It’s always so pleasant and happy when Chris’s parents are in town because they see the best of everything and in everyone. Sometimes, I just can’t believe how genuinely happy they are as human beings. I think we’d all benefit from their positive outlook on life and on people’s intentions. They’re not naive in their positive attitude and see that there are terrible people in the world (unfortunately, they didn’t catch on to the fact that most of my cousins and dad’s sister is in this group), but they don’t dwell on it and move on quickly. It’s no wonder Chris ignores all the idiots in the world and focuses on people he cares about. He gets this positive influence from his parents.

I’ve been working really hard over the last few years to not dwell on things people do that annoy or upset me, but old habits die hard, especially when you’ve basically been trained to be negative and distrust everyone and anyone by your own parents. I’m not necessarily blaming them, but I think it’s pretty obvious that how we were raised has a serious impact on what we end up becoming as adults. It’s a constant struggle, but I am getting much better at not dwelling, moving on, and dismissing idiocy.

To make a comparison: the wedding was almost two weeks ago now, and his parents are still glowing about everything from the floral arrangements to the venue’s architecture to the view at the ceremony of the Pacific Ocean. They are all smiles about the wedding the way you’d expect two normal parents to be when their child has just gotten married. While that is happening here in my apartment, my mom in San Francisco is talking to me four times a week to yell at me about the right and wrong way to send thank you cards based on what gifts were given, to get angry about people she thinks were cheap or didn’t proactively greet her at the wedding, and to give me all these warnings about how to live life (in the form of thank you cards and future gift giving, of course) and how I better still obey her because she has so much wisdom. When I tell her that none of this matters and that she needs to stop thinking about all this negative stuff, she screams, “YOU LISTEN TO ME AND SHUT YOUR MOUTH! I’m TRYING TO TEACH YOU AND ALL YOU EVER DO IS ARGUE WITH ME EVERY TIME WE TALK ON THE PHONE!”

Two different families. Two different outlooks.

For dinner tonight, Chris’s dad had a hankering for Biang, which is the sister and sit-down restaurant version of Xi’an Famous Foods. Unfortunately, they are located in Flushing (and I have since found out that they shut down in favor of a location in East Village), and so we told him that the next best thing would be Chris going to the Xi’an Famous Foods just a block and a half from our apartment and getting takeout. He’d get his spicy numbing fix, and we’d also tempt him with wine. Everyone wins.

My mom is in super jealous mode right now. She doesn’t like it when the in-laws come to town because it means I am spending time with them, not her. Last week, she said to me, “Is it really necessary that they come for a whole week? They just spent several days around the wedding time with you.” Can you imagine her making that same statement about herself and my dad?

“What are you eating for dinner tonight?” she asked.

I told her that Chris would be picking up some takeout. She responds, “Why can’t his parents pick it up and pay for it? They’re not working and the two of you are. It’s the least they could do since you are housing them and they aren’t paying rent or anything.”

Again, imagine if she said this about herself and my dad. It always goes back to the money.

I can’t stand it when there are outstanding things to get done and I haven’t started, so I’ve already begun writing thank-you cards for those who gave gifts for our wedding. I’ve decided that since I did the lion’s share of planning for this wedding that I will write all thank-you cards for my side, and Chris will write all his. It’s only fair. Of course, I’ve already taken care of about half of mine, and Chris has taken care of… can you guess? Zero. And I want him to get the Aussie ones done before his parents go back to Melbourne next Monday, so that way, we won’t have to deal with international postage.

My mother as always has inquired whether I’ve begun the thank-you card writing and insists on giving me directions on how to address people and how to send the cards:

“If your cousins all signed the same card as your aunt, then you should just send a thank-you card to your aunt only and address all the cousins in it,”  My mom advised. “No need to give them all separate thank-you cards if they couldn’t even all give you separate gifts!”

“Mom, I already wrote them separate thank-yous. The thank-you cards were printed for free anyway at Wedding Paper Divas, so why are you being so cheap?” I exclaimed.

Mom was annoyed. “I’m just giving you suggestions! You can choose to listen to me or not! And also, make sure to address all my friends as ‘auntie’ or ‘uncle.’ You need to show them respect.” She really just never knows when to stop. I just got married, yet to her, I am still 3-years-old.

Me: “Can you just stop telling me how to do this?! I know what to do and how to write thank-you messages!”

Mom: “Why can’t you ever just listen and not talk back?”

Now that the wedding and all the hype around it has slowly but surely come to a close, we have now reached the next stage of pestering that I also anticipated from my mom: her interrogation regarding who gave what for the wedding and if it was cash, how much cash they gave us.

She literally went guest by guest for who she could remember, and if she didn’t remember their names, she went by the description of how she remembered them. She also made sure to put in some assumptions about people who apparently just “looked” like they were cheap or wouldn’t give any money or gift.

“The Korean couple that came, those are Chris’s friends, right?” my mom asked.

“No, I said. “Those are my friends! Why do you just assume these people are all Chris’s friends?”
“Well, you’ve never mentioned them to me before, so how am I supposed to know?” my mom responded defensively.

“Yes, because if I told you about them, then you’d ask me 500 questions about them all the time!” I shot back.

“How much did they give? They gave you a gift, right?” she asked.

“I’m not telling you how much they gave, but yes, they did give a gift!” I said.

“Why won’t you tell me? I’m not going to take it from you. I just want to know what kind of heart these people have.” Great. Now money is associated with how big a heart our guests have.

“The Korean with the white boyfriend… the one you used to work with at Efficient Frontier.. I’m sure they didn’t give you anything,” mom insisted. “And Chris’s boss… I’m sure he didn’t give you anything, either.”

I responded that they did give a gift and that she shouldn’t be making mean assumptions about people. The response was not good.

My mom always has commentary on people. Sometimes it’s good, most of the time it’s bad, and other times she surprises you and starts glowing about some random person you never would have thought would impress her. Here’s an example of something that was comical and just went downhill.

Mom: Chris’s relatives are all so nice. His dad’s brother and wife were soooo nice. They are so friendly and humble and always wanted to reach out to hug me and talk to me. I like them very much.

Me: See? I told you his family is great. Everyone is so nice, even the people who didn’t make it to the wedding.

Mom: Well, the dad’s brother’s son… one of them wasn’t so nice.

Me: Who is that?

Mom: The younger one, not the one with the white wife (haha). I think he is the one who just got married in France at the wedding you attended last year.

Me: Andy?! You didn’t think Andy was nice?!!

Mom: Don’t tell anyone I said this, but your daddy kept saying that that boy kept staring at him and giving him funny looks.

Me: That’s ridiculous. You’re being overly sensitive.

Mom: See? I knew I couldn’t be honest with you. You are always so defensive. And we talked to him and said how beautiful his new wife is, and he responded, “Yes, I married her because she’s beautiful!” He is so superficial to say something like that, so shallow.

Me: WHAT? MOM!!!!! He was joking!! People say things like that all the time in jest! How can you possibly take that seriously?

Mom: I told you that you get offended too easily. I can’t tell you anything without you jumping all over me!

That was a real conversation. I’m not kidding.

On the first full day back in New York on Tuesday, my mom decided to call and yell at me, blaming me for my aunt, my dad’s younger sister, showing up to the wedding wearing jeans. Apparently, she had claimed she was sick (and definitely sounded sick), missed the ceremony and rushed over in her street clothes to attend the reception. She was clearly mad at me for not allowing her on-again, off-again boyfriend to attend, yet she had no hesitation about crashing my farewell brunch that she RSVPed “no” for and also bringing the boyfriend. Needless to say, he was not warm with me at all and didn’t thank us for brunch.

“This is all your fault,” my mom yelled at me. “This is what happens when you don’t listen to me. I told you to just let her boyfriend come, but no, you had to be stubborn and not listen.”

I told her that it didn’t matter and it was pathetic she was getting so angry about it. “I have no face; don’t you understand?” she screamed into the receiver. I said I wasn’t going to deal with this and said I was hanging up. So I did. It’s my mom’s nature to focus on the tiny bad things and get all angry in her delusional world. But now I can stomp them out.

It feels good to not care about my extended relatives and their selfish tendencies and made-up dramas. It’s also liberating to say out loud that I no longer will make them a part of my life.

Before the wedding period began, in my head, I knew my mom would get mad at me about something inane and ridiculous within two days of the wedding happening. And the sad thing is that I was actually spot on.

Two days after the wedding on Sunday, I called her to see where she and my dad were. The caterer was quite nice and packed up all of the leftover food for us to take home despite their standing policy on not doing this in fear of violating health codes or getting sued for people who could get food poisoning. I had forgotten about the food that the hotel offered to store for us in their fridge until Chris remembered it. By that time, our farewell brunch had long ended, and my parents had already left the hotel, so we kept some of the food and also gave some to remaining family members and some bridal party before heading up to LA. My mom was furious about this and said that I should have taken the initiative to reach out to her to ask her first. “It’s up to you to ask me, not for me to ask you,” she admonished me. “Why don’t you ever think about your parents first?”

Was that really necessary, and does that question really need an answer?