Category Archives: Contemplation

Damaged luggage gets replaced

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After our Caribbean trip in late June/early July, our one small checked roller bag did really well from New York to Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, Trinidad, with a stopover in Miami on the way back to New York… and then it didn’t make it quite well from MIA to JFK. That’s basically when some luggage handler probably just thought, “Meh! I’ll just toss ’em all on; no big deal!” Welp. That one haul from MIA to JFK resulted in a dent in our hard-shelled roller bag. It was quite sad to us, especially given we just purchased this set late last year.

We never reported it, though, because it’s a small bag and it’s not like it’s unusable; it was more of a cosmetic issue. So we let it go. But then from SFO to ORD on this last trip, our medium roller bag (of the same luggage set!) got dented pretty badly on the same corner. What the hell? It’s almost like these domestic luggage handlers just do not care about carefully placing luggage on conveyer belts and not treating them like rubbish. Maybe all these “new” luggage brands are just built poorly and cheaply, and thus are not meant to be used more than a handful of times? It’s likely a combination of A and B, as sad as that is.

So I reported this luggage as damaged since it was our second time getting a dented bag with American Airlines in just the last few months. They responded right away, evaluated the photos, then offered to replace the bag from a third party luggage company they work with. The replacement is currently being sent via FedEx from some shipment center in Texas. We got the same color as the one that got damaged: rose gold. We shall see if it’s any more (or less…) durable than this last one that got damaged. Oh, and to make matters worse on that one: when trying to zip close this bag when leaving Chicago, I ripped the stupid seam because the zipper got caught on one of my packing pods. I had to ask the hotel for tape to reinforce it just in case; luckily for me, it arrived home fully in tact. So regardless, that luggage is now getting chucked! I do feel bad about more junk being tossed into a landfill somewhere, but now this bag is just unusable.

NYC ID and Union Square Greenmarket

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New York City has a whole network of farmers markets that operate all over the city throughout the year, but it’s a well known fact that the Union Square Greenmarket is its biggest. It’s at its most vibrant during the late spring to early autumn months. During the summer months, there is probably the most variety when it comes to various types of produce. All colors of the rainbow can be found here in the summer! Once upon a time while at several different companies, I was lucky to work close to Union Square and would stop by regularly. Sometimes, it was just to browse. Other times, I’d pick up things to bring home and cook with. Regardless of whether I purchased anything, I always found it fun to look at what was local and seasonal.

Given I work from home now, I don’t have much reason to be in the Union Square area that frequently anymore, but I always look forward to the chance to go back, not just for the Greenmarket, but also because I just love the area. It was where I spent the first five years of my New York City life working, so there’s some nostalgia there. It’s also got a great restaurant/bakery scene.

Plus as I learned this week, Union Square is also home to New York City’s Human Resources Administration office, where I had to go to renew my NYC ID. I was lazy with it when it expired over ten years ago and didn’t go into the office to do the renewal paperwork. Given I already had access to lots of free things that benefited Kaia through my public library card tied to Culture Pass, I decided I’d let it slide because I really did not want to go and make yet another appointment. Chris reminded me that I am losing out on all kinds of freebies by not having my NYC ID active… things I (or Kaia) would actually enjoy and get value out of that were not originally perks. Some major areas we could benefit from would be a free annual membership to the New York MoMA (which I’ve been wanting to go to again for the last six months…), Brooklyn Children’s Museum, New York Aquarium, and the Bronx Zoo. While I’ve gotten once-a-year free tickets to the Brooklyn and Manhattan Children’s Museum, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have unlimited free access to them in a given year, as it would give more options for low cost/free play dates, especially as Kaia is slowly but surely going to age out of those museums in the next 3-4 years.

I definitely had quite the haul at the Greenmarket after my NYC ID appointment, though. Summer is still clearly here for now but ending, as pretty much every vendor had many varieties of vibrant heirloom tomatoes on offer. Corn was huge and plentiful. Endless colorful varieties of peppers were also being sold. I picked up lots of corn, several varieties of heirloom tomatoes, red mustard greens, some beautiful striped zucchinis, locally grown fat garlic, bright red leaf lettuce, a loaf of multigrain sourdough from Our Daily Bread, and a massive bouquet of basil. My haul wasn’t cheap by any definition (Chris called it “Vuittoning,” the term he uses whenever I spend money…), but I suppose a lot has changed in the last eighteen years of living in New York City. I still remember back then, I thought $4-5/lb for heirloom tomatoes seemed expensive; today, the same heirloom tomatoes are anywhere from $8-10/lb, so at least twice as much. Inflation, higher wages, and a higher cost of living contribute to all these costs going up. But at least I can feel good knowing that a) I am supporting local by eating local, b) the produce is super fresh and seasonal, and c) I know for sure that it will all taste delicious!

Wistful for the past and reflecting back on Kaia’s first words and foods

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Since Kaia started kindergarten yesterday, I suppose it’s only natural that as her mother, I have been thinking a lot about her life to date, reminiscing on past moments and fun with her. While I did look through a number of old photos and videos over the last 4.5 years, what I also did was go back to Chris’s master Google spreadsheet, detailing her feeding/eating/my pumping journey. I included a tab for her solid foods eaten up to age 14 months, as well as a tab for first words. At some point, the words got to be so many all at once that I stopped keeping track; it looks like I stopped at the 76th word. Unfortunately I don’t have dates for those. But these are some funny things I had forgotten about that happened with solid food and words:

  • After her first word “diaper” at about 10ish months, which we found hilarious, Kaia’s second word was “purple,” which is her favorite color next to pink!
  • Her fifth word, which is a vegetable, was “beets!” She still loves beets today.
  • Kaia’s first Chinese word was 面/mian (noodle)! This is very fitting for my noodle loving Pookie!
  • “Weetbix” was her 21st word; she truly is an Aussie baby!
  • Her 54st word, or phrase rather, was “Oh shit!” 🙁
  • Her first solid food, eaten within week 2 of her life, had to be prune juice because her poop was so backed up! Her next solid food was not until she was exactly 6 months old on June 10, 2022, when she was given avocado. The next day, she had both alphonso AND ataulfo mango.
  • About a month later, she had peach for the first time, which gave her a red mouth reaction. Luckily, it subsided, and the reaction never occurred again.
  • She had her first cayenne pepper AND Thai chilies on July 17, 2022, at just over seven months of age!
  • Kaia had her first durian, from Say Weee! and imported from Malaysia, on September 17, 2022 and liked it.
  • On the same day she had her first taste of durian, she also tried hibiscus and lemon verbena in herbal teas separately and seemed to enjoy.
  • The last new food I documented that she ate was just before she reached 14 months of age: this was croaker fish at BCD Tofu House in Koreatown, NYC! This was food #312!

It’s still so much fun introducing her to new foods. I hope my sweet baby always stays this open-minded with cultures and foods.

The four Disney princesses from Ed

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Every time I go back to my parents’, I try to take something back to New York that is a reminder of my childhood. Sometimes, it’s really little things like random cards or photos I find in a pile that I’d forgotten about that remind me of a happy memory. Other times, it’s slightly larger things like my hardcover copy of The Complete Stories of Curious George, which I brought back this time around. Kaia is at a point where she can follow longer stories, and the original Curious George stories are actually not as short as one might expect them to be! She always plays with my Curious George stuffed animal, which Ed got for me during a Christmas back from my high school days when Curious George was the holiday theme for Macy’s. So she knows who he is and that her mama likes this monkey. We already started reading some of the stories together while we were in San Francisco.

On the last morning before we left to go to Chicago, I was rummaging through a bedroom drawer I rarely go into and stumbled upon the extremely heavy mah jong set purchased during my first China trip in 2006. This was a legitimate mah jong set, and an extremely heavy one at that! The truth is that I only ever played mah jong one time ever and have completely forgotten the rules. The only reason I even bought this crazy heavy set was that I thought it would be a nice souvenir to have from my first time in my fatherland… and then predictably, I never even opened or played it even once after buying it. So that was very practical of me at the time. Fast forward twenty years, and now mah jong is all the rage. I sat next to a White woman on the plane who said she took a four-day full-time intensive course to master mah jong! And as ridiculous as it sounds, there is the “Chinese rules” mah jong and the “American rules” mah jong (whatever the hell the latter means). For a split second, I considered lugging it back to New York with me… but then my true practical side took hold, and I immediately placed it back into the drawer.

In that same drawer, I found something Ed had bought me years ago: Four Disney princess figurines, still in their original packaging, never opened. We have Cinderella, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Snow White, and Belle (from Beauty and the Beast). They are all wearing glittering gowns. I knew immediately that Kaia would love them. Though the figurines are meant for display, I figured at this point, that didn’t matter anymore. The best thing we could get out of these four princesses was Kaia’s enjoyment, which meant being able to play with them. So I took them all out of the original box, tucked them into a ziplock bag, and put them into my checked luggage.

Of course, Kaia being the little investigator that she is, she found the princesses in my luggage when I had it open in Chicago, and she asked me what it was in her usual tone of, “Is that for me?!” I told her if she was good, she could open it when we got back to New York, but only if she was good.

Today, Kaia was happily playing with all four of them and marveling over their sparkly gowns. I told her that her Jiujiu got them for her mama over twenty years ago. He knew that when Mama was young, she loved all the princesses, so he wanted to get these for me. Now, these are a gift for Kaia. So essentially, Ed got these for Kaia… he just never realized it back then. I told Kaia that these princesses are very special, and now Kaia can have a token of Jiujiu’s love. I am not sure if it’s just me, but she seemed to understand.

“I love them,” Kaia said quietly, as she hugged all of them at once. “Thanks, Jiujiu.”

Ed may not be here today to see Kaia playing with these four princesses he gifted me, but I know he is in both our hearts and minds. If he is somewhere out there watching, I hope he is smiling.

When both your mother and your child give you the death stare

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My parents were pretty strict with Ed and me growing up. From my perspective, in their eyes, it seemed like we could never do anything right and were constantly fucking up something. If I had a dollar for every memory I had when one of us was getting scolded, yelled at, told off, lectured, slapped, hit, or beaten with a fly swatter, I’d have a pretty cushy investment account on my hands today. So it was a weird transition to hear some of the things that came out of my mom’s mouth when it came to how I parent my own child… and how lax she is.

While on the phone with my mom with Kaia there, sometimes Kaia runs around and gets in potentially unsafe territory, so I have to use my stern voice with her. I am not necessarily yelling, but my tone has become more strict and direct. My mom has scolded me and told me not to yell at her, saying it will scare her and wasn’t good for her. Welp, that’s interesting. Does she suddenly have total amnesia over all the times she yelled or hit us as children for the most benign and objectively not wrong actions we did?

Then last week after I gave Kaia a shower, I told her she had to go to the bedroom after so I could blow dry her hair. She had to go do it immediately. Well, Kaia is stubborn and wanted to do things her way, so she said she wanted to go say hi to Popo first before blow-drying. I said no again. She started crying and yelling. Then Kaia ran off, right into my parents’ bedroom and into my mom’s arms.

“What did mommy do?” my mom said to Kaia, holding her and rubbing her back. “What did she do to make my Kaia cry?” Then, my mom turned her eyes up to glare at me. “What did you do to her? What did you do to make her cry? Don’t make her cry!”

As my mom stared up at me, so did Kaia. Kaia’s eyes turned cold, and she started mimicking my mom from her perspective. “Yeah! You made me cry! You made me cry!” Then, she started sobbing even more to get more sympathy and cuddles from my mom. What a little hack.

Okay, at this point, this was clearly an act. My mom was obviously exacerbating it even more, and this was not helping at all. I told my mom that I needed her to blow dry her hair first before coming to say good night to her and my dad, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. At her age, she needs discipline. But of course, it’s not up to the freaking grandparents to instill discipline; it’s up to the parents! I grabbed Kaia and pulled her back into my bedroom to blow dry her hair.

Grandparents will rarely be strict with their grandchildren. It’s just the way it is. But I will never forget the double cold glares I got from both my mom and my child at the exact same time. Talk about manipulation!

Some people can still surprise you when you least expect it

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Years ago, I asked a friend what my least attractive quality was. I could name at least a dozen qualities I have that would deter people from liking me right away pretty quickly (to be honest, today, I don’t give a shit, but at least I have self awareness unlike many). But she said something I did not expect to hear: “You are really predictable,” she said to me at the time. That was in 2008. We’re 18 years past that now, so I’d like to think that may have changed… maybe.

If “predictability” is a real quality of mine, I’d like to say that I got it from my mom. If you know her as well as I do, almost every single thing she says and does is entirely predictable: her likes, dislikes, criticisms, reactions, lack of reactions, purchases, objections, what she wants to do, see, or eat. You name it, and I can predict it. But during this last trip, she actually said something to me out of the blue that I did not expect at all.

“Yvonne! Can you come here?” my mom called across the house when she was in the bathroom. “I want to ask you something.”

I wasn’t sure this was going to be good. Obediently, I walked into the bathroom where she was. Out of nowhere, she had my clear toiletry case laid out on the bathroom counter.

“What do you put on your skin now?” my mom asked, with a very curious look on her face.”I was looking at your skin while we were at the restaurant the other day, and I couldn’t believe how nice it looks! It’s so bright and clear and young! What are you doing?”

I sheepishly smiled. I wasn’t expecting that she was going to say anything positive to me about my skin or appearance. I am so used to my mom pointing out all my sun spots or pimples over the years that I have just ignored her most of the time when she points out my flaws… even when they are blatantly staring back at me in the mirror.

So I walked her through my skincare routine, both morning and night time. I told her what I use and in what order. I told her I always, always put sunscreen on my face and neck in the morning even if I don’t leave the house. I even reapply it midday now, based on what my dermatologist suggested. I told her about my prescription skincare and the “cheap” skincare I get in bulk at Costco. I even admitted to her that I always wear a hat outside now… which she had always advised me to do since my teen years… which I just ignorantly declined to do… until the ripe age of 35 when my sun spots really started to piss me off. So yes, sometimes my mom is right about some things…

My mom looked like she was a in tizzy after I walked her through everything. “How do you have time to use so many products? This is a lot!” my mom said in shock. “No wonder your skin looks this good!”

I insisted to my mom that it only took an extra few minutes each morning and night. Now, it’s so routine that it’s really nothing for me. She then proceeded to test out every skincare product in my toiletry bag. She told me she wanted me to buy her a specific one I’d transferred to a travel-sized container… which happened to be one of the cheapest items in my routine, which is the Cerave Moisturizing Cream with ceramides I get in massive bulk from Costco and just started using in the spring. I told her it’s just from Costco and that I’d send my dad the link so he can buy it for her the next time he goes. That cream is quite a bargain and a little gem find at Costco!

I am shocked that at age 40, I’ve already gotten complimented about my skin by both a friend who does Botox and my own mom! It’s interesting what wisdom comes with age! Maybe being “middle aged” isn’t so bad after all.

Back in Chicago for the first time since pre-pandemic

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We were not planning a family trip to Chicago this year. But given the insane fuel costs due to the war in Iran on top of the fact that we’re current in the U.S. Open season, flying directly back from SFO to JFK this week would have been ridiculously expensive. In the end, we decided to fly to Chicago, stay three nights here, then fly back to New York on Friday; we also used miles to book these flights. This wasn’t the worst idea in the world: both Chris and I love Chicago; we’ve both come to visit separately for both work and pleasure. Kaia has never been, and so we thought it would be fun to spend a few days here together. Plus, our timing is right: not only did the Obama Presidential Center just open, but the world’s FIRST Hello Kitty Cafe also just opened here!

Since it’s still a working week for me, I had to spend several hours this morning working and doing meetings before going out for the day. Chris took Kaia out (and to the Hello Kitty Cafe already!) in the morning, and I ended up meeting them at Millennium Park, right where the Bean, aka Cloud Gate, is. As I walked down from our hotel to meet them, I started thinking about all the times I’d previously come here and what I did each trip. I’ve done about half a dozen work trips here over the years, and I have always tried my best to eat at interesting restaurants or grab coffee from fun cafes to maximize my time here. On one work trip I took here back in 2010, I remember I had to arrive by Sunday for an early Monday morning meeting. So I took advantage of the day and arrived early Sunday to spend the whole day exploring Chicago by foot, which included a few hours at the Shedd Aquarium (AMAZING place!).

The one non-work trip I did was for a girls’ Thanksgiving long weekend trip in 2009. That was the trip when I stumbled upon a German-style Christmas market just a few blocks from my hotel, and before my friends arrived from San Francisco. There, I had some good chatter with the German vendors there, who happily educated me about the glorious and magical Christmas markets I could experience if I traveled to Germany during the holidays. I had no idea that was even a thing back then, so my curiosity was piqued. It was then that I decided that I absolutely had to go to Germany during the holiday season. Four years later, Chris made that dream a reality for me, as we took our first trip to Germany (Berlin and Hamburg) during Thanksgiving week 2013! That trip cast a spell on me for European Christmas markets. After that trip, we just kept on going with the European Christmas market Thanksgiving week trips. Fast forward to 2022 and to present, Kaia has now also joined us for four of these trips! A new family tradition was born, all ignited from my very first leisure trip to Chicago in November 2009.

I love Chicago for many reasons. I love the layout of the city, the river, the lake, and the L. I love how walkable it is. I love the parks and the green spaces. I love the food scene here. I especially love the great things I’ve discovered here, including the beginning of my obsession with European Christmas markets and all things related to them. So I’m quite happy to be back.

The soft side of my dad

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In the evenings before bed, my parents like to make hot chocolate. They don’t do anything fancy; they use 2% cow milk, a little heavy cream for extra richness occasionally, and different forms of hot chocolate mix. The latest versions I see that look quite depleted in the cupboard are Whole Foods brand or some random organic cacao blend. My dad already pre-measured out the evening mugs for milk and was planning to warm them in the microwave and mix in the hot chocolate blend. But I told him that I’d make it properly over the stove for all of us tonight. I finally asked him why he didn’t use the Dandelion Chocolate hot chocolate mix I got him; two of the three glass jars were still sitting in the cupboard fully sealed. He hesitated initially and said that he found it a bit too sweet for bedtime, which I could understand. So we compromised, and I mixed some of his unsweetened cacao into the Dandelion hot chocolate blend.

As I heated the pot over the stove, my dad stuck around while I mixed occasionally. We actually had a pretty decent chat. We somehow managed to cover glucose and cholesterol levels, general health maintenance, diet modifications based on age, dental care and insurance, my work, the Nepal flooding (!), and general house maintenance in a very short space of time while in the kitchen together. I’ve realized over all the years of returning home that my dad really does not enjoy table side conversation; he actually detests it most times and rarely says anything at the table unless it’s something specifically interesting to him. Because of this, I usually don’t probe him much at the table. My dad’s favorite way of talking to anyone is while each person is sort of side by side. One person may be occupied with a task like heating milk over the stove (me) while the other person (in this case, him) lingers nearby. One person asks the other person an innocuous question out of the blue. The other person responds. Then the conversation either builds on that topic or another unrelated topic comes up. But the door has already been opened to allow the conversation to flow pretty easily.

Long ago, I gave up on the idea that I could change my relationship with my dad. We’ve had many ups and downs over the years. I spent a lot of my childhood living in fear that he’d lash out at me the way he did with Ed. And yes, of course every now and then, he definitely did lash out at me with his fangs. But I have forgiven him for his shortcomings because I know he had a miserable, difficult, and impoverished childhood, with very little love or direction given by either of his parents. I have moments when I get pissed because I am human, but I try to remember his childhood hardships. I have come to terms that we will never have the ideal daddy-daughter relationship or closeness I wish we could have had. I have made peace with it, mourned it, and let it go. Instead, I do exactly what ChatGPT suggested I do, which is to find power in the moments instead of forced, idealized, longer periods of time together. So if that means offering to make him hot chocolate and chatting over the stove one on one, or dusting the living room surfaces side by side while having random chatter, then I will embrace it. Those are the times he feels the most relaxed and open to me. Those are also the times he seems the softest to me.

What I’ve also loved watching during this trip particularly is how much Kaia has embraced my dad. She actively engages with her Gonggong, shows him that she wants his attention, and will not accept any less (this level of stubbornness is truly amazing and so hilarious to watch). On Sunday, he had to go out to pick up dinner takeout; she blocked the door and prevented him from leaving. When he tried to climb over her, she grabbed his leg and said he would not be allowed to leave. Eventually I had to intervene and pick Kaia up to let my dad out of the house, but it was such a cute and sweet (and likely infuriating for my parents!) moment to see.

Each night we’ve been at my parents’, I tell Kaia she has to go to each of them to hug and kiss them good night. What she has also done, which I did not tell her to do, is she proactively tells each of them she loves them. The first time she did this with my dad, he patted her on the back (his version of a hug…). Then when she actually uttered the words “I love you,” I could see the shock spread over his face… then eventually melt into this huge grin. Then she kept doing it with him night after night. I just loved seeing how big my dad’s smiles were each time. It was almost like for the first time in his entire life, at the age of 78, he was experiencing verbalized love and physical affection repeatedly, all from this tiny little human who has been a temporary resident at his home.

I loved seeing my dad feel loved. I had a moment when I almost started tearing up. For his entire childhood, my dad was deprived of love and affection, which turned him into this hard, stoic, emotionless man that he became. He focused on survival and financial independence only because that’s all he knew. And now, his little 4.5-year-old granddaughter gives him the love that he always needed but didn’t realize he needed.

The fun text misunderstanding that led my uncle to invite himself to our dinner

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My aunt texted me this morning to let me know she invited my uncle, my dad’s younger brother, to dinner with us on Monday. But since his eye sight is getting poor, he’s not comfortable driving in the dark. She asked me if I could do lunch time on Monday instead. When I told my mom this, she got really angry and said if dinner didn’t work, then dinner would not work; she did not want me to agree to Monday lunch so last minute. My mom sees this as my aunt “controlling” the situation by making lots of last minute changes, not informing everyone, but expecting everyone to comply with her random whims. I do think it’s ridiculous and extremely dysfunctional of my aunt, as I recently had this happen to me personally when she tried to invite her random JW friends to my house for dinner, and I refused.

So I told my aunt that we’d stick to an earlier dinner on Monday, and she said it was fine. This whole time, she’s texting my uncle back and forth, partly copying and pasting texts from me in between. Somehow along the way, my uncle got confused and thought that it was not Monday dinner, but that Sunday night dinner he was supposed to drive up to the city for. So he rang our doorbell at 3:30pm today and said he was going to dinner at my aunt’s place with me that evening. Unfortunately, I had to correct him and tell him that there would be no dinner, and that it was actually tomorrow… as in, Monday.

My uncle, for lack of better words, doesn’t really have the best manners. He will show up at people’s homes without notice, completely unannounced, expecting them to be home. When I say “people,” I really mean my parents or my aunt. In addition, he rarely takes the initiative to invite anyone to a meal unless it’s just one of his nephews or his niece (that’s me!) 1:1. When it’s any wider family, like my parents or my aunts coming, he expects that someone else will foot the bill. In my entire 40-plus years knowing him, I’ve never seen him offer to pay the family dinner bill a single time. And what’s worse: if my aunt is hosting, he will occasionally do his due diligence as a good guest and bring an appetizer dish or dessert. If my parents host, he will never bring anything — ever. So when he scrolled through his text message thread with my aunt and realized he misread it, he said to me, “Oh, well. My mistake! I guess that just means I’m having dinner with you all tonight!”

Oohhhhh. Trouble.

My mom was not happy about this; it was written all over her face. In fact, I could see the steam coming out of her ears when it dawned on her that he was not leaving the house upon realizing his mistake. She said to him a few times, “We have a dinner to go to and need to leave soon.” But him being him, my uncle took zero cues that this meant HE was not invited, and instead took the liberty of walking down to Geary where the restaurant was along with us. As Chris said, all of this could have been addressed if any of them had any balls to just say that he wasn’t invited, but of course, neither of my parents was going to be that confrontational. And I sure as hell was not getting involved. All of us walked down to Geary together, with my uncle and my dad chatting away as though it was no big deal. My mom walked slightly ahead of them, extremely pissed. And way ahead were Chris, Kaia, and me. At the restaurant, we met with my mom’s friend, who we had originally planned this dinner with all along.

At the end of the meal, as I expected, my mom paid the bill. My uncle never offered to cover even his own share of the meal. He said his usual effusive thank-you to her at the end, and then we walked back to the house. My uncle offered to drive my mom’s friend home so she didn’t have to take the bus as planned, and we said good night.

And that evening back at the house, my mom made random passive aggressive to aggressive comments to me, and I just said nothing. I know in her head, she probably blames me for this misunderstanding happening, which resulted in her paying for my uncle’s dinner, which she hates. But maybe if she were just more confrontational, she could have just flat out told him he wasn’t welcome to join. That is in no way on me.

My dad thought it was funny. When I was in the kitchen with him later in the evening, he chuckled and said to me, “Well, that was a misunderstanding. Not sure how that happened!” My mom did not laugh and scowled.

Welp. It’s just another day in the lives of the dysfunctional family I am part of.

Anxiety-ridden calls and the tit-for-tat nature of my family

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We stayed overnight on Friday up in Sacramento with our friend and planned to hang out with them in the area until early afternoon Saturday. Afterward, we would drive back to San Francisco. This morning after breakfast, we drove out to Placerville, California, which is known for lots of kid-friendly farms, U-Pick farms, petting zoos, and other large, sprawling suburban/rural areas to eat and support local. With our three friends, we enjoyed freshly made apple cider donuts and apple cider, while the kids got to feed and pet goats, pigs, and ponies, as well as run amok through kid mazes, wooden play structures, and man-made lakes. The greatest thing about this wide, open area was that vehicles were mostly blocked off, so the kids could run around and get all their energy out without us worrying that they’d get hit by a car. When coming home to visit, it always feels fun, enjoyable, and relaxing when I am out with my friends. It’s an extremely stark contrast from being with my parents, and most especially with my parents and extended relatives, where every situation seems rife with anxiety, anger, jealousy, and control.

Amid catching up with our friends, my mom probably called about four times. I called back twice, and in her anxious, nervous voice, she kept urging me that we had to drive back down to San Francisco “earlier.” I told her that we had to be back before 5pm because that’s when the car rental closed. She just kept repeating that I had to “respect” and I had to come back “earlier.” It made zero sense, but I know why she kept saying this. Originally when we told her we were going up to Sacramento Friday through Saturday, she said we’d keep it simple for dinner that evening, which I was fine with. Whenever we got back that evening, we’d eat takeout with just my parents. But since coming back from Brazil on Wednesday, my aunt asked if I could come up to her place for dinner on Sunday along with my parents. My mom, always wanting to “pay back” any meal ASAP, did not feel right about this. As is her usual, she wanted to “match” it, and so she invited my aunt down for dinner on Saturday. With all her nervous energy, she wanted me to be home as early as possible so we could eat dinner and be done with it all as early as possible. My mom is not a good or natural host. She hates having people over at her house. She hates serving them and the entire hoopla of company. She finds it all to be too much work and “suffering” as she always says. But how much earlier are you seriously going to eat dinner than 5pm?!

We got back to the house just past five. We ate dinner altogether at around six. As usual, not much was said around the dinner table. My mom tried to stand up and fuss over dishes that didn’t need to be cleaned right away in the kitchen or obsess over how little or quickly Kaia was eating, and I had to swat her away. The dinner was probably over in less than thirty minutes. Yet the entire time I could tell my mom was on edge, as she always is at any family group meal. My aunt loves to take photos before dinner, and my mom can’t stand photos. She always nervously laughs and asks, “Why do we have to take photos?” or “Another photo? Why? No need!” Then, she tries her best to weasel her way out of it by pretending to go to the bathroom or wash something needlessly in the kitchen. After dinner, my aunt Face Timed her son and his wife, the cousins I just saw last weekend, and Kaia chatted with them. My mom was seething that they didn’t drive up to join us for dinner and was adamant that my aunt told them not to come.

“Your aunt is so powerful!” my mom ranted to me after. “She told them not to come! See, her children always listen to her, but you do not always listen to me! He is so loyal to her. You are never like this with me!”

Here we go: the fun comparison of children. It always happens at least once during any visit, and it’s always putting me in an unfavorable position. I’ve gotten to a point with her where I shrug these comments off and say nothing. Not responding makes the interaction end quicker. Responding only fuels her, and whenever I am home, I am to blame for pretty much everything that sets her anger off.

I subsequently found out directly from my cousin that he and his wife didn’t come because they didn’t want to drive all the way up to San Francisco again (it’s not a short drive, ahem, for anyone who is aware of distances or traffic) given they had just come up last week. Plus, they got confused and thought I’d still be in Sacramento that evening, so why would they come for a whatever meal just with his mom and my parents? This did not seem particularly exciting or “worth it” for their driving efforts. I can’t share this with my mom, though, because she’d never believe it. She creates narratives in her head and runs with them. If anyone tries to provide reason or logic that counters that, fire starts blowing out of her nose and ears.