Might be fun, no promises.
“It feels like your wedding was ages ago,” my cousin said on the phone last night.
It does and it doesn’t. We’ve been stumbling back into real life, the first week a blur thanks to jet lag, and now, three weeks in, the muted “oh…” feeling has fully settled in: the realization that, after the wedding, nothing really changes about you or your spouse or your life unless you make it so. Continue reading “Don’t Blink”
On Friday afternoon I called to tell my father the good news.
“A full time offer,” he said, “Congratulations.” Continue reading “Big Company”
My dad puts marmalade on his turkey sandwiches. Continue reading “Chinese-American Dad”
Earlier this evening an old friend of my parents joined us for dinner at Grandpa’s house. My parents told her not to bring any dishes – Grandpa doesn’t each much and they’d cooked enough to ensure leftovers for at least two more meals – but Mrs. R– hopped in ten minutes late carrying a big pot of “lion head” meatballs and a smaller platter of stir-fried cucumber and sliced fish cakes. Continue reading “Little Children”
An essay I began back when I was unemployed.
My mother is worried.
“If you find a job,” she says, “Then you can get engaged soon after.” Continue reading “Marry Me, Maybe?”
A few days ago, my father sent the following email to myself and a handful of other people:
My father is the King of Email Spam, known throughout the whole family as the guy who grants every email equal attention, no matter what the message or who its sender. Continue reading “My Father, King of Spam and Inattention”
Most of my readers know my dad pretty well by now, either because you’re family, friends, or you’ve read my blog for sometime, in which my dad often appears. He’s incapable of crying and still, despite all my explaining, doesn’t understand why anyone would be interested in the stuff I write (“Why the hell would anyone want to read about your family?”), but he’s also a huge reason I am the way I am. Uncomplicated but not simple, the strong but far from silent type. Continue reading “K.T. Ho’s Thursday Thoughts”
My mother has a boyfriend.
“His name is José,” she says, slowing pulling the car into the parking lot of the golf club in the hills behind our house. We are headed for the driving range. “I wonder if he’ll be there today. He always drives up in his little maintenance cart and goes, ‘Ooooliviaaaaa! Ooooliviaaaa!’ And then he gives me free balls.”
“Why?”
She shrugs, “He just likes me a lot.”
Continue reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People Like My Mother Does”
My mom has a problem. Maybe it’s a motherly thing, where in conversations you let your daughter go on and on about her trip to London and Italy and then her weekend plans (to DC! For Tom’s nephew’s second birthday) and when she finally asks you how you’re doing, time is running short and you can’t say much so you just nod, “Fine, fine, everything’s good,” and then your daughter, being satisfied that she’s caught her mother up on her life and, it seems, vice versa, decides there really isn’t anything else to say so you both happily hang up.
Except my parents are now in Canada. Continue reading “My Parents Are in Canada”
My mother called today with some urgency in her voice. I braced myself. She has a tendency to begin good and bad news in the same ominous way: “I have something to tell you,” she said. Continue reading “An Update From My Mother”
