Category Archives: family

family, goodness, humor, life

Halloween time is the best time

i love a good haunted house

A graphic designer named Mike Doyle recently caught my eye with his creation of abandoned houses built completely out of Legos.  These things are big enough to cover my desk, and rise about four feet high.  They’re serious business, and super cool.

I love Halloween.  I love everything about it: pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, costumes, decorations, getting scared, all of it.  I also love having so many random encounters with people because of costumes, and asking for candy from (and trusting) one complete stranger after another.  What other non-religious holiday allows for that?  Everyone loves Halloween!  It’s the best!

JEALOUS

As a kid, I dressed up as a pirate for four or five years in a row.  I wore stockings, a red and white striped skirt with a jagged hem, and a thin white shirt and a pirate hat.  I also had a hook, if memory serves.  My mom would draw a curly mustache on my face at my behest, because apparently, even female pirates had to have Captain Hook mustaches.  Gender confused and full of sugar: needless to say, I was a typical, happy child on Halloween.

Sister dressed up as a candy devil one year, which involved Mom hot gluing candies to her tail, which she then unwrapped and ate before the end of the night.  I dressed as a werewolf one year (black clothing, All Star sneakers, and a mask), and as death another year (complete with armageddon cloak, scary face paint and scythe).  That turned out to be a semi-unfortunate choice, as I was invited to go to my first Halloween party by a 5th grade classmate where I felt forced to decline my first (and only) encounter with spin the bottle due to my awesome and really fucking creepy makeup.  I couldn’t believe we didn’t go trick-or-treating.  “What a waste,” I thought.  Plus, Sister and her friend both decided to dress as hippies, which only encouraged her to reiterate her favorite chant of “Angel, Devil, Angel, Devil” that she enjoyed cackling whenever she (often) wore pastels while I wore darker colors.  That shit went on for years.  I came to refer to her fashion choice as “Mug Me” colors, since I saw them as something that would make her look like a target.

But I digress.  Halloween is the best, even with an annoying Sister and friends trying to ruin my night with their stupid boys.

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family, goodness

Our love knows no bounds (apparently)

My parental units just returned from a trip to Europe to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.  They went to Dublin, Ireland (jealous!!), Scotland (jealous!!), and London.  Dad took this photo in Edinburgh with me in mind.  Check out the cafe sign in.  How fortuitous!

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family, life

What’s the emoticon for ‘I just realized I became my mother’?

My mom is easily the most emotional person in our family.  When I was a kid, she cried at the end of The Mighty Ducks because, “The family got back together, it’s so nice! *sniffle*”  I used to be able to read an article about an abandoned seal cub without getting all fucking misty-eyed, but no longer (apparently, sheesh).  Just thinking about something remotely patriotic or generous gets me a little choked up.  WTF IS HAPPENING TO ME?!

HE'S NOT GETTING UP, SIMBA 😦

This isn’t just a matter of “I don’t want to cry all the damn time,” it’s an identity crisis for me.  I’m a tough teacher with a harsh opinion of people who don’t follow the rules inside and out of the classroom (I got out of two different cars and corrected two different people who littered on two separate occasions this week).  I’m durable and strong when life gets hard.  But ask me to describe the scene where Mufasa gets trampled by wildebeests, and Simba says, “Get up, dad…” and omg it’s puddletown on my desk.

I like to think of myself as an avocado; a bit of a rough exterior, followed by a whole lot of mush surrounding a hard core with the potential for growth.  How did I forget about that mushy part?  There’s so much of it.  I don’t just have a sensitive side; I’m oatmeal disguised as gravel.  Which sounds awful now that I’ve typed it (bleh gross).

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family, goodness, life, manfolk

Upgrade complete

Yesterday was moving day from the apartment where Diminutive Roommate and I have been living for three years to a new place with a new third roommate just a mile to the east.

With a big event like a move, something’s gonna go wrong.  This move demonstrated Murphy’s Law too well at times.

Wednesday, August 31st: The day before the move
I got an IM from Diminutive Roommate saying that everyone except me had failed to sign one random page of the lease, and that we couldn’t get the keys for the new place without it.  Bear in mind that this is the same management who failed to check that we had signed each page when I delivered the lease (although, to be fair, we didn’t check either), and who refused to give us the keys the night before because our lease didn’t start until the 1st.  Of course, their office didn’t open until 9am, so even though we were officially on the lease, we would have to wait for their office to open to get the keys.  So instead of “wrongly” having the keys from 6pm (when their office closed) to midnight, they would withhold them from us from midnight to 9am on the 1st.  Or we could pay $85 for one day of pro-rated rent.  I smell bullshit.  We planned to pick up the keys first thing in the morning and hope for the best.

I got home on the 31st, said hi to Calico, wandered down the hall to my room, flicked on the light, and… wait, why isn’t the light coming on?  *click, click, click, click* No light.  I went back to the front door to see if the building’s lights were on in the hall (yes).  I flicked the light switch in the kitchen to see if the problem was localized to my room (nope).  I sighed, and chuckled, and called Diminutive Roommate:
“Hey there, just calling to see how you’re doing, and make sure that page got signed by everyone, and we’re good to go for tomorrow, although if you needed help with it I guess you would have called me.  Uh… oh, by the way (haha!), when did you arrange for the power to be turned off here?  Cus there’s a little surprise for you when you get home!  Call me!”

"are you shitting me?"

I ate some melty ice cream, and frowned at the two wedges of brie that had been sitting in a dark, un-powered refrigerator all day.  As prepared as we were, there was still work to do.  I did that eyelid-fluttering mind-search that helps me remember things, and went straight to the box where I had packed the candles (win!).  I packed the last of my junk amid some flickering, romantic lighting, did some packing in the kitchen, and realized at 830pm that I hadn’t had dinner.  I drove around looking for a post office drop box to leave our cable box in, then arrived at Fancy-pants Farms to get a sammich only to discover them 10 minutes past closing.  I crash-landed in a CPK booth instead, and had a nice chat with the waiter who enjoyed The Hobbit more than the following Lord of the Rings trilogy (disagree).  Diminutive Roommate finally got back to me after two and a half hours of calling and texting.  Drove home to find her mulling around in the dark.  We agreed we had done all we could, and hit the sack.

Thursday, September 1st: The day of the move
I wake up around 7 before the alarm and can’t get back to sleep (too excited/ready for it to start the move so it can be over).  Melissa leaves around 815am to get keys and garage clickers from management.  I finish packing up, and pace around while the movers arrive a half-hour late, and seem to move in slow motion once they arrive.  At one point, time seemed to flash to a halt and balance on fine point in the exact spot where I sat.  I could feel each second pass like dripping water, and the expanse of the hours before the move would be done stretched out before me as a vast ocean of carboard boxes and the smell of moving blankets.  It was a low point in my day.

"JUST LEAVE YOUR KEYS ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER."

Diminutive Roommate takes her garage clicker to the new place to test it.  The owners of our old apartment building, an older couple, come by with the manager (let’s call him Melty-face) to check out the apartment.  They seem nice enough.  I tell them about how my dehumidifier pulled one cup of water out of the air per hour in my room alone.  The lady looks shocked, and asks if I left the window open during the rain.  I said no, and that the moisture might be in the walls, because we didn’t know where it was coming from.  She didn’t like the sound of that.  Not.  One.  Bit.

Meanwhile I had missed a text from Diminutive Roommate regarding her garage clicker: it won’t work.  She slouches into the kitchen minutes later, and I decide what I need to get back into the game is a quick verbal sparring match with our new management (who couldn’t give us the keys six hours early, but was kind enough to screw up our garage clickers).  I bid a final farewell to our old apartment, and drive a mile east with all our artwork wrapped in brown paper in the back of my little Fiat.  Boyfriend and I try both clickers in every combination possible to no avail.  I call management (let’s call them Overworked Equities).
lady: Overworked Equities.
me: Hi, I’m moving into [address redacted] today, and the garage clickers we picked up this morning aren’t working.
lady: Ok, you’ll have to come in and pick up two new ones.
me: …Absolutely not.  Our movers will be here in 20 minutes.  You need to find another solution.  I’m not driving all the way to your office.
lady: *sigh* Ok, well, uh… ok hold on.
After being bounced around I finally get hold of a guy who speed-talks me through the problem, and says someone will be by in 20 minutes to fix it.

Ten minutes after our movers arrive, a guy comes and opens the gate after fiddling with it and referring to several pages of numbers (“This code isn’t working.  They must have changed it without telling me.”).  The movers make extensive use of the freight elevator, which one coupled set of tattooed Hispanic residents did not like.  The lady asked me if the movers were emptying the elevator and staging everything in the hall first, or moving things one by one, “because that’s slow, and I gotta move my stuff from storage 3 to storage 1.”  Thanks for the warm welcome!

Over the course of the move, even when we ran into problems, I kept a pretty up-beat attitude.  It wasn’t hard; we were so close to finally getting into our new place.  I got short with Boyfriend once (he was being contrarian), but otherwise had maintained a good, positive drive.  But it was not to last.

My father is sort of a Renaissance man.  He’s a lawyer who grew up on sailing and canoeing teams in Hawai’i, loves to hike and navigate the wild, has quite a green thumb, and is currently rebuilding some derelict stairs on the hill behind his house (like a pro).  At our house growing up, he had a garage which he converted to a workshop where he could typically be found late at night working on something or another.  I have fond and powerful memories of spending time there in the summer.  The concrete was always cool on my feet.  He built a bench for Sister and I to stand on so we could “help” him on projects.  The smell of sawdust, the sound of a table saw, the sound of a plane on wood were all visceral experiences for me, and I smile even now thinking about it.

Dad built a hutch out of ash in that workshop while I was a kid.  Dad always said, “Ash is known as the poor man’s oak,” meaning it was cheaper than oak, but just as sturdy.  He did all the dovetail joints himself with a chisel.  The handles on the doors and drawers are solid brass, shiny and smooth.  It’s the closest thing we have to a family heirloom, and it weighs roughly a ton.  It’s never been an easy piece of furniture to move, and this time was no different.

inconsolable

There’s a sharp turn from one hallway to another into my room in the new apartment.  The movers took one look at it and said, “It’s not gonna fit.”  My heart sank.  Then they tried, and it didn’t fit.  We stood in the living room discussing where to put it.  “You want it there?  That’s a good spot,” one of them offered.  I held up a finger to ask them to wait, walked down the hall into my room, and burst into tears.  Boyfriend came in to tell me something, and instead asked me what was wrong.  “If the hutch can’t fit into my room, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”  I had reached the end of my rope.  This problem was just too much for me to handle.  Where would I put my clothes?  This beautiful chest my father made for Sister and me as kids would sit in the living room like a common piece of furniture instead of being safely stationed in my bedroom where I could look at it everyday and feel love for it (and from it).  My chest hurt.  I sat on the floor and cried like a child.

Boyfriend went into problem-solving work mode, and began inspecting the window.  “I can pop this screen right off.  I’m gonna measure it.  I think it could fit.  Do you want to ask the movers to try that?”  Neither of us thought they’d be game to try putting a giant, heavy piece of furniture through a window.  I looked up from my spot on the floor and shook my head, “Will you ask them?”  Boyfriend did, and they tried it, and it worked.  The hutch stands in my room now, facing the bed, holding my books and clothes just like it should.  Heart mended, I got back to work.

After some more sweating and shuffling around the mess we’d made in the living room, I asked Boyfriend to go grab some In-n-Out for us and the movers so I could stay and coordinate.  We moved some boxes out of the way and made room at the kitchen table for a meal.  Boyfriend arrived with the food just as they brought in the plaid couch.  We didn’t realize how hungry we were until we started eating.  The van was empty, we were all full of food, and the mover said he would like cash (even though their website said they took credit card).  I drove to an ATM, counted out the cash, signed his papers, went upstairs, and unpacked my room for the next six hours until all that was left was the computer.  It was finally time to sleep.

My current room is about a third smaller than my last, which I’m surprisingly happy about.  I thought I would feel cramped, but looking back, my room always felt a little hollow.  I have less furniture in my current room, but it feels roomier somehow.  There’s a nice central open area in the middle, the closet isn’t packed to the gills, my bookshelf is organized, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it start getting all cluttered.  And I’m changing out the damn vertical blinds for something that blacks out that damn exterior hall light.

In other news my roommates are awesome.  We shared a beer and some Indian food from Samosa House (best vegetarian food ever).  I’m feeling good about this whole setup.

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family, goodness, life

Proof; dogs are the best

OMFG ok so apparently there is a professional photographer (named Carli Davidson) who has FINALLY decided to do what I wanted to do in middle school: take photos of dogs mid-shake.  You can see them here.

For the record: Dogs are awesome, and in no small part because they do hilarious stuff like shaking all their loose skin around so hard that they hit themselves in the eye with their own lips.  I think people love dogs because they’re the same animal before and after doing something stupid and humiliating.  They’re panting and happy before they accidentally run into the wall on their way down the stairs, and they’re panting and happy afterward.  Who wouldn’t love that kind of hilarious consistency?

I had a 130lb golden retriever growing up named Buster.  He was the BEST.  He would lean on you with all his weight if you pet him, and fall over if you stepped away too fast.  His tail was so strong that it could (and did) slam doors.  He would occasionally go nuts, and run up and down the stairs at break-neck speed for no reason, only to slip on the wood floor at the base of the stairs, and roll around in my parents room with a mad look in his eyes before taking off down the hall again.  When we played with him, he would never gnaw on us too hard.  Mom would yell “Ow!” when he chewed on her arm, and he would let go and calm down until she pet him to show she was ok.  He kept her company at home while she took time off work.  Sister liked to put hats on him, and tried to get him to sleep in her bed (he always took up all the room).  He was a total softie, and would scamper to hide behind us if a significantly smaller dog barked at him on the street.  I once kicked a dog that went after him.  When the owner yelled at me, I told him to put his (significantly smaller) animal on a leash.  The only time anyone ever heard him growl was when Mom was home alone, and a man who came to the house wouldn’t let her shut the front door on him.  Buster apparently stood next to Mom and snarled.  The man left.  What a great dog.  We found him in 1995 wandering the streets while babysitting another golden retriever named Sadie.  He died at home in 2002 while I was on a first (and last) date with a friend.  He was the BEST.

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family, goodness, humor

Pigs are more equal

When I was a kid, my folks went to a white elephant party where everyone brought a horrible gift as a joke.  I went to one of these for xmas a few years back, and it has my full approval.  So silly.

I don’t know what my folks took to the party, but when they came back they had something that resembled this pig chef (but ours held something like a business card holder).  This thing sat on a bookshelf in the “computer room” just outside my parents’ bathroom for… I’m gonna say at least a decade.  They never figured out a way to get rid of it, and apparently couldn’t bear to throw it out.  It just looked so pleased with itself.  And hey look!  Now you can have your very own!

bizarre

ridiculous

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badness, family, martial arts, work

Fat, not “FAT”

My mom’s mom was a model, and not just any model, an Adrian model.  Adrian Adolph Greenberg was a huge designer of women’s gowns used commonly in big Hollywood movies during the 1930s and 40s.  My mom used to be a clothing model for tailors and designers; “I was a perfect size four,” she would say.  My dad’s family has a history of natural athleticism, from college basketball, hurdles, swimming, etc.  My folks were both quite handsome in their hay-day.

Adrian made some classy shit

My sister and I have turned out to be what I’m going to call pretty good looking athletes.  I’m pleased with my looks (but wouldn’t call myself beautiful); Sister, on the other hand, is pretty much a knockout when she’s all dressed up (if she stands up straight).  It was a given that every year in school, we would do some sport, and excel in it.  I was captain of my middle school soccer (we lost almost every game) and volleyball (we made it to state!) teams.  Sister kicked everyone’s ass at cross country, and was so competitive (about everything, in truth) that she threw up before half of her races, most of which she won.  I’m a talented martial artist, a quick learner with a sharp eye for form.  I ran a mile the other night no problem; Sister could run three before her knees start to hurt.

I’m not saying all this to stroke my own ego.  Athleticism and good looks are my family legacy.  So when a mother approached me asking, “Why do you think it is that my child is so fat?” I’m thrown for a bit of a loop.  What do I say?  Should I be honest and say that her child has demonstrated that she has a propensity to be lazy, probably due to all the extra weight she carries around, which, in turn, causes her to be lazy?  That being fat is a cycle that’s tough to break out of, and that she did the right thing to sign her up for a martial arts class?

if Elvis did it, it must be awesome

Well, that’s what I did.  I was kind, and honest, and encouraging.  The mom smiled and nodded, and agreed with me at every turn.  Then she left, and apparently wrote a scathing email about how I called her child fat, and that she and her child will not be returning to the school because she feels judged and unwelcome.

Where do I begin?

No one wants to be fat, but some people are.  Fat is an adjective, like blue.  It applies to things (and people) that are fat.  Fat was a noun that became an adjective.  It happens all the time within many languages.  It’s not a sin.

I understand that it’s a hot-button word.  Coming from a thin, athletic person, I understand that it may come off as an insult.  But let’s be clear: calling someone fat within the context of a discussion regarding health and fitness is not the same as calling someone a fatty.  It’s simply vocabulary that states a fact: some people are fat, and should lose that extra fat in order to no longer be fat.  It’s very, very simple.  There is no extra meaning attached to the word ‘fat’ coming from me.  Any and all baggage attached to that word originates solely on the receiving end of that word.

At what point did the word ‘fat’ cease to be an acceptable adjective for overweight people?  What do they think all that weight consists of?  Hint: It’s FAT, not overweight-ness, not big-boned-ness.  It’s the noun that became an adjective.  That’s it.

Jessica Simpson is not fat, she's just not a skeleton anymore

This mother was right to worry about her child, who is seriously overweight (also known as fat).  When the child stands up after sitting on the floor, the motions resemble exactly what an old football coach with no knees left does when he breaks a huddle.  At age 5, that’s just unreal, and totally unhealthy.  I hope she gets her child checked out by a doctor to make sure it’s not a thyroid problem or something.

Bottom line: I care about this child’s health because this child is fat.  Not a fatty or any other mean name, just fat, and that’s not healthy.  If a mother (who is also overweight) asks me about her overweight child’s health, but doesn’t want to hear that her child is fat, she needs to ask different questions, or talk to someone who:

A) Doesn’t give a shit about her child’s well-being.

B) Will lie to her face, and tell her that her child is healthy, normal, and has nothing to worry about health-wise.

C) Doesn’t have a clue about what a normal child’s body should look like.

So why did I bother mentioning my totally awesome pedigree, all those handsome, athletic people in my family tree?  Because the underlying problem here is that I don’t know what it’s like to be fat.  I mean, I was a fat kid until around age 4, but I was totally unaware of it.  As a result, I’m on the outside of a discussion that I will never be welcomed into because I “don’t know what it’s like.”  Similar to a whites’ opinion on black issues, a thin person who has never been fat apparently has no right to talk about fat people–even when prompted.

UPDATE: August 29th, 1:14pm
I read an article in the LA Times today entitled “Does Obesity Qualify as Child Abuse?”  Yikes.  So that’s pretty extreme.  But kids don’t control what they eat, parents do.

It occurs to me now that the mother in question wasn’t only insulted in a protective-parent way, but was also probably harboring some guilt.  A child doesn’t get fat because she’s eating three square meals a day and getting plenty of exercise, it’s because the parents are potentially not doing a stellar job with her food intake, and making sure she’s active enough.  When she mentioned that her child took swim classes, I asked, “Does she do all the exercises?”
mom: I don’t know, I don’t stay to watch.
me: I noticed that I had to encourage her constantly just to keep her from slowing down in the middle of an activity.  That happened a lot during class today, so she may not be participating in every activity in swim class either.  She may not be getting as much exercise as you think.”

This woman was not abusing her child.  She was trying to get her to do athletic activities, and asked me for some (apparently unwanted) advice.  She wants her child to be healthy, but she could lost 40lbs and be healthier herself, so what kind of lifestyle change does she really expect from a child if she can’t do it herself?

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family, goodness, humor, life

Delightful disaster

scary-accurate

So… *sigh* I’m not known for being the best driver in the world.  I wrecked my first car within the first two years of ownership.  My second car (another Pontiac Grand Am) gave me all kinds of trouble.  I also had the occasional close-encounter with poles.  I sold it about a month ago just before it hit 100k miles and its value really plummeted, so I’ve been driving the car previously known as my dad’s old car, and before that known as my mom’s old car.  It’s a 13 year-old pile of American metal with 130k miles on it.  It’s louder and even less fuel efficient than my Pontiac was.  Time to get a new car.

A couple good people from out of town came to visit my family and see the sights of Los Angeles this past week.  We had a blast.  I spent all my time off driving them around my hometown, people-watching like a tourist and enjoying the company of people I don’t get to see nearly often enough.  You can imagine my delight when I was handed a chance to unwittingly entertain them with my notorious ability to cause body-damage to vehicles.

I was telling them all about the LA riots in 1992, and how my family chose to abandon our house when we could smell smoke from all the businesses being burned down just a couple miles to the south.  On our way out of town, we drove through a firefight between some armed civilians and the LAPD.  Just as we were discussing this, BANG!  The rear window shattered.  I was backing up SLOWLY into a parking spot in a poorly lit underground lot, and the back window touched what looked like an air duct.  Apparently safety glass all breaks at once, and with the same enthusiasm as a gun going off.

Even so, it was a fun day.  We went to a museum, had lunch at Umami, visited The Farmer’s Market and The Grove, saw the lights at LACMA, had Korean food for dinner, and gelato in Silverlake for dessert.  The window incident was a source of comedy and proof of the unpredictable delights of backing into front-only parking spots (of course, you could only see the “head-in parking only” sign if you were already going in head-first.  Fuck).

I guess it could've been worse

Dad and I went to the junkyard today to see if we could find a replacement rear window.  No luck, and they wouldn’t let us bring my camera in (fuckers!), but we snapped a couple cool shots with a phone anyway.  Take that, dirty commies!  I’m surprised by how fun it was going to this junkyard.  Those cars that were completely demolished were totally hypnotizing (see above picture).  I’ll have to go back and sneak in a legitimate camera.

We ended up buying a replacement rear window at a nearby junk shop (just $55!), and replaced it ourselves in my folks’ driveway.  And I finally remembered to drop off all that stuff at Goodwill!  Dinner tonight was ramen, strawberry mochi, olives and sweet red wine while watching a three-hour block of Daria.  Overall a really fun day.

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