Never a bore. No time to snore.

That is life when my mom is present.
There is never a dull moment.
She is like a whirlwind that picks you and sweeps you off to some place you didn't expect to go and make life much more interesting.

I just realized I never wrote about what happened when my mother visited two months ago. Time flies!
From what I recall, I received an email on a Monday. She said she was arriving on the 14th. I thought "Yay! After all the confusion and drama, she's actually coming!". Then I glanced over at the calendar. If today is the 13th.... the 14th is TOMORROW!?! If the flight is 13 hours long she should be boarding today and is anyone going to send me any information? A flight number or general arrival time would be nice...

Tuesday also happened to be my final for my night course. She said no worries she'd take a shuttle to the hotel nearby. Around 3pm I received a call from my dad, in China, saying she changed her mind I should pick her up from the airport. After class I drove to SFO to pick her up. It was late. Her flight was early and she had already been in the states for 5 hours. My dad called to ask if I had found her. No luck. I paged her a few times and waited. After half an hour I received a call from my mom. She finally got a hold of a working phone and was already at the hotel. In my post-final, sleep deprived state I had failed to even consider checking my voicemails. Apparently, she had quite the adventure on a share van traveling the entire bay area before reaching the hotel. She walked to the nearest and purchase a phone card that was not working. Her hotel phone was not working either. The hotel staff were not terribly helpful. When I arrived the single person at the front desk, who I had just talked to on the phone 10 minutes earlier, was on the phone and in between bits of conversation, informed me she was off-duty and I would have to wait for the person with the next shift to arrive to answer any questions.

As a sighed a heavy sigh and almost fell asleep while standing, my mom stormed out of the elevator dragging all her luggage because her room phone was still non-functioning. Finally. Near midnight, we were finally reunited.

MORAL: Always check your voicemail. Even if no one ever leaves you voicemail. Check it. It could be the difference between driving 70miles and 7miles.


THAT was the first 7 hours with my mother.
Later that week she rented a car. She had Places to go, People to see, and Things to buy. One of those places was rainy Oregon. Some of those people were old Oregonian friends. Some of those things were half of Costco. Not really, just more than I've spent at Costco, ever. But I rarely venture into Costco. I usually stop by for the gas. If you are ever thinking of going somewhere for a shopping trip, Oregon has no sales tax. If you are like me and are not used to driving in rain, I recommend going during the summer.


RECENTLY, my incredibly active grandmother has taken a turn for the worst. She was a mountain climber. She climbed hundreds of mountains in Taiwan. Just a few years ago her daily walks around the neighborhood included carrying a backpack with books, not because she was going to school, but for the extra weight. Yes, she was that hardcore. Last year she had quite a great fall. Now she spends her days lying in a hospital bed. Off I go to see her.


I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving across the globe in a country where people seem to eat 10x more than Americans and never get any bigger. Wish me luck.