of course

Of course my sister hooked up with that attractive nurse who set her ankle after she sprained it. To think she would have done otherwise would have been to doubt the inevitability of time, taxes, or the attraction of natural disasters for the Florida coastline. While somewhat less invasive as a cosmic law, Sako does have her own way of getting, well, her own way. Out in the boonies of Yosemite, where indoor plumbing is a revelation and electricity is, unless generated with the aid of a static-haunted gerbil and a hand crank, foreign, she managed to find not one, but two young men delighted at the prospect of being her boy toy. One of them is this gorgeous nurse of hers, while the other--

"My rebound relationship," she called him, cheerfully. "Nothing long-term. I told him so." Which convenience, notwithstanding, did not prevent him from trotting back from Arizona to visit her during the long weekend, much to her chagrin.

It is a comfort for me that, even though I am the plain one in most pairings, I can be plain in comparison to someone who is hot. Sako stopped by during one of her rare visits to civilization yesterday, browned a chocolate color from the sun and looking fit, healthy, and strong enough to snap a man's spine like a twig. On our way through the checkout line, our friendly cashier eyed my sister -- her nose thrust deep in a container of Safeway cafeteria-style Chicken Mandarin -- and asked me, "Sisters?"

"Yup."

"How would you feel about becoming my sister-in-law?"

It may not have been the most creative pick-up line I've ever heard (vicariously or not) but I found it entertaining enough that I readily answered all his questions about her, until she finally protested that she was not deaf, and that she was capable of answering questions with her very own mouth. At which point he directed his interest to her directly, and she fled.

A side effect of her current flame and her new job in Yosemite, full-time Search & Rescue, is that she has decided that she wants to become a nurse. This is a decision that has inspired some hilarity and dismay among her closer acquaintances and family. Her family is primarily concerned with the realization that this will entail another two years of school. While we are perfectly willing to support her through another two years of school, we can't help but recall that the last time it took her to go through two years of school, she took, shall we say, a little longer.

"I get straight As," she protested, when confronted last night.

"You're on your tenth year of a four year degree. Your university has actually terminated your degree program."

"Straight As! And I'm going to graduate next year!" She paused. "Well, except for Biology. I got a C- on that."

I think, taken in context, we are rather justified in our reservations.

Her friends have other concerns about my sister's new career choice: namely, that she hates sick people. This, they seem to think, is something of an impediment to a career in medicine. "You're mean," they apparently told her. "You have no sympathy."

"I think if the sick people weren't people I knew, it would be easier to be nice to them," she told me, without denying the justice of her friends' objections.

I suspect that Sako is molded along the same lines of my great-aunt Kanae, who at the age of 70 has never been sick a day of her life. Near the end of my college experience, I once went to visit her in Chicago. I cannot remember the exact dates involved; whatever the month, snow was still cold and icy on the ground, and the wind chill factor alone was enough to make me, hardened after six years of Rochester winters, shiver.

Kanae-chan met me at the train station, popped me in a car, and then drove me to a bird sanctuary where she chivied me outside to stare at birds for the next few hours. It was educational and interesting. A little later, back in the warmth of the condo, it was fever, headache, and aching. The next morning I was huddled in a bed, coughing, shivering, and feeling like an unsuccessful test dummy, when Kanae-chan popped in and wanted to know what was wrong with me. I dimly recall the conversation going something like this:

Kanae: "What's wrong with you?"

Me: "I'm sick."

Kanae: "Sick? I don't understand."

Me: "SICK. Fever. Headache. Chills. Sick."

Kanae: "Why are you sick?"

Me: "You dragged me into below-freezing weather WITHOUT A COAT and made me look at BIRDS."

Kanae: "Don't be silly. I'm never sick, and I'm old. I'll bring you some soup and then we can go and do things."

Me: "No. I'm sick. I'm not going anywhere."

Kanae: "Your problem is that you're not doing anything. If you were doing something, you wouldn't think you were sick. We should go outside and distract you with some sightseeing. Rest will just make you morbid."

Me: "Go away."

Kanae: "Are you better yet?"

It seems to be a character trait of my mother's side of the family; my mother, too, suffers from the same ruthlessness when it comes to illness. Not soon will I forget the occasion on which she called me in sick to school, then forced me to paint the house. It's true that I was actually faking illness, but still, it seems to show a callousness that is utterly inappropriate in a maternal figure.

My sister's treatment of sick people, by all accounts, inclines towards treating sick people as inconveniences to her schedule. "You're sick? What are you, stupid?" --as though they had a choice in the matter and made the wrong one. Her friends think this is a bad quality in a nurse. One of the doctors I spoke to, on the other hand, seems to think this is a admirable quality in a health professional.

"Sure," he said. "Tough love. My mother was like that."

On the other hand, (said the doctor) he was Jewish, so what the hell did he know about how normal mothers treated their sick children. "You'll probably be just like her, too," he added.

"I'm not going to be a Jewish mother."

He withheld comment.

Last week I received a plaintive little phone message from Sako. "It's been two weeks, and I still want to be a nurse. That's a good sign, right?"

parsley and almond pesto

Parsley and Almond Pesto

• 1 bunch parsley, destemmed
  
• 1 T. capers
  
• 2 anchovies, deboned
  
• 1/2 c. olive oil
  
• 1 T. red wine vinegar
  
• 20 toasted almonds
  
• salt
  

Parsley should be extremely well minced, as it can have a rather rough texture if it is not reduced to component molecules. Mince capers and anchovies until they, too, no longer bear any resemblance to solid matter. Combine parsley, capers, and anchovies in a bowl, add olive oil, and mix well. Add red wine vinegar (this is optional) and mix again. Mince toasted almonds and add to mixture. Stir. Add salt and more olive oil for flavor or liquidity, as desired.

Goes well with bread or pasta.

***

For all that it's Friday, this could easily have been the most frustrating day of the week. I prefer not to speak about work on faulty vision -- much, that is. Legends abound in the Internet about bloggers and journalists who have given excuse to their employers by remarking on their personal employment gestalt online. It would seem the corporate world prefers to keep itself off the Internet save in judiciously chewed, officially sanctioned sound-bite buttons, for which one could hardly blame them. The Internet is a scary place for a people who know, better than most, that the Public believes what it reads. There may not have been much to fear from the employees who made home videos damning their places of employment before passing them out like rocks of crystal meth over the water cooler -- ("Here. Check this out. It'll open your eyes, man.") -- the traction of an idle typist's opinion and the land mine of his DSL connection are a combination guaranteed to make any Public Relations officer wake up in a cold sweat.

Notwithstanding my newfound caution, it's worth noting that I came into work today and discovered that my work laptop, the computer which was home for all my labors, had grown legs and walked off during the night. It seems to me that I should be more upset than I am. A good two months work was in that computer, some of which was, yes, backed up to the network. This provides little comfort to me. I have learned to be wary of the Promise of Alexandria. The last time I suffered a calamity with my work computer, all the data I had religiously backed up to the network was also lost, as the network server committed suicide the same day and we learned no backups had ever been made of its data. One starts to lose trust.

Lacking computer and data and the means of recreating data, I cut my day short and went home in time for lunch.

Vexing as the laptop's loss is, it's nowhere near the irritation that lies in knowing that it is my own damn fault. Had I exercised basic caution and taken my laptop home, locked it down, or even put it in my unlockable desk drawer, it might very well have been there to greet me this morning. Instead of my computer, it would have been my cube-mate's computer. Knowing that my sacrifice prevented sacrifice on her part is very small consolation, in view of the deadline I face in 10 days.

Let that be a lesson to you, boys and girls. Trust no one. And make sure your company has its insurance up to date.

***

A few days after the poopy mouth story, my sister wandered past me with a toothbrush. The entire Hirata family (including one Hirata in-law) were in Seattle at the time: a family reunion with no fringe benefits. "Can I use this?" she asked.

"Sure."

She ambled up the stairs. After a few minutes, I followed. Offstage, Mom was discussing cleaning products with the Guy, who had discovered stains on the tablecloth we brought back from Mauritius.

"What should I get?"

"Oxyclean."

"How do you spell that?"

"It takes everything out," the Guy enthused. He is an acolyte at the Oxyclean altar, converted from the unsanitary soap-and-water heretic that he was by the guiding light of Tara's mother. "O-x-y..."

My sister's voice, then, yelling from another room. "Will it clean poop off my tooth?"

Silence from Mom and the Guy, who -- after a moment -- tactfully pretended my sister had never spoken, and went on with their own conversation.

I trailed my sister's voice to the bathroom, where I found her diligently scrubbing away at her crown with the toothbrush and toothpaste. She peered at it. I gaped at her. She thrust her crown in my face; I caught a glimpse of dingy yellow-white speckled with dingier bits of brownish-yellow, and recoiled.

"Does this look clean?" she demanded.

"Never."

I fled.

We were gathered in the kitchen a little later when she reappeared, most of one hand wedged firmly in her mouth in an earnest attempt to replace the crown from whence it (originally) came. "'e-ah, 'ook," she announced, and ungagged herself to yawn at us. Her crown was back in place. More lucidly, she added: "Post is broken. I have to get it fixed or I'll swallow it again, and then I'll have to fish it out again."

I winced. The Guy grinned. My mother, who has learned wisdom after a lifetime of being parent to my sister, maintained an studiously incurious silence.

Sako, unrepentant, reached back into her mouth and removed the crown. "I think it's clean. Want to go to El Salvador with me to get it fixed?"

***

In other news, I've enabled my RSS feed at last. This only matters because I've finally caught up with the rest of my mother's generation and figured out what an RSS feed is.

***

Sitting on the floor of my sister's bedroom in Seattle, going through bags of her old clothes.

"You used to wear this shit?"

"Wow. Black velvet elevator boots. That's awesome."

"Weird kid." I poked some roller skates. She crooned over them. "You must've been high to think this stuff looked good."

"Are you kidding? I was cool. I had great taste. Look at this stuff!"

"You were high."

"Probably." My sister is nothing if not honest. "Heh. Look. Plaid boxers."

I have never been fully acquainted with my sister's brief, high-school fling with drugs. "So they kicked you out for selling, right? What were you selling? Stickers or something?"

She eyed me over a filmy blue scarf, which she was wrapping around her torso like a home mummification kit. "Stickers. Yeah. Right."

"Where did you get them from?" I persisted. "Like, a dealer? Were you selling them at profit?"

Sako was vaguely affronted. "Just some guy. I wasn't selling them. I was sharing them with my friends. For fun and profit. It was like ... public outreach."

"With drugs."

She grinned. "But I looked cool."

a thousand words.

I've been sick -- again, yes, I know -- so that'll have to do as my excuse for not writing. The poor Guy. It seems sometimes that he spends half his life caring for me in my bed of sickness. He persists on finding it amusing, although less, perhaps, than he did; it can't have escaped him that his wife is a petri dish just waiting for the next vicious illness to wander by and set up housekeeping.

Poor man.

In any case, it's a week and a day since our 3 month anniversary, and a week and a day since I came down with the mother of all fall colds (anybody out there doing the math?) and I'm still a bit under-the-weather. I don't have enough energy to do any of the writing I really should be doing, so by way of apology, I offer you ... a picture entry.

official wedding pictures

The pictures were taken by Gene Higa,for whom I am very happily writing a recommendation. He handed us over 300 digital photographs. For the record, I've never looked this good in my life. I certainly didn't look this good at my own wedding. The camera lies. That's okay. Truth is vastly overrated.

Muir woods

The day before we left for Seattle, we headed up to Marin to meet up with Diva and Sweet Pipes, who was visiting from Italy with her fiance. None of us had actually been to Muir Woods, I think. We bought lunch at a local supermarket, ate it at the park, and then went wandering.

It's a little hard to get a real idea of just how big the redwoods at Muir are. We took a sapling up to Seattle and gave it to Mom. It was the size of my middle finger. She read the side of the container, saw "300 feet," and cheeped like a stomped chicken.

"300 feet?!"

"It lives up to 3000 years," I consoled her. "You'll probably be dead before that happens."

Mom eyed me dolefully and accepted the sapling. The next day, she hid it so we couldn't plant it. I'm not sure what she did with it, to be honest.