The Daily Sabs

while we haven't always seen eye to eye, this lady is my favorite. from her i get my adventurous spirit, love for weird food, determination, and ridiculous logic. i also get my stubbornness, inability to be incorrect, bossiness, and look-at-me-center-of-attention-ness. as you can imagine, when we're together it's either a disaster or the most fun ever.

happy mother's day morm! thanks for all your hardwork and sacrifices. wo ai ni!

ps. while morm has spouted off lots of gems of wisdom throughout the years, my current favorite is this proverb: sit on top the mountain watch the tigers fight. even morm knows, sometimes it's best to stay out of it all.

Look at this lady, she just screams trouble doesn't she? More on her in a minute.

This morning I drive out to el dorado hills to attend alisha's bridal shower. It was at her aunt's stunning custom home, set along a gorgeous rolling hills landscape. The food was tasty and the guests were loverly (especially my sacto gals). It was sort of a picture perfect bridal shower. You know if you look past the part where the bride was an hour late because she got the time wrong. Hopefully that doesn't happen on day of!

Afterwards I stopped by morm's house. I was driving past her freeway stop and would have felt pretty guilty if I didn't. She was in good spirits and the conversation was really fun. I'm trying to get her to plan a trip with me, but she's even more noncommittal than I am. At some point we ended up hunting around the house for some purse she wanted to give me to give my sister. We ended up on an accidental matchbox car memory lane. That was soon followed by a different treasure box memory trip which led us to the one that caused the sheriff to arrive.

Well technically I caused the sheriff to arrive. I mean I called them.

You see amongst the teenage mutant ninja turtles and a bag of ties was a grenade. I should probably back up an mention that my dad was a military man and that I had, on more than one occasion, seen the grenade as a child. It was hidden, but I knew where it was. I recall being told it was emptied, but the problem was it looked real. And heavy. And with a pin in it. And morm started joking about pulling the pin.

Even though I was pretty sure my dad had said it was a surplus souvenir from his training days, I started going into panic mode. Especially once morm said she thought the one my dad had as souvenir looked different. I sort of didn't believe her, but now the seed of doubt had been firmly planted. And I had absolutely no intention of being that freak story you hear about on the news. So I called the sheriff and two squad cars and four officers came to hang out.

They had us evacuate the house and then took some photos to send to the bomb guy. Unsurprisingly, they couldn't tell by looking either. Oh and they told me something similar happened a few months ago and it turned out it wasn't a empty trainer like the guy thought. I had been wondering if i was overreacting (my dad who I talked to on the phone thought I was), but that fact solidified it. Especially once morm convinced herself that this wasn't the one she remembered my dad having.

After waiting in the sacto chill for an hour (thanks bugs but for the record my legs are not the all you can eat diner you believe them to be) the bomb guy finally he arrived. He was supposed to scope it out and whisk the grenade away in a bomb box. When he arrived he was wearing a tee shirt and jeans. I have to admit, I was disappointed that he didn't show up in a bomb suit. I think morm was too, but didn't want to fess up to it.

In the end it turned out to be totally safe, although they did say it had looked tampered with in a weird way. Mostly it was just a bit of wacky drama and a story to remember.

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This afternoon, after a giant filing and photocopying ordeal (morm's getting audited and let's just say that while she is a total straight arrow, her bookkeeping leaves something to be desired), morm decided to make chinese new year cake. Only she didn't just make a single batch, she made a gargantuan pot full of batter (see second photo for proof - also see second photo as proof that I am my mother's daughter). She says it's because she used to cook for hundreds of soldiers every morning and that she only knows how to make a huge batch. There are flaws in this story as that was over 25 years ago, and also I don't think she ever made them Chinese new year cake.

While the cake was cooling (seriously she brought the 10 lb gooey condition outside to chill), I popped over to say hi to uncle Bobby and befi aiyi. There's a new super cute puppy in their life: a little corgi that their granddaughter named Justin (presumably after beiber). It was adorable, but sadly the iPhone only let's you send 5 photos at once, so you'll just have to trust me on that. And on the wackiness of files piled up for the audit. It was insanity. update: more photos of dog and paper insanity added below.

Once the cake was cooled, the car packed, and the obligatory fight fought, I said farewell to morm and hit the road. But first a quick stop at juju & wes's house. I hadn't really seen them all year and that needed to be fixed. In fact it had been so long, I still had their birthday presents. Juju opened hers up and discovered some ceramic squirrels. She immediately replaced her eyes with them. Obviously. Wes entertained us with some sounds and I chatted their ears off in a whirlwind and was gone. They got bonus points for staying in their pjs too. That's how you know we're good pals.

Ps. What a long day. I also scarfed down morm feast part deux. Because like my morm, I have no concept of moderation.


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This morning I thought it would be fun to check out the room and board floor sample sale, so Randall and I headed on down to soma. We got there and there was a gigantor line wrapped around the building. We took one look and said no thanks. It felt silly to turn around and head home, so we ran to the grocery store (where we bought beer, coffee, juice, soup and baking soda, WTF?) and then decided to grab brunch. We were out in potrero at this point, so we decided to try something new. I'd been wanting to check out serpentine and luckily it was open. I had an amazing beets & brisket with greens and poached eggs and toast. It was absolutely delicious. So was the bloody mary. Randall ordered the bread, eggs, potatoes, and sausage without the eggs. I felt sad for him. He said it was tasty, but it didn't look nearly as good as mine.

Afterwards we ran a few more errands and then I decided to take advantage of the weather and drove out to visit morm. I felt like I left at an okay time to avoid traffic, but there were so many accidents that traffic ended up being kablooey anyway. Luckily when I arrived morm had a feast waiting, and that made it worth it. So did her smiling face.

Once the feast was over we headed over to jamer's house (he's home for the holidays) where we wished sena a happy birthday. Fun fact her name is sena (sounds like see-na) because she was born near Christmas and it was inspired by the name Santa. At least that's the story I've always been told.

Happy birthday sena!

Ps. I set up morm's skype account, webcam, and robot ear this evening. Watch out future here she comes!

Pps. Both samshrew and bao commented on how Asian morm's house looked via skype. Seriously kids? This room has always been filled with teakwood furniture, oriental carpets and carved statues. What were you expecting?

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Morm's house holds a lot of hidden treasures. Some of them, like the
seemingly overgrown grass which is actually lemongrass stalks, are
right under your noses. While others, the usual suspects like jewelry,
are squirreled away in the weirdest places.

This evening samshrew, morm, and I went on a hunt. I ended up with a
few nice things and a huge mountain of lemongrass. Afterwards we
helped morm eat a cheesecake even though she's not supposed to.
Somedays just end better that way.

that's all. (hope you and your morm's had a great mother's day!)

this afternoon, morm and beefi aiyi came for a visit. morm was here to help us make an offer on a house, but sadly it's not going to happen. not only did the place have bad feng shui in the lot layout (morm's words, i thought the lot was lovely), but the foundation had some structural issues that probably would've been a disaster in the long run. we didn't notice when we were looking at it the other day, but all the rain this weekend gave it away, plus morm pointed out the part of the disclosure package we didn't notice. total bummer though, the place is super cute, the location perfect, and the price right.

however, while the housing excursion was a bust, the rest of the evening turn out to be a lot of fun. we went out to the old mandarin islamic for a huge feast. the menu there actually said the phrase "dinner manual" on the front, but as you can tell, when morm's around there's no need for a manual. she ordered nine different dishes, plus a side of rice to battle the spicy to death dish. that's right, four people, nine dishes. needless to say, we had plenty of leftovers, so much that we brought a bunch back to samshrew (she was too busy to join us for eating).

it wasn't exactly the type of birthday randall had planned, but it turned out pretty fun, even if he didn't get a house.

ps. here's a good morm story for you. while at the restaurant she became bff with the manager lady. at one point she mentioned to the lady that i was her daughter, and the lady did the typical chinese thing where they say nice things, and said that i was pretty. mom responded with yes, but she's too chubby. while this would probably be mortifying to most, stuff like this is just hysterical to me now. the best part is that she was really loud, and the restaurant is not that big. this means everyone heard her, and i am pretty sure that everyone there spoke chinese. i know for a fact that the girl who looked at me in shock when this happened did.

pps. the phrase "yah but she's too chubby" actually sounds much nicer in chinese. plus, it follows the chinese way of not accepting a compliment without criticizing it first. it's just that usually the exchange is something along the lines of "you have a lovely house" and you responding with "thank you but really it's quite small" - so don't hold it against morm. she's just following years of ridiculous culture.

this morning morm and i got up early (as in hours before i'm normally awake) to go volunteer down at temple. each year, for chinese new year's, they have a huge celebration. unlike other religions, this one (or at least the temple my mom goes to) doesn't have services. you're supposed to go on new year's day, but you go when you want to (well between 8am and 7pm). you say your thanks and prayers, ask for your blessings, offer your fruits, ask your questions and then go home. it's how most of their day-to-day behavior is, but on new years, they ask you to stick around and partake in a feast (and yes, it's fully buddhist and therefore vegetarian, but even randall liked it).

i ended up on serving duty: eggrolls, fried taro, and then sweet and sour crispy soy item. samshrew, randall, and chris showed up later, but didn't have to stick around long (samshrew got roped into eggroll duty for a while, but got out of it when the rush ended). morm and i left after six hours of serving up food, and needless to say, i was pretty exhausted at the end of it.

also, i never really considered myself a religious person (i only go to temple a couple times of year, and mostly because of morm), but you know there's something sort of amazing about a religion that says, hey come say what you feel like and before you go why don't you eat a boatload of food. not to mention it sounds like it was invented just for me.

icymi, i'm not a native californian. i was actually born in havre, a town in northern montana. my dad was stationed at the air force station near there and it was actually my mom's first home in the us. it was small and probably a bit of a culture shock -- there were about 200 people there and you know, all that snow.

this morning bao and i decided to venture to the upstairs area of my grandma's house (it's unheated and sealed off, and no one's been up there for a while - but most of the cool stuff has already been taken out) and i saw this picture hanging up in my dad's old room. it's a picture of the air force station where i lived (that's right station, it wasn't even big enough to be a base). i spent the first year of my life here before moving to california. my dad says that the radar stuff and everything but the housing is still there. it would be neat to see it, but it's not like i have any memories of it. only pictures.

speaking of pictures, i also found some funny old pictures in my grandma's house. this one was my fave. it's my mom in her early 20s in taiwan. i think bao, samshrew and i all have this default fake smile.