The KMpire strikes back

My mom and entourage of Ogura san and his grandson, Yuki the KM (standing for kari-mago meaning borrowed grandchild in the KY Japanese tradition), arrived from the hot and muggy hell of Tokyo today. We drove up to San Francisco to pick up John before going to get burritos in the Mission. The KM, who is now 12, was marveling at how cold and foggy it was out in the avenues.  We tried to translate the oft quoted Twainism that he maybe never said, about the coldest winter he'd ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, but Yuki was nonplussed to say the least.

Anyway, Mission and 22nd was warmer than the avenues, though this pleasantness was offset slightly by the crazy and/or homeless people milling about.  We had arrived at our dining destination: La Corneta.  It's the kind of place with a dauntingly long menu in an exceedingly small font on the wall, where you order at the counter and the hungry people waiting in the long line behind you hope that you're decisive. Being with a bunch of Japanese folks for whom the differences between tacos and burritos isn't ingrained,  and who will likely only be confused if I told them that either consists of meat, beans and cheese in a tortilla (a nod to Jim Gaffigan here), in the interest of time I suggest we just get burritos all around since they are super.

The only choice, then, is which meat from the usual options of chicken, carnitas, asada steak and shrimp.  So having bypassed the need to translate the various food-type options and feeling pressured by the looming line behind us, my mom turns to the KM and says, "Do you want chicken? Or beef?..."

And before she could say anything else, the kid's retorts in bored tones, "It's not like this is an airplane."

A dry and sardonic tween? Or has the apple not fallen far from the Ogura san grandfather tree?

Be 'heartened & 'meaned!

My mother will visit Los Angeles shortly and had planned to stay with her friend in Diamond Bar, but I learned last night that she will be staying in an empty house.  "They're going to be in London, so we'll just stay there ourselves," she told me.

"Why are they going to London?" I asked, not thinking.

"Well, their friends' son is playing in some game," she answered.

Silence proceeded as I processed and it occurred to me that the Olympics are beginning and may have some bearing on my mom's statement.  In fact, as I become certain that is what she mean, I utter with disbelief,  "You mean he's in the Olympics?!"

"Yes," she says.

I try to convince her that 'play' is not the right verb, nor 'game' the correct noun.

"You should say 'compete' and 'sport;' it's demeaning to say 'play' and 'games.'"

Of course, "whatever" was her response.

Good luck to all those athletes who will be playing some games in London this Olympics. 

Forget disheartened or demeaned! Remember, if you lose, it was only a game you were playing and of no further consequence.

Feeling and Nothingness

The past two weeks have been a frenzy of preparations to leave this city that has been home to me for years now. The last box is sealed, all the cabinets are empty and the quiet silence that is no computer, no TV, no radio has given me a space to pause and consider and finally, after all this, feel sad to be leaving. It's been hard not to let emotions get the upper-hand when looking at the distant Manhattan skyline as I walk toward the subway, a view I saw on my way to work every weekday for so long, or looking at the beautiful decay of the brick railroad apartment buildings on my block, or at the tears in my 93-year-old neighbors eyes when she says she will always remember me and John and "Yo quiero mucho mucho," or, or, or. The list is growing. 

I spoke to my mom tonight and told her I was feeling a bit sad now that the busy-ness has subsided. I remembered that she also moved west after living in New York in the late 60s, so I asked her, "What did you feel when you left New York?"  There was a pregnant pause before she made her considered and thoughtful reply:

"Nothing."

I won't reiterate my firm stance that my mother may be a robot, but I forgive her this because a) she's always looking forward which is a good lesson for me (who is always looking back)  lest I be turned in to a pillar of salt and b) she said the word 'tish' again during the conversation and it doesn't get much cuter than that!!

New York: I'm gonna miss you. But I'll be back.