It's almost sweet that she remembers what I looked like.

Tonight our friend Matt was over and my mom was enjoying some quality time with the little frijolito on her lap.  Matt asked her if she sees a resemblance to either John or me or if he looks like me when I was a newborn.

"Sometimes," she replied.  

"When he's pooping."

Someday when everything is digital this won't be funny much less understood. But until that day:

My mom recently bought a Kindle and has been enjoying using it to read books on this trip to the US.  She bought it not only because it's lighter than carrying around a bunch of books, but also because in Japan it is easier to find English language books for Kindle than in print.

The biggest problem turned out to be that she doesn't know which books to buy, so she asked John and me for some suggestions.  We looked up a Jonathan Franzen book on the Kindle store app and the search pulled up multiple versions of the same book.

One was more expensive than the other, which I thought was kind of weird for a digital medium. 

"Maybe that one is the hardback," my mom reasoned.

Hearty laughter ensued.

Sorry Babs...

Neel, a former student of my mom's, became like a brother to me not just because we got along but because we both derived filial pleasure from giving my mom a hard time.

I remember once she was scolding him about his playing posture, a weird combination of a teenage slouch paired with the twisted spine of a lazy violin player resting the left elbow on the torso .  She commented in exasperated tones, "If you just sat straighter, your playing would be so much better!"  to which Neel replied, "Yoko, if you just used articles, your English would be so much better!"

Point being, Neel and I always had a natural affinity. 

Last weekend, he and his wife Lucia stopped by our house en route back down to SoCal and we had a chance to skype with my mom while we were all together.  In catching her up to their news, Neel mentioned that Lucia just got back from touring with Barbara Streisand.

"Oh, is she still alive?" was the first thing my mom said.

"She's only 71," said Lucia.  "Same as YOU!" I added.  "Boy, you are harsh."

"Barbara can be very difficult to work with," my mom nonchalantly replied.

I had to stop the conversation.  

"BARBARA? What, you're on first name basis with her? Did you work with her or something?"

The answer, it turns out, is: yes.  

Apparently the diva-esque demand was Ms. Streisand's choosing Beethoven's Große Fuge as the background music for a scene where she is vacuuming.  

Of course my mom couldn't remember the title of the movie, but googling it turned it up on (of course) my dad's website and we found out it was a 1979 movie called 'The Main Event.'

Maybe I'll watch it if I can find it streaming somewhere.

Yoko's Koan (the official beginning of FCTG)

Having found ourselves in a position of needing to secure a new set of wheels, my mom had some parenting advice to dispense about when we do:

When you do get a new car, don't make your baby pee in it.

Hearing these words of wisdom made me realize that this little frijolito's crazy Tokyo grandmother is going to be a whole new ballgame.  I can't wait to mine this treasure trove.

Here she is in the dress rehearsal for the previously mentioned play which had its run this weekend.  Alien-violin-teacher-crazy-tokyo-mother-and-soon-to-be-grandmother.  This is going to be a lot of fun.

Will my mom join the ranks?

Today was the perfect day to catch up with my mom on skype from the glorious sunny back yard of this 'wintery' San Jose.  She has kept very busy and it seems her schedule will remain quite full at least through April.  One of her upcoming projects is a part in a small play that a friend of hers is producing at a tiny 'theater' near Meidaimae.  They hope to seat 50 audience per show but my mom seems to think that if that many attend there won't be enough room in the front for the actors in the play.

"I play a person from out of the earth," she told us (cutely, I might add).  "And I teach violin."

I don't think accurately playing an alien violin teacher is going to pose much of a problem since it's terrifically close to what she actually is.  

One of her lines is to sigh to a student, "This is why I don't like kids from earth." 

Love it. 

Oh, and regarding the ranks comment, please see this link:  http://www.imdb.com/list/5ipnlh6ZjmI/

Like a five-dollar bill you found in your jeans pocket

Prompted by Bobby Jay of the salivation-enducing-encyclopedic-cooking-adventure-blog  Bobby Jay on Food, I logged in to my mctm account to flesh out the notes I have been keeping on the various things small and large which my crazy tokyo mother has been up to.  In my drafts I found an untitled entry I'd written presumably last fall when my mom was here to visit.  My guess is this is something she said to me without the realization that shifting from first to second person is not as smooth as most 'first to second' shifts, be it violin fingerings, car gears, or ballet positions.  I'm sure it cracked me up and I typed it in to a new entry verbatim to preserve the moment with the intent to write something up later.  I clearly never did, but finding it with zero context was kind of amazing.

Here is what I found:

tell them that your mother is here bothering me.

I love it.

Sports analysis by Yoko

Today, our last day in Tokyo, was spent at the Tokyo sumo stadium, the Ryoguko Kokugikan.  We lucked out that our visit coincided with the Tokyo tournament and that my mom was able to get us last minute tickets to day eleven of the fifteen-day-long sport event.  It was every bit as exciting as I remembered!  No one I know, not even my mom's friends, have been to see sumo live.  And friends from my own generation have the overwhelming belief that it must be hugely boring to attend.  THEY COULDN'T BE MORE WRONG.  It is difficult to explain the thrill of seeing these huge, strong, beef-cake dudes slamming and slapping each other into oblivion; the three minute wait as they face off; the showmanship of the salt throwing; the Yokozuna Harumafuji and his signature pushup at the line of scrimmage. 

It was all totally wonderful.

When we first arrived, though, it was still the Juryo matches.  Some were fast and finished right away; others would end up in a deadlock for what seemed like minutes before the victor threw his opponent down.  On several occasions the two monoliths seemed to hit the ground simultaneously, and then the referee sitting on that side of the mound would give his call.

But one time, after the ref gave his call, all the refs stood up and convened in the ring.

My mom leaned toward John and I and informed us:

Someone detested the ruling.

"I'm sure someone did!" said John, as I laughed

My mom now scowls at John, too.  It's a sure sign that he's a member of the family!

Just like every cowboy sings his sad song

Last time we were here, John made an infusion of Jim Beam, Aperol and sansho from my mom's backyard.  It sat untouched for the past nearly two years, and when John got here one of the first things he did was to pull it out and filter it.  The Jim Beam bottle was literally covered in dust which tells you how much of a drinker my mother is.  "I didn't even know that was HERE!" my mom exclaimed. 

Sansho leaves are something I've found nearly impossible to procure in the US, even at Japanese or other specialty grocers.  When I was living here in 2007/8, I made a very delicious panna cotta using the leaves as an edible, slightly lemony, slightly peppery garnish.  

As a side story, when I'd made this dessert, my mom was astonished at the lightness of the flavor.  "Let's eat this every day!" she said.  

"Do you know how much heavy cream goes in to each serving?" I asked her.  Then I told her.  

"Well, maybe let's not eat this every day," she sighed.

But back to my story.  We are considering taking some of my mom's sansho back to the US.  "It's a very strong bush," she told us as we looked out in the yard.  "It's the one right there, with the thons."

I love it.  As cute as tish.  She's been out of the US for 15 years now and it's taking its toll on her English.  Much to my glee. 

I'm married to a man with nerves (and a gut) of steel

This is our second trip to Tokyo together.  Last time for their first lunch together, my mom fed John the benign-from-a-Japanese-perspective lunch tororo soba.  If you've never had it, look it up.  There are worse descriptions one might think of, but John was generous and described the experience like 'eating a bunch of booger-covered noodles.'  I've been eating tororo since I was a kid and its disgustingness would have never occurred to me, but I see where he is coming from (and appreciate his discretion in not going further with the description - bukkakesoba was never more aptly named, unfortunately).

On that first trip John ate so many weird things, like the obligatory natto as well as barbequed skewers of chicken hearts, skin, livers and whatnot.  I can't remember if he ate chicken fetus, but if he didn't it would have only been because the yakitori place was out and not for lack of courage.  Needless to say, on this second trip to Japan John's motto remains: Bring it on.

We arrived in Tokyo in the late afternoon, surviving a particularly turbulent final 1/2 hour and landing.  A combination of the motion sickness and the 'meals' served to us on the flight (including such combinations as undercooked rice pilaf with some weird beef sauce as a main, with a side of salad and a roll.  And two pieces of sushi) made the nausea upon landing very hard to shake.  Of course the three hour car ride from the airport paired with my mom's driving and navigation ('Oops, I just made a wrong turn') left us with churning stomachs even after we'd arrived safely home.

Luckily, dinner was gentle enough - pork and veggie nabe cooked at the table kind of like a hot pot.  It looked good, smelled good and I started to feel more human.  That was before my mom brought out Ogura-san's 'specialty.'

"You should try it!" she said as I dubiously poked at the dish of slimy pink pieces.

"What is it?" I ask doubtfully.

"Ogura-san made it.  It's my favorite!  It's squid in its own sauce."

"You mean, ink?"

"No, sauce from its..." (she gestures around her abdomen).

"Guts?" I shudder.

"Yes.  It's squid in innards sauce."

John, bless him, ate three pieces and declared them delicious.  

I graciously passed.

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?

Straight from John's pen

At a cafe in Tokyo. I ordered an ice coffee. It came with the little syrup container with the silver lid. Yoko ordered toast, big slices of briochey white bread served with butter and marmalade. There was an old man with all silver teeth smoking cigarettes and talking crazily to himself.

I asked what was up with him.

"He's old," said Yoko.

Read John's entire post HERE.

Inconsistency in actual quality (though not enjoyability)

First I got world news from an email:
I just heard Obama statement about Bin Laden dead. yokattane. outside white house is sugoi! mama

('Yokattane' kind of means like 'isn't that nice')

Then I got this:
It disconnects right away, Skype Call me mama

I'm going back there for a couple of weeks very shortly. I'm excited to see what comes!

our parents never faced this kind of vexation as youths

Skype+Parents must yeild equal parts hilarity and abject frustration. Like I love how we were troubleshooting with John's parents, on their maiden skype voyage trying to get audio and video to occur and they typed into their mood bubble thinking it was the chat window. John got them the webcam for mothers' day '09. When we log on to skype to this very day, the bubble next to his parents name says "You bought the damn thing!"

But this isn't mycrazynocalinlaws.blogspot.com

One day my mom gets a new Dell laptop with a built in webcam, which I'm excited about because I figure it means that my days of playing IT to my mom's skype are finished. So I call her and say let's skype. She turns on her computer and I see her log in to skype. I call, she answers and lo! My mom on the video! For a split second only, though, and then she is replaced by a very worried looking white Scottish-fold kitten with green eyes and human teeth.
I stare at my screen in bemused amusement. Then, this kitten begins to move: the head tilts back and forth, its eyes look this way and that, its mouth moving without any words audible. Clearly this thing is trying to communicate with me. I call my mom on the phone and try to talk her through getting rid of the cat. But now I can hear her voice matched up with the motions of this worried cat and it's freaking HILARIOUS and I can barely focus on anything. But as amazing as this kitten-mom is, I need to try and fix the problem, which is hard because my mom doesn't know what she did plus her skype is in Japanese and I have no idea what any options might even be called. So I google 'turn off cat video skype' and what I learn is: this cat thing is called an avatar; it is specific to Dell computers; and that there are many forums where people are trying to find out how to turn off the cat avatar from their parents' skype.

I guess solidarity means something: my mom is no longer alone in this world and, just as importantly, neither am I.

Directions on taking care of my baby

This probably dates to like 1980. Please click to read in full. Try not to have any food or beverage in your mouth.

Please note these are the directions in full. I came from this woman? No further explanation necessary.

A rock and a hard place

My mom suffers the same inclination of many people from her generation which is to refer to all people of Asian descent as 'Orientals,' a term that, growing up in the PC 80s, was eradicated from my vocabulary long ago but persists in hers despite my valiant efforts to update her outmoded terminology. Or maybe it's in spite of my efforts, but I digress. Talking to her about perpetuating this semi-racist usage only inspires her to argue about her rights since she herself is Oriental. My people-are-not-rugs-logic has never gotten me anywhere.

On her trip to NYC in February, of course she said Oriental and I expected to have this perennial interaction of me saying, "Use 'Asian'" and her saying, "Why?" followed by the usual back-and-forth ending with her above-mentioned go-to justification: "I'm one so I can say it if I want to."

Not to say that we didn't have just that, but after the requisite (and now more than two-decades old) song-and-dance, my mom paused, looked at me thoughtfully then announced her compromise.

"Well, can I just call myself a Jap then?"

A rock and a hard place.

Yoko waits for no blog

Can you imagine it's been more than two years since I left my island-nation-source for the Big Apple? That isn't to say that Yoko stopped being mctm. I just thought that my interactions with her strange and hilarious behavior would be so few and far between, why write on them because who's gonna care? But I now know that it is important to get these stories down in writing and up on an info cloud. You know. Just in case. Like the little prince and the extinct volcano. "One never knows..."

Skype helps a lot, too. Stay tuned for more back-posts, coming soon. Two years is a lot of hilarity to catch up on.