shokufeh is…home

The other morning, as I got dressed, I wondered if maybe it’s time for some wardrobe updates. My pants, the ones I think of as nice and new, are about five years old. My shirt is more than twice that old, having been bought in Hong Kong. When I lived in China. And the two geographic areas were separate entities.

I left China a few days after Hong Kong returned to the motherland, on July 1, 1997. Thinking back on that, I can’t help but hear a song that was constant that year – Yi Jiu Jiu Qi Nian (literally One Nine Nine Seven Year, or 1997). And see these ugly and uncomfortable lime-green sandals I felt compelled to buy because they commemorated the return, decorated with flags and the pride-returning date.

All this to say, it’s probably time to go shopping. When other people look at my clothes, they probably just see shabbiness. Which I’ve filtered out with memories.

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Not that he reads this, but Happy Birthday, Naysan! It might be time for me to send you some Men’s Pocky. I don’t know if I can commit to no longer calling you boy, however.

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It’s been a really nice Ayyam-i-Ha, complete with friends over for dinner last night and MrMan enjoying his new socks.  Loving them, really.

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MrMan is learning about loss.  For at least a month, he’s taken to showing sympathy, saying “Poor X,” when X is having some trouble.  Except his version sounds kind of like “Po.”  And he’s talked about the dead fish we saw in the tank at the Asian market.  And the dead cockroach in the backyard.  But this morning, there was some grief to go with it.

For Valentine’s day, Sam gave MrMan a mylar Elmo balloon.  The boy’s been carrying it around ever since.   It often goes in the car with us, must be in his bedroom at night, sometimes goes along when it’s time to “play ball outside” (a common refrain when we pull up at the curb in the evenings).  In the past 24 hours, it finally leaked the last of its helium.  But MrMan was still attached, and carried it out of the house this morning.  On the way to the car, a gust of wind carried the balloon down the street.  A minute or two later, a car drove over it, bursting it apart.

“Red balloon,” he cried.  And there were tears to go with it.  Just in case we weren’t getting the message that he was sad, MrMan brought up a painting he saw Monday night – of a boy with a tear rolling down his face.  I said, Poor balloon, and, The balloon died, and, Poor MrMan.  I explained that balloons last only so long, and that he should focus on the good times they had together over the last almost two weeks.  Needless to say, he was still mourning as we got to school, still sadly talking about his balloon.

It’s good for him to practice the sadness and for me to practice what to say, on an inanimate object.  I think I’m going to have to get in a few more balloon deaths before any sad major life event.

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A few years ago, when one of our nieces was almost three years old, we went to visit her family. One of the things I took on the trip was my prayer beads – alphabet beads, strung together in a prayer.
We came home and our niece was talking about the alphabet necklace – how it was on the table, and then it was on the bed, and then it was on the floor, and then… it disappeared. We later found them under the bed. And we’ve found the phrase she used to be appropriate and amusing over the years.

Turns out my inclination to take a picture of the gravity-defying house was a good one. Yesterday, as we passed by, I was wishing I had my camera to take another picture, despite the foggy weather. This morning, I had my camera out and ready. But the house was gone. While gravity obviously was of assistance, I would say it was not wholly responsible: instead of a leaning structure, all we could see was an totally empty and flat lot.

As predicted, I felt a bit sad. Not because I felt that someone would ever be able to live in that house. But, I guess, because the landscape changed. I don’t know what will go in that lot, but I suspect that it won’t have the same character of the previous structure – neither in its dilapidated state, nor in its heydey. I hope to be proven wrong. What it reminded me is that I should continue to notice the normal and mundane, the things that are easy to ignore because I see them everyday, to take an Amelie approach to life. Because tomorrow it could disappear.

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Five years ago, through the kindness and generosity of a friend, I moved here to lay-c.com/hi. In celebration of that anniversary, and once again thanks to Lacey, I’m moving over to a Wordpress blog at: lay-c.com/shokufeh.
Come visit!
It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed my time here. It’s just time for a little change. Please bear with me while I continue unpacking.

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Yesterday, on Andrea’s blog, I found out about the Hope Revolution. I love it! I think one of my Ayyam-i-Ha projects will be creating these little notes of hope and releasing them into the world.

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Every morning, we pass this architectural feat that defies the laws of physics.

As dilapidated as it is, I know I’m going to be sad the morning that it’s in a pile, having finally succumbed to the weight of the rain, or the vibrations of the surrounding construction, or… gravity.

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Since they’ve received them by now, I thought I would reveal what I paid forward to Holly, Arin, and Hannah. These lovely necklaces from Random Acts of Craft. Melissa has been selling these at craft fairs here, and happens to be my coworker in her other life. But I’d buy her stuff even if she wasn’t. She lacquers beautiful paper to small wood tiles and gussies them up even more with various findings, including neat buttons as clasps. Arin’s is one of Melissa’s new styles – while the fleur de lis one wears around one’s neck is a somewhat personal choice for New Orleans locals, I thought it would be a neat choice for someone that has ties to the city but doesn’t actually live here. And I had a hard time parting with Holly’s and Hannah’s necklaces. Every time I look at Melissa’s creations, I want to take all of them home.

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This morning, I was thinking about how lucky I am, how I love our routine. We all leave the house together, get in the car, arrive at MrMan’s daycare. We wave to the security guard, MrMan and I say goodbye to Sam and head inside while Sam drives a few more blocks to the parking garage. I take MrMan to his classroom, wish the security guard a good day, and walk one block to my office. How many moms are lucky enough to work one block from their children?

Later this morning, I was again thankful – I wanted some coffee, but realized I’d left my wallet at home. So I walked the few blocks to Sam’s office and met up with him to visit the nearby ATM. Got a kiss and a $20 bill. And in both directions, got to spy on MrMan playing outside. Love it! These moments of watching MrMan, doing his thing, oblivious to my presence, make me feel like I might burst with joy.

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What does it say about me that, this morning, so that I wouldn’t look like a grinch, I made a point of wearing a pink shirt (no special pink shirt, one I wear, on average, once a week), but a few hours after I got to work, I realized I’d missed putting on my wedding ring (and earrings, for the record)?

In unrelated news, when I went to the gym at lunchtime, I discovered that the instructor for the class is pregnant. I overheard her saying eight months pregnant. It didn’t stop her from jumping up and down, squatting, and lifting weights. I got my ass kicked by a pregnant woman. Maybe not as hard as she kicked it five months ago. But still….

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The boom-boom, that was once so charming? Is now annoying. Not long after I wrote about it, MrMan started phasing it out. But just as started to mourn that fact, a twist arose. It’s no longer his phrase of bonding, his sense of spirit. It’s his phrase of defiance, maybe embarrassment. These days, whenever MrMan is doing something he shouldn’t, and I reprimand him, his inevitable response is, “Boom-boom.”

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