Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Interview prep, interview. Helped student RC with computer questions. Lunch: Panda Express. My fortune: Be daring, try something new. Lots of small web edits: health services co-pays web page and paper form, added graduation ceremony to academic calendar, updated all web calendars. Helped student MB with computer questions and setup. Installed QuickTime 7.1.6 for nearly all office computers. Cleaned out the registry of Brother and Scansoft entries for Alyssa's computer. (Did I do this before? I think now that I had.) I met my mom for dinner at Gaspare's, and it was the first time I had seen her in perhaps 6 years. The only reason I agreed was that she had finally done the right thing by asking if I was available and what time would work for me rather than simply dropping in unannounced or with only one day's notice without me agreeing to a visit. The night held many surprises for me. Dad had led us to believe he would join us and drove off in the car trying to find parking, but after half an hour of waiting we decided to just start without him. I had known after only 5 minutes of waiting that he wasn't going to show up, and his not showing up disappointed me. Mom had spaghetti with meat sauce, I had the full dinner of half spaghetti and half ravioli with meat sauce. She ate the salad, I ate the minestrone soup. We both ate bread. We shared one piece of tiramisu for dessert. We talked about herbal medicine, her family, friends, Social Security, what it means to be gay, whether people are born gay or not, one's age in American years versus one's age in Chinese years, Alzheimer's, asthma, hernias, prostate cancer, eye problems, Patrick Ryan, the Ninburgs (Becky or possibly Rebecca, Patrick, and—she says Scott, but I think it was not Scott but I can't remember his name now—maybe Mike or Michael?), the police. I didn't know (or possibly didn't remember) that my mom had worked in her father's herbal medicine store in Taiwan from age 11 to age 25. She said her sister Julie did also a lot and her brother James did also a little. Her innocence (or ignorance) about some things like gay people surprised me a little, and I had to admit there was a charm to the manner in which she spoke which I had missed. Many times I wanted to laugh not in a mean manner but instead because I was amused; I was laughing on the inside. "I have walkie-talkie!" and "I am just a housewife" and the walkie-talkie ringing loudly in the middle of dinner ("Hello? Hello? Hello?")—you had to be there. She seemed a lot more lucid than I remember her being in the 1990s. Previously I thought it was my father who needed to be saved from my mother mostly because of a particular incident involving a kitchen knife and the police, but now (at least from tonight's events) it appears that my mother is the one who needs saving from my father, and who knew that she would be more accepting of gay culture than my dad? I actually had fun talking to my mom even though she would switch back and forth between lucidity and nonsense throughout our entire conversation. She still goes on and on about money matters, Social Security, and who owes the government what money, none of which seems to make much sense. When we discussed my being gay I could tell that she wasn't very accepting of it, but she readily agreed to no longer call it a problem after I had asked her to, and that surprised me. Gaspare's turned out to be a really good place to meet because I didn't want anyone to hear our crazy and possibly embarrassing conversation. The dining crowd's conversation during prime dinner hours (6:00 to 7:30 PM) and the golden oldies jukebox essentially prevented anyone from overhearing us. She told me that my grandmother (her mother) was 88 years old—but 89 years old in Chinese years. I asked her to explain, and she said that Chinese people add 10 months to the age for the time the child spends in the womb (-- I didn't ask why 10 and not 9 --), and this gets rounded to one additional year. Every Chinese New Year it's added. I asked her if all Chinese count age that way and she said yes. As we were leaving the restaurant I saw that she had her beige overcoat on her shoulders without her arms through the coat's arms and told her, "Are you sure you don't want to put your coat on?" We went outside and spent a few minutes waiting to see if my dad might magically show up in the car. She was outside all of 5 minutes before she was adjusting her coat so that she could put her arms through the coat's arms. I took her photo a few minutes before she pulled out a thin, red scarf and tied a half knot under her chin to keep her hair tidier. She wanted to walk around just to see if he was parked nearby, and we ended up walking 2 blocks up and 2 blocks back—nothing. All the while she's pressing the CALL button on the walkie-talkie—breep-breep-breep-breep, Hello? Hello?—but no response. While in the restaurant we thought there was no way to reach him because she was carrying their only cellphone, but now as she tried to find her cellphone so we could call for help (cab, information about a nearby hotel, etc.) we realized that the cellphone was probably in the car and not in her purse at all. I thought him very irresponsible for leaving my mom stranded like that. I reminded my mom that she had done the same thing to me and dad a long time ago—she had left us stranded at a faraway shopping mall just as it was closing and my brother had to come pick us up after we discovered that she had driven all the way home. I think I was in high school when it had happened. Immediately she burst out laughing, and I had to as well—it was indeed a very similar situation. "I had to go to the bathroom" was her explanation tonight when I reminded her of that event, and there was no further explanation or discussion about it. I was all set to hail her a cab and have her check herself in to Holiday Inn or something like that. (She didn't like the Days Inn at the beach because it was coooooooold!) But then—45 minutes we had left the restaurant—we hear him on the walkie-talkie and he drives up about a minute later. He refused to say hello to me even though I said hello to him quite cheerfully. I gave my mom a hug and said goodbye with a smile and they drove off. I took the bus home. One bus I think didn't show up or was late, so it took me about an hour to get home even though I walked about 10 blocks. Good old Muni. Good old San Francisco. My mom wants me to call or write her, and I think quite possibly I shall.