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.

First date-night

Last night, John and I left the frijolito with my mom for a quick date and caught the second half of a jazz show at Cafe Stritch.  It was the first time to leave him in the care of someone and I definitely felt some pangs of separation anxiety as we drove away from the house, but he was fast asleep when we left plus we planned to be back before any needs arose, plus my mom is great with him, plus there are cell phones... and I know it's important to enjoy some time just John and me.

The show was fantastic and we got home with plenty of time before the baby's next feeding.  And though I knew nothing had gone wrong because we had not received any frantic calls from my mom, I was very anxious to know how the first babysitting had gone.

We opened the door, my mom popped around the corner and I asked how it'd gone.  

My mom looked really excited to let us know:

"NOT A BEEP!!"

Genuine gratitude naturally leads to hijinx

Despite my mom's request that I not give birth until she arrived to the Bay Area on August 4th, at the end of July we were surprised by the slightly early arrival of our beautiful son.  My mom arrived one week later and will be here for several weeks to fawn at the cuteness of her grandson and help around the house.

On the second day of her stay, after finally having eaten several proper homemade meals, I truly felt overwhelmingly thankful to have her here.  So much so that at the end of dinner, I decided to express my gratitude in a rare but genuine expression of my feelings.

"Thank you so much," I said, maybe tearing up a little, "for coming to help.  It really makes a huge difference just to have an extra pair of hands around and I am so thankful you are here!"

The blank stare from my mom rendered this tender moment totally awkward.  

"What did you say?" she asked me.

So I repeated my sentiment a little more perfunctorily. 

"Just that it is a real help to have an extra pair of hands to cook or take care of the baby is all."

"Ohhh," she said, "I thought you said 'extra pair of pants.' "

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.