The Unexpected Weekend: The Unexpected Life – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

The Unexpected Weekend: The Unexpected Life

| Posted in Our Tween/Teen

Father and daughter.

October 31, 2022

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It was such a wondrous and glorious and unexpected weekend. I did get to the beach and picked up two bags of trash. There was an odd buried towel in the sand, and I had fun trying to dig out the bits. I ended up tearing off the pieces that were exposed and discarding them, but there is still plenty of towel buried in the sand for the next litter picker. Some nice middle-aged gentleman-surfer thanked me as I was wielding my litter-picker, and I think another middle-aged academic was trying to chat me up at the posh little bookstore while I was on a mommy date with a friend! I don’t wear my wedding ring because the hand sanitizer these days gets into the nooks and crannies so maybe that is why. I smiled and quickly walked toward my other mommy friend as I don’t want to send mixed signals. But I am looking very happy and glowing these days! Plus I had recently dyed my roots (I detail that also on this blog LOL). That’s what living a sustainable life will do for you.

I am ever the devoted spouse and I have my one and only, which is Mr. Plastic Picker. I love him very much. At first when we were young it was in large part because he was good-looking! Hence why my daughter is so pretty. But now thank goodness middle-age has come, and he’s not as pretty anymore. Still handsome. It was sometimes annoying having such a pretty boyfriend in college. But good-looking husband and pretty daughter are pictured above in the initial picture. It was an unexpected weekend all around, and that impromptu dinner at The Tofu house on Convoy street was part of it. We had fried tofu, and bulgogi. Both were pretty good, and Mr. Plastic Picker said the side dishes were decent. In the midst of Asian restaurants, community members of Asian descent, and eating Asian food – we told our daughter that she didn’t have to marry someone who is Asian. That was a big moment for us. We asked her not to discriminate someone from her own culture, because there is a comfort in being with someone who knows that part of you so well. But we freed her this weekend. We freed our beautiful daughter from all those generations of expectations that weighed her down. I think this is partly why she reacted so strongly to our family pseudo-kdrama. She and the other protagonist may well find each other later, but it will because they are compatible as people and not because of made-up expectations of ethnic loyalty that I never meant to place on her.

And I saw the beautiful whimbrels this weekend.

Birds of the same species do often flock together. We are all the same species.

And this weekend was unexpected in the friends that reached out to myself and my family. We shared movies, coffee, sweet deserts, walks and wanderings with those that we love. I veered toward Bay Park (a local neighborhood) unknowingly and we had breakfast together at the Farm Table, and I realized that I had no business being in Bay Park. That morning we had finally finished our daughter’s passport renewal.

In all this, our son also finished his early decision application to his top school that is not Crimson University. Going through his application that he mostly worked on by himself, Mr. Plastic Picker and I are so proud of him. He is his own person. Really 8 months left of him being with us as a high school student, and I am savoring each and every day. And our daughter, really three and half years left of having her to myself because I have to share this life-force with the world.

I was walking and chatting with a fellow mommy-friend, and we realized that when our mutual daughters grow up – they well may not come home. Their life course may take them somewhere else. I’m planning on being there for both of them, to travel often where they live. I’m already making financial moves to buy a small place in New York City if I have too, if the little one decides she really dose want to do human rights work which will likely be in NYC. We already have a rental property in the DC area. I’ve covered my bases. And I forget that part of my pseudo kdrama psychosis was really wanting her to be with me in San Diego. And what better draw than a cute boy who is also from our area.

But I’ve released her from those expectations. I’ll be there and help you, I promised her. You go and wander and don’t be afraid. Mommy and daddy will visit often, and I’ll help you however you need me. Having a pediatrician for a mother is a pretty awesome thing. And she said as we walked home after our evening walk, “by then you would have saved the world from climate change, right mommy? You can help me when I have a family, so I can work?” I said “yes, by then we will have known if we were able to save the earth or not. I’m hopeful because I want to take care of grandbabies.” Not sure what those grandbabies will look like, but I intend to love them so much and love their father as well. Mr. Plastic Picker will do all the driving, and I will clean the house!

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