
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.






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.