On Grandmothers

Today I went to visit two grandmothers. The first was my friend,  Bethany's grandmother, who always cooks her famous lo mei fan [sticky rice] for me.  Nothing in the world stops her from cooking and loving her grandchildren, not even her inabilities to see and hear clearly. So today I went to return her tupperware and gave her some oranges to say thanks. She insisted that I try her home made apple juice. She said it would be refreshing in this humid day. How could I resist. She opened her fridge and handed me a honey container filled with her homemade apple juice. 

Afterwards,  I went to visit my own grandmother (my dad's side).  We've been trying to figure out whether she has early onset of Alzheimer's Disease but its days like these where I'm not so sure. I asked if I could take a picture of her. I showed her her picture and she smiled and said, 'oh my your grandmother is fat!' I said, 'No Grandma, you're beautiful and you have very smooth skin!' She laughed and said, 'do you miss me?' I said, 'of course I do.' She said, 'I miss you and think about you some days'. She reached over to grab a small bundle from beneath her coupon flyers. She opened it to show me, a small stack of fruit stickers. I asked her what they were for. She asked me if I wanted them. I asked, 'you saved these for me?' She replied, 'Sure, or your sister she collected them before?' I think we did, I did at least--my freshman year in college, I ate a lot of bananas for some reason, and collected probably 50 stickers..but I don't think my grandma ever knew about this. When I told my sister about this, she said that grandma gave her a stack of them too to give me because she thought I wanted them. 

Grandmothers rule! 

When I grow up, I'd like to be as cool as this grandmother.

Aging can sometimes be hilarious

              My friend showed this to me and I had to post it: HAHA

Nieve

Todo lo que necesita está en esta agotada bolsa,
sombreros y guantes de lana,
mi tejida bufanda de abrigo y calcetines gruesos.
Siempre el olor tan fuerte del sótano-
bolas de naftalina del armario, madera de pino.
Estos pantalones de nieve, un poco apretado
estas botas, seguramente ampollarán los dedos.
Pero, yo todavía me abrigaré como una larga astronauta
Yo seré el primer hombre en la luna.

Igual que el año pasado, los árboles parecen pesados hoy, un poco caídos
con sus suaves mantas dobladas en capas y capas -
casi tanto como dos años atrás,
cuando se dejó caer un pino tan bajo a la tierra,
Sarah y yo podía fingir que era nuestra casa secreta
y mamá nunca nos encontraría.
Y al lado de nuestra casa de pino,

montábamos en nuestros caballos de nieve hasta que
se arderían los dedos.

Estoy casi lista.
Las mangas de la chaqueta apretada al puños de mis guantes,
y los pantalones metidos perfectamente en las botas.
Hoy en día, no la nieve ni el frío
me va a impedir que quedarse fuera.
Hoy tomáramos la carrera
y yo seré el primer hombre en la luna.

'!Sarah! ¿Estás lista? "

Escucho por las botas corriendo apresuradamente,
el crujido de sus pantalones astronauta?
la cremallera de su abrigo?

                               Nada.

‘Mi tarea!’

‘y qué?’

Me dirijo arriba a su habitación.

Botas no, ni la bufanda

ni pantalones astronauta

Nada, sino un montón de libros en su mesa.

Me dirijo hacia abajo-

El césped sigue siendo blanco, los pinos todavía pesados

Se me acaba haciendo los pasos primeros,

dejando la puerta entreabierta.

Me acuesto en los surcos de mi ángel de nieve

esperando a que ella corra tras de mí

Caiga al lado de mí

              O tal vez mamá me llame—

A mí, en mi cama ángel de nieve,

Y me diga que esta anocheciendo.

Así que el sol se ha ido,

escondido en su casa secreta

con las ramas de pino caídos bajo la tierra.

Y me pondré aquí hasta que ya no siento los dedos.

Buttons and Buttons

Have you ever, as a child, found something precious but by making it your own, turned it into something completely and utterly useless? Well, I once I strung together a necklace; a collection of buttons of different sizes and colors. I found them inside the dusty cupboard beneath our old black metal sewing machine. Through the years I had collected these loose buttons that had fallen off of Grandma’s thick winter jacket, mom’s white blouse and Dad’s knitted vest. There were a couple of silver plated ones with beautifully carved engravings, some others that smelled like old Chinese medicine cabinets and some others that were so covered in rust, that I couldn't even make out what sort of fashion they may have once displayed. There are a bunch of pink pastel buttons on there, please excuse them, they’re just a foolish mix up. (Those were added on last minute to finish the job). Those Crayola-dyed colors, a million shades of pinks and reds-- like flowers today. Those luxury bouquets sitting as centerpieces, their petals flaunt out at you and their chests puff out in daunting ways. Unnatural. They lounge around in homes. They witness the crying of young fellows and friends of friends. They sit beside my grandfather and they loom quietly over his grey patched on makeup, his stiff suit and folded limp arms, their scents almost enough to cover the lifeless room.

He looked so different, like one of those famous figures you see at the wax museum, each characteristic, each wrinkle carefully constructed to mirror the man who had tucked you in to bed just last week. I remember staring down at him, holding my breath as if my breathing might wake him from his peace. I looked at his eyes, small slits like paper cuts; and I couldn’t help but to notice how his eyebrows looked bushier than ever; like those thick black tent caterpillars you can find crawling around the driveway in the spring time. It's unsettling to see them all over the place but not to panic says Debbie Hadley in her About's Guide to Insects, they complete their life cycles by the summer time.

I strung those pink buttons on after the last of my button collection was through. No more vintage buttons. It was finished and here I had created something my hands  could touch and I could hold onto forever; I could have as mine. And today, I don't even wear this as an accessory. To be honest, I don't even know where I last put it. This long dangling necklace of buttons and buttons. 

A poem that my sister and I once wrote together with some good songs in mind

Untitled


Beauty comes to those who have been waiting  
for something bigger than themselves.                                                       
This heartstring is stretched taut already,
and all that remains is for us to give way.
I’m tired of flying my kite in this ashen sky,
and my calloused fingers let go,
as my dull eyes watch the breath of the hurricane catch his tail.
I hope that by night, he will make it up to the heavens
before crashing down like the burning rocks
that people waste their wishes upon—
before I find out that you're not my star.
But there's beauty in the supernova.
I would call it my own. 


And I have never been afraid of opening myself up to a dream—      
visions of reaching the sun with wax and feathers intact,
of clocks that melt but never distort time,
of changes for the better. 
But I make myself vulnerable
when I live in the real
and live for the surreal.
Sometimes it hurts to dream too. 

Tissue Earplugs

Yesterday I went to visit and bring my grandma and grandpa their dinners. My grandma could not hear a thing because she had tiny pieces of tissue paper stuffed in her ears (just as she does when my mom gives her a bath), she said she didn't want bugs flying into them (they had a fruit fly infestation in their home). I walked in and sat by the couch near the side of her bed but she couldn't see me for the longest time and began to worry. I guess muted hearing can sometimes hinder your peripheral perception. Just last week we installed a fly trap that was made of a roll of sticky-- we hung it on the ceiling in hopes that we could rid the room of these small annoyances. The fleas are pretty much gone now (I saw them stuck to the sticky), but she continues to stuff her ears today. The only reason I can think of is because maybe she doesn't want them buzzing in her ears, but small fleas and fruit flies don't buzz like honey bees do in the summertime. I remember the day my mom first saw it she said my grandma had stuffed her ear holes as well as her shirt (at the neck) with tissue paper. She asked her what the reason was for all of this, and my grandma replied in the dramatic manner that she always does: "It is so that they don't fly inside because if they do, it will be the end of me" (a not so great translation of the canto phrase that literally means 'i'm going to die'). My mom, having heard this not just on several, but all occasions, knew just what to say. She told my grandma that if that was the case, then she should stuff all the holes in her face, her eyes, her nose, her mouth, everything with tissues to prevent any possibility of this from happening. That made my grandma cackle until her dentures dropped loose--she realized that she may have been just a little bit ridiculous. However, she still wears tissue stuffed ears today.

Draw and write '93

Last night I found a couple of pages of Crayola marked rainbows, smiling clouds and Christmas trees. Gosh, I must have been 3 or 4 years old! My sister and I used to sit in the sticky plastic booths at the China Inn Restaurant while my mom would wait tables and bartend. I remember for years, sitting there doing these 'worksheets' my dad made for us on the back sides of invoice scraps (which brings back many more memories) I thought my dad was an artist, he taught us how to draw minnie and mickey mouse which now that I think about it, is probably the only thing he knows how to draw! And for the longest time we drew these minnie and mickey mouse's with their cone tipped noses and helmet shaped faces. 

Also, I have long remembered the days my sister and I--upon waking up in the early morning we'd run down the stairs to draw. All we ever drew was the same thing, A large rainbow and a box with lots of colored dots, another rainbow and a butterfly. Together, we'd work on the same page and create the same compositions day after day. By the end of the year we were pros at mass producing them. Its been quite some time now and I had forgotten all about them, but I found one. 

When I was a young wart hog...

I found this awesome picture of my sister and I when we went to Asia almost 10 years ago. 

I'd say its mildly embarrassing. 

Hospital

On Friday afternoon, we brought my grandmother to the hospital for her G.I problems. I don't think she realizes it but, she has got the entire nursing staff wanting to care for her. She might be the cutest 91 year old in all of Miriam Hospital. She cannot speak any English so all she can do is smile and laugh. She giggles at doctors, nurse, staff, anyone who comes by to say hello, give her medicine or take a blood sample; she laughs so much that her dentures sliding down has become an entity of its own. 


Don't let her fool you though, when the staff are gone and its just family, she scrunches up her face again and pretends to cry so that you might take her home so she can take her medicine, put on her lotion and get a good nights sleep. She rubs her face into the itchy blanket and peeks out of her tear-less slits of eyes to see what kind of reactions she can get from us. 


I love you grandma.