Big Head Shrimp - Part II

Got to the clerk's desk... confessed my sins... and she said, "That's ok. So you're here to make up?  Here you go."

That was it... no lecture.  No steely cold eyes staredown.  Nothing. 

I guess this happens more often than not....

Phew.... and was dismissed by 10AM.  Hoo-rah!!

Big Head Shrimp

I forgot to check my Jury Duty Schedule yesterday.  Turns out I was suppose to show up in person this afternoon. D'oh!!!  

By the time I found out... the Courthouse was already closed. They close at 3:30PM!?!?!  So now I have to go tomorrow morning... and plea my case.  Hopefully they'll excuse me and won't fine me for Contempt of Court.  *Gulp*

I have a style???

So recently...our church started a Church Blog site.  And I've submitted multiple blog entries by invitation or by my own conceitedness.

A few months ago... I submitted a blog entry that was a bit "too personal" so I told the blog administrator, if you want to publish this, please make it Anonymous.  Several months passed... and that blog was never published.  Maybe it didn't make the editor's cut... which is fine.  I told the Editor that I'll submit an entry about once a month... and it won't hurt my feelings if you don't publish it.

And then today... a dear brother walks up to me and asks, "Did you write the latest blog entry?"

I was befuddled.... I didn't know what he was talking about.

He then said, "It was written by Anonymous,  but I can tell from the writing, that it's your style."

(To myself:  I have a style???)

One Mountain Higher Than Another Mountain

For the past 4 years... we've been going to our local San Jose City Public Library.  I love it.  The books are great.  The collection is great.  It's somewhat clean.  And other than the occasional late fees... it's FREE!!!

The San Jose library is much better than the San Francisco Public Library I grew up with.  And when I went to Martin Luther King Jr. Library at San Jose State... I thought I was in heaven!!

But little did I know what heaven truly is like until I got to the Los Altos Library.... which is part of the Santa Clara County Library.  Wow.... the collections... are 10x better than San Jose.  The graphic novels (or comics, as we called them) are 10x more complete.  And when we visited the Campbell Library (also part of the Santa Clara County branch), they even had a "Where's Waldo" game where kids go to all the County Libraries to find Waldo.... which gets re-hidden each Monday.  I look at their bulletin boards and ALL there events are full!!  Toddler events... kid events... young adult events. 

Truly is... 一山還有一山高!  I guess that's the difference between Municipal Funding vs. County Funding.

Overdose

The kids are enamored with the library.  They love searching for books... finding new adventures... and sometimes revisiting old ones.  Each time we go to the library... we come home with (easily) over 30 books.  That's how much they love reading.

Today... I took them to Los Altos Library... they struggled to even find 10 books.  What happened??

It turns out... that their Summer Chinese School brings them to the library each day for an hour.  And NN said... "We come so much, I ran out of books to read."

RAN OUT OF BOOKS TO READ?!?!?!?

Compassion

Nn is universally known for being very caring for SW... and very loving in general.  How she picked it up... who knows.  SW on the other hand...

Last night... SW pissed NN off (again).  NN ran into our room and started to cry.  I told SW to go "tum 番家姐."  And he really did not know what to do.  He just stood there looking at her... then looked at me... then looked at her.  Puzzled.

NN was sitting there... waiting, just waiting for a compassionate hand or a hug.  Nothing.
I had to tell SW exactly what to do... and he did it, formulaicly.

Is that the difference between boys and girls??

Penance

In the Catholic church, there's something called Penance, where you go to Confession, the priest absolves you from your sins...and you have to do something to atone for yourself.  Usually, it's saying a few Hail Mary's or a few Our Father's.  I was never one to believe in the penance part... but I do believe you have to do something as "punishment."

I'm in penance right now.  I'm in punishment.  For all the things I've done wrong... yelling at wife/kids; backstabbing; lying; immorality; you name it.... I've done it.  And to make up for my sins... I'm volunteering at Children Sunday School.

HOLY SH*T!!!!  I wanted to jump out of my skin today!!!  There's a reason why I don't do Children Ministry.  How did I ever raise two kids???  How am I gonna get past the rest of the summer?!?!?  Just wanna slap some of those kids upside the head and say, "DON'T YOU KNOW RESPECT YOU LITTLE TWERP!!!" 

But I can't... and I musn't.  All I can do is vent online. 

On the bright side... I'm witnessing first hand... the Children Sunday School Hall of Famer in action.  First hand.  30 years of teaching... and she's still going strong.  OMG... literally.  OMG....

A tough conversation...

SW had a bday party... so I had the opportunity to have some quality Father / Daughter time.  Took NN to Petroglyph, where she made a beautiful teapot/saucer set for Momma.  Then I took her out to lunch at a local burger joint.  Thus the conversation begins...

Me: Nn... do you know what divorce means?

Nn: Yes... it's when two people are married.  Then they separate.

Me: Yup.  Nn... I've got some bad news for you.

Nn: (Eyes Wide Opened) YOU AND MOM ARE GETTING A DIVORCE?!?!?!

Me: Oh.... no no no.....  not me and mommy.  It's #&$%&#*#(!(!!!!


Dang.... what did I just put my daughter through!??! 

R.I.P. my dear friend...

Today, officially, all the US Toys R Us stores closed their doors.

Toys R Us - growing up as a poor kid in San Francisco, Toys R Us was just as big as Disneyland or Great America.

When we grew up... we only had 1 Toys R Us in our vicinity, and that was Serramonte.  But Serramonte wasn't a place you can walk to or ride the MUNI to.  You had to take a special bus - which looking back, is SamTrans. Bus 7F.  It was... a very long ways away...

I hated taking that bus.  We had to take the city bus all the way down to the terminal by downtown.  And the bus terminal was dirty and stinky.  Lots of bums.  Very creepy.

Then there was the bus schedule.  I was a small chinese kid that can't read.  And I relied on mom to know when we can take the bus.  Looking back, I wonder if she really knew what she was reading.  This scared the be-jezuz out of me... because I was always afraid we'll miss the last bus coming home.  And if we miss it... we're stranded in Serramonte. A very long ways away.....

So we'd go to Toys R Us.  Maybe once a year, because it was so hard to get to.  But each time, it was special.  Each time... we'd be able to buy ONE toy.  And it was the best toy.  It was the best toy because I can get one in a store that's nothing BUT toys.  It's unlike the Walgreens or Woolworth, where they also have toys.  But only in 1 aisle of the entire store.

I have a lot of memories of Toys R Us.

That memory of dad buying us the ET Speak and Spell.... only to realize when we got home... it was just the cartridge to go into the real thing.

Or the memory when 佩碧姨 took us there, the day mom and dad had to cram for the citizenship test.  And big bro ended up getting Magneto for Secret Wars and I got Prince Adam from He-Man.

Or the time dad went there to get us our first Nintendo... and two games... one each.  Double Dragon and Contra.

So many tiny bits and pieces.... but out of all the special memories of Toys R Us, there's one that stands out among the rest.

I must've been in 1st or 2nd grade.  And this one time, for whatever reason, big bro and I found a shopping cart and we took turns riding in it while the other person pushed it and raced it down the aisle.  Where was mom??  Who knows.  Nowdays... you would never, ever catch kids running around in a giant store by themselves.  Times were different.

Up and down the aisle.  Two reckless kids were having the time of their lives.  We got faster...and faster.  And now, it was my turn to push.  I wanted this to be the fastest of all the runs.  So I pushed harder than ever.  Ran faster than ever.  Made noises louder than ever.  After about 5 steps, 10 steps, 20 steps... we were blazing down the aisle.  Then it happened.... I lost control of the cart.  We started drifting.  We started fish tailing.  I couldn't stop!!  And then.... BANG!!!!  We crashed!!!

We crashed into the glass windows that held all the game consoles.  I crashed so hard... I couldn't stop my momentum and my mouth bashed right onto the handle bar.

BOOM!!!!  It was loud.  The world stood still.  For some reason... everybody who needed to be there, was there.

A security said, "Hey, where's your mom?!"

I turned, and amazing, there was mom, standing there shopping.  She was shopping for a Care Bear clock, which for some odd reason, 30 years later, we still have.  I got scared.  I simply said, "媽" and I started running away from the crime scene.

It was a blur.  I ditched my big bro who was supposedly still in the shopping cart.  I walked up and down the aisle - wiggling the tooth that got bashed into.  (lost that tooth that very night).  The way I remember it, we didn't break anything.  But I once heard big bro said we broke the glass case.

I never got into trouble for that act... nor do I remember ever talking about it since the night it occurred.

Funny how some things just sticks with you...for the rest of your life.

"I don't wanna grow up. I'm a Toys R Us kid...."  the 80's commericial jingle still rings in my ears, as I solemnly cast my flower into the grave and bid my good friend... adieu.  May you Rest in Peace.

怎去猜想這夢會變真? - The Reflection

To the day... it's been exactly 6 weeks since the musical.

The days after the musical... our little chat group had some wonderful, side splitting exchanges.  And some were also tear-jerking emotional.  To this day... I don't want to leave or delete that chat group.  A desperate desire to hang onto something in the past.

At church today... I saw the entire ensemble.  Glowing.  Serving.  Beautiful.  But no mentions of this musical.  To everyone, other than me, this is probably an afterthought.

A couple of weeks ago, I led CS Prayer Meeting, so I had a reason to go back to the pictures from our Gospel Sunday.  Of the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that were taken... I picked two.  One was from the STEAM class.  And the other one..... new believers raising their hands in response to PAL's calling.  That's the true essence of Gospel Sunday.  The true meaning behind 浪子回頭.  All the other things... a distraction.  Nothing brings me more gladness and joy... then when another one of God's children "returns home."

So what's next??  After Gospel Sunday... I haven't done much for CS.  I owed Joyce a little "break."  But you can only hide me for so long.  You can take the hero out of the action, but you can't take the action out of the hero. (HA!!)

Coincidentally... this morning, I started singing 別人的歌:

My new dream... a self produced, self directed, original soundtrack musical....

劇終

怎去猜想這夢會變真? - The Redemption

In retrospect, the build up from week 1 was exactly what we needed.  Had we been too perfect for week 1.... there would be no where to go for week 2. Sure...there were mic issues.  some lighting and AV problems.  But man....did we hit a Home Run on week 2.

Our props were perfect.  From the park bench... to the BBQ Pork Rice.
The comic relief was on the spot.  Angel pulled off his lines flawlessly.
The music...the singing... the movement was seamless.

The one flaw...I guess... was at the end of 滾, we totally expected the audience to roar with applause.  But they were so shocked.... it was pure silence.  We had them.  We had the audience.  They were at the mercy of whatever we wanted to do next.

And then the ending.... so satisfying, from everyone's perspective.

The wireless mic was turned out.... and the audience knew it.... so everyone was hush-silent to hear him speak.  We couldn't have planned that better.  Angus delivered his line perfectly, "小姐， 賞唔賞面食個lunch."  The audience erupted.... it was exactly what they wanted to see.  And then.... to put the icing on the cake.... Elise delivered her purest, most heart warming performance, but standing up and covering her mouth.

Lights out.

Redemption.

"つづく"