediately asked, “Is that Popo?” And so when I told her that we’d be seeing Popo and Gonggong, she knew who we were going to see.

We landed at SFO early. Our one checked luggage came out quickly, and we got into an Uber headed to my parents’ house. And after we arrived and unloaded, we had an uneventful and awkward lunch. Kaia ate an entire cha siu bao, a huge one. My mom went between hovering over her and kissing her when she was least expecting it to going back into the kitchen to fuss and clean over something. My dad awkwardly sat there and ate his food, chewing with his mouth open as always, and said almost nothing. I asked him what he had been up to lately, and he said, “Not much.” I asked him what he did during the day to fill his time, and he responded simply, “YouTube and yard work.” That was really the extent of our riveting conversation. My mom said that she was spending her days doing “Jehovah’s work,” and that after that, she had to rest her neck/back and do all the chores around the house.

The house is, for the most part, in worse shape than it was two years ago — more peeling paint, more drawers and cupboard doors and doors and knobs that don’t seem to work properly, and more clutter, whether that’s from Craigslist hoarding or from overbuying toilet paper. The Costco toilet paper that my parents hoarded during the pandemic had previously filled most of the sunroom space. But now, there are at least six Costco packages of toilet paper right in the damn hallway. Every table surface, whether it’s the dining room table, breakfast room table, side tables in the living room, and even the shelves in my old bedroom are covered with crap. Just to lay out a cutting board on the kitchen counter, I had to clear off so much stuff. And this would not be surprising: there is a MOUSE problem at my parents’ now. My old bedroom has at least eight mouse traps set. And of course, Kaia manages to walk right into one (which luckily, was not set properly, so it didn’t snap her), and then grab a glue trap and get it stuck to her arm.

I told my mom during our walk today to pick up a pie that they are inviting the mice with all their clutter. They have created a nice, inviting, warm home with plenty of places to hide and sleep and play for the mice with all their accumulated crap, so they can keep setting up all the mouse traps that they want. But the mice will never leave the mouse until all the clutter is gone. And she started hissing at me and saying I was causing trouble. “Why can’t you just be peaceful?” my mom whined. I told her she always wanted to assume ill intention: doesn’t she realize that I am saying all of this out of pure concern for their health and well-being? Mice in the house is not a sanitary state. It is NOT clean. And having clutter literally everywhere and on every surface and all over the floors simply creates more opportunity for my parents to fall and seriously hurt themselves. For people of their age, really severe falls and accidents happen at home more than in any other place. And at their age, their bones do not heal as quickly. Why can’t they understand something so basic?

It’s also funny how quickly Kaia picks up on how sad, miserable, and uninviting my parents’ floor is versus my aunt’s warm, welcoming home upstairs. She sees how bad it is and handles it in her own way. My aunt’s space upstairs is the exact same layout as my parents’, yet the space is decorated warmly for guests, and there’s actually clear spaces to walk and run. It’s like night and day between their two homes in the same freaking building. So Kaia loved running endlessly up and down my aunt’s hallway to her bedroom and back into the living room. She didn’t want to leave. And she kept asking to go back upstairs: ” I wanna go upstairs and see Mumu.” Little kids are so discerning, but my parents don’t seem to get this.