Ugh… Mom fits

So my Mom is throwing a fit and her favorite "blame game" right now.

After 3 years of being stuck, Dad really wanted to go back to his homeland Austria to visit his brothers. They're all getting on, and all (except one) are having certain health issues.

The parents' plan, after checking all their doctor's appointments and things that can't be rescheduled, determined they will be traveling in July and part of August. Sure.

So back in February, I made a "hold" on a flight itinerary. It costed around 12k or so, 13k max local money per person to fly. It was actually a good price, and I had advised them that "this is probably as good a price as you'd get on Swiss Air."

Mom said flippantly, "I don't like to get locked in so early on. It's just February!"

So I replied, "as you wish, but once this hold is up (in a few days) the price would change."

Now it's May. Mom wants me to roll out the flights again. Sure. Same flights, now coming up to 18k or so, 19k max. "It's almost double!" She complains.

"I did warn you that if you did not take up the deal last time, the price will change," I replied.

"No! You never did!" She yelled back.

I was so mad, I think I almost combusted. But as all fights with Mom goes, you never win, so I didn't say anything, deciding to just talk to her again in the morning.

So this morning before I left, I asked again, "so, the flights, shall I confirm or continue to wait?"

She was all like "what other choice do we have? Sure, confirm the tickets, when do we have to pay?"

Since I was pretty familiar with the travel agent that I was making all these arrangements, I replied that "they won't be pushing for payment immediately," meaning that, they won't be pushy and say "pay then we issue the tickets." There's a certain level of trust between us. But I also wouldn't abuse this familiarity, so I'd say, better pay within 2 weeks of issuing tickets. That's my personal practice with this travel agent.

Mom, however, bristled. "Had you told me that in February I would have confirmed the tickets!"

Now I couldn't contain my fire. "Withholding payment doesn't mean you can pay upon your return in August, Mom, I would have paid within a few days too. I just meant you don't have to scramble to make the payment today."

Of course, she doesn't give up. "But had I known that then I would have said yes, so now we wouldn't have to pay double the price!"

And of course I couldn't shut up. "Yeah yeah. Blame me all over again for everything now. It's your habit anyway, you are never wrong, isn't it. It's my fault. I am sorry for not persuading you to go ahead and pay for your tickets back in February."

Nevermind that I was planning to eat the cost of the trip. Well, now that she's annoyed me so much, she can pay it herself again.

Actually, just the other day, on Mother's Day, she started a fight with her brother in law. It was so embarrassing.

Mom has a spinster friend, and she says she "feels sorry for her for not having much family," (same friend that "donated" money to my Sister as an act of charity because she was jobless back then, same friend that whenever anything needs to be done I would have to do it for her). So whenever it's these festivities, Mom would invite this friend too.

The common practice with my family is, we go out for weekly Sunday lunches together, what I term the Obligatory Sunday Family Lunch. It's basically Mom's family lunch, in that, the nucleus families of the remaining sisters (they were 4 sisters, now they are 3). The sons of the sister that has passed aren't called for these lunches because they have family of their own. Anyway, the sisters have a joint "wallet" for these weekly lunches.

When it's times like Mother's Day, Father's Day, Christmas, and such, the kids (that means, my generation) would pay. But we don't just split evenly, we'll split costs by party size. So say, my family there's 4 persons (Mom, Dad, Sis, and I),  so my Sis and I would pay for the 4 persons. My cousin would pay for her parents (so, 3 persons), and my other 2 sibling cousins would pay for their mom and themselves (so 3 persons as well). Mom would insist to invite her friend during these lunches but that her friend would pay for herself. Fine.

Oh, I forgot to mention, this brother in law worked in a bank before (I was too young to know what he worked as, but I suppose he was a big shot) and so the family usually depended on him for anything money-calculation related.

So on Mother's Day, it was time to pay. My Uncle (so, Mom's brother in law, in case it isn't clear) simply said "so you kids get together and do your numbers." Yes, sure, sir. Since I'm usually the one to do this task amongst that generation of the family (despite one of the cousins actually working at the bank, why isn't she the doing doing this?), I was way ahead and had my nifty excel calculation sheet ready, I just had to plot in the numbers (yes, I love my excel sheets).

Mom bites, "Hey, brother in law, you don't know what's going on so you should just shut up."

The table was flabbergasted. "Why are you talking like that Mom?" I asked.

"He doesn't know what's going on, don't divide the bill evenly!"

"I was never going to split the bill evenly!"

Uncle also was getting riled up, "I was just telling them to settle the bill amongst themselves!"

Not one to be challenged, Mom parried and said "That's none of your business, use your mouth to eat!"

"Mom, stop it! I'm handling the bills! I know what to do!" I tried to stop the fight.

"Well, then you should have told me how much my friend should pay!" She retorted.

WTF. I thought it was MANNERS to not talk about money in public, goddamnit! I had sent the cousins the amount they owed me on a group chat that SHE was on, and I was going to tell Mom's friend the amount after the lunch when not everyone was around the table. WHERE HAS HER MANNERS GONE?????

Mom is seriously getting out of control.

Book: Tastes Like War

Tastes Like War: A Memoir
Grace M. Cho
Amazon Product Link

Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. They were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War, where identity was politicized by everyday details—language, cultural references, memories, and food. When Grace was fifteen, her dynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue and evolve for the rest of her life.

Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter’s search through intimate and global history for the roots of her mother’s schizophrenia. In her mother’s final years, Grace learned to cook dishes from her parent’s childhood in order to invite the past into the present, and to hold space for her mother’s multiple voices at the table. And through careful listening over these shared meals, Grace discovered not only the things that broke the brilliant, complicated woman who raised her—but also the things that kept her alive.

= + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = + = +

Libby promoted book of the month or something, immediate loan with no waitlist. So I thought I’d dip my reading into a memoir.

I did enjoy the book at first, but later read a review in GR that’s by the brother, felt a little letdown that many of the incidents could be lies. I’m not exactly surprised as throughout the book until the so-called “big reveal” (the whatever the sister in law told her; I’m trying to avoid spoilers), it was like a planned buildup to it. Maybe I have the benefit of knowing the history, but I guessed the “big reveal” way from the start already.

Anyway, the parts that I enjoyed about the book wasn’t any of the family-related drama things, so no big loss for me.

I enjoyed the cooking parts and the studies and interpretation of how food is a love language and all that. I guess what I enjoyed from the book was the sociology or anthropology-related…. discussions of the topic of food.