Oh, on the contrary, some like it Japanese

This little frijolito loves books.  We have a select handful of Japanese language kids books that I read to him to the best of my ability, and John narrates according to their illustrations.  This leads to hilarity when the Anpanman character is interpreted as a friendly drunk with his shiny red nose and bicycle, or awkwardness when the little brown haired girl character in the pottybook about pooping is interpreted as “Mama,” but we make do and John John seems to be happy with our efforts.

My mom was here and I thought it would be a good opportunity to get more Japanese in the frijolito’s ear, so I brought out a few of the books she had given us (that had been in storage because he’s been too little anything but board books until recently).  Both have weird, slightly sad lessons...but that’s a different story.  

John John would bring books and ask to sit on her lap, so I would just passively observe the bed-time routine.  I took this picture – they are happy:

One of the times, he chose a board book of very selected Original Mother Goose Rhymes.  When we first inherited this book, I was surprised at how many of those rhymes were still there in my little grey cells.  And when my mom went to read them, I also realized how culturally exclusive, bizarre, and strange some are.  My mom did not have my same ingrained understading of them and responded accordingly.  There were some keepers.

  

Reaction from my mom, upon reading “Hey Diddle, Diddle,” out loud to John John:     “What a weird story.”

Reading No. 1 (misspellings indicate pronunciation):
“Pussy cat, pussy cat”

Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you bin?
 I’ve bin to London to look at the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat what did you, uh, 
what did you? do there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chain.
(Oh, chair.  The ‘R’ looked like an ‘N’)

John John started to get a little restless at this point.  This was not his mother’s Mother Goose.

Reading No. 2:

“Mary, Mary”

Mary, Mary quite…CONtrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle? Cockle? shells?
And pretty maids all in? a row.

I’m laughing now.  John John turns the page to what is arguably his favorite rhyme:

Reading No. 3:

“Pease Porridge”

Pea…peeez? What is that? Peeessse? 
(“It’s just pronounced ‘peas’," I told her)
Pease Porridge? Hot?

John John squirms to get off her lap. I thought he was done with Mother Goose and was going to go choose a new book. 

Nope.  He took the book from my mom, turned and gave it to me. “Read please Mama.” Then sat down in my lap.  I was dying of laughter and almost couldn’t read it myself.

Beauty is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder

John has been DJing at a local radio station, KFJC.  It is one of the original college radio stations of the Bay Area, and is kind of famous for its experimental music.  There have been times where we are trying to tune in to 89.7 on our tuner, which has an analog dial, and we can't seem to get anything but static no matter what we do.  And then, it turns out that the static was the music.

If you listen to the tail end of the show he did yesterday (7/16's Stone Cold Lampin'), as I did from my car on my way to work, you will hear – the final track John played is a little experimental, sure, but good for listening to at 6am.  "I wonder what the next DJ will play to transition to his or her show?" I thought.  Literally, it was a sine wave.  I gave it 60 full seconds before it was too much.  I switched to NPR.  I did check in at 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 8 minutes past the hour.  Still just the single sine wave piercing my head via my ear canal.  Out of morbid curiosity, I checked back in at 22 minutes and it was still the sine wave, but coupled with some other instrument and the DJ was reading a PSA over it all.  I gave up after that.  Maybe it was the sine wave for his entire show - I'll never know and frankly don't care.  We have always been huge listeners of KFJC at our house - either it or the jazz station is on if we aren't listening to records.  I'd like to think that my tolerance for grating sounds has grown broader, but there is a limit and I will turn off anything that causes distress.  Like, forget about the 8am hour on Sunday, but at 9am is Sunday Morning Coming Down, which is a show I enjoy.

At dinner last night, we had KFJC on quietly in the background.  The DJ was playing inoffensive techno - not my favorite thing but not causing any psychological trauma either.  Plus it was turned down low. 

We were eating burgers w/coleslaw  – John made it all, even the mayo for the slaw and burger condiment.  It was magnificent.  My mom's second American meal of the day (she'd had a sandwich for lunch, something she deems to be strictly American, like burgers).  

At a lull in the conversation, my mom cocks her head and says, "What's that I'm hearing?"  We listened.  It was some low pulsating techno beat.

"Some call it music," said John. 

"Well, I don't."

I can't say I disagree.

Still surprising herself at 73

My mom is visiting the frijolito (and, incidentally, us parents, too) and just arrived from SoCal where she is teaching kids in San Juan Capistrano.  This past weekend, the friends with whom she was staying threw a surprise party for her.

A historical note: One time, in the early 70s before I was born, someone attempted to throw my mom a surprise birthday party.  She said it wasn't a surprise because people would come up to her and say, "I can't come to your party," and other things like that ruining the crucial element.  

I guess she found the experience disappointing enough that she thought she would spare her offspring such awful letdowns.  In grade school, friends would have surprise parties.  I remember begging for one, but I might as well have asked for a pony for the kind of resounding NO that came back every time.  The NO was always followed by this same one story. 

End result was that I never had a surprise party until one was kindly thrown for me by the family I nannied for, when I was in my late 20s.  I don't know in what context I would have mentioned the sad affair of being a child without a surprise party at my job, but clearly this emotional scar was deep.  Deep enough for me to apparently tell my boss, and enough for her to want to make it right by throwing me a little surprise birthday party with the kids.

The surprise was not ruined, even by a seven-year-old who had the responsibility of getting me to take him straight home from school – not out to a playground as was our normal routine – without arousing suspicion.  Guess seven-year-olds can keep a secret better than adults in the 70s, though somehow that makes sense to me.

Anyway, so back to 2015:  My mom had this surprise party thrown for her. It's a roaring good time.  She excitedly showed us a photo montage someone made: of the food, and people, and my mom and Masako playing shamisen, and another Japanese lady dancing awaodori.  Clearly everyone was having so much fun.  

"It was so much fun!" my mom enthused.

"I thought you hated surprise parties," I countered, with just the tiniest hint of bitterness, because how can one ever truly fully let go of the crushed spirit of one's eight-year-old self who was denied her one true dream?

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "I thought I did, but apparently I didn't."

...

Looks like surprise parties are back on the menu.