Stuff

My mom got out of the hospital on Friday. She was in because of high blood pressure. It was 180. The highest it had ever been before that was 140. When asked what was the cause of this the nurses said that she has a lot of anger inside of her. That sounds about right. A culmination of all the crap earlier in her life. Plus my brother is in town and that always stresses her out. She's had a lot of stress and pain in her life and she needs to address those issues if she is ever going to get better. It sucks for me cause I don't want to see my mom in the hospital.

So my mom came up to see me and Allison and we went to get Allison's chi-pao (Chinese dress) for the wedding. She has a white wedding dress and a chi pao. It is typical for the bride to change outfits a bunch of times in Chinese weddings. Allison's only going to change once though. The dress looks great and she looks hot in it. Its been custom tailored for her and the tailor has got skills. I would say she has kung-fu (skill that transcends physical beauty). Then we went to the area that we are going to have the wedding and showed it again to my mom. Our idea of what we want seems to clash with my moms and she has been throwing out "suggestions" on what we should do. This always puts Allison into a bind cause she wants to make my mom happy but we also want to have our wedding. I always tell Allison not to worry and that we are doing are thing.
My mom also brought a big ass jade ring bedecked with diamonds. She also gave Allison these jade pineapple earrings. These were gifts from my mom, my auntie Judy, and my grandma. They wanted Allison to have a gift that had no relation to the Chen Family. I don't often agree with my Auntie Judy but this I agreed with her. Here's the thing though. I don't like diamonds. The engagement ring that I got with Allison is a sapphire. I don't like the diamond industry, DeBeers, and everything that goes along with it (i.e. Sierra Leone). Not that all diamonds are from Sierra Leone but the industry that feeds and allows something like that. My mom has been giving Allison diamonds and a bunch of jewelry. My moms loves jewelry and throughout my life has had some beautiful pieces. If I had been born a girl I am sure that I would have all kinds of the bling bling. But Allison's not that into jewelry and I'm not either and I don't want my mom corrupting her mind. I don't want Allison all into jewelry, not that I think that she will be. I just don't like my mom undermining me. And I know that she knows how I feel about things. She obsesses about everything, I know that she remembers this. It's like when she orders chicken at dinner and then pretends to forget that I don't eat chicken. Ahhhh Chinese mothers. When I tell her not to buy Allison jewelry she gets mad at me. She says that I shouldn't try to impose my ideals on her. Girls love jewelry and I shouldn't try to mess with that. There's a lot of political maneuvering in my family. This is actually is what helped get me interested and understand politics. Watching and absorbing the maneuvering people do against each other. Each to draw a certain reaction.

I also talked to my good buddy Mike this weekend. Mike knows more about history than anybody I know. I love talking with him. We geek out about the same stuff. He got an Arno Peters atlas and showed it to me. If you are familiar with the Arno Peters Map projection then you will know what I am talking about. It's a less imperialistic way to look at the world. I have to get one. Mike also introduced me to the evils of online computer gaming. Not poker or gambling. More geeky. Online Star Wars and shit like that. For that one Allison will never forgive him.

This weekend Allison and I also got a ticket for me to go to Jersey with her. I'm going to do the East Coast family and friends meet and greet. Her dad as always is going to cook it up for me. The guy is a great cook and loves to cook it up for me. I always gain 5 lbs or so after visiting Jersey. The guy woke up at 5:00AM to make black bean spareribs for me. It's awesome. But now I'm trying to lose weight.

I have an embarrassing story to tell. I broke a button on my pants. I was sitting down and I coughed and bam the button on my pants broke. I was like...ok I need to lose some serious weight. I've kinda gotten into a sedentary fat and happy lifestyle that isn't healthy for me. I used to be very fit and healthy but then I fell into a depression and my body weight went up. I ate a lot and didn't do the things that make me more fit. Now I'm more or less out of my funk but my body stayed the same... Shit! Now I don't have the motivation to exercise that I once did. When I was younger it was get into shape and look good. Helps with the game. Now I'm getting married I got that "I can let it all hang" mentality. Not so good.