Gynecologist visit

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I went to see my gynecologist this afternoon for my dreaded annual exam. I feel like in the last several years that I’ve gone to see her, she’s been waiting for me to tell her that I am either trying to get pregnant or want to get pregnant, or maybe am pregnant!

“So, thinking about babies soon?” She asks, smiling warmly with eager eyes.

“No, not yet,” I said, smiling even more warmly back, thinking, thank God I don’t have any brats screaming around yet to ruin my peace of mind.

“I’m sure your parents must be asking or wondering,” she said. My gynecologist is Chinese American. “Asian moms always love to put the pressure on!”

“Yes, they certainly do, and she does do that quite a bit,” I responded. And what I didn’t reply with and was thinking was, and so do Asian gynecologists!

It’s like the world is waiting for me to announce I am pregnant or want to be pregnant. I’m turning 30 in about two months, and they all want to remind me in some way or another. Why don’t men have to get this type of pressure?

 

Vegetarian

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This Sunday, we’re inviting Chris’s cousin’s friend over for dinner. She recently moved to New York City from Melbourne to do a masters in journalism at NYU, and I’ve seen her twice since she has moved here. She’s very friendly and we’ve gotten along quite well, but the one thing that is a bit different that we have to deal with in hosting her for dinner is that she is vegetarian. She’s not pescatarian — she really is vegetarian. So she won’t eat any seafood or meat, or their products (so fish sauce, oyster sauce, and kimchi are all out). At least she can eat eggs and have milk. So yesterday, I was trying to brainstorm things to make in the Thai and Vietnamese categories, and I realized that everything I could think up would violate one of her food restrictions (hello, fish sauce everywhere!). I eventually settled on a chickpea spinach curry (channa saag) with rice. I told Chris this, and he was very displeased.

“Why can’t you just give her a head of iceberg lettuce to eat while we eat the real food?” he whined.

It’s not a big deal to me if we have a chickpea curry. I really like channa masala and all forms of vegetarian Indian curries I’ve had in the past.

“I’m not eating bullshit food,” Chris insists. “I will get fried rice.” That is, fried rice with some meat in it via delivery.com. There is no way I’m letting him order a side of fried rice while the rest of us eat food I have cooked. No way.

So the compromise is that I’ll make another curry with chicken in it. This is what happens when you have a meat-eating and stubborn life partner and a vegetarian house guest.

Surprise purchase

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Recently, my good friend’s brother proposed to his girlfriend of the last several years. Everyone in their family really likes this woman, but they were really disappointed in the engagement story. She sent a photo of them after he proposed where she has the ring on her finger, and while it appears to be a small and dainty sapphire ring, I didn’t think much of it and figured that must be her jewelry style for my friend’s brother to have picked this out. She told me today that the family was disappointed because they didn’t care for the ring, and lo and behold, what he ended up spending a lot of money on ended up being a brand new Tesla for himself. “He cheaped out on the ring because he purchased himself a one hundred thousand dollar car!” my friend exclaimed to me over the phone tonight. The whole family felt betrayed, as though he had been cheap with everyone, even himself, until now.

The truth is that I actually got really excited when I heard this story. I’m not a car person at all, but the idea of owning one is so intriguing to me; no one I know until now owns one. It’s like one of those luxuries that actually deserves to be a luxury; it’s not some stupid overpriced Kate Spade bag that going to fray in two to three years. It’s actually a decent investment. I told my friend that since her brother has a reputation for being cheap, even on himself, maybe we should all be excited for him that he finally decided to splurge on himself. She didn’t seem to enjoy this idea. I think everyone should splurge on something for themselves. What else are we going to do with the money we work hard to earn?

Dioramas

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Last night, I dreamt that Ed was still here. Well, more correctly, he was at home in San Francisco, and I was there visiting. I walked into the living room to see him piecing something together, and after looking more closely, I realized that he was creating mini dioramas of my life after he had passed away. It actually starts the month before he passed away, when Chris and I visited St. Louis, Missouri. There are little photos of us from St. Louis and the big arch. Then, it progresses to July 2013, the month he died, and there are photos of our family and me together. I see little 3D pieces he has built of things I’d done after that, such as Christmas trees in Germany to Niagara Falls in Canada, and the entire project was just so complex, complete, and intricate. He has a diorama for each month of my life since he passed.

Ed was really creative when he was young. I remember his drawing and sketching skills were amazing, and he used to be able to make very accurate models of things like houses and even toilets (it was for a school project). He just wasn’t encouraged enough. I was too young to think much of it then, but when he got older, I told him that he was always a good artist. As an adult, he’d lost interest in those activities. Of course, my parents don’t think being a good artist means anything or has any value in life, so I’m sure at some point that sentiment was communicated to him.

I wish his creativity didn’t die, that someone could have been there to cheer him on. But I know I will remember for him.

Almost a year later

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It’s almost been a year since my dad’s heart surgery. It’s kind of crazy to think that this time last year, I was on a plane going home, wondering if my dad would make it through his double bypass surgery successfully. Oh, and we can’t forget about my mother’s massive complaining and guilt tripping when I left and said I was going to Europe for Thanksgiving just days after my dad got discharged from the hospital, and then spending Christmas in Australia once again.

Since my dad has recovered from his surgery, he is now more anal about the food that he eats, and he’s following all kinds of healthy food trends, like organic turmeric powder, chia seeds, and hemp seeds. On average, he’s eating about one half to one cup of seeds per day (he says he’s read articles that eating that amount of seeds per day will prolong your life), and a couple teaspoons of turmeric powder are being sprinkled into his morning oatmeal. After mixing multiple types of seeds, wheat germ, flax, cinnamon (to regulate his glycemic levels), and turmeric into his big bowl of breakfast oatmeal, the entire bowl looks like a bowl of vomit. I told my parents this the last time I was home in September. My mom chuckled and agreed, and my dad said nothing and had a look of defiance on his face.

For me, turmeric is meant to be in curry and banh xeo, not in oatmeal. But I guess this is what heart surgery can do to a person.

Thanksgiving after thoughts

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I grew up with Thanksgiving as a tradition and greatly anticipated it every year in November. Granted, we never had the most gourmet of meals, as I would always expect Stovetop stuffing and gravy from a packet to be served, but it was still a meal that Ed and I loved and looked forward to.

After everyone left last night and we were cleaning up the apartment, I suddenly started to feel sad about the future and my own kids. They’re never going to know what it’s like to have a big family all together at a table here, enjoying Thanksgiving food every year on the same day. At most, they’ll see me scrambling to get all this food together and not really understand what the big deal is. My parents will never be involved. Ed isn’t here anymore. And it’s highly unlikely any of my cousins will be there. Chris doesn’t care about Thanksgiving since he didn’t grow up with it, and he doesn’t embrace it and could care less if we had a Thanksgiving meal to begin with.

Thanksgiving

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I get annoyed when people use the term “friendsgiving.” It’s like a new term that’s not even recognized by the dictionary that everyone wants to use when they are having a big get-together with friends that involves a roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing. Why can’t we just call it “Thanksgiving?” Maybe the “family” I think about when it comes to Thanksgiving are the friends I invite over because my own family doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving since they think it’s against the Jehovah’s Witnesses belief? I personally think the whole idea of being against celebrating Thanksgiving is so stupid and pointless. I understand people not wanting to celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or Passover, but with Thanksgiving, it’s not even remotely religious. It’s just a meal that gathers family and oftentimes friends around foods like turkey and stuffing. What is the big deal here, and why on earth would it be considered against God? Sometimes I think that weak people just need to be told what to do and not do because they can’t be smart enough to think for themselves.

And if I want to call my Thanksgiving with friends a real Thanksgiving, I will. It’s the only Thanksgiving I get, and it’s my making (literally nine dishes this year plus an apartment to clean), so I can call it what I want to and correct people when they tell me that I’m hosting a “friendsgiving.” Family is what you make of it, blood relations or not.

Mentoring children

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Last year, I started volunteering at two mentoring programs for two different organizations. The first group paired me up with a ninth grader, and ideally I’d follow her until she graduated from high school. I’m still participating in this program this school year. The second group was to mentor fourth and fifth graders, and unfortunately because the program was so disorganized, I never got paired up with a nine or ten-year-old the way I was supposed to. This week, I decided to let the program coordinator know I would not be returning this school year. Even though the second program was disorganized, I realized another reason I didn’t want to continue with it was because I didn’t really like kids that young. They just bother me. There was no structure to the program, but when we did chat, I realize it was really hard to pretend to be interested in these kids’ thoughts and what they were interested in. I felt like I was adding no value to their lives, so I ended my commitment to the program.

I was hesitant when I first started it, as I thought that age group may be too young for me, but now I know it will definitely not be a fit. It’s better to be honest with yourself rather than delude yourself into thinking you will make a difference in their lives when you not only are not making a difference, but also just dislike the entire act of going and being there. I may not be a fit for them, but I’m sure others can and will be.

Coffee catch up

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I met with my former boss’s boss for coffee this afternoon. We reconnected when I found out he lost his wife, who was a nonsmoker, to lung cancer two months ago. He knew about Ed, too, so inevitably a big part of our catch up was about loss, grief, and how to deal with everyone else and their reactions to moving forward with life without the ones we love. He has a 4.5-year-old son who seems very emotionally mature for his age and seems to understand everything that has happened, so that’s an added layer of difficulty for him as a single parent now.

We talked about how when tragedies like this happen how quickly people advise you to seek therapy or professional help. “I don’t know that I even believe in that, so I don’t think it’s a smart thing to do to just jump right into it without first thinking through what you are trying to get out of seeking professional help,” he said to me. He’s a very introspective person, so it makes sense that he would first try to think about his actions before proceeding. I got mad about that, too, when Ed passed away. I hated it when my friends told me that I needed to get help. I know that part of them just wanted the best for me, but part of me also felt it was their way of saying they didn’t want to hear me and my sob stories anymore. I’m sure it came from a place of simply lack of understanding, and even partially lack of desire and energy to understand. You can’t expect any friend to be everything to you. And sadly, as I’ve gotten older, I feel like I expect less and less because I’ve been disappointed a lot.

I didn’t see anyone until four months later, and at that point, I’d thought long and hard about what I wanted to get out of this. And it had less to do with Ed as it did dealing with our massively dysfunctional family.

People are so stupid when it comes to tragedies. All we want is a little love, and then we get told to get help elsewhere.

“Unnecessary”

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I let my dad know yesterday that we’re going to Australia for Christmas this year. He didn’t seem mind; in fact, he sounded like he was expecting it. I knew he’d tell my mom, who would get mad about it, so I was waiting for the point in our conversation tonight when she’d bring it up and demonstrate her frustration.

“You know, you can do what you want to do (that’s code for: you shouldn’t do what you want to do because it’s always a bad decision), but why are you spending all that money to go to Australia again this year? You’ve already seen Chris’s parents four times this year (that’s not even true; I saw them in the spring when they visited New York, and in October at Andy and Navine’s wedding in France). Why do you need to see them a fifth time this year? It’s unnecessary. I can see if you hadn’t seen them even once this year, but already four times! This is just not necessary. And then you are going to see them again in March!”

This is what I do. I try to respond calmly and rationally. It never works because she never actually hears anything I am saying. I told her that I’d only seen them twice this year, and the second time was for a wedding, which is a big deal even if it isn’t to her (because when I told her earlier this year we were going to the France wedding, she again said it was unnecessary and it was just spending money and wasting it… yes, wasting money to go to a close family member’s wedding. A waste). We’re going to Australia to spend Christmas with them. Christmas is a big deal in their family. My parents don’t give a crap about Christmas. Therefore, she will never understand.

In my mom’s world, spending money, airplane travel, and having fun seem to all be unnecessary. “Chris doesn’t care about us. He just wants you to spend time with his parents and his family. Do you really think he cares about us? I had (hand) surgery last week, and he didn’t even call to see how I was doing!” That’s because I told him it was minor and that you were fine. But she doesn’t care.

“Airplanes are dangerous. They crash. If your plane crashes, he is responsible for my daughter,” her voice getting louder at this point.

Time to end the call. The jealousy and absurdity were just getting to be too much.