Historic tale #1: ca. 1993

It was finals time at my high school.  I remember because my room had never been cleaner or my desk more organized – always the first steps to a studious bout (or the final steps of procrastination) – and I sat there with a pile of books and a pile of notes, a stressed out person hoping that cramming all of that English, history, math, science, and French would stick long enough to get me through the ensuing week.  I'm sure I was sighing up a storm, not that I remember doing that, but it seems like something I would have done, since I still do.  My mom had just come up the stairs in our house; my room was just at the top of the staircase.  She popped her head around to answer my distressed sounds. 

"What can I do to help?" she asked in an unusual show of compassion for my distress.

"I don't know!  Nothing!  I'm stressed out!" I'm sure I retorted in a tirade of teenage angst.  "I'm so tired from studying all this stuff!"

"Maybe I can make you some coffee," she offered.  

Or maybe I demanded, "Just make me some coffee!!"

But in either case, moments later she brought up a steaming cup of coffee which I took and drank – thankful for some understanding/pity/help from my mom, whom I felt so alienated from so often in those awkward teenage times.  She may have even brought me a second cup when she saw how serious I was in my studying.  

But my eyelids drooped – I was loosing to the sandman.  I'd had two cups of coffee and I didn't understand.

"What is this," I asked her on her next pass by my door, "Like, decaf or something?" It was like a rhetorical question with zero seriousness attached, my attempt to be joking and poking fun at my own inability to focus and stay awake.

"Yes, it is," she replied.

"are you SERIOUS?!  YOU GAVE ME DECAF WHEN I'M TRYING TO WAKE UP?!  SO I CAN STUDY AND NOT FAIL MY FINALS?!"  is my best guess at how I responded.

"Well," she said matter-of-factly, "It's the smell that wakes you up."

It's still better than $5 in a freshly laundered pair of jeans, or even change in the couch cushions...

I wrote this god-knows-when.  I think last time my mom was visiting, as I vaguely recall the moment and I picture her sitting at our dining table.  Saying, with some effort (and this below is what I just discovered in my drafts with no further explanation):

Booger-y.
BURRgury.

I love to find these forgotten treasures.

And, in case you were wondering, she was trying to say Bulgaria.

This is what a mother's nightmares are made of...

We were chatting via Skype, catching up on the news du jour and listening to my mom make all manner of ridiculous noises at the frijolito as he crawled about.  He is always happy to see her - amazing that he can recognize his baba-chan on an iphone screen!

She often calls at this time, which is Saturday morning in Japan just before her student arrives for her lesson.  It's never a long call but I know they both like it - these calls have certainly replaced her checking in on me, her kid!  

*ring, ring* me: "Hello?"  her: "Is he awake?"  me: "Not yet."  her: "Okay, call me when he gets up.  Bye."  *click and dial tone*

Maybe it's not that harsh and in a way I should be happy about this change but in either case I digress...

As we finished up this call, my mom suddenly jumps up from her seat and says, "I have to go put on coffee - my student likes it."  

This would seem fine except that once this student arrived while we were still online together and my mother introduced us over Skype.  And she is 5.

"What?  Isn't your student five?  You are giving a five-year-old coffee??!!"

"She likes it - she doesn't even take any milk or sugar.  Just black," my mom informs me, as if that makes it any better.  "Besides, I'm making decaf."

I launch in to my spiel about how caffeine isn't good for kids but in Japan who knows how much green tea or even coca cola this child consumes.  Maybe a weekly black coffee isn't the end of the world.  Though I did have a nightmare this morning where my mom was attempting to feed the frijolito copious amounts of cake telling me he likes it!  I woke up with a racing pulse, my screaming protestations still fresh in my head.