Super Therapist for the Day!

What can I attribute my energy to that I was able to massage a body every ten minutes for several hours straight with no interruption, have a 20 minute meal break, and then work another hour more, during the Newark Community Day fair, today?


The beautiful weather? Eating Chinese rice noodles and shrimp before leaving? Chilling out with Pink Martini before leaving? Doing squats and pushups before leaving?

Does it even matter?!

Today's event turned out much better than Newark Nite in June. More hours and daytime hours, for one. Which means many more peeps. And of course, the word FREE. Charge a dollar a minute and only a few will be willing to cough it up. Offer mini massages for FREE and people are willing to wait until eternity, almost!

I myself can't believe all the people who waited in line for us to give them a much needed massage. (Everybody needs a massage!) Or maybe I should believe it considering we offered free massages. Ten minutes is better than nothing! Five minutes doesn't do much at all. It was like a factory: one body following another body! I barely had time to grab my water bottle!

From 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. or thereabouts, I was on a ROLL! In my element! Every ten minutes a new body was on my table! Sixty minutes=one hour. Sixty divided by ten equals six. SIX bodies an hour! I've never even had six clients in a day...yet!

I have had five relatives in a day, bless their hearts! ;-)

Of course, I prefer the longer massages (60-90 min), but you do what you gotta do to get more business. Two people will win an hour-long massage. We got a lot of new names to market to, too. And I got one person to commit to a massage this week with a substantial discount. :-)

Even with incentives, few people are willing to make an appointment. Or perhaps I should say, part with their money. Save $20 off a regular price massage OR buy a gift certificate: BOOK TODAY! Other massage vendors were charging a dollar a minute...maybe that's why our waiting lines were long and non-stop! FREE is such a nice word, isn't it? ;-) Selling is a hard job...and all the more challenging when you are selling your own services rather than those of a company, which I have done before.

The most important thing for me, was that I made a lot of people happy with loosened muscles today. :-)) That's my focus. My livlihood. My joy!


I finally had to turn away a group of college gals and asked them to return in half an hour because I HAD TO EAT! %-0 Let alone find a Port-a-Potty! I went to the area where most of the food vendors were situated and first walked by the Indonesian stand, but I heard the women behind the table telling someone they had no chicken satay left. It was past 3:30, after all. Then I found the Chinese Student's Union table and they had food and trinkets for sale. I always go to them on Newark Community Day--I like to support students because I remember being a college student.

They had the food that Americans like and most Chinese don't (unless cooked at home or for Chinese people): fried rice, egg rolls, and fried dumplings. Fried everything on their menu. It was waaaay too greasy, but it was good because I was famished. Simply starving beyond imagination! Heart attack food can sure be tasty when you almost don't care WHAT you put in your belly! Even though the food was cold, it filled the bill. I ate part of it walking back to our station, then I ate in front of everybody waiting for a massage! Told one lady I couldn't work on her because I was eating. I HAD TO EAT! No food in my belly makes for an awfully cranky yours truly! :-0

So she walked away disappointed because my colleague was working on someone else. Geez, lady, did you expect me to drop my plate at your beck and call? I would not even stop eating if you paid me! ;-( What good am I to you if I don't take care of myself first? (Well, THAT'S worthy of another blog entry!)

My belly full, I was ready to go back to work for free again.

For another hour and some odd minutes.


That makes some 30 or 31 bodies I think! I really did lose count, but I do know that I was working non-stop for several hours at a time today.

One other detail: we had tables instead of a chair today. Table work IS much more pleasant than chair massage and MUCH easier on therapist's body, especially for prolonged periods of time. I know I'd be more tired than I am now if we had to do chair massage (which I and many of my therapist friends do not like) all day cuz I've done it before and I hated it. I can deliver a much, much more effective massage with the client on the table.

Oh my...I'm probably gonna feel the effects of today, when I wake up in the morning! Then I'll need a massage! %-)

Give Women a Higher Status Than Dogs

I cannot get an article I read the other night out of my head:

"Beat a Woman? Play on; Beat a Dog? You're Gone" , by Sandra Kobrin, from Women e-News.

It made my blood BOIL!

Please read it: it's well-written and ought to be on the front pages of every paper on earth.

Animal abuse is certainly inexcusable. What's the point? :-(( It's just wrong, let alone inhumane. But why do people seem to get more huffed up about a football star involved in high stakes dog fighting (and death) than some star athlete who gets arrested for spousal abuse or beating up a girlfriend?

Does this mean women are STILL second class citizens in the 21st century? In America, the most free country in the world?

That appears to be so, judging from indifference of popular media and popular national sports organizations.

I never have paid much attention to sports/sports news, except during the Olympics, which I enjoy watching. :-) But I cannot relate to what seems to be contrived aggression, or just all out uncontrolled tempers on the playing field. I am mainly targeting men here, since they are usually the ones who get in trouble during any sort of sport...that's not to say that women are incapable of being nasty to one another--but you rarely, if ever, hear about female athletes beating up the ones they supposedly love.

I don't know the intricate details of hormones, but I thought sports was a way for guys to release some of that testosterone! (What do I know? I'm a woman!) Yet the ones who are making an unimaginable amount of money can keep playing their game while beating their honey up at home. And even get arrested for it. They don't have to worry about a thing. Are they thinking: so what if I slap my woman around when I come home? I got a big game to play,tomorrow!

This tells me that the head honchos of these huge sports leagues have their values skewed, to put it mildly. Sure the bottom line is important, but is it SO important you have to keep a certain player regardless of the fact he battered his wife or girlfriend--often repeatedly, AND got arrested for it??


WHERE ARE THE REAL MEN, HERE? :-(

I hope more people will make a BIG STINK about this, so that the powers that be in these sports leagues will never, ever tolerate spousal and girlfriend abuse again.

One might say: well, domestic abuse is their damn business; whatever goes on behind closed doors is their private affair.

That is true...to a point. Once the injured woman has to seek medical help, it's everyone's business. Concerned family and friends will seek to help her, which can cause more stress all around. Fees will have to be paid for jail bail. Taxpayers will have to pay for yet another man who didn't know how to keep his balls and brains where they belong. If children are involved, then their emotional turmoil will likely go unnoticed while they try to be brave and cope with daily living.

Spousal abuse affects the community, near and far, directly and indirectly.

It'll be a fine day when society will view this sort of abuse with zero tolerance and impose severe penalties. When people on the street will recoil in horror when they hear about someone committing spousal/domestic abuse...just as if they heard about a bloody murder today.

And why not?

Abuse is like murdering someone's soul: that person trusted you and you have no thought except to satisfy your own selfish needs by physically and/or verbally lashing out at that someone who was supposed to be special to you. And you spill your poison over and over again, refusing to clean up. That's as good as a slow, painful death, to my mind.

Hey! What about the millions raked in by these fantastic athletes who abuse the women in their lives? Too bad our society doesn't value the brains of those brilliant scientists in the research halls of academia who endeavor to make our world a better place to live. I'm sure they would be happy to have some of those millions to fund their research to improve our lives.

The leaders of the sports leagues could actually make our world a better place to live by taking a step forward in a very loud way: they can announce a zero tolerance policy for ANY player arrested for spousal abuse or beating up their girlfriend. ANY player!!

OR, maybe the hundreds of thousands of sports fans will beat the CEOs to the punch and demand a zero tolerance policy towards spouse and girlfriend abuse? Imagine if all the fans began to boycott their favorite team games as a matter of principle: we don't support you because you condone the beating of wives and girlfriends!

Think the head honchos or the fans can take a stand against domestic abuse?

Perhaps it'll depend on whether or not they truly value women, equal to men as human beings, worthy of respect.

A Mountain or a Molehill?

My dear sister in-law was recently diagnosed with a rare form of lymphoma. :-( I am not a religious person, but I do respect and admire her steadfast faith in God and the fact that she has a large support base of equally devout friends and family. And of course, she does have fan club members like hubby, myself, my sis and bil, and other family members on the in-law side who may not be as devout or not at all religious. ;-)

My sil, S, is also a good friend as well. Not only do I admire her steadfast faith, but also her sunny disposition and levelheadedness. I have never known her to be ill-tempered in the least. Her sister recently put up a webpage for her at caringbridge.org. Check it out!

I think cancer has to be one of the scariest things known to man. When a loved one gets it, it tends to remind me of the fact that my problems are small, compared to the one that received that diagonsis. I'm starting to lose count of the people I've known who've suffered the effects of cancer.


Someone's got it worse than you, I tell myself, whenever I feel overwhelmed.

That helps me to shrink my head a bit. ;-)

One of the reasons I made a decision long ago to have at least ONE volunteer activity throughout my life was to ensure in some small way that I was giving back to the community...and to remind myself that no matter HOW sucky things may seem at any given time, there is ALWAYS someone out there who's got it MUCH much worse than I do. Or perhaps, more than I ever did.


My first volunteer activity was as a mentor. I started with mentoring an elementary school girl from a broken family (most mentoring is with children from troubled families). I did that for 2.5 years. Then we moved and I decided to try the middle school age group and I got another girl for another two years. That was great. THEN, I got a girl for one year...and that was enough for awhile. She was totally unmotivated--and despite my efforts, I began to feel I was wasting my time.

I took a year off. Actually, I'm still not mentoring, due to my schedule. But I am tutoring English to an ESL student, off and on. As long as I have at least one thing going on, I'm feeling useful. :-) I hope it's true that you reap what you sow.

All I have to do is listen to the news or open the pages of any National Geographic magazine issue to realize there is someone out there who is living in danger, squalor, without personal freedoms, or unimaginable misery. Or all of the above. It helps me put things in perspective.

In recent years, whenever I'm in a bad situation, I try to ask myself whether I'm going to make a mountain or a molehill out of it. To stress or not? Get heated and age myself...or chill and breathe? I'd like to think I'm improving on the "not stress" and "chill and breathe" aspects of healthy living. ;-)

How did I come by this thinking, you may ask?

When I was a roving reporter on my college weekly, I interviewed a student who was confined to her wheelchair and who needed someone to take notes for her. She was studying for her master's degree in liberal arts and had returned to college after raising a family.

I asked her a question which could have invited scorn on her part since the answer seemed so obvious, but I asked it anyway. I can't tell you what my question was because I'm too embarrassed to remember and I don't have my clips of written work on me at the moment! But basically, I inquired, did she feel challenged by her disability to complete her degree?

She gave me a very sharp reply with a matronly tone of disapproval: "Of course not! This is what I set out to do!" She set out to enrich her mind as did each student on campus. Her disability was not on her radar, it was only a fact of life, not her focus.

This was Mills College, for goodness sakes! Women rule! WE can do ANYTHING we want! :-))

Wow! When I wrote her story in the paper, I realized I had nothing in the world worth complaining about. Not at all. She was my inspiration for the rest of my time in college--especially when I thought I was going to die of stress during finals week/graduation week. ;-) But to this day, I still remember her, even though I can't remember her name. She still inspires me.

As does my sil in her journey to recovery. :-)

I've actually never seen a molehill, by the way. Have you?

How Self-Conscious are You?

Would it bother you if strangers watched you chow down?

This afternoon I sat on concrete steps bordering a parking lot and sidewalk, famished, and thinking about what the late physicist Richard Feynman often said to his first wife: "What do you care what other people think?"

What did I care that I was seated near the bus stop sign, within 10 feet of the closest car sitting in two-lane traffic waiting for the red light to turn green? I wanted to eat! I had to EAT! Now, not a moment later! Let 'em all stare at me, I thought. I'll never see them again...just peeps in passing cars.

I whipped out my little cheese stick and strawberry yogurt granola bar that I'd bought from the 7-Eleven across the street and wolfed them down. And then I finished those off with my nearly-filled 1 liter bottle of water.

Only two sets of waiting cars sat in front of me. It didn't bother me that they were there, I was so hungry! Then my vanity played on me: I needed to re-apply my lipstick after eating. I've seen many a woman apply their make-up in public: bus, airplane, airport waiting area, restaurant, park bench, etc.

How about in front of traffic?

So I did. I whipped out my Ruby Desire lipstick by Maybelline and free Blue Cross/Blue Shield compact mirror and skillfully re-did my lips for all to see! Oh, I don't know if anyone actually looked as they came to the red light. All I know is that I like my lips to have some shiny color to them!

I had a bit of practice doing my own thing at bus stop a couple of weeks ago in Washington, D.C. I had some medical business to take care of, and there was royal screw up on the receptionist's part, which gave me time to run to Chinatown and get something to eat. Since I couldn't eat in the medical center, I ate at the bus stop right outside it.

I had ordered what turned out to be really bad dumplings; Americanized. But since I don't believe in wasting food unless it really tastes toxic or is toxic, I ate it. And I was under a time crunch to get back to my appointment, so I gobbled four of six dumplings right there. They were hot and steamy, with hot sauce. I didn't use much of the hot sauce because my tongue and tummy can't tolerate too-spicy stuff.

While I ate, a bus stopped by, and a young family sat next to me. I could feel a toddler's eyeballs boring into me! I only glanced sideways once to see that she was staring at me eating noisily. Didn't bother me because: I WAS HUNGRY!

I did what I had to do and that's that! Stare all you want, I told them silently. I'll never see you again! I don't care. I have to eat! I have to make my lips look good afterwards, too!
;-)



How self-concious am I anyway?

Hopefully, less and less as time goes by.

Take for example, my fuzzy, florescent leggies. Hubby loves them just they way they are, thankfully. :-) I haven't seen many women at all who've let their legs go natural.

I haven't shaved them since high school and I'm sorry I ever did it because I think it caused my hair on my legs to grow darker. I'm not ever going to shave them again because of that, but mainly because shaving was a pain in the ass. I hated it. I've got better things to do with my time.

Sometimes, though, I get really hard stares. Mostly from women.

How shallow of you! I say to them silently. Why are you looking at another woman's legs? If they look so repulsive to you, don't look at them for goodness sakes! :-(

The looks can sting if I let them bother me. Most of the time, they don't. Every once in while I ask hubby if he still likes my fuzzy leggies, and he says, "Of course. Leave them alone." ;-)

Between him and Richard Feynman, I should just put it out of my mind, shouldn't I?

I'd be lying if I said I haven't been tempted to rid my legs of hair. My sis mentioned waxing to me recently. I thought maybe I could try it once and hopefully the hair will take longer to grow back--and lighter. And yet, I like to be as natural as possible in all ways. We'll see.

How shallow will I be by giving in to society's standards of beauty? I already have given in a bit by buying makeup, though I use a minimal amount.

I don't tan--I get a "tint". As a result, black hair on pale legs are rather striking! I have fuzzy arms, too, but they're not as noticeable.


With age comes wisdom.


I don't know where that adage came from, but I hope it's true. One being the wisdom not to bother about what other people think about you. :-)

Being involved with taekwondo has helped me a lot to build confidence in that regard. Having to perform in front of instructors, judges at tournaments, and your classmates over and over again is a great confidence booster!

Yep, there have been events in the past where I was put uncomfortably in the spotlight:

• Starting to play before I was supposed to during a class recital when I was four years old at Yamaha Music School/Class!
• Picked last on the team during p.e. every single week and year during my school years.
• Performing horribly on physical fitness tests in front of my classmates.
• Standing out like a sore thumb on my trips to Turkey (especially the first time).
• Riding bus #38 through San Francisco's Chinatown and having all the passenger's eyeballs stick to you as you come on board.
• Going to a beauty salon recommended by a coworker and then upon arrival, being stared at as if I were from Mars.

Among countless other times...!

The important thing to remember is to just be myself, eh? And nothing less! :-D

Yearning for a Revolution!

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

Abigail Adams (1744-1818)

First lady to the 2nd US president

* * * * * *


From time to time I have fantasies of imagining myself at the helm of a worldwide revolution. :-)

A revolution to change people's thinking about half of humanity: women!

And this need not involve blood, guts, or loss of lives. Leave that to the warmongering politicians (and let them fight amongst themselves!).

I want a revolution to shake up the thinking of men and women worldwide: that women deserve to be treated with respect and should be afforded the same opportunities as men, starting when they are young girls. This means, EVERY girl in the world should be able to have the same education any boy would have.

Why not? I would think that any society would want to use all of its brains, not just half.

Why, in the 21st century, are women still being treated like second class citizens in so many parts of the world? :-( Valued less than livestock in some places, denied even an elementary education as young girls, and treated as slaves or worse in today's world?

This is the very stuff that makes my blood boil.

I realize there are many economic, political, and cultural factors for why women are still treated shamelessly bad--sometimes worse than animals, as if nothing has changed in the last millennium, but I don't think those are excuses by any measure to treat women as less than equal to men, in terms of being fellow human beings.

Women helped bring life into this world! They are the nurturers and caregivers of humanity!

Yet whether it be peacetime or wartime, they are physically and mentally violated with impunity--by strangers or by so-called loved ones. They are targeted by hungry advertisers who send them messages that they're never beautiful enough unless they use certain products. They're told by society that they're lacking as a woman if they do not become a mother--regardless of the reason. They're easily labeled a bitch when they have the courage to express their opinions, regarded as dirty if a bit too much skin is showing or even for having their period, and they're quickly judged by others based on their appearance.

Among other things.


Get a glimpse of what's happening to the women of the world at:

Amnesty International's Violence Against Women Campaign

Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women

Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights


That's only the tip of the iceberg...


If I were the leader of the kind of revolution I want, I would pull out all the stops to make sure that throughout the world:

• All the children of the world have a basic education (to my mind, that means through high school).
• Violence against women is UNACCEPTABLE and that severe penalities--with a good deal of public shaming, would be imposed on all those who have violated women (or worse).
• Women in difficult domestic situations have a safe haven to go to.
• Trafficking of women and young girls for prostitution and other forms of slavery is STOPPED and it perpetrators duly punished in an international tribunal.
• Anyone attempting to promote the objectification of women via media, brothels, or whatever, would be fined an exhorbitant fee which would go towards shelters for women. And then maybe...thrown in the slammer!
  
• Strengthen and enforce existing laws to protect the rights of women.

I challenge the men of the world to stand up for their wives, girlfriends, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and women friends in their lives. They don't have to pick a fight--just let the other party know that the offending behavior or remark is unacceptable. The other party can very well be another woman--there are many women who have backward ideas about a woman's place in this world.


I do not wish to be part of the masses that would keep half of humanity from
progressing to help make the world a better place to live. I want to be one who shows the world that women expect to be respected as a fellow human being! :-)

When there are more women leading the countries of the world, this world will surely be a very cool place to live in!

And it'll be a fine time to be on planet Earth when men will be as turned on by a woman's mind as they are by her anatomical parts.

This is my ongoing dream; I'm continually searching for a way to contribute. It's my goal in life: to shake up and shape up people's view of women...to blaze a trail and boldly go where no woman has gone before! ;-)

My Doggy Nose

I am blessed with a doggy nose.

No, I don't mean I have a nose that looks like a dog's nose! I mean that, on a human scale, I have a very strong olfactory sense.

I love smelling fresh flowers, the interior of a bakery, somebody's barbecue grilling, and good home cooking!

I have a habit of sniffing brand new pages in a brand new book, fresh bread in the bakery section of a store, expensive perfume as I walk through a department store, shampoos, shower gels and lotions in any store--but especially in high-end boutiques like The Body Shop, and a dish when it arrives at my table in a restaurant.

My mom has a super strong sense of smell. Whenever she visited me, she'd tell me right away if something had an odor to it.! %-0 I'm thinking I got my strong olfactory sense from her.

I also have a habit of sniffing my clothes and hubby's clothes for the slightest hint of odor, the bathroom and the kitchen. Which brings me to say:

I am also cursed with a doggy nose! :-(

Evil odors manage to always waft toward my direction and attack my nostrils! I certainly do NOT go out of my way to seek them out.

Especially in warm and hotter than hell weather. That's when my olfactory senses are at their peak. The odors of everything and everybody are magnified. Yech!

Since I don't have a car anymore and have thus gotten used to taking public transportation again, evil odors attack yours truly with a vengeance. Even a bus or train's air conditioning doesn't always work to mask odors.

Once, someone puked on the bus and didn't clean it up. The bus driver should have left the bus in the bus lot downtown! It was very early in the morning; unfortunately, I wasn't able to take another bus because of where I needed to go at a certain time. So the bus driver put the a/c on full blast. That's like spreading road kill aroma throughout the bus! :-((

I've been overseas in a place where some people don't think of using deodorant. They use a a fancy, textured, glass bottle of cologne that I thought at first was a bottle of booze they were offering me to drink from! But no, it was cologne to mask body smells because they didn't wash often. Just pour a bit into your palms and slap it on your neck, arms, and wherever. Then pass the bottle along to the next person! It's actually refreshing! No big deal. We're quite spoiled here, really--having hot and cold water available at all hours, all year long.

Ah well, if everyone's stinky and sweaty in the heat of summer, then there's really no problem is there?

Yes and no!

No, because if you don't think about it and you get used to the fact that you're as bad as everyone else or vice versa, and there's not enough water to wash but once or twice a week, then so be it.

But if you're in the land of plenty and you're just being lazy, then yes, it could be problematic to others. It's only personal, for goodness sake! %-0 Once, I jumped out of my seat the moment an oversized, unkempt woman sat in front of me. I startled everyone on the bus with my lightening jump, but her odor was insufferable!

The worst odor linked to humans is foot odor. Hands down!

When discussing clients' idiosyncrasies in general one day, one of my massage therapist friends gave me a funny look and asked, "YOU smell people's feet?" Of course NOT. I was quite insulted when she asked me that. :-((

People with dirty feet wearing flip flops/thongs/zoris in the summer are exposing their bacterial footsies to the public. I hate it! Stay outdoors! Away from me! Stay inside, air conditioning will just spread your smell, akin to driving on breezy day down a rural road and being hit with the nasty aroma of road kill that you can't escape until you're in the safety of your home!

Strong bad smells affect me terribly: I get nauseated in an instant. :-((

Last week I sprayed air freshener on one of my clients feet before I started her massage. At least she warned me they were stinky. And they were. But the air freshener took care of that! ;-) It was a life saver...otherwise, I wouldn't have given her a foot massage, which I usually love to do because I love getting them myself.

Enough of people aroma! %-0

The worst smell of my early memory is Play Doh! That's why I stopped playing with it. I don't like the smell of freshly laid asphalt, either. It's worse in summertime than any other time of the year.

On the bright side, my favorite fragrance is my favorite perfume called Maja, from Spain. It was in the collection of my late favorite aunt, along with Chanel No. 5, which I also like, among others. But I like Maja best, after all these years. And I'm not even a perfume person unless I go out somewhere special, which isn't often.

I think the best smells are from food. :-) From food you love to eat!

My apartment sometimes smells like an international kitchen. When I first arrived nearly four years ago, it smelled like Chinese food on the first floor, Indian food on the second floor, and pizza on the third floor! I was so tempted to knock on their doors and ask what they were cooking because I was so hungry after unloading a Budget rental truck all day long--we're talking about moving STUFF from a three-bedroom house to a one-bedroom apt!

Probably good home-cooking aroma is closest to my heart. Homey Chinese food by my mom and family and relatives. Fresh seafood from my in-laws. Yummy!


I like to think of the good aromas, not the bad ones. That's one reason why I prefer winter over summer: you can't smell as much in winter! ;-D

******

YIN TO Yang

Some men live for a rose.
Some die for its scent.

No rose but withers, nor its scent lasts.

What does a man want from a woman?

Her face of rose?
Or her scent of a saint?

What is it
but her ways of Yin.

--Pwu Jean Lee

Cheers to the Moms of the World!

A mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart -- a heart so large that everybody's grief and everybody's joy found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation.

--Mark Twain

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, my mother in-law, and all the moms of the world! :-)

Mom. Ma. Mama. Mommy. Mother. I've called my mom all those and still do, to this day. "Mother" is used least; I might use it jokingly, but to my ears it sounds too formal and lacks warmth. She has done everything for me that society expects of a mom: fed, clothed, washed, and nursed me back to health the numerous time I was sick. She was always there to open the door for me when I walked home from elementary school, and walked home from the bus stop during my junior and senior high school (although I was allowed to have a key to the house by 8th grade or so and let myself into the house).

My mom has a good listening ear and loves to chatter on the phone. Like me. ;-) She has such a huge heart for a small person. It seems a lot people rely on her...even people whom I'm sure she'd prefer they not rely upon her all the time. This must mean they trust her as someone whom they can confide their troubles to.

She has always done her best to cheer me up when I've been blue, she cheers with me when I've done well, gives me advice from time to time on matters big and small, and is probably, generally, concerned about her youngest daughter's health and well-being in more ways than I can fathom.

This is not to say we didn't have rough spots along the way. But thankfully, there haven't been too many of those. ;-) I admire my mom for who she is and for what she has done for her family, despite difficult circumstances. I think my mom is one of the few people in the world who doesn't have one mean bone in her body.

My mil (mother in-law) has always been Mom to me. I love her dearly, too! Like my mom, she has a huge heart and it seems to me that over the years, many of her friends and acquaintances rely on her good listening ear. I doubt she has one mean bone in her body, either. She has always been loving and kind towards me, from the day we met. She often gives of herself to others, whether they are in need or not. She's a great friend to me and to her own friends. I wouldn't want any other mother in-law! :-)

Moms are cool! I often find myself drawn towards women who are moms. I don't know if it's because I'm on the east coast and my mom is on the west coast, but I do have many friends and acquaintances who happen to be moms.

I think I am drawn to moms because I generally admire mothers. They do SO much! They are SO underappreciated! There was a time in my life when I wanted nothing more than to be a mom. To bear my own baby. But since that didn't quite work out, I decided to make my life's work "my baby". Bear other fruit, as hubby would say. I still admire moms and cute and cuddly babies. ;-)

I've heard of "bad" mothers and mothers in-law over the years from friends. I lucked out. Big time. ;-) Ones who badgered and belittled their daughters for not getting "A"s in all their classes, or who loudly bemoaned the fact they only had daughters, not sons. Or mothers in-law who were meddlesome, opinionated, and/or described as "the Iron Lady" (to put it mildly!). That's just a short list! Since I did not know these women and perhaps only met a few of them on a few brief encounters during my school years, I cannot relate.

I can however relate with those friends when they expressed--sometimes bitterly, the profound disappointment that their mothers conveyed to them in whatever they had done wrong. With Asian friends, the sense of shame was present, without a doubt. If there is anything negative to be said about our Asian mommies, it's that they have elevated the expression of disappointment into a look that says: how could you shame me/the family/yourself like this?, to an art form! %-0

The first time I experienced the gravity of my mother's disappointment was when I got in trouble in 3rd grade for talking when the teacher was talking. My best friend tried to get my attention--not once, but twice, to stop talking. The third time, my teacher said my name, and not in the most pleasant manner!

Uh oh! Busted!

I had to write: I will not talk in class when the teacher is talking, on one of those big, beige-colored and blue-lined papers and fill the whole page up. And have my parents sign it.

Drum roll, please...!

Of course, I went to my mom first. I tried to plead with her to pu-leeeze not let Daddy see it. I was all too aware of what he might do; I was afraid of him. Please?! But she just gave me The Look. She looked at the paper, and then looked at me. A few times over. It was The Look, alright. "Why? How could you do this? I'm very disappointed in you! I think you need to show this to your father."

Aww, shucks! It didn't work. It was more my mother's LOOK, than what she said, that pierced me. I can't explain it now, nor could I then, but I was thinking I was a pretty clever girl and thought I could wrap my pop around my fingers by being humorous in some bizarre way. I folded up the paper, then asked him, "Daddy! Can I have your autograph?"

HAHAHAHA! %-0

That didn't work either. WWIII broke out in the form of his fury. He was so angry the paper shook in his hands. He yelled and cussed me out for what seemed like forever, but was probably about 15 minutes or so, demanding I never do such a thing again.

Well, I didn't do that again: talking in class while the teacher was talking. However, in 7th grade, I got caught writing on the wall! Red-handed. A classmate who I knew since 4th grade and with whom I shared a mutual hatred of each other, made fun of my teeny-bopper poster of a pop star in my locker and all his friends laughed along with him. I was SO angry with him! So I wrote on the wall: "I hate W--- I-------!" when along came an older man with a shiny bald head.

He boomed: "YOUNG LADY! You erase that right now or I'll have the front office call your parents". So I did. Oooh! He was scary. He said he'd let me off the hook this time, but if he caught me again...sorry, Charlie!

So he spared me The Look from my mother and my father's wrath. But, boy oh boy, I paid for it the following year: that big, gruff, bald man became my math teacher in 8th grade!! And my mom, who never once missed a parent-teacher conference in all my 12 years of school, met with him, too. I was hoping he wouldn't fib on my grafitti job--hoping he'd forget because he was an old guy (such age discrimination on my part!), and I believe he never did since I was always present with my mom on those parent-teacher evenings.

Enough of my delinquency! That's another thing about my mom: she never missed a beat when it came to my education. There were many times, especially as I got older, that I wanted her not to attend those parent-teacher evenings. Most especially in high school! I even asked her once or twice if she wouldn't mind skipping the evening, to which she looked at me disapprovingly and replied, "Of course I'm going!" And then she and I would go to school--and my classmates and I would exchange knowing glances as if to say: yes, we are forced to be here with our mothers...this is most certainly torture of the highest order! time to be raked over the coals! the inquisition! you got a B? oh, too bad...so close to an A! try harder next time! %-0

Funny how the number of mothers dwindled as years passed on. It was the norm in elementary school for our moms to show up on those all-important parent-teacher evenings. Then slowly, through junior high and then senior high, the presence of moms lessened. However, die-hard moms like mine--and especially of my Asian classmates, never failed to show up! Let us all share in this evening of embarrassment and torture under the microscopic lenses of our mothers, while they gang up on us with our teachers! %-(

Now, of course, we can all say, our moms loved us so much! A mother's love can manifest in ways we may never understand! %-)

I try to call my mom every week to see how she is. She is the kind of mom who has to live forever. I told her that, too. "If I'm 100 years old, you have to live to be 100 and....years!" I want my mil to be around when I'm old, too!

Mothers are an integral part of my life. My mom. My mom in-law. My friends who've been like moms to me over the years. My friends who are moms. They are excellent role models as moms and as women, in general.

I love them and I need them! :-)