Karmic Episode art-card.

Chaos reins: Living with uh-muh-mi

Let the record show: on June 25, I, Ayoung, caused my mother to have a heavy heart and confess it to the Lord. Just a question: Could she not have left her diary in her room and not in mine?

The Terrorist on Mother’s Day

Years ago, I mailed uh-muh-ni a gift for Mother’s Day. For her part, she drove home, spied a plain brown box on her doorstep and naturally assumed, “Terrorist!” She phoned my middle brother saying someone left a suspicious box on her doorstep, filling him in on her suspicions. 

He instructed her, “Throw the box away! Get it away from your door!” 

Thus, my mother hurled my gift into the street. However, my brother, having some presence of mind, came to his senses and asked my mother if there was an address from the sender. She peeped at the label, and read it to him. He looked it up and told her it was from a jeweler in Berkeley, CA. My mother retrieved the box from the street and brought it into her home where she opened it. 

She phoned me, her voice shaking, as she cried. “It’s beautiful!” she sniffled, then, “how can you afford it?” I told her I traded in the diamond ring C gave me and had it made into a pendant. Upon hearing this, she instantly turned from humbled and grateful to accusing and regretful.

It had been my engagement ring. She scolded me for getting her such a big diamond and she won’t wear it because it’s too big and don’t I know she only likes small things.

SIGH. Next year, a simple card.

by Ayoung Kim 김 어영

Today uh-muh-ni asked me to go to the farmer’s market with her.

“I need to pick up tomatoes,” she said, even though she didn’t eat the tomatoes she bought last week. I had to eat three in quick succession because they were rotting. There was still one tomato past its expiration date on the counter. 

I’ll admit I was in a foul mood. Trying not to be bitter about being in California; trying not to be bitter about being attached to the hip with my mother.

I was commissioned by Buddhist nuns of Aloka Vihara to create the artwork for their bhikkuni ordination on October 17, 2011.

Don’t be bitter

Trying not to be bitter about the jacked-up butcher-job haircut from Supercuts which is not super, unless you call it Super-incompetent-cuts. The positive thing that came out of the experience is that I know I can cut my own hair from now on. It can’t be worse than what I paid for, and at best, will be better than someone who allegedly completed haircutting school. So, with baseball cap pulled over my shorn head, I headed out with uh-muh-ni. 

The whole morning and day had been grey and overcast. I bundled in a long cashmere coat but realized it was colder inside the house than outside, especially as we started walking around the market. Uh-muh-ni bought more tomatoes, salad greens, apples and one leek. Then we had some other stops to make. 

She asked, “If I buy perm rollers, will you perm my hair?” 

“No,” I said. 

“Why?” She asked while sucking air sharply through her teeth. 

“We already tried it in Hawaii and it didn’t work.” 

“We did?” She asked. “I don’t remember it.” 

Meanwhile, she stomped on the gas and brakes alternately with such force, my head hit the back of the headrest. She accelerated over speedbumps to make the car jolt with emphasis. As if to expel her anger and torture me by jabbing and stabbing the pedals. All because I refused to perm her hair.

I hand-tied over 500 cards to dried bodhi leaves.

We’re both bitter

We drove one parking lot over to Costco. The parking lot was full. There was a line to get in. 

“Why are so many people here? Why is it so crowded?” Uh-muh-ni was irritated. 

My foul mood had rubbed off on her. With her little feet, she made quick strides double-time; for every one step I took, she would take two-to-three, so it appeared as if she was engaging in some type of propeller-walk-exercise. She strode ahead without giving way, causing shopping carts to stop abruptly; she cut off other people without any apologies. 

I was mortified. Having lived in Thailand for years, this was not the way to behave. One must be polite, one must be humble, one must concede and definitely say “koh toht!” for mowing people and shopping carts over in the aisles! I nearly wai’d to all the people, apologizing under my breath. She found her nut-mix and off she went. 

One of uh-muh-ni’s “Kreme-Krisp” donuts thawing out.

Onto the next store. As we drove through the parking lot, a man had just stepped off the curb, intending to walk across the lot when uh-muh-ni purposely sped up! The man had no choice but to stop so suddenly that his bags swung in his hand. 

With my window rolled down, I asked uh-muh–ni, “Did you not see that pedestrian?” I motioned to him—he heard me—I could’ve touched him, we were that close. I wanted to lean out and say, Sorry! She’s a short, angry Korean uh-muh-ni with aggressive feet!

Anyone else’s uh-muh-ni keep all the pots, pans, and baking dishes in the oven?

“He shouldn’t do that!” She shot back.

“Pedestrians always have the right of way!”

“No! He shouldn’t go!”

“Pedestrians always have the right of way—period!” I said.

Uh-muh-ni slammed us onto the highway. Squinting at the sky, she asked, “Is this a muggy day?”

In my most patronizing teacher voice, I said, “No, this is what we call an ugly day.”

Making cucumber-maki.

Getting old ain’t for wimps

Today I asked to borrow the car starting at 11:20am to do errands and drop off the Chromebook at the donation shop. Uh-muh-ni previously said she would drive over to Costo at 10am to pick up her prescription, but then this morning she said she would walk over as her “walk.” She assured me she could do it, that she used to walk over there as her exercise. 

I consoled her saying, “At least the route is flat.” 

She agreed, and set off before me. 

I returned home to find her settled in her favorite chair. 

She said, “I really am getting old.” 

“Why do you say that?” 

“Because I got so tired on the walk, I had to rest two times on the way home.” 

“Where did you rest?”

“In the shade, wherever there was a curb.” 

Thus, she had sat curbside underneath trees with her inhaler in a brown bag in one hand, and her purple quilted purse in the other. Outfitted in a bucket hat and hooded jacket, she resembled an out-of-breath Paddington Bear. 

Egg-maki.

S-P-U-T-U-M

I helped her attach the tens patches on her butt and low back for one treatment; then on her shoulder and knee for the second treatment. I assumed that due to exhaustion, she would have slept through her treatments, but her mind was busy. She constantly beckoned me to read her pulmonary lab order. She wanted me to explain her sputum culture test and asked me how to do it.

“I think I do it at home and take it to the lab. I think I have to do it at the lab. My other doctor in Hawaii told me to do this test remember his name was Doctor Kim he had me do the same test but I think I have to do it in the morning or maybe before I go to sleep.” 

It was as if the tens machine was injecting her with caffeine—that—despite her musculoskeletal pains, her mouth had suffered no lapse as she spit bullets constantly asking me unanswerable questions. I phoned the MD right there and then, else these questions would never cease. She kept referring to her test as the “spew-test.”

“No, sputum,” I corrected

She lifted her head like a baby bird popping up from its nest, looking confused. “Spewt.”

I said clearly, “Spu-tum. S-P-U-T-U-M. Sputum.”

“Spewt,” she said.

Making Korean kimbab.

Uh-muh-ni came home with a bag of oranges. 

“Ayoung! Come eat an orange! They’re so sweet!” She announced. 

“Where did you buy them?” 

“Costco. They aren’t sour at all. And it’s red inside.” 

“Oh, you mean the flesh is red? Like a grapefruit?” 

She paused, “Like that fruit, starts with a ‘P’”. 

“Pomegranate?” 

She paused again, then said,  “No, grapefruit.”

Ready to roll using homemade Korean bulgogi, seasoned carrots, cucumber, and a yellow pickle.

So, I ended up perming uh-muh-ni’s hair, because as I have said before, she uses her super-muvva powers to get whatever she wants. Uh-muh-ni went out and purchased the rollers, papers, cotton, waving solution and neutralizer. She fashioned garbage bags as our smocks. Then I got to work. Rolling her hair took 1 hour 10 minutes.

It wasn’t so bad once I got the hang of rolling up the hair around the rollers, using the paper to keep the hair ends neat and flat(ish). I wasn’t sure about squeezing in the waving solution, bagging her head for 20 minutes, rinsing, then squirting the neutralizer over it again, but it worked. 

Ta-da! Ringlets, ringlets!