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?

Living in a vacuum

Today is Jun chan's birthday so my mom made osekihan which is an extra sticky pink rice and azuki bean dish. She was tasting the finished product and had this to say:
You know, this dish calls for 10% beans to rice used, and every time it seems like such a small amount, I always add a little extra. But then, when it's finished, I guess there are a lot of beans and it probably would have been fine with that small amount.

So I suggested putting a note on her recipe to remind her next time that she should only use the 10% even if it seems too small. Here is what she said to that:
Oh, I remember every time. But it still seems small and so I still add more beans.

In incredulous tones I can't help but voice my disbelief: So you're saying that you know from previous experience that if you add more beans that it will be too many, but you do it anyway.

Her answer was, resoundingly: Yes.

It occurs to me that she is living in a logic vacuum. As in a real vacuum, it makes sense that a feather and a bowling ball will fall at the same rate of 9.81 meters per second. It also makes sense that what looks like too few beans will one day actually be too few beans.