A Few Days with Mom

The day she arrived we attended DJ’s school holiday trained-monkey show, featuring singing and acting by the whole school, in a borrowed church. In costume no less.

The following day, I went to work for a few hours, DJ went to school. My mother stayed home and insisted on vacuuming. Since I know this makes her feel useful, and she would not be offering it if she did not mean it, I allowed it. This is a woman who brought her own gloves.

While I was gone, she managed to accidentally let the dog out the front door… twice. It took ½ hour each time to get the dog back in. Then as she was cleaning near the entry, she heard a loud THUD and wouldn’t you know it, a bird mistook window for door. She picked up bird and caressed it, petting, it, keeping it warm. That lasted ½ hour as well. Being that she had to get back to her vacuuming, she put it outside. About ½ hour later, it was it still there, so she brought it back inside, petting and caressing and no doubt praying for its recovery. Another ½ hour and time to put it back outside. ½ hour later, she checked and it was gone. Cementing, I am sure, in her mind, her abilities as healer.

I was gone 4 hours. Quite an eventful morning.

In the afternoon we went shopping, DJ too. It was his first time shopping with my mom and he was blown away at her generosity. He came home with some cool clothes and a PS2 game.

I dropped them off at the restaurant and when I met up with them the first words out of her mouth were:
Mom: Did you park the car?
Me: [laughing] Are you really asking me that?
Mom: [she started laughing] Oh,,, I guess not.

The next morning I see DJ sewing up a rip in his new jeans.
Me: Oh, what happened? :(
DJ: [downhearted] It was my fault. I was doing my chores and dropped a huge rock. It ripped my jeans and cut my thigh.

Oh…there was nothing more for me to say. I didn’t want to rub it in and he totally got it. I gave him a hug and a kiss and complimented him on his sewing. He did a great job. I loved that he felt foolish, and that was it. He didn’t feel a need to hide this mistake or blame others. He took responsibility for it.

Later that day I straightened my mom’s hair with the ‘Ionic ceramic plate’ hair straightener we bought the day before. She loved it. We went to eat at RAW in Santa Monica. Since SM is far, far away, guaranteeing traffic, my mom began to tell me about the facial exercises she does in her car. I told her this was her chance! I was a captive audient, stuck in traffic, willing to do these facial exercises, with her as aerobic facial instructor.

She swears by these exercises as responsible for keeping her young looking. Not the other 20+ things she does… creams, vitamins, tonic sprays, sun avoidance, interventions, etc. I can’t help but feel that if I were in a different line of work, these exercises would come in handy.

RAW is a raw-food restaurant. There are no stoves. Imagine the savings in electricity and gas. Apparently that savings is passed down to the customer in the form of lots and lots of fresh orchids and tiger Lilly’s. It’s nice.

The hostess was also our waitress. Juliano was there, but busy in the kitchen or aloofly reading a book at the counter. Our waitress was pretty in a Keira Knightly way.

She was dressed very stylishly, which is required if you live and work in Santa Monica. Actually more than stylish, night-club-hot! Short, flirty opalescent sequined skirt-very low on the hips with a barely opaque yellow top that didn’t meet the skirt. Which on her meant that all the customers were at eye level with a 3-inch band of belly skin. Tight belly skin. Must be all that raw food. And cowboy boots. A pleasure to look at. There was a vibe about her… model. I think she took ‘Waitressing 101’ as we noticed that everyone’s order was ‘Excellent Choice”. The vibe she did not give off was one of actually caring.

The food was well done. Some things better than others. We ordered the Rawviolis- two thin slices of watermelon daikon with pinenut ‘cheese’ in between the layers. Topped with a red sauce. Mom had the ‘Fish and Chips’ which was pumpkin pulp with walnut butter, made into little patties that have been warmed. Served with coleslaw, tarter sauce and zucchini ‘fries’. I had the ‘Salmon Wrap’ which was more like mock tuna fish, with pickles. For dessert, I had the ‘Black Forest Mouse Torte’ which apparently, was the waitresses favorite. It had no layers, being more of a lump or scoop and was made with carob, instead of raw cocoa. My mistake.

Keira-look-alike-waitress: How was it?
Me: It reminded me that I don’t like carob.
KLAW: Oh…
Me: There was nothing in the description about carob, but that’s okay. It was mild. I’ll try to remember next time.

I would go back. I enjoyed being able to buy, already well prepared raw cuisine. Besides, I am dying to find out if the next thing I order will be considered an “Excellent Choice”

One of my pet peeves with the raw foodists is that they give their dishes regular names. For example the ‘fish’ my mom had. It wasn’t fish like at all. Pumpkin Walnut Loaf would have been a better name. Especially if your goal is to convert others, you don’t want to set up in their mind ‘fish’ when NOTHING about it is remotely fish-like. I have noticed that raw food pacesetters are eager to create a raw food dish that ‘replaces’ a cooked one. Probably so they don’t feel so left out.

We walked around 3rd street with its various live acts. Mom enjoyed that.

The next day we went to the spa and had salt scrubs. She really enjoyed that. I encouraged her to go in Vegas. Especially as it is so dry there. She vowed that she would look into it and take better care of her skin in that way. Me too. I vow to be better with moisturizer.

Later at home, I trimmed her hair and dyed it. We picked up an off the shelf, 100% gray coverage burgundy color dye. She tells me that the color she uses seems to fade and just doesn’t seem to cover the gray. We surmised it must be that she purchased the non-gray coverage box.

As her time is up, I tell her to add some water to lather, then rinse till clear. Add the pack of conditioner; wait 2 minutes, then rinse.
Mom: No shampoo?
Me: Shampoo?? No, no, no, no,no.
Mom: Oh, because at home, I shampoo 2x’s.
Me: What?? You have been shampooing the color out! No wonder your color wasn’t sticking!
Mom: Oh… you think so?
Me: YES!

She had a few more snippets of her life to tell me. My goal is to learn something new each time.

My Obachan…grandmother…was 63 when she died of lung cancer.
2 years before her death, her doctor said she had tuberculosis, and put her on penicillin. After a year, her ‘mass’ got bigger and it was then determined she had cancer. That was when she told her family. She kept it a secret for a whole year! No doubt hoping, praying and betting that it would get better and go away. It didn’t.

Obachan had long, straight hair. She wore kimonos exclusively until my mother was in the 4th grade. Every New Years Eve, she would go to the beauty salon, and have her hair made into Maru-mage style. Which is only for married women. Yes, there are/were such rules in Japan. Women who had this style had to sleep on a special pillow so as to not disturb the poof.

My mother tells me that she remembers her father, my grandfather, telling her that when he was little, Samarui, complete, with swords and chonmage hair walked the streets.

She tells me that when she was little, a car was such a rare site. More common was horse poop in the streets.

It was a good trip. I look forward to the next one. I’d like to get my hands on some old pictures. They may be with my mother’s stuff at my brother’s house on Oahu. I hope to get a chance in the springtime to visit.