I am finally back in MN. Right now, I am on my couch with two kittehs snoozing in my lap. I am drinking coffee, eating mini dark chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and just, in general, savoring my solitude and slothiness. Not a word, I know, but I don’t care.
My mom was laying on the guilt at the airport. She was talking about the plan for my brother’s family and me to return to Taiwan in five years. She was making my niece promise that she (my niece) would go, and then she turned to me. “Back in five years?” Me: “We’ll see.” That was as diplomatic as I could make my response. I really wanted to stuff my fingers in my ears, run screaming from the room, shouting, “No fucking way!”
Now, most people (especially most psychologists) would note my very set face and colorless voice and conclude that I was not very enthusiastic about the idea. But, this is not my mother’s way. Despite her professional background, my mother has an astonishing ability to not see or hear what she doesn’t like. Very determined filters has she. She followed up her question with this gem, “Your father and I are getting older. We don’t know how much longer we’ll be around.” And boom! She hooks me with her guilt bait.
For most people, five years is a long time away and the subject would not come up again. For my mother, it’s now set in stone. Once she latches on to an idea, it’s a fact (hey, I come by my CDO honestly). I would bet a large amount of money that she will mention it every time she sees me for the next five years. I would also make an educated guess that she will mention it when she calls, increasing the guilt factor each time.
I can’t feel my feet! I wish I couldn’t feel my ankles, knees, or neck.
Hiya. I have been informed that people who are not on FB cannot view the photo albums I have been posting with each entry. I have been bugging my bro to upload the pics to Flickr, and he has finally done just that. Today, I am linking to the food photo set. It does not include ALL the pics of food (I don’t think), but you will certainly be totally jealous once you view the album, anyway.
Today was a pretty damn good day for the most part. Got up around six-thirty and had time to myself until nine. I’ve always been a solitary kind of person, but I didn’t fully realize how much I needed my alone time until I got so much of it taken away from me. Now that I’ve had a healthy amount over the last two days, I can breathe again. This morning, I got up around six-thirty and didn’t have to meet the family for breakfast until nine. I hopped on the intertoobz and just chilled with an excellent cup of coffee. Then, had a massive breakfast at our luxury hotel. After, my mom and my dad wanted to take a walk around the hotel grounds before my mom, my bro, and my niece went swimming. My mom described all the different pools and asked if I wanted to try on her swimsuit. The big one. I said no. As I have mentioned, I feel like an elephant right now, and the last thing I want to do is appear in public in a bathing suit. I mean, I knew I was fat before I went on this trip, but not this fat. Pictures don’t lie, man. I am greatly unhappy about how fat I am right now. I reached the conclusion that I would not fuck me, so why should/would anyone else?
So. I went to the family dinner tonight (mini, mom’s side). It was at an Italian-like food place named Morita’s. Don’t ask because I don’t know why an Italian place has a Japanese name. Anyway, I was pretty much defeated by the rest of the day, so I just went (I had originally told my mom that I didn’t want to go). I had to eat dinner, anyway. I met another cousin I hadn’t seen in at least fifteen years if not twenty, and he looked great. He’s twenty-three and doing his mandatory military service so he had to eat and run. He was pretty cool. There were only two sisters (including my mom) and one brother at first, and then the eldest brother and his wife showed up. The dinner was in their honor because they were visiting Taiwan as well. The wife had cancer a few years back and wasn’t expected to make it. She did, and she’s in remission now. Anyway, she is one of those full warpaint, dyed hair, dress to the nines kind of women who desperately tries to look thirty years younger.
I had the family reunion on my father’s side yesterday. My father, mother, brother, niece, and I took the bullet train to Taichung. It was pretty neat. My father’s second-oldest brother’s third and fourth sons picked us up (with their respective wives). The third brother had stayed in our house in MN before, so I remembered him. I didn’t remember meeting the fourth brother. We went directly to the restaurant, and I was wary because I remembered the first time I met my father’s family. Needless to say, it did not go well (the first time). However, as I rode with the third brother, I realized that he and I had more than a few things in common. Then, when we went to the restaurant, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. There were roughly fifty of us when it was all said and done, and there was only one moment of shame for me. It was when my father’s second sister came up to me and looked at me sternly. She made a sour face and then asked (in Taiwanese) if I could speak Taiwanese. My mother said no, and she made an even more sour face and looked at me like I was dirt on her feet. She said (in Taiwanese) that I should know how to speak Taiwanese (apparently, she didn’t know that I could understand some of it), and she clucked her tongue at me. Now, mind you, this was the same woman who, along with her older sister, told me I should speak Chinese the last time I saw them. At that time, I was in Taiwan to learn how to speak Chinese. A month later, when I met the two sisters again and began talking to them in Chinese, they switched to Taiwanese and said I should know how to speak Taiwanese.
I couldn’t sleep last night (surprise surprise). I got up in the middle of the night to do some online stuff before trying to sleep a bit more. When I finally got out of bed, it was eight-thirty. To my mild surprise, no brother barging into my room. Nothing. Fifteen minutes later, I heard a soft knock on my door. It’s my niece telling me it’s time to get up. So, right off the bat, things were different this morning.