The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Bad Luck Girl

Between madly finishing NaNoWriMo and traveling back from L.A., here finally is my Thanksgiving recap.

Wednesday

While my brother, Greg, was at work, MB and I had lunch at El Pollo Loco, my first time. It wasn’t too bad. I got these grilled chicken burrito thingies. Afterwards we attempted to walk around, but it was too sunny for me so we ducked into a Starbuck’s till Greg got back.

That afternoon Greg did some prep work for Thanksgiving dinner. That’s right: he was cooking everything. A brined turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. Yum!

That night we saw Ninja Assassin. The action sequences were cool, but it took forever to get started. Plus I was hungry the whole time. Luckily afterwards Greg brought us to a great Korean place, where we all had variations of sun dubu chigae, or spicy tofu stew.

Thursday

We were out early to head over to my uncle’s. While he and his family were out of town, my parents and younger aunt came to stay with my grandmother, Puo-puo. My older aunt was supposed to come down too, but she changed her mind at the last minute. This is the aunt who although she lives in California sees her mother the least. She’s also the one who made a stink about getting her “share” when my grandmother’s house in Berkeley was sold, although all the siblings had agreed that the money would go to paying for the nurse who cares for Puo-puo 24/7.

Right before we went down to L.A., I got an email from this aunt saying happy Thanksgiving. Being the polite niece that I am, I wrote back saying I was sorry we wouldn’t be able to see her, I was looking forward to seeing the family, and to have a nice holiday herself. She wrote back two messages within hours of each other.

The first said she talked to my mom and felt left out about missing Turkey Day with us, and that she was a bad daughter for not seeing her mother in over a year. (Well, then go see her.) The second one said simply that while she felt left out, thinking about how much space there was at my uncle’s house, it was just impossible for her to go. Did she not think she sent the first one? Did she forget? Weird.

Then my younger aunt told me how last Thanksgiving, this older aunt came down Tuesday night with plans to stay for a week or so, and by Thanksgiving Day was rescheduling her flight to go home earlier.

As I’ve said before, I don’t really get why she’s like this. It’s not like she has to do much to take care of Puo-puo. The nurse does everything, and my younger aunt or mother took over only when the nurse ate her lunch or dinner.

Speaking of lunch, we had delicious Chinese food my mom and aunt cooked:

MB who doesn’t even eat pork gobbled up those dumplings like there was no tomorrow.

Then while my dad, MB, and I lazed around the living room, and my mom and aunt hovered around giving unsolicited advice, my brother cooked. The turkey, before:

And the turkey after:

Delicious as always! This was the first time my father had my brother’s cooking, and he was extremely surprised. He kept saying over and over, “The turkey’s so good, the stuffing’s so good.” Even my grandmother, who hardly eats anything now, scarfed down some mashed potatoes and stuffing.

Puo-puo has changed immensely in the past few years. My chubby laughing grandmother has become an emaciated old woman I barely recognize. She can’t talk now or even make facial expressions. I have no idea if she knew who I was. She’s also lost some teeth and her hair, once black and permed, is now white and gray and lays flat on her head. When I first saw her, she did reach for my hand several times, but I’m still not sure if she knew me. My cousin Huang Lei was sad too when she saw Puo-puo. Tearfully she held her hands and spoke to her in Chinese.

Puo-puo seemed to see people though. For instance, throughout the evening she kept staring at MB. I had tried introducing him, but I don’t know if it registered. She kept eyeing him like, “Who’s this white guy in my house?” She also watched Mia, Huang Lei and Shane’s three-year old daughter, with great interest.

Mia was hilarious. After she got comfortable, she kept trying to get MB and my brother to play hide ‘n seek with her. They did for a while then got tired. At one point she decided she was mad. She kept crossing her arms (or trying to) and standing near us with a pout. A few minutes later, she came back and said, “I’m not mad anymore. I’m happy. Let’s play hide ‘n seek,” then grabbed MB’s hand and tried to pull him up.

After the meal, we hung out watching some silly Chinese variety show before finally getting ready to leave. I knew my parents were sad to see us go. I encouraged them to visit us in the spring, after we moved into a new, bigger place.

Friday

After a relaxing morning, we headed out to lunch at the Curry House. As though we hadn’t enough food already, we had no problem scarfing down our delicious curry dishes. I got the curry katsu:

Afterwards we drove out to Venice, walked on the boardwalk, and down Abbot-Kinney Street. Along the way we saw some cool graffiti:

The Venice Canals:

And some crazy Barbies:

In the afternoon we headed out to Huang Lei and Shane’s. It was fun chatting with them and playing with Mia again, who kept taking pictures as we took pictures:

Most of her pictures were of her finger.

Saturday

Our flight wasn’t till after 8 PM so we had the whole morning to relax. We had brunch at Hugo’s, then took the Metro out to Hollywood. The L.A. mass transit system is weird. There are turnstiles set up but you can walk around them. Then the tickets are checked only sporadically.

Hollywood was pretty crowded. We walked around a bit, had some Beard Papa’s, then headed back to my brother’s to chill before our flight. As we packed MB found a letter opener I forgot about in the black suitcase I had been using for months. Who knows how many times that got through security.

Check in at Burbank was so easy. There was almost no one there though our flight was full.

By ten we were home. Yay!

~ ~ ~

I’m glad to be back in the routine of writing, but I also need to get my butt to the gym more often. I know I’ve gained eight to ten pounds in the last couple of years. I’d love to get that weight off.

My laptop seems to have recovered my clumsy drenching.  We let out it dry out for more than twenty-four hours, then Monday night MB thought it safe to turn it on and get my files backed up on a USB.  Then we shut it off and let it air out for another twelve hours.  Tuesday morning I started to use it, and so far it’s been okay.

“If you start to smell ozone,” MB said, “shut it off.”

No strange odors as of yet.

In other news, MB and I are in LA at my brother’s.  I was dreading the trip to the airport and getting through security, but it wasn’t so bad.  Although we hit some traffic in the taxi, we got to SFO well before boarding.  There was a line for security, but it moved quickly.

After all my trips to SF in September, I’m an expert now in terms of getting through security quickly.  Before I even get on line, I take out my laptop and stuff my jacket in a bag.  I also have my cosmetics in a an easy to get to pocket, and try to wear shoes without laces.  Then at the end, I don’t bother trying to take everything out of the bins.  I just consolidate my stuff in one bin and take it with me to the side, out of the way of the line.

A trick to getting around paying for a checked bag: hand it to the guy at the last minute right before you board.  Then when you get off, it’s right there waiting for you instead of on the carousel.  This probably only works with bags small enough to be carry on, but a good solution if there’s not enough overhead space.

The flight was very short, just an hour.  By the time I finished looking at the ridiculous things in the Sky Mall magazine, drank a tomato juice, and read some of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, we were landing.  Our plane was small so we got off lickety split.

Getting through Burbank is a breeze.  The airport is so tiny, we walked just a few feet before getting outside, and then just a few minutes later, my brother pulled up.

We were a little hungry so had In-N-Out Burgers.  Thing was I wasn’t that hungry so those were calories I definitely didn’t need.

It’s weird to be in LA and not have to deal with a time change.  I have to keep reminding myself there’s no time difference between where I am and where I was.

My brother had a comfy air mattress for us – which sadly is bigger than the bed in our sublet – but I kept waking up.  I think it was the vanilla latte I had yesterday afternoon.  No coffee today after 12 PM.

My bro had to work half a day today so MB and I are just chilling, working on our respective stuff.  This afternoon we’ll probably pick up a few items, then start preparing stuff for tomorrow.

This was going to be a post about my top 10 Thanksgiving memories – among them, the time my dad attempted to cook a tiny chicken while my mother was away, and the delicious gourmet spread my brother whipped together a few years ago – but then yesterday while hanging out at Bittersweet Cafe, I spilled an entire glass of water on my laptop.

Yes, the very worst thing you could do to a Macbook, I did.  I guess only worse would be coffee or something with sugar.  Or gasoline and a match.

So now I’m using MB’s computer till mine dries out (hopefully).  Unfortunately he doesn’t have Word, but his system is about a billion times faster than mine.

This is how it went down: The cafe was pretty crowded so we ended up sharing a table with another couple.  At first my water glass was way too my right, far from my computer.  Then the couple came and I had to move my glass to my left, basically right next to my laptop.  MB was listening to something and handed me his headphones to listen too.  I wasn’t thinking carefully, or mistook my glass for my usual water bottle, and knocked the whole thing over.

At first it didn’t even hit me that it had spilled on my keyboard.  I just felt water on my leg, then I was looking down, and MB was standing up and saying, “Pour the water off!”

I managed to pour some of it off, but not enough, and MB was quick enough to get the battery out.  In the meantime, the woman at our table was staring and staring, like she was watching a tennis game, then handed me one napkin.

“Will this help?”

It would help if you’d mind your own business.

In fact, EVERYONE was staring.  I mean, jeez people, it’s not like I cut open an artery and was spurting blood all over.  Move along, folks, there’s nothing to see here.

One of the baristas came rushing over with towels and helped us clean up.  He was very nice about it.  I’m sure he was glad it was just water and not something sticky like hot chocolate or cider.

I was strangely calm for most of the walk home.  I had been working on my NaNoWriMo novel, but MB was glad to hear I had saved several copies, one for each day that I’ve worked on it, so even if the one I had open was destroyed, he’d be able to get at the earlier versions.  Also, a lot of my writing, including my memoir and recent essays, are also on a USB, since I was going over to FedEx/Kinko’s and printing stuff till I got a printer.  And some older writing and photos that I had lifted from my work computer are still only on a USB, and the photos worth anything are all on Flickr.

There’s a lot to be said for backing stuff up.

But when I got home, it hit me that I wouldn’t be able to work on NaNoWriMo for the rest of that day and most of today.  I’m actually a day or so ahead, but I wanted to get way ahead since I’d have less time in LA.  I got depressed thinking I wouldn’t have anything to do today.

But like I said, MB was nice enough to set up a log in for me on his computer.  Plus there’s the whole pen and paper thing.

I really hope my computer survives.  I bought it in 2007 and paid, I think, about $1200.  But if it doesn’t, I’m totally getting a PC for half the price.

I really miss New York lately.

MB caught a cold and has been working from home, which means breaking up our days with strolls around the city.  Walking around here is not the same as walking in Manhattan.  I miss wandering through SoHo, down the cute, cobblestoned side streets lined with boutiques and cafes, battling our way through congested Broadway, and eventually getting over to Bond Street and the crazy ass building there.

Sometimes we’d hike all the way across Houston Street and pop into the Jacques Torres Chocolate Factory. Then over to the Village, still confusing to me after all these years.  Being in the Village at night reminds me of when MB and I first started dating.  After my company Christmas party, I was drunk and hungry so MB took me to A Salt and Battery for fish and chips.  New Year’s Eve we went to P*Ong, which is now closed, sad to say.

We have yet to find a replacement for one of our favorite LES restaurants, Zucco: Le French Diner.  Oh, how I miss their risotto des legumes!  Their pain perdu with their mind blowingly delicious syrup!  Their delectable pate and cornichon sandwiches!  The French places around here seem to be more stereotypically chi chi.

Makes me want to fly back to the east coast for a visit soon.

In SF Union Square, there’s a ice skating rink and Christmas tree.  It’s funny to watch people ice skating when it’s 60 degrees.  Then again, it seems to be about the same in New York.  Also it’s far less crowded here than around Rockefeller Center.  It’s nice to be able to sit and relax, and breathe in the piney scent of the giant evergreen.

Next week it’ll be great to see my family.  My parents are flying over on Sunday, and we’re traveling on Tuesday to my brother’s.  My aunt from Connecticut is also going over at some point.  Thursday we’ll all go over to my uncle’s, where my parents will be staying while my uncle and his family are away, to help look after my grandmother.  It’ll be the first time I’m seeing her in more than two years.  In that short time, I know she’s changed a lot, and I’m a little scared about seeing her no longer vibrant.  Bony instead of fat, white haired instead of dyed jet black, silent instead of loud and boisterous.

I talked to my cousin earlier this week, and she and her family are still coming on Turkey Day.  Yay!  The last time I saw them, their daughter wasn’t even a year old.  Now she’s three.

And of course everyone will meet MB.  My parents, brother, and Connecticut aunt already have, but it’ll be the first time for my grandmother and cousin.  I wonder if Puo-puo will even know what’s going on.  I wonder if she’ll recognize me.

In order to conform with realism, the wolf boys should have been pantless as well as shirtless.

Also, this movie has the rare cross-categorization of being both an action film and a chick flick, last seen by the Charlie’s Angels franchise.

Next memoir post is up.

After my ex told me of his affair, it was really easy to hate his mistress.

It still feels weird to call her that. When I hear “mistress,” I picture some young blonde thing waiting around in a slinky dress, not a single mom six years older than my ex and twelve years older than me.

Hating her was easier than hating my ex. I didn’t know her, and while my ex begged my forgiveness, I didn’t hear a peep from her, though there wasn’t any reason I should have. It was probably easier for her to keep me faceless, simply “the wife,” rather than a real suffering person.

One of the million times I asked, “Why?” he answered, “It was nice for a change to feel attractive.” He thought I wasn’t attracted to him anymore, and maybe it was partly true. Maybe the physical attraction had evolved over the years into a comfortable affection, but I didn’t see anything wrong with that. However, it was hard to be affectionate with someone who was always angry or withdrawn, who hardly responded when I reached out to him.

He always wanted what he couldn’t have. After the first time we broke up, when I was 25 and he 31, he was suddenly more attentive. Forbidden fruit and all that. But after we got back together and got married, things changed. We had sex less often, and stressed more about his parents, jobs, and money. Then Kimiko came along. She was forbidden fruit who had a crush on him.

I’m still not sure what her story is. By the time my ex met her, she already had a little girl. The girl was half-white, and I don’t know if Kimiko had been married before. After their affair and her subsequent pregnancy, I assumed she had done the same thing with some other married guy.

Even before their affair, she seemed needy and to attract the wrong kind of men. For a long time, her boss sexually harrassed her, and Joe tried to help her legally. Then she had trouble with her visa and had to leave the country. I couldn’t help but think the only reason she wasn’t out on the street was because her parents were rich.

I guess it’s easy for me to say that I would have never done such a thing. But I’ve had crushes on a couple of married guys (my Latin professor in college and a consultant at work). What would they have done if they had shown interest? Would I have convinced myself that their wives were shrews? That I could make them happy? Is that so different from thinking I could change any guy that I happened to be dating?

Through snooping on the internet, I suspect that Joe has married Kimiko. I found some listing with her first name and his last name, and I could see him convincing himself it was the right thing to do, marrying the mother of his child. Are they happy? I wonder, or are they having the same problems we did? Is he still angry and withdrawn? Does she hang out with his family on the weekends and holidays, or does he use their history as an excuse to keep her away, to keep her separate, which would probably be best for everyone?

Part of me hopes they’re unhappy. Who says either of them won’t cheat again? But part of me is thankful. If their affair never happened, I don’t know if I’d have been strong enough to just leave. Surely I’d have thought of that as weak.

I recently started reading The Nervous Breakdown, a literary blog with tons of great writing. On Facebook they pose daily three word “challenges, “ for instance, “In exactly three words, please describe how you handle change.” Responses range from sincere to raunchy to smart-ass to hilarious.

One of my favorites of their three word challenges was, “In exactly three words, describe your earliest memory.” Mine was, “Lifesavers on subway.”

I was born right here in the Bay Area, but we moved to the East Coast when I was two and my dad got a job at Memorial Sloan Kettering. We lived in an apartment in Queens, which was so close to a factory, every day the furniture ended up covered in black soot. Like true clueless immigrants, my parents broke their lease without telling their landlord, and for months he chased after them, demanding the $300 they still owed.

When we talk about our short time in New York, my mother always mentions how I loved running up and down the long hallway of our new apartment – “Back and forth, back and forth,” which probably drove our downstairs neighbors crazy – and how bringing home groceries without an elevator and with toddler me in tow was so tough.

“I had to leave the groceries downstairs,” she says. “And bring you upstairs, otherwise you’d run off. Then I had to go up and down the stairs, again and again.” She also likes to tell the story of how we were riding in an elevator and a very smelly man walked on.

“That guy stinks!” I said very loudly, and, luckily, in Chinese.

In my Lifesavers memory, we’re riding the subway when someone hands me a peppermint Lifesaver. Did this really happen? I’m not sure, but I see it clearly. I’m standing holding onto the pole while an adult – who? my mother? my aunt? – gives me the candy. (It’s a good thing I didn’t choke on it.) Aside from that, I have one other clear recollection. My parents came home with groceries. In one bag was a long loaf of French bread, which I promptly pulled out and started to eat.

“Don’t do that!” one of my parents said. “It’s not for you.”

To my mother and father, neither of these memories is familiar.

In An American Childhood, Annie Dillard writes about “waking up” into consciousness as a small child. One moment you’re in “dim and watery oblivion,” and the next you’re snapped awake. As you get older, those awake moments happen more and more often till they’re stitched closed, and the oblivious moments are gone.

It wasn’t till we moved to New Jersey that my conscious moments overtook the blank ones. At four I was fully alive: there was our tiny backyard where I hung upside down on the swingset and swam in a kiddy pool, the living room where my dad gave me chocolates on Valentine’s Day, the stairs where my mom came down, belly first, to go to hospital to have my brother.

Once I started school, there was no escaping myself. I remembered everything now: playing Farmer in the Dell in nursery school, excited that cute David picked me to be his wife; giving my best friend Kristin my marshmallow prize when she cried at losing Simon Says; showing some kids my Easter eggs and saying, “Now these are rotten eggs!” when one of the claimed, “Last one in is a rotten egg.”

As a writer, I love reliving and retelling memories, whether or not they’re 100% true. But part of me misses those blank spots, those moments of dim and watery oblivion when, one could argue, you’re so alive, you don’t even notice life.