The RV

For some reason, more than 10 year ago, my mom decided to buy an RV. She had dreams of traveling around the States with her own traveling kitchen- despite the fact that the only RV vacation we had ever been on together was a disaster.

So we bought an RV.

The RV, parked outside our house.

The thing is, my mom never followed through on planning any trips in the RV. So it sat in our driveway for years. The furthest it's been driven is from our old house to our new house when we moved. So what do you do with an RV in your driveway?

First off, make sure you put cardboard under the wheels. In a pinch, cinder blocks or scraps of 2x4 would work too.

Next, I'm sure you were previously unaware, that unused RVs work very well as storage space. Which is precisely what the RV has become. A large, somewhat portable, storage unit that sits in our driveway.

Perfectly normal, right?

Lost in the Woods, Part 2

Remember that time when my mom got lost and ended up atop her "own" mountain? Well, undeterred, she still continued doggedly to train for her Mount Whitney summit bid. (Warning: long but funny story ahead with no photos- sorry!)

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It was well past bedtime (read: 11pm for this surgery resident) in Salt Lake City when I got a text from my dad in California.

DAD: Can you please call search and rescue. Your mom and I go on hiking she is not come back.

Huh?

I called, but he didn't pick up. I tried again. And one more time. Finally he picked up. He sounded frantic.

"Dad? What's going on?" I asked.

"Your mother!" He proceeded to tell me a long story about how "you know your mother!" She had picked out an 8-mile hike but they hadn't gotten to the trailhead until 4pm. She and my dad had headed out together, but again, because my dad hikes too slowly, my mom had ditched him and forged on ahead. Once it started getting dark, he had turned around and headed back to the trailhead, where he had waited for her for hours well after dark. Getting worried, he had tried to call for help, but didn't have any reception. He had driven several miles from the trailhead just to get reception to text me. He had tried to call my mom too, but either she didn't have reception either or her phone was dead. He wanted me to call Search and Rescue so he could head back up to the trailhead and wait, just in case my mom turned up.

"Okay, Dad. Where are you?" I asked.

He then proceeded to describe how they had gotten there, but couldn't tell me a name of a trailhead or any mile markings. I Google Map'ed the location he had mentioned, but couldn't see any marked trailheads or hikes on the map. But he said that one of my mom's hiking friends had told her about the hike. I called him back again, but he didn't pick up. He must have already headed back to the trailhead.

Sigh.

So remember Kay Maser from the previous story? Thankfully, her email signature had included a phone number. So I gave her a ring.

"Hi... is this Kay? My name is Alice. I'm Jan's daughter? I'm really sorry for calling so late..."

"Yes, this is Kay."

"So, my mom is still out hiking and my dad can't find her. He's been waiting for her at the trailhead for a while but doesn't have any reception. He said that somebody from her hiking group had told her about the hike? Would you happen to know where she is?"

"Yes, I suggested that she do The 8-mile Hike* today. What time is it? 11pm?! She's still out there???"

I explained how my parents had started off late again, how my mom had ditched my dad again, and how now my dad had been waiting for my mom for hours. Kay said that she would try to help. I got off the phone with her and began Googling the phone number for Search and Rescue in Southern California. No luck.

So I dialed 9-1-1. Sort of an emergency, right?

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"Hi, I need to reach Search and Rescue, but not in Utah. In the LA area? My mom is out hiking and she hasn't come back."

I got transferred back and forth, with all parties being confused as to exactly under whose jurisdiction my mother was located. Finally, I was on with Search and Rescue for the Wrightwood area and they said that they would dispatch a team to look for her. Kay had reached them too- the officer I was speaking with said that another woman was also searching for an Asian woman measuring about 5'4".

I had spent more than an hour on the phone, worried sick. My phone beeped, and I looked at it- another call from my dad. Telling the officer to hold, I took the call.

It was my mom on the phone.

"MOM?!?! Are you okay? Where's dad?"

"Dad is here, he is driving so I am on the phone."

"What? Where are you?"

"We coming down the mountain now in car."

"So Dad found you? You're okay."

"Yes, of course. He always so over-reacting."

"MOM, I CALLED SEARCH AND RESCUE THEY ARE HEADING OUT TO FIND YOU!!! ... Hold on."

I switched the call back to Search and Rescue. "Hi... sorry. That was my mom. She returned to the trailhead and she and my dad are heading home now. I'm really sorry for the trouble... could you please tell Kay that she is okay... Thank you so so much for your help. Yes. Um, thanks again. And sorry. Goodbye..."

I hung up, switched back to my mother and then proceeded to thoroughly berate her for worrying us sick, keeping me up half the night on the phone with Search and Rescue, and made her promise never, ever to do this again- and that if she were going to go hiking, that she needed to plan ahead and start early.

"Yes, yes yes. Next time, yes," she promised. "Your father, he always is over-reacting. No one need to Search and Rescue."

I banged my head against the wall a few times, thanked God that my mom was safe, and then finally went to bed.

*I unfortunately do not remember the name of the hike or trailhead. =(

The Chicken-y Cutting Board

My mom has been long forbidden to touch anything in my kitchen, for a variety of reasons going back since I was in college. So, when they come to visit, usually either myself or my sister is watching her like a hawk to make sure she isn't trying to do something like sneak vegetables into our soups or put my knives back without cleaning them.

One of these visits, I was preparing a chicken, sausage, and white bean soup. It's a great wintertime slow cooker recipe, and I was trying it for the first time. The ingredient list called for fennel, which was a vegetable I had never cooked with before.

The strange vegetable known as fennel.

Being most familiar with Asian cooking throughout childhood, this was an ingredient I had never cooked with before. Thankfully, my cookbook had thoughtfully included a section on how to prepare a fennel bulb for use. As instructed, I cut off my fennel bulb's leafy frondy stalks, and discarded them in the trash. I then took out another cutting board and cubed the chicken breast. As the chicken was browning, I took my chicken-y cutting board and knife and stuck them in the sink to be washed.

"Ach! What's this?" I then heard my mom exclaim. She was looking in the trash bin.

"What?" I asked.

"This! So much in trash- so wasteful!" She held up some fennel stalks, having picked them out of the trash.

"Mom, that's fennel. That part isn't edible. You can cook fish on top of them or use the leaves for seasoning, but I don't have any plans for that before they'd spoil," I explained. Puzzled by the prospect of throwing so much greenery away, I had looked it up myself before I had started cooking.

"Mmm..." she muttered.

I turned back to cooking, turning the chicken cubes to brown and adding in more vegetables. When I turned around again, my mom was on the other side of the kitchen with her fennel stalks, using my chicken-y cutting board and my chicken-y knife from the sink to cut the fennel stalks into pieces. And then sticking those pieces raw into her mouth.

"MOM!" I yelped. "You can't do that! I cut chicken on that cutting board with the knife!"

My mom looked up. "What? Why not?"

Incredulous, I asked, "Why not?! Haven't you heard of Salmonella?! You're going to get sick!"

"Nooo," she scoffed. "I have a strong immune system." She continued working at the fennel with the knife and putting pieces of it in her mouth.

"Mom..." I started.

"Ai, you worry too much," she interrupted me.

I sighed and continued cooking, thinking to myself that this was yet another reason why she was not allowed in the kitchen.

Salmonella! (Source.)

As a side note, she didn't get Salmonella. Lucky for her. Although in a perverse way, I wish she had, because then I WOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT!!! (But she would not have learned a lesson from it, because she is incapable of learning from life experiences...)

The Poopy Tomatoes, Part 3

Who'da thunk there would be a part three to this story? (See parts 1 and 2, here and here.)

My parents came to visit about a month ago, to see their new grandson and to spend the holidays. I was still on holiday break, but my husband had gone back to work already.

"See any interesting cases at work today?" my dad asked my husband.

"Not really..." my husband replied, but then told them about a twitter feed, @radiopaedia, that shows an interesting radiology finding once a day. Then he had an idea. He showed them this CT scan:

CT scan showing numerous cysts from cysticercosis. (eMedicine)

My parents were duly impressed. He explained that these cysts are from the pork tapeworm, Taenia solium.

Scolex of Taenia solium. Shudder. (Source.)

Humans become infected when they eat raw or undercooked pork. Infected hosts then shed ova in their stool, and when these ova are ingested, the parasite can then go to the brain and cause cysts which can then lead to seizures.  This parasitic infection is hence continued by the fecal-oral route since the tapeworm's eggs are in the infected human's feces.

Life cycle of T. soleum. (CDC)

"And that's one reason why you shouldn't fertilize with human feces," my husband concluded.

"But we don't eat pork," argued my mother.

"You don't have to. When somebody else eats contaminated pork, it's their feces that contain the parasite eggs. When you fertilize with feces, the eggs contaminate fruits and vegetables that are grown in that soil, and when you eat those fruits and vegetables, you can get the parasite."

"But the vegetables are on the plants, and the soil is on the ground."

My husband then pointed out that the ova can be spread simply by insects landing on the ground and then on the produce.

"It must be so rare. I have never seen this before."

"Actually, it's pretty common. And why would somebody who presents with acute seizures or severe headache and encephalopathy present to you?" my husband questioned. My mother has an outpatient Internal Medicine practice. "They are going to be in the ER being seen by neurology."

At this point, my dad started getting very concerned. "Maybe we should get CT scans to see if we have it."

"Well, we stopped fertilizing that way 6 months ago," my mom claimed.

"Doesn't matter," my husband said. "The soil is already contaminated."

"Well, how do we get rid of it?"

"I don't know. I'm not a farmer!" My husband sighed. "See, this is why I'm worried about bringing our son to your house in California. Also, it makes me concerned that you guys don't use soap to wash dishes, so all of the dishes are basically breeding grounds for bacteria."

"Oh, and soap kills bacteria?" my mom scoffed.*

Waaaiiiiit a second. Back up. Apparently my mom started a Hepatology fellowship, but then switched to Infectious Disease. Infectious Disease. Granted, she didn't finish the fellowship because she became pregnant with my little sister. Maybe they don't learn about parasites or the benefits of SOAP until the end of the fellowship, because my mother doesn't know about either!

My parents finally left later that evening, very disturbed and hopefully will never fertilize with human poop again. (I am still not going to eat anything from that garden though...)

*sidebar: technically, regular soap does not "kill" bacteria, but allows it to detach from our skin/dishes and then get washed off with water.

Lost in the Woods, or Mommy's Helicopter Ride

My mom is painfully goal-oriented. This is definitely an admirable trait, and is responsible for how my mother has gotten far in life. However, I would posit that she is goal-oriented to a fault. In 2012, she decided that she was going to climb Mount Whitney. I am not sure how she got this idea, but I think it started with a group of women at her church who decided to train for and climb Mount Whitney together.

Mount Whitney, photo from Wikipedia

So this story is difficult to tell, because I got all of my information about it in fragmented form, but it started with an email from my mom entitled "Fw: Mommy's Helicopter Ride" with this attached video:

Huh???

One day later, I got this email written by a Kay Maser* forwarded from my dad:

Fw: Another Story About Mommy's Helicopter Ride

So, it was brought to my attention that my message Tuesday evening seemed to have some urgency.  I meant to fill you all in, but the night became very late.   Sorry to keep you in the dark...

Yes, there was a sense of urgency in my message, but I was driving and trying to 'text' ... 

After missing a gathering for a hike and hikers being unwilling to wait due to impending darkness, Jan [my mom] (yes, our Jan) said she was on her way and would start up the trail, planning to meet us on our way down.

When we didn't cross paths, I'd assumed she decided against the idea.

After a stop at the grocery store, I returned home to find a text message from Jan.  The message had been sent nearly an hour before and requested that I call rescuers because she was stuck up on top of the mountain and couldn't get down. 

There I was calling the Sheriff's Search and Rescue, while trying to reach her husband to see if he'd heard anything... while driving like a bat out of hell back to the trailhead. Search and rescue members were already on the mountain and in communication by cell, her husband 

So - upon arrival, there was Jan's husband, Peter (who had been hiking part of the trail with her), a nice young man that assisted Peter back to the main trail when Jan ventured further, and Sheriff volunteers. 

A very exciting (and cold) evening which ended in Jan's personal helicopter ride from the top of 'her' mountain to a nearby park. 

Thanks Cathy, for the number (and offer to come join in the wait).  Thanks Carol T for the call and for letting everyone else know that I'd received the information. 

See you all next week when Carol F. leads us! 

Easter Blessings to all!

Kay Maser

So let's hit the high points, shall we?
1. My mom seems to be physically incapable of getting anywhere on time, so she misses the group meeting at the trailhead.
2. She ditches my dad because he hikes too slowly for her.
3. She gets lost.
4. She ends up at the top of a different mountain. (Or "her" mountain, as she referred to it when I called her about this fiasco.)
5. She can't get back down.
6. Search and rescue gets called.
7. And they have to rescue her by helicopter.

My. Mom. Is. Amazing.


*name changed for privacy reasons

The Chihuahuas

Winter 2008, I called home to tell my mom that I was going to drive up from San Diego to visit. "Oh good," she had said. "You can meet the dogs."

The dogs?!?!

Let me take a step back and explain. My parents don't understand having pets, mostly because they find that they have little utility and are expensive. To them, buying food for a pet to eat is akin to throwing money down the toilet. Although my sister and I did manage to beg our way into owning a few pets as children, pets were never viewed as part of the family. For instance, when our pet bunny got weird stuff in her ears, the solution was not to take her to the vet, but to "let her go." Since we lived up in the foothills, this really meant "let the coyotes or mountain lions eat her." As kids we didn't really understand this. Eventually, we did beg our way into owning two cats: one of which we still own. She lives at my parent's house, and my parents only begrudgingly care for her because we remind them to and cry if we come home and see her doing poorly.

So. Dogs. Completely out of character, and without months of begging from their children. I was perplexed.

"Dogs, Mom?!" I exclaimed. "Um... what type? How many?"

"Two of them. Small dogs."

"Two dogs?? Like, what breed? Are they mutts?"

"Oh, I don't know. But they are small."

"Why in the world did you guys decide to get dogs???"

"You know we have the groundhogs in the backyard. Bad. They ruin the lawn." This was true. Last time I was home, I had noticed the burrows and piles of dirt in the backyard. My mom had even had somebody drive a car back there so they could try to pipe exhaust into their tunnels to drive them out, but this hadn't worked. "A patient tell me a good way to get rid of groundhogs is to have dogs. They run across the ground and the sound scare the groundhogs away."

That's right, my mom had gotten dogs because she wanted to get rid of groundhogs.

I came home to visit, and discovered that my mom had gotten two yappy, mean, and obnoxious Chihuahuas.

Unfortunately, not the actual Chihuahuas. The ones they had looked meaner.

Where had she gotten them from? Apparently, somebody was giving them away at the park. And where were they staying? In the pool house. (This was before the pool house was being rented to the Tent Person.) When I was home, I went by the pool house to meet the dogs. It was the middle of the winter in California, which isn't cold by any sort of standards, but definitely is cold for two short-haired Chihuahuas living in a poorly insulated structure without heat. Or blankets, for that matter. The two pitiful dogs were shivering in a kennel placed on the cold cement floor. And my poor cat was terrified of them and was nowhere to be found.

My sister and I told my parents that this was a terrible idea and that if they were going to have dogs, they ought to take care of them. We then left after the weekend, and the next time I visited home, the dogs were gone. I didn't ask any questions.

Finally, a few years later, I found out that my mom was getting her hair done and her hairdresser mentioned that her children wanted dogs, so she had given them away.

"Better than your dad's idea," she told me, "to drive somewhere and drop them off far enough away so they can't find their way back."

The Poopy Tomatoes, Part 2

I never thought that there would be second part to this story. But then I asked my sister to take pictures of various things when she went back home to LA, and returned with these photos:

White, plastic material?

Laying around in the dirt?

DIAPERS, perhaps?!

That's right folks, apparently they aren't putting them in a pot, punching holes into the pot, and burying them in the ground. My mom is just putting my grandma's dirty diapers on top of the dirt in her garden, spraying them off, and letting them decompose there. You know, quickly, like plastic does.

I AM SO GLAD I DIDN'T EAT THOSE TOMATOES!!!

Sun Goddess

My mom went skiing this past week, and when she showed me pictures of herself, I was a little confused.

"You're wearing a sun hat? Where's your helmet?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm wearing my helmet too. See?" she pointed out her helmet perched on top of her sun hat.

"Mom, why do you need a hat? Aren't you wearing goggles? Wait, where are your goggles??"

"I am wearing goggles, they are right here," she pointed to her goggles slung around her neck.

"Wait, so your goggles are under your helmet? How does that even work???"

"Oh, it's good. It works well."

My husband then pointed out to my mom that if she can fit a sunhat AND her goggles under her helmet, then her helmet doesn't fit correctly. Which explains why she always hurts herself when she falls and hits her head while she's skiing. Awesome. But then I wonder... my mom is always telling me (and her patients) to go out in the sun without sunblock on to get enough vitamin D. To which my husband and I always tell her that that is bad medical advice because sun exposure without sunblock causes skin cancer and wrinkles. So she refuses to wear sunblock because she wants to get more sun, but she wears a ridiculous sun hat under her helmet to avoid sun. Hmm...

Anyways, somebody please design a ski helmet with a wide brimmed visor so Asian moms can ski and maintain their porcelain complexions- even if they won't wear sunblock and are still trying to get more sun in order to increase their vitamin D levels.

What Not To Wear

When I was in medical school, I submitted my mom and myself to the TLC television show, What Not To Wear. Like nearly every Asian American kid I knew, I was terribly embarrassed by how my mom dressed. And compared to the people I saw on What Not To Wear, I knew my mom would blow them out of the park. Plus, I was in med school and about to become a professional myself, and didn't have anywhere near a professional wardrobe, so I suggested to the show's producers that they could run a mother/daughter episode featuring both of us.

Like most immigrant mothers, my mom is incredibly frugal, especially with clothing. The problem with my mom is that she can't resist a great deal- and she has NO idea how clothing is supposed to look on her. In addition, comfort is key (more on that later), so she likes to wear clothing that is meant to be form-fitting at least 2 sizes too large.

At any rate, I never heard back from the show's producers, BUT yesterday I did get some choice photos of her outfit!

This is what my mom wore when she went to the mall with us yesterday.

I think my mom is saying something about something being strong here.

 Let's take a closer look at her idea of matching fabrics.

This was a shimmery sheer material.

This was another shimmery sheer material.

If that wasn't bad enough, my husband then pointed out that my mom's skirt was SEE-THROUGH. Basically the material was so lightweight and cheap that even with the slip included with the skirt, when she was backlit, you could see ALL THE WAY UP her legs. Oh my.

However, the icing on the cake was when she pulled this vest out of her purse and put it on top of it all.

Mom putting on her vest.

Yes, a synthetic, vinyl appearing, ill-fitting vest. My sister reports that my mom was bragging that she got this vest for cheap at a local thrift shop. I have a suspicion that my parents went to Deseret Industries, where my sister reports they spent $150 on what I suspect is a lot of junk. (My mom did discover some LED candles, which she then bought and brought over to our house to show us. I'm not sure why.) Oh, but back to the vest. Let's take a closer look!

Yes, those are laser cut polka dots.

So, since we were at the mall, and the baby was blessedly asleep, we went to J.Jill and bought my mom some new clothes. I wish I had a picture of her new outfit, but when she came out of the dressing room, my husband exclaimed, "Wow! She looks like a normal person now!" I burst out laughing and people in the store started staring at me.

She then accidentally sent a text message meant for just my father to myself, my sister, my husband, my two sister-in-laws, and my parents-in-law saying:

Miss you Honey, they are the fashion police and help me buy one pant, one sweater and one small jacket .

Our Wedding Day

This is apparently my husband's favorite story about my parents. You can judge whether or not it deserves that status; I for one don't find it particularly amusing or even unusual, given what I know about my parents.

My husband and I got married nearly 4 years ago. A good friend of mine was our wedding planner, and he had a very neat spreadsheet outlining the schedule for the day. Since it was an Asian wedding, after all, we scheduled the ceremony to start 15 minutes after we told guests to arrive in order to account for the well known Asian time phenomenon. The bridal party, however, met much earlier for pictures and such at the wedding site.

Taking pictures before the wedding!

Then, about 15 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start, all of us went to freshen up and hide in our getting-ready-room. My parents hadn't arrived yet, but it was still early. Then 4-o'clock came by, the time what we had asked our guests to arrive. Still no parents. We called and texted to no avail. My husband was incredulous: who is late to their own daughter's wedding?! My wedding planner was frantic. Myself? I shocked both my sister and myself by not being surprised at all and remaining calm. Heck, it's my wedding- it'll start when we're ready, right?

As time passed, we started feeling sorry for our guests, left outside waiting for the wedding to start in the March California sun. Maybe they were thinking that one of us had developed last minute cold feet! Finally, at 4:30, my parents showed up, offering no apologies. Apparently, my demented 80+ year old grandmother didn't want to come to the wedding, so they were late trying to get her to leave the hotel. Why hadn't they called or returned our texts? Who knows.

Daddy getting his boutonniere pinned on by yours truly.

My dad got his boutonniere, we took some last minute hurried pictures, and we got things rolling. Really late, but at the end of the day, we were happily married and had one more funny story to tell.