*sigh*
By all the ancestors, my mother is an extremely frustrating and highly - and unintentionally - entertaining person to live with.
For the last month, my father and I have been trying to persuade her to go to the doctor. Swollen legs, headache, feeling generally overheated... not to mention her denial of the the mood swings and the sudden saltiness of our food. Father and brother decided she was menopausal. I thought she had mild heat stroke along with some other problems, considering that she had a hysterectomy when i was born and she's technically already been through menopause. But she never took the hormone treatments, and i dont know if that would affect her now or not. *Something* is wrong with her, that much we all agreed on. Even her.
Especially her. To a very melodramatic extent. She almost never gets sick, and when she does, that invariably lasts only one day. So when she *does* get sick or realize that something is not normal, she blows it all out of proportion, i.e. cancer, heart problems, tumors, and any other random and horrid sounding disease that she really doesnt understand but can pronounce with mild to relative difficulty.
At the beginning of this week, my dad announced that by the way, he'd scheduled an appointment for her, so she had a full four days to be absolutly nervewracking.
So we went to the doctor. Her blood pressure, like mine, is consistantly at around 90-something over 50-something. Imagine how worried she was when her first blood pressure reading was 130/80. And then the doctors decided to do all kinds of tests. So i had to sit with her while they filled up a bunch of those little tube thingies with blood. I actually refrained from trying to play with the things when the nurse wasn't looking, that should tell you how nervous she was.
And because of some hold up that they never fully explained, i wasn't just *late* for my voice lesson, i completely missed it. Grr.
Ok, so, the visit to the doctor is over, i thank the gods, and we go to church. And my mom is supposed to sing the special, which was a song she'd performed a hundred times with no problem. But tonight she's unusually nervous, skittish, and quite out of her mind. Then the choir goes up behind the pulpit, and mother and i happen to be on the front row, where she proceeds to very loudly ask me if i would please sing with her. The only time i have ever seen my mother give me those puppy dog eyes is when she got a regular cone instead of a waffle cone. Feh. So what could i say? At that point i think the my agitation levels were filled up and i really didnt have any choice but to find some humor in the situation. Or maybe her hysteria was just rubbing off on me, i'm not sure, but i was absurdly amused for the rest of the service.
On to today. We went the entire day with no remarkable incidents, which should have warned me. This afternoon, mother and i went to go dump off the trash. I remarked on her taking her entire three ton purse with her when all she
needed to carry was her driver's license, to which she snapped that one should *always* keep one's purse at hand. End of convo. Arrive at the trash dump. Because our SUV has the annoying habit of automatically locking after driving for a few seconds, had to unlock the vehicle before exiting. In between getting out of the front passenger's seat and getting to the rear door, everything locked again. Told mother to unlock the doors. She pushed some button and before i could try the door, mother shuts her door so no flies will invade the vehicle. Because mother has yet to figure out the difference between the 'lock' and 'unlock' ends of the buttons, we are left locked out of a running car at a trash dump and everything is locked inside it.
I was irritated; it was hot. Mother became unreasonably frantic and looked ready to cry, which amused me to no end. At that moment a lady drove up in a truck, and my little asian mother practially carjacked it to get to the house, yelling at me at the last minute to stay there and watch the car.
So i wait in some shade, wondering idly if i was supposed to be guarding the car with some rocks or branches or something when the truck pulls back up and mother is frantically poking at an extra remote key thingie. Which naturally doesnt work since the engine is running - and did i mention we had a full tank of gas? At this point the truck lady is beginning to look amused as well and tries to explain that she has a plane to catch but my mom runs back into her car and then asks her to please take her back home one more time. This time i managed to grab the mother and tell her what to do instead of running in the house and grabbing random keys. I managed to ask her why she didn't get my brother, to which she almost cried that he wasnt home. The lady drove off, leaving me yet agian alone by the car wondering at why my brother would have left so suddenly and not told us earlier of having any plans.
The second time she came back with my brother, in our own car i might add, and he had the sense to bring a cellphone. He actually was home, she just didn't see him. Or his car. Which she had to pass to get to the door of the house. But she didn't see it anyway. In the car, we wait for the father to call us back and my mother and brother yack in korean. I didn't pay attention to most of it, but when i did it pretty much amounted to
brother: Let's go home
mother: no! we have to stay here!
b:... why?
m: Someone might steal the car!
A minute later
*ringring*
b: (yack yack yack) Ok, well i'll go try to find it.
(lots of fast korean that i couldnt quite catch)
m: so she can stay here and we can go get it.
b: why does she need to stay?!
m: someone might try to steal the car!
me: wait, a second ago you were saying that we had to stay to protect the car, and then you're going to leave me here by myself *again*? I'm flattered that you think so highly of my abilities, but there's not much i can do with a bunch of rocks.
m: *glare* Thats not what i said.
me: yes you did. You're soo worried about thieves but you're perfectly willing to leave me here alone.
b: *snicker*
Twenty seconds later
m: okay, get out, we have to go home to get the key
me: ...
When the key worked, mother almost started crying.
I rode home with my brother, who was alternatingly chuckling to himself, rolling his eyes, or mumbling things about just how hopeless our family is.
Meh. So an hour after we set out with the simple intention of dumping off the trash, we make it back home with both vehicles sans the trash and a half tank of gas.
Tonight we may go see a movie. I am making certain that I have at least a few ancestor charms and a fully charged cell phone.
By all the ancestors, my mother is an extremely frustrating and highly - and unintentionally - entertaining person to live with.
For the last month, my father and I have been trying to persuade her to go to the doctor. Swollen legs, headache, feeling generally overheated... not to mention her denial of the the mood swings and the sudden saltiness of our food. Father and brother decided she was menopausal. I thought she had mild heat stroke along with some other problems, considering that she had a hysterectomy when i was born and she's technically already been through menopause. But she never took the hormone treatments, and i dont know if that would affect her now or not. *Something* is wrong with her, that much we all agreed on. Even her.
Especially her. To a very melodramatic extent. She almost never gets sick, and when she does, that invariably lasts only one day. So when she *does* get sick or realize that something is not normal, she blows it all out of proportion, i.e. cancer, heart problems, tumors, and any other random and horrid sounding disease that she really doesnt understand but can pronounce with mild to relative difficulty.
At the beginning of this week, my dad announced that by the way, he'd scheduled an appointment for her, so she had a full four days to be absolutly nervewracking.
So we went to the doctor. Her blood pressure, like mine, is consistantly at around 90-something over 50-something. Imagine how worried she was when her first blood pressure reading was 130/80. And then the doctors decided to do all kinds of tests. So i had to sit with her while they filled up a bunch of those little tube thingies with blood. I actually refrained from trying to play with the things when the nurse wasn't looking, that should tell you how nervous she was.
And because of some hold up that they never fully explained, i wasn't just *late* for my voice lesson, i completely missed it. Grr.
Ok, so, the visit to the doctor is over, i thank the gods, and we go to church. And my mom is supposed to sing the special, which was a song she'd performed a hundred times with no problem. But tonight she's unusually nervous, skittish, and quite out of her mind. Then the choir goes up behind the pulpit, and mother and i happen to be on the front row, where she proceeds to very loudly ask me if i would please sing with her. The only time i have ever seen my mother give me those puppy dog eyes is when she got a regular cone instead of a waffle cone. Feh. So what could i say? At that point i think the my agitation levels were filled up and i really didnt have any choice but to find some humor in the situation. Or maybe her hysteria was just rubbing off on me, i'm not sure, but i was absurdly amused for the rest of the service.
On to today. We went the entire day with no remarkable incidents, which should have warned me. This afternoon, mother and i went to go dump off the trash. I remarked on her taking her entire three ton purse with her when all she
needed to carry was her driver's license, to which she snapped that one should *always* keep one's purse at hand. End of convo. Arrive at the trash dump. Because our SUV has the annoying habit of automatically locking after driving for a few seconds, had to unlock the vehicle before exiting. In between getting out of the front passenger's seat and getting to the rear door, everything locked again. Told mother to unlock the doors. She pushed some button and before i could try the door, mother shuts her door so no flies will invade the vehicle. Because mother has yet to figure out the difference between the 'lock' and 'unlock' ends of the buttons, we are left locked out of a running car at a trash dump and everything is locked inside it.
I was irritated; it was hot. Mother became unreasonably frantic and looked ready to cry, which amused me to no end. At that moment a lady drove up in a truck, and my little asian mother practially carjacked it to get to the house, yelling at me at the last minute to stay there and watch the car.
So i wait in some shade, wondering idly if i was supposed to be guarding the car with some rocks or branches or something when the truck pulls back up and mother is frantically poking at an extra remote key thingie. Which naturally doesnt work since the engine is running - and did i mention we had a full tank of gas? At this point the truck lady is beginning to look amused as well and tries to explain that she has a plane to catch but my mom runs back into her car and then asks her to please take her back home one more time. This time i managed to grab the mother and tell her what to do instead of running in the house and grabbing random keys. I managed to ask her why she didn't get my brother, to which she almost cried that he wasnt home. The lady drove off, leaving me yet agian alone by the car wondering at why my brother would have left so suddenly and not told us earlier of having any plans.
The second time she came back with my brother, in our own car i might add, and he had the sense to bring a cellphone. He actually was home, she just didn't see him. Or his car. Which she had to pass to get to the door of the house. But she didn't see it anyway. In the car, we wait for the father to call us back and my mother and brother yack in korean. I didn't pay attention to most of it, but when i did it pretty much amounted to
brother: Let's go home
mother: no! we have to stay here!
b:... why?
m: Someone might steal the car!
A minute later
*ringring*
b: (yack yack yack) Ok, well i'll go try to find it.
(lots of fast korean that i couldnt quite catch)
m: so she can stay here and we can go get it.
b: why does she need to stay?!
m: someone might try to steal the car!
me: wait, a second ago you were saying that we had to stay to protect the car, and then you're going to leave me here by myself *again*? I'm flattered that you think so highly of my abilities, but there's not much i can do with a bunch of rocks.
m: *glare* Thats not what i said.
me: yes you did. You're soo worried about thieves but you're perfectly willing to leave me here alone.
b: *snicker*
Twenty seconds later
m: okay, get out, we have to go home to get the key
me: ...
When the key worked, mother almost started crying.
I rode home with my brother, who was alternatingly chuckling to himself, rolling his eyes, or mumbling things about just how hopeless our family is.
Meh. So an hour after we set out with the simple intention of dumping off the trash, we make it back home with both vehicles sans the trash and a half tank of gas.
Tonight we may go see a movie. I am making certain that I have at least a few ancestor charms and a fully charged cell phone.
posted by Deborah at 5:17:00 PM
