Ugh. Feeling totally squeezy and gross right now, possibly because I ate a huge ice cream cone, bought by the attorney Big G after he and Supe won their oral argument, then ate dinner with my dad at one of many supposedly Chinese food places owned by Koreans, and just now ate cheese and crackers. Ehhhhh.... Next week will seriously begin the getting-in-shape part of the summer.

In between the eatings, I did have a nice talk with my dad about The Problem of Mom, about which I must shake my head, slowly and in disbelief. But also about which I must laugh profusely, which I did in the restaurant, because my mom? She of the supposedly no income and supposedly depending on the goodwill and love of her sister and brother-in-law? She's been withdrawing money every month from the account that my dad set up last fall for her.

I'd forgotten about this, or maybe I just didn't trust that my dad would actually do this, but when I left Korea last year, my dad told me he'd put money aside every month that I could use in emergency situations. I didn't like this, because my mom obviously needed the money more than I did. So I asked him to split the difference and put half of it toward my mom and half toward me. Which he did (yay).

I'd completely forgotten about this until today, when I was discussing The Problem of Mom over kimchee stew, and my dad said she'd been withdrawing the amount each month that he said he'd put aside for her. The spoonful of stew stopped halfway to my mouth.

It could just be the utter audacity of my mother, whom my aunt and uncle think is totally destitute, but for some reason I started laughing in the restaurant. Oh, mother mine! What planet do you live on?

My dad's theory: "I know what she's thinking. She's saving for a rainy day."

My response: "It's raining!"

"She probably thinks it's just cloudy right now."

"But that's because Aunt and Uncle are holding an umbrella over her head! And she doesn't even appreciate the umbrella!"

The REALLY funny thing? She's done this before. Oh yes. When bigbro and I were wee ones, our parents ran a mom-and-pop store of the variety that Koreans are famous for. When I said I didn't remember this at all, my dad said, "That's because we only ran it for 100 days."

Huh?

"Well, it wasn't bringing in the revenue that it should have. We were supposed to clear $5000 a month, but we were only clearing $2000 or $3000. So I said, 'We're not going to do this anymore.'

"Later, we really needed cash, and I asked your mom, 'Do you have any?' and she brought out" -- he mimed bringing out something from his back pocket -- "ten thousand dollars."

Again with the soup halfway to mouth. "Ten thousand dollars?!"

"She was taking a little out each day --"

"Like, a hundred dollars each day! That's the only way you'd get to ten thousand in 100 days!"

I could see him doing the calculations in his head. "Yeah, that's probably right."

Oh, mother mine. Quel planeto es you livin' on, madre? But I can't quite get mad about it. It's too absurd to be angry about, and I have no idea how to process the information. Also, my dad has so much sangfroid about this, it's kinda weird.

Putting aside the Poaching Parent for the moment (or the weekend): I was planning on doing some backcountry hiking and camping up in Denali with my dad, but that didn't seem to float his boat too much, so I canceled all my reservations, incurring a cost of $18 (it would have been $45 but for the virtuoso performance I enacted on the phone about my unexpectedly infirm father -- I SO missed my calling). The upshot is that we're heading for the Kenai Peninsula instead, where the ice field awaits, and turquoise rivers and leaping salmon (75,000 last weekend headed upstream from the ocean) and lovely green mountains. It'll be good to go on a trip with the dad. Let's just hope The Mighty Mighty Subaru makes it all right.

On another tangent, I'm totally terrified that I missed an important case in my legal research on this issue Supe gave me, and that the opposition will find a case that shatters my understanding of the issue. Which isn't that far-fetched, seeing as I found a case today that I didn't find in my previous searches that undermines the point we're trying to make in the complaint. I had to email Supe and tell him that my memo was missing an important case. Sheesh. I can't deal with this pressure. I want out of this freaky field.