the convergence

About a decade ago, I came to a startling realization: hormone levels would wreak havoc on our household when our kids became teenagers. And, no, I don’t mean just because of our teenagers. Doing some simple calculations, I realized that my pre-menopausal years would precisely coincide with my kids’ adolescent years.

And, now, it’s happening. The Convergence. All the hormones have been colliding and disrupting our happy home.

I’m sad. I’m happy! Crying at weird moments. Eating everything in sight! My son seems sad. And then, he’s happy! He’s giving me a hug! Then, he disappears into his headphones. I hear sounds of objects and doors slamming. My daughter seems happy – and then she seems really quiet and not particularly happy. She doesn’t slam things though. Well, not so far. I bake cookies to cheer them up. Then, I eat too many of the cookies and get sad. I look at myself in the mirror and hear my friend Laura’s voice saying, “Look at her! She is just a mess!” She never said that to my face, but if she could see me now, I think she would say it about me. Then, I look for something else to eat, while I ponder how quiet the house will be when the kids are off at college and there is nobody around to slam doors. The dog looks at me. I don’t think he is judging me, but I could be wrong.

Going through this has confirmed a theory of mine that – at least from a biological standpoint – women are not meant to bear children in their thirties. This would explain the decreased fertility women experience in their thirties and beyond, and the apparently hyper-levels of fertility of teenagers. I’ve seen Teen Mom. Believe me, that show has caused many thirty-something women on fertility drugs to glare at the television seething with pangs of injustice while watching a 15 year old who can’t even legally drive or vote struggling to care for a baby that was conceived after doing it “only once.”

Think about it. If you had a baby when you were 18, you would be a relatively fresh and young 32 years old when your child turned 14. You would be the cool and hip mom, rational and high-energy, relatively calm in the face of teenage emotional rage. By the time they are off to college – assuming they didn’t get pregnant at 15 and earn a starring role on Teen Mom – you are 36 years old, your kid can drive and vote, and you still have several years before your own hormone levels start getting crazy. You can actually be happy about having an empty nest! You have a whole decade of non-hormonal years left ahead of you! This is what biology intended. I was pretty sure of it before, and now, I feel like I am living proof.

That said, I had my kids in my thirties. Technically, my early thirties, but still my thirties. Which has made things pretty interesting around here lately.

I blame myself for somehow jinxing us, because, before The Convergence, I was very happy with my kids because they were so happy! (My husband will say I blame myself because I have “Japanese guilt” and I tend to blame myself for everything, but that’s a separate issue.) I thought that maybe, just maybe, I had been wrong about the convergence, and our domestic tranquility would emerge from the adolescent years unscathed.

But … I was right. (This, my husband will also say has something to do with my being Japanese, but I digress.) My older one didn’t go over to the dark side until this year, which, of course, coincided with my own shift over to the darkness, as well as my younger child’s very, very, very slight transition into that grey area that precedes the darkness. I was right! I am usually happy about being right, but not this time.

I was discussing our household hormone levels with my kids when my husband stumbles upon the conversation. I have taken the approach that it’s okay to talk about hormones, so I thought it was a good idea to talk about The Convergence with the kids, if for no other reason than self-preservation and, hopefully, giving us all some awareness and context to what’s happening to us.

“Remember?” I say to my husband, “I told you this would happen! When the kids were little. Remember?”

“Uhmmm. No. What did you say?”

“I told you that all the hormones would be raging in our household at the same time, because the kids would be going through adolescence and I would be pre-menopausal. And, I told you that you had permission, in advance, to leave the house to escape us if you needed to.”

“Oh. Okay,” he says. “That’s good to know.”

Shortly after that conversation, he took a spontaneous trip to the Super Bowl. The Convergence at home was balanced out by a Cosmic Convergence for my husband that had the sports and travel gods smiling down on him, and he decided to go to the Super Bowl. Believe it or not, I was honestly happy for him and encouraged him to go. And, I was reallyhappy when he came back home.

good news, bad news

First, the good news: I figured out what was causing the old vinyl floors in our kitchen to buckle.

The bad news: it was caused by our refrigerator, which had a small leak that was seeping into the seam between the wall and the flooring.

Also bad news: I finally diagnosed the problem because the leak had gotten worse, and a small puddle appeared in front of the refrigerator last night, and again this morning. I had thought it was from a melted ice cube. I was wrong.

And, more bad news: the trap door access to the basement where the water supply shut-off to the refrigerator is located was waterlogged and could not be opened with the handle in the usual way. The handle started separating from the hatch, like a peel-off sticker from a waxy sheet of paper. Not good.

Then, some good news! My son climbed under the house from an exterior access point, crawling in the mounds of dirt and debris that had been left behind during a remodel by the previous owner, and was able to turn off the water supply and pushed open the hatch door from below, literally pushing the door up with his back in a super-push-up burst of herculean teen-age strength. (It is moments like these when my husband is especially happy we have a strong, healthy and helpful son.)

But the elation is short-lived. My son reports what he sees in the basement. "There's about an inch of water down here, and the furnace is kind of submerged at the bottom." And then, a glimmer of good: "The water heater is on a stand, though, so it looks okay."

Apparently, the small leak had been seeping into and through the floor boards, raining down onto the concrete pad below, where the water heater and furnace are located.

Surprise good news: my husband reports that there is a sump pump down there!

But, you guessed it, bad news: it wasn't working.

I put on my Japanese gardening boots that my dad gave me and head down to start bailing, and decide to check out the sump pump while I am down there. I hit the reset button on the electrical outlet, and nothing happens. I pull the pump out of the waterlogged hole and try to manually trip the buoyed switch, and nothing happens. I continue with the bowl and bucket, then, I notice an extension cord. And ... good news!!! I plug in the sump pump plug into the extension cord, and it immediately starts siphoning water out and into the long snaking hose that appears to lead out of the basement crawlspace.

Wait. I say "appears to" because I don't actually know where it leads. I've never seen a sump pump hose outside of our house, which is partly why I was convinced we didn't have one. Surely, the water must be going out and away from the house, right? I strain to see where the hose is leading, but can't see much with all the dirt. I unplug the sump pump, and decide it's my turn to get dirty. My husband gets me a step stool so I can climb out of the concrete utility pit and onto the dirt, following the hose until I find the end, which didn't take long because it was inside the basement, emptying the water directly against the interior of the foundation. Bad, bad, bad news. It looks like somebody had done some shearwalling within the crawlspace -- good news -- and closed up the exit point for the hose, and decided to just leave it dumping water along the foundation -- very bad.

We decide to re-route the hose up the stairs, through the laundry area and out the door. Good plan. Unfortunately, the hose has many holes in it, and in my effort to make sure the hole-riddened section stayed in the basement squirting into the concrete pit and not inside the house, I didn't give enough hose to make it completely out of the doorway and, once the pumping started, the hose moved around like a serpent and belched out its watery innards inside the house. Bad.

Undeterred, we try again. With a little bit of duct tape and tweaking, we finally get it working so the water goes out of the house, trailing away from the house and its foundation with no further serpentine belching in the house. Good, good, good.

The concrete pit is now empty enough that I am no longer sloshing around in my boots. There is still enough water to make puddles on the concrete -- which does not seem to be draining towards the sump pump hole (bad!!!) -- but I am not going to lose sleep over this. My husband has been busy drying out the laundry area, which is extra important since this doorway, unfortunately, is our main entrance in and out of the house right now. The handset on our front door was broken, and since our contractor was not able to finish the job before the weekend, the front door is literally screwed shut until he comes back. Sigh. Bad, but not too bad.

It feels like Murphy's Law has been in full effect today, but I am still feeling pretty good that things are better than they were when the day began. As I take off my boots, I say a little "Thanks, Dad" -- grateful that I got to be the "boy" of the family, watching him fix things while playing the part of daddy's little helper, internalizing the curiosity and persistence it takes to trial-and-error things in hopes of some sort of resolution.

Now, it's time to get some dinner and a bake a birthday cake. Today, my daughter's birthday, was almost completely consumed by our little home project. Almost. There's still time to celebrate. And that is definitely good news.

uncomfort zone

I am out of my comfort zone. I was coaxed here, into the uncomfort zone, by love. My love for my husband, children, and extended family. So ... here I am, sleeping in a bunkbed, listening for mosquitoes, which I can still hear in spite of the alternating and nearly identical snoring of my husband in the top bunk and his brother in the next room. Just as I think I am ready to doze off, I hear the distinct buzzing of an insect intent on sucking my life's blood from me, and I spring into defensive action. I turn on my iPhone Flashlight App, grope around to find my glasses and search the coffin-like landscape of the lower bunk. BAM!!! Got him. Or her. Doesn't matter. I close my eyes, lulled into slumber by the now snoring-in-unison brothers.

Some people love "roughing it" -- oh, the joys, of communing with nature, lugging all your stuff and food and trash and children and pillows and sleeping bags and contact lens solution through dust and dirt and then "relaxing" out of sheer exhaustion before it's time to cook food and clean-up and hide all the food because the mice might visit during the night. Granted, we are not in tents, and we have plumbing, so this is not "camping." But this is as close to camping as I like to get. We've been here before, so I know what to expect -- tap water that smells like sulfur, the aforementioned blood-thirsty insects, various and sundry rodents, the occasional bat, no TV, and generally feeling dirty (not that kind of dirty) and feeling dirty again (not that kind of dirty) almost as soon as you've taken a shower in the sulphury smelling water. Did I mention there's no TV?

"Who wants to go on a hike?" says Cindy, my
sister-in-law and ringleader of all things fun. She is a big reason why I am in the uncomfort zone. She has a way of getting me to do things I would not otherwise do. I think there is magic or hypnosis involved, but I have not figured it out yet. We all fall in line, the glorious sun beating down on us. We are on Decatur Island, one of the San Juan Islands, and the scenery is just beautiful. From the sea star in the tidepools, to the vast expanse of water surrounding us, everything looks like it belongs on a postcard.

Although my husband and his siblings have all been here on different occasions, this is the first time all five of them have been here together. With the adults' work schedules and the kids' summer schedules, it was a small miracle that they all managed to get themselves here to this tiny island. We snap several photos of them, all together, and I think to myself that their parents are probably looking down on us, approving and proud of the family they raised, their children, now parents themselves.

Which brings me to another thing I knew to expect on this trip: family memories. Catching crab. Eating crab. Building a fire. Roasting marshmallows. Eating s'mores. Collecting rocks. Playing board games. Playing tennis. Playing basketball. Walking along the beach. Talking. Listening. Just being. Together.

And isn't that, really, what family vacations are all about?

By the fourth night, our last night in Decatur, I find myself strangely comfortable here. I'm going to miss this place.

summertime

It has taken us over a month, but we finally feel like we are on vacation. With the kids' activities, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of running around and generally not relaxing. On the plus side, both of my kids (and I) had incredibly rewarding and fulfilling experiences these past couple of weeks. My son participated in a program called FACES for the Future in Oakland, where he learned about public health and health professions, and had to get "dressed up" everyday (i.e., no jeans, collared shirt, decent shoes) -- and did it willingly, on time, waiting for my husband or I to hurry up and get ready to make sure he wasn't late. It was a welcome role reversal from the usual parental refrain of are-you-ready-to-go-yet-and-do-you-have-everything-you-need-hurry-up-we-are-going-to-be-late. My daughter led the first two weeks of art classes for the TRUST summer youth camp in West Oakland sponsored by the Oakland Unified School District Police Department, teaching arts and crafts to children five to twelve years old -- an ambitious task for a thirteen year old, but she did a great job. It was wonderful to see her in action and to watch the kids taking direction (most of the time), turning the materials she provided into creations that reflected each child's interests and personality. For me, it was surprisingly fulfilling to just sit back and observe these teenagers -- my babies -- growing into their own.

And, now, at last ... time to do some summertime chillaxin'. I'll leave you with a current picture, and a flashback post: the pyro family. Time to go create some more family memories.

Happy vacation, everyone!

lifesaver

I am alive today because we had healthcare. My father, like many Japanese Americans in the Los Angeles area, worked primarily for the aerospace industry, dutifully putting in his eight hours a day, five days a week, year after year. His employer provided health insurance as part of his compensation. When I was in second grade, I came down with a persistent fever of about 104 degrees, give or take a degree. My mother took me to my pediatrician’s office, where I was seen by the “new” Japanese-speaking doctor in the practice, who gave me some medicine for fever. She took me back in when my fever didn’t break. He gave me some more medicine. She called him when my fever still hadn't broken, and I had collapsed on the bathroom floor. He told her that there was nothing more he could do for me, that the medicine he had given me was the strongest they had, scolding her as she pleaded, tearfully, to please do something for her daughter. Undaunted, she took me in again, and saw the slightly older, also Japanese-speaking, Dr. Maeda. He sent me to the hospital for chest x-rays, which revealed that I had pneumonia.

I missed two weeks of school and spent a good portion of that in the hospital, and have some random memories of that little adventure. At Little Company of Mary in Torrance, I learned that “Number 2” meant the same thing as unchi, and “Number 1” meant the same thing as shishi. I learned that adults do not always know what they are talking about, even when they think they do – like the mean nurse who demanded that I drink my milk, even though, as I kept trying to tell her, my doctor had told me not to drink it because it made me cough. My neighbor, Aunty Jane, gave me Roald Dahl’s The Great Glass Elevator to read while I recuperated. And, my friend, Mariko, told my classmates in Mrs. Oda’s room that I was missing school because I was in the hospital, and she brought my homework assignments to my parents’ house so that I would not fall behind.

All of these memories I have – well, I realize now that I am lucky to even have them. At the time, I didn’t think about healthcare. I took it for granted. My father was rarely unemployed, and his employers were generous with health insurance benefits, back-in-the-day. But thinking about it now, how would my life be different if we did not have health insurance? Would my mother have felt entitled to take me back to the doctor repeatedly? Would they have been able to afford x-rays and a hospital stay? Would I be alive today?

Everyone deserves to live a life that is free from worrying about something as basic as healthcare. I am so happy today, knowing that our country has gotten one step closer to providing a way for all of us to be able to have that peace of mind -- for all of us to take healthcare for granted.

Linsanity

What do I think about Jeremy Lin's recent success playing for the New York Knicks? Thanks for asking ...

In a word: historic. I grew up playing basketball in the Japanese American leagues in LA, with the Gardena FOR Supersonics, where (at a very average 5' almost-2") I got to play all positions, including my favorite -- center. I seriously thought all Japanese American girls had leagues like this, and that most Japanese American girls played basketball (since that's what it was like in the world of Gardena). I thought that I would someday grow up to play with Bill Walton for the UCLA Bruins. Of course, that didn't happen, but when I did go to college, I went up to the Fifth Floor of Payne-Whitney and ran in pick-up games with all the Asian American ballers. I witnessed the graceful defense of Alex Te, the lithe and lanky Larry Ng posting up on the very sturdy Ben Sun, the signature snake-like drive-to-the-hoop of Vernon Wong, the rebounding hops of Michael Chai, and the yes-I-am-a-badass strut of Glenn Tokumaru, running the point and just about everything else on the court. Yes, those were the days. The glory days of AASA hoops. (Okay, maybe the glory days happened before or after I was there, but I am going to remember them that way, regardless.)

Our games were peppered with exclamations of "Doctor J!" or "A-keeeeem!" -- or any number of dubious and wishful comparisons. Now, I am guessing, there will be more than a few shouts of "JEREMY LIN!!!"

I was, literally, moved to tears when I saw the highlights of Jeremy Lin's first winning game with the Knicks. Yes, I cried. Laugh if you want to, but I know I'm not alone. In addition to him playing so well, he has also carried himself with such humility -- in a league where egomaniacs rule, it is so incredibly refreshing. I think this is a huge part of his appeal.

The only part of the Linsanity that has been uncomfortable is the inevitable race-based signage -- slanty-eyed caricatures, "who says Asians can't drive?", "Yellow Mamba" (in response to Kobe, the apparently self-proclaimed Black Mamba), "Asians love MSG" -- some of which has been created by Asian Americans, which I don't quite get, but I have chosen not to get all worked up about that since I would rather enjoy this Lincredible moment in basketball history.

I hope this is not the end of Jeremy Lin's run, but even if it is -- J.Lin has made history, and I think we will see a greater openness to Asian American basketball players in the future. Any AA ballers who are coming up now can thank J.Lin for being a pioneering force.

My husband is getting annoyed with me, calling me names like "Jeremaniac" and telling me I've gone "Linsane."

I plan to get him an NBA League Pass for Valentine's Day ;-)

american accent

“Hands up! Hands up!” my mom yelled. I could hear her, vaguely, as I did my best to get my hands up and play some defense. I must have been in fifth grade. I was finally on the court, no longer the little sister watching my big sister’s game – I was actually on a team now, and doing what I could to try not to mess up.

It was interesting to see my mom get so excited about our game. She had played basketball in high school, and was the captain of the Fukushima High School girls’ team. My dad was the captain of the boys’ basketball team, and the two became high school sweethearts. He was relatively tall for his school, and he had mad dribbling skills, as well as some serious hops, with which he developed his signature hanging jump shot. You could try to block that shot, but you’d better be ready to hang up in the air for longer than gravity normally allowed.

My team was victorious, and we jubilantly left the gymnasium, the small group of moms and dads funneling out onto the playground toward the parking lot. My mom walked alongside two of the other moms, Mrs. Jung and Mrs. Tabuchi, and I’m sure she was feeling pretty good, just another mom. Just like the other moms.

This day should have been a completely happy one. There was nothing my mom did that should have brought her any disdain from the other moms. She always tried hard to be a dutiful wife and mother. When my father had coached my sister’s team, she had even made individual ball bags for all the girls on the team, crocheted net-style bags in red, white and blue. All-American.

I trailed a step behind, walking with some of my teammates, and I was taken aback by what I heard next. My mom was making small talk, saying something innocuous about how the team did. In response, the other two moms – instead of replying back to my mom, turned to each other, and, as if my mom had disappeared and was no longer walking right beside them -- mocked her Japanese accent. “Oh, ‘hands up’ -- I was wondering what she was saying! I thought she was saying ‘Honda! Honda!’” said Mrs. Jung, and Mrs. Tabuchi agreed, with a laugh.

I was stunned at their rudeness, and could only imagine the sting of their laughter as I noticed the fleeting look of surprise on my mom’s face. It was there for an instant, and then it was gone, replaced by a smile. Now she was smiling again, just like the other moms, laughing along with them, even though she knew she was the butt of the joke. What else could she do? She knew she had an accent. She knew she was born in Japan, unlike most of the other moms. But she had allowed herself to forget, for a moment, and think that this fact didn’t matter. The other moms, however, apparently didn’t think about what they were saying – or, perhaps, they were consciously or subconsciously trying to remind my mom that she was not one of them. She was different. She was not American, and didn’t speak “perfect” English.

Even as an adult – perhaps, more so – I am struck by their insensitivity. The other moms were Chinese American and Japanese American -- the casual observer might even assume they had a bond because their ancestors had all come from Asia. How could they be so thoughtless? I wish I had not learned the lesson of being polite, and had come to my mom’s defense, telling them, “You’re being rude. Leave my mom alone!” That, of course, would have been the opposite of what my mom would have wanted. She was, after all, trying to fit in and not be left alone. And, I suspect, she was not doing this for her own benefit – she was doing this for me. For her children, she would endure whatever ridicule she would have to, be the team-player, not make waves. I’m pretty sure these other moms didn’t give this a second thought, and I went on to play for years with their daughters, even into adulthood, and still consider them my friends. But it is something I can’t seem to forget. Looking back, I don’t remember my mom coming to too many of my basketball games after that.

I’ve never talked to my mom about this. For all I know, she doesn’t even remember this. I hope that’s the case. I was reminded of this incident recently because of a movie my daughter watched at the middle school, which had a scene in which the Chinese waiters sing “Deck the Halls” in a fake accent, belting out, “FA RA RA RA RA, RA RA RA RA ~” much to my daughter’s chagrin. She was one of two Asian American girls in the class, and they shared a brief eye-rolling look of annoyance as they sat quietly through the end of the movie. Then, some of the boys in the class began singing that line, over and over again, “FA RA RA RA RA ...” One of the most amusing things about this (for me, at least) was that my daughter, in her recounting of this, noted that “There is an ‘L’ sound in Chinese! There’s no reason for the Chinese waiters to sing it with an ‘R’! They could at least be accurate!” The girl had a point. The family in A Christmas Story should have gone to a Japanese restaurant if they were so set on using the accented “Deck the Halls” scene, since, apparently, there’s nothing like a good laugh over a Japanese accent.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this, the now infamous DebbieSpenditNow Hoekstra campaign ad hit the airwaves. The ad features an Asian American actress using grammatically incorrect English, but, oddly, speaking without an accent -- which just goes to show that you can still be racist and insensitive, even without mocking an accent. Maybe the actress was trying to maintain some of her dignity by not doing an accent, or maybe the directors thought nobody would understand her if she used one. I'm betting on the latter.