From my journal, Feb. 3, 1986
Mum spent almost $500 on herself! She bought an electronic typewriter. I went down to help her figure out how to use it. After we booted it up, she was afraid it would damage the memory card to have it in the machine while we weren't using it so she pulled it out. All the instructions warn not to pull out the memory card while the machine is on.
I knew right away the $45 card could be shot. I turned off the typewriter, inserted the card, turned it on again, tried to name, store and retrieve files. Nothing.
So today she carried typewriter-cum-memory card from her apartment in downtown Long Beach to her (current) car to take it in and see if anything was damaged. She and her dog Miracle were three blocks from home before she realized she had left the typewriter sitting on the curb. By the time she drove back, of course, it was gone.
She was in a dither the rest of the day--notified police, typewriter shops, pawn shops, the local newspaper. She was so mad at herself.
I had to laugh. She's had the thing a week and she's already wiped out the memory card and lost the typewriter. Either mistake could have happened to anyone--but they both would have to happen to Mum.
"You didn't really want a high-tech typewriter anyway," I said.
"I loved that typewriter," she mourned.
Feb. 11, 1986
After three days of fasting and prayer, Mum wrote off her typewriter and has gone on with her life. Two Japanese journalists who were coming to write a book with her arrived with 20 ribbons for her no-longer-extant machine.
Mum picked up the two at LAX. She had to go by bus because her car was being fixed so I drove her to the bus stop. Before we left her apartment I pointed out that one of her burners was on, with an empty kettle sitting on it, and she set her purse down on a chair to go turn the burner off and then didn't know where she'd left her purse. We went outside and she had to drop something off at the apartment building next door. Miracle, who was to come with us, trotted after her. Mum came back, Miracle didn't. Mum was getting into the car when I reminded her about the dog.
At the bus stop she talked about rose cuttings while I kept a nervous eye out for thugs and pickpockets--despite having her purse stolen twice, she had an open purse over her arm and was totally oblivious to the men lounging nearby. How the Lord does look after her! I guess in part He uses others in her life--like me--to do the surveillance for her.
April 11, 1986
The latest on Mum's typewriter. After the first one was stolen, she bought a cheaper model but she was already spoiled by the delay feature, enabling her to correct a line of text before it is typed onto the paper, so she traded up to another machine of the original model.
She was pecking along on it when she smelled burning. The words on the screen were just what she had typed but when she looked at what was showing up on the paper, she saw a page full of gobbledegook--random letters, numbers and punctuation marks. She pulled the plug right away and took it back to the store. It's still on warranty so the salesman promised to fix it but (of course) the computer people there all said they had never seen anything like this problem before.
They should have seen Mum and the exploding wheat germ.
Today I am thankful for family.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
MUM: She never learned
Mum never seems to learn from experience, like other people.
Most women who have to walk along the streets of Los Angeles try not to do so at night. They walk briskly, alert to their environment, their purse clutched tightly under one arm. They hold their car keys in their hand as they were taught in self-defense class, with one key inserted between two fingers to serve as a weapon if necessary.
Mum walks anywhere anytime. She may be out late at a Bible study, so when she gets back to her apartment all the parking spaces along her street are filled and she may have to park blocks away and walk back.
She walks briskly, totally unaware of her environment, her purse and several plastic sacks of donations to a garage sale or thrift shop dangling from her arm. If she passes a man lounging against a building or a transient sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, she gives them a vague smile.
If she hadn't been mugged, violently, so several bones were broken as her purse was stolen, one could say, "She doesn't know any better." Assault has a way of educating the rest of us. Pain makes us fearful and theft makes us angry and invasion sharpens our senses so we can never again park where we were attacked or note a person who resembles our perpetrator without becoming guarded and uneasy.
I have never seen this tendency in Mum. Con men have confused her out of money from the church coffers when they came in off the street and asked for change. Women who posed as down-and-outers have used her sympathy to "borrow" money which they pass on to shadowy boyfriends in the wings. She never learns.
She never lets a bad experience harden her or teach her suspicion or prejudice or become an excuse for not meeting the next--maybe legitimate--need to come along. I don't think she even consciously works to overcome the natural withdrawal the rest of us feel when betrayed or used or insulted. Each experience is separate. Each person is unique to her.
"'Wise as a serpent!'" I keep telling her. "You've got 'harmless as a dove' down pat. Now you need to work on being 'wise as a serpent.'"
But I know it's useless.
I could understand how a 71-year old woman could be naive if she had led a sheltered life, in the bosom of her family and youth group. I could understand how a large, powerful, assertive woman, armed with muscle and anger, could walk where she pleased without fear and dare the muggers to make her day. I could understand how a woman who is thick-skinned and impervious to slights and abuse could "take it" day after day.
But by what short circuit in her emotional make-up, by what missing chromosome in her DNA is Mum deeply sensitive without learning from experience how risky it is to open up to strangers on a bus, to take in homeless women, to reach out to hurting men? What is it that makes her rise from betrayal to answer the door again? To seek out another refugee, still exhausted from the process of getting the last one integrated into society? To take on another motherless young person and build faith and self-confidence into her over the months?
"I've done my share," she is supposed to say. Like the rest of us, she is supposed to weary and become disillusioned by ingratitude and insatiable demands. "I'll toss off a token get-well card or a very small donation now and then--or even drive her one way if it isn't too far and if it's only this once. But it's really someone else's turn."
What is it that prevents her from learning not to care?
(Written in 1986.)
Today I am thankful for memories.
Most women who have to walk along the streets of Los Angeles try not to do so at night. They walk briskly, alert to their environment, their purse clutched tightly under one arm. They hold their car keys in their hand as they were taught in self-defense class, with one key inserted between two fingers to serve as a weapon if necessary.
Mum walks anywhere anytime. She may be out late at a Bible study, so when she gets back to her apartment all the parking spaces along her street are filled and she may have to park blocks away and walk back.
She walks briskly, totally unaware of her environment, her purse and several plastic sacks of donations to a garage sale or thrift shop dangling from her arm. If she passes a man lounging against a building or a transient sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, she gives them a vague smile.
If she hadn't been mugged, violently, so several bones were broken as her purse was stolen, one could say, "She doesn't know any better." Assault has a way of educating the rest of us. Pain makes us fearful and theft makes us angry and invasion sharpens our senses so we can never again park where we were attacked or note a person who resembles our perpetrator without becoming guarded and uneasy.
I have never seen this tendency in Mum. Con men have confused her out of money from the church coffers when they came in off the street and asked for change. Women who posed as down-and-outers have used her sympathy to "borrow" money which they pass on to shadowy boyfriends in the wings. She never learns.
She never lets a bad experience harden her or teach her suspicion or prejudice or become an excuse for not meeting the next--maybe legitimate--need to come along. I don't think she even consciously works to overcome the natural withdrawal the rest of us feel when betrayed or used or insulted. Each experience is separate. Each person is unique to her.
"'Wise as a serpent!'" I keep telling her. "You've got 'harmless as a dove' down pat. Now you need to work on being 'wise as a serpent.'"
But I know it's useless.
I could understand how a 71-year old woman could be naive if she had led a sheltered life, in the bosom of her family and youth group. I could understand how a large, powerful, assertive woman, armed with muscle and anger, could walk where she pleased without fear and dare the muggers to make her day. I could understand how a woman who is thick-skinned and impervious to slights and abuse could "take it" day after day.
But by what short circuit in her emotional make-up, by what missing chromosome in her DNA is Mum deeply sensitive without learning from experience how risky it is to open up to strangers on a bus, to take in homeless women, to reach out to hurting men? What is it that makes her rise from betrayal to answer the door again? To seek out another refugee, still exhausted from the process of getting the last one integrated into society? To take on another motherless young person and build faith and self-confidence into her over the months?
"I've done my share," she is supposed to say. Like the rest of us, she is supposed to weary and become disillusioned by ingratitude and insatiable demands. "I'll toss off a token get-well card or a very small donation now and then--or even drive her one way if it isn't too far and if it's only this once. But it's really someone else's turn."
What is it that prevents her from learning not to care?
(Written in 1986.)
Today I am thankful for memories.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Mum's Anatomy
My mother had her own way of describing our anatomy when we were little.
Eyes were peepers. If they were dark eyes, especially if they were on
children, she'd refer to them as "shoebutton eyes"--even though I'm sure
she had never had to button up her shoes any more than we had.
Our ears were always "shell pink ears," which I imagine is some literary allusion. She would whisper her best secrets into our shell pink ears.
There was a certain place she liked to kiss which would make us giggle. She called it our "gubby." I'm not sure why. I asked Tim and Ted whether the gubby is the back of the neck or the base of it. The base of the neck makes more sense to me but I'm pretty sure it was the back.
Tim says it's the side: "She'd nuzzle you in the piece of neck between your cheek and your shoulder from behind and you'd oonch around with your jaw and your inner shoulder and sort of pretend resistance, it's not just anatomical, it's a whole behavior, like Peekaboo. I bet Mbuti have gubbies."
When we choked while eating, instead of saying we had swallowed something "the wrong way," she'd say it "went down our Sunday throat." I don't remember what she said if we choked on Sunday.
Our hearts had cockles which could warmed or pleased.
Hands were "hannypankers." It took Jerry to break it to me that that word isn't German. I always thought it was. When she wanted us to spread our fingers, maybe so she could wash the jam off them, she would tell us to "make starfish."
Then of course the elbow was our "funny bone" and our littlest fingers were our pinkies.
The parts of our anatomy all came into play when she gave us a bath. She had us close our peepers while she washed our shell pink ears, had us make starfish so she could scrub our pinkies and when she had scrubbed us all over she said we were wearing our "soapy suit."
When we were all clean she would reward us with a kiss in our gubby.
Today I am thankful for the 45 years I had with my mother. She left this life on February 11, 1990. She would have been 96 this year.
Our ears were always "shell pink ears," which I imagine is some literary allusion. She would whisper her best secrets into our shell pink ears.
There was a certain place she liked to kiss which would make us giggle. She called it our "gubby." I'm not sure why. I asked Tim and Ted whether the gubby is the back of the neck or the base of it. The base of the neck makes more sense to me but I'm pretty sure it was the back.
Tim says it's the side: "She'd nuzzle you in the piece of neck between your cheek and your shoulder from behind and you'd oonch around with your jaw and your inner shoulder and sort of pretend resistance, it's not just anatomical, it's a whole behavior, like Peekaboo. I bet Mbuti have gubbies."
When we choked while eating, instead of saying we had swallowed something "the wrong way," she'd say it "went down our Sunday throat." I don't remember what she said if we choked on Sunday.
Our hearts had cockles which could warmed or pleased.
Hands were "hannypankers." It took Jerry to break it to me that that word isn't German. I always thought it was. When she wanted us to spread our fingers, maybe so she could wash the jam off them, she would tell us to "make starfish."
Then of course the elbow was our "funny bone" and our littlest fingers were our pinkies.
The parts of our anatomy all came into play when she gave us a bath. She had us close our peepers while she washed our shell pink ears, had us make starfish so she could scrub our pinkies and when she had scrubbed us all over she said we were wearing our "soapy suit."
When we were all clean she would reward us with a kiss in our gubby.
Today I am thankful for the 45 years I had with my mother. She left this life on February 11, 1990. She would have been 96 this year.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Update from Laria (now 12)
Hello. I saw the blog about me you posted on the internet today. By the way,
that time I taped feathers on myself and ran around the house I was very
disappointed afterward because someone (I forgot if it was Mama or Papa) told
me that birds have hollow bones and that I couldn't fly no matter how fast I
ran. I knew it would take a couple of years to figure out how to make my bones
so that I could fly.
I remember that you wanted to know what I am interested in these days. I like math, science (especially physics) and art. I am in algebra and I like it, but I find more complicated concepts like infinity and imaginary numbers more. Today I said that infinity isn't one number. It's going on forever but not all infinities are the same because if you have 2+2+2 forever the answer will be infinity but if it's 4+4+4 forever it will be a "greater" infinity. It's like a linear equation, that goes on forever in both ways. It really depends on the slope to say how big the infinity is even though they are all infinity. I've actually been trying to say that for most of my life, but I didn't know about graphs and linear equations to explain it.
I am in a nation-wide contest for NASA about making a water-purification system. It is very fun, and my group has created an effective distillation system and filter. Now it's mostly about putting it together and testing the results.
I still keep thinking about some of the things I thought about when i was little, like every moment running away and how everyone thinks they are the only "I". It gets more and more complicated, though, the more I think about it.
Laria
I remember that you wanted to know what I am interested in these days. I like math, science (especially physics) and art. I am in algebra and I like it, but I find more complicated concepts like infinity and imaginary numbers more. Today I said that infinity isn't one number. It's going on forever but not all infinities are the same because if you have 2+2+2 forever the answer will be infinity but if it's 4+4+4 forever it will be a "greater" infinity. It's like a linear equation, that goes on forever in both ways. It really depends on the slope to say how big the infinity is even though they are all infinity. I've actually been trying to say that for most of my life, but I didn't know about graphs and linear equations to explain it.
I am in a nation-wide contest for NASA about making a water-purification system. It is very fun, and my group has created an effective distillation system and filter. Now it's mostly about putting it together and testing the results.
I still keep thinking about some of the things I thought about when i was little, like every moment running away and how everyone thinks they are the only "I". It gets more and more complicated, though, the more I think about it.
Laria
LARIA : The "I's" of Laria are upon us (2 of 2)
Psychology and Dream Interpretation.
3-27-02 An example of Laria's dreams at the age of 3: "I dreamt that Papa and I went for a walk. He carried a remote control that made all the trees grow so tall, the houses spring colors, and all the weird little creatures living inside (the remote) jump out into reality."
4-3-02 (Laria would turn four on the 28th.) Sing-yi writes, "Today I told Laria about Freud, dreams, psychoanalysis. About doctors not of the physical body but of the human heart. That's what psychologists are called in Chinese--doctors of the heart. I told her I had studied to be a clinical psychologist. Like Freud. I interpreted one of her dreams, about a tiny bus flying up to the skies to fool around with cassette tapes there: [it was] her little brother Vyron crawling into the living room to mess around with our tapes (this being a daily obsession with him just because he has been forbidden to do so).
Biology.
4-22-02 (Laria was still six days short of her fourth birthday)
Laria: I don't know if it's because of Papa's DNA or what, or maybe it's just him, but every time he gives me a present he doesn't wrap it first.
Time.
Laria: Why does every "now" turn into "just now"? Why does it have to always, always keep becoming "before"?
Sing-yi: You don't want the present to turn into the past?
Laria: I don't like it always running away like that.
Mathematics.
8-29-02 (4 years, 4 months) Ted: A couple of days ago Laria and her dolls were holding an extensive birthday party. I asked whose, and Laria said it was her second birthday. I told her that I distinctly remembered already giving her a second birthday party, and she said, "But I get two." She thought about it a moment and added, "And four fourth birthdays, and ten tenth birthdays, and infinity infinitieth birthdays. . ."
(So, asked her dad, where are the other 63 birthdays I've got coming this year, huh?)
Theology.
3-4-03 (4 years, 10 months)
Laria: Mama, God just informed me that yesterdays are today's secrets.
(When told this, Ted asked Laria how the information arrived, by letter, e-mail, phone--? She said, "Words in my ear." "Did God sound like a man or a woman?" She answered right off, "Like a lion!" NOTE: This was before she knew about Aslan.)
Philosophy: the self.
4-17-03 (Eleven days before her 5th birthday) The subject heading of Ted's letter is 'The ''I's" of Laria are upon us.'
Laria: Mama, I've been thinking about something for a very long time. I keep wondering why I am "I," and I'm not you, or somebody else. Why is that? I've really been thinking about that. I don't quite know how to say this right, but I feel that I am the world's "I," even though I know that everybody else feels and thinks that they are "I" too. But my heart tells me that I am the world's only "I."
Today I'm thankful for Laria, designed in the image of her creative Father.
3-27-02 An example of Laria's dreams at the age of 3: "I dreamt that Papa and I went for a walk. He carried a remote control that made all the trees grow so tall, the houses spring colors, and all the weird little creatures living inside (the remote) jump out into reality."
4-3-02 (Laria would turn four on the 28th.) Sing-yi writes, "Today I told Laria about Freud, dreams, psychoanalysis. About doctors not of the physical body but of the human heart. That's what psychologists are called in Chinese--doctors of the heart. I told her I had studied to be a clinical psychologist. Like Freud. I interpreted one of her dreams, about a tiny bus flying up to the skies to fool around with cassette tapes there: [it was] her little brother Vyron crawling into the living room to mess around with our tapes (this being a daily obsession with him just because he has been forbidden to do so).
Biology.
4-22-02 (Laria was still six days short of her fourth birthday)
Laria: I don't know if it's because of Papa's DNA or what, or maybe it's just him, but every time he gives me a present he doesn't wrap it first.
Time.
 |
| Laria dancing (4 years, 3 months). Costume and choreography by Laria. |
Sing-yi: You don't want the present to turn into the past?
Laria: I don't like it always running away like that.
Mathematics.
8-29-02 (4 years, 4 months) Ted: A couple of days ago Laria and her dolls were holding an extensive birthday party. I asked whose, and Laria said it was her second birthday. I told her that I distinctly remembered already giving her a second birthday party, and she said, "But I get two." She thought about it a moment and added, "And four fourth birthdays, and ten tenth birthdays, and infinity infinitieth birthdays. . ."
(So, asked her dad, where are the other 63 birthdays I've got coming this year, huh?)
Theology.
3-4-03 (4 years, 10 months)
Laria: Mama, God just informed me that yesterdays are today's secrets.
(When told this, Ted asked Laria how the information arrived, by letter, e-mail, phone--? She said, "Words in my ear." "Did God sound like a man or a woman?" She answered right off, "Like a lion!" NOTE: This was before she knew about Aslan.)
Philosophy: the self.
4-17-03 (Eleven days before her 5th birthday) The subject heading of Ted's letter is 'The ''I's" of Laria are upon us.'
Laria: Mama, I've been thinking about something for a very long time. I keep wondering why I am "I," and I'm not you, or somebody else. Why is that? I've really been thinking about that. I don't quite know how to say this right, but I feel that I am the world's "I," even though I know that everybody else feels and thinks that they are "I" too. But my heart tells me that I am the world's only "I."
Today I'm thankful for Laria, designed in the image of her creative Father.
Monday, February 7, 2011
FAMILY: Laria, scary smart (1 of 2)
 |
| Ted, Sing-yi, Laria (about 3-1/2) and baby brother Vyron. |
Laria is my brother Ted's daughter, now 12. Ted is the brother who taught himself to read--upside down--when he was two. His wife Sing-yi (Shing-ee) is no intellectual slouch, either.
Ted started e-mailing me Laria's comments when she was at the age most kids are starting to form a word or two, maybe "Mama" or "blanky."
Here's what he wrote on 9-14-2000: "The other day she came running to me, bright eyes, big smile, her two thumbs and index fingers touching to make something like a diamondish circle.
"'Colosseum!'" Laria was then two years old (29 months).
Even "circle" or "triangle" would have been precocious. But Colosseum!
Chemistry.
Ted, in same e-mail: "I was thinking of fixing one of her broken toys. She brought her Play-Doh over and told me to use it to stick the pieces together. I said Play-Doh wouldn't work. She replied 'Because their molecules will break easily.'"
See the thing is, it isn't just that Laria picked up words early and amassed a phenomenal vocabulary. At two, she was grasping concepts of things like time and space, cause and effect, real and imagined--
--in two languages! Her mother speaks to her in Chinese. Ted wrote me (1-31-01), "Her English is about as far along as her Chinese was a year ago." (i.e., at 1 year, nine months!) "She doesn't use 'I' in either language, but she does use 'Laria' for herself in English. In Chinese she calls herself 'you.' I find this weird but Sing-yi isn't troubled by it."
Numbers.
Same letter: "(Laria) counts up to forty in Chinese, to twenty in English, adds any number up to a sum of ten, and writes "HAPPY". . . backwards. Is this normal for 32 months?"
It was obviously normal for her. There is no sense comparing our own children and feeling jealous or inferior. Laria is to other children intellectually as a budding Olympic champion is to them physically. She's in her own category.
Aeronautics.
On 2-4-02 (3 years, 10 months) Ted wrote, "Two days ago Laria was running wildly through the house for quite a while. "I want to fly," she gasped. "How fast does a plane run before it flies?" Then she vanished to her art table for a long time. When she came back, she resumed running. She had taped dozens of feathers to every part of her clothes. Around and around she sped. Poor kid. She deserved to fly."
Effect of the rotation of the earth on progression of time.
One day her mother was describing to Laria what bellows were, and what they did. Laria wanted to see some bellows. Sing-yi explained she didn't know where they could see some, even in an antique store, because they hadn't been used in so many years. Laria said quite matter-of-factly, "We should turn the earth the other way."
"Huh?" (I'm not sure what "Huh" is in Chinese but that's what Ted wrote.)
"We should make the earth turn the other direction until it's back to the bellows time and get some bellows. And then we should lock it, so it won't change again. And we should lock it in the daytime, so we won't have to ever sleep."
Some of us adults never reach the point of being able to grasp and play with concepts like that.
Today I am thankful for imagination.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Watch Allen's hummingbird babies in their nest--live
I'm watching phoebeallens.com. These babies are a week or two ahead of our Anna's twins.
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