A Very Conformist Thanksgiving

After my strange little awakening last week, I found myself oddly looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with the family, something which hasn't happened since, well...ever. You know, typical suburban Asian-family woes, the Thanksgiving from a box - cousins indentured to stir the flakes until they're mashed, cranberry sauce still shaped like the can, the aunt making turkey smacking of dry with an extra side of dry. Then add on the special sauce of last year, which was the attendance of the hybrid cousins of my cousins, one of whom brought her mentally-challenged pseudo boyfriend (white, of course - she probably should have sent him to cultural bootcamp first, if only to comfort me by preventing him from sharing things I assume were meant to be humorous). They all mean well though, and I like them. And the wine helps.

So despite the mild anxiety that again, I'd only be one foot off New Jersey Transit when my mom starts bitching about my aunt's culinary and neural processing skills, I actually thought it would be nice to see everyone - including my mom, okay - this time around.

4:23 - Debark.
4:25 - I get into the car.
4:26 - My mother announces she has opted us out of Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Oh, yeah, hey, I'm gonna go ahead and file that under SHIT I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE KNOWN YESTERDAY.

Dude, what? After all that mental psych-up? Fuck this.

But then I think, well, how bad could this be. Two weeks ago I was part of the ensemble cast that was my friend's pre-Thanksgiving potluck, meaning I made 10 pounds of mashed potatoes from scratch (I don't ever cook, I leave that to my mother and boyfriends), despite being utterly unequipped (both mentally and physically) to do so...but they turned out fine, and played nice with the mac & cheese and fried chicken and green bean casserole and corn bread on my dixie plate... So actually, I've already had a proper feast. Well then, maybe I can just talk to my mom. I mean, not about pain and darkness and that kind of stuff, but maybe about how my grandparents are doing, considering she just spent three weeks with them and got back from Taiwan yesterday.

So my grandparents, who live in an assisted-living community in Taipei, have been through something like four or five nursing aides in five months. It's my grandfather who needs the assistance, his mind still works but the body...eh, not so good. And grandma, god bless her heart, can't handle it all by herself. So they need the help. Well, the problem is, they don't think they need the help, and they must be sending out deathrays of negative vibes - the last one arrived during breakfast, took one look at them, left, and didn't come back. She was supposed to be the replacement for the one who just quit out of protest.

MOM: Why would she stay and help them out if he keeps beating her?
CB: Um, how does a 90-year old man beat someone?
MOM: (impatiently) With a stick!
CB: Ah, yes, okay...

Apparently my grandfather has been playing hockey with his walking cane and using these poor womens' shins as pucks. Aside from yelling at them. And glaring at them. And my grandpa has quite a glare okay, he's got bug-eyes and when they glare they threaten to launch themselves straight out of the sockets and right at you. Not like grandma is any better, she demands the aides clean the kitchen and do housework. Apparently grandma had first considered hiring housekeepers or servants, but my uncle, in his wonderfully colorful way, talked her out of it.

MOM: Your uncle said, well, you know, once you hire these girls from abroad, sponsor them for work permits, you're responsible for them...they live in your house. And when they get sick, you have to pay their medical bills. And when they're sick you know...they can't cook, but they need to eat too...And he also told her that there were stories of people sponsoring foreign girls for work permits, and then they come and they beat you to death. (Pauses, then laughs hysterically)

Ummm....why is this funny? Guess I will save a six-ways dissection of this for another day.

Anyway, I didn't know this about my grandparents. Grandma was always shoving food down my throat and running around and serving us, as if she were the servant. Grandpa watched his news and Korean soap operas and occasionally spat some foreign phrases at me (his former job made him fortunate enough to become very well-traveled). However, ultimately this revelation that darkness surrounds my grandparents is strangely (or not strangely) not terribly surprising...

Then the kicker - my mother is so incensed at how they've been treating their aides, that she full-on scolds them, as if they were unruly kids who had just tracked dogshit over a freshly steamed carpet. Now, this type of shit used to drive me to the darkest reaches of my being, but, when directed at anyone other than me, it becomes really fucking funny. My uncle says to her, hey, remember your purpose here okay? You purpose is to have a nice visit with your parents. You bring up stuff like this, you defeat your purpose...and the way my mother illustrates this to me is, she crosses her forearms in front of her like an X. Like crossing yourself in front of a demon. I start to giggle...

But my mom can't keep shit like this inside, she's not good at building walls like I am. It all has to come out. So she lets it out. She berates her parents. You can't treat people like this. They are hired help. They are here to help you because you need it. They are not your servants or cooks or maids. They are trained professionals.

Grandpa, being born in the year of the fire dragon, takes shit from no one, let alone his oldest daughter. He pounds the table, saying it's none of her business.

CB: With a stick?
MOM: No, with his hand.

Mom continues yelling at him, saying their business is her business and her brothers' and sisters' business too (given that my uncle is funding this whole assisted-living and nursing aides experience). And then I assume she repeated what she had already said a few times, as she always does in arguments, and though it does not bring any new information to the table it really is a very effective method of eroding your opponent's resolve. And then, in frustration, my grandfather gets up, leaves the table, goes to his room, and cranks up the music.

CB: What kind of music?
MOM: Classical.

How very nonconformist of him.