Maybe I'm an asshole

Is everyone familiar with this magazine known as FRUiTS that publishes pictures of young people with outrageous fashion sensibilities for the rest of us to wonder and gawk at? Well, I don't know if it is because the Japanese are more attached to youth culture and fashion than much of the Western world, but there is a certain faction of, shall we say, older people who dress in this same outrageous manner. There was one such individual where my mom and I were eating lunch today and I was thinking that someone should start a magazine to document this currently ignored fashion demographic. They certainly have as much "style" as their younger counterparts. I was taking stock of this woman in her 70s dressed in black stiletto boots with a red plaid turn-down rim, leggings and cute mini-skirt jumper accessorized with a necklace made of fist size plastic beads and a big, floppy hat, wondering what I would name my fantasy magazine, when it came to me like a vision: DRiED FRUiTS. I guess it's kinda mean (maybe I am an asshole), but it was also pretty funny and of course I started laughing out loud, so my mom asked me what was so funny, and when I told her, she burst out laughing, too. I guess that means we're both kind of jerks.

catch phrase and wig and the jokes are lame

I was cracking up over the comment Inder posted on my last entry, and was telling my mom about it. I wonder if it was some weird antisemitic thing making Popeye's catch phrase something that is so blasphemous? I'm thinking of those crazy cartoons from that era with Mickey and Hitler etc., etc. Anyway, I was telling my mom that "I am what I am" really was Popeye's catch phrase, and she says,

"I always thought it was 'I am what I eat.' "

I fell over laughing. She also recently told me that she thought Homer Simpson was a plumber. I thought that was pretty funny, too, although maybe it's weirder that the rest of us know that he works in a nuclear power plant.

Sincerely, move over

Okay, so this one really was an accident, but until I figured it out I thought it was totally the most brilliant and hilarious thing to happen in a while.

I proof read a recommendation letter my mom had written correcting the engrish as I went along then this is how it closed.
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bla bla, it is my great pleasure to recommend bla bla.

I am,

Yoko M------
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I feel sketched about putting full names on the internet. Call me paranoid. Anyway, it wasn't meant to be a closing but for a brief few minutes I was hopeful. 'Sincerely'? Overused. 'Best'? Impersonal! 'Best wishes'? LAME! 'May I always live to serve you and your crown'? Too monarchical! *sigh* All I want is something simple but not boring! Ah, yes. I think I'll just use the good ol' 'I am.' Simple, straightforward, honest.

EXACTLY.

Maybe I'm a culiary prude

Since I've been here, from time to time I'll notice this concoction my mom makes sitting in the fridge, looking disgusting. It's always in a bowl, covered by some saran wrap, and it looks like chunks of grapefruit in yogurt that has gotten watery and a little curdled from the grapefruit juice. This morning, I finally saw her eating it.

"I don't know why anyone would want to eat grapefruit that's sitting in curdling yogurt," I said maybe a little more rudely than I intended.

"It's not yogurt," she informed me. I look again...the grapefruit chunks are definitely sitting in something milky. "It's plain milk that's curdled. I saw it on TV. It's really healthy for you."

I can eat a lot of things, fermented beans, stinky cheese, foie-gras, I've even eaten ris de veau, though that is an experience I'll likely never duplicate. But I have to draw the line at curdling milk. I had a traumatic curdled milk experience when I was young...my dad can attest to that!

I don't know what it means but it's probably true.

At breakfast, amidst our morning conversation, my mom told me she doesn't have jikaku.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Self-recognition."

Bullet points; more Yoko on basketball

The Cavaliers played the Raptors and here's what she had to say:

• A player was being swapped out with another player and as they switched, they slapped five.
"Do they have to touch like that?! No....! * It's not a relay."
*insert my maniacal laughter here

• "Are the people in suits the coaches? Why do they wear suits? The coaches in baseball don't wear suits, do they?"
"No, they wear uniforms. But, what, you want the coaches to wear shorts and tank tops? It would look ridiculous."
"Well, what about that..." (she points to the TV)
"Those are the refs."

• "I still don't like all that squeaking." Perhaps you will recall...

• She'd also asked me recently if they were "allowed to shove it down." By 'it' she meant basketball and by 'down' she meant into the net. This action is known to the rest of us as a slam dunk. It was cute.

smart and small-minded both start with 'sm'

My poor mother has a cold. There's this Japanese medication called 'Ruru' or 'Lulu' (or 'Rulu' or 'Luru' depending on how you wish to translate it; this is what it looks like in its original form: ルル). Anyway, she recommended it to me a while back when I had a cold but apparently I'm allergic to it or something because I got a rash on my stomach and the doctor told me it was probably from the ルル since it's like the rash I got when I took penicillin once (Meags! Remember - 'I'm allergic to penicillin'?). Anyway, it's gone so enough about rashes (can I say 'rash' any more? Jesus.), but when I told my mom what the doctor had said, she wouldn't believe the rash (christ.) was from that.

Today I asked her if she'd taken ルル. She said yes.
"Obviously, you're not allergic to it," I said.
"Why? Are you allergic to it?"
"That's what the doctor told me."
"She did?"
"Remember? I told you and you didn't believe me."
"Oh yeah, I kind of remember. I always forget things I don't believe."

Either it leaves room for more, or it just keeps it conveniently empty. sm.

Don't know why, but it reminds me of a comic that illustrated the three types of people measuring a half-glass of water: Optimist - "The glass is half full!"; Pessimist - "The glass is half empty..."; Anal-Retentive - "Half-nothin'! Try 48%"
You all know what category I fall under.

To the LIMIT!

In the kitchen, she noted: "I was going to buy more eggs at the store today! I used them for the cakes. We're down to none."

The Queen of Substitutions

My mother has long held the title of "The Queen of Substitutions." She will substitute one thing for another with out regard to scientific property or relevance. Sometimes the results are fine, like when she 'extends' sour cream by adding plain yogurt to it. Other times they've ended in disaster. But I've learned some good lessons, like: Never substitute Red Miso for White Miso in a misoae no matter how much it might seem like a good idea at the time. Or: Just because things look alike, doesn't mean they are alike. This lesson I learned the time she used powdered laundry detergent instead of dish detergent in our dish-washer in LA ("They looked the same!" she said) and I came downstairs to find suds interminably pouring out of the sides of the machine, all over the floor. It was straight out of "I Love Lucy."

Anyway, I was just reminded of this because she's making a cake to serve at the reception of her concert on Sunday. This is a time where it counts, where if the cake comes out badly, it will get served anyway. So, of course, she starts making additions and substitutions left and right. I saw on the counter: a tupperware of frozen cooked apples from last fall, a bottle of Kahlua and one of Absolut, a tub of lard, some recipe clippings that looked like they were from 1940.

Your guess is as good as mine. She turned to me with this worried look and said, "I hope it comes out okay..." I'll be sure to tell you how it tastes this weekend.

insanity in action!

When my mom hits some technological wall, like the error message on her fax machine this morning, if there's nothing I can do to help because I can't decipher the squiggly lines the Japanese call writing (yes, I'm almost totally illiterate. Don't laugh!), it's interesting as an exercise to just observe, like a scientist, and see what she will do next.

Today's observation revealed that the subject's first step toward problem-solving is to try the failed action several times in a row. As each action yields the same (unfavorable) results, the subject will make frustrated noises and raise her palms upward in the gestural version of "What the hell?" and utter the discontented expression "Nandenanoyo!" which translates in the most insufficient way into "Why!"

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Obviously my mother qualifies under Einstein's postulation, but I don't know how I think I'm exempt when I've always flicked the light switch up and down rapidly and repeatedly once the bulb has clearly burned out. I suppose I've said it before, but I'll say it again: the apple does not fall far from the tree.

She's lackadaisical, I'm single

Monday was girls' day in Japan and traditionally you put out hina dolls until the day of the celebration. I was talking to one of my students the day after girls' day and she told me that there is a superstition/tradition in Japan that if you don't put the dolls away by night-fall of the actual day, the girls in your house will never be brides. Of course, here it is now days after girls' day and our dolls are still out.

"Well," said my mom, "it doesn't matter. I don't really plan on getting married again, so..."
"And what about me?" I asked.
Her response was to laugh in my face. Well, I guess it doesn't really count if I'm laughing, too.

Technology 7, or, Laptop Viagra

My mom's old student/IT man came over last night to finish setting up her new computer, transferring data and things. This morning, encountering a problem, we clicked 'restart' and waited. "It's taking so long to shut down," my mom commented, so a few seconds later I asked if it was still trying to shut down.

She replied, "It shut down and now it's trying to get it up."

I started laughing immediately, and she said, "It's not funny..."
"It is," I insisted, tears welling up in my eyes. "Do you even know what that phrase is usually used for?!"
"Yes."

A side story about her student (whom I call "The Professor" since he knows random facts about just about anything) is that last night my mom was telling him about my blog and he asked me what the URL was. As I said it, he typed it in to the computer. A moment later I got a blank stare from him and he said that it pulled up an error screen. What?! I thought, but as soon as I saw the address bar, it all made sense. Here is what it said: www.myclazytokyomother.blogspot.com. So close, and yet, so far...