I have returned

It's lovely to have a week when you don't even touch your laptop. I only checked email once this past week, and only to respond to urgent things -- of which there weren't any.

In other respects, the holiday week wasn't so lovely. It started off rather poorly, you may recall, what with my yelling at my relations over the phone on Christmas eve. But when I got to Seattle, everyone seemed jolly enough, including me. I landed on Christmas day, in the afternoon, and we went to a Korean place for dinner, and then came home and watched a video (Four Brothers: not bad, that Marky Mark! Of course, my aunt and uncle hated it -- rather conservative, they are, when it comes to the bad language).

Monday passed without incident. Then Monday night, and Ye Olde House of Vomitousness was born. Seriously. My uncle started throwing up on Monday night, and so we took him to the hospital, where they gave him an anti-emetic and a saline drip (that night with Joiner taught me what to expect), and then another anti-emetic when the first didn't work.

Tuesday morning, around 6 am, we went home. Let the diarrhea games begin!

Wednesday, my uncle felt well enough to go out to the mall for a walk. But then that night? My aunt started hurling. We didn't take her to the hospital, but she was still feeling nauseated when I left on Saturday.

Thursday night, I succumb to madness, but fortunately avoid the yakking part of it -- just a general body ache, where all your joints and muscles feel like little dwarves have taken little pickaxes to them, and utter fatigue.

Friday, we all stay home, except for a trip to the donut shop.

Saturday morning, we all snarled and growled at each other like crabby old dogs, and then got out of the house in a relative frenzy of activity: Trader Joe's, where my mother and I show the aunt and uncle the joys of organic food; Rite-Aid, where I pick up some beautiful, life-saving Dramamine; Safeway, where we do NOT pick up some cabbage in order to make cabbage juice (J1's recommendation for digestive well-being) bc my aunt recalls she has some at home; and an hour-long walk by the Sound, which was quite rejuvenating. The Pacific Northwest is so hauntingly beautiful.

I was supposed to leave on a 7:20 pm flight on Saturday, but my flight was canceled and I was put on a 11:50 pm flight out. This is why it's a good idea to call ahead and confirm your flight, boys and girls. Luckily, I did so, and rested at home until it was time to go. My mother drove me on the way back to her house, and was even sort of pleasant -- perhaps being the only person standing in Ye Olde House of Vomitousness gave her a sense of empowerment (and I'm not really kidding). I was sorry to leave her, and sorry to leave my aunt and uncle, about whom I worry more and more. I'm almost 30, and it's time for me to start shouldering the burden of aging relatives, but it's not an easy duty to take on.

I did catch a few fireworks as my flight ascended to its cruising altitude, but I quickly fell asleep for the flight to Chicago. Where we landed at 3:30 in the morning (to my body clock) and where I had to wait 4 hours for the next leg to Crimson City.

I got back to my dorm room at about 3 in the afternoon, unpacked, took a shower, and fell into bed, where I was in deep, deep sleep when the phone rang at 6 o'clock.

"Hello?"

"hk?"

"Dad?"

It was my dad, calling from Korea so that I could say happy new year to my grandmothers.

"What time is it there? Were you sleeping?"

"Yeah..." I muttered, trying to focus on the clock. "It's 6 am."

"What?"

"6 in the morning," I mumbled incoherently.

"But it's 8 am here..." he said, trailing off.

"Well, it's 6 am here," I insisted sleepily.

"Okay, I'll call you back later."

"Okay."

Click.

And then I realized it wasn't 6 am, it was 6 pm. I'd only been asleep for two hours, but the darkness and traveling had disoriented me. I had a good laugh about it when I called my dad back at 10 pm. "Yeah, I knew you made a mistake, but I thought, 'Well, just let her go back to sleep'" he said. Heh.

I called my grandmothers, wished them happy new years, and fell into some sad thoughts about my father and his side of the family, about whom I have no worries and from whom I get no grief, and my mother and her side of the family, about whom I worry plenty and from whom I get lots of grief. What makes them so different? I wondered. My grandmothers in Korea seem so hale and hearty, while my aunt and uncle seem increasingly more fragile. My grandmother in Korea went to Japan and Turkey last year, for crissakes, while my aunt and uncle seem to more and more withdraw into their small world. My grandmother is older than my aunt and uncle by at least five years, and yet she seems younger. It's not a matter of hard living, I don't think -- my grandmother lived through the Japanese occupation and the Korean War, same as my aunt, and still she seems more grounded and happier, more sanguine and accepting. Is it a matter of living close to and being able to depend on family? Living in your homeland? Having more money? Or maybe it's just a matter of personality?

Sigh. It's immaterial anyway. I feel taken care of when I'm at my grandmother's house; at my aunt and uncle's house, I feel more like I have to take care of them. And that is what I will do, as best as I can.

Which takes money.

Which makes me hope I like my summer jobs.

Tomorrow I start the winter session. I haven't decided which class I'm taking yet -- I'm probably going to shop 3 of them. It's a good thing none of my resolutions included being more decisive.