Dreamgirls: An Ultrashort Review

Do you like Motown-Era music? Do you like musicals? Would you like to know more about race-music politics of the 60s and 70s? Do you like to see films about people pursuing their dreams and ripping out their hearts and souls on the floor to make just a bit of it come to be? Do you love intricate choreography involving dozens of people at a time?

Are you me? 😀

Loved it. Two solid thumbs up.

Seppo’s (and now, my) clan

I met the entire North American Helava clan. That is, unless Seppo has some kids he doesn’t know about somewhere. Oh, the horror! 😉

It was a small clan, compared to mine, but the really awesome thing about them is that they are such an easygoing, laid-back group of people. While everyone was quite different, that was a common trait. The other one was their affinity for the word “goon”.

I was particularly amused by Seppo’s aunt’s affinity for high tech gadgets and cars. She and Seppo chatted over electric cars and MacBooks for hours on end. It was so funny.

Here is a kind of dark pic:

I’m looking forward to hanging out with them again. 🙂

My Family

My family is huge. HUGE. Ok, not huge in caps. My dad has three brothers and three sisters, and all of them have kids. Two of the families have two kids, two of the families have three kids, and three of the families have four kids, bringing the grand total to 22 kids, if I’ve done my count right.

Until last week, I had only seen three of them since 2001, and not frequently. Most of the extended family live in NY and Philly. We used to get together a lot, maybe every two months or so, for a big weekend of hanging out. As a kid, I really enjoyed it a lot, but I guess at some point, my dad and his brothers and sisters had various levels of falling out or simply falling out of touch. When I lived in Korea, I used to see two of the families a lot. Back then, only four of the siblings were married and one of them was in the US already, so all the available cousins played together a lot. There was a lot of affection between the cousins, with the older ones watching out for the younger ones.

Well, like I said, I don’t really know what happened, but no one seems to keep in touch anymore. My cousin E and I recently discussed how as we both were getting older, we wanted to reach out to family more.

Through a series of strange events, I was able to attend my little cousin’s wedding in NY last weekend. 🙂 I saw aunts, uncles, and cousins I hadn’t seen in something like 16 years, except the cousin who was getting married, whom I had seen a “recently” as nine years ago. I was so overwhelmed with gladness to see them that I immediately choked up and started sobbing like a baby, all the while grinning like a fool. 🙂

And this weekend, I got in touch with another of my cousins! Yay! He lives out in Hawaii as he is stationed there with the Marines. He will apparently be leaving in October. The funny thing is, I was able to get in touch with him because I found another cousin’s MySpace page and found him linked on his. And the other cousin? I contacted him when I saw him logged on AIM because I thought he was yet another cousin of mine. It’s all very convoluted.

Anyway, here’s to a future full of cousins once more! I ::heart:: family.

One of those "I’m never too old to grow up more" moments

The other day, I had a conversation with my mom in which she said something to me that pretty much indicated that I fell short in some way, that I was disappointing in some measure. And reflexively, I felt like I was disappointed in her because she couldn’t accept me for me in that respect.

Then I realized, sheesh, we are doing the same thing to each other: holding the other person up to some internal measure of who we want the other to be, and constantly feeling disappointed that the other isn’t exactly that, instead of just accepting each other for who we are and loving each other and leaving things at that. For my mom, it has to do with how I present myself and my personal habits. For me, it has to do with her caring about things I consider unimportant.

Rather than holding her up to some detached ideal that she can never measure up to, I choose to accept her and love her for the awesome, wonderful, giving, loving mother that she’s always been to me. I choose not to dwell on the fussy details that obscure our affection for each other. I choose not to get offended or hurt when she holds me up to a standard I don’t feel fits me, because I know she does it out of love.

I’ll think of this as my real Mother’s Day gift to her. 🙂 I’ll send something else, of course. 😉 I love you, Mom.