I’m watching Niles Crane and the lesbian chick from Sex of the City do a scene from Romeo and Juliet on HDTV PBS. I hate Shakespeare, and yet I would watch this over that god awful Frasier show any day.
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A week after I went to Vancouver, I went with my friend Royce to Portland, Oregon, with a stop in Scio, where his family lives. Never heard of Scio? Neither have I.
Ernie: [looks out the car window] I didn’t you can farm those animals.
Royce: [driving] What animals?
Ernie: Uhmm… those are… uhmm… fuck. I forget the name of those things. Gazelles?
Royce: (looks out the window) You mean, ANTELOPE?!
Ernie: Whatever.
Royce: Yeah, whatever, if we were on the FUCKING AFRICAN GRASSLANDS.
Ernie: [sigh]Ernie: [looks and sees llamas] WTF is a llama doing in oregon?
Royce: [rolls eyes] Uhm, no. You’re prouncing it wrong. You say it “YAMA” here.
Ernie: “Yama?”
Royce: “Yama.”
Ernie: Are you serious?
Royce: No.
Ernie: I hate you. -
A week after that, I went to visit my father in his new home for the first time after he separated from my mother about a month ago. He lives in one of those immigrant houses; owned by a Chinese homeowner, rented out to immigrants working in the Silicon Valley on H-1 Visas. None of the room tenants know each other though, so they mostly stay in their rooms, the glow of Chinese soap operas flickering under the door cracks.
For every 100 posts on this weblog where I’ve written about my mother, there are 1 or 2 posts about my father. There are a couple of reasons for this: he has a working knowledge of English and read the weblog frequently when he had a computer, but mostly because we’ve never seen eye to eye on anything. Comedy gold comes out when I talk with mom. I don’t have a conversation with dad so much as we accuse each other of our daily lives whenever we communicate by phone – “Where ARE you right now?” “I’m having DINNER right now, where SHOULD I be?” “Come over NOW, I want to have dinner with you.” “FINE!”
My dad complains to me while we go out for dinner. The house smells like fish because the other tenants don’t clean up after themselves. The other tenants, half his age, don’t respect him. After constant complaining, the homeowner let him move into the largest bedroom of the house, where at least he gets his own private bathroom, albeit for an extra two hundred dollars a month.
I start to feel bad for him, until I realize he would rather live like this than live under the same room as my mother and sister.
I pay for the restaurant bill.
Wow! I never realized Llama sound so gay. Yama even more so.
Frasier is brilliant.. don’t you deny it!
No matter what television tells you, there are no rules about how a relationship with our parents should be.
The two of you get to decide how close you want to be and that’s ok. Don’t be afraid to say that you have a beautiful relationship with your father. When you look at it closely, you’ll realize that you do.
I check your blog regularly (mostly because it makes me laugh but gosh I feel I know so much about you know). Soon I’ll fall in love with you, probably turn into a stalker later…:P. You make me happy Ernie, so please try to be happy always despite the whatevah!
thank you for sharing such a beautiful story.
I think you tell better stories than David Sedaris… are you still putting your posts together for publishing? you should. there’s a lot of heart in what you post..
Respect the Scio! Some excellent people have left there, rarely to return voluntarily. Um, and I think those were sheep, not antelope.
Yama? WTF! LMFAO. That’s a new one.
Go figure Royce would have family in Bumblefuck, Oregon.
my relationship with my father sucks too, but i like to keep it that way. that way i don’t have to see him much…seeing as i don’t really like him.
the offer of wine drinking is still available.
oh, and you’ll love how we pronounce Scio… Its Sko.
Why isn’t this blog a screenplay yet?
Hey, I live in Bumblefuck, Oregon, and it rocks.
Yama?? as in “Cómo se llama”?? are you serious?
I feel you Ern. My dad is going through his second divorce now… Of course he already has a new girlfriend and that seems to keep him from getting too bitter. We call it the sugery Candis coating. Sometimes I think the new “happy-go-lucky” dad freaks me out more than the old reliable angery dad… I don’t think I’ll ever really understand him but what are you gonna do… he’s my dad.
Sorry your family is going through this. And you are a helluva writer. Thanks for telling this one.
I’m sorry, but that conversation clip just cracked me up to no end. I just thought I’d share.
Twas great to see you this weekend, Ernie! Also it was nice to meet Mr Yama himself!
I guess you can’t mess with a typical asian male’s pride.
I grew up in Bumblefuck, Oregon and my high school played Scio in sports. That’s the only way I know it. How weird you were dragged out there. And there’s a llama farm near my parents. I guess they produce more money than ostriches.
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