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.
Showing posts with label surprise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surprise. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
It was "The Blair Witch Project" redux
Do you remember the scene where the kids find that little bundle with something suggestive of inner workings and something suggestive of teeth and the horror that perhaps swept through your guts when you saw it?
Well, yesterday I was browsing through a tin that contained several medals my grandfather had been given, as well as some other miscellaneous items that had hitherto not been examined. One of my favorite pastimes at my grandmother's house had always been to hunt for treasure. The treasure being old photographs which my grandmother had kept all of out of what I can only assume was a sense of duty, though I must say her organizational methods left something to be desired. But that's part of what made it exciting for me; every time I visited, I went through forgotten drawers and found treasures of photographs that I still feel desperately attracted to. Perhaps they give me a sense of history, of something beyond my self and my brief life. I would feel a thrill as deep as the archetypal archaeologist discovering Tutankamon's burial site when I would find a photo of my great grandmother on her 20th birthday (20 is a right of passage in Japan), or the high and then low of finding a photomat sleeve inside a box, at the bottom of a drawer in the storage room, only to discover a perfectly preserved, never been opened disposable rain poncho from what appears to be the late '70's by the look of the model. So, poking around old storage tins and boxes has a certain allure for me.
In this tin was a small wooden box. I opened it. It contained a weathered envelope. In this envelope was a paper with writing on it folded around something slightly bulky. I looked at the squiggles (please recall my illiteracy) and could make out my grandmother's maiden name but nothing else. So I unfolded it. Out came another, tinier package also wrapped in rice-paper. I gingerly unfolded it to reveal its contents. In my hand I saw something grey, like a bit of rope bunched up; then I noticed something fleshy and creepy among the ropey. The sensation I had was identical to the one I had seeing that bundle with teeth. Feeling slightly vomitous, I ran down stairs to show it to my mom.
"What is this?!" I asked, showing her the writing on the bundle.
"Where did you find this?" she responded, laughing a little.
"WHAT IS IT?" I said, close to hysterics, "It's Baba's umbilical cord, isn't it?! ISN'T IT!"
She laughed at me. But, I was right. I just knew it the minute I saw it. Man, how I wish I had been wrong! Why couldn't it have been a poncho! (vomit)
Well, yesterday I was browsing through a tin that contained several medals my grandfather had been given, as well as some other miscellaneous items that had hitherto not been examined. One of my favorite pastimes at my grandmother's house had always been to hunt for treasure. The treasure being old photographs which my grandmother had kept all of out of what I can only assume was a sense of duty, though I must say her organizational methods left something to be desired. But that's part of what made it exciting for me; every time I visited, I went through forgotten drawers and found treasures of photographs that I still feel desperately attracted to. Perhaps they give me a sense of history, of something beyond my self and my brief life. I would feel a thrill as deep as the archetypal archaeologist discovering Tutankamon's burial site when I would find a photo of my great grandmother on her 20th birthday (20 is a right of passage in Japan), or the high and then low of finding a photomat sleeve inside a box, at the bottom of a drawer in the storage room, only to discover a perfectly preserved, never been opened disposable rain poncho from what appears to be the late '70's by the look of the model. So, poking around old storage tins and boxes has a certain allure for me.
In this tin was a small wooden box. I opened it. It contained a weathered envelope. In this envelope was a paper with writing on it folded around something slightly bulky. I looked at the squiggles (please recall my illiteracy) and could make out my grandmother's maiden name but nothing else. So I unfolded it. Out came another, tinier package also wrapped in rice-paper. I gingerly unfolded it to reveal its contents. In my hand I saw something grey, like a bit of rope bunched up; then I noticed something fleshy and creepy among the ropey. The sensation I had was identical to the one I had seeing that bundle with teeth. Feeling slightly vomitous, I ran down stairs to show it to my mom.
"What is this?!" I asked, showing her the writing on the bundle.
"Where did you find this?" she responded, laughing a little.
"WHAT IS IT?" I said, close to hysterics, "It's Baba's umbilical cord, isn't it?! ISN'T IT!"
She laughed at me. But, I was right. I just knew it the minute I saw it. Man, how I wish I had been wrong! Why couldn't it have been a poncho! (vomit)
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