Ski week

People would always tell me, “Skiing is such a great family activity!” And I would just look at them -- usually with feigned agreement -- and think to myself, “Yeah, right -- skiing is a great family activity if everybody in the family actually wants to hurl themselves down an icy slope with their life flashing before their eyes.” I was born and raised in L.A., and skiing was not a big activity in my family. So, I am proud to say that I made it through another family ski trip. And, I actually had a good time ... again. I’m still not ready to say that I like skiing. But I’ve gotten a little bit better, and that’s progress.

We stayed with my husband’s cousin’s family in their wonderful rented log cabin. It was perfect, in that Disneyland log cabin sort of way, with everything fitting in with the log cabin theme. We were happy to share their space -- good food, good company, good family time. Their kids are on the Alpine ski team, so they are up in Tahoe almost every weekend. They are a family of Real Skiers, where parallel is the norm. My family is pretty parallel ... except for me. My kids both have surpassed my skiing ability, even though I've skied just as long as they have. They are zipping around, taking on Black Diamonds, while I happily creep down the Green Circles. I am the Wedgemaster. The Pizza Pie among the French Fries. Snowplowing my way down the bunny slope. I try not to be a complete embarrassment to my family, but it’s a close call most of the time. Fortunately, I’m okay with just careening down the slope at my own pace, and my family has accepted the fact that “Mommy is really slow.” My son skied with me down one particularly challenging (for me) slope, and he kept stopping and waiting, looking like he was worried that I would not quite make it. I was touched by his concern, and thought this was pretty considerate for a ten year old! I wonder how many years before he just ditches me and tells me to stay in the cabin so his friends won’t see how lame his mom is. For now, I’ll just enjoy his concern.

Keito-ten 2

The store did not only attract the nisei, it also was a magnet for sansei and yonsei brides-to-be, searching out my mother’s expertise in designing and framing origami tsuru (cranes), a common symbol of good luck at JA weddings. My mom would always have the latest scoop on who was marrying whom, since the brides-to-be would usually mention to my mom how they knew me or my sister from our childhood in Gardena. One day, a strikingly beautiful young woman came in and my mother spent some time with her explaining the process, etc., all the while thinking to herself, “Gee, this girl is so pretty and looks so familiar ...” My mother flipped through her mental photo album of my childhood friends, but just could not place the beautiful young woman. When she ordered her tsuru, she gave her name, and my mother eventually figured it out. Her name was Tamlyn Tomita -- or, as she put it, "the girl from Karate Kid II."

Keito-ten

I remember seeing the movie, Barbershop, about a young man’s struggle to keep his family’s barbershop business alive. The barbershop was more than a place to keep one’s fade lookin’ fly; it was a place to socialize, to find support, to be oneself in a society that does not always encourage a “self” that is out of the mainstream. While watching, I couldn’t help but think to myself: they could make a Japanese American version of this movie called Yarn Shop. My mother’s yarn shop has been in the same place, serving a core clientele for over thirty years. Styles, trends, fads, have come and gone, with my mother learning and teaching them along the way. And, over the years, without even knowing it, the shop had become more than a place to buy yarn; it had become a place that had a heart. No, that’s not the right word; it’s more like kokoro -- heart, but with soul.
On almost any given day, you can walk in around lunchtime and find that somebody has brought some bento to share, with the appetizing aroma filling the store. As they knit, crochet, or do bunka shishu embroidery around a long table, The Ladies laugh and talk story. The Ladies are predominantly Nisei, now, although it was not always that way. Thirty years is a long time. Most of the Issei customers have passed. I remember one obaachan, Ota-san, who would come to the store every Saturday. One of her children would drop her off, and she would stay for the better part of the day. She had smiling eyes, horn-rimmed glasses and was quick to laugh. Her fingers were chubby, and boy, could they make some beautiful things. She had been in the camps. Many of the ladies had learned how to crochet and knit at camp. (Not arts and crafts camps; WWII internment camps.) And, when people talked about where they were from and where they had been, there was always a swell in the conversation: "Ahhh, you're from the Central Valley? Dono camp ni haittetano? Which camp were you in?" The attention and interest would turn to the person answering this magic question, and there was inevitably somebody in the store who was somehow related to somebody who was married to somebody who knew that person’s father, mother, brother, or uncle. It was a mini-reunion, where connections in history held people together in a fine web of crochet thread.
Near the end of the day, somebody would come to pick up Mrs. Ota. Sometimes, she would go out back and wait, and my mother would have me take a chair out to the back door so that she would not have to stand while she waited for her ride. She always smiled, accepting my offer of a seat with an apologetic bow of her head for my trouble. I don't know when Mrs. Ota passed away; it was sometime after I had left for college, grad school and life. I imagine she is still crocheting or knitting somewhere, sitting on a cloud, with her smiling eyes.

My Perfect Valentines

I got to have dinner last night with my three perfect Valentines: my huzzband, my son, and my daughter. We had our "traditional" pizza with toppings in the shape of a heart, born of Boboli, pasta, salad and ice cream in fancy dishes. The kids gave me cards they made themselves -- my son made his out of origami, my daughter drew a cute picture of a tiger (she was born in the year of the tiger).
My husband skipped the card this year, undoubtedly because the line at Safeway was moving too slowly for him to get a card, too. I knew the "dozen" red roses were from Safeway before he told me, because there were fourteen stems -- and we all know that "at Safeway, a dozen roses means fourteen stems," as they so cheerfully state in their radio ads. Not that I was counting. Okay, I counted -- but only because I was wondering if he got them from Safeway or not.
He had an entertaining time in that line of men trying to buy roses. Almost as much fun as I had waiting in the See's Candy store line earlier that day. For the first time in my life, I saw somebody buying the seventy-something dollar ginormous Gift of Elegance box of chocolates. "I want to be his Valentine," I whispered to the woman standing next to me, and she nodded in agreement. None of us standing in line had ever received the Gift of Elegance, and since I did not run away with the mysterious man who bought it, I'm pretty sure I will never receive a box of chocolates that big. Which, actually, is okay. But I was pretty impressed to witness somebody actually buying that gargantuan box of chocolates. That man is a god among gift givers.
I managed to get my very tiny box of chocolates for my husband, and some lollipops for my kids. Went to the store to get the fixin's for our special dinner. Everything was last minute, since I had spent the previous two days lolling around the house, with the Almost-Flu. You know, the Almost-Flu: it's not quite the flu, but you've got most of the symptoms, and you're telling everybody it's not the flu because you don't want it to be the flu, plus you don't want your kids and all their friends to have the flu, so it better not be the Real Full-Blown Flu. After a couple days, you feel better, confirming that it was just some minor viral infection, a.k.a., the Almost-Flu.
Anyway, so I did not have the flu, but I was pretty sick, so I needed to get out of the house and buy some food for us to eat. Fortunately, I didn't have a demanding spouse to please, just a pretty easy to please family to feed a somewhat "special" meal. No reservations to make. No babysitters to hire. No jewelry purchases to worry about. It was a down home kind of Valentine's Day, and it turned out to be just perfect. The kind a kid will remember when they grow up. And the kind I will definitely remember for a long time.
Or at least as long as my memory holds out.