My past, my future

Blogging about the Cantonese gang reminded me that I've been meaning to blog a little more about our trip back to DC. Since it was just us and my parents, we were all able to fit in one car, "the boat", my parents 10+ year old Mercury Grand Marquis. It is the least fashionable of their 3 cars and has the cushiest suspension you've ever felt. But I was thankful for this car because for all the driving downtown and back that we did, we got to talk to my parents a lot.

Or should I say, my mom gave us a lot of dirt on the people I knew growing up.

We heard stories of parents who verbally abused their kids growing up. Which parents were good to their kids and which kids were treated unfairly. How some of their friends first met or got married. Which father didn't attend his son's wedding because he was marrying non-Chinese or which ones wouldn't spend the money on a big name school that their kid was accepted to. I've heard most of those stories before but Tom hadn't. One night when we were turning in for bed, he said he never knew there was so much "dirt" on the people we knew.

Now that I'm a bit grown up myself, I realize how colorful the people I knew growing up were, even for seemingly boring upper-middleclass Chinese American suburban families. Not quite Joy Luck Club. Then again, I can think of a few friends including myself that could resonate with any of the four daughters in that movie.

In addition to hearing about others' past, I had a trip back to my own past. We picked DC not only to visit my parents in their comfortable house, but because it is also a true destination with all the great museums and monuments to visit. Each day (after New Year's and after Tobey wasn't as sick) we'd head downtown in the cold dreariness that is DC in the winter. Just like in my childhood, we dragged our kids to museums and stood in line in 40 degree weather. The sights, smells and feelings were so familiar, from the inside of a Smithsonian museum, to the same big rockets in the Air & Space (that I never did and still don't really care for but always had to go to because of the males in my family; and to add, I still feel stupid when I see some of the physics explanations that I don't fully understand), to the souvenir trucks outside, to having to suit up and unsuit everytime we walked inside or outside. We got the same door-to-door service of being dropped off in front of the museum with my mom while my dad circled around in search of a good parking space (and the reverse is true when it was time to leave). Tobey would fall asleep in the car on the way there and the way back, just like I used to, and one evening on the way back, my dad even drove home on local streets instead of the Beltway, showing us old haunts and stopping off at the drugstore to pick up photos while we waited in a running car, all deja vu. Speaking of waiting, Tobey and Eli also got to experience having to wait in the car 10 minutes in the cold for my dad, always the last one in the car.

Tobey also go to eat my dad's trademark tsung-you-bing (nothing like a "real" tsung-you-bing but it is a thin pancake with green onion so what else are you going to call it?) and play with my once favorite toy ever, the Good Humor ice cream truck. Tobey's first real game was Ting-A-Ling(a) Bingo, dug out from our "vintage" game pile among other games that caused me to go, "Oh yeah, I remember that!". Most importantly, I got to introduce Tobey to the best fried chicken ever (Roy Rogers, makin' a comeback!).

It was great fun visiting my past in the comfort of my parents' newish home. The time spent with them was precious. It was unusual that we could spend time with them at their home without having to share them with others. Always a struggle for me though is to see my dad in his normal lifestyle at home. His eating habits always strike a cord with me because deep down I fear I am on the same path to Type II diabetes that he is. In addition to his eating, his sleeping "schedule" is completely abnormal, falling asleep after every meal and giving new meaning to the word night owl. One late night after my mom had already gone to bed, I was downstairs washing pump parts and my dad said how he is inexplicably hungry a lot. I didn't know how to respond, wanting to give him a lecture that I've probably given him before, but knowing it doesn't change one of the most stubborn people I know, also knowing that someone could probably be giving me the same lecture about my need to lose weight. I was glad for small moments where he would get a little exercise, his brisk walks to get the car after our museum visits, etc. and his heart of helping and serving us cannot be forgotten. It doesn't cloud out the notion that in him I see my potential future and I hope it motivates me rather than depresses me.

Although traveling with 2 kids was busy and at times crazy, going back to DC never ceases to be a profound experience for me.